May 25, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Dr. Andrew Agwunobi The University of Connecticut Board of Trustees appointed UConn Health CEO Dr. Andrew Agwunobi as interim president, the first person of color to hold the position in the history of the university. Agwunobi’s appointment follows the resignation of current University of Connecticut President Thomas C. Katsouleas, who will step down June 30 but...
May 24, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings & Markups of Interest The U.S. House House Appropriations Committee will hold a hearing on the Budget Request for the National Institutes of Health on Tuesday, May 25 at 10 a.m. The Senate Appropriations Committee will hold a hearing on the Budget Request for the National Institutes of Health on Wednesday, May 26 at 10 a.m....
May 24, 2021
Which matters more, gauging the health of an institution or the success of its students? Recently, the project director and I submitted the Annual Performance Report for the second year of our university’s Title III grant, for which I serve as part-time consultant. The five-year award from the U.S. Department of Education is a competitive grant intended to strengthen the academic quality and ...
May 19, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Tom Katsouleas University of Connecticut President Tom Katsouleas told the university’s trustees that he will step down as president, effective June 30, less than two years after taking the job. He plans to remain at UConn as a tenured faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The trustees said in an email to...
May 17, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings & Markups of Interest The U.S. House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education will hold a heading on Students Experiencing Homelessness and Children in Foster Care on Wednesday, May 19 at 10:15 a.m. via Zoom. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on the Healthcare Workforce on Thursday, May 20 at 10 a.m....
May 11, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Terrence Chang The Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) Board of Regents appointed Terrence Cheng to be president of the system, which serves more than 72,000 students at Connecticut's 12 community colleges, four regional universities and Charter Oak State College. Currently director of the University of Connecticut’s Stamford campus and an English professor, Cheng will succeed...
May 11, 2021
The current shakeout in higher education won’t necessarily leave a gap in terms of accessibility, since workforce demands will ensure some form of credentialing replaces it. But the value of what fills the gap is an open question. ... As the head of public system, advocating for funding to support greater access to higher education was a given. Postindustrial economies depend on a highly educ...
May 4, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Mary K. Grant The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education named Mary K. Grant as the next president of Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt). Grant’s three decades of public higher education leadership include serving as president of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) and chancellor of the University of North Carolina Asheville. Most recently, as...
April 27, 2021
The National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA), with support from the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS), released a new report that illustrates the cost savings associated with SARA participation for colleges and universities. SARA establishes comparable national standards for interstate distance education program offerings. These reciprocity agreements help streamline distance education regulations, improve coordination between...
April 27, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Ray DiPasquale The Massasoit Community College Board of Trustees announced it will recommend Ray DiPasquale to the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education as the college’s seventh president. DiPasquale currently serves as president of Clinton Community College in Plattsburgh, N.Y. He was president of the Community College of Rhode Island from July 2006 to January 2016 and...
April 27, 2021
There has been a growing consensus among authorities, especially in the Trump era, that the U.S. is in an epistemological crisis that threatens our democracy. President Barack Obama, for example, in a recent Atlantic interview, said: "If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false, then by definition the marketplace of ideas doesn’t work. And by definition, ou...
April 26, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings/Markups of Interest The Senate Indian Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on COVID-19's Impact on Native Education Systems on Wednesday, April 28 at 2:30 p.m. The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a hearing on National Science Foundation Research on Wednesday, April 28 at 10 a.m. The House Education and Labor Committee will hold...
April 20, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Denise Forte The Education Trust’s Board of Directors named Denise Forte, currently the national organization’s senior vice president for partnerships and engagement, to serve as interim CEO, while John B. King Jr., the group’s current president and former U.S. secretary of education, pursues a gubernatorial bid in the state of Maryland. Western New England University (WNEU)...
April 20, 2021
Following is an op-ed from James T. Brett, president and CEO of the New England Council, the region's oldest business organization ... College affordability and access to higher education has been a topic of much discussion in Washington D.C. and throughout our region in recent years. And rightfully so. The price of higher education continues to increase, and millions of Am...
April 19, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings/Markups of Interest. The House Committee on Appropriations will hold a hearing on Increasing Investments in Community Colleges on Tuesday, April 20 at 10 a.m. The House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on For-Profit College Accountability and Fraud Prevention on Tuesday, April 20 at 10:15 a.m. via Zoom. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and...
April 13, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Parlange The University of Rhode Island (URI) Board of Trustees chose Marc B. Parlange, currently provost and senior vice president of Monash University in Australia, as the Rhode Island flagship’s 12th president. He'll succeed David M. Dooley, who joined URI in July 2009 and oversaw the university's transformation into a leading research institution. Born in Providence,...
April 13, 2021
I’ve been teaching political science for about a decade now. I teach students about the international system, the functioning of government, foreign policy, national security. My teaching is based on my 12 years of higher education and shaped by my life experiences. I’m a Cold War kid. In grade school and junior-high classrooms, we had “duck and cover” drills for what to do in the case ...
April 6, 2021
A few upcoming free events of interest ... virtually speaking ... Teale Lecture Series of the University of Connecticut: Dr. Robert Bullard, The Quest For Environmental and Climate Justice Thursday, April 8, 2021, 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Eastern Robert Bullard, distinguished professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University, who has often been described as the...
April 6, 2021
Lindsay Comings and Goings ... D. Michael Lindsay, who since 2011 has been president of Gordon College, the Wenham, Mass. Christian college, was named president of Taylor University, a Christian institution in Indiana. He'll succeed Taylor Board Chair Paige Comstock Cunningham, who has served as interim president of the university since August 2019. Western New England University appointed current Suffolk...
April 6, 2021
Remote learning was a key component of college strategies for addressing the COVID-19 crisis across the country. More than 1,100 colleges went entirely remote by March 2020, according to the education consultancy Entangled Solutions. The College Crisis Initiative at Davidson College indicated that 44% of institutions had developed fully (or primarily) remote instruction by September 2020. This mas...
March 30, 2021
Comings and Goings ... The Connecticut Board of Regents for Higher Education (BOR) selected five campus chief executive officers responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations. The BOR announcement noted the major reorganization of Connecticut's community college system and plans to merge the 12, independent community colleges into a single accredited institution, known as Connecticut State Community College, by 2023. The new...
March 29, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Administration Holds National Safe School Reopening Summit. The Biden administration and the U.S. Education Department held a National Safe School Reopening Summit, with remarks from President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, First Lady Jill Biden, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Welensky. At the summit,...
March 23, 2021
New England’s state lawmakers in 2020 sessions focused almost exclusively to COVID-19-related legislation and state budget concerns. In 2021, COVID-19-related legislation continues to be a major focus, but other issues are also taking center stage. These include: Expanding Work-Based Learning Opportunities HB.6227 (Connecticut): Would establish a task force to identify high-growth, high-demand jobs and analyze the implementation of partnerships that...
March 23, 2021
5 takeaways from NEBHE's Legislative Advisory Committee meeting ... At its peak, the COVID-19 pandemic forced 55 million American children temporarily out of school. While many education systems have attempted varying degrees of remote learning, many researchers accept that the closures will produce substantial losses in learning, according to recent research by the World Bank Group and by Megan Kuhfeld...
March 23, 2021
Comings and Goings ... E. LaBrent Chrite E. LaBrent Chrite, president of Bethune-Cookman University and former dean of the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business, was named president of Bentley University, the first Black president in the university's 104-year history. He succeeds Alison Davis-Blake who left after two years in charge of the noted business college. Bryant University appointed...
March 23, 2021
How these forces intersect at a community hospital focused on the underserved ... A year into the global pandemic, we are grappling with the scale of its impact and the conditions that created, permitted and exacerbated it. For those of us in the mental health field, tentative strides toward telepsychiatry pivoted to a sudden semi-permanent virtual healthcare delivery system. Questions of effic...
March 22, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings/Markups of Interest. The House Education and Labor’s Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education will hold a hearing Charting the Path to Educational Equity Post-COVID-19 on Thursday, March 25 at 1 p.m. via Zoom. CDC Releases Updated School Safety Guidelines. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its guidelines for physical distancing schools...
March 19, 2021
The New England states set new records for voter turnout in the 2020 presidential election. A significant percentage of absentee, mail-in ballots were cast in each state, ranging from 20% to 50% of the total vote. City and town clerks attributed the rising share of absentee, mail-in ballots to COVID. In the race for president, Democrat Joe Biden won all...
March 15, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Hearings/Markups of Interest. The House Education and Labor's Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Investment, will hold a hearing on The Future of Higher Education Post COVID-19 on Wednesday, March 17 at 1 p.m. via Zoom. Congress Passes, President Signs American Rescue Plan. President Joe Biden signed the law the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.86 trillion...
March 10, 2021
Even in this time when people presume to be having a “racial reckoning,” signs of enduring racial inequity pop up everywhere. From nagging disparities in health—Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) die at higher rates than other groups from COVID-19 and are underrepresented in medical research (except in vile experiments such as the Tuskegee study) … to the steep declines in Black...
March 9, 2021
The 2020-21 academic year was a year like no other as a pandemic caused unprecedented disruptions on college campuses. New England colleges and universities responded with agility as they worked to ensure safe campus operations for students, faculty and staff, while continuing to offer their programs through hybrid, in-classroom and remote formats. COVID-19 had a significant impact throughout the U.S....
March 8, 2021
DC Shuttle ... Senate Passes $1.9 Trillion Relief Measure. The U.S. Senate passed coronavirus relief legislation with $1.9 trillion in funding by a vote of 50 to 49, The Hill reports. The bill provides $128.6 billion for the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund and $39.6 billion to the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund. It also includes $39 billion...
March 2, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Thasunda Brown Duckett TIAA named JPMorgan Chase CEO of Consumer Banking Thasunda Brown Duckett to succeed Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., as president and CEO of the century-old provider of retirement investments and other financial services for people working in the academic, research, medical, cultural and government fields. As Boston City Council President Kim Janey prepares to...
March 2, 2021
In the following Practitioner Perspective, Andrew McKinney, OER coordinator at the City University of New York (CUNY), and Amanda Coolidge, director of Open Education at BCcampus in British Columbia, Canada, share the development of an adaptable matrix to help faculty include OER (Open Educational Resources) in their tenure and promotion portfolios. A critical part of sustaining OER in higher...
March 1, 2021
DC Shuttle ... House Passes Coronavirus Relief Bill. The U.S. House passed $1.9 trillion pandemic relief legislation, the American Rescue Plan Act (HR 1319), by a vote of 219 to 212. The bill would authorize direct payments to households, extend unemployment insurance benefits and provide funding to states and localities, schools, transit systems, restaurants, vaccine distribution and virus testing. The...
February 24, 2021
Number of middle school students in afterschool programs, 2014: 2,300,000 Afterschool Alliance Number in 2020: 1,800,000 Afterschool Alliance Percentage of U.S. households with K–12 students that shifted to some form of online learning during the pandemic: 70%+ Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce Percentage of households with incomes below $25,000 where the internet was always available: 55% Georgetown Center...
February 23, 2021
I love being a Black woman. I am awed by how powerful Black woman are and how unspeakably overlooked we have been because of it—consider Stacey Abrams and Keisha Lance Bottoms. Whether you agree with their politics or not, they have shown us that leading humans to and through change requires emergent thinking, creativity leaps and a loving ability to envision a more democratized future. They...
February 22, 2021
DC Shuttle ... House Moving Forward on Relief Package. Democratic leaders are working to pass the American Rescue Plan Act through the budget reconciliation process. House committees have been working on their areas of jurisdiction, with the full House potentially considering the legislation next week. The House Budget and Rules Committee plans to meet this week to put the pieces...
February 16, 2021
NEBHE offers a regional analysis of national Counting Credentials report ... The U.S. is in the midst of one of the most severe economic recessions in history, and now more than ever, it is important to acknowledge all possible pathways to gainful employment. On Feb. 10, 2021, Credential Engine released its third Counting Credentials report, which compiled and described the...
February 16, 2021
Vincent Rougeau Comings and Goings ... The College of the Holy Cross chose Boston College Law School Dean Vincent Rougeau to be the first-ever Black and first-ever layperson to serve as president of the 178-year-old Jesuit college in Worcester, Mass. Rougeau will succeed the Rev. Philip Boroughs on July 1, who led Holy Cross for nine years. Whitney Soule, senior...
February 12, 2021
Colleges and universities were hit hard by the COVID crisis. The American Council on Education (ACE) estimated a total impact of $120 billion in a recent letter to legislators. That number reflects both direct expenses and lost revenues. It is easy to identify the direct expenses associated with testing, cleaning, PPE, remote learning technology and improved ventilation systems. But the lost reven...
February 10, 2021
Climate change is real and accelerating. It requires an urgent response that focuses all the strategies and tactics necessary to stabilize the Earth’s temperature regime. The objective to guide research, development and implementation is straightforward: Achieve an all-electric economy. Simply put, all sectors of energy use—agriculture, transportation, industrial, residential, business, etc...
February 9, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Nicholas C. Donohue The Nellie Mae Education Foundation announced that Nicholas C. Donohue will step down as the organization’s president and CEO at the end of 2021 after 14 years in charge. He focused the foundation on student-centered approaches to learning and re-emphasized its grantmaking strategy to advance racial equity. In addition to supporting various NEBHE...
February 9, 2021
In an era of rising authoritarianism, civic education and political literacy, especially for future voters, is key ... American democracy just survived a near-death experience during the slow-motion coup that was the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency. It culminated in his rejecting his electoral loss and pressuring officials and political allies to back his claims that the election was ...
February 2, 2021
NEBHE explores higher education and incarceration ... Congress voted in December to lift the 26-year-old ban on Pell Grants for incarcerated students. A bipartisan effort to direct Pell Grants to a population that has long been deprived of federal funding for higher education reflects the growing desire for increased education in our prisons and jails across the U.S., especially in...
January 27, 2021
As COVID-19 cases continue to surge nationwide, the newly approved COVID-19 vaccines cannot come soon enough. Although higher education institutions (HEIs) are not at the top of the priority list to receive scarce early doses of the vaccine, colleges and universities should prepare for how they will handle vaccination on their campuses. In general, both public and private HEIs may mandate that ...
January 26, 2021
NEBHE announced that 16 Massachusetts four-year independent institutions, along with all of the state’s 15 community colleges, have signed onto the Massachusetts Independent College Transfer Guarantee. Supported by a grant from the Teagle Foundation and the Davis Educational Foundation, the "Massachusetts Guarantee" is a statewide effort to establish systematic transfer pathways between Massachusetts community colleges and four-year independent institutions, focusing...
January 22, 2021
In the final days of 2020, Congress gave the country a long-overdue Christmas present with the passage of a new COVID-19 relief bill. Known as the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA), the bill is a whopping 5,500 pages long. But for higher education institutions, the real action starts on Page 1872 with the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (known as HEERF...
January 21, 2021
Jan. 6, 2021 marked a day in American history that no one imagined happening: a modern-day civil war riot. The attack on the U.S. Capitol has left many people angry, worried and confused ... The virulent attack by the president of the U.S. and his congressional enablers, especially Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, on our recent election and election process represents more than just an at...
January 19, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Eric Lander Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, were tapped by President-elect Joe Biden for top science roles in his administration. Lander, who co-chaired the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) for President Barack Obama for eight...
January 19, 2021
The number of students nationwide enrolled in distance education programs rose to nearly 3 million in fall 2019, a 7.5% increase over 2018 enrollment data, according to a new report by the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA). And that’s before the COVID-19 pandemic prompted an unprecedented shift to virtual course delivery. ...
January 16, 2021
Something inside me keeps saying: I told you something like this would happen. After 50 years studying opportunity for higher education, I am somewhat comfortable (and very uncomfortable too) saying the issues I have sought to address and warned about underlie the current political chaos. Our failures to address them (and I include higher education centrally in "our") have boiled over: 1) Incom...
January 12, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Walsh Raimondo President-elect Joe Biden nominated Rhode Island Gov. Gina M. Raimondo as the next U.S. secretary of commerce and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh as the next U.S. secretary of labor. Raimondo, who chaired NEBHE's Commission of Higher Education & Employability, will be succeeded in Rhode Island by Lieutenant Gov. Daniel J. McKee, who earned a...
January 12, 2021
In the past few months, a plethora of reports have documented the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global business, and these are generally not something to be happy about. As expected, the international education sector has not been spared. Because of border closures and stringent travel protocols implemented by many countries, international enrollment numbers have plummeted considerably. Th...
January 6, 2021
In the following Q&A, NEBHE’s Fellow for Open Education Lindsey Gumb talks with Hannah Davidson, accessibility specialist at Plymouth State University and member of NEBHE’s OER (Open Educational Resources) Advisory Board, about redefining accessibility in Open Education. Gumb: You’ve spoken about reconsidering the definition of “access” in Open Education. Can you elaborate on ...
January 5, 2021
Comings and Goings ... Cardona President-elect Joe Biden chose Connecticut Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona to be the next U.S. education secretary, succeeding Betsy DeVos, the champion of private schools who served as secretary since the beginning of the Trump administration. Cardona, in contrast, was raised in a housing project in Meriden, Conn., where he attended the city’s public schools then...
December 16, 2020
The number of new high school graduates in New England is expected to shrink by nearly 13% by 2037, according to the 10th edition of Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates, released this week by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE). Published by WICHE every four years, Knocking at the College Door is a...
December 16, 2020
Decline from 2019 to 2020 in number of high school graduates who went to college immediately after high school: 22% The National Student Clearinghouse Decline from 2019 to 2020 in college enrollment rates for students from high-income high schools: 17% The National Student Clearinghouse Decline for students from low-income high schools: 29% The National Student Clearinghouse Of associate and bachelor’s...
December 15, 2020
Dennis M. Hanno Comings and Goings ... Wheaton College President Dennis M. Hanno announced he will step down in late 2021, or earlier if a successor is named. Stonehill College appointed DeBrenna LaFa Agbényiga, the former provost and vice president for academic affairs and professor of social work at Bowie State University in Maryland, to be the new provost and...
December 9, 2020
Faculty diversity. In the early 1990s, NEBHE, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) collaborated to develop the first Compact for Faculty Diversity. Formally launched in 1994, with support from the Ford Foundation and Pew Charitable Trust, the compact focused on five key strategies: motivating states and universities to inc...
December 8, 2020
Pelton Comings and Goings ... The Boston Foundation named Emerson College President M. Lee Pelton to be the community foundation's next president and chief executive officer, effective in June 2021. He will succeed Paul Grogan, who led the foundation for nearly 20 years. In June, Pelton was named by Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to lead the Boston Racial Equity Fund....
November 30, 2020
In October 2019, NEBHE called together a group of economists and higher education leaders for a meeting at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston to discuss the future of higher education (Preparing for Another Recession?). No one suspected that just months later, a global pandemic would turn the world upside down. Today, the same challenges highlighted at the meeting persist. The pandemic has only am...
November 24, 2020
Jane McBride Gates Comings and Goings ... The Connecticut State Colleges and Universities Board of Regents appointed its provost and senior vice president for academic and student affairs, Jane McBride Gates, to serve as the system's interim president, while the board searches for a permanent replacement for outgoing President Mark Ojakian. Rev. Brian J. Shanley, who was president of Providence...
November 24, 2020
Sadly, the number of COVID-19 cases across the globe is rising. And while vaccines are in the offing, we may have many weeks between now and their availability, time in which more individuals can become infected and too many will die. In absolute terms, the numbers are staggering in the U.S. and around the world. It is against this background that we should be concerned about superspreader even...
November 18, 2020
Last week, Inside Higher Ed reported that "President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team is drawing significantly [from] the nation’s colleges and universities to prepare to take the reins of government on Jan. 20." A bit of déjà vu ... In Spring 2009, when Barack Obama was stocking his first administration, NEJHE ran an item headlined "New England Goes to D.C.," noting:...
November 17, 2020
The total number of enrolled international students at New England colleges and universities increased by 2% at all academic levels in academic year 2019-20, according to the 2020 Open Doors Report on International Education Exchange. The study, published annually by IIE since 1948-49, and in partnership with the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs since 1972,...
November 17, 2020
Joseph Cooper Comings and Goings ... The University of Massachusetts Boston appointed Joseph Cooper to be its first special assistant for Black Life, a senior management position that Marcelo Suárez-Orozco pledged to create when he became the the UMass Boston chancellor in August. UMass Medical School named Brown University Assistant Vice President of Academic Diversity Marlina Duncan to be the...
November 16, 2020
America is undergoing a reckoning as the pain, suffering and setbacks caused by years of systemic racism is coming into full view. This heightened awareness around racism, sparked by death and injustice, must result in the development of real pathways to eliminate systemic racism, or it will be a lost opportunity for our generation to do our part in—to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr...
November 9, 2020
The majority of college students were largely disappointed by remote learning this past spring, with many reporting a strong preference for in-person instruction. Bearing in mind the low expectations that many students carried into online courses this fall, what advice can we give to help them succeed in this final month? As colleges across New England and the country continue to announce spring p...
November 3, 2020
Diversity. Equity. Inclusion. These words have dominated the national conversation in recent weeks. From the racial justice protests that have sprung up across the U.S. since the death of George Floyd, to the White House’s recent executive order against the “malign ideology” of diversity training efforts in federally funded programs, individuals from both sides of the political aisle have had...
October 27, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Muhl Berklee College of Music named Erica Muhl, a composer who has led music and arts schools at the University of Southern California, to be its first female president, succeeding Roger Brown, who is stepping down after leading the college for 17 years. The University of Rhode Island named Gaurav Khanna, currently a physics professor at...
October 21, 2020
The NEJHE beat is semi-locked down, but not out. A little of what we’ve been following … Counting heads. New enrollment figures show higher education reeling under the weight of COVID-19 and a faltering economy on top of preexisting challenges such as worries that college may not be worth the price. A month into the fall 2020 semester, undergraduate enrollment nationally was down 4% from la...
October 20, 2020
In New England, as with the rest of the country, the price of tuition is one of the main factors that goes into students’ higher education enrollment decisions. As the coronavirus wreaks havoc on both our New England and national economies and people reckon with job losses and wage cuts, this factor seems more relevant than ever. NEBHE’s recently released...
October 20, 2020
Dan Egan Comings and Goings ... Dan Egan, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Rhode Island (AICURI), was named the new co-chair, of the New England Council's Higher Education Committee, succeeding Tim Leshan, who stepped down from the committee role when he was recently promoted in his work at Northeastern University to vice provost for research,...
October 13, 2020
New England higher education lost another giant last week when Joseph M. Cronin died at age 85. The former president of Bentley College (now University) and first Massachusetts secretary of education, Joe Cronin was a longtime friend of NEBHE and a frequent contributor to NEJHE. Many of his articles for the journal focused on equity. His book reviews read like...
October 13, 2020
In the following Q&A, NEBHE’s Fellow for Open Education Lindsey Gumb takes the pulse of Open Education in Rhode Island with two key leaders in the field: Dragan Gill, who is a Rhode Island College reference librarian and co-chair of the Rhode Island Open Textbook Initiative, and Daniela Fairchild, who is director of the Rhode Island Office of Innovation. In September 2016, Rhode I...
October 6, 2020
Today's schools are preparing children, starting at an early age, for future educational and career opportunities that will help them succeed. With strict standards that must be met, measured in part by testing, it's not unusual for both time and funding to be shifted away from arts education to achieve this goal. While this might seem like a reasonable reaction at first, it overlooks an import...
October 6, 2020
Takeaways from NEBHE's Legislative Advisory Committee ... The economic fallout of the layoffs and business closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc for New England workers—especially those who were already facing a structurally vulnerable workforce and employment system before the pandemic. What can state governments do to stimulate job creation and make New England’s econ...
October 5, 2020
DC Shuttle ... House Passes $2.2 Trillion Recovery Legislation. The U.S. House of Representatives passed pandemic recovery support legislation (H.R. 8406). Though it is unlikely to become law in its current form, this legislation serves as a benchmark for Democrats in negotiations with the Trump administration and Senate Republicans. Democratic leaders said they wanted to outline their negotiating priorities and...
September 30, 2020
Among 112 New England colleges and universities surveyed by the Boston Globe, number with a Black athletic director: 5 Boston Globe Among New England's 58 collegiate football programs, number led by Black head coaches: 2 Boston Globe Percentage of American adults who had an interaction with a police officer in the past year and say the interaction was an overall...
September 29, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Laura R. Walker Media executive Laura R. Walker, recognized for transforming New York Public Radio (NYPR) into a media powerhouse, began as president of Bennington College. She succeeds Mariko Silver, who stepped down in July 2019, and Isabel Roche, who served for the past year as interim president. The Rev. Philip L. Boroughs announced he will...
September 29, 2020
NEBHE announced that eight Connecticut four-year independent institutions and all 12 of the state's community colleges signed onto the Connecticut Independent College Transfer Guarantee (Connecticut Guarantee). Supported by grants from the Teagle Foundation and the Davis Educational Foundation, the Connecticut Guarantee is a statewide effort to establish systematic transfer pathways between Connecticut's community colleges and four-year independent institutions, which focus...
September 28, 2020
DC Shuttle ... House Marks Up Apprenticeship Legislation. The House Education and Labor Committee held a markup of the National Apprenticeship Act (H.R. 8294), reporting the legislation out of committee by a vote of 26 to 16. The bill would reauthorize and make changes to the National Apprenticeship Act, which was originally passed in 1937. The bill would invest nearly...
September 21, 2020
DC Shuttle ... Senate Holds FAFSA Hearing. The Senate Health, Education Labor & Pensions Committee held a hearing entitled "Time to Finish Fixing the FAFSA." The hearing could be the last education hearing under the chairmanship of Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who plans to retire following this congressional session. He held the hearing to push for changes to the FAFSA,...
September 21, 2020
The shift to online learning has challenged instructors to create courses that are as engaging online as they are in person. As many faculty prepare for online learning again this fall, open educational resources (OER) can be part of the solution to help students stay safe and be successful. OER are free and openly licensed online teaching and learning materials that support instructors and stu...
September 15, 2020
Susan Dynarski Comings and Goings ... Harvard Graduate School of Education announced that Susan Dynarski, currently professor of public policy, education and economics at the University of Michigan, will join the Harvard school as an education professor in July 2021. Alan D. Solomont, the Pierre and Pamela Omidyar Dean of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts...
September 15, 2020
This essay is a sequel to “The Human Dimensions of Enrollment Management,” published in The New England Journal of Higher Education on June 30, 2020. In that article, my unusual focus (as a trained theoretical physicist) was on integrity, not science, as the single most important factor in enrollment management success. Early in my supervision of enrollment management (from a faculty position ...
September 11, 2020
Gracing the back wall of my office at the University of Vermont is an antique wooden desk that’s more than 150 years old. While it’s an undeniably handsome piece of 19th century craftsmanship, it serves much more than a decorative purpose. As the desk of Vermont Sen. Justin Morrill, the author of the Morrill Act of 1862 establishing the country’s first land-grant universities, it is m...
September 9, 2020
College and university leaders are fighting the battle of their lives to maximize their institutions’ financial wellbeing. With COVID-19 further weakening institutions’ financial positions, are there any hidden sources of savings still to be had? The answer, often, is yes—even for the many institutions who have already made substantial cuts. It is possible that 15% to 20% of expense...
September 8, 2020
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.” Her words are excellent guideposts as New England colleges and universities navigate the unknowns of educating students during COVID-19. Despite the precautions that institutions are taking, on-campus teaching and research are not totally risk-free. Neither, of course, is life itself...
September 1, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Thompson Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art leader Joseph Thompson announced he will step down at the end of October as director of the country’s largest museum for contemporary art. NEJHE covered the opening of Mass MoCA as a creative and economic development tool for the distressed area of western Massachusetts. Carmen Aguilar, former dean of the...
September 1, 2020
The brand of a college or university is more than its logo or tagline. It's an accumulation of experiences for students, staff, faculty, alumni and community members. Marketing is part of it, but every time someone sets foot on your campus, they are walking into your brand. This fall, fewer students will be on campuses and they may be there with less frequency. COVID-19 won’t last forever...
August 24, 2020
For the past several decades, student engagement has been an increasingly popular subject of research in higher education. A raft of studies, surveys and op-eds have put engagement at the center of the national narrative around student success—and at the top of the priority list for institutions seeking to support an increasingly diverse generation of learners. All that research suggests that in...
August 18, 2020
Ojakian Comings and Goings ... Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) President Mark Ojakian announced we will retire after five years as CEO of the organization responsible for 17 higher education institutions, 9,000 employees and more than 100,000 students, effective Jan. 1, 2021. He has spent 40 years in state government, including three as chief of staff to then-Gov. Dannel...
August 18, 2020
With the growing number of colleges moving to online learning, I have been asked: Can online learning incorporate trauma-responsive strategies? The short answer is yes. Before turning to specific pedagogical approaches, it is worth reiterating why trauma-responsiveness is so critical to learning at this moment. Pre-pandemic and before the current racial tensions and economic uncertainty, we wer...
August 18, 2020
This op-ed was written by NEBHE President and CEO Michael K. Thomas in conjunction with leaders and representatives of public and private institutions in all six New England states, including: Mark E. Ojakian, president of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities; Jennifer Widness, president of the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges; Dannel P. Malloy, chancellor of the Universit...
August 11, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Dr. Angela Abraham Dr. Angela Abraham, a graduate of the University of Missouri-St. Louis School of Optometry and Smith College, was appointed to be the first-ever diversity and inclusion liaison for the New England College of Optometry (NECO), where she will work with the college's new Alliance for the Advancement of Diversity and Inclusion. Eboni S....