Excellence in Higher Education as Defined by Legislators, and Public and Private Institutions Administrators. Phase Two. AIR 1992 Annual Forum Paper.

This paper presents second phase research on the vision of Puerto Rico's higher education policy makers concerning excellence criteria. The research focused on the importance policy makers assigned to selected criteria of excellence and how they evaluated postsecondary institutions in regard to these criteria. A questionnaire was administered to 46 members of the Commissions on Education of the Puerto Rico Legislature, composed of the administrators and governing boards of the five major public and private postsecondary institutions in Puerto Rico and prominent academic figures. Among the findings were the following: (1) respondents ranked as important the excellence criteria concerning faculty and administrators, and believed that the institutions were accomplishing such criteria; (2) the most prominent excellence criteria were the academic preparation of faculty, the expertise of faculty, the administrators' dedication, entering students' general point average, and college entrance examination scores; (3) private institutions placed more importance on students' understanding of religious principles, while public institution respondents highlighted adequate services rendered by the Registrar's Office; and (4) compared to public institution respondents, private institution respondents indicated a higher degree of fulfillment in areas such as administrators' perspective regarding the future of higher education and their ability to establish relations with the external community. The paper also found that most respondents felt that Puperto Rico institutions were not complying with 64% of the indicators of excellence. (GLR)