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Ongoing structural reform and evolution in the higher education sector continue to pose complex challenges for educators, including those who teach introductory psychology courses. One such challenge is helping students to overcome the first-year hurdle and develop the core attributes required for success at tertiary level. Psychology educators are uniquely situated to help students develop these life-long learning skills by setting the development of “psychological literacy” as a principal aim of first-year courses. Psychological literacy can achieve this by developing critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, respect for diversity, and self-awareness. In fact, these core skills can provide the foundation for all students—not just psychology students—to achieve success. Because of this, there is potential for introductory psychology courses to become compulsory across all disciplines as a foundation block for commencing students. This would help students transition more seamlessly and have an excellent foundation for academic success, assisting universities to improve retention rates and achieve higher education participation targets set by government. In addition to this, compulsory psychological literacy development moves toward the university goal of creating “global citizens” and even beyond this to becoming a strategy for national agendas such as social inclusion. Pedagogical issues surrounding the appropriate content and methods of delivery required to develop psychological literacy warrant further collaborative discussion. In order to achieve quality learning and teaching within higher education, educators cannot ignore the potential of psychological literacy and psychology educators arguably have a responsibility to advocate its potential within their institution.

Culturally mainstream American teens are, by the end of the first year out, more cognitively sharper and more skilled in adapting to new organizations, than they were before but are largely immune to intellectual curiosity and creative engagement. Educationally, then, the glass is neither empty nor full. It is half-empty for those who want the first year out to be about intellectual curiosity and creative engagement, and it is half-full for those who want the first year out to be about becoming smarter and successfully adapting to new formal organizations. This chapter describes the educational preparation of high school seniors, the educational experiences of first-year students, and the cultural mismatch between educator hopes, student experiences, and public perceptions.

Chapter 7 recounts how Dean Joseph M. McLaughlin accelerated and improved upon the Law School’s modernization initiated by Dean Mulligan. He began the transformation of the Law School into the mainstream of legal education by adopting a more academic orientation of the Law School’s mission and program and adopting many pedagogical reforms and administrative reforms. For example, Dean McLaughlin and separating the Law School’s funding raising from that of Fordham University. The university retarded the Law School’s development by diverting its revenues to subsidize the university’s other divisions. This led to a conflict in 1973 between Fordham University and the ABA and AALS over the university’s financial relationship to the Law School that continued to 1987.

In this chapter, García Márquez and his many hats (writer, leftist, family man, and father) are examined. The discussion of García Márquez's life history begins in his early years as a curious child. His family, not just immediate but extended, had such impact in his life that some of his characters in his novel are based on them. The chapter also details accounts of the student years of García Márquez and how he developed his writing. Much discussion also centers on the career of García Márquez as a journalist and how he established himself as one of Colombia's literary genius.