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This fall Ithaka S+R is launching the tenth project in our ongoing Research Support Services program. This project will focus on the research practices of faculty in the fields of language and literature, broadly defined, and will seek to identify areas where these scholars need further support. Research in language and literature is typically delineated through sub-fields grouped by genre, theory and/or method of analysis (e.g., poetry, history of…

What goals are community college students trying to achieve through their education? What challenges are they facing? What services might help them succeed? These questions are at the center of a multi-year research project that Ithaka S+R and Northern Virginia Community College, along with six other community college partners and with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), are currently undertaking. Today, we’re issuing our first report from the project,…

Martin Kurzweil and the Aspen Institute’s Joshua Wyner published “The talent is out there. So why don’t elite colleges enroll more low-income students?” in The Washington Post.  Writing in response to a recent report from the American Enterprise Institute, they argue that “both low- and middle-income students are severely underrepresented at selective institutions. The report presents a false trade-off that diverts attention from the real issue: Students in the top income bracket are extraordinarily overrepresented at our nation’s most…

As an organization that researches scholarly communications and libraries, our interest at Ithaka S+R was piqued when Joseph Esposito questioned whether university press sales to academic libraries were actually in decline. The reason? University presses tend to measure their sales to academic libraries through the wholesale vendors that traditionally distribute their publications. Since Amazon came onto the scene, however, academic libraries have begun to acquire many of their titles from the online retailer, whose sales metrics are not typically counted…

Last November, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) convened experts to explore how to strengthen the formal education component of the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian grant program to best support library and information science programs to meet the needs of students and libraries while increasing diversity within the library and archives professions. I’m excited to share that this report which I coauthored, “Positioning Library and Information Science Graduate Programs for 21st Century…

I am thrilled to announce that we have completed our updates for the upcoming Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey 2018. As in previous cycles, the survey will explore the research and teaching practices, perceptions, and needs of scholars at four-year colleges and universities. This year, we have developed new thematic areas of coverage on research dissemination, open educational resources, and learning analytics, which we believe are vital emergent strategic issues for higher education institutions and their…

The American Talent Initiative (ATI) just released new research suggesting that, each year, 50,000 high-achieving, low- and moderate-income community college students do not transfer to any four-year institution. Approximately 15,000 of these lower-income students have the academic credentials to be successful at even the most selective colleges and universities, having earned a 3.7 GPA or higher at their community college. ATI’s research demonstrates that enrolling more lower-income freshman is not the only viable strategy for increasing socioeconomic diversity…

From 2015-2017, Ithaka S+R partnered with 29 researchers at 11 academic libraries in the U.S. to study the research activities and support needs of scholars in Asian Studies. Today we are excited to release the project’s capstone report, Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Asian Studies Scholars, which provides actionable findings for organizations, institutions, and professionals who support these research activities.  Our report is complemented by the local findings (see below) that have…

In the spring of 2017, Lafayette College joined eleven other institutions to participate in Ithaka S+R’s qualitative study of Asian Studies scholars (Ithaka S+R’s capstone report, which includes links to the reports authored by the participating institutions, can be found here). As part of the project, Michaela Kelly and I conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews with our faculty members on their research focus and methods, information access and discovery, dissemination practices, and the state…

In an ongoing effort to document the equity, diversity, and inclusion practices of art museums, Ithaka S+R, in partnership with the Mellon Foundation and the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), has published two new case studies. At Fifty, Remodeling for Equity: MCA Chicago studies the operations, collections, programs and audience of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. This museum has undertaken creative strategies to partner board and staff in a horizontal committee intended to address issues of…

Ithaka S+R is gearing up to field our seventh national US Faculty Survey on the research and teaching practices, perceptions, and needs of scholars at four-year colleges and universities. The questionnaire for this upcoming cycle has been designed to continue tracking critical trends in higher education from previous cycles while at the same time introducing new questions to address issues of current strategic importance. Having gathered…

A new report from Sandy Baum, Cappy Hill, and myself, out today, provides an overview of college and university endowments. We seek to inform the public policy debate by exploring how endowments are structured and used, and discussing the extent to which the favorable tax policy for higher education institutions serves the public interest. We find that the distribution of endowment assets is highly skewed across institutions. The median endowment per student for all postsecondary institutions is $12,600, while…

Martin Kurzweil and Mitchell Stevens published “Setting the Table: Responsible Use of Student Data in Higher Education” in the May/June 2018 issue of EDUCAUSE Review.  As they note, “Rapid movement at the cutting edge of edtech has far outpaced changes in the laws, institutional policies, and ethical frameworks that were crafted to inform responsible use of educational information in the twentieth century. This makes for a jarring recognition, but also an opportunity to revisit and rearticulate guiding ideals of…

In today’s Inside Higher Ed, Ithaka S+R’s managing director Catharine Bond Hill asks “Can Higher Ed Change America’s Negative View?” In the piece she explores why higher education institutions have lost the public’s trust and sketches out how colleges and universities can regain it.    …

Borough of Manhattan Community College I have had the opportunity this spring to speak with students about their educational objectives, their academic and information usage practices, and the barriers they face as a part of the first phase of the Community College Libraries & Academic Support for Student Success (CCLASSS) project. Through this project, we and seven other partner colleges, aim to explore (1) how student success can be defined in a way that is inclusive of…

Last year we published findings from the Library Survey 2016. We have been running this survey on a triennial basis since 2010 to examine the attitudes and behaviors of library deans and directors at not-for profit four-year academic institutions across the United States. The Library Survey report aims to provide academic librarians and higher education leaders with information about the important issues and trends that are shaping the purpose, role, and viability of…

We’re happy to share the news that the American Talent Initiative now includes 100 institutions committed to expanding opportunity for more high-achieving, low- and moderate-income students. The full press release about reaching this milestone is below.   In just over a year, ATI has grown from 30 to 100 institutions working to attract, enroll, and graduate high-achieving, low- and moderate-income college students The American Talent Initiative (ATI), a Bloomberg Philanthropies initiative led by the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence…

Can changes to the advising process help less advantaged students persist and graduate? This is the question at the heart of an $8.9 million First in the World validation grant awarded to Georgia State University, on behalf of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA).  The Monitoring Advising Analytics to Promote Success (MAAPS) project seeks to bring to scale and test the impacts of a proactive advising system for low-income and first-generation students. Ithaka S+R was brought on to the project as…

For over five years Ithaka S+R has successfully developed large-scale research projects through our Research Support Services program to study the research support needs of scholars in disciplines including history, art history, chemistry, religious studies, agriculture and public health. We are now launching…

I am thrilled to announce that digital preservation expert and scholarly communications leader Oya Y. Rieger will be joining Ithaka S+R as a Senior Advisor on our Libraries & Scholarly Communication team on July 1.   Oya has worked at Cornell University for over 25 years and currently is the Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources & Preservation Services. When Oya joins Ithaka S+R, she will continue her affiliation with Cornell, staying on as…