Contents

• Articles
• Review Essay

Articles

McLendon, Michael K.
Peterson, Marvin W.
• The Press and State Policy Making for Higher Education
  Subjects:
  • Education in mass media.
  • Education, Higher -- United States.
  • Higher education and state -- United States.
  Abstract:
  The mass media's role in shaping public policy remains the focus of intensive research among political science and communication scholars. Yet virtually nothing is known about media coverage of state higher education policy making. Using mass communication theory, this study analyzes press coverage of an appropriations conflict between two nationally prominent universities. Its purpose was to determine whether newspapers give preferential treatment to their local universities, ultimately producing bias in their coverage of higher education.

Martinez, Mario C.
• The States and Higher Education Legislative Views on the Governance of Public Colleges and Universities: Enhancing the Public Interest
  Subjects:
  • Higher education and state -- United States -- States.
  • State universities and colleges -- United States -- Administration .
  • Legislators -- United States -- States -- Attitudes.
  Abstract:
  This study describes legislative perceptions about the governance of higher education and the specific responsibilities that policy makers associate with the public interest. Based on a survey of state legislators conducted for the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, it examines factors that influence governance and their relationship to the governing board's dual role as institutional advocate and guardian of the public trust.

Hagedorn, Linda Serra.
Pascarella, Ernest T.
Edison, Marcia.
Braxton, John M.
Nora, Amaury.
Terenzini, Patrick T.
• Institutional Context and the Development of Critical Thinking: A Research Note
  Subjects:
  • Critical thinking -- United States.
  • Education, Higher -- Aims and objectives -- United States.
  Abstract:
  This study sought to determine if the average level of student critical thinking at a college (i.e., the institutional context) influenced individual students' critical thinking skills. Analyses were based on data from 23 highly diverse two- and four-year institutions participating in the National Study of Student Learning with controls for 15 potentially confounding influences. The findings were modestly positive for students completing their first year but insignificant by the end of the third year.

De Give, Marilyn L.
Olswang, Steven G.
• The Making of a Branch Campus System: A Statewide Strategy of Coalition Building
  Subjects:
  • Higher education and state -- United States -- States.
  • Universities and colleges -- United States -- Administration.
  • Campus planning -- United States.
  Abstract:
  Rather than a grass-roots effort by state residents seeking greater access opportunities to higher education, community booster groups made up of economic and civic elites organized a systematic approach to support the creation of five branch campuses of Washington state's two research universities. A coalition-building strategy on local, regional, and state levels fueled by the active engagement of these economic and business interests in the policy-making process shaped policy outcomes both within and across stages of policy making.

Davies, John.
• Postmodernism and the Sociological Study of the University
  Subjects:
  • Postmodernism and education.
  • Education, Higher.
  • Universities and colleges -- Sociological aspects.
  Abstract:
  Given the provocative views that postmodernists advance about universities, those engaged in sociological work on universities must critically engage this scholarship. This essay concludes that, although postmodernists offer some highly insightful views, the inherent limitations of postmodernism prohibit the kind of analysis necessary to comprehend what ought to be pivotal to any sociology of universities--the relationships between academic institutions and the issues of power, privilege, and equity.

Review Essay

Keller, George, 1928-.
• Review Essay: Is America Assembling a Set of Higher Education Classics?
  Subjects:
  • Education, Higher -- United States -- Bibliography.
  • Scholarly publishing -- United States.
  • Reprints (Publications).
  Abstract:
  Recently certain publishers have been bringing the best out-of-print books on higher education back into circulation. Is higher education studies at the incipient stage of creating its own canon of "great books"? This essay examines what may be behind the surprising development, looks closely at Transaction Books, the publisher who has been most active in this revival, and reviews several of the "classics" selected for reprinting.