A Critical Look At Institutional Mission

This book explores the relevance of institutional mission to writing program administration and writing center direction. It helps WPAs and writing center directors understand the challenges and opportunities mission can pose to their work. It also examines ways WPAs and writing center directors can work with and against mission statements and legacy practices to do their best work.

Labored: The State(ment) and Future of Work in Composition, edited by Randall McClure, Dayna V. Goldstein, and Michael Pemberton, offers both a retrospective and a prospective look at the 1989 Statement of Principles and Standards for the Postsecondary Teaching of Writing and its relation to the changing nature of work in composition. Stemming from an investigative project to strengthen the Statement with data culled from national reports on labor conditions, this collection draws on the expertise of scholars whose research agendas and lived experiences afford fresh insights and critical analyses on labor issues in composition and writing program administration.

Anne Kathrin Adam conducts several empirical analyses to gain insights into the characteristics of institutional goals and strategy as well as the relationship between goals, strategy, and factors of success of business schools. The author gives an overview of the content of mission statements, strategic profiles of 521 U.S. AACSB-accredited business schools, and the importance of various factors of influence on selected dimensions of market success. Her findings stress the importance of setting a clear strategic focus.

Graham Peeke reviews critically the concept of institutional mission in higher and further education, and evaluates the claims made for its use. Through case studies he analyses different methods of establishing objectives, provides guidance on how to operationalize missions so that they are more than just rhetoric, and links institutional change with the development of a strategic perspective in education management. He argues that it is essential to adopt participative methods in mission development, that procedures for operationalization are crucial, and that broad dimensions of mission need to be agreed with the core of the organization. However, given the plurality of educational organizations, he also argues that autonomy is necessary for significant groupings throughout the institutions. This is essential reading for all policy-makers and managers in higher and further education, and for researchers into the management of higher education.

This comprehensive reference covers three separate areas related to IRBs: administration, daily management; and ethical issues. This instructional manual provides IRB members and administrators with the information they need to run an efficient and effective system of protecting human research subjects, while remaining in compliance with federal research regulations. The text includes case studies, sample forms, and sample policy documents. The updated Second Edition includes seven new chapters: IRB Closure of Study Files, Internet Research, Research in Public Schools, Phase I Clinical Trials in Healthy Volunteers, Vulnerability in Research, Balancing the Risks and Potential Benefits,and HIPAA.

Influenced by Erika Lindemann’s A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers, A Rhetoric for Writing Program Administrators delineates the major issues and questions in the field of writing program administration and provides readers new to that field with theoretical lenses through which to view those issues and questions. In brief and direct though not oversimplified chapters, A Rhetoric for Writing Program Administrators explains the historical and theoretical background of such concepts as “academic freedom,” “first-year composition,” “basic writing,” “writing across the curriculum,” “placement,” “ESL,” “general education,” and “transfer. ” Its thirty-nine contributors are seasoned writing program and center administrators who, in a range of voices, map the discipline of writing program administration and guide readers toward finding their own answers to solving problems at their own institutions.

The Space Communications Office (SCO) at NASA has two primary roles. The first is to manage two of the communications networks that enable spaceflight operations and research, and the second is to integrate agency-wide telecommunications issues. In 2005, NASA asked the NRC to review the effectiveness of the SCO in carrying out its responsibilities by assessing the overall quality of the space communications program. This report presents a review of each of the program elements within the SCOâ€"the space network, NASA's integrated space network (NISN), spectrum management, standards management, search and rescue, communications and navigation architecture, technology, and operations integration. The review focuses on formulation of plans for each element, plan development methodology, connections with the broader community, and overall capabilities. Recommendations for improving SCO operations and organization are provided.

Deresiewicz takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with demands for perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications received by college admissions committees. Students are losing the ability to think independently. College is supposed to be a time for self-discovery-- but the system is broken, and he offers solutions on how to fix it.