Discusses KidsConnect (KC), an initiative of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), volunteer service to help children access and use the information available on the Internet effectively and efficiently. Describes the benefits to volunteers: improved Internet skills; knowledge of Internet-related resources; familiarity with…

Discusses how students, faculty, and staff face challenging opportunities in supporting the urban agenda of metropolitan universities. Claims that leaders must contemplate these issues and should leverage the qualities of city life to the benefit of the university. Stresses importance of institutional research, instruction, and service activities…

Impact of introducing service-learning in a Providence College (Rhode Island) public policy course was measured in terms of student attitude and value change and student learning. Results indicate no significant impact on student attitudes, despite perceptions of both instructor and students that instructional quality was enhanced. Possible…

Criticizes the recent trend of six-figure-plus salaries for higher education administrators in Canada. Maintains that these salaries reflect neither market value nor individual performance but rather result from aggressive self-promotion and institutional chicanery. Argues that those individuals motivated primarily by money should work in the…

The nation's educational system mirrors the dynamics of our marketplace democracy, recasting parents as self-interested consumers. Jane Addams' philosophy of education (enhancing people's productive capacities to benefit the commonweal) has been revived in Public Achievement, a work-centered, civic-earning program in St.Paul, Minnesota, that helps…

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has contributed $58 million to improve journalism education since 1990, including endowment of 10 university chairs, fellowships for mid-career journalists, and scholarships for journalism majors. The endowed chairs are bringing respected journalists into academe. The foundation also donates to schools,…

Suggests that public broadcasters themselves helped create the current worldwide challenge to public service broadcasting. Argues that questions about how well extreme marketplace models work, the need to reassert some of the cultural purposes associated with public broadcasting, and the slower-than-expected pace of new media development may…

Campus child care centers can help fulfill a variety of institutional missions while also redressing the causes and effects of some of today's pressing societal needs. Centers can be used for supervised observation, supervised participation, student teaching, and curriculum development. (MLW)

Asserts that the purpose of the school must be more than a celebration of individual achievement; schools should incorporate opportunities for learning that involve altruism and community participation. Describes a secondary school community service program. (CFR)

Describes community experiential education programs that empower local citizens to work with city planners in deciding the future direction of their urban neighborhoods. Questions whether such programs are true catalysts for social change when participants return to their home environments without a support system that values or utilizes learned…

Describes a study that analyzed the differences between 1,133 public and technical services positions described in job advertisements in 1988. Content analysis was used to determine differences in the levels of computer skills, foreign-language requirements, previous work experience, education requirements, and minimum salary offered. (20…

Describes a neighborhood-based democratic decision-making process in which college students conducted research to support a group of citizens as they attempted to make informed decisions about the future directions of their community. Discussion looks at how to create forums that allow for genuine democratic decision making and the roles of…

Examines the progress that Oklahoma State University has made in its community engagement and outreach efforts in the last few decades, and discusses faculty issues that must be addressed to sustain and nourish such efforts and to illustrate the value of an integrated relationship between instruction, research, and outreach. (MSE)

Academic service learning contributes to the renewal and satisfaction of faculty, offers new opportunities to think more consciously and creatively about relationships (faculty/student, disciplinary/interdisciplinary knowledge, campus/community), presents opportunities to contribute to the field's development, and offers a vehicle to faculty,…

Discussion of measuring and improving the quality of library public services focuses on a method for quantifying and categorizing patrons' comments from a questionnaire developed at the College of Charleston (South Carolina) library. Topics include Total Quality Management, measures of user perceptions, and defining the service role of libraries.…