Higher education officials have long been familiar with the concept of “summer melt,” where students who have paid a deposit to attend one college or university instead matriculate at a different institution, usually presumed to be of comparable quality. While melt may be a concern for individual institutions as they try to predict their fall enrollments, historically it has not been viewed as...
NEJHE’s New Directions for Higher Education series examines emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices.
The convergence of forces driving change in higher education is transforming the academic enterprise—reinventing what a university is, what a course is, what a student is and what the value of higher education is.
On...
Much has been written about the failure of “developmental education” in mathematics. Failure has not been our experience at Worcester State University. In response to concerns about both the placement rate into developmental math courses and the failure rate in those courses, we made substantial changes in our placement program and in our course delivery. We have decreased by 50% the n...
NEJHE on Models that Will Change Higher Ed Forever
It will be truly ironic if the most impersonal technology of all ends up saving the most personal kind of teaching and learning in higher education.
I speak about the dramatic rise of online learning and MOOCs. Everyone, it seems, is talking about and questioning the relevance and “value proposition” of higher education. From Thomas Frie...
NEJHE on Models that Will Change Higher Ed Forever
MOOCs claim to make education accessible to everyone, but institutions offering MOOCs have yet to define best practices for accessible design. For many, universal design efforts end when course video material has been captioned. Captioning is important, but the idea that you can just caption course video and call a MOOC accessible belongs on the ...
Many students begin higher education unprepared for college-level work in mathematics and must take non-credit developmental courses. Furthermore, many are math-phobic and avoid courses, majors and careers that involve quantitative work. Yet science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields are among the few job-growth areas in the U.S. Many companies are lobbying the federal governme...
Even as the economy appears to have turned a corner, high unemployment persists. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the national unemployment rate teetered at 7.9% in January 2013, and New England’s was 7.3% in December 2012.
Strangely, as millions nationwide struggle to find work, there are millions of jobs that remain unfilled. The BLS reports that on the last business day o...
It is now a commonplace to assert that education institutions have some responsibility to contribute to the effort to remake our world so civilization will be sustainable into the future. A history of this idea would capture the many programs of environmental research and teaching that have taken place at universities and colleges, going back centuries, but would certainly also note the founding i...
NEJHE on Models that Will Change Higher Ed ForeverDuring any given semester at a liberal arts college like Wellesley, students may experience what will prove to be a transformational moment in their lives. A pre-med student from El Paso might come to Wellesley and publish research with her biochemistry professor. She might carry on impassioned debates beyond her political science seminar and into ...
For every institution of higher education, the safety and protection of its campus community is of primary importance. Recent events have shown an increase in campus crime, assaults and even a tragic loss of life.Apps such as Ping4alerts! allow campuses to send hyperlocal smartphone alerts related to public safety, school closings, local events, power outages, traffic and weather advisories, and d...
Higher education officials have long been familiar with the concept of “summer melt,” where students who have paid a deposit to attend one college or university instead matriculate at a different institution, usually presumed to be of comparable quality. While melt may be a concern for individual institutions as they try to predict their fall enrollments, historically it has not been viewed as... 
Much has been written about the failure of “developmental education” in mathematics. Failure has not been our experience at Worcester State University. In response to concerns about both the placement rate into developmental math courses and the failure rate in those courses, we made substantial changes in our placement program and in our course delivery. We have decreased by 50% the n... 
NEJHE on Models that Will Change Higher Ed Forever
It will be truly ironic if the most impersonal technology of all ends up saving the most personal kind of teaching and learning in higher education.
I speak about the dramatic rise of online learning and MOOCs. Everyone, it seems, is talking about and questioning the relevance and “value proposition” of higher education. From Thomas Frie... 
Many students begin higher education unprepared for college-level work in mathematics and must take non-credit developmental courses. Furthermore, many are math-phobic and avoid courses, majors and careers that involve quantitative work. Yet science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields are among the few job-growth areas in the U.S. Many companies are lobbying the federal governme... 
Even as the economy appears to have turned a corner, high unemployment persists. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the national unemployment rate teetered at 7.9% in January 2013, and New England’s was 7.3% in December 2012.
Strangely, as millions nationwide struggle to find work, there are millions of jobs that remain unfilled. The BLS reports that on the last business day o... 
It is now a commonplace to assert that education institutions have some responsibility to contribute to the effort to remake our world so civilization will be sustainable into the future. A history of this idea would capture the many programs of environmental research and teaching that have taken place at universities and colleges, going back centuries, but would certainly also note the founding i... 
NEJHE on Models that Will Change Higher Ed ForeverDuring any given semester at a liberal arts college like Wellesley, students may experience what will prove to be a transformational moment in their lives. A pre-med student from El Paso might come to Wellesley and publish research with her biochemistry professor. She might carry on impassioned debates beyond her political science seminar and into ... 
For every institution of higher education, the safety and protection of its campus community is of primary importance. Recent events have shown an increase in campus crime, assaults and even a tragic loss of life.Apps such as Ping4alerts! allow campuses to send hyperlocal smartphone alerts related to public safety, school closings, local events, power outages, traffic and weather advisories, and d...