ABOUT THE UCLA HIGHER EDUCATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE

The Higher Education Research Institute is based in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. The Institute serves as an interdisciplinary center for research, evaluation, information, policy studies, and research training in postsecondary education. HERI's research program covers a variety of topics including the outcomes of postsecondary education, leadership development, institutional transformation, faculty performance, federal and state policy, and educational equity. Visiting scholars, faculty, and graduate students have made use of HERI facilities and research resources since its affiliation with UCLA in 1973. For more information, see http://www.heri.ucla.edu.

About Alexander W. Astin

Alexander W. Astin is the Allan M. Cartter Professor Emeritus of Higher Education at the University of California, Los Angeles and Founding Director of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. He has served as Director of Research for both the American Council on Education and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. He is the Founding Director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program, an ongoing national study of some twelve million students, 300,000 faculty and staff, and 1,600 higher education institutions.  Dr. Astin has authored 20 books and some 300 other publications in the field of higher education, and has been a recipient of awards for outstanding research from more than a dozen national associations and professional societies. He has also been elected to membership in the National Academy of Education, has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and is the recipient of eleven honorary degrees.

About Helen S. Astin

Helen S. Astin, a psychologist, is distinguished Professor Emeritus of Higher Education and Senior Scholar of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. She served as the Associate Provost of the College of Letters and Science at UCLA from 1983 to 1987. Author of 11 books and over 100 other publications, Helen Astin has been honored with the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Research and Literature of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. She has also received the Distinguished Research Award of Division J of the American Education Research Association and the Howard Bowen Distinguished Career Award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education, and is the recipient of three honorary degrees.

About Jennifer A. Lindholm

Jennifer A. Lindholm is Special Assistant to the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. From 2001-2006, she served as Associate Director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute and Director of the Institute's Triennial National Faculty Survey. Her scholarship focuses on the structural and cultural dimensions of academic work; the career development, work experiences, and professional behavior of college and university faculty; issues related to institutional change; and undergraduate students' personal development.

ABOUT THE JOHN TEMPLETON FOUNDATION

The John Templeton Foundation serves as a philanthropic catalyst for discoveries relating to the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate reality. The Foundation supports research on subjects ranging from complexity, evolution, and infinity to creativity, forgiveness, love, and free will, and encourages civil, informed dialogue among scientists, philosophers, and theologians and between such experts and the public at large, for the purposes of definitional clarity and new insights.  Visit www.templeton.org for further information.