Creating Community on College Campuses

By Irving J. Spitzberg Jr. & Virginia V. Thorndike

Subjects: Education
Series: SUNY series, Frontiers in Education
Paperback : 9780791410066, 233 pages, July 1992
Hardcover : 9780791410059, 233 pages, July 1992

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Table of contents

Foreword by Ernest Boyer

Preface

Acknowledgments

Part I. INTRODUCTION

1. Overview

2. Campus Life in Perspective: Historical Snapshots

Part II. DIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY: CAN THEY COEXIST?

Introduction

3. Race and Ethnicity

4. The Climate for Women

Part III. THE BOUNDARIES OF AUTHORITY: REGULATING AND EDUCATING FOR COMMUNITY

Introductions

5. Alcohol Abuse

6. The Greeks

7. Harassment and Free Speech

8. Crime

9. Enforcement

Part IV. THE LEARNING COMMUNITY: PROMISES TO KEEP

Introduction

10. Student Priorities and Opportunities

11. Faculty Priorities and Opportunities

Part V. COMMUNITY, COMPLEXITY, DIVERSITY: MAKING THE CONNECTIONS

Introduction

12. When We Touch Common Ground

13. Compact for a Pluralistic Community

14. Recommendations for Community in Action

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Description

Creating Community on College Campuses addresses the most critical and difficult issues facing higher education in the 1990s: improving the quality of teaching and learning, raising academic standards, protecting freedom of expression, and simultaneously enhancing community of the whole and community of the parts. This book offers an understanding of community as a complex concept, one that incorporates the values of a democratic society and encourages learning and participation by all citizens of the campus, and discusses topics such as race and ethnicity, the climate for women, harassment and free speech, alcohol, crime, Greek life, and interaction among faculty and students. The authors conclude with concrete recommendations to support the implementation of pluralistic learning communities on our nation's campuses.

Irving J. Spitzberg, Jr. and Virginia V. Thorndike are President and Vice President respectively of The Knowledge Company. During 1989, they completed a year-long study of community on campus for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Dr. Spitzberg has written numerous books on leadership, race relations, comparative higher education policy, the international exchange of knowledge, and legal issues. Dr. Thorndike has written about contemporary French literary theory, foreign language pedagogy, and cross-cultural literacy.

Reviews

"Building a vital community is a challenge not just for higher learning, but for society at large. In our hard-edged competitive world, more humane, more integrative purposes must be defined. Spitzberg and Thorndike have set forth a thorough and thoughtful report that is sure to enrich the debate over how to make colleges and universities more intellectually and socially vital communities of learning." — from the foreword by Ernest L. Boyer, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching