Centuries into American higher education, we see astonishingly low retention and graduation rates of undergraduate students. Yet these numbers vary wildly across institutions, with some schools approaching close to 100% retention.

What is different about the students that retain and the institutions they attend? Do the schools offer better opportunities for learning? What should administrators be measuring to increase student satisfaction, retention, and learning outcomes?

Published in 2014 by Harvard University Press, How College Works presents a decade-long research study that seeks to answer just these questions. Authors Daniel F. Chambliss and Christopher G. Takacs use relationships to frame the college experience.

They suggest, “What really matters is who meets whom, and when” (p. 16). Relationships are crucial to the choices students make, and the best colleges strategically leverage people and spaces to the benefit of students.

A common complaint across higher education is that college costs are rising without outcomes to justify the increase. Retention and graduation rates are still low, and employers feel that graduates are not equipped for the workforce. Simply put: what we’ve been doing all along to educate students is not enough to ingrain learning and prepare them for life after college.

James M. Lang wrote Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning to address the issue of learning on a micro-level by offering nine techniques professors might try incorporating into their lesson plans to improve student learning.

Lang frames the book with the concept of small-ball, or the practice in softball and baseball of making small changes and taking small risks to win the game (e.g., stealing bases). Small teaching, thus, is “an approach that seeks to spark positive change in higher education through small but powerful modifications to our course design and teaching practices” (p. 5).

In recent years, colleges and universities have pushed for greater diversity among students, faculty, and staff. In spite of the rampant national dialogue, demographics remain mostly homogenous from year to year, especially at selective institutions.

In Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of the Elites, Stevens invites readers into this admissions office through personal reflection, interviews, and discussion of relevant American history. Readers join Stevens’ journey of exploring how American, liberal arts higher education institutions reproduce social class.