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This spring marks the 50th anniversary (May 17, 1954-2004) of the Supreme Courts' decision to outlaw segregation by ruling unanimously in favor of the plaintiffs in Brown v. the Board of Education. Of course, segregation never really ended, as will be explained in this interview with Cheryl Brown Henderson, daughter of Oliver Brown, the 10th of 13 plaintiffs in Brown v. the Board and the namesake for the case. In this interview, Cheryl Brown Henderson provides an historical context for the landmark Supreme Court decision named after her father. She then discusses the decision's intended effect on education, particularly on underprepared students from under-resourced schools, the very students developmental educators work so hard to prepare for college study. She also speaks of the difficulty of desegregating schools and colleges/universities, which--unlike, for example, relatively impersonal settings such as public transportation--are highly social settings.

As pre-K-12 classrooms become more diverse, and teachers and students are held ever more accountable for learning, the task of preparing pre-K-12 teachers becomes more of a hot potato. Reflecting public skepticism about whether teachers know as much as they should, Congress has required teacher preparation programs to report their graduates' pass rates on certification exams, and states are ranking colleges based on those results. The media, policymakers and the general public are all asking: Who is--better yet, who "should be"--responsible for preparing pre-K-12 teachers to enter classrooms fortified with the necessary skills and knowledge? The old divide was between K-12 and higher education; the new one is between education and liberal arts faculty. In this article, the author discusses the differences between arts and sciences professors and education professors, the factors that discourage collaboration among these practitioners, and how to encourage the two faculties toward working together in teacher preparation programs.

Asserts that distance learning may seem like a solution for nontraditional students, but that a closer look reveals that they will not necessarily enjoy the same benefits that they could get from a combination of electronic and on-site study that attends to students' academic, technical, and social needs. (EV)

Presents an interview with Dr. Yolanda T. Moses, President of the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE). Stresses the need to make student success a goal as important as access to education. Argues that developmental education, women's studies, and ethnic studies are areas that are moving to center stage. (NB)

Despite their isolation and limited tax support, U.S. rural schools are finding collaboration with colleges and universities a cost-effective way to stimulate improvement. Large-scale partnerships often derive from tentative discussions between a few school and college faculty members. One sterling example is Dos Palos High School and California State University at Stanislaus partnership. Sidebars provide information about collaborative opportunities. (MLH)

Three studies of construction and validity of a learner typology and an instructor typology based on the Canfield Learning Styles Inventory were conducted, using 851 male and 543 female community college students and 117 male and 120 female community college faculty members. The results provide support for both typologies. (SLD)

An increasing number of institutions are freeing up shelf space in their libraries and moving in student services as well as a coffee shop and other lures such as flexible seating arrangements. Librarians are taking down the silence signs in all but the quiet study room and urging members of the academic community to meet, talk, research and incubate new ideas collaboratively as well as to engage in more traditional activities. Of course, all of this change is jarring to traditional academics, despite many good arguments about saving space, saving funds, and drawing greater numbers of thinkers to the library to "create" new knowledge. The question is how to make the change and communicate the change successfully. As more libraries remove printed materials from shelves, few have shared their successes and mistakes in doing so. This article describes the processes instituted by the Rhode Island College (RIC), which included: (1) planning before purging; (2) beginning of a persuasive communication plan; (3) getting down to the hard work of deselection; (4) what to do with all those printed pages; and (5) after the deselected become dearly departed, then what?. With plans well underway, RIC is changing the old library space to include student services and a coffee shop where students will be able to learn with the assistance of a librarian who can help them not only to access prior knowledge (the traditional role of the library) but also to ponder new questions, solve problems, and "create new knowledge."

Developmental education, which aims at bridging the gap between what a student knows and ought to know, has not been correctly understood by students, legislators and the public. Learning is a never-ending process and needs to be changed constantly. The notion that remediation, which is an important aspect of developmental education, is a waste of time and money is a misconception. Developmental educators must be encouraged to be a link between schools and colleges.