The momentum building behind higher ed analytics is hardly surprising, considering the explosion of tech tools available to make sense of institutional data. What might surprise some, though, is who on campus is responsible for predictive analytics. Rather than assigning the task to institutional research or creating a new department, schools are tapping administrators in […]
New research finds mental health treatment of students pays off medically and financially. With those students now pressing administrators to increase mental health services, some colleges and universities are expanding their counseling staffs and other services. Increased treatment for students at California's public institutions will be worth about $56 million in decreased dropouts and higher lifetime […]
Almost everybody ranks colleges these days—old stalwarts like U.S. News & World Report, influential upstarts like Washington Monthly and click-baiting websites that measure everything from campus sustainability to most attractive students to coolest mascots. William Destler, president of Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, even found his university named one of the "geekiest" in […]
Eight years ago administrators laying plans for Guttman Community College in New York City set a goal: This school would not be like so many other community colleges with low completion rates. Guttman would make getting students to graduation a primary mission. That approach is proliferating across the community college sector, says Melinda Mechur Karp, assistant […]
After six colleges and universities in the Boston Consortium launched a self-insurance program in 2012, healthcare costs at Wheaton College ceased their upward spiral. Health premiums at the small liberal arts college had been increasing by 7 percent annually, but now costs have remained flat for the past four years. “We’ve changed the trend line […]
As the 2016 Presidential campaign heats up this summer and the nation looks inward, candidates need to come up to speed in addressing a chronic water crisis in Flint, Michigan and across America. For good reason, this water resource catastrophe has captured the attention of national media and turned Flint into the posterchild for rebuilding […]
When endowment returns are way down, it’s not exactly prudent to spend the same percentage of the endowment for institutional operations each year, with the assumption that target investment payoff percentages will return. And, right now, down they are. Endowment investment returns fell from an average of 15.5 percent for Fiscal Year 2014 to 2.4 […]
At Juniata College in Pennsylvania, students took Arabic for the first time last fall by enrolling in a course at Gettysburg College via video conference. Amherst College students, meanwhile, can major in architectural studies by taking classes at four neighboring colleges. And at Cabrini College near Philadelphia, students from five institutions researched viruses last summer […]
Lack of diversity among faculty and administrators compounded the racial tensions that drove a wave of student protests—and a handful of high-level resignations—on campuses across the U.S. in the fall of 2015.
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 […]
