Posts Categorized: College Readiness

The Impact of the Self-Awareness Process on Learning and Leading

Robert was just released from prison after 10 years of incarceration. The day after his release, he showed up as a student in my class. I liked him from the first day that we met and gave him lots of time and attention. Within three weeks, he was back in prison. I don’t know why. I do know that I lose up to half of all my at-risk students each semester. How is it that someone as smart as Rober...

New Directions for Higher Education: Q&A with Richard Ekman on Challenges, Misconceptions Facing Independent Colleges

In April 2013, NEJHE launched its New Directions for Higher Education series to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices. Past installments of the series featured Philip DiSalvio, dean of the College of Advancing & Professional Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, interviewing: Carnegie Foundation Presiden...

Master’s: A Graduate Degree’s Moment in the Age of Higher Education Innovation

The important ongoing national debate about the value of higher education and its relationship to the economy has largely focused on undergraduate education—understandably so since it represents the largest share of U.S. enrollment and spending. Yet there is an underanalyzed segment of postsecondary education that is increasingly relevant and in demand: professional master’s education. Over th...

Educating the Next Generation of Makers

NEBHE’s Problem Based Learning Projects Focus on Hot Fields such as Advanced Manufacturing ... The field of manufacturing typically conjures images of dimly lit dirty and dangerous factories crowded with workers, the kind seen in photos of New York City’s garment district in the early 1900s and in some developing countries today. But because of advances in technology, the field of manufactu...

The Massachusetts Community College Performance-based Funding Formula: A New Model for New England?

The Massachusetts community college system is entering a second year with funding for each of its 15 schools determined using a new performance-based formula. Under the new model, 50% of each college’s allocation is based on performance on metrics related to enrollment and student success, with added incentives for “at-risk” students completing certificates and degrees and those graduating i...

New Directions for Higher Education: Q&A with Ed Dept’s Studley on College Ratings, Feds

 In April 2013, NEJHE launched its New Directions for Higher Education series to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices. Past installments of the series featured Philip DiSalvio, dean of the College of Advancing & Professional Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, interviewing: Carnegie Foundation Pr...

A Case of Do or Die? The Fundamental Things that Apply to Online Leadership

This is the second of a two-part essay on the organizational implications of online distance education. Previously, I suggested that a gradual redistribution is occurring across American higher education, especially among adult learners. Local hegemony is at risk, as online interlopers, increasingly from top-tier universities and other academic behemoths, offer students choice they never had be...

Laying Down a Higher Education Innovation Challenge

Some notable developments in higher ed ... ... As Southern Maine goes, so goes the nation? College faculty and administrations get along a bit like Congress and the president. In the tradition of shared governance, the administration may offer a sharp change in business policy; the faculty applies the brakes. But at the University of Southern Maine, faculty leaders and President Theo Kalikow ar...

Online Leadership at the Vortex of Academic Destiny

This is the first of a two-part essay on the organizational implications of online distance education. As online education becomes more ubiquitous nationally, it becomes even more strategic locally on each college campus. But these efforts are not dispersed comparably across institutions. Some higher education institutions have been more dynamic and decisive, and others paralyzed to act. The very...

Community College Transfers Can Thrive at Best Colleges and Universities

Not surprisingly, low-income students are more likely than their higher-income peers to start postsecondary education at lower-cost community colleges than at four-year institutions. Add this fact to the booming enrollment at community colleges—approximately 7 million students or nearly half of all undergraduate students today—and one can quickly surmise that community colleges are an importan...