Stories of student success filled the air a few cobblestoned blocks from the NACUBO annual meeting headquarters in Montreal this July, as administrators from six institutions formally accepted Models of Excellence awards. CASHNet, the dinner's host, sponsors UB's Models of Excellence program, which has, since 2015, honored campus initiatives involving multiple departments that are driving […]
With headline after tragic headline, and demands from angry constituents and stakeholders to do more, colleges and universities are facing the harsh reality that just complying with the minimum requirements of the Campus SaVE (Sexual Violence Elimination) Act isn't enough to prevent sexual assault. What's more is that it's not only the Title IX coordinator's […]
Almost all U.S. colleges and universities now award certificates, digital badges and other forms of microcredentials so students can quickly show an employer specialized skills they've acquired. Driving this fast-growing trend are workforce millennials who want to learn, for instance, how to operate an Amazon delivery drone or repair a self-driving car without having to […]
To combat a surge in opioid overdoses and continued abuse of alcohol, colleges and universities are expanding services and facilities that aim to keep students in class as they recover from addiction. Along with counseling and academic advising, these centers host watch parties, hiking trips and other activities students can enjoy sober with peers also […]
Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books. The Use of Life, John Lubbock, 1894 In both K-12 and higher learning settings, we spend significant time focused on traditional cognitive development, reading, scientific […]
Helping all students reach their full academic and professional potential lies at the heart of several the initiatives honored as this summer's Models of Excellence. An "App Factory" at a regional state university turned its paid interns into hot business commodities who have been hired quickly after graduation. In the year-round program, students train their […]
Need-based financial aid was supposed to give everyone an opportunity to get into college and better their lives and career prospects. But that assistance is not always applied as intended, says the third edition of New America's "Undermining Pell" report. Nearly half of the public, four-year colleges studied now leave the most financially needy students on […]
Although their leaders might claim otherwise, ratings by U.S. News, Princeton Review and others are of outsized importance to universities today. But what about the many colleges that didn't rank high with these reviewers? How can they compete with the list-toppers? One answer may be that what really matters to prospective students is not so […]
Just hours before it was scheduled to be administered in June, the ACT college admission test was canceled in South Korea and Hong Kong. Approximately 5,500 international students were turned away from testing centers after ACT Inc. announced that it had received credible evidence that test materials in these regions had been leaked in advance, […]
With increasing urgency, today's colleges are being asked—by business, government and the nonprofit field—to impart so-called "21st century skills" of communication, collaboration, problem-solving and creativity to their students. What's often missing from the list is leadership, which galvanizes these other skills and equips students to make informed decisions, take meaningful action, and develop pathways to […]
