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COVID-19 presents assessment professionals with an opportunity to reexamine preexisting inequities for vulnerable student groups that may be more susceptible to the pandemic's economic impacts. We propose that assessment professionals incorporate student interviews more intentionally in their work so they and their stakeholders can develop more meaningful understandings of these inequities, provide a higher degree of contact with students, and appreciate better how policies enacted during the pandemic may impact students.

As college student educators, we notice a pattern of difficulty in our students' ability to engage meaningfully across ideological differences. In this work, we posit the social media mindset's penchant for reductive framing and outgroup shaming as a potential diagnosis of the problem. We explore how these tendencies show up in the classroom; we present alternative frameworks for stimulating better conversations across differences. These frameworks include promoting democratic civility (as opposed to niceness), understanding ourselves as works in progress (as opposed to engaging call-out and cancel culture), and creating the conditions for the call-in (as opposed to "ducking diversity").

This mixed methods case study research evaluates the outcomes of a place-based experiential environmental education curriculum that incorporated environmental art and muralism to teach fifth to sixth graders about the Hudson River Watershed, environmental issues, and ecosystem recovery. Students showed a statistically significant improvement at post-test for environmental knowledge. While environmental attitude scores for Preservation and Utilization increased, they showed no statistically significant improvement. Qualitative findings highlight environmental art as an effective component for student understanding. This research adds to the handful of empirical research that evaluates the outcomes of incorporating environmental art into a suite of place-based experiential education pedagogies.

Using academic capitalism as a theoretical foundation, this phenomenological study examined the new study abroad experiences of Chinese college students in six popular English-speaking study destination countries--the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and Singapore. Qualitative data collected from 20 interviews indicate some hosting higher education institutions prioritize enrollment growth and neglect recruitment process and student development. Three main findings are 1) delegating recruitment to overseas agencies causes mismatches between host institutions and the Chinese students, 2) Chinese students having insufficient language skills are prone to have a dissatisfied study abroad experience, and 3) high density of student population from one country impedes Chinese students' integration on campus. Implications for higher educational professionals, students, and faculty are presented.

This paper scrutinises the escalating salaries of US college and university presidents (vice-chancellors, or rectors, as they might be known in other parts of the world). Some research suggests that presidential pay is largely correlated with factors that have little or nothing to do with performance and may, therefore, overstate the benefit that presidents bring to their institutions while giving too little consideration to the costs. The paper also discusses presidential pay in the broader socioeconomic context, summarises available research findings and suggests ways institutions might strengthen the link between pay and performance in order to broaden the talent pool of capable institutional leaders.

This article considers student affairs practice within the Completion Agenda by studying community college student affairs educators' beliefs about their work related to the value others attribute to it. The Completion Agenda's goals are largely economic, and community colleges have been asked to focus on speed rather than the quality of the student experience. Momentum has served as the unifying concept linking recent community college student success literature, and, as a result, student development has become secondary to better completion rates. We approached this research with a belief that student affairs practice contributes to the growth and development of individuals with lifelong value. Neoliberalism, therefore, served as the study's theoretical framework and challenges a narrative that values college completion for economic means alone. This qualitative study sought to learn from student affairs educators and better understand changes in their work as a result of external forces. Data were gathered from semi-structured interviews with 12 participants in a state with strong community college organization and numerous completion-based initiatives. Documents provided further insight into each institution's strategies for completion improvement. Themes that arose included participants supporting the Completion Agenda, heightened attention to the role of student affairs related to academic affairs, the importance of college culture, student affairs' growing student success role at the beginning and end of the student experience, and student affairs occupying a minor place in campus completion plans. The article concludes with limitations, a discussion, and recommendations future research.

College campuses have experienced a recent resurgence of student activism, particularly in response to some of President Donald Trump's executive orders as well as controversial speakers like Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulous. Student activism presents both challenges and opportunities for higher education leaders seeking to engage productively in these often complex and highly charged issues. We conducted a phenomenological study of ten student activists and eight administrators at three universities to examine the meaning and goals they identify in their experience of campus activism. Findings indicated students identify their activist involvement as highly meaningful, especially with regard to what they feel they learn in college. Similarly, findings indicated administrators found their experience with student activists to be highly consequential in terms of both career satisfaction and dissatisfaction. We also found communication differences between student activists and administrators, even on topics where they generally agree. Given the frequently high stakes nature of contemporary student activism, we present recommendations for practice in the context of understanding these communication differences.

There has been a movement toward pedagogies that employ student-centered learning (SCL) to increase student engagement and motivation. Our experience transitioning to remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for us to observe how students used the chat function to take ownership of their learning. We used qualitative content analysis to analyze data from 53 graduate students' chats over the course of the 2020-2021 academic year. Findings revealed students used the chat for motivation, encouragement, and active learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. incarceration rate has quadrupled since the 1980s. While criminal convictions associated with the "War on Drugs" is the common narrative offered for the rising rate, additional factors are also contributing to this growth. Scholars have addressed alternative explanations including how a ubiquitous prescription drug market, mandatory sentencing laws, income inequality, and social fear are impacting the prison population. Although the cause for this alarming escalation has splintered into multiple paths, the solution may be grounded in a single notion--America's democratic mission. The following article will call for a more holistic approach for correctional problem solving; one that incorporates broader metaphors and "system thinking" to shift the narrative to include the nation's democratic commitment. The strong relationship between rising educational attainment and reduced recidivism should assure correctional educators play a vital role in the quest for a resolution. Moreover, because correctional educators stand at the crossroads between the criminal justice system and the non-incarcerated public, they are in a unique position to facilitate this shift toward a more holistic, democratic approach.

In nations facing austerity measures, students risk diminished quality in their higher education experiences. Universities function increasingly like corporations as they struggle to compensate for budget shortfalls caused by declining public support. As a result, students become positioned as consumers of a private commodity that exists to facilitate their personal economic advantage. The purpose of this piece is to analyze the largely hidden role consumerism plays as an underlying contributor to the issue of diminished student learning in colleges and universities. This article will argue that educational quality is compromised when students are understood as customers to be placated rather than learners to be challenged. Drawing on research about how students learn, this work posits teaching and selling as inherently contradictory processes. Implications for higher education's future and support as a public good are discussed.

Popular demands for greater access to higher education may have diluted the "college isn't for everyone" claim, but some members of the privileged class are making a more subtle argument: A classical liberal arts curriculum should be reserved for the elite with low and middle income students receiving vocational training. In this article, we examine the historical and contemporary manifestations of differentiated educational experiences based on class and highlight how this bifurcated phenomenon continues to surface within post-secondary's newest venue--online education. Drawing upon the theoretical tenets of knowledge production and class formation, the methodology section of this article constructs a multilayered sequence model to analyze how the college admission process reinforces this binary in stark, yet unassuming, ways. We present the resulting social justice implications in terms of students' participation in a classist educational system as well as the antidemocratic repercussions for public institutions. Lastly, we call for recommendations designed to bolster public education's commitment to critically educate all students and to restore its bedrock democratic mission.

This phenomenological study examined how student affairs professionals learn advocacy skills and what they learn in their education on this topic. Findings based on 22 interviews show participants felt underprepared by their graduate programs for the myriad challenges involved with advocating for students. Findings indicate participants found other sources of knowledge on this topic and identified core competencies they believe helped them become successful advocates. The author presents implications for professionals and graduate educators

Faculty, student affairs professionals, and most importantly, students, are paying the price as institutions of higher education increasingly operate in a top-down manner with an over-emphasis on the bottom line. The corporatization of higher education creates lopsided reward (and punishment) systems for faculty, unreasonably stressful environments for student affairs professionals already straining to do more with less as substantive resources for students continue to decline, and student debt increases. This article argues for an invigoration of the faculty-student affairs collaboration discourse through the lens of critical management studies, a framework for examining power relationships in organizations.

Transformational leadership enjoys widespread appeal among student affairs professionals. National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) and American College Personnel Association (ACPA) conferences frequently feature speakers who promote transformational leadership's two primary tenets: (1) change is the central purpose of leadership, and (2) leadership transcends one's position in an organizational hierarchy. In this chapter, the author describes these tenets and analyzes their usefulness. She concludes that they are questionable guideposts for many administrators. At the end of the chapter, the author offers strategies for dealing with the realities of institutional power.

This participatory study examined how student affairs professionals advocated for students within the power structures of university systems. Data analysis from research conversations with six participants found that student affairs professionals experienced a high degree of conflict when they attempted to advocate for students within the confines of their institutional hierarchies. Student affairs professionals employ a variety of strategies for negotiating these tensions. Some strategies entailed working within the power structure while others involved challenging the status quo within their respective institutions. Implications for professionals and graduate educators are presented.