BOSTON—The New England Board of Higher Education unveiled the Winter 2010 issue of The New England Journal of Higher Education packed with bold articles on innovative admissions policies, the achievement gap facing boys, ways to understand college prices and value, and more, as it announced that the Winter 2010 edition will be its final print issue before its comprehensive move into digital journalism.
NEBHE announced that after 24 years as a print quarterly, the journal will move completely online starting in March 2010 in keeping with changing reader preferences. NEBHE pledged that its relaunched website–anchored by NEJHE-style commentary and analysis and supported by social media–will be the hub for all things related to New England higher education.
The Winter 2010 NEJHE features:
Kaleidoscope
“The Spam Filter” “No Whip Half-Caf Latte” “The Eleventh Commandment” What if you were asked to write a short story on one of those topics? Or given a sheet of paper and asked to create something, say a blueprint of your future home or a cartoon strip? Robert J. Sternberg, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University, and Lee Coffin, Tufts dean of undergraduate admissions and enrollment management, explain why the university is hoping such questions will move applicants to flaunt their creativity.
Failure to Launch
Young American men are leaving high school at higher rates than women, attending college at lower rates, earning fewer degrees and swelling the ranks of the under- and unemployed. Lane A. Glenn, vice president of academic affairs at Northern Essex Community College, and Suzanne Van Wert, an English professor at the college, trace the male achievement gap and offer ways to help close it.
Price and Value
Higher education consultant C. Anthony Broh and Dana Ansel, former research director with MassINC, now with connect.edu, warn that families are navigating a series of complicated financial decisions about how to save and pay for college–and they often make these decisions with incomplete or late information.
The Good Business of Transfer
Academic and career entry and exit points now span a lifetime for “swirling, dropping in, dropping out, and moving on” learners, according to Florida-based higher education consultant Chari Leader, who herself began her college education at a community college at age 27, then went on to earn a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate at three different universities.
The New England Nonprofit Workforce
Despite the nonprofit sector’s size and importance to the nation’s economy and life, higher education in New England and nationally has had a spotty record in addressing this growing sector’s education and professional development needs, writes David Garvey, director of the University of Connecticut Nonprofit Leadership Program.
A Different Path Forward
How can Native peoples use their good relationships with higher education institutions to develop better ones with New England state legislatures? J. Cedric Woods, director of the new Institute for New England Native American Studies at UMass, explains how the institute aims to answer that question and others.
Students at the Center
Nellie Mae Education Foundation President and CEO Nicholas C. Donohue explains how New England’s future demands student-centered learning that is based on a learner’s needs and interests and acknowledges that learning can happen outside “traditional” school hours and settings. Student-centered models assess both a learner’s mastery of content and skills using a combination of demonstration and traditional measures. They take into account the many ways and rates at which students learn and are focused on a broad set of essential an relevant skills.
A Lasting Legacy
An increasingly suburban and culturally diverse generation of New Englanders–many with limited access to outdoors–must get serious about land conservation. Richard Barringer, research professor at the University of Southern Maine and senior fellow at the U.S. EPA’s Environmental Finance Center, highlights the recommendations of the New England Governors Blue Ribbon Commission on Land Conservation.
Forum: After the Crash
Higher Ed in the Obama Years
U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter explains why higher education faces both danger and extraordinary opportunity, as America aims to boost attainment of college degrees ranging from one-year certificates to Ph.D.s.Recession Amnesia
Lacking an agile and responsive governance structure–and with fixed costs mounting in a massive physical plant and labor-intensive enterprise–the modern university is brittle when confronted with changing realities. Jay A. Halfond, dean of Metropolitan College and Extended Education at Boston University, jogs our memory.Making It Real
To increase college attainment, we need to restructure costs and increase productivity: difficult concepts in an academic culture that views these strategies as code for budget-cutting, writes Jane Wellman, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability.
In his Message From the President, on Getting to the Core: Higher Ed’s Opportunity and Responsibility, NEBHE President and CEO Michael K. Thomas explores opportunities for higher education and K-12 to work together on the Common Core Standards taking shape in the states.
In her Message From the Chair on Recognizing New England’s Excellence, assistant majority leader of the Massachusetts state Senate Joan Menard hails individuals and organizations being cited in 2010 for advancing education in New England.
Final Print Issue: A New Chapter
In his Editor’s Memo, Executive Editor John O. Harney explores NEJHE‘s paperless future, noting that the revamped NEBHE website, to be anchored by the journal’s content and supported by social media, will feature:
- Expert commentary and analysis of issues facing higher education
- Happenings on the region’s campuses and beyond
- Links to sources of data and trends
- Reader perspectives
- Robust regional dialogue and roundtable discussions
- Video of NEBHE conferences and other events
- Key policy reports and links to all other NEBHE programs and partners
- Current and past NEJHE articles
For more than 20 years, NEBHE’s journal on higher education and economic issues was known as Connection: The Journal of the New England Board of Higher Education. In 2007, NEBHE “re-branded” the quarterly as The New England Journal of Higher Education or NEJHE.
[ssba]