Foundations of Higher Education

Catalog description

This course intends to explore what might be called the landscape of U.S. higher education. Acknowledging that a majority of the program's students enter the doctoral program from a wide variety of disciplines and fields, this course is intended to give students an overview of past and current research in four overarching areas of inquiry that a majority of higher education researchers pursue. The four organizing themes are: foundations of higher education; college students; administration and organization in higher education; and, equity and diversity in higher education. Students will recognize that these four themes also intentionally correspond to the four areas in which they eventually must demonstrate competency (i.e., analytical comprehension and significance of the research). In examining the research in each of these four arenas of inquiry, students will consider various perspectives that higher education researchers commonly utilize including economic, historical, sociological, cultural, and legal perspectives.