With headline after tragic headline, and demands from angry constituents and stakeholders to do more, colleges and universities are facing the harsh reality that just complying with the minimum requirements of the Campus SaVE (Sexual Violence Elimination) Act isn't enough to prevent sexual assault. What's more is that it's not only the Title IX coordinator's […]
Almost all U.S. colleges and universities now award certificates, digital badges and other forms of microcredentials so students can quickly show an employer specialized skills they've acquired. Driving this fast-growing trend are workforce millennials who want to learn, for instance, how to operate an Amazon delivery drone or repair a self-driving car without having to […]
i>clicker originally came out of the University of Illinois in the Physics department. What prompted you and your colleagues to develop your own system? Mats Selen: Research has shown that active learning—asking students to engage in class with each other and their instructor—is more effective than traditional lecturing. Scott Freeman and his colleagues recently published […]
Helping all students reach their full academic and professional potential lies at the heart of several the initiatives honored as this summer's Models of Excellence. An "App Factory" at a regional state university turned its paid interns into hot business commodities who have been hired quickly after graduation. In the year-round program, students train their […]
Need-based financial aid was supposed to give everyone an opportunity to get into college and better their lives and career prospects. But that assistance is not always applied as intended, says the third edition of New America's "Undermining Pell" report. Nearly half of the public, four-year colleges studied now leave the most financially needy students on […]
With increasing urgency, today's colleges are being asked—by business, government and the nonprofit field—to impart so-called "21st century skills" of communication, collaboration, problem-solving and creativity to their students. What's often missing from the list is leadership, which galvanizes these other skills and equips students to make informed decisions, take meaningful action, and develop pathways to […]
Remember the "Flutie Effect"? That's the claim that Boston College applications increased as a result of Doug Flutie's last-second Hail Mary pass that won a football game against the defending champs from the University of Miami. Now we may be seeing the opposite—let's call it the Scandal Side Effect—where a school's bad publicity can drive […]
American higher education is admired around the world, with its research universities leading the way in creating the breakthroughs that will lead to yet unimaginable futures, liberal arts colleges and state universities educating tomorrow's leaders, and its community colleges providing retraining for middle aged displaced workers. However, across the full spectrum of higher education institutions […]
It is no coincidence that at a time of staggering family college debt burden, hands-on learning is experiencing a revival in schools, colleges, and universities across the Nation and around the world. Students and families perplexed and frustrated by the gainful employment vs. tuition gap are looking for more practical (maker) skills from their next […]
A recent survey of alumni of institutions confirmed what every university president knows: when asked who set them on a constructive path, at the top of the list are professors who made them excited about learning, professors who cared about them as persons, encouraged them, mentored them, and directed them in projects—what we call "high touch." […]
