The way in which student services can meet the needs of a small segment of the student body who need extensive and intensive developmental work is considered as part of the American Council on Education's Higher Education/Comprehensive Employment and Training ACT (CETA) Project, which was supported by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary…

Issues in defining and conceptualizing general education in the two-year college are examined in this collection of essays. After introductory remarks, B. Lamar Johnson reviews the findings of the 1952 California Study of General Education and discusses their current applicability. Next, K. Patricia Cross reviews trends in general education from…

A summary is provided of the progress of Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) in meeting the major objectives of its 5-year plan. Chapter I focuses on academic affairs, providing an evaluation and review of academic programs; an examination of program and curriculum development activities; an analysis of curriculum/program development in…

This six-chapter monograph discusses the need for and the components of a holistic approach to education; that is, an education which teaches the student to function on the aesthetic and affective levels, as well as to master the behavioral objectives of traditional content area instruction. Chapter I presents a rationale for this holistic…

Developmental reading programs in traditionally black colleges and universities were compared with their white counterparts for 1979-80. Major areas of analysis were as follows: institutional characteristics, enrollment and retention, faculty status, program design, instructional delivery, course credit, and funding. A total of 113 two-year and…

This paper addresses developmental education programs as mechanisms for enhancing the survival rates of disadvantaged populations in higher education. Specifically, the paper identifies and discusses the critical dimensions of effective developmental education programs, including recruitment, admissions, diagnosis and prescription, orientation,…

After the 1975 political upheaval in Indochina, many Indochinese refugees settled in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, area. A number of them enrolled in Harrisburg Area Community College between January, 1976, and December, 1977, primarily in developmental courses because of their lack of formal training in English. A study was conducted to…

The U.S. General Accounting Office surveyed 758 higher education institutions (of which 430 responded) to determine how much federal student financial aid is going towards payment for remedial courses courses needed by new college students to attain adequate proficiency in basic skills prior to taking college level courses. In addition, nine…

The Transition Class is an alternative model to the traditional college sequence of developmental courses. Offered as an option to prospective students before they complete the college application and financial aid procedures, the 12-week Transition Class is nongraded and free of charge. By taking the class before they fully matriculate in the…

Gainesville College (GC) in Georgia conducted a study to determine how many traditional-aged students enter the school with General Education Development (GED) certificates and how well they progress academically. Students monitored were those who received their GED at 21 years of age or younger and entered GC within 4 years of receiving the…

If community colleges are to shape their own futures, leaders must address these trends: growing public skepticism of higher education; program downsizing to cut costs; increased sectoring within state systems; refocusing of mission on the economy and workplace; demand for developmental education; demographic shifts; and anxiety about the economic…

A survey of 196 freshmen seeking to identify noncognitive variables influencing pre-college decision making, satisfaction with the freshman experience, and academic confidence found that academically underprepared students were older, went to college later, reported more satisfaction with academic advising, and were less accepting of American…

This analysis of postsecondary student preparedness and remedial education needs attending Florida community colleges focuses on two cohorts: 125,000 first-time-enrolled community college students enrolled in a community college over a three-semester period during 1993-94 and a cohort of over 18,000 public high school graduates (1994) enrolled in…

The Commanding English Program at the University of Minnesota is designed to meet the educational and social needs of academically underprepared students whose native language is not English. Most of the students in this population are Southeast Asian refugees with interrupted education who have finished high school in the United States. The…

Jersey City State College (New Jersey) developed a local evaluation model to assess all salient aspects of the institution's basic skills program. The college's Academic Foundations Program was implemented to address the needs of urban educationally disadvantaged students. It includes faculty and staff development and research, freshman course…