Collaboration

SINCE WORLD WAR I, FORT ORD IN SALINAS, CALIF., HAD BEEN AN ARMY training facility and artillery target range. Today, 15 years after the army left, the property’s main feature is a growing regional university—California State University, Monterey Bay.

IT IS A WELL-KNOWN FACT: Tutoring helps students perform better. The trick is getting them to use it. In keeping with the cyclical nature of trends, community colleges are rediscovering the advantages of student success centers, which consolidate math, writing, and language help in one place.

IN THE MEDIA, FINANCIAL aid coverage tends to focus on topics such as the tensions between funding merit scholarships versus need-based grants, the growth in student and parent borrowing, and the need to increase funding for Federal Pell Grants. Federal or state work-study programs get little focus.

3DVinci has released the Google SketchUp 7 Hands On book series.

THE PREVAILING MODEL FOR INNOVATION IN TEACHING is drawn from the conviction of many funders that any teaching innovation in teaching requires faculty to be released from normal duties to try something new.

TURNAROUND: LEADING STRESSED COLLEGES AND Universities to Excellence (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009) is the new book by University Business “Future Shock” columnists James Martin and James E. Samels.

MANY HIGHER EDUCATION institutions rely on external consultants not only for advice but also for help in diagnosing and developing strategies related to common and uncommon challenges in a whole host of areas—such as compensation, leadership development, enrollment, labor relations, strategic planning, technology, capital planning

LONG A STEPPING STONE TO higher education for low-income and first-generation students, community colleges will become more important to a wider variety of students if the combination of a weakening economy and increasing tuition continues.

We are entering the age of collaboration. Web 2.0 has gone mainstream. An entire generation of students is arriving in our schools and universities, for whom Facebook is their most important source of information and communications.

THE GOOD NEWS? EVIDENCE from the Society for College and University Planning’s 43rd annual international conference supports the conclusion that there is a whole lot of “smart planning” for higher education going on.