The world is experiencing a democratic recession, and in the United States, core democratic beliefs are under attack. As a key social organization, academic institutions have a central role in the protection of democracy. Boards, presidents, faculty, and students have the ability--and responsibility--to protect and advance democracy. A course in…

College experiences can contribute to teaching, learning, and instruction within higher education. The framework for this essay treats the college community as prototypic of the U.S. political society. Several aspects of the national political culture have been approximated within a collegiate culture. For example, every political problem within…

While U.S. voters delivered a significant change in the 2024 federal elections, they opted for steady leadership at the state level. No state board of education shifted in partisan control, and only five seats saw a shift in political party out of 27 races that were contested in the general election. This policy update looks at the results of…

Amid a devastating pandemic and increasing polarization, how can US colleges and universities help students bridge divides, make their voices heard, and understand their responsibilities to others in a democratic society? This article is an interview of Nancy Thomas, director of the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education (IDHE) at Tufts…

When U.S. Sen. Barack Obama launched his bold bid in 2007 for the presidency of the United States, the contingency of college-aged voters was paramount to deciding the outcome of the election. As in past big election years, college students mobilized in large numbers, that year mostly rallying to Obama's call to help him lead a major turnaround in…

On the night of Feb. 8, 1960, J. Charles Jones, then a student of religion and psychology at Johnson C. Smith University, knew instinctively what it was he needed to do for his generation. He first met with a handful of other classmates and friends, letting them know what he had just learned on the radio--other Black students in neighboring…

A group of states that is designing tests for the common academic standards has taken a key step to ensure that the assessments reflect students' readiness for college-level work: It gave top higher education officials from member states voting power on test-design questions that are closest to the heart of the college-readiness question. At its…

How will higher education fare under a President Donald Trump? According to this author, the campaign's misogyny shouldn't sit well with a student body that is now majority female, its disavowal of climate changes won't impress research universities, and the xenophobia won't help economies and cultures bolstered by foreign enrollment. The number…

The homepage of the Project on Fair Representation (POFR) features a smiling photo of Abigail Fisher, the young White woman at the center of "Fisher v. the University of Texas," which could end race as a criterion in university admissions. Edward Blum, founder of POFR, a conservative advocacy group, connected Fisher with Wiley Rein LLP,…

The 2010 EdSource Forum, held on March 19 in Santa Clara, focused on the obstacles and opportunities in the road ahead for public schools and community colleges. The Forum included four sessions. Two are covered in this report: (1) A sobering discussion of California's fiscal crisis by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor; and (2) A lively Q&A…

Citizenship was not a straightforward concern for Scottish university students between 1884 and 1948 and tended to express itself in multiple and often competing allegiances. Despite students being empowered to elect a Rector, and their role in university governance being accorded statutory recognition through the Students' Representative…

In this article, the authors share an approach to enriching student learning through building on relationships among faculty, student affairs educators, and administrators. As their examples suggest, campuses where academic and student affairs educators work together most effectively have broad representation on campuswide committees and other…

One technology for education whose adoption is currently expanding rapidly in UK higher education is that of electronic voting systems (EVS). As with all educational technology, whether learning benefits are achieved depends not on the technology but on whether an improved teaching method is introduced with it. EVS inherently relies on the…

In this article, the author offers an analysis of the Bologna process that draws from Foucault's theory. The author focuses on the objectives and orientations of the process and explains why the process was originally initiated. By mobilizing the concept of "episteme" and "legitimacy", the author highlights the role of the…

Free elections are one of the fundamental principles of any parliamentary democracy. The constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Basic Law, stipulates in its article 20(2) that "all state authority emanates from the people" who exercise that authority "by means of elections and referendums and through special…