Developmental education is an essential part of the community college mission; McCabe and Day (1998) estimate that more than two million students each year would drop out of postsecondary education without participation in one or more developmental education activities. To provide effective developmental education, community colleges should implement best practices that have been proven effective through rigorous research and evaluation based on strong theoretical foundations. This chapter discusses the primary theoretical perspectives that have shaped the profession and provide the foundation for today's professional practice, presents current research that reflects both student and institutional perspectives in evaluating a wide array of developmental education models, and concludes with recommendations for future research.

Previous research on dissertation writing fails to embed it within the context of different, and often competing institutional forces constituting the genre expectations associated with producing the dissertation. The purpose of this study was to examine the negotiations of dissertation writers in a large Midwestern research university across a range of different activity systems: the Graduate School, department, advisor, committee, employment, and potential job market as different "layered" (Prior, 1998) systems. Analysis of interview data of 11 writers indicated that writers perceived marked differences in the objects/outcomes, roles, norms, and genre tools to vary across these different systems. While the Graduate School and departments formulated one set of expectations, the advisor or committee articulated different expectations for completing the dissertation. Writers also experienced time conflicts between the demands of teaching and writing. And, they experienced conflicting outcomes for the dissertation related to writing for an advisor or committee as opposed to positioning themselves for the job market, creating ambiguity related to their dissertation audience. They also noted that the research university positions the dissertation genre as preparing students for positions in other research universities as opposed work in universities in which teaching is a priority.

In the two decades since Audre Lorde (1984) pointed out that we have no patterns for relating across our differences as equals (p. 115), struggles to transform higher education have come to focus on communication about and across differences. Despite these efforts, conversations in higher education about group difference and equity too often exacerbate feelings of cynicism and disenfranchisement. In this article we discuss research into the actual discourses at work in communication about the cultural politics of institutional practices. We report on an analysis of

No abstract

University Studies, Portland State University's general education program, is now more than twenty years old; its leaders frequently answer questions from other higher education institutions regarding how the program takes high-impact practices to scale. In this article, three program leaders detail how University Studies' Peer Mentor and Senior Capstone Programs and one recently revised diversity learning goal demonstrate the opportunities and challenges of taking high-impact practices to scale. This article used published assessments of the program, experiences by current program leaders, and interviews from faculty members and peer mentors. Overall, the coauthors conclude that three dynamic qualities contribute to a scaling up of its programs and curricular initiatives: (1) focus on University Studies' aspirational goals; (2) interplay between scaling up and scaling inward—acknowledging the agency of its teaching and learning community to address challenges and effect change; and (3) collaborative and engaged leadership. These findings suggest that, contrary to notions that running a program of this scale only addresses budgets and staffing needs, University Studies adapts to change because it built a dynamic and aspirational framework across its general education program.