A New Set of Lenses for Looking at Colleges and Universities. Carnegie Perspectives

Résumé du livre

The Carnegie Foundation has developed a new set of lenses for viewing American higher education that broadens description of U.S. colleges and universities. By expanding the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education from a single typology to a set of distinct classifications representing several ways to think about how colleges and universities resemble or differ from one another, the Foundation aims to provide users with greater analytic flexibility, allowing them to choose the classification that is best suited to their needs and questions. Building on a classification first developed in 1970, five new classifications are organized around three central questions: (1) What is taught? (2) To whom? and (3) In what setting? The system allows users to examine the points of intersection among the different classifications. Which institutions emphasize professional fields at the doctoral level yet emphasize the arts and sciences in their undergraduate education? Which ones emphasize business programs at the master's level and blend the arts and sciences with occupational/professional training at the undergraduate level? While the original Classification was intended primarily for use by researchers, it is believed that the flexibility offered by multiple categories invites a wider range of uses, including: (1) Researchers can use the new classifications to examine how different student populations are served by different institutional types, or they can use them to understand differences in the lives of students and faculty members; (2) Policy makers can use the classifications to ask new questions about institutional diversity and how particular needs are being met; (3) Institutional personnel can use the classifications to compose a variety of possible peer groups, as a step toward examining programs and performance relative to comparable institutions; and (4) Prospective students and their parents might find value in the classifications, which include features such as the degree of correspondence between undergraduate and graduate education.