Mimi Wolverton

It's about Family: Native American Student Persistence in Higher Education

This article presents findings from a study examining the similarities and differences between Native American student perceptions and the perceptions of state representatives, university presidents, and faculty about persistence factors and barriers to degree completion specific to Native American students at three land-grant universities in Washington, Idaho, and Montana.

A comparison of department chair tasks in Australia and the United States

Virtually every managerial book written lists and expounds upon the tasks, duties, roles and responsibilities of administrators. This paper reports a portion of the findings of the third phase of a study of Australian and U.S. academic department chairs in colleges and universities. In it, we seek to clarify how chairs in the two countries define the tasks that exemplify their role as chair. The driving question behind this inquiry is: Do academic department chairs, independent of country, define their tasks in the same way? And, if so, how might universities in both countries benefit from this knowledge?

The Department as Double Agent: The Call for Department Change and Renewal.

The well-known and respected Pew Foundation recently suggested four prerequisites for departmental change and renewal—a dedication to teamwork, collective dialogue and inquiry about effective teaching, a commitment to quality control and rewarding collective goals, and the leadership of a purposeful chair (Pew Foundation, 1996, pp. 7-9). Many realities that surround academic programs work against these critical conditions for renewal: conflicting faculty interests, turbulent environments, unclear institutional goals, to name a few. This paper examines teamwork, teaching, quality, and leadership as means to mitigate the contradictions and enhance department renewal.

The Nexus between Academic Deans and Corporate CEOs: An Opportunity in the Making.

Executive Summary There is a belief in the academy that colleges are not businesses and academic deans are not corporate CEOs. This may be true, but when we take a close look at deans and CEOs, their work environments and their profiles, we see distinct similarities. In this article, we address the question: Is there an opportunity for them to learn from each other?

Denying Traditional Senses: lessons about programme change

Abstract Today, faculty are being challenged to rethink their course and programme offerings, and to bring them in line with the diverse needs of a new student population. In doing so, they are continually asked to confront their ‘traditional senses’ about teaching. This paper reports the struggles of faculty to build new notions about teachings, and learning styles and strategies as they recreated the real estate programme at Arizona State University. It then draws from their experience, certain lessons about programme change.

Toward a Common Perception of Ethical Behavior in Real Estate

Even though an underlying commitment to morality is clearly stated in most professional real estate organization codes of ethics and most standards of practice provide detailed guidelines and rationale for proper professional conduct, these provisions are often ignored, and the common perception of unethical behavior in real estate persists. This essay examines ethics and ethical conduct in the real estate profession, going beyond rule ethics and end-point ethics into the uncharted waters of habitual behavior and integrity. The goal is to stimulate dialogue among real estate professionals about the value of striving for creation of professional real estate organizations that are self-selected by discriminating members. These sort of organizations are seen as a means to establish a common perception of ethical behavior in real estate.