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Divesting from Fossil Fuels Makes Sense Morally … and Financially

Should university endowments divest from fossil fuels? A public discussion of this question has seen some university presidents issuing statements that they would not divest—that investments should not be used for “political action.” Many universities hold large endowments that have significant positions in fossil fuel companies or funds that hold fossil fuel assets. Universities consume fos...

New Directions for Higher Education: Q&A with Deborah Floyd on Community Colleges Offering Bachelor’s Degrees

In this installment of NEJHE's New Directions for Higher Education series, Philip DiSalvio, dean of the College of Advancing & Professional Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, interviews Deborah Floyd, professor of educational leadership at Florida Atlantic University, editor in chief of the Community College Journal of Research and Practice and author of the book, The Community...

How Obama’s Tuition-Free Community College Plan Would Affect One State

President Obama started off the year with a proposal to make a community college education as “universal” as high school by making the associate degree or first two years of a bachelor’s degree tuition-free. The details of how this would be funded are still emerging. Should the proposal successfully move through Congress, Massachusetts, for one, stands to gain much from it. Here’s why: ...

Illegal Procedure? Title IX and Sexual Assault

Florida State University quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston was recently cleared of sexual assault charges following the university’s two-day investigative hearing. The high-profile investigation was launched under Title IX, which requires schools to investigate such allegations even in the absence of criminal charges. Winston’s attorney immediately took to his Twitter accoun...

Key NLRB Decision Opens a Wide Door for Faculty Organizing

In a stunning and far-reaching decision, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) opened the door to union organizing among faculty at thousands of private-sector institutions, both secular and religious. The board’s majority decision in Pacific Lutheran University (12/16/14), issued in the face of powerful dissents, will inevitably spark controversy and ongoing litigation both about the leg...

Living with Abundant Information: What’s a College to Do?

With its October 2014 daylong conference on competency-based education and Higher Education Innovation Challenge (HEIC), the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) has firmly grasped the horns of disruptive change. It is creating a space in which New England states and institutions can wrestle with the critical issues driven by abundant information. Collectively, these issues encompass ever...

Amid Focus on Affordability, a Call to See HEIs as Laboratories where Getting it Right the First Time Matters Less than Learning from Mistakes

We are familiar with the Greek concept of chronos, or chronological time, of which we too often lament there is not enough. Perhaps we should embrace the other Greek concept of time: kairos, or the right time, the time when something remarkable is about to happen. I believe that now is the right time for higher education to distinguish itself by becoming, from its leadership to its staff and stude...

Breaking the Teaching and Learning Gridlock

If higher ed is to remain relevant, faculty and students must find common ground on what it means to teach and learn at “college level.” In 2011, PayPal co-founder Peter Theil introduced the first Thiel Foundation Fellows—students who agreed to drop out of college to do scientific research, start a tech company or work in a social movement. Although this may have been seen as a ...

Cyber-Gap

  Within the information technology sector, cybersecurity is considered its own supersector. As information becomes increasingly digitized and a growing array of transactions can be completed in the cloud, people, governments and enterprises become increasingly more vulnerable. This vulnerability is capitalized upon by hackers and other cybercriminals, as evidenced in the high-profile ...

New England Takes Stock of Midterm Elections

The recent midterm elections brought New England two new governors. Rhode Island elected its first woman chief exec in Gina Raimondo (D). Massachusetts elected Charlie Baker (R), a former Harvard Pilgrim CEO and official in the Weld and Cellucci administrations. Otherwise, the New England corner offices cautiously welcomed back incumbents: Democrats Dannel Malloy in Connecticut, Maggie Hassan in N...