The model for observation is a "package" of salient dimensions of an ideal computer-supported language learning environment: (1) opportunities for learners to interact and to negotiate meaning; (2) an authentic audience; (3) authentic tasks; (4) opportunities for exposure to and production of rich and varied language; (5) opportunities for learners to formulate ideas and thoughts; (6) learner intentional cognition; (7) an ideal-anxiety atmosphere, and (8) learner control. Learner perceptions of these factors are captured via questionnaires before and at the end of two computer-supported interventions. Responses answer the following questions: How do adult community college ESL learners perceive their classroom environments? When computer technology is added to support a drill-and-practice environment or to create a cooperative environment, how do the learners perceive these new environments? To what extent and how do the patterns of perceptions and the relationships between variables change from the initial to the intervention environment? Multi-dimensional scaling constructs maps of learners' perceptions in the pretest and posttest conditions; this systemic analysis shows changes in relationships between the factors and provides an overall picture of these changes. Repeated-measures multivariate analyses of variance are used to determine significant differences both between and within the participant groups for each factor; this analytic data complements that of the MDS maps. Results indicated that learners perceive their learning environments in unexpected ways and that the technology has an impact on these perceptions in that it allows the classroom to be "individualized" in ways not possible without it. Also discussed are implications for task construction and grouping and the importance of learner perceptions to an understanding of the language learning environment.

This study explored the motivations, desired outcomes, and strategies used when developing and implementing international joint/dual degree programs in the US. Twenty-three administrators involved with the development international joint/dual degree programs, primarily at public doctoral-granting institutions of higher education in the US, were interviewed to learn more about current practices. Findings indicated that the primary motivations for developing international joint/dual degree programs include: recruitment, extending an existing partnership, and that it was part of an institutional strategic plan. The desired outcomes include: growth in both student participation and number of programs. To achieve these desired outcomes seven strategies being utilized by the institutions represented in this study are presented. The lack of formal assessment of programs and student experiences was a chronic challenge relayed by participants. By integrating these findings, this study introduces the notion of transnational partnerships as part of a network that enhances the ability for individual institutions to share resources and expertise in order to pursue new opportunities globally. In this way the tension between the traditional educational mission of the institutions and new entrepreneurial interests can be balanced.

Graduate student recruitment has received relatively little attention in the literature. Most of the research has been quantitative and narrowly focused on factors related to student choice. While graduate student enrollment has remained essentially stable for over ten years, demographic shifts and anticipated needs for doctoral prepared faculty and scientists give cause for concern. The goals of this research were to understand how four departments at a large research university approach graduate student recruitment and what influences how departments recruit students. In addition, the study sought to understand how students experience the recruitment process and how that experience may differ by ethnic group, by gender, and by department. One hundred faculty, administrators, and graduate students were interviewed and a wide variety of documents were analyzed. Findings indicate graduate recruitment has been left to the departments, in contrast to undergraduate recruitment where coercive mechanisms have been applied centrally, through access and equal opportunity initiatives. Departmental goals related to recruitment focus primarily on getting the best students, while central administration goals are centered on increasing diversity among students and enhancing the quality of research. The numbers and characteristics of the customers, suppliers, and competitors have a significant impact on departmental recruitment. Experiences of students differed widely by department and by level of study. Generally students did not feel recruited. Masters students had different experiences than did doctoral students, and women had different experiences than male graduate students. The practical implications are: (1) Because graduate student recruitment is a student-initiated process, communication about graduate school must improve; (2) Departments must take better care of students, both undergraduate and graduate, so that students will want to continue their education at the graduate level; (3) Faculty involvement in recruitment is important; (4) Recruitment can be enhanced by strengthening connections among units on campus; (5) Departments lack expertise in recruitment; (6) Departmental efforts to increase ethnic minority enrollment need to be improved; (7) External sources of potential graduate students need to be explored; (8) Ways to decrease the financial obstacles must be developed and maintained; and (9) Consideration should be given to increasing graduate student enrollment in particular disciplines.

Counselors are currently being scrutinized as to their place in a community college setting. Administrative units are questioning whether counselors are necessary, and whether they should maintain their past role. But before changes are made, the full scope of the role needs to be examined. Previous studies have concentrated on role definition, looking primarily at which tasks counselors perform and their job satisfaction. I first examine the counselor's role using a role definition format to provide a baseline of data to compare with other studies. Then I considered three other elements--intangible services, professionalization, and the bureaucratic setting--that I proposed were contributing to the uncertain position of counselors in community colleges. This is a qualitative case study of community college counselors. Personal interviews with counselors were utilized as the primary source of data. The case study institution is a large, urban, multi-campus community college. Results indicate that counselors are satisfied with their generalist role of providing primarily career and academic counseling, providing a very small percentage of personal counseling and providing a variety of other services. This is unlike the literature which suggests that counselors are dissatisfied with the generalist role and prefer a more specialized personal counseling role. The counselors in this study were frustrated by their perceived role by other groups. They felt misunderstood and unappreciated. Consequently, they searched for ways to make their services more visible and understandable. They also relied heavily on their professional status to validate their role. But rather than emphasizing their traditional professional counseling characteristics like the use of a theoretical body of knowledge or specialized training and certification, they underscored their similarity to the instructional faculty who command the highest professional status in community colleges. The counselor's role was also highly effected by bureaucratization. The very nature of bureaucracies induces human interaction that is brief and efficient, but not necessarily meaningful. Improving human interaction is where counselors need to focus their efforts, rather than dwelling on professional status. And, administrators must also consider human interaction rather than just dividing tasks and measuring the number of students served.

Increasing demand coupled with declining resources make it impossible for community colleges to realize their comprehensive mission without employing part-time faculty. This study examined the impact of the part-time faculty upon the mission of the community college by interviewing board members, administrators, national experts, and by surveying full-time and part-time faculty. Empirical data were gathered regarding load and student credit hours generated in each mission function by part-time and full-time faculty. Financial allocations associated with salary were reviewed. Responses from those interviewed were determined to be imbedded in four themes: position within the organization, the concept of "appropriateness," mission support activities other than teaching, and the personal goals of faculty. Experts, board members and administrators indicated that the use of part-time faculty was more acceptable in some mission functions than in others. They endorsed the use of part-timers in the community/continuing education and occupational/career functions but they had strong reservations about their use in the transfer function. They indicated that while part-timers had limited impact on the counseling/guidance function they had strong impact on the remedial/developmental, occupational/career, and community/ continuing education functions. Intergroup faculty responses were more divergent. For all mission functions, the full-timers indicated that part-timers had less impact than part-timers indicated for themselves. Based on direct instruction, the empirical data evidenced that the impact of part-time faculty varied with the mission function. Ranked from least to greatest part-time faculty impact, the mission functions were: counseling/guidance; community-continuing education; general education; academic transfer; occupational/career; and, most heavily impacted, remedial/developmental. Financial data affirmed that the use of part-time faculty had saved millions of dollars and that it costs two-and-one-half times as much for a full-timer to generate one credit hour of instruction as it does for a part-timer. Full-time and part-time faculty did not differ greatly in their goals for teaching students. However, full-timers placed higher intrinsic value on participation in collegial activities than did part-timers.

Although master's institutions enroll a substantial student population in the United States, a large percentage of which are minorities, relatively little has been written with regard to how master's institutions approach enrollment management. This mixed methods study examines the enrollment priorities and recruitment strategies of master's institutions to reveal how master's institutions are prioritizing their commitments to institutional quality, access, and financial stability, the types of recruitment strategies these institutions are utilizing to uphold their commitments, and the impact of these recruitment strategies, particularly upon issues of access. The study also makes use of a theoretical framework informed by academic capitalism theory, game theory, and institutional theory to explain why master's institutions may be prioritizing certain enrollment goals and adopting particular recruitment strategies. Findings from this study suggest master's institutions may be embracing market-oriented enrollment behaviors that prioritize revenue maximization, consequently reinforcing the advantages of the privileged and serving as vehicles for social reproduction.

Institutionalization of curricular or pedagogical innovation or reform occurs at three different levels in an organization, the regulative institutionalization which occurs as compliance by expediency, normative institutionalization which occurs as compliance by moral or legal appropriateness and cognitive institutionalization which occurs as compliance by conceptual correctness. The cognitive level is most the desirable because at that level the values and norms of the organization are manifested in the beliefs and behaviors of individuals in the organization.This research study examined the patterns of institutionalization of integration of faith and learning as a curricular and pedagogical model among faculty members at a private Christian liberal arts university in Nigeria, West Africa. Five patterns of integration of faith and learning emerged from the study compared to eight patterns of institutionalization that emerged in a similar study of four religious research universities in the United States by the team of Ream, Beaty and Lyon (2004). The findings suggest that the level of institutionalization manifested and perceivable in the Nigerian study is at the regulative institutionalization level due to the fact that the beliefs and the behaviors of the faculty members are non-congruent to the expected beliefs and behaviors compatible with the institutionalization of the integration of faith and learning curricular and pedagogical model. Even though the 'fear of God' emerged as one of the dominant themes articulated by some of the faculty members in the study, four other emergent themes articulated the need to find a balance between religious integration and academic excellence. The findings suggest Seventh-day Adventists faculty members struggle between the need to subscribe to the fear of God as a measure for integration and the need to maintain a separation between faith and learning for objectivity in the academy. Being a Seventh-day Adventist male lecturer over the lecturer II rank was found to be a dominant factor in the institutionalization of the integration of faith and learning curricular model at a regulative level at the institution in the study.

Description of students as at-risk became a trend in educational policy and programming in the late 1980s. The term at risk was originally part of the specialized discourse of medicine and psychology, and related subfields of education such as special education and educational psychology. Due to the influence of national reform reports, the term at risk became more common in the discourse of policymakers and practitioners. It was used as a descriptor of students, often low-income and/or minority students, likely to fail or drop out of school. This study employed methods from sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and policy analysis to trace the uses and meanings of at risk through national reports, state education policies in Arizona, and district policies in a medium-sized Arizona school district with both rural and suburban schools. Analysis of reports and recorded interviews with state policymakers, district administrators, principals, and teachers identified differences in the meanings of at risk at different levels of the educational system. Groups at each level had particular interests in students, as reflected in their definitions of the problems of at-risk students and their policy recommendations. The most common consequences for students of being labelled at-risk were to be removed from the mainstream for special treatment, despite arguments of some researchers and theorists that educators need to rethink such approaches.

Kresge College is located on the innovative and interdisciplinary campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz. Kresge was begun in the early 1970's as an experiment in undergraduate education that was deeply influenced by humanistic psychology and encounter and sensitivity training groups. During the late 1970's, U. C. Santa Cruz was transformed into a mainstream liberal arts university, in which disciplinary boards of study became predominant. At the same time Kresge College was redefined as a humanities oriented liberal arts college, focused upon the modernist and post-modernist perspectives. This ethnographic study suggests that, in the late 1980's, students and faculty at Kresge College still maintained some remnants of the original founding ethos. The elements which have persisted include: a personal classroom interaction atmosphere open to intimacy between teachers and students; the use of a consensus decision making process by student organizations; an array of educational values focused upon the realization of human possibilities; and the display of awareness of the power of personal and social transformation, in the celebration of public ritual occasions.

One of the most debated topics within public universities in Brazil is the development of alternative resources generated from entrepreneurial activities in order to supplement the lack of government funding for higher education. This study analyzes this issue, addresses questions about the creation of private institutions that provide fiscal support to federal universities, and discusses the relationship between federal universities and these private organizations. In particular, the research for this project is based on a case study of the Federal University of Ceara (UFC) and the eight private foundations that function within its structure and are sources of additional revenue for the institution. This study draws on resource dependency theory, academic capitalism theory, and globalization theory as its theoretical framework. Resource dependency theory is used to clarify why federal universities in Brazil have turned to private institutions within their structures in order to generate external revenue. Academic capitalism theory provides an understanding as to why universities are shifting their focus and functions towards a new market orientation. Globalization theory is used to explain how emerging international markets and concepts are affecting the new environment in public institutions in Brazil. The present research is based on UFC's experience with the eight private organizations which exist to provide support to their respective departments and to the university as a whole. The data collected is based on institutional documents such as statutes, contracts, and financial statements. Interviews were the other source of data gathering. The results indicate that private institutions (foundations and faculty associations) contribute significantly to the activities of their federal universities by generating additional, external revenue. At the same time, this national phenomenon is the subject of a heated debate centering on the question of whether public higher education in Brazil is essentially becoming privatized. The research also confirms that foundations are contributing to a shift in public higher education toward the new market orientation.