Posts Tagged: John O. Harney

What Gives? Perspectives on Philanthropy and Higher Education

Late last month, NEBHE senior fellow and Massachusetts Board of Higher Education Chair Charles Desmond and I launched a series of interviews with key leaders in New England philanthropy. Our goal was to paint a picture of what philanthropies see as the key issues and challenges facing higher education and how potential funders can have the most meaningful impacts on education in New England. Our ...

Nellie Mae Education Foundation Issues Report Boosting Technology in Schools

More than 40% of high school students feel unprepared to use technology as they look ahead to college and work, and only 8% of teachers fully integrate technology in the classroom, according to Integrating Technology with Student-Centered Learning, a new report prepared for the Nellie Mae Education Foundation (NMEF) of Quincy, Mass., by Education Development Center (EDC) of Newton, Mass.The report...

Down Economy Still Shaping College Enrollment, Consulting Firm Says

Two years after the depth of the Great Recession, the economy is still a major factor in college-enrollment decisions, according to a new survey by Concord, Mass.-based Maguire Associates and Fastweb.com. Nearly one-third of high school seniors who did not enroll in their first-choice college said the main reason was that they could not afford it, according to the survey of 2,400 high school seni...

URI Hooks $11.5 Million to Boost Sustainable Fishing in Senegal

The Coastal Resources Center and the Fisheries Center at the University of Rhode Island were awarded a five-year, $11.5 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development to help the sub-Saharan African country of Senegal promote sustainable fishing. Fishing has been an economic safety net in Senegal, which has created competing interests familiar in some parts of New England. Far...

More Caps and Gowns: NE College Commencement Season Shifting to High Gear

  Premier of Quebec Jean Charest will keynote Champlain College's 133nd commencement on Saturday, May 7, at 10 a.m. in the college's Memorial Auditorium. Former Vt. Gov. Jim Douglas will speak on behalf of  honorary degree recipients during the ceremony. Author and sustainable agriculture activist Gary Paul Nabhan will deliver the commencement address at Maine's Unity College on Saturd...

Middlesex CC Names Library for Evan Dobelle

Middlesex Community College named the library on its Lowell, Mass. campus, for its second president Evan S. Dobelle. Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, MCC is the second largest public two-year college in New England, with 21,000 students. The library named for Dobelle is housed in MCC’s F. Bradford Morse Federal Building in the historic mill city. Dobelle was the mayor of Pittsfield, M...

Data Connection: State Work, Guns, Sports

In January, we revived the collection of facts and figures called "Data Connection" that we had published quarterly for nearly 20 years in the print editions of The New England Journal of Higher Education. The latest ... Change in Connecticut State University System (CSUS) "administrative and residual" staff, fiscal 2006 to fiscal 2011: -15% Connecticut State University System Change in C...

Among Comings & Goings: Another NE Land Grant Taps a Scientist as Prez

University of Maine System trustees approved Chancellor Richard Pattenaude’s recommendation of Paul Ferguson as the next president of UMaine, the state’s flagship and land-grant university in Orono. Currently provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Ferguson will succeed Robert Kennedy at Orono on July 1. UMaine noted that th...

Spring Peepers: NE Campuses Begin Naming Speakers for Commencement

It's happening again: New England colleges and universities are assembling the academics, business gurus, heads of state and, of course, celebs, who make the region's spring college commencements the world's best regional lecture series. Some stars of this year's commencement season so far (in order of appearance) ...****Marc A. Nivet, the chief diversity officer at the Association of American Med...

Right This Way Please … Early Admissions Debate Rages On

In September 2006, Harvard made the decision to end early admissions. Early admissions takes on two forms: early action and early decision. What Harvard had in place was non-binding early action, meaning that a student applies before the regular deadline—in early November—and has until admissions decisions come back from other schools before deciding where to attend.Early decision, on ...