Vicente M. Lechuga

Power, Privilege, and Learning: Facilitating Encountered Situations to Promote Social Justice

As student affairs professionals increasingly move toward developing their students into active citizens that are committed to both social justice and systemic change, it is important for these students to have a keen awareness of the basic concepts that underlie social justice. The authors argue that fundamental knowledge about the concepts of power and privilege plays an important role in the learning process for students and that this knowledge can be gained through experiential learning activities (Kolb, 1984). The authors call attention to important characteristics that are essential for the design and implementation of encountered situations intended to promote social justice awareness and action and offer a clear methodology student affairs professionals can utilize to develop encountered situations that meet the needs of specific student populations.

Assessment, Knowledge, and Customer Service: Contextualizing Faculty Work at For-Profit Colleges and Universities

As the labor market continues to demand more workers with postsecondary credentials, for-profit colleges and universities offer the training, degrees, and credentials that students seek to remain viable in an increasingly competitive job market. This study seeks to provide a new perspective on for-profit institutions by focusing on the roles and responsibilities of their most visible employees—faculty members. The author uses a cultural framework to explore the context in which faculty work takes place and also explores how the intersection between profit generation and educational quality affects faculty work both inside and outside of the classroom.

Exploring culture from a distance: the utility of telephone interviews in qualitative research

Qualitative studies that utilize telephone interviews, as a primary data collection mode, often are not discussed in the qualitative research literature. Data excerpts from a study that sought to understand the culture of for‐profit universities are used to illustrate the types of data that can be garnered through telephone interviews. In addition, the author discusses conceptual notions of culture and shows how the use of cultural interviews aided the data collection process. The article closes by considering the extent to which qualitative telephone interviews can render ‘high‐quality’ data that can allow for an accurate depiction of culture.

The Social Significance of Academic Freedom

Academic freedom remains a central tenet of our nation’s colleges and universities. However, recent incidents have spawned debates regarding the merits of academic freedom and the mechanism that protects it, tenure. By way of two contrasting examples, the authors consider how two types of higher education institutions—private for-profit universities and nonprofit public institutions—situate themselves in the public dialogue when controversies arise. The authors argue that academic freedom and tenure permit postsecondary institutions to act as vehicles for public engagement, whereas its absence only serves to curtail thoughtful discussions of complex and controversial issues.

Latino Faculty in STEM Disciplines: Motivation to Engage in Research Activities

The scarcity of underrepresented faculty members in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines is an issue of great concern to education researchers and scholars alike. Despite their low representation, many minority faculty are able to remain motivated, even when facing barriers due to their ethnicity. I present findings from a pilot study that sought to use self-determination theory to understand the research motivation of 15 Latino faculty members within the STEM disciplines. Data reveal that conducting meaningful research, producing “high-quality” scholarship, and feeling connected to others allowed participants to feel intrinsically motivated to engage in their scholarship.

The Global Growth of Private Higher Education (review)

pact of segregation, giving attention to the widely divergent neighborhood environments in which the students attended high school. Chapter 7, “The Shoals of Stereotypes,” and Chapter 8, “The Wake from Affirmative Action,” quantitatively measure the influence that stereotypes and affirmative action have on students’ academic and nonacademic experiences during the first two years of college. These three chapters make an important contribution by delving deeper into issues that are often only broadly addressed or skimmed over in the literature on college student access and success. The use of concrete quantitative evidence supports the claims of the authors. For readers interested in the research underlying this book, the appendices offer a valuable resource. They include the authors’ survey instruments and rating scales. The inclusion of this material is noteworthy since some of the scales used to reach conclusions in the later chapters of the book did not have a very high Cronbach’s alpha. Research-minded readers may be interested in knowing the specific items included. Taming the River provides pivotal insights into the experiences of students based on racial differences at elite institutions. Despite its heavy emphasis on quantitative findings, readers can easily understand the data presented in this book. The authors’ depiction of the challenges that many students, especially Black and Latino students, face while navigating the first two years of their higher education experience will hopefully inspire readers to develop educational programs to assist these students during this critical phase. Taming the River greatly expands on the work accomplished in The Source of the River but similarly leaves readers wanting to know what happens next for the student groups discussed. Sequels to this book are warranted and would be welcomed by the community of administrators, scholars, and student affairs professionals interested in these student populations.

Let Her Play

Abstract This article addresses changes made by the Office of Civil Rights to Title IX compliance in November 2005 and argues these changes threaten current Title IX compliance practices. We frame our argument within the theoretical construct of gender socialization by examining Bussey and Banduras (1999) definition of social cognitive theory regarding gender development and differentiation. We then tie social cognitive theory to the existing applicable literature surrounding gender socialization in womens athletics to explain the implications of the March 2005 Office of Civil Rights Title IX rulings on the future of womens intercollegiate athletics.