Alexander W. Astin and Lori J. Vogelgesang

Funded by the Atlantic Philanthropies (USA) Inc., this three-year study continues the work of HERI to understand how service learning is affecting students and faculty in higher education. The student study examines the post-college impact of participating in service learning during the undergraduate years. Life After College: The Survey of Former Undergraduates is designed to explore how the college experience impacts life after college, including participants' values, opinions, and current activities. In particular, the data from this study will help us understand adults' involvement and non-involvement in their communities. This longitudinal survey will mark the second follow- up the 1994 freshman cohort, and explores how service learning and other college experiences are shaping their lives as adults. This cohort was initially followed up in 1998 for the HERI study: How Service Learning Affects Students.

The faculty study will survey faculty across the nation, in order to understand their beliefs, work, and participation in service learning pedagogies. The 2004-2005 Faculty Survey will place a special emphasis on community engagement, examining faculty teaching practices, attitudes and perceptions of institutional climate. This study represents the second HERI study of faculty community service work. The results of the first study (conducted in 1995) are reported in: Community Service in Higher Education: A Look at the Nation's Faculty.

Items of Interest	Download PDF Article	Download Powerpoint Presentation
The Lasting Impact of College on Young Adults’ Civic and Political Engagement, ASHE Conference Paper: November, 2005.
Using National Data to Inform Teaching and Academic Initiatives: Understanding and Strengthening Faculty and Student Engagement. Presentation at the AAC&U Conference, Providence, November 2005.
Research Report Number 2, April 2005.
Press Release: Volunteering and Community Involvement Declines After Students Leave College
Can Service Learning and a College Climate of Service Lead to Increased Political Engagement After College?, AERA Conference Paper: April 2005.
Conceptualizing, Measuring and Understanding Students’ Post-College Civic Engagement: What we know about the impaction of service-learning. Presentation at the Continuums of Service Conference, Portland, April 2005.
2004 Post-college Follow up Survey
The 2003 Press Release announcing this study can be found here.

Linda J. Sax, Principal Investigator

This project marks a collaboration between HERI and the University of Southern California to study the factors leading to retention, transfer, and other forms of success for students enrolled in the largest community college district in the nation Los Angeles. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, this three-year longitudinal project involves the administration of a paper questionnaire to 5,000 students at all nine colleges in the Los Angeles Community College District, with a paper and web-based follow-up conducted one year later.

This project, funded by the Kellogg Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good, is housed at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. It seeks to increase awareness and engender commitment via an action agenda relevant to the public service role of higher education in the United States. The programmatic efforts of the Forum are carried out in three areas: leadership dialogues with education leaders to foster conversations about the public service mission; the promotion of partnerships to connect research to practice by linking public service research dissemination outlets and professional associations; and the influence of policy and perceptions related to the way in which universities and colleges act on their missions. The Higher Education Research Institute has provided leadership in the design of the national dialogues and has hosted one of the leadership dialogues at Oxnard, California. In addition, in collaboration with the University of Michigan's Center for the Study of Higher and Post-Secondary Education, the Institute has held an intergenerational research symposium at UCLA on the topic of higher education for the public good. The symposium engaged senior scholars, newly emerging scholars and foundation officers in developing strategies for strengthening the capacity of higher education’s scholarship to serve the public good.

Proceedings from the symposium are available on the publications page.