The National Renewal Conference: A Forum for the Discussion of Issues of Faculty Vitality and Renewal

A series of national conferences focusing on faculty renewal is described in this paper. These conferences were attended by over 450 faculty members, faculty development professionals, and academic administrators representing 188 institutions and higher education organizations in 39 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, and the Virgin Islands. The programs of these conferences demonstrate that a wide range of activities promoting faculty renewal are ongoing in a variety of institutional settings throughout the country and examination of the conference programs and participants provides additional insight into the topic of faculty renewal in higher education.William K. Jackson is associate director of the Office of Instructional Development at the University of Georgia and a founding co-chair of the National Renewal Conferences. He holds graduate degrees in physics and educational administration (higher education) from the University of South Carolina and has served as an academic administrator at both a private liberal arts college and a public research university. He currently co-directs a FIPSE-funded Senior Teaching Fellows program at UGA.     

Self[ie] reflective practice: revealing student engagement through the photographic performance of the self

ABSTRACT

This paper positions the photographic image of the self (the ‘selfie’) as the reflexive indicator on which students are prompted to reveal their learning behaviours, and uses this mode of reflexivity to construct a qualitative study of engagement in a higher education setting. The study leverages the intensified processes of self –reflection created by the novel forms of convergence across the social landscape in which the selfie is embedded, to reveal how oppositional and indexical selfie-reflective practices can operate to uniquely connect behaviours to learning in this sector.     

Gestalt‐A Learning Theory for Graphic Design Education

This article will begin by seeking to define the notion of learning by, through and from experience. A linkage will then be established between these notions of experiences and gestalt theory. This will be explored within a subject specific context of graphic design. Links will be highlighted between the inherent nature of graphic design and those of gestalt psychology. Although reference will be made to other learning theories, particularly behaviourism, this article will proceed into a discussion on how the pursuit of a gestaltist stance has had implications upon the learning experiences of a range of Higher National Diploma / Foundation Degree learners. The article concludes with a summary of its observations and a consideration of this upon future practical and theoretical practice within graphic design education.     

“Legal or illegal? Documented or undocumented?” The struggle over Brookhaven's neighborhood preservation act

This critical essay applies the concept of “presence” as a theoretical lens for explaining the rhetorical efficacy of protest events surrounding a contemporary debate about immigrants' rights in a suburban New York township. Specifically, the protests surrounding the town board meetings regarding Brookhaven's “Neighborhood Preservation Act,” a piece of legislation geared toward making rental laws more stringent, are examined. A group comprised largely of white, upper middle‐class citizens voiced their support for the proposed legislation, while a group of day laborers and those sympathetic with their cause characterized the proposed legislation as a form of racial discrimination disguised as a rental law. This analysis focuses on the specific tactics used by protesters on both sides of this issue in their attempts to persuade members of the town board, the news media, and the citizens of Brookhaven township.     

5 Leadership turnover and business mobilization: the changing political ecology of urban school systems

This chapter addresses evidence of leadership turnover in urban school systems and explains this leadership problem as emanating from the changing political ecology of urban school systems. The average tenure of urban superintendents is now 2‐5 years, coupled with a shortage of applicants for vacant superintendencies, indicating a crisis of legitimacy for many urban school systems. Demands for racial representativeness on school boards and among superintendents led to more African‐Americans in these positions, but responsiveness to these demands did not check still other demands for improved quality. The evolution from racial equity (integration and representativeness) to quality is reviewed. Most recently, business leaders have mobilized to demand improved quality. An analysis of events in Detroit, Atlanta and Milwaukee illustrates the difficulty these school systems have had managing these cumulative political demands.     

COMMUNITY COLLEGES IN THE POST‐13 ERA: INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES TO TAX LIMITATION

The Jarvis‐Gann amendment to the California constitution cut property taxes by almost 60%. The state's community‐college system, the largest and among the oldest in the country, depends heavily on property taxes, and consequently faces a constrained future. This study sought some indication of the responses these constraints would bring. Based on six case studies, in the late summer of 1978, colleges’ major responses appear to have been general cuts across all programs and activities. Where these were insufficient, colleges often cut community‐service activities, eliminated weekend or evening classes, spent excess reserves, or deferred major expenditures for maintenance or compliance with legal obligations. The result, for the present, is roughly the same mix and level of services, although convenience and flexibility have been reduced. The future looks much bleaker: salaries, at first effectively frozen by state law, will have to increase; state support in lieu of property taxes will stabilize or decline; and enrollments will also stabilize or decline. In these circumstances colleges will either have to reduce the services they provide or, as the concluding analysis in this paper suggests, seek legislative permission to begin charging moderate tuition.