Making Their Own Way: Narratives for Transforming Higher Education to Promote Self-Development

WINNER OF AERA’S NARRATIVE & RESEARCH SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP 2003 BOOK AWARDWhat impact does a college education have on students' careers and personal lives after they graduate? Do they consider themselves well prepared for the demands and ambiguities of contemporary society? What can we learn from their stories to improve the college learning experience?This groundbreaking book extends Marcia Baxter Magolda’s renowned longitudinal study and follows her participants’ lives from their graduation to their early thirties. We follow these students’ journeys to an internally-authored sense of identity and how they make meaning of their lives. From this, the author proposes a new framework for higher education to better foster students' crucial journeys of transformation--through the shaping of curriculum and co-curriculum, advising, leadership opportunities, campus work settings, collaboration, diversity and community building.This is an important book for all faculty, administrators and student affairs professionals.

Table of Contents:
PART 1: THE JOURNEY TOWARD SELF-AUTHORSHIP 1. COMPLEX LIVES 2. PATHWAYS INTO YOUNG ADULTHOOD 3. FOLLOWING EXTERNAL FORMULAS 4. THE CROSSROADS 5. BECOMING THE AUTHOR OF ONE’S LIFE 6. THE INTERNAL FOUNDATION PART 2: PROMOTING SELF-AUTHORSHIP IN HIGHER EDUCATION 7. CREATING CONTEXTS FOR SELF-AUTHORSHIP IN ACADEMIC AFFAIRS 8. CREATING CONTEXTS FOR SELF-AUTHORSHIP IN CAMPUS WORK SETTINGS 9. CREATING CONTEXTS FOR SELF-AUTHORSHIP IN THE COCURRICULUM, EPILOGUE

About the Author :
Marcia B. Baxter Magolda is Distinguished Professor Emerita, Miami University of Ohio and a nationally recognized author and speaker on student development and learning. She received the American College Personnel Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014, and the Association for the Study of Higher Education’s Research Achievement Award in 2007, for her outstanding contribution to advancing student learning. Her scholarship addresses the evolution of learning and development in college and subsequent adult life, and educational practice to promote self-authorship. Her seventh and eighth books respectively are Authoring Your Life and Development and Assessment of Self-Authorship.

Review :
"Although an advisor can find much to appreciate in the first part of Baxter Magolda’s book, perhaps the second part provides the most value for day-to-day advising practice...The practical suggestions and advice provided can certainly benefit advisors as well as advising administrators who wish to empower students in their decision making." NACADA Journal (National Academic Advising Association) "[This book] is strongly recommended reading for educators concerned with the holistic development of their students and higher education's role in fostering critical thinking, citizenship, and civic leadership." Wisconsin Bookwatch "...Provides long-awaited answers to critical questions regarding how college impacts students' lives. Through an accomplished interview technique, the author provides us with an inside tour of the lives and minds of hundreds of college graduates. The longitudinal design allows us to comprehend more fully the lifelong impact of higher education. The author weaves these stories into a highly usable framework for educational improvement. Her concrete suggestions help the reader transform insights gained from the interviews into current college curricular and co-curricular practices. This book will be immediately useful for anyone connected to the college experience." AAHE Bulletin "This is a rare treat in the scholarly literature. Marcia Baxter Magolda has conducted ground- breaking research in this longitudinal study. She not only builds on her prior work on students' collegiate experiences, but truly extends it into new dimensions. The most significant of these is exploring and convincingly documenting what has heretofore been a largely unexplored theoretical claim, that epistemological, interpersonal and intrapersonal aspects of development are interrelated. This is a truly significant accomplishment, and one that has the potential to make many scholars and educators reconsider their own basic assumptions about late adolescent and adult development. In addition, reading about these people's lives was like reading a novel. I was always eager to learn what was going to happen in the next chapter! In short, this is 'a good read.' " Patricia M. King, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor