Arthur Chickering is Distinguished Professor of Higher Education at Memphis State University. On leave from the Directorship of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Memphis State, he is Visiting Professor at George Mason University. Zelda Gamson is a sociologist who holds appointments at the John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan.

Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education

After reviewing the state of student retention research and practice, past and present, the author looks to the future and identifies three areas of research and practice that call for further exploration. These concern issues of institutional action, program implementation, and the continuing challenge of promoting the success of low-income students.

Research and Practice of Student Retention: What Next?:

Table 1 Correlations between institutional mean scores of NSSE clusters of effective educational practices and institutional graduation rates (N=680 4-year colleges and universities) .

https://nces.ed.gov/npec/pdf/Kuh_Team_Report.pdf

What Matters to Student Success: A Review of the Literature

This article explores three alternative goals for American education that have been at the root of educational conflicts over the years: democratic equality (schools should focus on preparing citizens), social efficiency (they should focus on training workers), and social mobility (they should prepare individuals to compete for social positions). These goals represent, respectively, the educational perspective of the citizen, the taxpayer, and the consumer. Whereas the first two look on education as a public good, the third sees it as a private good. Historical conflict over these competing visions of education has resulted in a contradictory structure for the educational system that has sharply impaired its effectiveness. More important still has been the growing domination of the social mobility goal, which has reshaped education into a commodity for the purposes of status attainment and has elevated the pursuit of credentials over the acquisition of knowledge.

Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle Over Educational Goals

This study sought answers to three questions: (1) Do the precollege characteristics of first-generation students differ from those of traditional students? (2) Do first-generation students' college experiences differ from those of other students? (3) What are the educational consequences of any differences on first-year gains in students' reading, math, and critical thinking abilities? Answers come from 2,685 students (825 first-generation and 1,860 traditional students) who entered 23 diverse institutions nationwide in Fall 1992 and who completed one year of study. First-generation students differ from their traditional peers in both entering characteristics and college experiences. Although traditional students make greater net gains in reading during their first year, the two groups gain to about the same degree in math and critical thinking skills. Those gains, however, appear to result from somewhat different experiences.

First-Generation College Students: Characteristics, Experiences, and Cognitive Development.

Helping First-Generation Minority Students Achieve Degrees.

Based on a 3-year case study of an open-access community college, this monograph examines the background to, causes of, and possible resolutions for the decline of literacy in open-access colleges. Chapter 1 pres_nts a working definition of literacy; considers the natIre of literacy in a community college setting; and raises issues .oncerning the impact of the decline of college standards on t.e student, institution, and society. Chapter 2 describes the curriculum, administration, faculty, and students of the college and ilLustrates the complex and dynamic character of the study setting. Chapter 3 provides a detailed description of teaching and learning in the classroom, and chapter 4 looks at reading and writing behaviors required in class activities. Chapter 5 discusses the educational objectives of the college instructors, with a focus on the relationship of course objectives to instructor style, the emphasis on cognitive objectives in the classroom, faculty responses to low student literaby skills, and the reciprocal effects of student skills and teachsr objectives. In chapter 6, student motives for pursuing an education are examined along with the way the institution reinforces and responds to these motives. Chapter 7 examines non-classroom influences contributing to the lack of literacy skills, including inadequate advisement, student placement problems, and the absence of special services for non-traditional students. Chapter 8 considers the indirect impact of administrative priorities on classroom literacy. Chapter 9 discusses the implications of study findings for administration and instruction in open-access colleges and offers recommendations for promoting literacy. (LAL) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ***********************************************************************

Literacy in the open-access college

Designing State Higher Education Systems for a New Century

Designing State Higher Education Systems for a New Century. Series on Higher Education.

During the past decade the literature on minorities in higher education has grown geometrically. Disparities in participation and graduation rates for blacks, American Indians, and Hispanics have been discussed extensively [2, 7, 20]. Increasingly, stereotypes are being replaced by detailed information about specific racial or ethnic groups [9, 10, 22, 24, 27, 33]. Although the importance of institutional variables is now recognized [1, 22], most research has focused on student characteristics. It is necessary to go back more than a decade to find a systematic study that has the organization rather than the student as the unit of analysis [25]. Within the last several years the policyoriented literature has begun to focus on state and institutional interventions, but the reports have been largely descriptive with little attempt at evaluation or model building [13, 20, 37]. Most of the interventions aimed at improving participation and achievement rates have been designed to change students or to buffer them from the impact of environments perceived by many as cold, hostile, or even racist. The idea that institutions might also need to change in fundamental ways has been largely missing, in part because our society has historically treated minority populations as inferior. To sug-

Richard C. Richardson

Papers

Helping First-Generation Minority Students Achieve Degrees.

Literacy in the open-access college

Designing State Higher Education Systems for a New Century

Designing State Higher Education Systems for a New Century. Series on Higher Education.

Adapting to Diversity: Organizational Influences on Student Achievement.