Once meant to supplement full-time and tenured faculty, adjunct faculty were often viewed as “the others.” But times and economics have changed and this contingent force has become the majority of faculty in American higher education. One result of this shift is a new push to unionize adjunct professors for better pay, benefits and working […]
Standardized tests, once thought to be the best way to compare students from diverse backgrounds, are criticized as being biased and inconclusive. A small but growing number of colleges have made such testing optional for applicants. Does a test-optional policy result in a more diverse student body or improve attainment and retention rates? Measuring Success: […]
Measuring faculty effectiveness has never been a perfect science—and it has always held potential for contention among instructors and administrators. Today, tighter budgets, greater demands in terms of student outcomes and service responsibilities, and a push for hard data increase the pressure to develop fair and accurate evaluation systems. The types of information collected on […]
Every semester, hundreds of freshmen at Champlain College in Vermont gather in a campus meeting room to play the "Game of Life." It's not the traditional board game. Instead, this event simulates financial decisions students will make after graduation. Each student is assigned a salary based on their major and then turned loose in a […]
Lyon College President W. Joseph King and former university president Brian C. Mitchell have written a practical guide for new and veteran leaders. How to Run a College (2018, Johns Hopkins) examines how colleges operate and how they can build on their fundamental strengths. More importantly, it corrects a number of commonly held misperceptions about […]
A culturally rich, historically black neighborhood in Pensacola, Florida, has been experiencing gentrification. To keep the legacy of the Belmont-DeVilliers community alive, a local engineer is guiding a group of University of West Florida undergraduates creating a virtual version of the neighborhood—along with a small brick-and-mortar museum to showcase the project. It's just one of many […]
Are data silos a big problem in higher ed, and what are the most important reasons for taking them down? “It’s common to see a divide between interests in graduation and retention on the one hand, and teaching and learning on the other. These are complementary perspectives, yet many times they are siloed despite a […]
IT leaders at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recognized that unbundling, analyzing and sharing learning management system data could produce results, particularly in driving online students’ success. So they partnered with the College of Education to make it happen. Student behaviors such as ignoring the syllabus or not opening assignments will get […]
In what ways do you see colleges falling short in utilizing data to make better admissions recruitment and acceptance decisions? What kinds of data should they be using more of or better? “Many colleges are not viewing their admissions decisions through the lens of retention and degree completion. Institutions should understand the profile of their […]
When adjunct faculty assembled in November 2017 at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, it wasn't for curricula conversation. Instead, after voting to form a union earlier in the year, they were rallying for better pay. The instructors called for more advancement opportunities and greater recognition of their contributions to the institution. Adjuncts made headlines […]
