Concerns with how students are taught, and whether and how they learn, has become particularly salient in higher education. This is evident in growing awareness of increases in time-to-degree and declines in attainment rates for many students, including those who are underrepresented, in our nation's community and public and private colleges and universities. It is also demonstrated vis-a-vis recent findings that more than a third of college students evinced no noticeable improvement in critical thinking, writing, and complex reasoning skills after four years as an undergraduate. These findings suggest that while a focus on access to and participation in the nation's colleges and universities remain a prominent goal, it is no longer sufficient given persistent disparities in post secondary student learning. There are a few models however, from which we can distill a set of strategies for promoting not only high achievement, but also retention and completion rates. This book examines three such models in higher education - the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; the Opportunity Programs at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York; and the Premedical Program at Xavier University in New Orleans - with a proven record of student achievement and completion.

Concerns with how students are taught, and whether and how they learn, has become particularly salient in higher education. This is evident in growing awareness of increases in time-to-degree and declines in attainment rates for many students, including those who are underrepresented, in our nation's community and public and private colleges and universities. It is also demonstrated vis-a-vis recent findings that more than a third of college students evinced no noticeable improvement in critical thinking, writing, and complex reasoning skills after four years as an undergraduate. These findings suggest that while a focus on access to and participation in the nation's colleges and universities remain a prominent goal, it is no longer sufficient given persistent disparities in post secondary student learning. There are a few models however, from which we can distill a set of strategies for promoting not only high achievement, but also retention and completion rates. This book examines three such models in higher education - the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; the Opportunity Programs at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York; and the Premedical Program at Xavier University in New Orleans - with a proven record of student achievement and completion.

The process of probing beneath and even shaving or sanding away the language undergirding literary works that, word by word, line by line and page by page, sustains a narrative's arc, contributes to the perspective of writer as architect. For it not only positions, but also reinforces the significance of line, mass, texture, balance, scale and proportion in a new world, a created structure and the spaces that organize it, that if expertly executed, endures over time.

Promoting Global Competence and Social Justice in Teacher Education reconceptualizes the purpose of education to include the attainment of global or cosmopolitan perspectives. This goal has important implications for how we not only educate today's students, but also how we prepare teachers to teach in a diverse and complex world in which habits of perspective, inquiry, imagination, empathy, communication, commitment, humility, integrity, and judgment increasingly resonate in importance. This book advocates for preparing teacher candidates to acquire a nuanced, global perspective of their subject areas and be prepared to handle the demands of educating students for our changing global context. To this end, Promoting Global Competence and Social Justice in Teacher Education encourages the development of pedagogical strategies that will enable students to consider multiple perspectives and cultivate respect for diverse peoples and cultures.

According to Gordon and Bridglall, the ability to learn is more of a developed human capacity than a fixed aptitude with which one is born. They argue that the emergence of academic ability is associated with exposure to specialized cultures that privilege the attitudes, knowledge, and skills that schools reward. Children who are born to and raised in these cultures tend to do well in school, while those who are not exposed to such cultures tend seldom rise to high levels of academic achievement. Through a collection of interesting essays, Affirmative Development: Cultivating Academic Ability attempts to address how we can deliberately develop academic ability in those children who are not raised under conditions that predispose them to develop high levels of academic ability.

According to Gordon and Bridglall, the ability to learn is more of a developed human capacity than a fixed aptitude with which one is born. They argue that the emergence of academic ability is associated with exposure to specialized cultures that privilege the attitudes, knowledge, and skills that schools reward. Children who are born to and raised in these cultures tend to do well in school, while those who are not exposed to such cultures tend seldom rise to high levels of academic achievement. Through a collection of interesting essays, Affirmative Development: Cultivating Academic Ability attempts to address how we can deliberately develop academic ability in those children who are not raised under conditions that predispose them to develop high levels of academic ability.

COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated entrenched inequities spawned by the historical and structural reality of bigotry, prejudice, discrimination, and inequity in all forms, and at institutional and individual levels. It is perceived that higher education institutions also perpetuates these inequities, which is fuelled by prevailing misconceptions, such as "college should be limited to the privileged few"; or that "community colleges are in some way 'inferior'." Recognizing Promise re-establishes the role community colleges can play in reversing centuries of racial and gender disparities in economic wealth, health, education, and life expectancy stemming from current and historical policies and practices that sustain structural racism. The result is a more civic-minded, educated citizenry and a stronger workforce of tomorrow. Educators in the community college space, in partnership with business, industry and philanthropic leaders, can lead the way in reasserting commitment toward eradicating racism and sustaining reform that advocates inclusive excellence, educational access and programmatic diversity, and the alignment of learning with opportunities in the workplace.

Promoting Global Competence and Social Justice in Teacher Education reconceptualizes the purpose of education to include the attainment of global or cosmopolitan perspectives. This goal has important implications for how we not only educate today's students, but also how we prepare teachers to teach in a diverse and complex world in which habits of perspective, inquiry, imagination, empathy, communication, commitment, humility, integrity, and judgment increasingly resonate in importance. This book advocates for preparing teacher candidates to acquire a nuanced, global perspective of their subject areas and be prepared to handle the demands of educating students for our changing global context. To this end, Promoting Global Competence and Social Justice in Teacher Education encourages the development of pedagogical strategies that will enable students to consider multiple perspectives and cultivate respect for diverse peoples and cultures.