The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of student participation in the Special Interest Residential Program (SIRP) living-learning communities at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This study involves a secondary data analysis of administrative data collected by SARIS, the Office for Academic Planning and Assessment, and the Department of Residence Life at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Data from the Fall Semester 2000 Residential Academic Programs survey and the Spring Semester 2002 Special Interest Residential Program survey are discussed. However, further analysis was conducted only on the latter data set. The Residential Academic Program survey included 809 students who were enrolled in either the RAP, TAP or Honors living-learning community program at that time. The response rate was 59% (n = 477). The Special Interest Residential Program survey included all 363 students who were involved in the SIRP living-learning programs, and 379 resident students. The response rate for sample students in a SIRP living-learning community was 84% (n = 305). Three broad research questions were posed in this study. The first found twenty-five positive outcomes associated with participation in all living-learning communities at the university. Three negative outcomes also were found. The second question found that participants in the more structured and academically oriented programs (RAP) derived different outcomes than students involved in the less structured programs (SIRP) that are not organized around an academic theme. The third question found that several subgroups within survey sample, including students of color, junior-year and first-year students in a SIRP derived different outcomes than their counterparts in a traditional residence hall setting. These findings support the literature on living-learning community outcomes, and also suggest that residential learning communities represent one method of bridging the gap between students' in- and out-of-class experiences and with providing students with a seamless learning environment described in the literature. Moreover, this study suggests that positive outcomes can be derived from low-end living-learning community programs of various types. These findings suggest that campuses should develop living-learning community programs to support undergraduate student learning even if these structures are modestly designed and low cost.

Higher education has been repeatedly challenged to renew American "social capital" (Putnam, 1995), and revitalize communities. Amidst the flurry of "civic engagement" initiatives in higher education, prestigious and well-resourced institutions have been comparatively less involved. Their incorporation of civic challenges into curricular and research priorities has been slow and limited. Community-based teaching and research are models of scholarship that respond to these challenges, but these models face slow uptake in the settings that can potentially put them to the most influential and transformative use. This study sought to understand how the "scholarship of engagement" (Boyer, 1996) is viewed and pursued within highly selective, prestige-oriented liberal arts colleges. Faculty and institutional culture, specifically local views about the value and role of community work in scholarly efforts, may shape obstacles and opportunities for higher education-community partnership. Case studies include interview data from "triads" centered upon 15 faculty members whose civic work makes them exceptional within their institutions, contextualized by interviews with at least one colleague and one community partner each. Interviews with 61 participants in 7 college campus communities supplemented documentary evidence of engaged scholarship including publications, papers, syllabi, institutional and program materials. Comparative and discourse analyses investigated prestige orientation and views about community-based practice in local discourse. This research found barriers to pursuing engaged scholarly work to include challenges to academic rigor, and challenges to activities appearing to compete with scholarly productivity. Engaged faculty scholars devised responses to these conditions and pursued personal strategies to implement engaged projects. These included: aligning "engaged" with "liberal" learning aims; intentionally integrating or compartmentalizing "engaged" and "traditional" scholarly activities; and positioning engaged projects as "having rigor" by emphasizing research. Participants' models of community-based work provide clues to possible, productive community engagement strategies in prestige-oriented settings. This study also found and described elements of an "economy of prestige" that work collectively to shape conditions for community-based scholarly work. This dissertation further interrogates a paradox that appears to exist, between a rhetorical embrace of civic engagement on campuses with significant resources, and initiatives that remain atomized, confined, and often having only marginal impact on local academic culture.

The on-going higher education reform movements in Central and Eastern Europe have been seriously challenged by the numerous difficulties in the period of political, economic, and social transition in these countries. The reform of higher education in Bulgaria involved a radical restructuring of the degree system. The 1995 Law on Higher Education mandated the implementation of a policy for the introduction of the bachelor-master-doctor structure. The new degrees were to replace the traditional mono-phased system of higher education. The policy's main objective was to facilitate the effective adaptation of the Bulgarian institutions of higher education to the changing demands of the post-communist society. This project analyzed the introduction of the bachelor-master-doctor structure in Bulgarian universities. The study focused on the relationship between the narrow legislative framework directing the implementation of the new policy and the outcomes of this policy at the institutional level. The institution chosen for the case study was “St. Kliment Ohridski” University of Sofia. The findings of the study revealed a direct connection between the prescriptive and regulatory normative base for higher education and the consequences of the implementation of the policy for the introduction of the new degrees. Through the 1995 Law on Higher Education, the State established restrictive control over the university functioning and governance. At the institutional level, the findings revealed little university initiative and creativity in preparing the new bachelor study plans and providing different arrangements to students and faculty. As a result, the introduction of the three-tier system of education brought little change in a number of important aspects of the university functioning. The way in which bachelor programs were created did not affect the qualitative nature of the process and the contents of study but merely the quantitative aspects of the degrees such as the number of years, the course hours, and the institutions which could offer them. In practice, old study plans and programs were reshuffled and then re-ordered within the new tiers. A mode of thinking and organization inherited from the past was framed in a new hierarchically ordered structure that led to little qualitative change of higher education.

The purpose of this single-case descriptive study was to explore student and instructor perceptions of Supplemental Instruction (SI) in an upper-level chemistry course (Physical Chemistry). The course has a reputation for being particularly challenging, an academic hurdle or barrier for students in the science, mathematics and engineering (SME) disciplines. This study provided an opportunity to better understand why students in an advanced "barrier" course participate in SI, and why SI is perceived as an effective resource in upper-level courses. Determining the perceived benefit of SI as a way to overcome these barriers may positively contribute to persistence. In designing this study, the researcher sought to answer two primary questions: (1) Why do students in Physical Chemistry participate in SI; and (2) is SI an effective strategy supporting persistence in SME majors? These questions were explored through a case study methodology that included a focus group, one-on-one interviews with instructors and six enrolled students, document review and class and SI statistics. Findings indicated four major factors that related to students' participation in these SI sessions: (1) anxiety about the course initiated by the reputation of this difficult required course; (2) the course content, complicated by the use of mathematics and composition of the subject matter; (3) characteristics of enrolled students; and (4) nature and benefit of academic resources. The combination of course anxiety and a required course with difficult content generates the cycle of an academic barrier. Results also suggested several interrelated conclusions about the value of SI as an academic resource. SI seemed to reduce anxiety, and supported students' learning. A comparison of course grades before and since the inclusion of SI in Physical Chemistry demonstrated a statistically significant increase in higher grades. This combination of academic success and positive social experiences suggests that SI is a valuable resource for overcoming academic barriers and positively contributing to student persistence.

Professional preparation involves the dissemination of technical knowledge (knowledge and skill necessary to practice profession) as well as fundamental knowledge (professional values, personal attributes, and behaviors expected of professionals). Athletic training education is in the process of extensive entry-level education reform, and while there has been significant emphasis on the technical knowledge expectations of program graduates, there has not been an emphasis on fundamental knowledge expectations. In the midst of entry-level education reform, including the restructuring of the clinical education experience, a close examination of the student's perspective of the old clinical education experience is warranted. With the restructuring of the clinical education requirement, entry-level athletic training education could be losing, or significantly decreasing, a unique aspect of its education process that may have provided a vital pathway for the dissemination of fundamental knowledge to its future professionals. This study used in-depth interviewing and qualitative analysis to determine what recent program graduates learned in fundamental knowledge, and what types of learning experiences elicited such learning. Six employed recent program graduates participated in two ninety-minute interviews. All interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. Fundamental knowledge learned included: an understanding of professional roles and responsibilities; a sense of collegiality; a professional identity; socialization into the profession; self-confidence and independence; empathy and compassion; reliability and responsibility; the ability to develop relationships with a variety of personnel; decision-making skills and quick thinking skills; and being part of a team. Learning experiences that elicited these types of learning included: mentoring relationships with supervising ATC's; having a variety of clinical experiences; independent learning experiences; increased clinical expectations and responsibilities; and clinical experiences involving the day-to-day care of student-athletes. The participants of this study struggled with fundamental knowledge issues as they entered the workplace, yet felt comfortable with technical knowledge skills. The findings of this study serve to enlighten athletic training educators to, (1) the need of professional preparation involving technical as well as fundamental knowledge, and (2) the importance of the clinical education experience in delivering such knowledge.

Female-headed families of Hispanic origin have the highest poverty rate of all ethnic groups in the United States. Within this group of Hispanics, Puerto Rican families suffer most from high rates of poverty with 52.1% of Puerto Rican youth younger than 18 living below the poverty line (United States Census Bureau, 2001). These figures are directly related to low educational levels and high dropout rates among Puerto Rican females (Canedy, 2001; United States Department of Commerce, 1999). This study explores the experiences of 16 Puerto Rican women accessing higher education in an alternative program in the United States. In order to explore the experiences of my participants, I use in-depth interviewing from a phenomenological perspective (Seidman, 1998). The study's findings show a lack of school support and curricular guidance for Puerto Rican women in secondary school in the United States, and a tendency toward internalized failure among participants. Inadequate assessment of bilingual speakers combined with negative perceptions of bilingual Spanish/English speakers in United States schools also account for deficient academic outcomes for Puerto Rican female students. Results of this study also show a correlation between family disjunction and negative school outcomes. High pregnancy rates among Puerto Rican teenagers were also contributors to school drop out and push out behaviors. Most women in this study who went on to a respectful, high-level, critical thinking alternative higher education course in the humanities (New Roads to College) showed remarkable growth personally and academically. Findings show an increase in literacy and school motivation for their extended family members as well. The study points to many recommendations for schools and policy makers who are educating Puerto Rican women in United States schools.

The purpose of this study was to gain insights into the undergraduate senior year of college. Through the use of in-depth, phenomenological interviewing, four college seniors shared their previous experiences with life transitions and described how they were experiencing their final year as undergraduates. This study described the experiences of the participants and explored these questions: (1) What is the senior year of college like? (2) What are the challenges that students face in their senior year? (3) How does the undergraduate experience and cope with this transition? (4) Are the experiences in the senior year consistent with transition theory and inclusive of a liminal stage? The exploration of these types of questions sought the deeper meaning of the senior year experience and how it impacts the undergraduate. The results of this study were consistent with existing literature that identifies the undergraduate senior's two primary challenges as securing post-college employment and deciding where to live after college. The significant findings of this study emerged through examining the senior year as its own unique slice of the undergraduate experience. In doing so, it become evident that the participants' experiences during their senior year reflected the first-two stages of Schlossberg's theory of adult transitions, and identified much of the senior year as a liminal state. Additionally, what surfaced from the participants' insights was how the liminal experience of the participants was strongly influenced (positively and negatively) by two factors—(1) the individual's success in securing a post-college life and (2) friends. This study also demonstrated that the experiences of these participants, while not representative of all college seniors, call for further concentrated research of the undergraduate senior year experience, with emphasis on the impact of friends on this life transition.

This study explores the often conflicting assumptions that the public and practitioners make about American higher education. In particular, it proposes that we have allowed much of these assumptions to assume the status of myth. The consequence is an imprecision in higher education: it is seen as both training for jobs and at the same time providing us with a heightened aesthetic and moral sense. This is rarely true. The review of the literature of the history of higher education reinforces this confusion. Curricular shifts are recorded with very little examination of the consequences they may have on the institution, itself; new missions, goals, and purposes are added with little concern for the overall effect this process of accretion may have. In the last 100 years, discipline, majors, and other academic responses have occurred to meet the training needs of industry; the atmosphere and goals of the arts, literature, and science are highly professional, as well. The consequences for higher education include trivialization of courses and majors, isolation of units within the universities, learning that exists only in-order-to acquire narrow skills or credentials, and a continuing rationalization of the connection with the marketplace. There is a lack of critical self-analysis by the institutions. Proposals for reform have, on occasion, been advanced in recognition of this proliferation of purpose. However, the trend in American higher education seems to be moving ever closer to vocationalism, in spite of proposed reforms. This movement is being effected at the expense of general or liberal education. The consequences of this trend do not seem to be a major concern in most educational circles, or to be fully understood. The study concludes that an important, even vital part of higher education is being sacrificed to the utilitarian ideal. This reality may force a rethinking of our myth; perhaps, even a reform of our educational ideal.

Abstract not available

Regarded as the backwaters of European higher education in the early nineteenth century, prereformed Oxford and Cambridge have received scant treatment by writers who are more sympathetic with the goals of the ultimately successful university reformers. To an extent this inattention to Oxford