This is the second of a two-part essay on the organizational implications of online distance education.
Previously, I suggested that a gradual redistribution is occurring across American higher education, especially among adult learners. Local hegemony is at risk, as online interlopers, increasingly from top-tier universities and other academic behemoths, offer students choice they never had be...
Some notable developments in higher ed ...
... As Southern Maine goes, so goes the nation? College faculty and administrations get along a bit like Congress and the president. In the tradition of shared governance, the administration may offer a sharp change in business policy; the faculty applies the brakes. But at the University of Southern Maine, faculty leaders and President Theo Kalikow ar...
This is the first of a two-part essay on the organizational implications of online distance education.
As online education becomes more ubiquitous nationally, it becomes even more strategic locally on each college campus. But these efforts are not dispersed comparably across institutions. Some higher education institutions have been more dynamic and decisive, and others paralyzed to act. The very...
The recent decision by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that Northwestern University football players on scholarship are “employees” entitled to unionize under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) should serve as a wake-up call for higher education administrators.
Part of a trend in which both the NLRB and unions are trying to expand the reach of collectiv...
"I was just thinking" was columnist Mike Barnicle's lazy motif in the Boston Globe. Still, it's hard not to copy a lazy motif. So … I was just thinking ...
Business leaders confirmed for the record this spring what they’ve been grousing about for years: Too few recent graduates have the skills to be good workers. That was the key finding in Northeastern University’s third annual survey on t...
If you ask Americans what is studied in history classrooms, many will answer “facts and dates.” If you ask them what people can do with a history degree, they answer “teach.” Yet those same Americans acknowledge the power and practical relevance of history as they flock to national parks, historic sites, museums and cultural heritage sites; buy nationally best-selling biographies; see hist...
Reports of the redesign of the SAT resonate with many parents and their school-age children who have had personal experience with the controversial college gatekeeper.
But another test in the College Board portfolio, though not in the news, is arguably even more important to the future—or lack of a future—of high-school age students. It’s the Accuplacer.
Accuplacer is, like the SAT, a ...
It’s so easy to criticize the SAT that most observers overlook the weaknesses of its architect, the College Board. Until we replace the latter, however, we will never fix the former. The College Board has every incentive to create a complex, stressful, expensive college admissions system. And because it is accountable to no one, it has done just that.
The College Board and ACT add over $500...
Nearly a year ago, NEJHE launched its New Directions for Higher Education series to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices.
Past installments of the series featured Philip DiSalvio, dean of the College of Advancing & Professional Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, interviewing: Carnegie Foundation Pr...
Mature higher education markets are drifting headfirst into the perfect storm. The convergence of shifting demographics, increased competition, decreased government funding and the reality of a global marketplace has become our new normal here in Canada, like in many other parts of the world. Most within the academy have come to accept this reality, and so the question is not if this storm will co...
This is the second of a two-part essay on the organizational implications of online distance education.
Previously, I suggested that a gradual redistribution is occurring across American higher education, especially among adult learners. Local hegemony is at risk, as online interlopers, increasingly from top-tier universities and other academic behemoths, offer students choice they never had be... 
Some notable developments in higher ed ...
... As Southern Maine goes, so goes the nation? College faculty and administrations get along a bit like Congress and the president. In the tradition of shared governance, the administration may offer a sharp change in business policy; the faculty applies the brakes. But at the University of Southern Maine, faculty leaders and President Theo Kalikow ar... 
This is the first of a two-part essay on the organizational implications of online distance education.
As online education becomes more ubiquitous nationally, it becomes even more strategic locally on each college campus. But these efforts are not dispersed comparably across institutions. Some higher education institutions have been more dynamic and decisive, and others paralyzed to act. The very... 
The recent decision by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that Northwestern University football players on scholarship are “employees” entitled to unionize under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) should serve as a wake-up call for higher education administrators.
Part of a trend in which both the NLRB and unions are trying to expand the reach of collectiv... 
"I was just thinking" was columnist Mike Barnicle's lazy motif in the Boston Globe. Still, it's hard not to copy a lazy motif. So … I was just thinking ...
Business leaders confirmed for the record this spring what they’ve been grousing about for years: Too few recent graduates have the skills to be good workers. That was the key finding in Northeastern University’s third annual survey on t... 
If you ask Americans what is studied in history classrooms, many will answer “facts and dates.” If you ask them what people can do with a history degree, they answer “teach.” Yet those same Americans acknowledge the power and practical relevance of history as they flock to national parks, historic sites, museums and cultural heritage sites; buy nationally best-selling biographies; see hist... 
Reports of the redesign of the SAT resonate with many parents and their school-age children who have had personal experience with the controversial college gatekeeper.
But another test in the College Board portfolio, though not in the news, is arguably even more important to the future—or lack of a future—of high-school age students. It’s the Accuplacer.
Accuplacer is, like the SAT, a ... 
It’s so easy to criticize the SAT that most observers overlook the weaknesses of its architect, the College Board. Until we replace the latter, however, we will never fix the former. The College Board has every incentive to create a complex, stressful, expensive college admissions system. And because it is accountable to no one, it has done just that.
The College Board and ACT add over $500... 
Nearly a year ago, NEJHE launched its New Directions for Higher Education series to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices.
Past installments of the series featured Philip DiSalvio, dean of the College of Advancing & Professional Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, interviewing: Carnegie Foundation Pr... 
Mature higher education markets are drifting headfirst into the perfect storm. The convergence of shifting demographics, increased competition, decreased government funding and the reality of a global marketplace has become our new normal here in Canada, like in many other parts of the world. Most within the academy have come to accept this reality, and so the question is not if this storm will co...