The Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities (1998)

"When a university accepts an undergraduate student for admission and the student then enrolls, implicit commitments constitute an unwritten contract between them. Each assumes obligations and responsibilities, and each receives benefits. The student commits to a course of study intended to lead to a degree, agrees to follow such rules of civil behavior as the university prescribes, accepts the challenge of making an appropriate contribution to the community of scholars, and pledges to cultivate her or his mind, abilities, and talents with a view to becoming a productive and responsible citizen. The student at a research university, in addition, must come with appropriate preparation for the opportunities that will be provided, must commit to the strenuous burdens of active participation in the educational process, and must be prepared to live in a diverse and heterogeneous environment."

National Survey of Student Engagement, From Promise to Progress: How Colleges and Universities are Using Student Engagement Results to Improve Collegiate Quality (2002)

"Occasionally an idea comes along that seems to clarify complex issues and to potentially resolve fundamental problems in a given line of endeavor. Such is the connection between student engagement and collegiate quality. Student engagement represents the intersection of the time and energy students devote to educationally sound activities and the policies and practices that institutions use to induce students to take part in such activities."

"It's a deceptively simple premise: the more students do something, the more proficient they become. For example, the more students study a subject, the more they learn about it. Likewise, the more students practice a skill-reading, writing, or problem solving-the more adept they become at the respective activity. Faculty members and administrators in all types of colleges and universities know this. And students realize it as well. Moreover, decades of research studies show that students learn more when they direct their efforts to a variety of educationally purposeful activities, inside and outside the classroom."

"Colleges and universities cannot accurately judge their effectiveness in the absence of good information about what students do and the quality of the student experience."

Reports