Student Experience

Actually, university students are not ‘academically adrift’

Igor Chirikov
John Aubrey Douglass
Gregg Thomson
2025

SERU Research Report on Graduate Student Experiences in Japan

Lilan Chen
Akari Kikuchi
Yuichiro Wajima
Tatsuo Kawashima
2024

Given the perceived imbalance in resource allocation and the recognized disparities in degree completion rates across academic disciplines in Japan's higher education system, this study explores the perceptions and experiences of graduate students through a comparison between graduate students in Humanities and Social Sciences and those in Sciences and Engineering. Osaka University has been chosen as the case study because it is one of the former empirical and research-intensive universities located in the international city of Osaka, Japan, which is well-known as one of the most DEI-...

New Forbes Report Featuring SERU Multi-Engagement Findings

April 24, 2025

A new Forbes report, authored by Bryan Penprase (Vice President for Sponsored Research & External Academic Relations, Soka University of America) featured the latest findings from the SERU Multi-Engagement Report.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpenprase/2025/04/24/seru-survey-show-students-…

Civic & Academic Engagement in the Multiversity: Institutional Trends and Initiatives at the University of California

Symposium Objectives: share national perspectives on how research universities are developing and supporting academic environments that integrate civic engagment; present national and UC specific data (including UCUES data) on student civic and academic engagement; discuss system-wide reports and white papers addressing current UC best practices in community-based learning and research; and discuss future innovative academic initiatives within the UC

THE EFFECT OF PRE-COLLEGE EXTRACURRICULAR PARTICIPATION ON FIRST-YEAR COLLEGE ENGAGEMENT AND COMPLETION by Tongshan Chang, UCOP CSHE 6.17 (April 2017)

Tongshan Chang
2017

This study examines how student pre-college participation in extracurricular activities and volunteer and community services varies by demographic and academic variables, and how their experience participating in these activities affects first-year college engagement and learning outcomes. The analysis focuses on students at the University of California’s (UC) nine undergraduate campuses and is based on the self-reported data that compares their high school experience with their first year experience at UC. Students differ significantly in their participation in precollege activities...

CHANGES IN KNOWLEDGE CULTURES AND RESEARCH ON STUDENT LEARNING

Monika Nerland
2012

This paper discusses how contemporary changes in knowledge cultures and practices alter conditions for student learning in higher education and what this may imply for research on student learning. Drawing on perspectives from social studies of knowledge, it is argued that the general emphasis on science in society generates an increased research orientation also in professional programs and brings with it a focus not only on science-based knowledge but also on the investigative processes through which knowledge is produced and validated. Changes are also related to the emergence of...

PORTRAIT OF THE DISENGAGED

Steven G. Brint
Allison M. Cantwell
2012

The topic of undergraduate academic engagement has been a matter of intense inquiry for more than a generation. This paper examines the other side of the coin: the size and characteristics of academically disengaged populations. Drawing on classic sociological work on conformity and deviance, we theorize four dimensions of student academic disengagement: values disengagement, behavioral disengagement, alternative involvement, and interactional disengagement. Using survey data, we estimate the size of disengaged populations along each of these dimensions and the characteristics of...

Research University Spaces: The Multiple Purposes of an Undergraduate Education. Steven Brint. CSHE 9.15 (October 2015)

Steven G. Brint
2015

Students, faculty, and the public expect undergraduate education in research universities to contribute to multiple developmental purposes. While academic purposes remain pre-eminent, a singular focus on knowledge and skills development is no longer adequate. Based on data and analysis from the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Undergraduate Survey, this essay identifies and discusses five widely endorsed purposes of student development during the college years: social, personal, academic, civic, and economic. It also identifies the characteristics of classroom and...

DOES IT PAY TO BE A STEM GRADUATE? Evidence from the Polish Graduate Tracking System by Tomasz Zając, Mikołaj Jasiński, and Marek Bożykowski, University of Warsaw CSHE 13.17 (November 2017)

Tomasz Zajac
Mikołaj Jasiński
Marek Bożykowski
2017

Returns to education have received much attention from scholars as well as policy makers and the media. It is a well-established fact that educational attainment improves employability and wages and that university graduates better than their less educated counterparts. However, the educational expansion rises the importance of the horizontal dimension in explaining social stratification. The field of study has proved to be an important factor for graduates’ labor market performance in many countries. This paper discusses the differences in the labor market outcomes in early careers of...

Reflections on the University of California From the Free Speech Movement to the Global University by Neil J. Smelser (2010)

Neil J. Smelser
2010

These invaluable essays offer an insider’s perspective on three decades at a major American university during a time of political turmoil. Neil J. Smelser, who spent thirty-six years as a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, sheds new light on a full range of the issues that dominated virtually all institutions of higher learning during the second half of the twentieth century. Smelser considers student activism—in particular the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley—political surprises, affirmative action, multiculturalism and the culture wars, and much more...