Growing up as a young girl, summer camp was a typical affair. Packed lunches kept cold with frozen freezer packs, seemingly endless slip n' slides, activities, games, contests. Every morning, the author was eager to wake up and head off to hours and hours of fun with friends and counselors. However, one may think the camping experience could not…

Research has consistently suggested that colleges and universities should review academic programs and support services in order to make modifications to meet the needs of adult learners. However, one could argue that colleges and universities cannot be successful in meeting adult learners' needs without understanding the barriers they experience.…

In the fall of 2007, the author came to Northland College excited for the opportunities that it presented--a low faculty-to-student ratio and professional connections. But what he was really interested in was the new student orientation to the college. It just happens that this was one of a number of trips comprising Northland's Outdoor…

In writing these reflections, the author is not seeking to apportion blame nor absolution about life choices that less than 1% of the population gets to make and lives to regret. In some ways, this piece is a rearview mirror projection of a life that took a very different turn to that which the author expected when he embarked on a doctoral…

An individual professional development plan (IPDP) is a document early childhood educators create, review regularly, and update as needed to guide their future professional development. The plan includes personal and professional goals guided by professional standards and strategies for meeting them. Educators learn and grow continuously by…

This issue celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the Re-ED model for troubled and troubling children. Long before concepts like "strength-based" and "evidence-based" entered the field, these were central to the principles of Re-Education. Guest editor James Doncaster of Pressley Ridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, begins by introducing the…

This commentary discusses the emergence of youth development research and evaluation in the nonprofit arena over the past 10 to 15 years. Included in this discussion is the establishment of the context for youth development research in nonprofits, a brief description of key examples of research from three youth nonprofits that illustrate the…

Many teachers in teacher education programs are cursorily introduced to Dewey's "epochmaking" ideas on interest and effort through discussions based on the need for child-centered pedagogies that utilize students' interests. Unfortunately, this strategy often tacitly encourages teachers to over-rely on students' interests. In this paper, I…

Evaluation capacity building (ECB) has become a popular approach for helping community-based organizations (CBOs) to meet their funders' demands for accountability. This case study reports the ECB process with one staff member using a catalyst-for-change approach. The authors analyzed the role of the catalyst in diffusing evaluation knowledge and…

This chapter describes a concrete process that stakeholders can use to make predictions about the future performance of programs in local contexts. Within the field of evaluation, the discussion of validity as it relates to outcome evaluation seems to be focused largely on questions of internal validity (Did it work?) with less emphasis on…

Throughout the 1970's and 80's, rapidly advancing technologies, mergers and acquisitions, industry deregulation, emergence of new capital markets, and the shift to an increasingly competitive, global marketplace sparked new training needs for workers. In aerospace, auto, health care, steel, telecommunications and transportation industries, unions…

Objective: Psychological maltreatment (PM) is a widespread form of child maltreatment both in high-risk and maltreating families as well as in the general population of parents, yet there are no intervention programs that target it directly. The current study was designed as the first step in a larger program of research concerning educating…

Although universities acknowledge that teacher training is critical for ensuring quality undergraduate education, research has repeatedly demonstrated that universities typically do an inadequate job of preparing graduate students for their instructor role. In this paper, we show that both graduate students and universities find the pedagogical…

During the Great Depression, following the stock market crash of 1929, the nation's greatest financial crisis, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration created the Public Works of Art Project. It was the first federal government program designed to support the arts by putting artists back to work. The program's purpose was to alleviate…

There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to community college. The general population appears to believe that because the tuition per credit hour is incredibly cheaper than that of the average university, students are receiving a "discounted," "cheap," "rip-off" education. Top community college students struggle against the mistaken…