Rethinking governance from the bottom up: the case of Muslim students in Dutch universities

This paper discusses the results of a study of faculty and university staff at two major universities in the Netherlands: the University of Amsterdam and the Free University of Amsterdam. I sought to understand how faculty viewed the role of the university in relationship to national and European goals promoting social cohesion and the integration of Islamic minorities in Dutch society. To a person, my informants were convinced that European universities did not, and should not, play a major role in promoting social cohesion. Some faculty members were merely indifferent to the problem and the university’s role; others were actively hostile to the idea that the university should address what was clearly, in their minds, a state political problem. The paper discusses the governance implications of promoting social cohesion within these challenging institutional contexts, by building social networks among students and reinterpreting traditional policies of pillarization.

Strategies and Intervening Factors Influencing Student Social Interaction and Experiential Learning in an Interdisciplinary Research Team

Faculty have long incorporated students into interdisciplinary research projects to meet increasingly common demands for collaborative research by federal funding agencies. Despite the critical role of experiential learning in building student research skills and capacity, few have explored social interaction mechanisms used to facilitate student experiential learning in an interdisciplinary research team. Drawing upon the New Rural Economy project as a case study, interviews with 13 students from eight Canadian universities were conducted to explore these social interaction mechanisms. While findings revealed an array of social interaction mechanisms used to develop student learning networks, the quality of these mechanisms were mixed; thereby influencing the utilization of these networks for guidance and feedback. As faculty organize social interaction mechanisms, they should consider factors such as previous experience, student and faculty relationships, finances, language, gender, ethnicity, and other issues, that will have an impact on student engagement with experiential learning.

Gender and physics: feminist philosophy and science education

Physics education reform movements should pay attention to feminist analyses of gender in the culture of physics for two reasons. One reason is that feminist analyses contribute to an understanding of a ‘chilly climate’ women encounter in many physics university departments. Another reason is that feminist analyses reveal that certain styles of doing science are predominant in the culture of physics. I introduce recent philosophical work in social epistemology to argue that the predominance of certain styles of doing science is not good for science. Scientific communities would benefit from greater diversity in styles of doing science.

Departments in Academic Receivership: Possible Causes and Solutions

This article explores the concept of academic receivership in U.S. colleges and universities. Academic receivership occurs when control of an academic department or program is removed from the faculty and an outside chair is put in place by the college or university administration. A literature review is supplemented by a small survey to assess how common receivership is and how it is administered. Combined, these elements allow for a discussion of the warning signs that a department is becoming dysfunctional and a procedure to guide a department through the receivership process.

Joint Appointments and the Professoriate: Two Houses but no Home?

Interdisciplinary work within higher education has increased significantly over past decades (Amey 2004; Creamer and Lattuca 2005). However, the professional implications of interdisciplinary research and instruction for the faculty members who engage in such academic work remain unclear. This study of science educators who hold appointments in two academic departments begins to address this empirical gap. The outcomes provide insight into the factors that influence the professional lives of these faculty members. The knowledge gained from the study will provide mentors, colleagues, and administrators insight into the challenges facing academics undertaking this work. Further, this research seeks to inform policy makers in regard to how tenure and promotion is determined for jointly appointed faculty in science education and other interdisciplinary fields.

Bringing the Classroom to the Web: Effects of Using New Technologies to Capture and Deliver Lectures

Technology expands instructional options for faculty, and this study examines the differential learning effects of offering a lecture on physics to students in a traditional classroom versus internet video formats. Based on an experiment conducted in a natural educational context, results indicate enhanced transfer of lecture information in the video formats relative to the live condition, with students also responding more positively to personalized video presentation.

Program Assessments: Success Strategies for Three Canadian Teaching Centers

Program assessments are an essential part of the ongoing survival of teaching centers performed by faculty development personnel at institutions of higher education. Little research is available to guide developers in performing these assessments. In this article we describe assessments conducted at three Canadian universities and highlight the theoretical models used to guide the process. Reflections on the strengths and challenges are discussed for each program assessment for the purpose of assisting faculty developers in performing similar program assessments of their faculty development offices.

Remarks Made During “Dialogue on Intellectual Diversity,” a Forum Held 11 October 2007 at the University of Missouri–St. Louis

In 2006, a bill was submitted in the Missouri Legislature designed to address issues raised during a lawsuit by a Missouri State University social work student contesting requirements that Missouri public colleges and universities take steps to insure tolerance of diverse perspectives in the classroom and on campus. Although the legislation did not pass, it motivated university administrators among other measures to sponsor a forum on “intellectual diversity,” held on 11 October 2007 on the University of Missouri–St. Louis campus. In his remarks as a faculty panelist, J. Martin Rochester makes five distinct points about the realities and pitfalls of regulating tolerance and the true meaning of diversity on a college campus.

The Social and Political Structuring of Faculty Ethicality in Education

This study examined the experience of faculty ethicality in education. Research questions focused on faculty characterizations of professional ethics, related socialization experiences, and responses to dilemmas. Interviews were conducted with 32 faculty members and analyzed using the constant comparative method. Findings describe the experiential dimensions of faculty ethicality and the influence of a higher education ethos on professional reasoning and decision making. The tenure and promotion process is the most influential dimension; but faculty reward systems in general, as well as personal and family identification, also help to structure ethicality. Four elements of academic ethicality are discussed: standard, information, diversity, and integrity.

Reason before passion: faculty views on internationalization in higher education

In this era of globalization, internationalization—both as an idea and an agenda—is receiving widespread attention at academic institutions across North America. Although faculty are necessarily key participants in initiatives to internationalize academia, surprisingly little work has been published that addresses the roles, responsibilities, and problems faced by the faculty on an operational level. This article has been written to provide administrators with some insight into faculty perspectives on the goals, strategies, and processes of internationalization. The authors present a case study of internationalization processes currently underway in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts at the University of Oregon. They discuss a faculty-driven approach that focused on mapping internationalization, addressing barriers to internationalization, and improving structures and systems to enhance internationalization. An in-depth critical analysis of the case leads to recommendations and a framework for navigating diverse tensions and responsibilities implicit in an internationalization imperative.

Using interpretative meta-ethnography to explore the relationship between innovative approaches to learning and their influence on faculty understanding of teaching

Faculty experiences of innovative approaches to learning and the changes to their knowledge emerging from such experiences constitute an important area of inquiry that has to date largely been ignored or has been approached with research methods ill-suited to examining such experiences. This paper adopts interpretative meta-ethnography as its research framework to investigate the changes to faculty knowledge that occur when they adopt problem-based learning (PBL). The paper presents themes that emerged through the analysis and argues for future inquiry.

Homicides in Higher Education: Some Reflections on the Moral Mission of the University

This essay on the ethical mission of the university explores extremes of anti-social behavior, visiting numerous crime scenes before concluding that contemporary higher education has lost the capacity—and even the language—for taking character development seriously. In his attempt to determine whether coincidently traditional-liberationist-diversiphilic-apathetic colleges can morally improve their charges, Peter Wood collects a wrenching compendium of violent academic mayhem.

The Dispositions and Skills of a Ph.D. in Education: Perspectives of Faculty and Graduate Students in One College of Education

Twenty-two faculty and graduate students were interviewed in one college of education in order to understand what the college and its constituents view as the skills, habits of mind, and dispositions needed to obtain a Ph.D. in Education. Analysis of the data was conducted using professional socialization as a theoretical framework, allowing for an understanding of the different perspectives of this topic as viewed through a developmental lens. Implications for theory and practice are included.

Changing the course: equity effects and institutional risk amid policy shift in higher education financing in Kenya

Reform in higher education financing in Kenya has been occasioned by both endogenous and exogenous variables. Internal pressures of a declining economy, rapid demographic growth and increased inter-and intra-sectoral competition for scare financial resources, couple with external neo-liberal doctrine championed by global donors like the World Bank have resulted in a new market-competitive policy of financing higher education. This paper analyzes the equity and risk effects of the new policy for the main stakeholders, namely students, academics and institutions themselves. The paper contends that the policy shift has had a significant effect on equity just as it has introduced universities to risks through engagement in academic capitalism with its emphasis on marketization of university programs and services. The paper concludes with suggestions on some policy options that could help to mitigate the negative consequences of this new policy.

Into the academy: preparing and mentoring international doctoral students

This qualitative case study was an examination of a team-based faculty/mentor-led International Doctoral Student Support Group (IDSSG) designed specifically around issues in preparing and mentoring international doctoral students for careers in academia. Twelve participants were selected to participate in a support/focus group that met twice a month for an academic year to attend workshops and discuss their lives as doctoral students. The data set was comprised of two pre- and post-surveys and two in-depth pre- and post-interviews. Findings in the themes of international doctoral students’ graduate school experiences and the impact of the faculty-led support group are presented and discussed.

Listening and reflecting: an introduction to the special issue

The topic of listening has been broadly neglected in educational studies. This special issue presents studies on the connections between listening and reflecting in educational contexts.

The Influence of Institutional Retention Climates on Student Persistence to Degree Completion: A Multilevel Approach

Using multi-institutional data from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program’s (CIRP) annual survey of entering freshmen, the Higher Education Research Institute’s (HERI) Faculty Surveys, campus registrars’ offices, and IPEDS data, we evaluated the extent to which peer institutional retention climates and faculty perceived campus climates influenced individual 6-year retention rates. We used hierarchical generalized linear models (HGLM) to examine the extent to which institutional climate (as measured by peer institutional retention climate and faculty perceived climate), net of students’ ability, expectations, and family socioeconomic status, influence students’ persistence behavior. We found that institutional retention climate, as defined by a student body’s aggregated report of withdrawal intentions, did independently determine whether a student would persist or not. While past research has overlooked peer and faculty climates, the results from this work call for the attention of peer institutional retention climates.

The Two Cultures of Undergraduate Academic Engagement

Using data on upper-division students in the University of California system, we show that two distinct cultures of engagement exist on campus. The culture of engagement in the arts, humanities and social sciences focuses on interaction, participation, and interest in ideas. The culture of engagement in the natural sciences and engineering focuses on improvement of quantitative skills through collaborative study with an eye to rewards in the labor market. The two cultures of engagement are strongly associated with post-graduate degree plans. The findings raise questions about normative conceptions of good educational practices in so far as they are considered to be equally relevant to students in all higher education institutions and all major fields of study.

The Decline and Revival of Liberal Learning at Duke: The Focus and Gerst Programs

Small programs can make a big difference on college campuses. At Duke University, a few dedicated people, with the support of college administrators, exploited the all-too-evident liabilities of curriculum fragmentation, political correctness, and the lack of direction felt by undergraduate students to create intellectually valuable and stimulating new offerings. Russell Nieli tells how the Gerst and Focus programs have influenced that university and others across America.