With the growing number of colleges moving to online learning, I have been asked: Can online learning incorporate trauma-responsive strategies? The short answer is yes.
Before turning to specific pedagogical approaches, it is worth reiterating why trauma-responsiveness is so critical to learning at this moment. Pre-pandemic and before the current racial tensions and economic uncertainty, we wer...
Whether and how campuses will reopen in fall 2020 has emerged as the key story in higher education. On Wednesday, Trump administration officials spoke via teleconference with higher education leaders on how to get students back to campus this fall.
During a pandemic, we need to recognize that the risk assessment and risk tolerance among individuals and organizations varies dramatically. Those d...
Karen Gross is an author, educator and advisor on diverse issues along the educational pipeline. Her current research focuses on student success and the impact of trauma on learning, psychosocial development and health. Sadly, the issues on which she focuses have taken center stage with the coronavirus pandemic and the literally thousands of colleges (and schools) closing their brick-and-mortar ca...
The events surrounding Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court will have an effect of college campuses—and not just in the near term. This is not a political statement. It is a statement about reality. Campuses will be brimming over with concerns about how people treat each other, how people engage with each other, how people of different views can respond to each other and how we fo...
The recent March for Our Lives at hundreds of locations around the globe rattled my cage, particularly as I stood in the middle of hundreds of thousands of protesters in Washington, DC. Had we finally found a way to increase activism, to get more and more people of all ages and stages involved in the well-being of their communities?
As I listened to the young speakers both over the loudspea...
In the space of a few weeks in February, we lost the well-regarded journalists Bob Simon, David Carr and Ned Colt, while NBC’s Brian Williams was dethroned amid scandal. In all these cases, the words “truth” and “trust” and less commonly “transparency” have taken center stage. Quality media professionals succeed because they are truthful, and there is transparency in verifying that t...
Perhaps it is New England’s long winter and seemingly interminable wait for spring that has me thinking about what colleges could do with their campuses during the summer.
The options are almost infinite, although the cost-benefit analysis clearly varies. Some colleges literally hand-over their campuses to outside groups for athletic programs (think Nike camps) and local theatre groups; facul...
Higher education has been a favorite news topic for months. Stories have addressed every issue from rising costs to access for vulnerable students and completion of a college degree, to the importance of “fit” in the college selection process. President Obama and the first lady have entered the national conversation, particularly around issues of cost and graduation rates for low-incom...
Southern Vermont College President Karen Gross, a NEBHE delegate, wrote the following comment to National Journal's recent Next America forum on educating first-generation college students:
Paying attention to improving the graduation rates among first-generation college students has gained fervor. We now appreciate the need to get vulnerable students to and through college if America is eve...
Southern Vermont College President Karen Gross was named a senior policy advisor to the U.S. Department of Education for one year, starting Jan. 17.SVC trustees granted Gross a one-year leave of absence from the college, during which time chief operating officer James Beckwith will be acting president.A NEBHE delegate since 2010, Gross has authored several articles for NEJHE, including: Helicopter...
With the growing number of colleges moving to online learning, I have been asked: Can online learning incorporate trauma-responsive strategies? The short answer is yes.
Before turning to specific pedagogical approaches, it is worth reiterating why trauma-responsiveness is so critical to learning at this moment. Pre-pandemic and before the current racial tensions and economic uncertainty, we wer... 
Whether and how campuses will reopen in fall 2020 has emerged as the key story in higher education. On Wednesday, Trump administration officials spoke via teleconference with higher education leaders on how to get students back to campus this fall.
During a pandemic, we need to recognize that the risk assessment and risk tolerance among individuals and organizations varies dramatically. Those d... 
Karen Gross is an author, educator and advisor on diverse issues along the educational pipeline. Her current research focuses on student success and the impact of trauma on learning, psychosocial development and health. Sadly, the issues on which she focuses have taken center stage with the coronavirus pandemic and the literally thousands of colleges (and schools) closing their brick-and-mortar ca... 
The events surrounding Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court will have an effect of college campuses—and not just in the near term. This is not a political statement. It is a statement about reality. Campuses will be brimming over with concerns about how people treat each other, how people engage with each other, how people of different views can respond to each other and how we fo... 
The recent March for Our Lives at hundreds of locations around the globe rattled my cage, particularly as I stood in the middle of hundreds of thousands of protesters in Washington, DC. Had we finally found a way to increase activism, to get more and more people of all ages and stages involved in the well-being of their communities?
As I listened to the young speakers both over the loudspea... 
In the space of a few weeks in February, we lost the well-regarded journalists Bob Simon, David Carr and Ned Colt, while NBC’s Brian Williams was dethroned amid scandal. In all these cases, the words “truth” and “trust” and less commonly “transparency” have taken center stage. Quality media professionals succeed because they are truthful, and there is transparency in verifying that t... 
Perhaps it is New England’s long winter and seemingly interminable wait for spring that has me thinking about what colleges could do with their campuses during the summer.
The options are almost infinite, although the cost-benefit analysis clearly varies. Some colleges literally hand-over their campuses to outside groups for athletic programs (think Nike camps) and local theatre groups; facul... 
Higher education has been a favorite news topic for months. Stories have addressed every issue from rising costs to access for vulnerable students and completion of a college degree, to the importance of “fit” in the college selection process. President Obama and the first lady have entered the national conversation, particularly around issues of cost and graduation rates for low-incom... 
Southern Vermont College President Karen Gross was named a senior policy advisor to the U.S. Department of Education for one year, starting Jan. 17.SVC trustees granted Gross a one-year leave of absence from the college, during which time chief operating officer James Beckwith will be acting president.A NEBHE delegate since 2010, Gross has authored several articles for NEJHE, including: Helicopter...