In many ways, higher education has not changed in the nearly 1,000 years since the first university was founded in Bologna, Italy in 1088. Many courses still have professors or “masters” lecturing in front of students, with exams being reproduction of facts learned in lectures. But in other ways, higher education changes daily. A brief perusal of headlines from the Chronicle of Higher Educatio...
Accreditation has been in the hot seat of late. It is both faulted for being asked to do too much—serving a “regulation-by-other-means” function as gatekeeper for federal student financial aid dollars—and for asking too little in terms of student learning and life outcomes. Along with these criticisms have come some interesting proposals for improvement. The following summarizes the more c...
John Hennessey lived a remarkable, full life as a professor, as a leader in his field of management and business, and moral, ethical leadership, and as dean at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business and provost at the University of Vermont. He was extraordinary on many fronts, a great man who lived in tumultuous times marked by world war as a young man, later as a graduate student and then ...
As English Language Arts and Math continue to be touted as top priorities, and as the assessment of related skills takes up more and more time in many schools, teachers are left with less time to share ideas with each other or with their students. In the realm of higher education, where more is being left to adjuncts and part-time staff, communication is limited within departments, let alone acr...
New England has a rich history of innovation and economic prosperity due, in part, to the fact that our region is home to some of the nation’s most prestigious higher education institutions as well as a wide array of other postsecondary offerings. As the nation’s economy has evolved to be knowledge-based and technology-driven, New England is well-positioned to produce the knowledge workers to ...
Each year, colleges around the nation select a common reading book for their incoming students or, in the case of our institution, for the entire college community. In 2017, our institution selected Hidden Figures as a reading meant to provide a common intellectual experience, illustrate the vigor and breadth of our college’s curriculum, and lend itself to a convocation discussion at the start o...
Working in college career services, I see companies recognizing that the path from college to career has shifted from a one-way to a two-way street where employers and students can connect. Truth be told, it’s more of a rotary—with many exits—because it takes a committed community to successfully transition students to their first jobs and beyond. The career-development ecosystem includes no...
College campuses are not immune to mounting safety and security concerns that stem from international and domestic terror threats, active shooter situations and more. Parents of students want to know that their children are safe when they leave home for the first time.
The antennas raise even higher for parents when they hear their students plan to spend the next term studying abroad. What some m...
The 2018 Guide to New England Colleges & Universities data published by Boston magazine in association with the New England Board of Higher Education provided me the opportunity to examine the schools’ prices, defined as tuition plus fees, as a function of several independent factors including those listed below. (I conducted a similar study last year.)
Percentage of freshman applicant...
Everyone knows money is important. For those privileged to have enough of it, money is not an obstacle for living a decent life or for college access. My husband and I frequently say, “Money isn’t everything,” but only the freedom of having money allows us to say such a thing.
We didn’t want our own children restricted in their college choices. Of course, we hoped that they would consid...
In many ways, higher education has not changed in the nearly 1,000 years since the first university was founded in Bologna, Italy in 1088. Many courses still have professors or “masters” lecturing in front of students, with exams being reproduction of facts learned in lectures. But in other ways, higher education changes daily. A brief perusal of headlines from the Chronicle of Higher Educatio... 
Accreditation has been in the hot seat of late. It is both faulted for being asked to do too much—serving a “regulation-by-other-means” function as gatekeeper for federal student financial aid dollars—and for asking too little in terms of student learning and life outcomes. Along with these criticisms have come some interesting proposals for improvement. The following summarizes the more c... 
John Hennessey lived a remarkable, full life as a professor, as a leader in his field of management and business, and moral, ethical leadership, and as dean at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business and provost at the University of Vermont. He was extraordinary on many fronts, a great man who lived in tumultuous times marked by world war as a young man, later as a graduate student and then ... 
As English Language Arts and Math continue to be touted as top priorities, and as the assessment of related skills takes up more and more time in many schools, teachers are left with less time to share ideas with each other or with their students. In the realm of higher education, where more is being left to adjuncts and part-time staff, communication is limited within departments, let alone acr... 
New England has a rich history of innovation and economic prosperity due, in part, to the fact that our region is home to some of the nation’s most prestigious higher education institutions as well as a wide array of other postsecondary offerings. As the nation’s economy has evolved to be knowledge-based and technology-driven, New England is well-positioned to produce the knowledge workers to ... 
Each year, colleges around the nation select a common reading book for their incoming students or, in the case of our institution, for the entire college community. In 2017, our institution selected Hidden Figures as a reading meant to provide a common intellectual experience, illustrate the vigor and breadth of our college’s curriculum, and lend itself to a convocation discussion at the start o... 
Working in college career services, I see companies recognizing that the path from college to career has shifted from a one-way to a two-way street where employers and students can connect. Truth be told, it’s more of a rotary—with many exits—because it takes a committed community to successfully transition students to their first jobs and beyond. The career-development ecosystem includes no... 
College campuses are not immune to mounting safety and security concerns that stem from international and domestic terror threats, active shooter situations and more. Parents of students want to know that their children are safe when they leave home for the first time.
The antennas raise even higher for parents when they hear their students plan to spend the next term studying abroad. What some m... 
The 2018 Guide to New England Colleges & Universities data published by Boston magazine in association with the New England Board of Higher Education provided me the opportunity to examine the schools’ prices, defined as tuition plus fees, as a function of several independent factors including those listed below. (I conducted a similar study last year.)
Percentage of freshman applicant... 
Everyone knows money is important. For those privileged to have enough of it, money is not an obstacle for living a decent life or for college access. My husband and I frequently say, “Money isn’t everything,” but only the freedom of having money allows us to say such a thing.
We didn’t want our own children restricted in their college choices. Of course, we hoped that they would consid...