October 26, 2012
In the days since NEBHE convened hundreds of educators and opinion leaders in Boston for the University Unbound conference, we've received a surge of reactions including this one from George McCully, founder of the Catalogue for Philanthropy. NEBHE has begun focusing the attention of New England institutions on the MOOC movement, which will affect them all. Already, within months of their pub...
October 25, 2012
A $1 billion investment in smart infrastructure could create nearly 27,000 jobs and increase New England’s GDP by $9 billion, according to a new report by the New England Council (NEC) and Deloitte Development LLC. The report, “Smart Infrastructure in New England: An investment for growth and prosperity” was released at a NEC breakfast meeting in Boston last week. “Smart...
October 24, 2012
Innovators and entrepreneurs are using technologies to make freely available the things for which universities charge significant money. MOOCs ... free online courses ... lecture podcasts ... low-cost off-the-shelf general education courses ... online tutorials ... digital collections of open learning resources ... open badges ... all are disrupting higher education's hold on knowledge, instructio...
October 19, 2012
Former NEBHE President and U.S. Congressman Robert A. Weygand will leave his position as the University of Rhode Island's vice president for administration and finance at the end of the fiscal year in June 2013."I will have served in this role for more than nine years, a long time by national standards," he said. "I must admit, it seems like...
October 15, 2012
Veterans play a critical role in the U.S. economy. For many returning veterans, education is the first step to successfully reentering civilian life and the workforce. Since the inception of the first GI Bill (Servicemen’s Readjustment Act) in 1944, higher education has been responding to the needs of military students. There were over 555,000 veteran and active duty beneficiaries of the Pos...
October 11, 2012
Nearly one in five American households maintains student loan debt, up from 15% in 2007 and 10% in 1989, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center.The report also states that rates of student loan debt increased in every demographic group and economic category, and is particularly acute in the bottom and top fifth of income earners.Heightened national...
October 11, 2012
Among recent comings and goings, Father Jonathan DeFelice, O.S.B., president of Saint Anselm College, announced he will retire in June 2013, after leading the college since 1989. Bunker Hill Community College President Mary L. Fifield also announced she will retire in June, after 16 years.Don Vickers said he also will retire as president and CEO of the Vermont Student Assistance...
October 10, 2012
The State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) group issued an open letter to President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney in Change Magazine's September/October edition.In the letter, SHEEO President Paul Lingenfelter asks the next presidential candidate to sustain federal investment in research and development (R &D) and provide necessary levels of federal need-based financial aid. The letter also emphasizes the...
October 10, 2012
Federal maintenance of effort (MOE) provisions play an important role in state funding of higher education, according to a new report by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU).The MOE provisions require states to maintain a minimum level of state aid to public and private higher education institutions in order for states to receive federal funds. In most...
October 3, 2012
Why is remedial or developmental education such a hot issue? Partly because it costs time and money and casts doubt on the elementary and secondary education systems that we assume will prepare students for college. The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) explored solutions to the problem at a recent forum in Kennebunkport, Maine, called “Ready for Real: Innovative Strategies for Im...
October 2, 2012
The U.S. Department of Education released a Request for Information on promising and practical strategies to increase postsecondary success.The department invites submissions from institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations, states, systems of higher education, adult education providers, researchers, and institutional faculty and staff, or consortia of these groups.The aim is to collect strategies that could be replicated or scaled-up to...
September 25, 2012
Click here for videos of BIF-8 storytellers! The Business Innovation Factory (BIF) held its eighth annual collaborative innovation summit on Sept. 19 and 20 in Providence, and the key, as always, was the art of storytelling. No themes, said summit facilitator and BIF founder and “chief catalyst” Saul Kaplan. You decide which connections you can make, he told the 400-plus attendees. Granted...
September 24, 2012
STEM visa bill fails On Thursday, a proposal to increase the number of visas offered to immigrants with advanced degrees in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math) from American schools failed to pass the House. The bill (H.R. 6429) needed a two-thirds vote of members in order to be passed on the House suspension calendar. It fell shy...
September 18, 2012
The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) announced the degree programs approved under the New England Regional Student Program (RSP), Tuition Break, for the 2013-14 academic year, including nine new bachelor's, one new associate, and 14 new graduate degree programs.New Associate and Bachelor's Degree Programs Approved for 2013-14: Allied Health, University of Connecticut Design (Graphic & Web) (BFA), Lyndon...
September 17, 2012
New Hampshire, Maine Request NCLB Waivers On Monday, officials in New Hampshire and Maine submitted requests for flexibility from the standards of No Child Left Behind. With this action, all six New England States have made formal requests for flexibility. Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts have had their requests approved already. Vermont, however, made a formal request but subsequently withdrew...
September 10, 2012
* Goal is to increase student persistence and completion * Drive reform of developmental mathThe New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) was awarded a $356,200 grant from the Lumina Foundation to support a developmental education project that provides a high-quality, low-cost instructional platform coupling Khan Academy and community college resources.The project aims to boost the number of high-quality college...
September 10, 2012
The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) was awarded a three-year $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a New England-wide project titled Problem Based Learning (PBL) in Advanced Manufacturing: Transforming 21st Century Technician Education. Funding is provided through the NSF's Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program to improve science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education.To address the...
September 10, 2012
The debate about the need for change in America’s K-12 education system has been raging for decades. Teachers, parents, administrators and government leaders alike have been grappling with how to transform a system that has been failing too many students for too long, according to a recent Center for Education Policy study. Until recently, the higher education system, on the other hand, has been...
September 9, 2012
The Boston Globe and its affiliated website Boston.com launched 10 Your Campus sites featuring links to bloggers, campus newspapers, websites, and Twitter feeds, as well as Globe staff articlesInitially, the sites will serve Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, Emerson College, Harvard University, MIT, Northeastern University, Suffolk University, Tufts University and Wellesley College.Your Campus is aimed at the 360,000 college...
September 6, 2012
National Public Radio's WNPR-Connecticut Public Radio and The Connecticut Mirror opened a news bureau on the campus of Fairfield University.In addition to covering news in Fairfield County, the collaboration offers opportunities for Fairfield University students to be interns in a working newsroom.The Connecticut Mirror is the website of the nonprofit Connecticut News Project (CNP). The project was created to ensure...
September 4, 2012
Beyond the deluge of campaign ads and Super PAC propaganda, the upcoming months promise some more thoughtful political events in New England. Consider ...Northeastern University's Open Classroom Series will feature 'Campaign 2012: Policy Advice to the President.' to be held every Wednesday evening from Sept. 5 through Dec. 12, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., in the university's West Village...
September 4, 2012
The first online course from MITx titled 6.002x: Circuits and Electronics, offered earlier this year, had more students than the entire number of living students who have graduated from the university. Indeed, that number is not far from the total of all the students enrolled there since the 19th century. MIT reports that 155,000 people registered for MITx 6.002x and of those, approximately 23,...
August 31, 2012
Yale University President Richard C. Levin announced he will step down at the end of the current academic year, after 20 years of service—a longer tenure than any other president in the Ivy League or the 61-member Association of American Universities.University System of New Hampshire Chancellor Edward MacKay will step down from the post in March after 36 years with...
August 28, 2012
The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) seeks institutions that are interested in serving as pilot sites for using unused television channels (TV band 'white spaces' referred to as Super Wi-Fi), to expand the coverage and capacity of high-speed wireless connectivity both on and off campus.NEBHE recently hosted a webinar on AIR.U (Advanced Internet Regions), a consortium of higher...
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...
August 24, 2012
Writing center workers are agents of change whose practices might reverse the resegregation and new racism occurring in our country. As leaders in the academy who advance a pedagogy of hope, writing center workers model a practice for bringing about a lasting and abundant multicultural community. Starting with the writing center at the University of Iowa in the first half of the last century, t...
August 19, 2012
Updated August 2012The enigmatic term "college readiness" is increasingly used in education and policy environments across the country. While school-university partnerships, school-community initiatives and state and federal legislation have shown promise in preparing students for college study, a common definition of the term remains elusive, and many students are still underprepared for college-...
August 14, 2012
"Your students come here for four years and leave."For some time, this had been a common perception among many Rhode Islanders regarding to the state's independent colleges and universities. But that's changing.The state’s housing bubble had burst in 2006, leading to interest in developing less volatile economic sectors that would provide the stable high-end services jobs. By 2008, Rhode Isl...
August 7, 2012
Though New England state revenues have rebounded slightly during FY 2012, the states held the line on new spending for FY 2013 and, in some cases, made further cuts. The outlook for future state spending is uncertain as the economy continues to grow at a sluggish pace, and national and state elections signal new challenges. CONNECTICUT The Connecticut General Assembly adjourned...
August 6, 2012
On Monday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee released a report on the for-profit college sector. The report, entitled "For Profit Higher Education: The Failure to Safeguard the Federal Investment and Ensure Student Success" is critical of industry practices and details marketing and recruiting strategies as well as graduation rates and debt burdens. According to the report,...
July 30, 2012
On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security held a hearing on preventing student visa fraud and addressing "sham" institutions that commit fraud to attain visas and enroll foreign students. The hearing was held in response to a report released last month by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) criticizing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)...
July 30, 2012
If you won the lottery tomorrow, how would you spend your time? Being a good social scientist, Jack Cheng, a former UMass Boston art historian, said he would go to Walmart, the new Peoria, and ask that question. “Most of them, after they buy a house, after they buy a car ... would go to the movies, they would read books, they would listen to music,” Cheng said. “They’d sit around cafes ...
July 24, 2012
NEBHE renamed its headquarters at 45 Temple Place in Boston, Mass., in honor of its former chair, the late New Hampshire Gov. Walter Rutherford Peterson. A ceremony held July 23 at the NEBHE office featured remembrances by distinguished leaders of government and higher education around New England and the unveiling of a plaque honoring Peterson, who died June 1, 2011,...
July 23, 2012
The FY 2013 Labor-HHS-Education spending bill adopted by a House Appropriations subcommittee panel on Wednesday would reduce funding for the U.S. Department of Education by $1.1 billion from 2012 levels and eliminate funding for the Obama administration's Race to the Top Program. It would also rescind $400 million in unspent appropriations for the Race to the Top program in 2012....
July 19, 2012
Editor's Note: NEJHE devotes special attention in 2012 to the changing roles of land-grant institutions on this 150th anniversary of the Morrill Land-Grant College Act. Here, Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, proposes a new kind of research university ... In the 2000s, American manufacturing suffered its worst decade since at least World War II...
July 16, 2012
On July 6, the states of Washington and Wisconsin were granted waivers by the U.S. Department of Education from the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, South Dakota and Utah had waivers approved on June 29. Twenty-six states have now been granted waivers while 10 states and the District of Columbia still await decisions...
July 12, 2012
Editor's Note: NEJHE devotes special attention in 2012 to the changing roles of land-grant institutions on this 150th anniversary of the Morrill Land-Grant College Act. Here is University of New Hampshire President Mark W. Huddleston on the current state of land-grant support ... As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the land-grant college system, I wonder what U.S. Sen. Justin Smith Mo...
July 11, 2012
The New England Board of Higher Education will co-host the New England Campus Sustainability Forum on Friday, Sept. 21, 2012 at the Colleges of the Fenway in Boston.The conference, titled "Leveraging Collective Resources for the Future" is designed to build the skills that will help campus change agents advance sustainability programs at their institutions, including skills uniquely tailored to our...
July 9, 2012
Updated July 2012New England colleges and universities enrolled nearly 59,000 foreign students in 2011—more than three times as many as they did in 1980, according to data from the New York City-based Institute of International Education.New England campuses attract 8.1% of all foreign students who enrolled in the United States.Figure INT 1: Foreign Enrollment at New England Colleges and Un...
July 6, 2012
Perspectives from Stephen J. Nelson, who recently authored his fourth book about college presidents, Decades of Chaos and Revolution: Showdowns for College Presidents. Nelson is associate professor of Educational Leadership at Bridgewater State University and senior scholar in the Leadership Alliance at Brown University. NEJHE published his thoughts on two previous occasions: Success and Fai...
July 5, 2012
Longtime University of Maine at Farmington President Theo Kalikow will succeed Selma Botman as president of the University of Southern Maine, effective July 10, the system office announced. Botman will stay in the system, leading efforts to expand its international programs.Christine Plunkett, Burlington College's vice president of administration and finance, was named president of the college, succeeding Jane Sanders.Rhode Island...
July 2, 2012
With Boston serving as a hub of both educational and medical excellence, it’s no wonder that New England has a high reputation to uphold in both of these areas. However, Boston and the rest of the region lack a specific degree program that is putting New England below the radars of potential midwives.
July 2, 2012
With time ticking down, lawmakers voted to keep student loan interest rate for federally subsidized Stafford loans at 3.4% for another year, attaching the compromise language, formerly H.R. 4628, to the highway bill (H.R. 4348). The measure passed the House and Senate on Friday. Had Congress not acted, the current authorization subsidizing student loan rates was set to expire June...
June 26, 2012
A consortium of higher education associations, public interest groups and high-tech companies today announced a new partnership called AIR.U (Advanced Internet Regions) to deploy Super Wi-Fi networks in university communities by taking advantage of unused television channels, known as white spaces.Home to 291 two- and four-year postsecondary institutions that enrolled more than 990,000 students in fall 2010, New England could...
June 25, 2012
With a June 30 deadline quickly approaching, lawmakers are running out of time to prevent student loan rates from doubling. Leadership from both parties has said that a compromise will be coming before the deadline and suggested on Friday that they are close to a deal. In 2007, Congress approved PL 110-84, which gradually reduced loan interest rates over four...
June 25, 2012
The New England states continue to experience slow growth and slow recovery of the jobs lost in the 2008 to 2009 recession. The main reason for this is the continued weakness in global and U.S. economic conditions. The U.S. and New England economies continue to be affected by the weak European economy and sovereign debt crisis and by weakness in domestic and regional housing markets.The forecast f...
June 21, 2012
Next Generation Learning Challenges awarded Southern New Hampshire University's (SNHU) Innovation Lab a $1 million grant to develop online and blended programs designed to improve student access and college completion through the use of technology. SNHU's Pathways Project targets include low-income and minority students, and will initially offer an associate degree with content and assessment delivered online in a self-paced,...
June 20, 2012
The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education confirmed the appointment of Ellen Kennedy as the next president of Berkshire Community College, effective July 1. Kennedy has been serving as interim president at the college since January, following the retirement of Paul Raverta. Kennedy previously served as the college's vice president for administration and finance....
June 18, 2012
On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted along party lines to approve FY2013 authorization for Labor-HHS-Education programs, including $68.5 billion for the Department of Education. This includes an $85 increase in the maximum Pell Grant award level, from $5,550 to $5,635, beginning in the 2013-14 school year. Funding for most other student financial aid programs would remain at current levels....
June 18, 2012
Club members receiving homework help in Burlington, Vt. Boys & Girls Clubs of America count 4,000 community-based clubs serving more than 4 million young people through membership and community outreach. They provide a safe place to spend time during non-school hours and the summer as an alternative to the streets or being home alone—a place to play, have fun and learn. Boys & ...
June 15, 2012
The University of Massachusetts Amherst will host the third annual New England Conference for Student Success, 'What Do We Mean By Student Success?,' on Friday, Sept. 21. The program committee seeks proposals for conference sessions from practitioners and scholars that emphasize programs aimed at fostering student success.Proposals highlight promising ways of defining student success, interventions that enhance success, and assessment...
June 11, 2012
On Tuesday, administration officials announced a White House partnership with 10 colleges and universities to give students better information on the cost of higher education and financial aid options. The schools, which include the University of Massachusetts System, have voluntarily committed to adopting an information sheet for incoming students to help them understand the costs of college and their financial...
June 11, 2012
In 1852, Massachusetts became the first state to provide all its citizens access to a free public education. Over the next 66 years, every other state made the same guarantee. Based on a factory-model classroom and inspired in part by the approach Horace Mann saw in Prussia in 1843, it seemed to adequately prepare American youth for the 20th century industrialized economy.Massachusetts may again b...
June 7, 2012
The OECD invites New England higher education leaders to attend its Programme for Institutional Management in Higher Education's 2012 General Conference on 'Attaining and Sustaining Mass Higher Education' to be held from Sept. 17 to Sept. 19 in Paris.The conference will examine: Where have we got to in attaining and sustaining mass higher education? What can higher education contribute to...
June 4, 2012
In a bid to break the stalemate over offsets for student loan interest rate legislation, Republican leadership in the House and Senate proposed two alternative proposals on Thursday. While general agreement exists on the desire to extend the current 3.4% interest rate on federal student loans for one year, delaying an increase to 6.8% scheduled for July 1, lawmakers have...
June 4, 2012
Higher education is at a crossroads, not only in the U.S. but also globally. This challenge is prompting an immigrant union, on the centennial anniversary of the “Bread and Roses” strike at Lawrence Mills, to once again take up the labor movement’s historic role of speaking for the common good and the broad interests of working people. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 61...
May 29, 2012
Polls Show: Castleton Making a DifferenceDuring the past 11 years as president at Castleton, I have suggested to all our incoming classes and current students what they need to remember: Their mission is to make a difference in their college and our wider community before they go out to make a difference in the world.We have another new initiative at Castleton, a dream in the making over the past ...
May 24, 2012
Massachusetts Bay Community College named Francesca Purcell, formerly associate commissioner for academic and P-16 policy with the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, to be the Wellesley, Mass-based community college's next provost/chief academic officer. Purcell wrote Smooth Transfer: A Once Mundane Administrative Issue Re-emerges as a Key Tool for Equity for the Summer 2006 issues of NEJHE....
May 22, 2012
The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) is pleased to announce its 11th annual New England Higher Education Excellence Awards. We are seeking nominations for individuals, programs or organizations in New England higher education, government or business that exemplify excellence in leadership, innovation, diversity and partnerships and collaborations.Four Regional Awards The Governor Walter R. Peterson Award for Leadership The...
May 21, 2012
Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) introduced legislation Wednesday to create a new category of student visas for those studying in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. The bill would create a new category of non-immigrant visa for foreign students pursuing a master's degree or doctorate in the STEM fields in the U.S. Those students would...
May 21, 2012
Photo: Presidents who signed the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) seen gathered in 2007. (Courtesy of Second Nature.) Preparedness. Opportunity. Innovation. These words capture the essence of higher education’s critical role in creating a healthy, just and sustainable society. Leaders in higher education are standing up to the greatest challenge o...
May 18, 2012
Ronald Noble, the first American to head the international policing organization INTERPOL, will keynote the University of New Hampshire's 142nd commencement ceremony on Saturday May 19 at 10 a.m. on Memorial Field.Paul S. Grogan, president of The Boston Foundation, will deliver the commencement address at the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology's 104th commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 19 at 10...
May 16, 2012
The Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission will hold a symposium on Veterans with Traumatic Brain Injury Ensuring Success in Higher Education, at Salem State University on Wednesday, June 6 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.The symposium is designed to educate college and university staff who work with veterans to ensure their success in pursuing higher education. The event is open to all...
May 16, 2012
David Coleman, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant and co-founder of Student Achievement Partners, will become president of the College Board in October 2012, succeeding Gaston Caperton, who announced plans to step down.Maine Development Foundation President Laurie Lachance announced she would leave the position to become president of Thomas College in Waterville, Maine, effective July 1. The foundation named Ed...
May 15, 2012
On Tuesday, Senate Republicans blocked a motion to proceed on the Senate Democrats' bill (S. 2343) to extend current interest rates on federal student loans for one year. With a vote of 52-45, the cloture motion failed to garner the needed 60 votes to proceed. Republicans objected to Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) refusal to allow a vote on the...
May 15, 2012
NEBHE conducted a Student Vacancy Survey every spring from 1960 to 2009 as a public service for New England residents still looking for college space as of the traditional May 1 admissions deadline and as a measure of college application trends. A few years ago, we determined to ease out of the vacancy survey business and its vagaries; some respondents...
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 ...
May 10, 2012
It was quite a week for student financial aid news.On the very day that a Republican filibuster halted a Democrat-backed student loan bill that would have extended the 3.4% interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans, a key administration official went to Boston to pitch the president's goals on higher ed funding and a national think tank delivered recommendations on refocusing aid.On the...
May 3, 2012
We began covering Spring 2012 commencements back in December 2011, when Northeastern University announced (via Twitter no less) that former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell would keynote Northeastern's 110th commencement on May 4. ... From there, we reported on Gov. Malloy, Sen. Kerry, Victoria Reggie Kennedy Among Newly Announced NE Commencement Speakers (before, that is, the Catholic college withdrew...
May 3, 2012
Updated May 2012 ...The six-state New England region's population grew by a sluggish 3.8% between 2000 and 2010—while the nation's as a whole grew by 9.7%, according to U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 population figures released in December.Among other highlights:• United Van Lines, the nation’s largest household goods mover, classified four of the six New England states as &ldquo...
April 30, 2012
On Wednesday, Senate Democrats introduced a bill (S. 2343) to extend the current interest rate on subsidized student loans for one year beyond the July 1 expiration date. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the cost of a one-year extension to be $6 billion, which the bill would pay for by ending a tax benefit for S corporations. Under the...
April 30, 2012
Knowledge is humanity’s first and final frontier. From the Edenic exodus to flights beyond earth, our mythic narratives reveal that going where no one has gone before to learn what no one has known before drives us like no other quest.That quest, for many millennium largely driven by spiritual needs, has become core to economic and social progress. Historian Steven Johnson credits the exchan...
April 26, 2012
Mount Ida College announced that Barry Brown, provost, professor and former acting president of Suffolk University, would become president of the Newton, Mass. college, effective July 1.University of Maine System trustees approved two new campus presidents. Kathryn A. Foster, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., was appointed president of the University of Maine at Farmington. Linda...
April 25, 2012
The nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) will hold a conference on "Science and Democracy in Turmoil" on Thursday, May 17, at the Norton Woods Conference Center of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) in Somerville, Mass.The UCS will also launch a new Center for Science and Democracy designed to strengthen American democracy by restoring the essential role...
April 24, 2012
Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards, auto loans and mortgages, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the U.S. Department of Education. For the first time, student loans taken out in 2011 exceeded $100 billion with total student loans surpassing $1 trillion. Mounting student debt has forced many students to drop out,...
April 24, 2012
University of Connecticut President Susan Herbst and Connecticut's State Department of Children and Families Commissioner Joette Katz will be among 14 speakers to address UConn graduates on Sunday, May 6. Herbst, will speak at 12:30 p.m., and Katz at 5 p.m. in UConn's Harry A. Gampel Pavilion.Carolyn Lynch, CEO of the Lynch Foundation established by she and her husband Peter...
April 23, 2012
More than 6,500 leaders in academic pediatrics from around the world will converge on Boston for the 2012 annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies to be held Saturday, April 28 through Tuesday, May 1, at the Hynes Convention Center.Speakers will address topics such as: how a child's genes, early environment, nutrition and other factors affect future disease risk; signs...
April 23, 2012
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) is sponsoring legislation to prevent colleges from using federal student aid revenue, including Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits, to fund marketing activities. Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC), who is also sponsoring the not yet introduced bill, said that it would "protect taxpayers' investment of billions of dollars in student...
April 20, 2012
No sooner has the Net Price Calculator wave crashed ashore, the next wave of college-choice transparency in the form of third-party data aggregators is threatening to engulf us. A Net Value Calculator can help us recapture the high ground. Since last October, Net Price Calculators (NPCs) have become a fact of life for American colleges and universities. Some are doing the bare minimum to co...
April 17, 2012
U.S. Department of Education Under Secretary Martha Kanter and other senior officials will discuss the Obama administration's college affordability and higher education policy reform proposals at a "town meeting" scheduled for Tuesday, May 8, at 4 p.m. at Northeastern University's Cabral Student Center.The meeting will offer an opportunity for students, families, advocates, financial aid counselors and other interested parties to...
April 16, 2012
On April 3, NEBHE convened hundreds of New England opinion leaders at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston to discuss "Locally and Regionally Engaged: New England Colleges and Universities as Drivers of Innovation, Workforce and Economic Development." NEBHE Program Coordinator (and videographer) Erica Pritchard and NEJHE Executive Editor John O. Harney caught up with keynote speaker Babson Coll...
April 13, 2012
The National Association for Workforce Improvement (NAWI) will hold its 2012 conference at the Boston Park Plaza, on Thursday, May 24 and Friday, May 25.The NAWI audience consists of educators, administrators, government personnel, and workforce development professionals in career and technical education. This year's conference focusing on 'Innovation for the 21st Century Workforce' will feature: Sustainable and interdisciplinary product design;...
April 12, 2012
Carole Cornelison, commissioner of the Massachusetts Division of Capital Asset Management, will deliver the commencement address at Wentworth Institute of Technology, on Sunday, May 6, at 10 a.m., on the Wentworth campus's main quadrangle.Author Andre Dubus III will speak at New England College's 65th commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 12, at 11 a.m. on the college's Simon Green.Author Tom De...
April 9, 2012
Updated April 2012 ... New England public schools were expected to award more than 147,000 high school diplomas in 2008-09. Fully 78% of New England 9th-graders graduate from high school in the "normal" four years time, compared with 70% nationally. Nearly a dozen foreign countries outperform the U.S. in the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds with a high school credential. Nationally, Latino yo...
April 9, 2012
On April 3, NEBHE convened hundreds of New England opinion leaders at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston to discuss "Locally and Regionally Engaged: New England Colleges and Universities as Drivers of Innovation, Workforce and Economic Development." NEBHE Program Coordinator (and videographer) Erica Pritchard and NEJHE Executive Editor John O. Harney caught up with keynote speaker Gov. Peter Shum...
April 3, 2012
2012 is a year of interest and consequence to all of New England higher education. ...This year marks the 150th anniversary of the first Morrill Land Grant Act, named after the great Vermont senator, Justin Morrill, who was instrumental in its creation and passage. Not only is the region’s higher education community reminded of its great tradition and leadership, it is compelled by the...
April 2, 2012
At a hearing of the House Education and Workforce Committee on Wednesday, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan defended the administration's budget proposal for FY2013. Committee Chair John Kline (R-MN) repeated the charges from a March 20 House Appropriations hearing: that the administration's decision to pour billions in new spending into competitive grant programs while maintaining current funding for traditional formula...
March 27, 2012
The American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) will hold its fifth annual Climate Leadership Summit at American University in Washington, D.C., from Thursday, June 21 at 4 p.m. to Friday, June 22 at 4 p.m.In 2006, 12 college and university presidents agreed to become founding members of the ACUPCC. Today, nearly 700 institutions are actively engaged in creating...
March 27, 2012
Why students should play a designer role in the creation of new (and better!) school experiences. Choosing a school is only the first step in planning an academic career. After making a selection, students must match interests and passions with an academic program and make important decisions about which courses to take and when to take them. Yet many students struggle with these choices and ha...
March 26, 2012
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan testified in support of the administration's recent proposed higher education reforms at a Tuesday hearing of the House Appropriations Committee's subcommittee with jurisdiction over education. Subcommittee Chair Denny Rehberg (R-MT) and Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) both criticized the administration for proposing level-funding for major formula grants while directing funding increases toward new, untested programs....
March 23, 2012
Former University of Connecticut President Michael Hogan resigned as president of the University of Illinois less than two years after he was hired to repair damage done by an admissions scandal. He will be succeeded by longtime university administrator Robert Easter, who reportedly agreed to do the job for two years.****University of Vermont trustees selected E. Thomas Sullivan, currently senior...
March 19, 2012
State and local spending on higher education fell to an average of $6,290 per full-time student in 2011—its lowest level in 25 years, according to a study released by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO). Total funding for higher education from state and local sources fell by $1.3 billion between FY2008 at the beginning of the recession and...
March 14, 2012
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, in its recently released fourth quarter 2011 New England Community Survey, cited an emerging concern facing low- and moderate-income communities: the escalating cost of higher education.The New England region has the highest average tuition and fee rates for 2011-12 across institutional sectors, according to the College Board's most recent report on Trends in College...
March 13, 2012
American writer, commentator and bioethicist Ruth Levy Guyer will keynote Southern Vermont College's 85th commencement on Saturday, May 12. Working as a consultant for the President's Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, Guyer is developing a guide for the commission's recent report on unethical experiments conducted by U.S. Public Health Service researchers in Guatemala after World War II.Connecticut Gov....
March 13, 2012
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced March 5 that it will now accept complaints from borrowers about problems with their private student loans. These problems could include difficulty with taking out a loan, repaying an existing loan or handling a loan which has gone into default. Under the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, the CFPB has the authority to oversee...
March 12, 2012
Earlier this year, NEBHE President Michael K. Thomas and I sat down with higher education consultant Jack Maguire to talk about the problem of social and economic inequality—an increasingly prominent topic in national discussions of education and other matters. Educated as a physicist, Maguire had been watching the skies when we visited to see how recent solar storms at the time affected the ...
March 6, 2012
Anyone who fixates on graduation rates has little understanding not only of the rich mission and value of our community colleges, but also how deeply flawed and inadequate those rates are as a principal assessment tool for the performance of community colleges.Graduation rate calculations apply to a small fraction of our entire student population (about 15%). That is because this national measure ...
March 5, 2012
On Tuesday, the House voted 303 to 114 to pass legislation (H.R. 2117) repealing two recent Education Department regulations, with 69 Democrats voting for the bill. As part of its program integrity proposal, the Education Department included a definition of a credit hour for the purposes of distributing federal student financial aid. The bill would rescind that definition and prevent...
March 2, 2012
Playing up its activist roots, Goddard College announced it will host a conference to explore the role of higher education in the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. The conference will take place on Saturday, March 10, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Haybarn Theatre on Goddard's Plainfield, Vt. campus.****Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect (which he co-founded with Paul...
March 1, 2012
One-third of all students who began their postsecondary education in 2006 transferred (before earning a degree or certificate) to a different institution within a five-year period, according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.The report reveals that the majority of transfers occurred in students' second year, regardless of the direction of transfer (vertical, lateral or reverse)....