Federal Funds Would Boost Community College-Job Training Partnerships

DC Shuttle ... Vice President Announces Competitive Grants for Community Colleges. Vice President Joe Biden announced a program to award $100 million in competitive grants to fund public-private partnerships among community colleges, job training programs and businesses. The America's Promise Job-Driven Training grants will fund innovative new partnerships that help provide education and job trai...

Last Call on Commencements … Really, This Time

We have tried to be fairly comprehensive in announcing New England college commencements in three posts: The Greatest Lecture Series on Earth? and The Show Goes On and Commencements … Last Call …  Of course, with 250 or so higher ed institutions in the region, a few escaped. Among them ... Basketball Hall of Famer Bill Walton will give the commencement address for New England Institute of ...

There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch … or Free Bathroom?

DC Shuttle ... Updates to 2010 Child Nutrition Act Introduced. U.S. Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN) introduced H.R. 5003, the Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of 2016. The bill is a reauthorization of the 2010 child nutrition law. The bill makes many changes to the 2010 law, most notably in the requirements to qualify for free meals for students. Under the current law, if more than 40% of the ...

NAFSA: Association of International Educators Chief Says Bon Voyage

Comings and Goings ... Marlene M. Johnson announced she will retire as president and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators at the end of December 2016. The Massachusetts Bay Community College Board of Trustees recommended David Podell, vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Marymount Manhattan College in New York, to be the next president of MassBay. Nancy T...

Commencements … Last Call …

New England Commencements ... University of Connecticut schools and colleges will hold separate commencements on Saturday, May 7 and Sunday, May 8. Speakers include: National Science Foundation Director France A. Córdova, School of Engineering; screenwriter Oliver Stone, Graduate School; Judge Christopher F. Droney, School of Law; commentator Charles Osgood, Schools of Medicine and Dental ...

Researchers Unclog Flake’s Waste Disposal

DC Shuttle ... Scrutinized Researchers Defend Their Work. Researchers from across the country converged on the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The researchers all had one thing in common: Their research had been included in Sen. Jeff Flake's (R-AZ) "wastebook." The wastebook outlines 100 projects receiving federal funding that Flake says are frivolous and wasteful. The researche...

The Show Goes On

More Commencements ... Christine Keville, the first female national president and foundation chair of the Construction Management Association of America, will keynote Wentworth Institute of Technology’s commencement on Saturday, April 23, beginning at 10 a.m. at the Boston Marriott Copley. Entrepreneur Frederick H. Kocher, the former president of the NH High Technology Council, will a...

Feds to Step Up Reviews of Higher Ed Accreditors

DC Shuttle ... Education Under Secretary Announces Changes. The U.S. Department of Education Under Secretary Ted Mitchell posted two important blog posts on the department's website. One of the posts announced a new student loan servicing and repayment system that would streamline the loan process and allow borrowers to access all the necessary information via a single web portal while enhancing ...

April Showers: Some Upcoming Events Around New England

A few calendar items ... Connecticut College will celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month with a kickoff address by assistant professor of Japanese Takeshi Watanabe, followed by a student panel discussion on the role and representation of Asian Americans in the media. The event will takes place in the Cro’s Nest in the College Center at Crozier-Williams on April 7 from 5 p.m. to 7 p...

New Prez Online Out West, Leaders Named at Lesley and CT OHE … and a Looming Void in Vermont

Pulsipher Comings and Goings ... The Western Governors University (WGU) Board of Trustees named Scott D. Pulsipher to be its new president, effective April 11. The former president of Needle Inc. and general manager for Amazon Webstore, Pulsipher succeeds Robert Mendenhall, who led the nonprofit online WGU from its beginning in 1999, into a major university today with nearly 70,000 students and ...