March 29, 2022
Comings and Goings ... Kalia Kellogg Hartford International University for Religion and Peace appointed experienced admissions professional Kalia Kellogg as its director of recruitment and enrollment management. Kellogg served recently as director of enrollment management at Northwestern Connecticut Community College and, before that, as associate director of admissions at Trinity College. The ETS Board of Trustees named international higher education...
March 29, 2022
Courage has become a superlative attribute in our age. Healthcare workers courageously work on the frontlines of Covid-19. Ukrainian President Zelensky exhibits courage against foes of democracy. These figures risk their personal security for the benefit of others and higher ideals. Higher education too, is newly interested in courage as a centering ideal. That’s good: We need more courage on ca...
March 28, 2022
DC Shuttle ... Ed Dept Reaches Consensus on 90/10 and Ability to Benefit Rules. After three months of negotiations between the U.S. Department of Education and higher education representatives, the department failed to reach consensus on all but two of the Biden administration’s seven regulatory proposals regarding higher education. The department did reach consensus on the new 90/10 rule, and...
March 22, 2022
Rather than return to the pre-Covid state of affairs, policy change is needed to strengthen each leg of the “three-legged stool” of community college success: students’ financial stability, learning inside the classroom, and wraparound support services on campuses, Bunker Hill Community College President Pam Eddinger told the New England Board of Higher Education’s (NEBHE) Legislative Advisory Committee (LAC) last week....
March 22, 2022
Comings and Goings ... Stephanie Williams Worcester City Manager Edward M. Augustus Jr. announced he will step down in May after eight years leading New England's second largest city. Augustus is credited with the city’s recent economic growth, including the development of Polar Park, home of the Worcester Red Sox, the minor league baseball team formerly based in Pawtucket, R.I....
March 22, 2022
A bill in Florida that would prohibit discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through 3rd grade public school classrooms is quickly making its way toward the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis. If we are honest, we should admit that this bill, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by opponents, is less about protecting students than it is about cynically fueling America�...
March 21, 2022
DC Shuttle ... President Signs Fiscal 2022 Spending Bill. President Joe Biden signed into law a $1.5 trillion government spending bill for fiscal year 2022 that provides $3 billion for higher education. Notable higher education provisions include a $400 increase to the maximum Pell Grant award and the FAFSA Simplification Act, which intends to streamline the process for students applying...
March 16, 2022
Colleges need to prepare diversity strategies now for the day when the Supreme Court outlaws race-conscious admissions ... When President Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson for the U.S. Supreme Court, it seemed like a major civil rights victory. But that victory could feel like a bitter irony this fall, when the high court hears two cases that will likely obliterate affirmative action....
March 15, 2022
Comings and Goings ... James W. “Jim” Dean Jr. In another example of increasingly common leadership innovations in higher education, University of New Hampshire President James W. “Jim” Dean Jr. will take on the additional role of interim chancellor of the University System of New Hampshire, working with the presidents of Keene State College and Plymouth State University to advance...
March 14, 2022
DC Shuttle ... Teachers Unions Unite. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) announced their plans to expand their partnership through a tentative affiliation agreement. This agreement includes combining union organizing activities between the two organizations, as well as the AFT’s contribution to the AAUP’s “nonunion advocacy efforts regarding academic freedom and tenure.”...
March 8, 2022
Comings and Goings ... Mount Holyoke College President Sonya Stephens announced she will step down in August to become president of the American University of Paris. Stephens has worked at the South Hadley, Mass.-based Seven Sisters and Five Colleges institution since 2013 and became president in 2018, succeeding Lynn Pasquerella. Just a few days earlier, another Seven Sisters leader, Smith...
March 8, 2022
The NCAA student-athlete compensation rules have changed. That change will have consequences, both intended and unintended. Of course, as with any material change involving big-money sports, bigger-money commercial opportunities, popular celebrities and the law, the change will open opportunities for the crafty and nimble, along with traps for the greedy and unwary. While it is too early to ...
March 7, 2022
DC Shuttle ... Hearings & Markups of Interest The U.S. House Small Business Subcommittee on Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Workforce Development will hold a hearing on Skill, Upskill, and Reskill: Analyzing New Investments in Workforce Development on Wednesday, March 9 at 10 a.m. in Room 2360 of the Rayburn House Office Building and remotely via livestream.) The U.S. Senate Health, Education,...
March 2, 2022
Samantha Aigner-Treworgy Comings and Goings ... Massachusetts Early Education and Care Commissioner Samantha Aigner-Treworgy resigned from the post where she led the process of opening emergency childcare during the early days of the pandemic and helping launch a statewide childcare Covid testing initiative in the Bay State. WGBH Educational Foundation President and CEO Jonathan Abbott announced he will step down...
March 2, 2022
"This Covid-19 pandemic has been part of our lives for nearly two years now. It’s what we talk about at our kitchen tables over breakfast in the morning, and again over dinner at night. It gets brought up in nearly every conversation we have throughout the day, and it’s a topic at nearly every special gathering we attend," Rhode Island...
February 23, 2022
Sheahon Zenger Comings and Goings ... The University of New Haven Board of Governors promoted an "innovative presidential transition plan" in which Steven H. Kaplan, who has been president of the university for the past 18 years, will become its first chancellor and CEO in July, while Sheahon Zenger, its director of athletics and recreation, will become interim president, overseeing...
February 22, 2022
DC Shuttle ... House Subcommittee Holds Hearing on More Supportive and Safe School Environments. The House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education held a hearing to examine how the federal government can help schools achieve safer and more supportive environments for students. In his opening statement, Chair Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (I-NMI) referred to data from the U.S....
February 22, 2022
When the pandemic shut down the country in March 2020, many college and university administrators predicted that civil rights complaints would plummet. With students learning from home and out of physical and social contact with one another, it seemed unlikely that there would be many claims of discrimination or sexual harassment under Title IX and other civil rights laws. But as it happens, the p...
February 15, 2022
Comings and Goings ... Susan M. Collins The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston named University of Michigan Provost Susan M. Collins to be the bank's next president and CEO. An international macroeconomist, Collins will be the first Black woman to lead a regional bank in the 108-year history of the Fed system. In addition to being the University of Michigan's...
February 15, 2022
Long before Covid changed everything, NEJHE and NEBHE's Twitter channel kept a close eye on New England college commencements. "The annual spring descent on New England campuses of distinguished speakers, ranging from Nobel laureates to Pulitzer winners to grassroots miracle-workers, offers a precious reminder of what makes New England higher education higher," we bragged. "It is a lecture series ...
February 14, 2022
DC Shuttle ... Hearings & Markups of Interest The U.S. House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education will hold a hearing on Serving All Students: Promoting a Healthier, More Supportive School Environment on Wednesday, Feb. 16 at 12:15 p.m. via Zoom. Free Community College Cut from Democrats Spending Bill. During a summit of community college...
February 9, 2022
Comings and Goings ... Karen DuBois-Walton Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont named New Haven Housing Authority President Karen DuBois-Walton to chair the Connecticut State Board of Education. DuBois-Walton, the former chief of staff for John DeStefano Jr., New Haven's longest-serving mayor, will succeed Allan Taylor. Boston Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius announced she will step down at the end of the...
February 7, 2022
DC Shuttle ... Democrats Push for Biden to Release Memo on Student Loan Debt Cancellation. Eighty-five members of Congress sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to release the internal memo on his legal authority to cancel student loan debt. The letter was spearheaded by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), alongside Reps....
February 1, 2022
Comings and Goings ... Laurie Leshin Worcester Polytechnic Institute President Laurie Leshin was named director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the California lab affiliated with NASA. A geochemist and space scientist, Leshin was the first woman to lead WPI and will be the first woman to lead the Jet Propulsion Laboratory run by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Leshin...
February 1, 2022
The Supreme Court is taking up affirmative action at colleges and universities for the sixth time in 50 years. In that litany, an early case was the University of California vs. Bakke. Bakke complained about being denied admission to the university’s medical school because seats were guaranteed for minority applicants, thus barring the door to him and other white applicants. When the Bakke ca...
January 26, 2022
Comings and Goings ... Jackie Jenkins-Scott Former Wheelock College President Jackie Jenkins-Scott was named interim president of Roxbury Community College. Leading Wheelock, she added new cross-disciplinary and online programs, increased undergraduate enrollment by over 50% and grew representation of ethnically and differently-abled students by 40%. She is also president and founder of JJS Advising, which provides executive coaching and organizational...
January 18, 2022
DC Shuttle ... Student Enrollment Drops. Enrollment at colleges fell once again in the fall, according to a new report. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center released a new report which said undergraduate enrollment in fall 2021 dropped 3.1%. In total, enrollment was down by about half a million students, with declines in every sector. The drop is similar to...
January 18, 2022
Carlos Santiago Comings and Goings ... Carlos Santiago, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, announced he will step down in June. Born in Puerto Rico, Santiago became the Bay State's first Latino higher ed commissioner in 2015 after serving as deputy under former Commissioner Richard Freeland and chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee from 2004 to 2010. A...
January 16, 2022
In 1944, Morehouse College, then known as Augusta Baptist Institute, admitted a promising young man to their academic ranks named Martin Luther King Jr. No one could have imagined that this “ordinary student” would influence, inspire and change the trajectory of our nation and world in his 39 short-lived years. This week marks both the federal holiday celebrating Dr. King and the time w...
January 11, 2022
Frank D. Sánchez Comings and Goings ... Rhode Island College (RIC) President Frank D. Sánchez announced he will step down after his contract expires on June 30. Appointed to lead the four-year college in 2016, Sánchez said he was most proud of reducing out-of-pocket expenses with such moves as putting more textbooks online and reducing the price of public transit...
January 11, 2022
Book Review The Age of AI and our Human Future, by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher, with Schuyler Schouten, New York, Little, Brown and Co., 2021. Reviewed by George McCully Artificial intelligence (AI) is engaged in overtaking and surpassing our long-traditional world of natural and human intelligence. In higher education, AI apps and their uses are multiply...
January 4, 2022
Free college policies—commonly known as "Promise" programs—are important promoters of equity in higher education. Some specific elements help ensure these free college programs truly encourage equity, especially for students from low-income backgrounds. These elements include: providing financial support beyond the costs of tuition and fees, supporting adult learners and undocumented students, and never converting student financial support into loans that...
January 4, 2022
Comings and Goings ... Nancy Niemi Framingham State University Trustees tapped University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Nancy Niemi to be the Massachusetts institution's eighth president, succeeding F. Javier Cevallos, who announced he's retiring after this academic year. UMES is an HBCU (historically Black college and university) in Princess Anne, Md. Prior to...
January 3, 2022
In January 2022, Farm to Institution New England (FINE) will launch the New England Farm and Sea to Campus Data Center, a new system for collecting, measuring and reporting farm-to-campus activity ... “Farm to campus” is a growing movement to mobilize the influence and power of colleges and universities to shape the food system. Research done before the Covid-19 pandemic shows that New Engl...
December 21, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Crystal Williams Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) appointed Crystal Williams, a former professor at Reed and Bates colleges and Boston University’s inaugural vice president and associate provost for community & inclusion, as the Providence college's 18th president, starting April 1, 2022. She succeeds Rosanne Somerson, who now serves as the institution’s first president emerita, and...
December 15, 2021
Number of New England communities among WalletHub’s top 50 Best & Worst College Towns & Cities: 2 WalletHub 2022's Best College Towns & Cities in America (Based on indicators of academic, social and economic growth potential, ranging from cost of living to the quality of higher education to the crime rate. The New England communities are Storrs, Conn. at No....
December 14, 2021
Alejandro "Alex" Hernandez Comings and Goings ... The Champlain College Board of Trustees named Alejandro "Alex" Hernandez as the 10th president of the Burlington, Vt. college, starting in June 2022. Hernandez is dean of the School of Continuing and Professional Studies and vice provost of online learning at the University of Virginia. He'll succeed Benjamin Ola. Akande, who stepped down...
December 13, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Vaccine Mandate Injunction. A federal judge issued an injunction stopping President Joe Biden’s executive order mandating Covid-19 vaccines for employees of federal contractors, including higher education institutions that receive federal contracts. A case filed against the Biden administration and led by Georgia had asked for an injunction stating that “the President exceeded the authorization given to him...
December 7, 2021
In the 2020-21 academic year, the U.S. and New England saw a decline in higher education enrollment as students and families reckoned with job losses and the economic turmoil created by the coronavirus pandemic. NEBHE’s recent report Published Tuition and Fees at Public Colleges and Universities in New England 2020-2021 unveils data about the ways that institutions tried to make...
December 7, 2021
Valerie Roberson Comings and Goings ... Roxbury Community College (RCC) President Valerie Roberson announced she will still step down from the post she has held since 2013. Though some Boston media outlets alleged mismanagement, others hailed Roberson for getting RCC removed from the Massachusetts Department of Education Heightened Cash Monitoring list and overseeing the relaunch of the Roxbury Community College...
December 6, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Ed Dept Launches Two Communities of Practice To Help Students Impacted by the Pandemic. The U.S. Department of Education announced it would launch two communities of practice, using American Rescue Plan funding, to address the lost instructional time due to the pandemic. By implementing these communities of practice, the Education Department hopes to support students' social, emotional...
December 1, 2021
Martin Schmidt Comings and Goings ... Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) named MIT Provost Martin Schmidt, an RPI alumnus, as its 19th president, succeeding Shirley Ann Jackson, who has led the upstate New York university since 1999. The University of New Haven appointed Yeshiva University Vice Provost Danielle Wozniak as the Connecticut institution's next provost and vice president of academic affairs....
November 22, 2021
DC Shuttle ... House Passes Build Back Better Act. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Build Back Better Act by a vote of 220 to 213. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) completed scoring the legislation and concluded that the net increase in deficit totaled $454.1 billion over the 2022-to-2031 period. This deficit would be a result of direct spending...
November 16, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Stephen Moret Strada Education Network named Virginia Economic Development Partnership President Stephen Moret as its next president and CEO, beginning in January 2022. Before taking his post in Virginia, Moret was president and CEO of the Louisiana State University Foundation, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Economic Development and chief executive of the Baton Rouge Area...
November 9, 2021
Book Review What Universities Owe Democracy; Ronald J. Daniels with Grant Shreve and Phillip Spector; Johns Hopkins University Press; Baltimore; 2021. Reviewed by George McCully When the president of a major university publishes a deeply researched, closely reasoned, strongly argued powerful idea and call to the profession to respond to an urgent crisis in our national history, it is high...
November 9, 2021
What do students learn in school? In the 21st century, this question has become a political dilemma for countries around the globe. It is a deceptively simple question, but there has never been an easy answer. The problem of measuring student learning appears to express an educational problem: What and how much do students learn? And yet, when you investigate the educational accountability move...
November 8, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Biden Administration Releases Vaccine Mandate Guidelines. The U.S. Labor Department released a new vaccine mandate requiring that federal government employees and those of companies with greater than 100 employees get their COVID-19 vaccine or get tested weekly by Jan. 4. This fall, many colleges and universities voluntarily created a vaccine mandate for their employees and students. Some...
November 2, 2021
The number of students who sought postsecondary education through exclusively distance modalities grew from a little over 3 million in 2019 to more than 5.8 million in 2020, according to a new report by the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA). The “exclusively” qualifier refers to students who enrolled solely in programs via distance education, as distinct from...
November 2, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Matt Sigelman Matt Sigelman announced that he will step down after 19 years leading Burning Glass Technologies as CEO, but stay on as chair of the career tracking and labor market entity that earlier this year merged with Emsi. Sigelman will launch a new independent nonprofit Burning Glass Institute to advance research and practice on mobility,...
November 1, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings & Markups of Interest (Due to current limited access to the U.S. Capitol complex, the general public is encouraged to view these hearings via live stream.) The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will hold a hearing on Next Steps: The Road Ahead for the COVID-19 Response on Thursday Nov. 4 at 10...
October 27, 2021
Dr. Mukesh K. Jain Comings and Goings ... Dr. Mukesh K. Jain, chief academic officer at University Hospitals health system in Cleveland and vice dean for medical sciences at Case Western Reserve University, was named dean of medicine and biological sciences at Brown University. A physician-scientist specializing in cardiovascular medicine, Jain will succeed Dr. Jack A. Elias, Brown’s dean of...
October 26, 2021
Thirteen New England colleges and universities have signed on to NEBHE's new North Star Collective (NSC), a multi-institutional collaborative to boost Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) early-career faculty at New England colleges and universities. Meanwhile, NEBHE was awarded a $20,000 grant from the Hildreth Stewart Charitable Foundation to support the development and implementatio...
October 25, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings & Markups of Interest (Due to current limited access to the U.S. Capitol complex, the general public is encouraged to view these hearings via live stream.) The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will meet in Executive Session on Nominations on Tuesday, Oct. 26 at 10 a.m. The U.S. House Education and Labor...
October 25, 2021
The 17-institution Connecticut State Colleges & Universities System (CSCU) formed a systemwide open educational resources (OER) Council in 2017 that was primarily focused on the adoption of no-cost or low-cost (NOLO) course materials as a means to provide equitable access to learning materials. Our CSCU consortium of library directors partnered with the OER Council to construct a websit...
October 20, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Regina Robinson Cambridge College Dean of Student Affairs Regina Robinson was named deputy commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Known for standing up for marginalized students, Robinson served one term on the Boston School Committee. Keene State College named University of Southern Indiana Dean James M. Beeby, a historian, to be the...
October 18, 2021
In a recent meeting with a young college recruitment officer, I posed the question: When and why did your institution decide that it would not recruit in some of the major urban centers in the U.S.? He was forthright in his response. He matter-of-factly said that, in the early 2000s, his institution decided not to recruit in these centers because of the high levels of violence and the poor quality...
October 12, 2021
Glenn Cummings Comings and Goings ... Glenn Cummings announced he will step down as president of the University of Southern Maine at the end of June 2022 after seven years in charge and return to the university’s faculty as a professor of public policy and educational leadership. Cummings also served as president of the University of Maine at Augusta for...
October 5, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Sister Janet Eisner America's longest-serving woman college president, Sister Janet Eisner, announced that she will leave the presidency of Emmanuel College next year after four decades leading the Catholic liberal arts college in Boston’s Fenway area. Among her accomplishments, Eisner led Emmanuel's transition from an all-women’s college to a coeducational college and brought Merck Research Laboratories-Boston...
October 4, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings & Markups of Interest (Due to current limited access to the U.S. Capitol complex, the general public is encouraged to view these hearings via live stream.) The U.S. House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on Homecoming: The Historical Roots and Continued Contributions of HBCUs on Wednesday, Oct. 6 at 12 p.m. The Senate...
October 4, 2021
Millions of Americans are blocked from achieving their economic, social and civic potential by an education system that fails to capture and recognize their knowledge, skills and abilities. At the heart of this systemic obstruction of opportunity lies our failure to understand and value personal learning. Using the life stories of personal learners, Stories from the Educational Underground: The Ne...
September 28, 2021
Eric S. Rosengren Comings and Goings ... Boston Fed President and CEO Eric S. Rosengren, who had long planned to retire in June 2022, now says he will leave the post Sept. 30 of this year to deal with a worsening kidney condition. Rosengren announced that he has had the condition for many years and is qualified for the kidney...
September 27, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings & Markups of Interest(Due to current limited access to the U.S. Capitol complex, the general public is encouraged to view these hearings via live stream.) The U.S. House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on Back to School: Highlighting Best Practices for Safely Reopening Schools on Wednesday, Sept. 29 at 10:15 a.m. The U.S....
September 24, 2021
Amid a lingering pandemic, a surprise merger proposal and strong efforts to make college free or debt-free, the 2021 legislative session in New England was one for the books. Visit NEBHE’s complete 2021 Legislative Session Summary here. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights of this year’s state legislative sessions ... Sexual misconduct and assault Lawmakers in Connecticut...
September 22, 2021
Rank of Massachusetts among U.S. states in Haitian population: 3rd U.S. Census Bureau (Florida ranks #1, New York ranks #2) Rank of Connecticut among U.S. states in Haitian population: 7th U.S. Census Bureau Amount women nationally earn for every dollar earned by the average white, non-Hispanic man: $0.82 National Women’s Law Center Amount women make in Vermont, the state with...
September 15, 2021
Tidbits from the NEJHE Beat … Population studies. The population counts provided by the decennial U.S. census shape congressional and state legislative districts and offer a telling picture of America's and New England's changing demography. Delayed by the pandemic, the 2020 counts came close to the legal deadlines for redistricting in some states, raising concerns about whether there would...
September 14, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Michaele Whelan Wheaton College named Emerson College Provost and VP for Academic Affairs Michaele Whelan to be the Norton, Mass., college's ninth president, succeeding Dennis M. Hanno, who last year announced he would step down after leading the college since 2014. Biddy Martin announced she will leave the presidency of Amherst College next summer after 11...
September 7, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Betsy Libby The Maine Community College System named Central Maine Community College interim President Betsy Libby to the permanent presidency of the Auburn-based community college. Libby had become interim president of the campus in summer 2020. Political theorist and professor John Tomasi will depart Brown University after 25 years to serve as inaugural president of Heterodox...
September 7, 2021
NEBHE adds a new Cost Savings program ... Creative Commons (CC) has joined NEBHE’s Cost Savings Programs and will offer a 15% regional discount on individual and institution purchases of CC professional learning opportunities through June 30, 2022. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that provides Creative Commons licenses and public domain tools that give every person and organization in...
August 31, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Charlene M. Russell-Tucker Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont nominated Charlene M. Russell-Tucker as the state's next commissioner of education, succeeding Miguel Cardona, who was tapped earlier this year to serve as U.S. secretary of education. A 20-year employee of the Connecticut Education Department, Russell-Tucker oversaw its Office of Student Supports and Organizational Effectiveness before becoming deputy commissioner...
August 31, 2021
Book Review The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth; Jonathan Rauch; Brookings Institution Press; Washington D.C.; 2021. Reviewed by George McCully This is a prominent and timely book by a distinguished journalist on a subject of profound national significance, especially for our educational and scholarly professions as NEJHE has previously noted. Yet, despite its many admirab...
August 24, 2021
Key takeaways from data on adult learners in New England ... Educational opportunities for those age 25 and older allow people already in the workforce to improve their skills, employment opportunities and wages in ways that they may not otherwise be able to. Changing economic conditions, which increasingly limit opportunities to those with postsecondary degrees, mean that the incentives for...
August 24, 2021
Higher ed has always operated in a very cyclical nature. If we look at historical movements on college campuses, including protests in favor of desegregation in the 1960s, higher ed has always been far more reactionary than proactive. For example, following the protest at the University of Missouri (Mizzou) in 2015, thousands of students at colleges and universities across the U.S protested in sol...
August 17, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Matthew Derr Sterling College announced that President Matthew Derr will step down from the role in October. The trustees named Lori Collins-Hall, a former Antioch College provost and Teagle Scholar who joined Sterling in March, to be interim president. An avid birder, Derr will pursue the American Birding Association Big Year challenge to record as many...
August 17, 2021
Should feds dictate rules on campus sexual misconduct? The U.S. Department of Education is poised to reverse Trump-era rules governing claims of sexual misconduct on campus. One could forgive weary college counsel for a case of vertigo: The Trump rules themselves reversed the Obama rules, and Biden’s 2021 nominee to enforce the rules—Catherine Lhamon—held the same office at the Education ...
August 10, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Makeeba McCreary (photo by bizjournals.com) The New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund named Makeeba McCreary to be the first president of the fund launched by 19 local Black and Brown executives a few weeks after the killing of George Floyd. McCreary recently served as chief of learning and community engagement at the Boston Museum...
August 3, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Natalie Nevárez Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) appointed Natalie Nevárez to be the first chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer at the nonprofit research organization on Cape Cod. Nevárez formerly served as associate director for faculty diversity and development at Columbia University's School of Arts and Sciences. Montserrat College of Art announced three new leadership appointments....
August 3, 2021
Open pedagogy projects take advantage of the internet to invite educators and students into a new relationship with both knowledge and one another. They are immensely rewarding and they require significant planning. In a time when educators and students have been thrown into a constant state of flux, taking on an open pedagogy project might seem a bit daunting. To help ease this process, we create...
July 27, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Amy K. Donahue Amy K. Donahue, formerly vice provost for academic operations at the University of Connecticut, became the first provost of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. In addition to service to the Army and NASA, Donahue served as a professor of public policy at UConn and was the inaugural director of the Stephenson Disaster Management...
July 27, 2021
A review of formal and informal processes in course selection ... College students use both formal and informal processes when making decisions related to course selection. They often get course-registration advice through formal on-campus “institutional” resources and off-campus “non-institutional” resources. In April 2016, a student in my Data and Decisions Analysis course at S...
July 26, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings & Markups of Interest (Due to current limited access to the U.S. Capitol complex, the general public is encouraged to view these hearings via live stream.) The U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on Protecting Student Loan Borrowers and the Economy in Upcomig Transitions on Tuesday, June 27 at 10:15...
July 20, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Jacquie Moloney UMass Lowell Chancellor Jacquie Moloney announced she will step down as chancellor in June 2022 after six years as chancellor and, before that, eight years as executive vice chancellor, in her 37-year tenure at the university. Among other accomplishments, Moloney has been a national leader in integrating entrepreneurial lessons in campus life and fostering...
July 20, 2021
In racing lingo, "DNF" stands for “Did Not Finish.” Unless getting to the finish line is a simple straight-line drag race, winning a race takes a lot more than horsepower and can be as dependent upon: brakes that allow the highest approach speeds to corners, suspension and downforce that keep the car on the track while navigating corners, and a support crew that can change tires and add gas fa...
July 19, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Education Department Reduces Verification of Student Aid. The U.S. Department of Education announced temporary changes to the federal student aid verification process for the 2021–22 award year. The temporary changes are intended to help students and colleges facing challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and will require less verification for many students. The department will...
July 13, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Terrill L. Drake Harvard Business School appointed Terrill L. Drake as its inaugural chief diversity and inclusion officer. His work will focus on implementing the B-school’s Racial Equity Action Plan. Currently associate dean for strategic initiatives and head diversity officer at the Villanova School of Business, Drake is among a wave of New England college hires...
July 13, 2021
In February 2012, a 17-year-old Black boy was shot dead in the streets of Florida by a neighbor who felt this boy looked suspicious. Carrying a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles, Trayvon Martin became yet another name added to the list of Black lives lost to racism. What surely shattered all hope, was that even after the facts of the case were reviewed, his killer was let free by the criminal ...
July 12, 2021
The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE), supported by an eight-month planning grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation and the Teagle Foundation, is slated to begin scaling the New England Transfer Guarantee (the Guarantee) to Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont this month. The northern expansion of the Guarantee is an extension of the current initiative, which was implemented...
July 7, 2021
In 1966, Jimmy Ruffin sang “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?” This song resonates with us and many of our colleagues whose hearts were broken 55 years ago at our alma mater, Springfield College ... Virtually every Black student at the college in those days felt unwelcomed. Not only was there a dearth of Black faculty, but there were also virtually no administrators of color and no suppor...
July 6, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Rubinstein The Community College System of NH (CCSNH) Board of Trustees named Granite State College (GSC) President Mark Rubinstein to be the system's next chancellor, succeeding Susan Huard who plans to retire. CCSNH Chair Kathy Bogle Shields, who led the search, said Rubinstein made GSC one of the "most transfer-friendly institutions for community college graduates" and...
June 29, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Yves Salomon-Fernández Yves Salomon-Fernández announced she will step down as president of Greenfield Community College on Aug. 15 and become senior vice president at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). She previously served as president of Cumberland County College in New Jersey and interim president of MassBay Community College. Salomon-Fernández has authored several pieces for NEJHE. In...
June 28, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings & Markups of Interest (Due to current limited access to the U.S. Capitol complex, the general public is encouraged to view this hearing via the live stream.) The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Oversight Subcommittee will hold a hearing on Expanding Access to Higher Education and the Promise It Holds on Thursday, June 29 at...
June 22, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Hocoy Goddard College, the Vermont institution known for progressive education, named licensed clinical psychologist Dan Hocoy as its next president, effective Aug. 1. Hocoy will succeed Bernard Bull, who is assuming the presidency of Concordia University in Nebraska. During 24 years in higher education, Hocoy has served as president of Antioch University in Seattle, president of...
June 22, 2021
When I was in elementary school, history happened like this: The world was fighting, the Civil War happened, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and then everything was happy and free, and the U.S. was the place to be. Now obviously that is a gross exaggeration of the facts. But it’s not untrue about what we as role models, educators, parents and guardians chose to disclose to children about the hi...
June 21, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings & Markups of Interest (Due to current limited access to the U.S. Capitol complex, the general public is encouraged to view this hearing via the live stream.) The U.S. House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on Examining the Policies and Priorities of the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday, June 24 at 10:15...
June 15, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Dayna Cunningham Civil rights attorney Dayna Cunningham, the founder and executive director of the Community Innovators Lab (CoLab) at MIT, was named the Pierre and Pamela Omidyar Dean of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. She will succeed Alan Solomont, who is retiring after eight years in the role. President Joe...
June 14, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings & Markups of Interest (Due to current limited access to the U.S. Capitol complex, the general public is encouraged to view this hearing via the live stream.) The U.S. House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Reauthorization on Tuesday, June 15 at 10:15 a.m. The U.S. Senate...
June 9, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Yolanda Smith Tufts University appointed special sheriff and superintendent of the Suffolk County (Massachusetts) Sheriff's Department Yolanda Smith to be its next executive director of public safety, which includes the role of chief of the Tufts University Police Department. One of her priorities will be to follow the recommendations of a Working Group on Campus Safety...
June 9, 2021
Women as a percentage of medical school students nationwide in 1978: 24% The New England Journal of Medicine In 2019: 51% The New England Journal of Medicine Black males as a percentage of medical students nationwide in 1978: 3.1% The New England Journal of Medicine In 2019: 2.9% The New England Journal of Medicine Percentage of graduating medical students in...
June 8, 2021
Ahmaud Arbery, February 23, 2020. A murder that was concealed and hidden away from this nation at unrest. Breonna Taylor, March 13, 2020. A murder, again hidden from a nation at unrest. George Floyd, May 25, 2020. A murder documented and mourned by all of America, not just those who are Black and American. As the protests began and stories began to change, this divided nation—Haitian, J...
June 1, 2021
DC Shuttle ... President Releases Budget with Increased Education Funding. The U.S. Education Department would see an increase as part of the proposed budget the White House released Friday, which also proposes billions of dollars in new programs for school infrastructure and technical education. The department would receive a 40% increase in fiscal 2022 over the current fiscal year, the...
June 1, 2021
On May 11, the U.S. Department of Education released guidance for the $36 billion in emergency funding available to higher education institutions (HEIs). This new round of funding—authorized by the American Rescue Plan Act—makes $10 billion available to community colleges, $2.6 billion to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), $190 million to tribal colleges, and $6 billion to o...