Higher Education

Several EDC projects are carried out in partnership with university faculty. Our specific areas of focus in higher education are strengthening pre-service education of future teachers; building a pathway from K-12 education to college to careers, with a special emphasis on community colleges; and the prevention of alcohol and other drugs on college campuses.

Assessment Framework for Seminarians

EDC is designing and facilitating a process involving eight Roman Catholic seminaries in the development of assessment measures for seminarians. The project draws upon EDC’s previous work in developing skill standards and assessment tools based on those standards. The project will result in an occupational analysis, rubrics that integrate both the occupational responsibilities of priests and the behavior attributes promoted during seminary formation, and a framework for designing portfolios rooted in these materials.

Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Employment Services for Youth Offenders

The Employment Services for Youth Offenders Project provides training and job placement services to youth, ages 16 to 21, involved in the justice system. Job training and placement focuses on high wage/high demand occupations. EDC provides technical assistance to project management and to partner organizations. EDC will develop a report that analyzes the barriers local employers confront when hiring adjudicated youth.

Home Away from Home

Colleges and universities nationwide are working continually to keep safe the nearly 16 million students who live and learn on their campuses. Events such as the shooting tragedy at Virginia Tech and the renewed debate about lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 have made the discussions about campus health and safety issues more urgent than ever.

College Bound in Arkansas

Researchers at EDC are working with school leaders around the country to boost the involvement of Latino parents in their children’s education, recently focusing on an Arkansas county with one of the fastest-growing Latino populations in the United States. Researchers will work with leaders from the Helen Tyson Middle School, part of the Springdale Public Schools, to apply lessons from the EDC project PALMS—Postsecondary Access for Latino Middle-Grades Students.

"College Knowledge" for Latino Communities

Nearly half the U.S. Latino population ages 18–25 have not completed high school, and only 15 percent earn a postsecondary degree, according to a recent report by the Education Commission of the States. To improve students’ opportunities for higher education, EDC developed the project known as PALMS (Postsecondary Access for Latino Middle- Grades Students).

Health and Safety on Campus

Many of the more than eight million college students in the United States are faced with health and safety issues related to heavy use of alcohol, tobacco, other drugs, violence and injury, and the full range of mental health problems. These issues include hate crimes, vandalism, high-risk sexual practices, academic failure, and suicide.

Preventing Campus Drinking and Driving

College students, alcohol use, and cars create a deadly combination. The U.S. Department of Education’s Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention, housed at EDC, has published Safe Lanes on Campus: A Guide for Preventing Impaired Driving and Underage Drinking. The publication, which is available online, in print, and on CD, describes “environmental management strategies” that can change the climate on campuses and in their surrounding communities to deter driving under the influence and high-risk and illegal alcohol use.

First Nationwide Study of Campus Sexual Assault Policies Finds Compliance Lacking

Only 37 percent of America’s institutions of higher education report sexual crime statistics in full compliance with federal law.

An Environmental Approach to Campus Drinking

HEC is working to move colleges away from a primarily educational approach to high-risk drinking and toward a broader, public health approach. HEC collaborates with college students, administrators, and faculty to help them re-examine and expand their responses to student drinking. In addition to serving as a clearinghouse and publisher of prevention resources, HEC provides training and technical assistance to individual campuses.