This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2011) |
Author | Richard Arum |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Published | 15 January 2011 University of Chicago Press |
Pages | 272 |
ISBN | 978-0226028552 |
Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses is a book written by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, published by the University of Chicago Press in January 2011.
The book examines the current state of higher education in the United States. The book and its findings received extensive national media coverage and sparked a debate about what undergraduate students learn once they get into college.
The research draws on transcript data, the Collegiate Learning Assessment, and survey responses from more than 2,300 undergraduates at twenty-four institutions in their first semester and again at the end of their second year. The analysis reveals that 45 percent of these students demonstrated no significant improvement in a range of skills—including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing—during their first two years of college.
Drexel University is a private research university with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Drexel's undergraduate school was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a financier and philanthropist. Founded as Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry, it was renamed Drexel Institute of Technology in 1936, before assuming its current name in 1970. As of 2020, more than 24,000 students were enrolled in over 70 undergraduate programs and more than 100 master's, doctoral, and professional programs at the university.
Homeschooling or home schooling, also known as home education or elective home education (EHE), is the education of school-aged children at home or a variety of places other than a school. Usually conducted by a parent, tutor, or online teacher, many homeschool families use less formal, more personalized and individualized methods of learning that are not always found in schools. The actual practice of homeschooling varies considerably. The spectrum ranges from highly structured forms based on traditional school lessons to more open, free forms such as unschooling, which is a lesson- and curriculum-free implementation of homeschooling. Some families who initially attended a school go through a deschool phase to break away from school habits and prepare for homeschooling. While "homeschooling" is the term commonly used in North America, "home education" is primarily used in Europe and many Commonwealth countries. Homeschooling should not be confused with distance education, which generally refers to the arrangement where the student is educated by and conforms to the requirements of an online school, rather than being educated independently and unrestrictedly by their parents or by themselves.
The Open University (OU) is a public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off-campus; many of its courses can also be studied anywhere in the world. There are also a number of full-time postgraduate research students based on the 45 hectares university campus at Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, where they use the staff facilities for research, as well as more than 1,000 members of academic and research staff and over 2,500 administrative, operational and support staff.
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1831 as a men's college under the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown. It is currently a secular institution.
Education in England is overseen by the Department for Education. Local government authorities are responsible for implementing policy for public education and state-funded schools at a local level. State-funded schools may be selective grammar schools or non-selective comprehensive schools. All state schools are subject to assessment and inspection by the government department Ofsted. England also has private schools and home education; legally, parents may choose to educate their children by any suitable means.
The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure used for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied, sometimes with significant variation, in other countries and regions.
The University of Richmond is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia, United States. It is a primarily undergraduate, residential institution with approximately 3,900 undergraduate and graduate students in five schools: the School of Arts and Sciences; the E. Claiborne Robins School of Business; the Jepson School of Leadership Studies; the University of Richmond School of Law; and the School of Professional & Continuing Studies. It is classified among "Baccalaureate Colleges: Arts & Sciences Focus".
The Hidden Curriculum (1970) is a book by the psychiatrist Benson R. Snyder, the then-Dean of Institute Relations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Snyder advances a thesis that much of campus conflict and students' personal anxiety is caused by unstated academic and social norms. These hidden norms affect the ability to develop independently or think creatively, and form what Snyder calls the hidden curriculum. He illustrates his thesis with psychological studies and other research conducted at MIT and Wellesley College.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) is an American non-profit organization whose stated mission is to "support liberal arts education, uphold high academic standards, safeguard the free exchange of ideas on campus, and ensure that the next generation receives a philosophically rich, high-quality college education at an affordable price." ACTA does so primarily by calling on trustees to take on a more assertive governing role. It is based in Washington, D.C., and its current president is Michael Poliakoff.
In the United States, higher education is an optional stage of formal learning following secondary education. It is also referred to as post-secondary education, third-stage, third-level, or tertiary education. It covers stages 5 to 8 on the International ISCED 2011 scale. It is delivered at 3,931 Title IV degree-granting institutions, known as colleges or universities. These may be public or private universities, research universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges, or for-profit colleges. US higher education is loosely regulated by the government and by several third-party organizations.
The College of Education is the undergraduate and graduate education school of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. It was founded in 1905 and took on its current name in 1918 after previously being known as the School of Education. The college offers undergraduate, graduate, and online programs in areas including elementary education, early childhood education, special education, and Educational Organization and Leadership. It began with six departments; three of them merged and formed the largest department in the college. All departments offer masters and doctoral degrees. However, only two departments offer undergraduate degree programs: Special Education and Curriculum & Instruction. The college also offers 16 online programs. Students seeking an undergraduate degree in the college must meet the minimum graduation requirement set forth by the university. To obtain a certification, students must also meet the requirements of the Council on Teacher Education, a professional educational administration at the University of Illinois. The total enrollment is 1,361 students as of 2015.
The Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) is a standardized testing initiative in United States higher educational evaluation and assessment. It uses a "value-added" outcome model to examine a college or university's contribution to student learning which relies on the institution, rather than the individual student, as the primary unit of analysis. The CLA measures are designed to test for critical thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving, and written communication skills. The assessment consists of open-ended questions, is administered to students online, and controls for incoming academic ability. An institution's average score on the CLA measures correlates highly with the institution's average SAT score. Institutional results are not published.
Cathy N. Davidson is an American scholar and university professor. Beginning July 1, 2014, she is a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Richard Arum is an American sociologist of education and stratification, best known for his research on student learning, school discipline, race, and inequality in K-12 and higher education.
College and university rankings in the United States order the best U.S. colleges and universities based on factors that vary depending on the ranking. Rankings are typically conducted by magazines, newspapers, websites, governments, or academics. In addition to ranking entire institutions, specific programs, departments, and schools can be ranked. Some rankings consider measures of wealth, excellence in research, selective admissions, and alumni success. There is also much debate about rankings' interpretation, accuracy, and usefulness.
In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: Confessions of an Accidental Academic is a 2011 book by an adjunct professor of English, who writes under the pen name Professor X. It is based on an Atlantic Monthly article of the same title. "Professor X teaches at a private college and at a community college in the northeastern United States" and argues that "The idea that a university education is for everyone is a destructive myth."
Northeastern University – London, formerly New College of the Humanities, is a university in London, England. It was founded as a private college by the philosopher A. C. Grayling, who became its first Master. The college, which grants undergraduate and taught master's degrees, is now owned by NCH at Northeastern Ltd., a subsidiary of Northeastern University, a private American research university based in Boston, Massachusetts, which acquired the college in February 2019. A year later, in February 2020, NCH at Northeastern Ltd. was granted its own taught degree awarding powers. The college became publicly funded in August 2020. The college specializes in the humanities, social sciences, and master's degrees at the intersection of the humanities and technology.
What Will They Learn? is the annual rating system of American colleges and universities published by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a conservative non-profit organization. The report, which evaluates the core academic requirements at over 1,100 public and private universities, has been published annually since 2009.
The U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking is an annual set of rankings of colleges and universities in the United States, first published in 1983. It has been described as the most influential institutional ranking in the country.
Disengagement compact is the name assigned by educator George Kuh in 1991 to the tacit agreement between college teachers and their students that if teachers will minimize academic demands and grade generously, students for their part will write favorable course reviews and will allow teachers undisturbed time to focus on the research and publishing that their institutions reward with promotions and tenure. Commentators in the United States and Canada attribute the disengagement compact to market forces acting since the 1960s. The disengagement compact has been most discussed — and lamented — by educators convinced that engagement with teachers builds student competence in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem solving, and writing. Kuh maintains that the disengagement compact diminishes not only the skills acquisitions closely associated with academic learning but also the students' personal growth that teachers historically had helped to advance by engaging with students outside the classroom as well as inside. Beginning in 2000, educator and author Murray Sperber brought the disengagement compact to the attention of the general reading public, emphasizing its upsurge in large research universities.