Ensure that your institutional policy and practice are guided by empirical research and scholarship rather than by mere common sense, trial and error, or a "shoot from the hip" basis for institutional action.

The two primary goals of a scholarship of practice are:
1. improving administrative practice in higher education, and
2. developing a knowledge base to guide such practice.

To attain these goals, campuses must use the findings of empirical research as the basis for developing institutional policy and practice. The result? Improved administrative practice in higher education, both at a campus level and for higher education as a social institution.

This is the 178th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Higher Education. Addressed to presidents, vice presidents, deans, and other higher education decision makers on all kinds of campuses, it provides timely information and authoritative advice about major issues and administrative problems confronting every institution.