This monograph provides an intensive examination of the student development movement in college student affairs. Three highly knowledgeable professional leaders offer a searching analysis of student development concepts and practices. It is a "necessary and long overdue response to the uncritical and bandwagon reception" which has characterized the response to the student development movement. The authors' cogent analysis of student development, from theory and research to current practices and outcomes, is stimulating and rewarding. In a compelling concluding chapter the authors suggest a redirection for the role of student affairs in American higher education which addresses the inadequacies of the student development approach while acknowledging its many contributions. Paramount in the proposed redirection is a clear identification with the educational mission of institutions and a focus on the facilitation of learning. Not content with offering a critique, the authors propose many practical and useful approaches for bringing about needed changes. Few publications in higher education offer so much of worth to the practitioner and scholar in so few words!