Daryl G. Smith

Interrupting the Usual: Successful Strategies for Hiring Diverse Faculty

While campuses engage in efforts to diversify their faculties, these efforts are perhaps the least successful of diversity initiatives. This study investigates the conditions under which faculty are hired. The findings highlight the significance of intentional strategies for the hiring of underrepresented faculty of color.

Women's Colleges and Coed Colleges: Is There a Difference for Women?.

The nation and the higher education community are now engaged in vigorous discussions about quality in education and the assessment of quality. The issues are fundamental ones for the research community: what is the impact of different kinds of experiences and how can we assess that impact? In the 1960s and 1970s many womens colleges became coeducational, because it was believed that there were not enough women students who would be sufficiently convinced of the benefits of a womens college in the face of the many coeducational opportunities that opened to them during this period. In a now classic book Astin decried the apparent disregard of research evidence which suggested that women who attended womens colleges were: (1) more satisfied with most aspects of the experience (with the exception of social life); (2) persisted more; and (3) were more likely to attend graduate school [1]. At that time, the decisions of institutions were based largely on admissions marketing conditions rather than on the belief that the institutions were not of value. The evidence concerning womens colleges has been quite suggestive, though certainly not definitive. Tidballs classic study [16] demonstrated that graduates of womens colleges are much more likely to be represented in Whos Who than graduates of other institutions. Tidball pointed out that this pattern of success was as true for graduates of less selective schools as it was for the Seven Sisters. Moreover,

PERSONALITY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PERSISTERS AND WITHDRAWERS IN A SMALL WOMEN'S COLLEGE

Differential effects of a particular small womens college environment on the attrition of its students were studied. Two separate entering classes, a total of 330Ss were classified into four categories, Persisters, Withdrawers, Academic Withdrawers, and Returners, and were compared on 35 personality and demographic characteristics, using as primary measures the 15 scales of the omnibus personality inventory. Conclusions, drawn from the data on persisters and withdrawers, were that: (a) no consistent differences appeared in demographic characteristics, (b) as hypothesized, students who withdrew were more complex and more autonomous, (c) the hypothesis that withdrawers would be more impulsive was not supported, and (d) as predicted, persisters differed from withdrawers on social introversion, intellectual disposition, and practical outlook. The study supports the thesis that important personality characteristics discriminate between persisters and withdrawers.

Progress and paradox for women in US higher education

Gender, and especially the status of women, is certainly one of the most salient identities in all corners of the world. For some countries, the issues begin with the right to education at even the earliest ages. In the United States, there is a prevailing assumption, because women are a majority of the undergraduate and graduate populations in higher education that a threshold concerning access and equity has been reached. The story of gender, however, is a more complex one. This article will focus on the parallel notions of significant progress in some domains for women in higher education and the paradox that depending on the level, and depending on which women, progress and in some cases lack of progress is clear. The article will review changes over the last decades and address the deeper issues of institutional transformation and the emerging issues for policy including conceptualizations of gender.

The Privileged Journey of Scholarship and Practice

This chapter provides reflections and summaries for Smith’s career in higher education including 21 years as a college administrator and 29 as a faculty member. The chapter synthesizes Smith’s research and the personal journey of her career. In addition, the chapter looks at the important role of associations, accreditation, and foundations in the work of higher education and the opportunities provided for research and evaluation. Embedded in the chapter are perspectives on building institutional capacity for diversity, faculty diversity, institutional change, the role of institutional identities, and bridging research and practice in higher education.