What are key challenges institutions are facing in achieving efficiencies through technology initiatives? There are three challenges. The first is user adoption, and the technology is good only if your users are using it. The key reason for low user adoption is that the technology is very complicated. That is the second challenge. Technology should […]
Exotic branch campuses across the globe give American institutions an extra shine when recruiting students and establishing an internationally recognized brand. Now, several universities are finding similar success with satellites in other parts of the U.S. For example: Drexel University, based in Philadelphia, operates a satellite in Sacramento, California; Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh runs […]
Data can be a beautiful thing. It can reveal patterns, failures and sometimes, surprises—as long as the measurements are consistent. At Prince George's Community College that wasn't the case. Each class was measuring different things, so campus leaders couldn't quite see the big picture. W. Allen Richman, dean of the Office of Planning, Assessment and […]
AV has been absorbed by the IT department on many college campuses. But is the situation more like a friendly merger or hostile takeover? The trend started in the mid-2000s, when AV equipment joined the network and control moved to remote software suites. The transition put AV departments in constant communication with the IT teams […]
Open educational resources have grown over the last few years from one-off oddities in single courses to the basis of entire degree programs. Cutting out textbook costs for students tops the list of reasons administrators encourage faculty to develop and adopt these free—or very inexpensive—resources, also known as OER. Other enticements include immediate access for […]
Higher education historians often trace the modern growth and democratization of American higher learning to federal student financial aid – providing a system of higher education financing that has opened the doors of college and university campuses to students and families who would otherwise be unable to afford the spiraling costs of college tuition. […]
The ills of society are often magnified in the high-intensity atmosphere of college campuses. Over the last two years, violent events involving police officers and a perceived lack of administrative responsiveness to incidents of on-campus racial bias have led to protests and confrontations. On most campuses, these demonstrations were organized to address issues of diversity, […]
When Teri McIntyre was a University of Wisconsin undergrad in the early '90s, she volunteered to call alumni to ask for college fund donations and—believe it or not—she liked making those calls. A university development officer noticed and offered McIntyre a job after graduation. "I didn't know if I could spend my whole life in […]
Are universities hiring non-tenured adjuncts—who now make up two-thirds of the faculty workforce—because their tenured veterans won't retire? Delayed retirement is a contributing factor in the proliferation of adjuncts, says Brian Kaskie, associate professor of health policy at the University of Iowa's College of Public Health. Employees who can't be fired and won't retire are […]
It may be time to rethink some of our established models of higher education. Let's consider two classic paradigms. By most definitions, liberal arts education refers to those college studies related to areas such as literature, languages, philosophy, humanities, history, mathematics, psychology and science. These instructional elements are among the most time-honored part of a […]
