The traditional model of course content creation and distribution—textbooks written by faculty and publisher-produced—is being disrupted. New digital players and learning content formats—such as courseware, open educational resources and adaptive (or personalized) learning—promise lower costs and better outcomes. Based on a recent analysis of the course content ecosystem by the National Association of College Stores, […]
As faculty members at a small, tuition-driven private college in the northeast, the familiar refrain of contemporary higher education in shambles rings in our heads. How will our college's low-endowment—combined with less than optimal name recognition—reconcile with the declining number of high school graduates in our region? How will the arms race of amenities and […]
The traditional MBA, the flagship of graduate business education for more than a century, is losing ground as applicants increasingly turn to online degrees and specialized master's programs in business-related fields. The decline in enrollment in full-time, two-year MBA programs has prompted business schools to roll out a wave of new graduate programs, from one-year […]
BALTIMORE COUNTY, Maryland—As a child, Freeman Hrabowski marched in Martin Luther King's peaceful civil rights protests in Birmingham, Alabama, in the mid-1960s. He wound up in jail for a week. Hundreds of miles away on the edge of the American South, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County opened its doors. It was the only campus […]
There are some 4,140 colleges and universities in America. If each spends an average of $50,000 per year in presenting speakers and lecturers–this becomes an annual investment which exceeds $200 million. In the campus public speaker marketplace, the majority of presenters receive fees and compensation of about $10,000 per engagement. Some receive $25,000+ and some […]
Thirty years ago, we knew that larger institutions would consume smaller, more fragile schools – pure mergers as they came to be known. Yet, during the early higher ed merger mania era, many found that consolidations of venerable institutions offered a creative and more equitable non-merger alternative – read as, Azusa Pacific University, Birmingham-Southern College, […]
Student retention, persistence, success and graduation remain top-of-mind issues for higher ed leaders amidst the advent of the College Scorecard, the push toward 60 percent of high school graduates earning college degrees by 2020, and families' familiar concerns about return on investment. Lower-than-desired retention and graduation rates are not limited by an institution's size, sector, […]
On a cold evening in December 2014, over 400 students, faculty and staff gathered quietly on the central plaza of Salisbury University's Maryland campus. Chalked on the pavers were the silhouettes of 24 bodies. As victim names were read, students proceeded to lie down within the outlines and observe several minutes of silence, remembering black […]
Carine Feyten Chancellor and president, Texas Woman's University Topic: Safety and security Trend: Campus safety certainly is going to get more attention from senior administration—and how we are perceived by prospective students and their families will impact their "buying decision." Finding the right balance of open and enjoyable campus life and controls that might mitigate […]
Michael R. Nelson says innovation is about much more than just a good idea. It requires finding new ways to combine existing ideas, products and services into something that people will want. At the heart of that process is collaboration. "Most jobs in the real world involve working with other people, often who have different […]
