Amongst a range of changes that have taken place within tertiary education, perhaps the most revolutionary has been a shift to student-centred approaches focused on lifelong learning. Accompanying this approach to holistic higher education (HE) has been a growing interest in, and understanding of, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL).…

The purpose of this study is to understand the professional skill development of student employees in a leadership position through a theoretical lens and applied lens. Research suggests that a deficit of professional skills exist in today's college graduates. In higher education, many colleges and universities use a student employment model to…

We live in an era of escalating, tech-fueled change. Our jobs and the skills we need to work and thrive are constantly evolving, and those who can't keep up risk falling behind. That's where college comes in. In "Mindset Matters," Daniel R. Porterfield advances a powerful new argument about the value of residential undergraduate…

Professionals are increasingly involved in attempts to understand and address problems with wicked tendencies, which require crossing boundaries between disciplines, organisations and stakeholder perspectives. This multiple-case study investigated six higher professional education courses in order to develop better understanding of how teachers…

In an interview with Randall Kenan, Octavia E. Butler extracts the harsh realities of history and its effects on the present, stating, "I couldn't let her come back whole… Antebellum slavery didn't leave people quite whole." (Kenan, Callaloo, 1991, 14, p. 498). This quote refers to her book, Kindred (1979) in which the protagonist, Dana,…

This article draws on the concept of structural lag to expand the notion of transitions in higher education contexts beyond linear and age-differentiated. Research reported here responds to scholars who are taking theories of transition into conceptually new landscapes. Using a rhizomic data analysis of a doctoral research project, the idea of…

This article explores students' experiences of intellectual, social, and emotional growth during the first year at university and the extent to which these experiences can be considered transformative (Mezirow, 1981). The study is a qualitative interpretive multiple-case study built on semi-structured interviews with students in two higher…

Though many colleges and universities claim to be driven by missions that highlight access, equity, and student success, academic policy and practice do not always mirror these claims. American higher education institutions are "obsessed with smartness" (Astin, 2017), yet fail to support educational attainment in an equitable manner.…

Campus traditions are powerful vehicles that can shape college life (Cowley & Waller, 1979). Students foster smaller identities through their involvement in traditions on campus, and these traditions often ritualize coming-of-age or the start of American adulthood (Bronner, 2012). However, the climate of higher education today may be putting…

Work-integrated learning (WIL) has become an increasingly common feature of higher education curricula. Two aspects of WIL, authenticity and consistency, are valued in different ways by the stakeholders involved. Authenticity, by its very nature, supports the idea of learning being personalized and unique. Consistency, on the other hand, is…

International students in U.S. higher education who pursue work must balance personal and professional pressures while seeking employment. While much attention has been given to their experiences of acculturation, stress, and psychological well being, further work is needed to document their personal growth, navigation of economic pressures, and…

"The Secret Syllabus" equips students with the tools they need to succeed, revealing the unwritten rules and cultural norms and expectations not included in the official curriculum. Left to figure out on their own how the academic world works, students frequently stumble, underperform, and miss opportunities. Without mastery of the…

Societal expectations are rising for higher education to help learners develop into engaged, responsible and resilient citizens of the world. Against this backdrop, the 2024 EUA Learning & Teaching Thematic Peer Group 'Learning and teaching to empower students' explored a crucial prerequisite for cultivating these qualities in graduates: an…

This paper explores, from a theoretical basis, the difficulty in defining and assessing learner autonomy in higher education. Although the development of learner autonomy as a key aim of higher education, it is a vague and ill-defined term. As such, the assessment of learner autonomy within university programs of study is highly problematic. The…

This qualitative study explored the experiences of 23 food insecure undergraduate students. We interviewed participants about their experiences with hunger and food access, including how food insecurity affected their daily lives. Using holistic student development as a theoretical framework, our thematic analysis of individual student interviews…