Two-year Institutions Research Articles

Curriculum Movement of Clothing and Textiles Programs from Four-Year to Two-Year Colleges

Two-year clothing and textiles programs have increased dramatically in recent years and show many similarities to their counterparts in four-year colleges and universities. Through a survey of two-year institutions, the authors sought to (1) determine the extent to which clothing and textiles programs exist in these institutions, (2) trace and illustrate the four-year college's influence on the curriculum o f the two-year programs in clothing and textiles, and (3) determine if programs developed similarly in the different types of two-year schools. A summary o f results from 176 participating institutions (66.4 % o f those identified as having clothing and textiles programs) indicated that two-year programs are numerous and are serving large numbers of students. The strong in fluence o f the four-year model for home economics was evidenced in organizational patterns, courses of study, some o f the program goals and employment patterns o f graduates, use of the typical academic year format, inclusion o f general education requirements, and concern for academic credentials o f faculty. Certain aspects of curriculum movement varied within the different types of two-year institutions but, in general, the heritage of four-year programs was evident throughout. Results have implications for educators in both four-year and two-year programs to initiate cooperative strategies to make the two types o f programs complementary rather than duplicative and/or competitive.

Public relations opportunities in two-year colleges

The community college has emerged as a “melting pot” of educational objectives. The two-year insitution has established itself as an important local resource for students with all kinds of backgrounds and all types of collegiate aspirations. The community college's mission to be responsive to local educational needs gives it definite (and unique) public relations opportunities—and problems. The author of this article has surveyed nearly 100 two-year college presidents to ascertain who has been entrusted with the responsibility of conducting public relation for two-year institutions. His survey generated information about typical tasks performed by public relations officers, their relationships with internal and external publics, and their salaries and achievement potential.

Part-Timers, Sex Discrimination, and Career Choice at Two-Year Institutions: Further Findings from the AAUP Survey

A he number of part-time academic positions at all types of American institutions of higher education has been increasing rapidly. However, the proportion of part-timers at two-year institutions far outnumbers those at other institutions of higher education.1 Between 1964 and 1976, the number of part-timers at two-year institutions increased more than fivefold while the number of full-timers roughly doubled. In the 1976-77 academic year there were more part-time than full-time faculty at these institutions, with a ratio of partto full-timers of 1.3 to I.2 In spite of the expanding part-time ranks, most institutions treat their part-time faculty as outsiders, offering them monetary and nonmonetary rewards less than proportional to those given to full-timers.3 The argument has also been made that female parttimers are discriminated against. This claim is difficult to evaluate because it involves discrimination toward a group already discriminated against. To date little empirical evidence has been offered to indicate that women part-timers are worse off than their male counterparts. This paper explores the question of whether sex discrimination exists among part-time faculty at twoyear institutions. It finds that there appear to be differences in wages and salaries as well as in employment conditions between the two sexes. This is especially the case for those who would prefer to be employed in a full-time academic position. Not only

An Analysis of the Relationship between Instructional Costs and Differential Tuition Levels

The purpose of this investigation is to determine whether public tuition levels based on educational costs represent statistically significant cost differences between four-year and two-year institutions of higher education. That is, does the policy of setting tuition as a percentage of educational costs provide a significant (in the statistical sense) explanation for the tuition differentials between the two categories of institutions? Or are there other factors that must enter the tuition-setting process?

Community college health service programs: a progress report.

Abstract What progress has been made in improving the health service programs available to the millions of students attending the nation's public community colleges? This question was investigated by sending a follow-up survey to deans of students in 1977; the original study was done five years earlier and resulted in a national profile of health service programs at public two-year institutions. Some of the significant findings were: the percent of colleges offering health service programs has increased from 41.5% to 51.3%; the campus nurse continues to be the most common health professionals available to students; facilities are considered to be adequate and accessible; and a broad range of student health needs are met. New elements in the survey covered health education and mental health services, and these were positively evaluated. On the basis of survey results it was concluded that community colleges have made considerable progress in improving student health services, but there is still much to be ...

The Role of Two-Year Institutions in Chemical Education

The Role of Two-Year Institutions in Chemical Education

Variables Involved in Withdrawal During the First Two Years of College: Preliminary Findings from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972

This study investigated the process of withdrawal from four-year and two-year institutions of higher education. Data were drawn from the base year and the first and second follow-ups of the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. Results indicate that (1) women students are more likely to withdraw only in two-year colleges; (2) white students are more likely than black students to withdraw when other variables are controlled; (3) high school program, college grades, and educational aspiration account for most variance of withdrawal behavior; and, (4) the receipt of financial aid is not significantly related to college persistence.

Factors Affecting Individual Persistence Rates in Undergraduate College Programs

This study uses a sample drawn from the National Longitudinal Surveys of young men attending college in the 1960’s. Some of the principal conclusions of the multivariate analyses are: (1) Factors determining persistence vary widely with the stage of the undergraduate career; (2) race and parental SES bear no net relation to dropping out; (3) the impact of ability declines with progress toward graduation; (4) entering college in a two-year institution is inversely associated with persistence. These and other findings demonstrate that much previous research has perpetuated erroneous inferences about dropping out of college, not the least of which is that the process can be modeled in a single equation representing the likelihood of graduation by any given group of freshmen.

Factors Affecting Individual Persistence Rates in Undergraduate College Programs

This study uses a sample drawn from the National Longitudinal Surveys of young men attending college in the 1960’s. Some of the principal conclusions of the multivariate analyses are: (1) Factors determining persistence vary widely with the stage of the undergraduate career; (2) race and parental SES bear no net relation to dropping out; (3) the impact of ability declines with progress toward graduation; (4) entering college in a two-year institution is inversely associated with persistence. These and other findings demonstrate that much previous research has perpetuated erroneous inferences about dropping out of college, not the least of which is that the process can be modeled in a single equation representing the likelihood of graduation by any given group of freshmen.

Teaching in the Field of Higher Education: Curriculum and/or Instruction Courses

35 TEACHING IN THE FIELD OF HIGHER EDUCATION: CURRICULUM AND/OR INSTRUCTION COURSES David D. Dill Assistant Professor of Education University of North Carolina— Chapel Hill Courses in curriculum and/or instruction address core questions of per­ ennial importance to institutions of higher education. These issues in­ clude: 1) What knowledge is most worth learning and how has the answer to this question evolved over time and in different areas? 2) Once defined, how should this knowledge be structured into a formal curriculum? and 3) Once structured, what techniques or methods should be utilized to ensure that it is learned? Perhaps it is because these issues have always been with us and have created a rich tradition in the literature of higher education that the course materials submitted for this column clustered readily in terms of topics, literature, and points of view. While almost every syllabus addressed each of the above questions, the major variation in content among the courses was the amount of weight given to each issue. Courses of a descriptive and philosophical orientation are balanced by courses of a more applied character. For example, courses placing major emphasis on the philosophical rationale or intellectual history of higher education curricula and the analysis of current trends in curricu­ lar development tend to include subtopics such as: 1 ) the history and evo­ lution of "classical" undergraduate curricula, e .g . , liberal arts and the general education movement; 2 ) the more recent "developmental" curricula; and 5) curricula for adult education. Resources for these topics include Bell (1968); Carnegie Foundation (1977); Dressel (1971); Levine and Weingart (1974); Menges (1977); and Rudolph (1977). Contemporary trends in curricula are pursued by the study of specific institutional examples and the litera­ ture discussing the "state of the art" in various fields, e.g . , the Change Magazine, "Reports on Teaching," and Kaysen (1973). A second orientation is represented by those courses which place greater emphasis on the design and evaluation of sets of learning experiences. Major subtopics in these courses include the structure of knowledge, student needs and the "hidden curriculum,” the development of curricular objectives, various models of curricular evaluation, and tactics of curricular change ap­ propriate to higher education institutions. Resources characteristic of this approach are Bloom (1956), Mayhew and Ford (1972), and Tyler (1950). The subtopic of change tends to reference the same basic issues and literature taught in courses on the management of change, Dill (1978). A third orientation is represented by courses addressing the development of professional competence in teaching. These courses emphasize skill devel­ opment in the design and revision of a unit of instruction, and include top­ ics such as the application of systems analysis, the development of objec­ tives, techniques of testing and evaluation, individualized and/or learnerbased instruction, and instructional methods. Typical resources are Banathy (1968), Cross (1976), Davis (1976), and Milton and Edgerly (1977). Courses representing each of these orientations will now be discussed. Because these courses also tended to vary in their teaching design, special attention will be given to the means of instruction. Philosophical Orientation Kellams (Virginia) has designed a course which attempts to provide stu­ dents with analytic tools for analyzing curricular arrangements and under­ standing contemporary curricular trends. A basis for analysis is provided by an historical review of the general education movement and by examining com­ peting philosophies or models: traditional, neo-traditional, technocratic, progressive and radical. 36 Important sub-topics include: personalizing and participation, under­ graduate education in the disciplines, interdisciplinary and multidiscipli­ nary courses and programs, means of individualizing the curriculum (e .g . , broadening of options, time reforms, PSI, contract learning, competency-based learning, experimental colleges), non-traditional learning (e .g . , external degree, cooperative education, experiential learning), education for the pro­ fessions and curriculum change. An important element of the course is a paper project on innovations in the disciplines, in which students study trends in the curriculum— structure and content— and corresponding instruc­ tional methods. Students select one of the fifteen disciplines traditionally housed in colleges of arts and sciences or in college parallel programs in the two-year institutions. Using sources such as the Change "Reports on Teaching," disciplinary journals, course syllabi, and interviews, students analyze the...

Variables Involved in Withdrawal during the First Two Years of College: Preliminary Findings from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972

This study investigated the process of withdrawal from four-year and two-year institutions of higher education. Data were drawn from the base year and the first and second follow-ups of the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. Results indicate that (1) women students are more likely to withdraw only in two-year colleges; (2) white students are more likely than black students to withdraw when other variables are controlled; (3) high school program, college grades, and educational aspiration account for most variance of withdrawal behavior; and, (4) the receipt of financial aid is not significantly related to college persistence.

Managing Faculty Reductions

During the 1970s the spectre of enrollment decline and faculty reductions visited many institutions of higher learning. In a recent study of 163 institutions in fourteen states Sprenger and Schultz [4] found that 74 percent of private four-year institutions, 66 percent of public fouryear institutions, and 41 percent of two-year institutions had undergone staff reductions during 1971-74. While a larger sample might have changed the percentages somewhat, it would not have changed the awareness that faculty reductions driven by enrollment decline are a common experience. The difficulty associated with these reductions is

Beyond Survival: The Role of FL Programs in the High Schools and the Two-Year Colleges

WE can safely assume that somehow or other foreign languages will survive the twentieth century despite declining course registrations and other ominous signs. As has already been pointed out by David H. Malone and Jean A. Perkins (A DEL Bulletin, May 1976), there is hope to be found in the cyclical nature of things, in the fact that fads and trends do change, that a lack of structure eventually leads to a call for more structure and more requirements, and that some young assistant professors with tenure will be around for several decades before they pass off the scene. One can also point to the experience at Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore, where the abolition of the language requirement resulted in increased rather than decreased foreign language registrations. However, if one is unable or unwilling to wait out this inevitable but somewhat indefinite cycle, or if one wants to do more than simply survive, some more positive action is called for. Course registrations in modern foreign languages over the entire spectrum of higher education give us an indication of what must be done. One fact that stands out very clearly is that as enrollments in higher education have increased, the number of foreign language registrations, as a percent age of total enrollment, has decreased significantly. Enrollments in U.S. colleges and universities, including the two-year institutions, increased an average of 8.9 percent between the fall of 1974 and the fall of 1975, as the following data indicate:

American Studies in Community Colleges

NUMBERING MORE THAN 1200, COMMUNITY COLLEGES ARE A SIGNIFICANT fact in higher education in the United States. Yet the evidence that fouryear colleges and universities have recognized them, especially in academic matters, is not overwhelming. There are only minimal signs that American Studies organizations in particular have taken note of community college programs and courses. An account of the nature and scope of American Studies activity in the two-year institutions will lessen the mutual insularity between the two types of colleges. Accordingly, this essay will probe several situations: separation of community colleges from four-year institutions, steps toward cooperation, and recent community college programs in American Studies. The principal thesis of this essay is that an appreciable amount of worthwhile activity in American Studies exists in community colleges. 1 In assessing the separation of two-year institutions from the mainstream of our professional activities, one inquires how many American Studies Association meetings have regularly large attendances from community colleges, and how many articles in American Studies journals are written by community college faculty. There is no head or article count available, but the answer to each question is probably relatively few. More concrete proof is the meager list of community colleges in the official rolls of the American Studies Association. Only two appeared in Charles W.

The Part-Time Game

More and more frequently the Africanist who wins a tenure track position (hereafter termed a “real job”) is the one who offers something besides an impressive area expertise. Prestige universities are rarely hiring, and the few jobs opening up nowadays are usually at four-year colleges and two-year institutions which cannot, or firmly believe they cannot, accomodate full-time Africanists however much they may want African offerings in their programs. Faced with declining numbers of majors and insistent administrative demands for high body counts, or Full-Time-Equivalent (FTE) students, humanities and social science departments and divisions are looking for versatility in the personnel they hire. Teachers must be able to handle both general education courses attractive to underclassmen and a wide range of electives which will simultaneously challenge majors and attract non-majors looking for courses to fill out their schedules. Successful candidates to such positions have often overcome an academic Catch 22 publicized in many job advertisements—applicants seeking their first real job “must have one or two years prior full-time teaching experience”—by playing the part-time game, which has in recent years taken on many of the attributes of formal internship programs in other professions. For all the game’s drawbacks, the candidate for a real job who has played the part-time circuit well enjoys a major advantage over competitors who have not played it at all or who have played it badly, for a few very strong recommendations from superiors at places where a person has taught part-time can put that candidate in the running even for real jobs advertised as demanding prior full-time experience.

The Part-Time Game

More and more frequently the Africanist who wins a tenure track position (hereafter termed a “real job”) is the one who offers something besides an impressive area expertise. Prestige universities are rarely hiring, and the few jobs opening up nowadays are usually at four-year colleges and two-year institutions which cannot, or firmly believe they cannot, accomodate full-time Africanists however much they may want African offerings in their programs. Faced with declining numbers of majors and insistent administrative demands for high body counts, or Full-Time-Equivalent (FTE) students, humanities and social science departments and divisions are looking for versatility in the personnel they hire. Teachers must be able to handle both general education courses attractive to underclassmen and a wide range of electives which will simultaneously challenge majors and attract non-majors looking for courses to fill out their schedules. Successful candidates to such positions have often overcome an academic Catch 22 publicized in many job advertisements—applicants seeking their first real job “must have one or two years prior full-time teaching experience”—by playing the part-time game, which has in recent years taken on many of the attributes of formal internship programs in other professions. For all the game’s drawbacks, the candidate for a real job who has played the part-time circuit well enjoys a major advantage over competitors who have not played it at all or who have played it badly, for a few very strong recommendations from superiors at places where a person has taught part-time can put that candidate in the running even for real jobs advertised as demanding prior full-time experience.

Community College Faculty: Unwanted Stepchildren or Accepted Members of the Academic Family?

THE MOST dramatic development in higher education in the United States in the last quarter of a century has been the phenomenal increase in the number of junior or community colleges. Since the end of the Second World War, the Community College Movement, as it is sometimes called, has seen the establishment of approximately eight hundred two-year institutions; by the fall of 1975, more than 1200 private and public junior or community colleges opened for classes and enrolled nearly four million students.' And the end is not yet in sight as additional two-year institutions open and more are in the planning stage. The Carnegie Commission on Higher Education has recommended that access to higher education be expanded so that 95 percent of the American people will be within commuting distance of a community college and that residential colleges be established for those in areas too remote for commuting. The target date for achiev-

Business Communication in Two-Year Colleges and Technical Institutions

Business Communication in Two-Year Colleges and Technical Institutions

Business Communication Teachers in Two-Year Colleges and Technical Institutions

Business Communication Teachers in Two-Year Colleges and Technical Institutions

Meeting Career Needs in Two‐Year Institutions

Meeting Career Needs in Two‐Year Institutions