The age of social transformation. Discussion paper presented at the 1997 AAHE Summer Academy, Snowbird, Utah. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for The Study of Higher Education, Miami. Today, the curriculum is specialized and fragmented. Few institutions offer a coherent core curriculum that results in a common intellectual experience.
Students register by telephone, often without talking with an advisor.
Increasing numbers of classroom instructors are part-time and many don't know enough about the institution and its programs to accurately advise their students. And students themselves are more diverse in almost every way compared with Joe and Jane College. In fact, the majority of undergraduates today commute to campus and attend school part-time. Except for several dozen selective liberal arts colleges, record numbers of undergraduates are, by their own admission, not well prepared for college-level work, though they expect nonetheless to get good grades. Many students live with family members, some of whom may be their own children.