OpenCSCU and the Evolution of Open Communications in Connecticut State Colleges & Universities

The 17-institution Connecticut State Colleges & Universities System (CSCU) formed a systemwide open educational resources (OER) Council in 2017 that was primarily focused on the adoption of no-cost or low-cost (NOLO) course materials as a means to provide equitable access to learning materials. Our CSCU consortium of library directors partnered with the OER Council to construct a websit...

Keys to the Survival of Predominantly White Institutions: Recruitment and Retention of Black and Brown Students

In a recent meeting with a young college recruitment officer, I posed the question: When and why did your institution decide that it would not recruit in some of the major urban centers in the U.S.? He was forthright in his response. He matter-of-factly said that, in the early 2000s, his institution decided not to recruit in these centers because of the high levels of violence and the poor quality...

Learning from Everywhere

Millions of Americans are blocked from achieving their economic, social and civic potential by an education system that fails to capture and recognize their knowledge, skills and abilities. At the heart of this systemic obstruction of opportunity lies our failure to understand and value personal learning. Using the life stories of personal learners, Stories from the Educational Underground: The Ne...

Squirreling Away Some Thoughts as Summer Turns to Autumn

Tidbits from the NEJHE Beat … Population studies. The population counts provided by the decennial U.S. census shape congressional and state legisla­tive districts and offer a telling picture of America's and New England's changing demography. Delayed by the pandemic, the 2020 counts came close to the legal deadlines for redistricting in some states, raising concerns about whether there would...

Evidently True? (Books)

Book Review The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth; Jonathan Rauch; Brookings Institution Press; Washington D.C.; 2021. Reviewed by George McCully  This is a prominent and timely book by a distinguished journalist on a subject of profound national significance, especially for our educational and scholarly professions as NEJHE has previously noted. Yet, despite its many admirab...

Say Their Names

Higher ed has always operated in a very cyclical nature. If we look at historical movements on college campuses, including protests in favor of desegregation in the 1960s, higher ed has always been far more reactionary than proactive. For example, following the protest at the University of Missouri (Mizzou) in 2015, thousands of students at colleges and universities across the U.S protested in sol...

The Title IX Sleigh Ride

Should feds dictate rules on campus sexual misconduct? The U.S. Department of Education is poised to reverse Trump-era rules governing claims of sexual misconduct on campus. One could forgive weary college counsel for a case of vertigo: The Trump rules themselves reversed the Obama rules, and Biden’s 2021 nominee to enforce the rules—Catherine Lhamon—held the same office at the Education ...

Navigating the 5S’s of Open Pedagogy Projects: A Roadmap for Educators

Open pedagogy projects take advantage of the internet to invite educators and students into a new relationship with both knowledge and one another. They are immensely rewarding and they require significant planning. In a time when educators and students have been thrown into a constant state of flux, taking on an open pedagogy project might seem a bit daunting. To help ease this process, we create...

How Do Students Decide Which Courses to Take?

A review of formal and informal processes in course selection ... College students use both formal and informal processes when making decisions related to course selection. They often get course-registration advice through formal on-campus “institutional” resources and off-campus “non-institutional” resources. In April 2016, a student in my Data and Decisions Analysis course at S...

DNF in the Race to Change Higher Education

In racing lingo, "DNF" stands for “Did Not Finish.” Unless getting to the finish line is a simple straight-line drag race, winning a race takes a lot more than horsepower and can be as dependent upon: brakes that allow the highest approach speeds to corners, suspension and downforce that keep the car on the track while navigating corners, and a support crew that can change tires and add gas fa...