Assessment of college environment as an approach to institutional self-analysis

Abstract

The 70’s are crucial years for higher education. They are crucial, for one thing, because of the emergence of a generation of young people, the world over, thoroughly concerned about and seriously involved in college and community affairs. They are crucial, for another thing, because these years have seen countries being confronted by tremendous problems of their own making, and being harassed by mounting tensions in their various interrelations. In the 70’s the world has become a world of shrinking distance. New streams of knowledge keep rapidly flowing from laboratories and new technology, which, if not directed with sanity, might threaten to destroy all mankind. Higher education thus faces the responsibilities of providing the necessary leadership and of serving as the conscience of society. If it has to do these, college and university administrators must make far-reaching decisions- decisions that are rendered all the more difficult by a complex of problems that have never occurred before in the same pattern or with the same magnitude.