This collection of essays attempts to describe the status and role of the rural community college in higher education, highlighting the special challenges faced by these institutions. The following articles are included: (1) "Opening the Shutter," by James R. Valadez and Jim Killacky; (2) "The Comprehensive Mission of the Rural Community College,"…

This collection of charts is intended to be used by participants in the tuition discounting study to interpret and present institutional results vis-a-vis comparative peer groups. The three peer groups included in the study are: small colleges, lower tuition; small colleges, higher tuition; and large colleges and universities. The document is…

Virginia Wesleyan College, a small liberal arts college, recently conducted four major student satisfaction assessment projects. In particular, the institution wanted to know how students evaluated their educational experiences and how they evaluated college programs and services. The assessment projects, conducted during the 1991-92 and 1992-93…

This monograph by the members of the American Association of Community Colleges' Commission on Small and/or Rural Community Colleges shares small and rural community college experiences. In "Leaders through Community Service," Jacqueline D. Taylor provides a model for how small and rural community colleges can be involved in building leaders…

This paper describes residential week-long seminars offered at the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT) in Cullowhee, North Carolina, Western Carolina University. The center was established in 1985 to reward and support outstanding full-time teachers in North Carolina and to enhance teaching as an art and as a profession.…

Characteristics of periodical use at a small liberal arts college were studied using a methodology aimed at providing a more accurate system for data collection by recording all the periodicals used in an entire semester. In the John J. Wright Library at La Roche College (Pennsylvania), circulation records were consulted, and one person while…

This article proposes that minority students who might be successful in the education profession be evaluated for college entrance using an individually administered test of intelligence. More minorities with the appropriate educational background are needed in the education profession. Typical recruitment of minority students involves seeking…

Successful strategies for implementing and operating the Further Education Management Information System (FEMIS) at colleges of further education in the United Kingdom are discussed, along with the development of associated microcomputer-based decision support systems. FEMIS has been targeted at the smaller institutions that do not generally have…

The need to integrate technology and liberal arts in the undergraduate curriculum is addressed in this collection of two articles and a bibliography. The monograph resulted from a project by the Council of Independent Colleges on the response of the liberal arts college to technology. In "Technology and the Liberal Arts," Allan Pfnister considers…

The successes and failures of a small private college in internationalizing its business curriculum are discussed. The college's condition of severely constrained resources is outlined, and the college's program development approach of sharing resources with other institutions is described. A consortium of local institutions was created to…

The creation and development of 10 women's colleges are discussed: Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Radcliffe, Bryn Mawr, and Barnard (the Seven Sisters colleges), and Sarah Lawrence, Bennington, and Scripps. Consideration is given to: how each of these colleges offered to women an education equal to that offered by the best men's…

The development of a Planning, Management, and Evaluation (PME) system at Voorhees College, is described. The project at the small, liberal arts college was supported by an Advanced Institutional Development Program (AIDP) grant. Primary objectives were to decrease the responsibility of the college's chief officer and to upgrade the academic…

The design and development of a pre-law program for a small historically black college are described. The model consists of six phases: community outreach/recruitment; an 8-week summer session at the first and second years of college; a second 8-week summer session at the end of the sophomore year; the junior and senior years; and followup. The…

Lessons learned by five small, private colleges about meeting the challenges facing higher education are described. Each of the colleges developed a unique educational program emphasizing the liberal arts that responds to current challenges. Each school has experienced increased enrollments and retention, growth in endowments and plants, larger…

The changes that small liberal arts colleges have undergone are discussed in this monograph in terms of their past, present, and future roles in society. The first section looks at these colleges in the colonial context and shows how they were altered by specialization, secularization, the rise of science and empirical research, and by an…