Posts Categorized: Technology

Young People Are Hungering for Conversation, Even on Difficult Matters … A NEJHE Q&A with Mary K. Grant of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute

"Regardless of disciplinary area, problem-solving requires us to ask questions, to be curious and open-minded, to think critically and creatively, incorporate a variety of viewpoints and work in partnership with others." In the following Q&A, NEJHE Executive Editor John O. Harney asks Mary K. Grant, president of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, about the institu...

Undercover Professor: How Becoming a Student Made Me a Better Teacher

Three years ago, I graduated with an associate degree in liberal arts from Northern Essex Community College (NECC) in Haverhill, Mass. Although I was one of over a thousand students to graduate that day, my situation was a little different than those of my peers. You see, I am a full-time faculty member at NECC with a Ph.D. in organic chemistry. I had decided the year before to go undercover by...

Reinvigorating Democracy … A NEJHE Q&A with Nancy Thomas of Tufts

"Students need to get involved in changing systems that underrepresent and disempower most groups of Americans." Nancy Thomas is director of the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education at Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life. In the following Q&A, NEJHE Executive Editor John O. Harney asks Thomas about her insights on higher education, citizen engagement an...

To Prepare Nimble Thinkers … A NEJHE Q&A with Michelle Weise

"The world will need more agile and resilient thinkers with a serious handle on various technologies and digital literacies." Michelle Weise is senior vice president for workforce strategies and chief innovation officer at Strada Education Network. Weise is a higher education expert who specializes in innovation and connections between higher education and the workforce. She built and led Sandb...

Summer (Finally) … And Other News from the NEJHE Beat

A few tidbits from the editor after a long wet spring ... Unvites. I recently enjoyed a fascinating panel discussion on Protesting the Podium: Campus Disinvitations sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center. The panelists were former U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey, Harvard professor Harvey C. Mansfield, Middlebury College professor Matthew J. Dickinson and Wesleyan University President Michael S. Roth. T...

Taking a Twitter Dip in New England’s New Enrollment Pools

Our Twitter content allows us to bring readers a broader base of resources—a larger canvas, in a sense—than NEJHE articles alone. We urge you to see us as parts of a whole. Every NEJHE item automatically posts to Twitter, but we also use Twitter to disseminate interesting news or opinion pieces from elsewhere. These tweets are often juxtaposed with something NEBHE has worked on in the past an...

Increasing Diversity in the Ranks of Full Professors—for Both Tenured and Non-Tenure-Track Faculty

The goals of higher education—engaging the hearts and minds of our next generation, advancing novel and pragmatic solutions to the most pressing local and global problems—call for great passion and skill. That’s not the whole formula, though. Diversity performs its own powerful role. College faculties that represent a diversity of expertise, ideas and perspectives help create the kind of ...

A Modest Proposal to Save the Planet

Nonprofit institutions with large endowments have been facing challenges from various stakeholders contesting the management of their investment portfolios. While these challenges are most commonly associated with institutions of higher education, pension funds and private foundations will increasingly face similar challenges regarding how the management of their endowments affects socially import...

Prospective College Students: Hiding in Plain Sight

As an unprecedented number of colleges and universities close their doors forever while others struggle to survive, a deep pool of prospective students—and the key to accessing them—is hiding in plain sight. Students from rural America attend college at lower rates (59%) than their urban (62%) and suburban (67%) counterparts and comprise only 29% of all students ages 18-24 enrolled in highe...

Certificates of Failure Given By Colleges: Yes, Really

The news is filled with stories about the admissions scandals at elite colleges and universities. And recently, some of the wrongdoers have pled guilty and await punishment. Apparently, prosecutors are seeking jail time. Apart from jail time, I have already suggested approaches to punishment that involve fines that go into a cy pres fund to be redistributed to small non-elite colleges and their st...