Some news and thoughts from the NEJHE beat …
ICE-y conditions. MIT recently alerted its staff that federal immigration officials would be checking the status of foreign postdoctoral students, researchers and visiting scholars in the sciences, and urged them to cooperate. ... Meanwhile, an Iranian student, returning to study at Northeastern University, was detained at Boston’s Logan Internat...
This question probably seems like a lead-in for a funny non-sequitur, but bear with me for a moment.
The American University in Bulgaria (AUBG), where I currently serve as interim president, was founded in 1991, soon after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, originally as a branch campus of the University of Maine. Like several other international institutions, AUBG is accredited by the Ne...
In late September 2019, I joined NEBHE as its Open Education Fellow to help build upon the grassroots efforts that have been underway for years in the Northeast aiming to lessen the burden that textbook costs place on higher education students and their families. Like so many of my colleagues doing this work day in and day out, I’m passionate about breaking down this very real barrier to student...
Higher education is awash with challenges. While young people today need college more than ever, college attendance across the country has dropped in each of the last eight years, including 300,000 fewer students last year alone. This is happening at a time when almost all new well-paying jobs require postsecondary training and study.
As enrollment declines threaten the survival of more tha...
All signs indicate that high school graduation rates will continue to drop due to low birth rates, leading to a potential higher education metldown that is likely to affect all academic institutions, big and small, in the years after 2024.
What steps do colleges and universities need to take to survive? The answer lies in subscribing to the law of survival of the fittest and in increasing marke...
In a matter of seconds, a student at a high school in Santa Clarita, California, injured and killed a handful of his fellow students and then shot himself. He died shortly thereafter. We read about such incidents and lament their happening. We see television footage and peruse articles and social media postings. We mourn for the students injured and killed and worry about their families and friend...
Unemployment for college graduates is at its lowest point in over a decade at just 2.1%, compared with 3.7% for those with a high school diploma, according to October 2019 figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But a familiar tale of frustration simmers below the surface of these seemingly positive numbers. College graduates report difficulties in finding jobs that correspond to their level ...
In just over a year, Massachusetts public colleges and universities have galvanized a statewide movement to adopt more comprehensive use of Open Educational Resources (OER). How did state and campus leaders achieve such momentum?
By way of background, OER includes teaching, learning and research materials in any medium—digital or otherwise—that reside in the public domain or have been relea...
What does it mean to re-envision teacher education? This is the question that the faculty at the newly named Lunder School of Education at Thomas College have been asking and exploring. More than a quixotic pursuit, the purpose of this inquiry has been to re-design what we think of as classroom space, to re-construct an educator preparation curriculum, and to model both the distinct art and distin...
In recent weeks, presidential candidates have pledged billions of dollars to bring broadband and internet access to rural America. Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and other Democratic hopefuls correctly realize that a lack of high-speed internet and other attendant technologies has profoundly affected rural economies.
That’s a good start: Poor infrastructure derails job creati...
Some news and thoughts from the NEJHE beat …
ICE-y conditions. MIT recently alerted its staff that federal immigration officials would be checking the status of foreign postdoctoral students, researchers and visiting scholars in the sciences, and urged them to cooperate. ... Meanwhile, an Iranian student, returning to study at Northeastern University, was detained at Boston’s Logan Internat... 
This question probably seems like a lead-in for a funny non-sequitur, but bear with me for a moment.
The American University in Bulgaria (AUBG), where I currently serve as interim president, was founded in 1991, soon after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, originally as a branch campus of the University of Maine. Like several other international institutions, AUBG is accredited by the Ne... 
In late September 2019, I joined NEBHE as its Open Education Fellow to help build upon the grassroots efforts that have been underway for years in the Northeast aiming to lessen the burden that textbook costs place on higher education students and their families. Like so many of my colleagues doing this work day in and day out, I’m passionate about breaking down this very real barrier to student... 
Higher education is awash with challenges. While young people today need college more than ever, college attendance across the country has dropped in each of the last eight years, including 300,000 fewer students last year alone. This is happening at a time when almost all new well-paying jobs require postsecondary training and study.
As enrollment declines threaten the survival of more tha... 
All signs indicate that high school graduation rates will continue to drop due to low birth rates, leading to a potential higher education metldown that is likely to affect all academic institutions, big and small, in the years after 2024.
What steps do colleges and universities need to take to survive? The answer lies in subscribing to the law of survival of the fittest and in increasing marke... 
In a matter of seconds, a student at a high school in Santa Clarita, California, injured and killed a handful of his fellow students and then shot himself. He died shortly thereafter. We read about such incidents and lament their happening. We see television footage and peruse articles and social media postings. We mourn for the students injured and killed and worry about their families and friend... 
Unemployment for college graduates is at its lowest point in over a decade at just 2.1%, compared with 3.7% for those with a high school diploma, according to October 2019 figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But a familiar tale of frustration simmers below the surface of these seemingly positive numbers. College graduates report difficulties in finding jobs that correspond to their level ... 
In just over a year, Massachusetts public colleges and universities have galvanized a statewide movement to adopt more comprehensive use of Open Educational Resources (OER). How did state and campus leaders achieve such momentum?
By way of background, OER includes teaching, learning and research materials in any medium—digital or otherwise—that reside in the public domain or have been relea... 
What does it mean to re-envision teacher education? This is the question that the faculty at the newly named Lunder School of Education at Thomas College have been asking and exploring. More than a quixotic pursuit, the purpose of this inquiry has been to re-design what we think of as classroom space, to re-construct an educator preparation curriculum, and to model both the distinct art and distin... 
In recent weeks, presidential candidates have pledged billions of dollars to bring broadband and internet access to rural America. Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and other Democratic hopefuls correctly realize that a lack of high-speed internet and other attendant technologies has profoundly affected rural economies.
That’s a good start: Poor infrastructure derails job creati...