In 1987 Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson published "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" in the AAHE Bulletin [39 (7), 3-7], an essay that grew out of a special series of conferences investigating ways to improve undergraduate education. Chickering, Gamson, and their colleagues were determined to find a set of principles that could identify higher-quality learning environments, but they wanted a simple list of principles that was so understandable, practical, and widely applicable it could be listed on a wallet-sized card. The seven basic principles that they settled on distilled decades of research on undergraduate education to conclude that the most effective undergraduate learning was active, cooperative, and demanding. Their article asserted that educationally successful undergraduate institutions would:

1.      encourage student-faculty contact
2.      encourage cooperation among students
3.      encourage active learning
4.      give prompt feedback
5.      emphasize time on task
6.      communicate high expectations
7.      respect diverse talents and ways of learning

Reprints of Chickering and Gamson's article were so popular the two scholars began conducting workshops on how the seven principles might be implemented. They also developed self-assessment instruments to help faculty and administrators recognize whether their learning environments were successively implementing the seven principles of quality education. These inventories, also published in the AAHE Bulletin in 1989, met with a similarly enthusiastic response.

The present book, The Seven Principles in Action: Improving Undergraduate Education, adds another chapter to these efforts to identify and implement the basic ingredients of a quality undergraduate education. Edited by Susan Rickey Hatfield with an introduction by Gamson, this book reports on the widespread adoption of the seven principles as a focus for improving the practice of undergraduate education. Many institutions of higher learning throughout the country have systematically adopted these principles and this book reports on specific examples of their successful implementation.

After informative prefatory materials including an editorial introduction by Gamson, the first seven chapters of the book focus on the seven principles, one at a time. Each chapter has a short "overview" essay on the principle under review and its ramifications, followed by descriptive examples of programs from institutions that have successfully implemented the principle. The examples include information on how to contact individuals at the specific institutions about their programs and a list of resources in print for further consideration. The chapters devoted to the implementation of the seven principles are concise but specific and enormously enriched by the inclusion of the addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers of contact persons. It is unfortunate, however, that of over 100 contacts fewer than 10% include e-mail addresses, an egregious oversight in the age of the information superhighway.

But as valuable as these chapters are, the book gains even more weight from the four concluding chapters that describe assessment inventories for faculty, administrators, and students who want to improve their educational experiences. "Indicators of Educational Effectiveness," by James Reynolds, suggests that the seven principles can be used "to distinguish quality learning environments," and he lists specific "indicators" of each of the seven principles. For example, to indicate the sixth principle, inquiries would uncover the average ACT/SAT of entering freshmen or even the "average number of pages of reading and writing assignments in humanities and social sciences courses." Obviously, some of the indicators are easier to discern than others, but simply asking such questions of teachers and administrators would seem to be a step in the right direction.

Perhaps most valuable is the chapter on "Inventories for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education," which helps faculty members, administrators, and students assess the institution they are part of or are choosing to be part of. Specific behaviors are spelled out for each of the seven principles. For example, for communicating high expectations, the list of faculty behaviors includes "I periodically discuss how well we are doing during the course of the semester," and the list for students includes "I keep an open mind about material, even it is not directly related to my major or career interest." These articulations of specific behaviors are presented in a useful chart format that invites all respondents to become more analytical about their role in the educational experience.

Finally, Martin Nemko, author of How to Get an Ivy League Education at a State University, adds the final chapters, "How to Choose a College: For College-Bound Students & Families" and "How to Test-Drive A College." These chapters encourage the high-school graduate to choose a college based in part on its adherence to the seven principles. Giving parents and students specifically probing questions to research and to ask of college recruiters is perhaps the quickest way to bring more accountability to the pursuit of quality undergraduate education.

Terry Nienhuis, Western Carolina University