As the president of a university focused on educating women, I ask myself daily how we can make an impact on the millions of women who have not yet earned a college degree. The number of educationally underserved women in this country is truly staggering. According to U.S. Census figures, 76 million adult women do not have a bachelor’s degree. It is incumbent upon us to help each one of these wo...
Lyndon State College (LSC), a public liberal arts college with a focus on rural and first-generation students, in 2013 initiated an incremental approach toward the creation of a Lyndon Learning Commons. The Commons model emphasizes the integration of a variety of academic support services, increasing both their proximity to one another and cross-unit collaboration, in order to make these services ...
There is a growing national conversation about the role of Children’s Savings Accounts (CSAs) in building assets and creating opportunities for the next generation of students—and New England is right in the middle of it. In many respects, New England is leading the way.
Through the support of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Regional & Community Outreach Department and the experi...
Now that members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) have voted to approve a sweeping, if not radical, proposal giving the five largest athletic conferences “autonomy” to establish new governance rules regarding a compensation pay package for the recruitment of athletes, three very important public policy concerns need to be addressed.
The five largest conferences now have ...
“The Great Recession and not-so-great recovery applies to all of us.”
That was University of Southern Maine professor Charlie Colgan’s quip at last week’s New England Economic Partnership (NEEP) conference noting that Maine was just two-thirds of the way back to pre-recession employment levels.
Generally, the New England forecasts at the Fall Economic Outlook conference...
More than 250 higher education leaders from campuses across the U.S. met last week in Boston for the 2014 Presidential Summit on Climate Leadership.
The summit was organized by Second Nature, the supporting organization for the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). Almost 700 colleges and universities have signed the ACUPCC and committed to achieve carbon ne...
Over the past four years, there has been intense talk about the middle-skills gap in New England.
In Massachusetts—from the governor, often flanked by business leaders, to the commissioner of higher education, to President Obama speaking at a high school in Worcester this past spring—it appears that everyone is concerned with the middle-skills gap. And Massachusetts is not alone. For southe...
The number of incoming college students who require development mathematics coursework is a national problem. As reported by the National Center for Educational Statistics, 42% of students entering college for the first time in fall 2003 took a developmental math course. At our institution, Worcester State University, 54% of students entering in fall 2004 placed into developmental math. This is an...
What is the true value of higher education to military veterans? Some military veterans may be underrepresented in higher education due to life adversities including homelessness, medical disabilities, substance abuse, family hardships and deficient academic skills. With the transition of veterans to colleges and universities, Veterans Upward Bound (VUB) projects nationwide provide life transforma...
The debate over the value of a college education appears to be settled. Not only do employers value employees with a bachelor’s degree, they may actually value them too much.
The fact is there’s a dramatic credentials gap in the American workforce between the education levels employers are requesting in job postings and the education levels of workers already in those jobs. In some middle-s...
As the president of a university focused on educating women, I ask myself daily how we can make an impact on the millions of women who have not yet earned a college degree. The number of educationally underserved women in this country is truly staggering. According to U.S. Census figures, 76 million adult women do not have a bachelor’s degree. It is incumbent upon us to help each one of these wo... 
Lyndon State College (LSC), a public liberal arts college with a focus on rural and first-generation students, in 2013 initiated an incremental approach toward the creation of a Lyndon Learning Commons. The Commons model emphasizes the integration of a variety of academic support services, increasing both their proximity to one another and cross-unit collaboration, in order to make these services ... 
There is a growing national conversation about the role of Children’s Savings Accounts (CSAs) in building assets and creating opportunities for the next generation of students—and New England is right in the middle of it. In many respects, New England is leading the way.
Through the support of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Regional & Community Outreach Department and the experi... 
Now that members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) have voted to approve a sweeping, if not radical, proposal giving the five largest athletic conferences “autonomy” to establish new governance rules regarding a compensation pay package for the recruitment of athletes, three very important public policy concerns need to be addressed.
The five largest conferences now have ... 
“The Great Recession and not-so-great recovery applies to all of us.”
That was University of Southern Maine professor Charlie Colgan’s quip at last week’s New England Economic Partnership (NEEP) conference noting that Maine was just two-thirds of the way back to pre-recession employment levels.
Generally, the New England forecasts at the Fall Economic Outlook conference... 
More than 250 higher education leaders from campuses across the U.S. met last week in Boston for the 2014 Presidential Summit on Climate Leadership.
The summit was organized by Second Nature, the supporting organization for the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). Almost 700 colleges and universities have signed the ACUPCC and committed to achieve carbon ne... 
Over the past four years, there has been intense talk about the middle-skills gap in New England.
In Massachusetts—from the governor, often flanked by business leaders, to the commissioner of higher education, to President Obama speaking at a high school in Worcester this past spring—it appears that everyone is concerned with the middle-skills gap. And Massachusetts is not alone. For southe... 
The number of incoming college students who require development mathematics coursework is a national problem. As reported by the National Center for Educational Statistics, 42% of students entering college for the first time in fall 2003 took a developmental math course. At our institution, Worcester State University, 54% of students entering in fall 2004 placed into developmental math. This is an... 
What is the true value of higher education to military veterans? Some military veterans may be underrepresented in higher education due to life adversities including homelessness, medical disabilities, substance abuse, family hardships and deficient academic skills. With the transition of veterans to colleges and universities, Veterans Upward Bound (VUB) projects nationwide provide life transforma... 
The debate over the value of a college education appears to be settled. Not only do employers value employees with a bachelor’s degree, they may actually value them too much.
The fact is there’s a dramatic credentials gap in the American workforce between the education levels employers are requesting in job postings and the education levels of workers already in those jobs. In some middle-s...