Promotion to Full Professor: Moving Beyond Tenure and Associate Professorship

Although there has been great discussion and numerous workshops on obtaining tenure and promotion to associate professor, there has been little exploration of the expectations regarding the next step—promotion to full professor. To fill this void, this study gathered information from full professors teaching in 33 US doctoral programs in criminology and criminal justice. Survey questions asked subjects to note what they believe are the most important criteria for promoting a candidate to full professor. The study found that journal articles were critical for promotion, while grants, publishing a book, and service were not. Furthermore, individual variables such as gender, degree field, prior work as a criminal justice practitioner, and the department context such as program rank, the percentage of women, and number of full professors had significant impacts on the ranking of a candidate’s contributions, and the recommendation for promotion. The findings and implications are discussed.     

Dartmouth's College Course I

Abstract

This article describes the background, activities, and outcomes of the Advanced Technology Environmental Education Center and its Summer Fellows Institute as a model for disciplinary and cross-disciplinary infusion of environmental science and technology content, curriculum, and methods into the classroom. The authors describe experiences, themes, and activities that occurred during 5 years at the Summer Institute for some of the nation's top high school and community college teachers.     

‘Building Schools for the Future’: reflections on a new social architecture

The Labour Government launched the ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme (BSF) in February 2003 with the aim of refurbishing or rebuilding all secondary schools in England over a 15‐year period, with an anticipated budget of £45 billion. In this article, we locate BSF in a wider public policy context which has already had important implications in other sectors of public provision. The local improvement finance trusts (LIFTs) initiative within the National Health Service (NHS) is of particular relevance to this discussion both because it reflects contemporary developments within New Public Management and because it also reveals new ways of extending and developing the private finance initiative (PFI) approach to public provision. We shall also consider the purposes and ‘delivery’ mechanisms of BSF and identify some of the key commentaries which have been provided by parliamentary reports and other evaluations. Although still in the early stages of its implementation, the BSF is of such significance for the future shape and form of educational provision that it is important to begin the process of considering possible directions and dimensions for a research agenda which will provide a secure empirical and analytical foundation on which to base discussion.     

Connecting policy aspirations with principled progress? An analysis of current physical education challenges in Scotland

Various recent politically driven policy interventions have outlined the increased importance of school physical education programmes as a contributor towards realising active lifelong learning targets. This paper explains the origins of the new policy emphasis and describes some of the opportunities which now exist for reviewing many curriculum orientation and fragmentation concerns. However, in reviewing the possibilities for policy aspirations to achieve transformative educational benefits, the paper also outlines how a commitment towards principled progress and educational realignment could founder on the rock of its own ambition unless various critical conceptual questions and associated pedagogical issues are thoroughly addressed. Following analysis of the barriers to progress that exist, the encouraging signs of a more coherent future are discussed. This occurs through analysing the progress of developmental-based programmes, which aim to improve the quality and authenticity of pupils’ learning experiences in physical education, and by analysis of the new professional development opportunities that are available to teachers.     

A Mere Footnote? An American Dilemma and Supreme Court School Desegregation Jurisprudence

This article provides historical and legal context for recent U.S. Supreme Court school desegregation decisions. The Supreme Court's race-based and race-neutral arguments from Brown (1954) to Parents Involved (2007) are examined within their broader context. Policy implications and potential support for diversity goal arguments given the Obama administration's appointments of Sonia Sotomayor and Elana Kagan as the 111th and 112th Supreme Court Justices are considered in light of enduring issues and guiding ideals delineated over half a century ago in Gunnar Myrdal's landmark study of race in the United States, An American Dilemma.     

Open learning for continuing education

The two concepts ‐ open learning and continuing education ‐ have recently come to exert a growing influence on educational provision in the United Kingdom. In this article, Malcolm Tight, Director of the Birkbeck Centre for Research and Development in Part‐time Higher Education, considers the interpretation of these concepts and the links between them, both in theory and in practice.     

Analysing attempts to support outdoor learning in Scottish schools

The new ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ in Scotland outlines a policy vision of a more integrated and holistic form of education; a commitment which offers considerable prospects for increased levels of outdoor learning in schools. With reference to Fullan’s theorizing on achieving educational change, this study investigated four main implementation areas, namely: policy aims, partnerships arrangements, and associated professionalism and sustainability issues. Evidence was collected through a series of 16 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders at national, local authority, and school level. Despite increased agreement on aims, it was found that improving the frequency and quality of outdoor learning in schools was adversely influenced by the patchwork nature of partnership support at national and local authority levels. This has curtailed the prioritizing of outdoor learning in schools and of teachers being supported when trying to make use of their increased curriculum decision-making responsibilities. Thus, only limited evidence was found of policy-related innovation and considerable evidence of policy stasis. As such, building national capacity is proving difficult. It is concluded that further research on how some atypical schools have managed to develop their programmes offers the best prospects for understanding the complexities of achieving greater levels of outdoor learning.