Diverse Institutional Settings Research Articles

Past as Prologue

This Futures column aims to encourage readers of Adult Learning to look ahead and provide leadership regarding changing circumstances and emerging directions. A complimentary aspect of leadership is attention to enduring values. A new memoir by Thurman White provides an inspiring account of such leadership, which has broad implications for people who work in any part of adult and continuing education. His very readable account of his professional journey includes reflections on significant trends and issues. Thurman was, for many years, the administrator of continuing education at the University of Oklahoma. Having frequently benefited from Thurman's wisdom during the past half century, I could hear his voice and recall his anecdotes throughout. Especially enjoyable were his eight principles and comments on promise and pragmatism. Note that his modest style neglects reference to his central role in creating the Houle Award for outstanding books in the field, as well as the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame. My Journey on the Learning Frontier (2005) by Thurman J. White is available for $12 from the University of Oklahoma's Outreach Office (405) 325-6361 or e-mail aredus@ou.edu, ISBN 0-9630698-4-5. In addition to a nostalgia trip for old timers, it has been inspiring to readers who are new to the field. Adult Learning Welcomes Judy and Meg We, Judy Adrian and Meg Wise, continue the work of Alan Knox in this Futures column as a forum for sharing ideas about adult education' s emerging role in civil society. We believe democratic societies require an engaged and knowledgeable citizenry, at minimum to elect and oversee officials to make decisions and allocate resources that serve the common good--and even better to help make, discuss and act upon such decisions. In complex societies, such as ours, the notion of balancing the common good against individual interests is open to wide interpretation in the face of conflicting agendas. The issues are many--healthcare, resource distribution, civil liberties, education, environment, inter-religious and cross-cultural dialog, war and peace, the environment, who votes and whose votes are truly counted, and so forth. Engaging in such issues requires access to data from various sources, interpretation skills, critical thinking, and a community of engaged and committed citizen colleagues. Ideally the free press (print and broadcast news) is the citizen's check and balance to expose the inevitable corruption that too often accompanies power, to explain complex issues, and to identify and interpret the various perspectives and their stakeholders. Unfortunately, with corporate media, government secrecy, silencing of scientists, and accusing critics of being unpatriotic, we are too often faced with a self-muzzling, if not entertainment-oriented and sensationalist, press. Herein, we see a role for adult education and lifelong learning. Adult education is an academic field of study and a field of practice that resides in diverse institutional settings. Managing any adult education enterprise requires an inner focus to advance immediate objectives. But the recent passing of three icons of social justice movements of the last century--Rosa Parks (apartheid), Coretta Scott King (voter rights), and Betty Friedan (women's rights)--remind us that grassroots adult education, at its most effective, is a continuous interaction between an inward focus on tactics and an outward focus on big and complex social issues--the mission if you will! We will compare past and present public dialogs through the lens of Rosa Parks' work. In December 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, AL. Her courageous act launched a social movement. But Rosa Parks did not act alone--she was trained in social action at the Highlander School - an adult education and research center where workers, grassroots leaders, community organizers, and ordinary citizens gather to address pressing social, environmental and economic problems. …

Preparing leaders for diverse institutional settings

AbstractThis chapter argues that a major gap in our understanding of community colleges is the need to recognize the diversity of institutional settings. A Carnegie‐style classification system for community colleges is proposed, with a discussion of implications for graduate programs preparing community college leaders.

Assessing tuition and student aid strategies: Using price-response measures to simulate pricing alternatives

This paper uses price-response measures derived from recent national studies to assess institutional pricing (tuition and student aid) alternatives in diverse institutional settings. It concludes that such analyses are viable, especially if an understanding of institutional contexts is used to frame and interpret simulation results. The analyses indicate there are limits to the viability of the “Robin Hood” pricing approach that has predominated in private colleges during the past decade. New alternatives, such as simultaneous tuition and grant reductions or the creation of forgivable loans, merit consideration in some settings.

Training Facilities in Marital and Family Therapy

This survey reports the results of a national survey of training programs in family therapy. Two hundred and forty-five programs responded to the survey questionnaire providing data for the development of a master list of training programs and a general assessment of the nature and magnitude of training efforts in the field. The survey included programs housed in diverse institutional settings. The data indicate the extent of growth and the increasing formalization of professional training in family therapy. A classification system is proposed for distinguishing among the major types of facilities providing family therapy training. Programs are compared in terms of the type, duration, and intensity of the training offered and the number of students enrolled.

Occupational Training in Proprietary Schools and Technical Institutes

JOB skills and human capital are acquired by a variety of activities in diverse institutional settings, ranging from parental investment in children to on-the-job training at work places. The purchase of occupational training from for-profit 'proprietary' schools and institutes is a significant, often neglected, mode of obtaining skills.' In 1971, approximately 1.4 million students enrolled in proprietary schools to prepare for work in such areas as truckdriving, electronics, cosmetology, cooking, and floristry, to name just a few. The schools provide an important example of the competitive for-profit education of voucher and performance contract proposals. With recent concern about the allocation of educational resources between academic and vocational schooling,2 possible differences in the social rate of return to for-profit and academic training have obvious policy implications. This paper investigates proprietary school job training in the United States and its impact on the earnings and occupational position of male workers. Section I presents information about proprietary schools and their distinctive operating characteristics; Section II estimates the effect of training on the earnings and occupational status of male workers and uses these estimates to obtain private and social rates of return under various assumptions about direct and indirect (= time) costs of education. I. The Proprietary School Training Market

Decision type, structure, and process evaluation: A contingency model

Governance proposals for higher education in the United States are often promulgated on the basis of some utopian goal or on the assumption that a given proposal is the panacea for multifaceted problems or that it is equally applicable to diverse institutional settings. This paper, rather than promulgating a single proposal, takes a more analytic approach and develops a contingency model for identifying appropriate decision-making structures. First, emergent conditions in American higher education's external environment, in the internal social environment of its colleges and universities, and in the development of higher education management systems are analyzed to establish some long-range criteria for evaluating decision-making effectiveness. Second, a typology of institutional decisions categorized as policy, managerial, and operating decisions is presented. An analysis of the nature and content of each major type of decision suggests divergent patterns of formal and informal decision-making structures and patterns, and differing content and functions for the supporting management information technology which might be appropriate to each of the decision types or categories. Finally, the analysis relates the contingency notions of decision structure and type to the criteria for evaluating the decision-making process and suggests how they are compatible or might be modified to be more compatible. The model is a general conceptual one which the author suggests can be used on either an institution-wide basis or with particular subunits of a college or university.

DECISION TYPE, STRUCTURE, AND PROCESS EVALUATION: A CONTINGENCY MODEL

Governance proposals for higher education in the United States are often promulgated on the basis of some utopian goal or on the assumption that a given proposal is the panacea for multifaceted problems or that it is equally applicable to diverse institutional settings. This paper, rather than promulgating a single proposal, takes a more analytic approach and develops a contingency model for identifying appropriate decision-making structures. First, emergent conditions in American higher education's external environment, in the internal social environment of its colleges and universities, and in the development of higher education management systems are analyzed to establish some long-range criteria for evaluating decision-making effectiveness. Second, a typology of institutional decisions categorized as policy, managerial, and operating decisions is presented. An analysis of the nature and content of each major type of decision suggests divergent patterns of formal and informal decision-making structures and patterns, and differing content and functions for the supporting management information technology which might be appropriate to each of the decision types or categories. Finally, the analysis relates the contingency notions of decision structure and type to the criteria for evaluating the decision-making process and suggests how they are compatible or might be modified to be more compatible. The model is a general conceptual one which the author suggests can be used on either an institution-wide basis or with particular subunits of a college or university.