Making Their Own Way: Narratives for Transforming Higher Education to Promote Self-Development
Although an advisor can find much to appreciate in the first part of Baxter Magolda’s book, perhaps the second part provides the most value for day-to-day advising practice...The practical suggestions and advice provided can certainly benefit advisors as well as advising administrators who wish to empower students in their decision making."[This book] is strongly recommended reading for educators concerned with the holistic development of their students and higher education's role in fostering critical thinking, citizenship, and civic leadership."...Provides long-awaited answers to critical questions regarding how college impacts students' lives. Through an accomplished interview technique, the author provides us with an inside tour of the lives and minds of hundreds of college graduates. The longitudinal design allows us to comprehend more fully the lifelong impact of higher education. The author weaves these stories into a highly usable framework for educational improvement. Her concrete suggestions help the reader transform insights gained from the interviews into current college curricular and co-curricular practices. This book will be immediately useful for anyone connected to the college experience."This is a rare treat in the scholarly literature. Marcia Baxter Magolda has conducted ground- breaking research in this longitudinal study. She not only builds on her prior work on students' collegiate experiences, but truly extends it into new dimensions. The most significant of these is exploring and convincingly documenting what has heretofore been a largely unexplored theoretical claim, that epistemological, interpersonal and intrapersonal aspects of development are interrelated. This is a truly significant accomplishment, and one that has the potential to make many scholars and educators reconsider their own basic assumptions about late adolescent and adult development. In addition, reading about these people's lives was like reading a novel. I was always eager to learn what was going to happen in the next chapter! In short, this is 'a good read.'