Colleges and universities miss a significant opportunity to capture the attention of their primary web audience—teens and young adults—when their websites aren't designed to perform well on mobile devices. A 2014 study of 200 public and private schools in New Jersey and Pennsylvania found that more than 70 percent of those institutions did not have […]
The academic landscape is fraught with risk—everything from hazardous chemicals and internal fraud, to flu outbreaks and budget shortfalls. It seems obvious that any college or university would invest effort to identify and rank its current top risks, if just to assign the right level of attention and resources to each. Yet many academic institutions […]
Sprucing up a campus building's interiors need not involve buying loads of new furniture. Just ask officials at Georgetown University. The institution recently refinished and reupholstered a variety of public space furniture in Alumni Square, an apartment complex on the Washington, D.C. campus. It also had loveseats, sofas, arm and lounge chairs, and other pieces […]
Thirty percent of higher ed students today are the first in their family to attend college, while 24 percent—4.5 million—are both first-generation and low-income. That means a significant portion of students is at risk of dropping out, as National Center for Education Statistics data shows that only 11 percent of low-income, first-generation students graduated within […]
New football teams continue to take the field at colleges and universities each fall, overcoming criticism—from within higher ed and from outside—that sports programs not only suck up money desperately needed by academic departments but also drive up tuition and student fees. Some experts also predict that the wave of lawsuits the NCAA faces could push […]
For many colleges and universities, there used to be gold in garbage. Or, at least, there was some revenue to go along with the recycling stream. But two years ago, the whole landfill landscape changed. "When China shifted its policy, it affected almost every school," says Travis Freidman, sustainability and energy manager at the University […]
Recent campus outbreaks of easily spread but preventable diseases have forced administrators across the nation to review their institutions' immunization policies. Immunization policy on potentially deadly illnesses—including measles, meningitis, rubella and mumps—has a rather dense structure that varies by state (and often, by university or system). And these policies are becoming ever more important to […]
Students and faculty at higher education institutions prefer to access information about courses and the campus community on-the-go. And the best mobile apps are seamlessly integrated with all of an institution's information infrastructure. This web seminar, originally broadcast on May 6, 2014, featured an enrollment administrator who discussed the major considerations when connecting the campus […]
Stable, reliable and adaptable. Those are the key descriptors for a successful learning management system. When the current LMS doesn't provide a needed functionality, schools can often add new features or configurations to achieve the desired outcome. But in some cases, it's time to scrap the old system. "Universities change on a dime; they're constantly […]
The concept of campus-as-merchant is a hard one to grasp. Sure, there's the campus store, but the college or university itself? For those involved in securing credit card data used in higher ed transactions, that merchant status is not only a good-to-know fact, but one that must be acted on. Banks are beginning to exercise […]