The importance of the first-year experience is now well recognised. This collection of papers makes a fascinating and important contribution to our understanding of students' transition to higher education. This is a scholarly, engaging and illuminating text, that is relevant not only in the context of South Africa, but for anyone interested in student learning in the first year of university education. David Gosling, Plymouth University

FOCUS ON COMMUNITY COLLEGE SUCCESS, 4th Edition, speaks directly to community college students, delivering strategies for navigating the unique challenges of juggling school, family, work, and living/studying at home. Updated with the most current research, this forward-thinking text continues to strive to improve student retention, motivation, and engagement, as well as offer proof of student progress and course efficacy through the Entrance and Exit Interviews. The fourth edition includes expanded coverage on resilience, with strategies for assessing and building resilience. A revised section on the importance of group work gives students the tools they need to successfully collaborate. Now available with MindTap, a fully online, highly personalized learning experience built upon FOCUS ON COMMUNITY COLLEGE SUCCESS. MindTap combines learning tools--readings, multimedia, activities, and assessments --into a singular Learning Path that guides students through their course. Staley, a leader in the field of motivation, helps students develop realistic expectations of what it takes to learn while encouraging and engaging them with direct applications and immediate results.

The definitive career guide for grad students, adjuncts, post-docs and anyone else eager to get tenure or turn their Ph.D. into their ideal job Each year tens of thousands of students will, after years of hard work and enormous amounts of money, earn their Ph.D. And each year only a small percentage of them will land a job that justifies and rewards their investment. For every comfortably tenured professor or well-paid former academic, there are countless underpaid and overworked adjuncts, and many more who simply give up in frustration. Those who do make it share an important asset that separates them from the pack: they have a plan. They understand exactly what they need to do to set themselves up for success. They know what really moves the needle in academic job searches, how to avoid the all-too-common mistakes that sink so many of their peers, and how to decide when to point their Ph.D. toward other, non-academic options. Karen Kelsky has made it her mission to help readers join the select few who get the most out of their Ph.D. As a former tenured professor and department head who oversaw numerous academic job searches, she knows from experience exactly what gets an academic applicant a job. And as the creator of the popular and widely respected advice site The Professor is In, she has helped countless Ph.D.’s turn themselves into stronger applicants and land their dream careers. Now, for the first time ever, Karen has poured all her best advice into a single handy guide that addresses the most important issues facing any Ph.D., including: -When, where, and what to publish -Writing a foolproof grant application -Cultivating references and crafting the perfect CV -Acing the job talk and campus interview -Avoiding the adjunct trap -Making the leap to nonacademic work, when the time is right The Professor Is In addresses all of these issues, and many more.

This publication¿the latest report from AAC&U¿s Liberal Education and America¿s Promise (LEAP) initiative¿defines a set of educational practices that research has demonstrated have a significant impact on student success. Author George Kuh presents data from the National Survey of Student Engagement about these practices and explains why they benefit all students, but also seem to benefit underserved students even more than their more advantaged peers. The report also presents data that show definitively that underserved students are the least likely students, on average, to have access to these practices.

Student Success in College describes policies, programs, and practices that a diverse set of institutions have used to enhance student achievement. This book clearly shows the benefits of student learning and educational effectiveness that can be realized when these conditions are present. Based on the Documenting Effective Educational Practice (DEEP) project from the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University, this book provides concrete examples from twenty institutions that other colleges and universities can learn from and adapt to help create a success-oriented campus culture and learning environment.

This book is appropriate for courses in First-Year Experience, College Success, and Study Skills. The focus of Foundations for Learning is on academic adjustment with personal development issues seamlessly integrated into the academic emphasis theme of 'claiming an education' and taking responsibility for one's own education. Foundations for Learning addresses both the attitudinal variables and personality traits that affect college achievement like locus of control, conceptions of intelligence, and intellectual curiosity in relation to specific study-related behaviors such as text annotation and active listening. At its core, this text is based on the psychology of adjustment. Students are pushed to consider how each mindset, perception, and attitude connects with their skill sets, and how one influences the other. The text encourages students to use this insight to make the necessary adjustments to their new role as college students. It offers an acute awareness of first-year student needs, an intellectual approach, and a tight framework. It is primarily focused on the development of academic adjustment issues and meta-cognitive strategies as they naturally unfold during the first semester, as opposed to primarily focusing on social adjustment issues or issues that aren't immediately relevant such as career development and is written in a challenging yet accessible way. This revision covers emerging technologies, broadens its audience, and more.

Teaching First-Year College Students is a thoroughly expanded and updated edition of Teaching College Freshmen, which has become a classic in the field since it was published in 1991. The book offers concrete suggestions about specific strategies and approaches for faculty who teach first-year courses. The new edition is based on the most current research on teaching and learning and incorporates information about the demographic changes that have occurred in student populations since the first edition was published. The updated strategies are designed to help first-year students adjust effectively to both the academic and nonacademic pressures of college. The authors also help faculty understand first-year students and show how their experiences in high school have prepared3⁄4or not prepared3⁄4them for the world of higher education.

Even as the number of students attending college has more than doubled in the past forty years, it is still the case that nearly half of all college students in the United States will not complete their degree within six years. It is clear that much remains to be done toward improving student success. For more than twenty years, Vincent Tinto’s pathbreaking book Leaving College has been recognized as the definitive resource on student retention in higher education. Now, with Completing College, Tinto offers administrators a coherent framework with which to develop and implement programs to promote completion. Deftly distilling an enormous amount of research, Tinto identifies the essential conditions enabling students to succeed and continue on within institutions. Especially during the early years, he shows that students thrive in settings that pair high expectations for success with structured academic, social, and financial support, provide frequent feedback and assessments of their performance, and promote their active involvement with other students and faculty. And while these conditions may be worked on and met at different institutional levels, Tinto points to the classroom as the center of student education and life, and therefore the primary target for institutional action. Improving retention rates continues to be among the most widely studied fields in higher education, and Completing College carefully synthesizes the latest research and, most importantly, translates it into practical steps that administrators can take to enhance student success.