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Quants at the Gate: The Unique Education of Actuaries
Jay A. Halfond and Lois K. Horwitz
August 27, 2012
Universities typically emerge as gatekeepers of the professions, by wresting control over the training and certification that is required. The process generally begins outside academe—with apprenticeships and voluntary associations—and evolves toward a new norm of academic credit and degrees. Faculty then become the experts who determine the body of knowledge budding professionals need to know ...
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Tags: acturies, Boston University, Jay A. Halfond, Lois K. Horwitz, Metropolitan College | 2 Comments
The Vanishing Neighborhood Campus
Jay A. Halfond
May 14, 2012
Only a generation ago, universities like Northeastern and Boston University had campuses strategically sprinkled throughout eastern Massachusetts. Lesley University offered graduate education programs across the U.S. BU had a contract with the U.S. Army to deliver master’s programs on military bases throughout Europe. Mega-high-tech companies, like Digital Equipment Corp., volunteered their corporate classrooms to ...
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Tags: AACSB, branch campuses, Jay A. Halfond | No Comments
Just Like Starting Over: Advice for Faculty to Make the New Semester’s Teaching Endure
Jay A. Halfond
January 16, 2012
Sometimes when passing through a classroom building, I glance in at a class in session and try to gauge by students’ faces whether the instructor has them engaged or not. Through their facial expressions, you can see whether they are caught up in the class or struggling not to drift away in their thoughts or ...
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Tags: Jay A. Halfond, student engagement, teaching | No Comments
Projecting Project Management’s Future Within the Academic Landscape
Jay A. Halfond
November 28, 2011
U.S. universities have had century-long success in absorbing existing professions into their curricula—by making academe their gatekeeper. These professions often started with apprenticeships and short training courses leading to a certification examination—and were then elevated and “academized” into a comprehensive body of knowledge, fueled by evidence-based scholarship, led by university faculty, and offered to students ...
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Tags: Jay A. Halfond, project management, Project Management Institute | 2 Comments
From Kitchen to Classroom: The Serious Study of Food
Jay A. Halfond
October 5, 2011
When Jacques Pépin accepted his honorary doctorate from Boston University this past May, he made note of this truly symbolic moment. While his proposed dissertation focus on food had once been rejected by Columbia University as academically unworthy, a leading university was now granting him a doctorate for his work as a celebrated author, chef and ...
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Tags: Association for the Study of Food in Society, food, gastronomy, Jacques Pépin, Jay A. Halfond, Jula Child | No Comments
Unintended Consequences: An Uncertain Future for Distance Learning
Jay A. Halfond
June 9, 2011
While most in the academic community know about the attempt to rein in the for-profits, few are aware of its collateral damage. In October, the Department of Education issued its Program Integrity Rules, intended to protect federal funds especially from those for-profit institutions with high student loan default rates. Well-intentioned though this was, the DOE ...
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Tags: distance learning, for-profit colleges, Jay A. Halfond, Title IV, U.S. Department of Education | 1 Comment
Don’t Sweat the Big Stuff: Academic Innovation in all Shapes and Sizes
Jay A. Halfond
April 5, 2011
To listen as many of us incessantly complain, one would think academe is chronically resistant to change, new ideas and innovative programs. We often hear the smaller the stakes, the greater the petty battles—no opportunity is too minute to stall and impede. Before tenure, junior faculty need to be protected while they build their publications ...
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Tags: Boston University, BU, David Riesman, faculty, faculty veto group, Helmut Schmidt, Jay A. Halfond, Metropolitan College, Richard Florida, tenure, Thomas Edison, Willie Wonka | 1 Comment
Biting the Hand: A Commentary on Academe’s Books About Itself
Jay A. Halfond
February 15, 2011
A new literary genre seems to be booming—book-length critiques on the state of American higher education. While a few celebrate American exceptionalism, most lament the decline of higher learning. Whether exuberant or depressed, their tone is rarely tempered. The authors’ demographics suggest why—they are generally at the twilight of their own academic careers, taking one ...
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Tags: Abraham Flexner, Andrew Hacker, books, Clark Kerr, Claudia Dreifus, Ellen Schrecker, Harry R. Lewis, higher education, Jay A. Halfond, Jonathan R. Cole, Mark C. Taylor, Peter Smith, Robert Hutchins | No Comments
Distance Learning 2.0: It Will Take a Village
Jay A. Halfond
January 17, 2011
Last month, I suggested we separate hype from reality—not so much to criticize distance learning, but to seek an even higher ideal. Much of what is thrust under the umbrella of distance learning isn’t conducted at much distance, isn’t well supported and limits opportunities for institution-wide collaboration and innovation. ...
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Tags: Boston University, distance, distance learning, Jay A. Halfond, learning | 2 Comments
Distance Learning: Untried and Untrue
Jay A. Halfond
November 12, 2010
G. K. Chesterton famously once said: “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” This, I believe, applies to distance learning as well. There is far too much self-congratulatory hyperbole about the growth and pervasiveness of online learning – which exaggerates reality and overlooks the true revolution ...
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Tags: distance learning, Halfond, Jay A. Halfond, learning | 2 Comments
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