Now Available on Amazon.com!
Outsourcing Student Success: The History of Institutional Research and the Future of Higher Education is now available in e-book format from Amazon.com for $8.99 (US).
Outsourcing Student Success, an independent and critical analysis of the history of institutional research in higher education administration, explores the progress of the profession from the early twentieth century to the present. Published by Historia|Research Press, the book critically examines the stagnation of institutional research during the past fifty years and the culture of non-accountability that rose in opposition to forestall scientific research on higher education. The narrative delivers a cautionary tale for those carrying forward the mantle of higher education reform and reveals to policymakers, administrators, faculty, students, and families the reasons why the data that institutions collect, analyze, and publicize have not advanced college student success adequately.
Joseph H. Wycoff, PhD, is an independent scholar and consultant who has worked in academic, market, and institutional research during the past twenty-five years, including fifteen years in higher education. He holds a doctorate in US history with an emphasis on business and consumer history. His institutional research background features professional experience in three sectors of higher education: a community college, a private nonprofit institution, and a Research I university, the University of Washington, where he earned his doctorate. He has presented independent scholarship for the Society for Social Science History, Business History Conference, New England Historical Association, and Historians of the Early American Republic.
“This work has given me an opportunity to bring together my training as a professional historian and my experience as an institutional researcher in higher education,” Dr. Wycoff shared. “Scholars largely have neglected the origins of institutional research from the effort to apply scientific principles to the study of college administration and the role early professionals in the field played in the movement to democratize higher education as advocated by the 1946 Truman Commission. For the past fifty years, the profession has been hamstrung by the notion that it is an administrative ‘function’ and unable to become a discipline in the traditional sense.”
Midwest Book Review
In March 2018, Midwest Book Review reviewed Outsourcing Student Success for the Education Shelf of its Small Press Bookwatch:
Critique: Exceptionally well written, deftly organized, accessibly presented, impressively informed and informative, “Outsourcing Student Success: The History of Institutional Research and the Future of Higher Education” is a unique, extraordinary and insightful study that should be a part of every college and university library Contemporary Education collection and supplemental studies lists.
See the full review here.
Upcoming Special Promotion
Outsourcing Student Success (Kindle Edition) will be available for free downloads to Kindle users between May 28 and June 1, 2018.