Volume 10, Issue 6

The author compares the current financial crises to a storm that influences all members of the academic community—students, faculty, and staff. She provides several suggestions for how institutions and individuals could and should react to the financial storm that has changed all of our lives. She specifically urges clear and direct communication between students and parents and students and institutions. In addition, she urges institutions to examine their policies and procedures to see if they are responsive to the current financial situation.

Over the past several months, messages of "hope" from the most recent presidential campaign have been followed by documentation of widespread financial insecurity. The rocky economic climate continues to impact adversely higher education institutions, communities, families, and individuals. This fall, more students with financial or educational uncertainties may be seeking assistance at student affairs offices with smaller staffs, fewer resources, or both. While offering no concrete solutions to these problems, the three major ethics and professional standards statements are abiding sources of support and guidance as student affairs professionals begin what may be a very difficult year.

Campuses can learn from their experiences throughout cycles of feast and famine. Leaders in student affairs can build resiliency in their staff and institutions in the face of many kinds of challenges from economic stress. The author reflects upon her lived-experience and offers some insights that may help to frame strategies for the impending "winter." Recognizing that dire times can create opportunities for new partnerships and cross-functional work, she argues that difficult decisions are made more easily in a climate where core values and institutional mission and purpose are widely shared.

In these hard economic times, maintaining a high quality experience for many students will be especially difficult, especially at large public institutions, as class sizes grow and faculty and staff numbers shrink. One of the more important actions institutional leaders at all levels can take in coming months to avoid a "campus depression" is to inspire and motivate faculty and staff to do their best work under challenging conditions. Other potentially productive steps are directing resources to effective educational programs and practices, making sure they are implemented well, and converting student employment on or off campus into a high-impact activity that enhances undergraduate learning and personal development.

Colleges and universities are destined to endure at least a short-term future of economic stress. Endowment spending models ensure minimal to no returns for at least one, if not two, more years. Public institutions will have absorbed so many budget cuts that it will take years before revenues approach recent levels, and deferred maintenance of buildings will limit most facility enhancements on campuses for quite some time. The most immediate consequences on students are just now being understood. Hopes and fears operate in a delicate and harmonious interplay. . . stimulating feelings of optimism and pessimism as the world turns.

The unanticipated and unwelcome detour precipitated by the economic recession comes at a time of vulnerability for American higher education. Questions of educational purpose have been raised with increasing urgency over the last quarter century, and they have catalyzed promising new thinking and new experimentation. Recent years have seen encouraging progress in shaping an agenda for undergraduate liberal education that will more effectively produce graduates who are prepared to grapple, imaginatively and responsibly, with complex challenges they will face throughout their lives. Yet progress in disseminating these ideas has been painfully slow. We can hope that the current economic crisis may be the impetus institutions of higher learning have needed to become experiential learning organizations.

Professors are considered leaders because they enjoy a formal authority within the academy. But they are more apt to be effective leaders if they view themselves as having a unique voice among many voices, share their voice and encourage others to express their views and perspectives within a community of challenge and support, and demonstrate openness to new ideas and viewpoints of those with whom they interact—students and colleagues.

What constitutes a "good" service-learning venture or short-term mission trip? How can leaders of such programs unwittingly do damage, both to participants and those they intend to help? Best and promising practices in any endeavor stand in contrast to worst and destructive practices; sometimes it is easier to comprehend the former when they are vividly contrasted with their logical opposites. This article summarizes, in narrative form, eleven years of research into best and worst practices in service-learning ventures and short-term mission trips. A primary conclusion has to do with the importance of cultivating and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships with host partners over time.

The economic recession has had major impacts on career aspirations and lifestyles of many college students today. Only a few years ago, jobs out of college were plentiful and lucrative. The affluence of the late 1990s and early 2000s ushered in a period of prosperity, opportunity, and even indulgence for numerous college students. Until the recent economic crisis, many students saw themselves heading on the fast track to platinum careers in fields such as finance, law, medicine, and consulting. They looked forward to taking advantage of the promised "good life," which guaranteed high starting salaries and other financial rewards Today, job options are much more limited and salaries considerably lower for college graduates. Often students are faced with prospects of only "maybes" or uncertainties that have shaken their confidence and required them to reconsider their personal futures and career plans, often forcing them to undertake significant lifestyle adjustments. While the impact of the economic recession has had negative consequences, its influence has also revealed possibilities and options that some college students may not have considered earlier. In this article the authors examine the "upside" of the financial downturn for college students and explore whether the hard times that confront students today may have some unexpected positive benefits, not only for college students but also for higher education.

How much time do we commit to thinking about our approach to constructing and maintaining positive ethical climates within our institutions? If it is our goal to be seen as honest, ethical, caring, and civil individuals, we must project those qualities from our earliest interactions with an organization. We send messages about the quality of our character from the time we first interact with a prospective employer. Those early interactions set the tone for ways in which others will see us and the expectations student and professional colleagues will have for how we will comport ourselves. It is extremely important to pay attention to how we enter the organization environment.

Promoting social justice is popular in American colleges, though the specific concepts and values associated with social justice tend to be inconsistently articulated. Noting that diverse possible definitions for social justice seem to underlie some controversies surrounding the concept, the authors conducted a study that employs a version of cultural consensus analysis to investigate actual college student definitions of conditions and actions they associate with social justice. Comparing students who identify as liberal politically with students who identify as conservative politically demonstrates more similarities than differences, with most students putting particular emphasis on equal rights, basic needs, education, and community service. At the same time, students who identify as liberal politically tended to put more emphasis on environmental issues while students who identify as conservative tended to put more emphasis on charity and just policy. Recognizing these commonalities and differences has implications for promoting values associated with social justice as part of a college education.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between self-actualization, attachment style, and ethnic identity of college students. Participants (N= 373) from a private, Midwestern university completed surveys which measured each of these variables. Results revealed a significant negative relationship between self-actualization and both avoidant and anxiety attachment styles. Results also showed a significant positive relationship between selfactualization and two subscales of the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) – Self- Identification and Ethnicity, and Attitudes Toward Other Groups.

Last November's Journal of College and Character's "Spirituality on Campus" essay featured reflections on the growing imperative to assess religious and spiritual dimensions of campus climate, including related initiatives and programs designed to engage students' spirituality. The essay reviewed campus climate literature, discussed emerging "best practices" for spirituallyinfused programming, and offered a series of suggestions related to the assessment of each (Bryant, 2008). Building on the ideas generated in the essay, during the past year we initiated a project designed to examine campus climates and religious and spiritual programming in colleges and universities and each program's relationship to college student outcomes. This essay describes our journey toward developing a new assessment tool: The Collegiate Religious and Spiritual Climate Survey.

Over the past decade, community service has become a staple on most college campuses. According to UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, 65% of college students described their respective institutions as offering opportunities to participate in community service (Liu, Ruiz, DeAngelo, &Pryor, 2009). Likewise, in responses to the 2006 Civic and Political Health of the Nation survey, 43% of the nation's college students reported participating in some form of community service in the past year. However, a much smaller number of college students—approximately 19%—reported volunteering on a regular basis (CIRCLE, 2009).

The co-editors of the Journal of College and Character thank Dr. Debora Liddell for her many contributions to the JCC over the past 8 years. Dr. Liddell's regular column, New Scholars and Scholarship, highlighted the work of emerging scholars. Debora initiated this column, and her regular interviews provided a personal introduction for many new scholars and helped to disseminate their ideas and research to the broader profession. Liddell has been the longest editorial contributor to the JCC, and we are most grateful for her valuable leadership and scholarly contributions over the past decade.

Matthew Bundick is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in educational psychology, specializing in adolescent development, at Stanford University’s School of Education, and serves as a researcher in the Stanford Center on Adolescence. Prior to his doctoral studies, he took an undergraduate degree in psychology, and earned master’s degrees in social/personality psychology and higher education. He worked for a number of years as an academic advisor and career counselor at the University of Pittsburgh. Following completion of his doctorate, Matthew will serve as a postdoctoral fellow in the MacArthur Foundation’s Network on Transitions to Adulthood.

The rigors of West Point have primed cadets for the challenges they will face in their careers as army officers, and beyond. I am no exception—I’ve had my share of developmental activities at the Academy. At the moments of my greatest development, I felt the most vulnerable, the most weak, and the most hopeless, but I could never have realized this at the time. Now, looking back, I know that the road to successful officership has its bumps, twists, and turns for a reason. West Point provides the crucible in which to fail and learn, and most importantly, to lead.

The development of good teaching pedagogy for pre-service students is one of the major goals of university schools of education. The art of teaching is a complex process that leads to many debates and requires a consistent review of current strategies and effective practices. Equally significant is the delicate balance in the relationship between teacher and student. This essay brings to light an essential point for discussion: the role of self-reflection as viewed in the Dewey model. In reflecting on my own teaching career I was reminded that teachers teach students not only methodology and content, but also values. Such issues that are created by real world lessons may lead to deliberations regarding justice, equity, respect, and other virtues that might contribute not only to better students, but to better citizens.

The central premise of Turnaround Leadership for Higher Education is that institutions of higher education need to become more “change-capable” to meet successfully the economic and societal challenges of the 21st century. Fullan and Scott propose that effective, or what they label “turnaround,” leadership is the key to transforming colleges and universities from their current “change averse culture” to one that is “change-capable.”

I am very pleased to write this column for the Journal of College an Character, a journal that has had an influential history in addressing issues that many of us in student affairs have always been passionate about—holistic student development, integration of the mind and heart, self identity, engagement in the world, experiential learning, values, and spirituality. I now suggest that we include internationalization in our thinking and actions as educators. How do we guide and challenge students to live productively and meaningfully in a more pluralistic and diverse world? In my travels to many campuses over the past few years, I receive whole hearted agreement and strong commitment, especially from presidents and boards of trustees that we in U.S. universities must better prepare students to be global citizens. But what does this “preparation” mean and how can we create an environment on campus and beyond that effectively fosters holistic global learning and development?