The College Board's Advanced Placement (AP) exams, often preceded by AP courses, have a reputation for spitting out an overwhelming amount of information, but that is about to change. The nonprofit, which also administers the SATs, says it will revamp the biology and U.S. history tests to give students the opportunity to learn the materials, rather than cram for the exam.The College Board has AP e...
Sterling College will serve up a new academic program in farm-to-table food studies in summer 2011.“Vermont’s Table: Farming, Cooking, and the Rural Experience” will combine hands-on culinary training using local vegetables and meats with in-depth examination of Vermont farms, cheesemakers and agricultural businesses. The program will include courses in Whole Farm Thinking and Fa...
Yale University could offer a firsthand curriculum on the fickle nature of philanthropy.First, there's the lesson on dirty money. Last week, the Yale Daily News reported that the university agreed to pay $1 million to Industrial Enterprises of America, to settle the company’s complaint that its former CEO, a Yale alumn named John Mazzuto, made a $1.7 million donation to Yale in shares of sto...
University of Maine System Chancellor Richard L. Pattenaude announced that a search committee has identified four finalists to become president of Maine’s flagship public university in Orono after current President Robert Kennedy steps down in June 2011.The finalists are:
· Donald J. Farish, president of Rowan University in New Jersey;
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The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) will hold its ninth annual New England Higher Education Excellence Awards on Friday, March 11, at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf Hotel.
Each year, NEBHE presents Regional Excellence Awards to individuals and organizations that have shown exceptional leadership on behalf of higher education and the advancement of educational opportunity, and Stat...
The University of Massachusetts selected Robert Caret, president of Towson University, to succeed Jack M. Wilson as head of the five-campus university.A chemist with degrees from the University of New Hampshire and Suffolk University, Caret will need to concoct an effective potion for UMass, which the Boston Globe described as "struggling to climb into the elite ranks of public universities whil...
In August 2010, nine openly gay college leaders met to form a first-of-its-kind collegiate organization, the LGBTQ Presidents in Higher Education. Among their ranks were three officials from New England: Ralph Hexter, past Hampshire College president and among the first openly gay presidents; Katherine Ragsdale, president of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge; and Theo Kalikow, president of th...
For nearly 20 years, the print editions of The New England Journal of Higher Education (and its predecessor Connection) published a quarterly collection of facts and figures called "Data Connection."
It was a sort of ripoff of the underrated Harper's Index. The key was to cleverly juxtapose pieces of interesting data, with no expressed overarching context. The glue, in our case, was that the it...
The good news is that the New England states are showing slight gains in revenue collections. The bad news is that it will not be enough to stave off a new round of budget cuts for the coming fiscal years. States are preparing budgets for FY12 and FY13 while addressing shortfalls in FY11 budgets. Most states have spent stimulus funds to avoid massive layoffs in K-12 districts and higher education....
Comings and Goings ...
Jack Wilson said ... Departing University of Massachusetts President Jack Wilson told the Sun newspaper of Lowell, Mass., that he will join the faculty at the UMass Lowell campus when he steps down from the system presidency this summer. Wilson will become a tenured professor of emerging technologies in the College of Management. He was named system president in 2003.
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