Higher Education

Overview

Key Features

The Center's work is distinguished by: 

• A commitment not just to improving practice, but also to educational changes that enhance the realization of social justice in higher education.
• A consideration of how developments in the political economy shape and are expressed in the restructuring of higher education settings, professions, and practices.
• An exploration of the international/global dimensions, issues, and agencies related to higher education, with particular attention devoted to the Americas.

The Higher Education program from The University of Arizona integrates core courses in Higher Education, electives, and a minor in individually tailored courses of study that encourage students to undertake course-work with faculty in a variety of departments. The substantive core coursework (Higher Education in the U.S.,, Organization and Administration, and either College Access and Success, Theories of Inequality, Oppression, and Social Stratification, or Introduction to Comparative Higher Education) provides a foundation enabling students to comprehend the central socio-political, cultural, organizational, and economic structures comprising and influencing American higher education. The core methods classes (Quantitative Methods in Higher Education. Qualitative Methods in Higher Education, and Research Design) provide students with foundational skills with which to frame their dissertation research and other forms of inquiry,

The aim within each is for students to acquire a comprehensive understanding of concepts, theoretical frameworks, issues and practices in a particular area. Such work is organized to provide a solid foundation for students' doctoral dissertations as well as for their particular field of professional work. In addition to the concentration, doctoral students pursue a minor. The minor may be in higher education, in some other field (e.g. the student's area of master's work) or split between higher education and some other department.