Governors State University in Illinois opened in the 1970s as one of a handful of two-year “upper division” schools for students finishing their degrees. It quickly proved unsustainable as far as attracting students and providing a complete education experience. In Leading Academic Change: Vision, Strategy, Transformation (2018, Stylus Publishers), the university’s president, Elaine Maimon, discusses […]
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: […]
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 […]
The cost of college, a daunting concern for many American families, is now the central storyline of a Hollywood movie. In a short-lived summer movie release called The House, Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler, a middle-class couple, open an illegal casino to cope with their personal gamble: how to pay for their daughter's college tuition. […]
It’s no secret that insufficient cybersecurity is a concern on the minds of many in higher education. From IT support staff to upper-level administration, everyone wants to protect student data from the hackers who hope to pilfer it. In the March UB “On Topic Q&A,” security and risk consultant Joanne Martin indicated that students and […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Public higher education has faced significant turning points over the last 70 years. The mid-century GI Bill that cemented higher education’s place as a public good and a private gain is one. Another is the transfer of research from declining corporate labs to university labs in the 1980s, to carry forward technology, health and quality […]
How you go to college matters more than where you go to college, says Bentley University President Gloria Cordes Larson. In her book Prepared U (2017 Jossey-Bass), Larson says institutions that focus on professional studies do a fine job preparing students for a job after college. But they often fall short on building “lifelong learning […]
