College football players from Northwestern University in Illinois, along with the National College Players Association, have petitioned to unionize in an effort to bring attention to athletes’ brain trauma risks, sports-related medical expenses, scholarships and academic success. But do they have a case? And what would unionizing mean for college athletics? The NCAA is confident […]
Campus leaders are increasingly confronted with transformation—from students acting as consumers to universities acting more like businesses to the rapid evolution of faculty. Yet perhaps the most prominent change is the proliferation of technology-based learning methods. Online courses have created a new world of education—one where learning can occur anytime and anywhere. While technology is […]
Online lectures, classroom capture, MOOCs, e-books and other digital content mean that questions about intellectual property rights are on the rise. Kevin Smith will help guide attendees through the legal landscape in his UBTech featured session “Yours, Mine or Ours? Intellectual Property in a Digital Age.” Smith is the director of copyright and scholarly communication […]
As one who enjoys reading history, I often ponder those moments of missed opportunity by myopic individuals or organizations. History is rife with such tales. Consider the executive at Decca Records, for example, who nixed a recording contract with the legendary Beatles because he didn’t see the group’s musical style and compositions as unique or […]
A Midwestern state university budgeted about $12 million for a major addition to its library several years ago. At the time, there was not a tightly controlled project planning process at the institution and the library’s plaza—already a major central gathering space on campus—was not included in the project budget. Officials thought they would raise $2.5 […]
What makes a college or university more likely to attract million-dollar gifts? It may not be surprising to learn that longer presidential tenure, the age of an institution, strong alumni networks, and national college rankings help schools win big donations. But even schools not matching the typical profile are getting large gifts by engaging donors […]
For an increasing number of faculty members, class prep has gone high tech. It’s not about simply reviewing notes and planning course exercises. It also involves stepping in front of a video camera. Whether it’s for distance learning programs or flipped classrooms, colleges and universities now need faculty who are able and willing to teach […]
The challenges for executives operating state-wide higher education Systems and the flagship research universities within those Systems have grown more baffling with each passing year. From UMass and UNC to LSU, Wisconsin, and Oregon, we hear regularly about frustrated and embroiled leadership. Public Systems have always been subject to strains, both within themselves and beyond, […]
In the epic Hunger Games trilogy, Katniss learns that to survive, it is not enough to know where to be—it is just as important to know where not to be. For higher education, this means knowing what programs to curtail, and what markets to stay out of. Many institutions need to reduce their reliance on […]
Students at Arkansas’ Hendrix College attend a weekly theater class at Rollins College, nearly a thousand miles away in Florida, without leaving their campus. It’s part of the Associated Colleges of the South’s New Paradigm Initiative that uses remote video conferencing to pool teaching resources. Now students at any of the 16 ACS member campuses […]
