A survey of 1,027 chairpersons of foreign language departments in all Central States region two- and four-year colleges reveals encouraging news about the state of foreign language programs as perceived by administrators, but mixed results regarding issues affecting faculty and administrators. Respondents (N=304) expressed a high degree of…

Strikes and threats of strikes have become one of the realities of public education. School districts must be prepared to deal with strikes and the problems that they present. This manual is designed to provide a brief overview of the law relating to public employee strikes and to assist districts in adopting their own strike plans. It offers…

Three areas of concern for those considering competency-based graduation requirements are discussed. First, what is involved in implementing a competency-based graduation requirement? The first tasks are the specification of performance standards and the performance skill areas. Then, appropriate certification procedures can be selected, and their…

Views on sources of stress on college faculty and strategies for its management were obtained at small-group sessions in the 1980 faculty orientation at Prince George's Community College, Maryland. Sixteen faculty groups generated 218 responses expressing sources of job stress, a complete listing of which is appended. The responses were aggregated…

Phase I of the Task Force on Temporary Faculty study of the utilization of full- and part-time temporary faculty in the California State University and Colleges (CSUC) is presented. The study, which involved the gathering and analysis of data, the identification of problems--many of them detrimental to faculty morale--and the development of…

The social science literature, particularly in psychology, that may relate to faculty satisfaction, motivation, and commitment to teaching is reviewed. The question of satisfaction from work and its relation to motivation, a topic of controversy in the field (Greene, 1972) is examined, and the concept of motivation is briefly described from four…

On the assumption that individual teachers are the primary agents for developing more effective education, the Cleveland Public Schools began a four-year teacher-based change project entitled Planning Educational Environments for Cleveland Children in two volunteer schools. The various evaluators in the project, however, assumed that the funding…

Two innovations were brought to a teachers' college: television was introduced, and it was proposed to merge the college with a university. This study investigated the impact of the two types of change on the social system of the teachers' college from the point of view of the staff. A reaction process paradigm was conceptualized and 31 members of…

Early adolescence, the period from 10 to 15 years, is a significant transitional period in human development, marking the crossroads between childhood and young adulthood. This book is designed as a guide for parents, teachers, or anyone else who has contact with and who would like to better understand early adolescent children. The chapters in…

The impact of upheavals in U.S. higher education on the professoriate was examined, focusing on such factors as declines in enrollment and governmental support, and shifts in enrollment among fields of study. Characteristics of faculty were identified, including their tasks and capabilities, personal background, attitudes and values, emergent…

This fourth edition of a review and synthesis of agricultural education research concentrates on the period from 1978 to 1984. The review covers research published in papers and bulletins, compilations of abstracts, proceedings of regional and national agricultural education research meetings, material in the ERIC database, masters' theses, and…

A comprehensive guide to the use of environmental assessments for understanding and improving student and faculty life is presented. Environmental assessments are examined as tools for academic decision-makers in understanding the extent and quality of the communication among its members, their sense of community, their emphasis on academic rigor,…

The relationship between attribution processes and academic self-concept is studied among students from four ethnic groups in inner-city high schools, and an explanation as to why low achieving minority students do not report low academic self-concepts is sought in this paper. Questionnaires eliciting self-conceptions and responses to hypothetical…

The General Accounting Office (GAO) examined selected experiences that six government agencies implemented to help empower or involve frontline employees. The agencies reviewed were as follows: the Federal Aviation Administration; the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the Internal Revenue Service; the Office of Personnel Management; and the…

Annotations of ERIC literature on the learning environment are presented in this document. Materials were selected for inclusion from the ERIC catalogs Resources in Education (RIE) and Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE). The 10 publications are as follows: "School Is for Teachers: Enhancing the School Environment," by Buck Adams and…