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July 20, 2020
DC Shuttle ... Upcoming Hearings & Markups. The House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on How to Overcome Obstacles to Safely Reopen Public Schools on Wednesday, July 23 at 10:15 a.m. Administration Changes Plan for International Students and Online Classes. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security rescinded its July 6 policy directive that would have denied U.S....
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July 20, 2020
The first formal changes to Title IX’s implementing regulations in 45 years are here, and they are significant. The federal statute, which prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs receiving federal financial assistance, had its earliest impacts on intercollegiate athletics. But since the late 1990s, it has also been interpreted to prohibit sexual harassment in education. It is this a...
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July 13, 2020
DC Shuttle ... ICE Releases Rule on International Students. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released guidance which would not allow international students to remain on visas if they are taking their classes online. The changes apply to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program for non-immigrant students on F-1 and M-1 visas for academic and vocational coursework. The State Department won't...
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July 13, 2020
A view from Mount Holyoke on why practical, flexible new models are needed for liberal arts colleges ... Students choose small liberal arts colleges for the learning that unfolds when they are deeply immersed in intellectual collaboration with faculty and with one another. The photos that festoon our promotional materials aren’t mere marketing—we spend a lot of time with one another in clos...
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July 12, 2020
Thomas C. Jorling, former commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and former director of the Center for Environmental Studies at Williams College among other key posts, is an advisor to NEBHE sponsor Murphy, Hesse, Toomey & Lehane, LLP. This commentary is particularly timely given President Trump's recent commutation of the Roger Stone sentence. Followi...
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July 8, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Pelton Emerson College President Lee Pelton was tapped by Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to chair the new Boston Racial Equity Fund. Pelton has led Emerson since 2011. After the police murder of George Floyd, he wrote a widely regarded letter to the Emerson community about his life as a Black man. Arts education consultant Judith Bose,...
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July 6, 2020
DC Shuttle ... Hearings/Markups of Interest. The House Education and Labor Committee's Higher Education and Workforce Investment Subcommittee scheduled a hearing on Examining the Impact of COVID-19 on the Future of Higher Education for Tuesday, July 7 at 12 p.m. The House Appropriations Committee's Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee scheduled the Markup of Education Appropriations...
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July 6, 2020
About a year ago, I attended a meeting at the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) focused on reducing the cost of learning materials for college students in our region. I have been pleased since then to work with colleagues across the New England states on NEBHE’s Open Education Advisory Committee that is looking into how best to support institutions and faculty as they replace high-co...
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June 30, 2020
I want to discuss the human dimensions of what I have too often treated (thinking with my instincts as a theoretical physicist) as a scientific methods problem. Experience has taught me that the human forces of a problem are often more important in determining how we meet challenges in an educational institution than the technical aspects. Indeed, management of offices that relate to such function...
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June 29, 2020
DC Shuttle ... Attorneys General Sue Education Department Over New Title IX Rules. Eighteen state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to block the department's new rules under Title IX of the Higher Education Act from going into effect in August. In the suit, the attorneys general argue that the...
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June 29, 2020
New England higher education institutions that are already are on shaky financial ground could be forced to close altogether due to extended campus shutdowns and pandemic-induced enrollment declines, according to a new brief from the New England Public Policy Center (NEPPC) authored by senior policy analyst Riley Sullivan. The brief examines the COVID-19 pandemic and the cities and towns in...
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June 23, 2020
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is currently collecting data for the 2019–20 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:20), which is designed to provide both national and state-level financial aid data. NPSAS:20 will enable researchers, policymakers, and other higher education stakeholders to generate state-representative undergraduate financial aid estimates and compare aid programs at the state level. NEBHE supports NPSAS:20,...
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June 23, 2020
Pre-pandemic, a good number of us lamented the demise of small colleges. Let’s define these here as non-elite colleges with enrollment of fewer than 1,500 full-time undergraduate students. For the most part, these institutions have few graduate programs, a handful at most. Some of these colleges have closed; some have merged; some have partnered. Whatever the structure, it feels to me still l...
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June 23, 2020
Higher education is a body that intends to be greater than the sum of its parts. The guiding principle is that college is a primary route to becoming an enlightened person capable of thriving in a society of opportunities and challenges. Over time, colleges have gone from providing only academic content to facilitating more opportunities for learning through personal engagement, systems to apply k...
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June 22, 2020
DC Shuttle ... Supreme Court Maintains DACA Protections for Immigrants, Students. The U.S. Supreme Court decided, 5 to 4, that the Trump administration cannot end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The decision will enable the more than 450,000 undocumented higher education students, as well as undocumented students and instructors at other levels, to remain in the U.S.,...
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June 16, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Robert E. Johnson UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Robert E. Johnson announced he is leaving the South Coast campus in September after three years to become president of Western New England University. He'll succeed Anthony Caprio, who has been president of the Springfield, Mass.-based Western New England for 24 years. Johnson also led Becker College in Worcester for...
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June 16, 2020
Discussions of the problematic future of higher education were already an exploding industry before COVID-19, producing more to be read than anyone could possibly keep up with. Their main audience was academic administrators and a few faculty, worrying where their institutions and careers were headed, and wanting guidance in strategic decision-making—helping to identify not only where they actua...
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June 15, 2020
New England's state budgets are reeling from coronavirus-related shutdowns and fears. Here's an early look ... Connecticut. Gov. Ned Lamont and state lawmakers are facing a $904 million deficit for FY20 and a $2.1 billion deficit for FY21. The general fund shortfall, according to the nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis, will swell to $3.2 billion in 2022. Connecticut’s Rainy Day...
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June 9, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Ibram X. Kendi to launch BU Center for Antiracist Research (Photo by Stephen Voss) Boston University announced that American University professor of history and of international relations and author Ibram X. Kendi will join BU’s faculty and launch the BU Center for Antiracist Research. The New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) named Lawrence M. Schall,...
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June 9, 2020
This is a uniquely defining moment in American history. In our collective lifetime, few of us have seen or could possibly imagine anything approaching the events we are witnessing on the streets of Boston, across New England, and in states and countries across the globe. What began as low-simmering protests in Minnesota has metastasized and sparked massive demonstrations, public unrest, civil diso...
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June 2, 2020
The rising cost of college textbooks has been well-documented over the past few years. Reports indicate that textbook prices have risen by over 800%—three times the inflation rate over the past 50 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A study from the Florida Virtual Campus documented the academic impact that textbook costs had on student success. The study detailed that 47...
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May 26, 2020
Percentage of employed adults who reported an average of less than 6 hours of sleep per 24-hour period in 2008-09: 28% National Health Interview Survey, 2008–2009 and 2017–2018 Percentage who reported that in 2017–18: 33% National Health Interview Survey, 2008–2009 and 2017–2018 Difference in number of U.S. births in 2019, compared with 2007, before the Great Recession: -570,000 UNH Carsey...
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May 26, 2020
2020 will forever be remembered as the year of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus. This year, the term “social distancing” became part of our vocabulary, and virtual proms and online commencement ceremonies became commonplace. According to Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce analysis of HIS Markit Forecast Summary of May 2020, on the economic front, 2...
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May 21, 2020
In the following Q&A, NEBHE’s Fellow for Open Education Lindsey Gumb asks Thomas College Provost Thomas Edwards about the Waterville, Maine, college's plans to use a new grant from the Davis Education Foundation. The college’s focus on melding access and affordability through OER (Open Educational Resources) is especially relevant in the current shift to online learning at many campuses. ...
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May 19, 2020
Comings and Goings ... David Levinson CEOs were named to five Connecticut community colleges and retired Norwalk Community College President David Levinson was named acting president over all 12 of them in a single system under the proposed name: Connecticut State Community College. William “Terry” Brown, currently a special assistant to the president at Nashville State Community College in Tennessee,...
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May 18, 2020
Our recent NEJHE piece revealed that labor market impacts of COVID-19 shutdowns have been very unequal across industries, occupations and levels of educational attainment. Job losses in the month since the beginning of the shutdowns (between mid-March and mid-April) were concentrated in industries that primarily employ individuals with lower levels of education—industries such as leisure and h...
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May 14, 2020
Whether and how campuses will reopen in fall 2020 has emerged as the key story in higher education. On Wednesday, Trump administration officials spoke via teleconference with higher education leaders on how to get students back to campus this fall. During a pandemic, we need to recognize that the risk assessment and risk tolerance among individuals and organizations varies dramatically. Those d...
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May 13, 2020
The New England Board of Higher Education's Tuition Break, the Regional Student Program (RSP), saw significant growth in enrollment—and in the number of program offerings—during the 2019-20 academic year. Total enrollment in the RSP in 2019-20 was 9,257, up 14% over 2018-19. Of the 81 participating public colleges and universities, 46% reported enrollment increases. About 64% of students were enrolled...
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May 12, 2020
Friday May 8 saw the release of the most disastrous monthly jobs report in American economic history. In its monthly Employment Situation released last Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported: Payroll employment levels declined by 20.5 million between mid-March when the COVID-19 lockdowns began in earnest and mid-April—a decline that is more than two orders of magnitude greater...
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May 12, 2020
The emphasis on humanities has swung like a pendulum through the years, particularly in the world of higher education. Many perceive it as a discipline of the elite that attempts to connect us to distant places from times long ago that are mythical, historical or hypothetical, and somehow more important than today. Simply stated, humanities has the connotative power to scare people away from i...
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May 6, 2020
In the following Q&A, NEBHE’s Fellow for Open Education Lindsey Gumb asks Heather Miceli, an adjunct professor at Roger Williams University (RWU) and Johnson & Wales University (JWU), about her integration of OER-enabled pedagogy in her general education science course, which has helped push the narrative of Open Educational Resources (OER) beyond cost savings to include more engaged and...
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May 5, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Pérez Angel B. Pérez, vice president for enrollment and student success at Trinity College and NEBHE delegate, was named the next CEO of NACAC, effective July 15. He succeeds Joyce E. Smith, who is retiring after more than 30 years as the association’s deputy executive director, executive director and CEO. Pérez authored NEJHE articles on Reexamining...
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May 4, 2020
The opening of brick-and-mortar colleges and universities in fall 2020 will present a challenge due to the absence of a vaccine for COVID-19. Healthcare professionals and politicians have been warning us to get used to a new normal based on COVID-19 being with us for quite some time until an effective vaccine is introduced. In the meantime, all governments can do is slow the pace of infection t...
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April 28, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Spaulding Vermont State Colleges Chancellor Jeb Spaulding announced he'd submit his resignation from the post on Wednesday after a backlash over his recommendation to close three state college campuses. A NEBHE delegate at various points in his career, Spaulding has served as state treasurer, secretary of administration for Gov. Peter Shumlin and the chair of the...
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April 28, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused elected officials to shut down large segments of the U.S. economy, within 30 days of President Donald Trump’s National Emergency Proclamation in mid-March, putting more than 26 million American payroll workers out of work and shuttering countless small businesses, thereby shutting down the self-employment option upon which workers frequently rely in times of econ...
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April 26, 2020
With the number of new high school graduates in New England projected to decline by 14% between 2017 and 2032, the region's higher education enterprises and employers cannot afford to overlook any New Englanders. That includes the many people whose lives have been derailed by the world's largest incarcerator. Last week, three New England postsecondary institutions—Boston College, the Community College...
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April 21, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Leigh Saufley, dean of the University of Maine School of Law The University of Maine System named Maine Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Leigh Saufley the new dean of the University of Maine School of Law. Saufley resigned from the Supreme Judicial Court on April 14 to begin her responsibilities as dean April 15. The Champlain...
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April 21, 2020
Karen Gross is an author, educator and advisor on diverse issues along the educational pipeline. Her current research focuses on student success and the impact of trauma on learning, psychosocial development and health. Sadly, the issues on which she focuses have taken center stage with the coronavirus pandemic and the literally thousands of colleges (and schools) closing their brick-and-mortar ca...
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April 20, 2020
A few items from the quarantine … Wisdom from Zoom. COVID-19 has been a boon for Zoom and Slack (for people panicked by too many and too-slow emails). Last week, I zoomed into the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) Leadership Series conversation with Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) President Paul LeBlanc and HGSE Dean Bridget Long. LeBlanc notes that the online programs ado...
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April 17, 2020
John J. Bonanno Maguire Associates announced the appointment of John J. Bonanno as CEO, succeeding Linda Cox Maguire in a long-planned leadership transition at the world-renowned enrollment management firm based in Concord, Mass. Bonanno is the former president of ESM Digital, a digital marketing firm serving higher education. He held several leadership positions at Boston University, including president of the...
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April 14, 2020
As a nation, we are taught to understand that it is sometimes necessary to send soldiers into harm’s way to fight for values and principles we believe are worth sacrificing for. Today, and throughout our history as a nation, young men and women have been called upon to fight in foreign lands for the advancement of democracy and to secure and preserve the religious rights and political freedom...
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April 14, 2020
Residential college and university campuses across New England abruptly closed their doors last month during the COVID-19 outbreak, and while some schools were in session and students were asked to vacate, many others were on spring break and students were asked not to return. In both situations, students found themselves at home or in new environments where they waited to see how their education ...
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April 7, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Susan Huard The Community College System Board of Trustees named recently retired Manchester Community College President Susan Huard to lead the system as interim chancellor for one year after the departure of Chancellor Ross Gittell later this year. Brian Bicknell was appointed to permanently replace Huard at Manchester Community College, where he has been serving as...
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April 7, 2020
As COVID-19 rapidly changes the economic landscape throughout the country, higher education institutions (HEIs) are facing new, constantly evolving challenges. To address these challenges, federal and state governments are quickly drafting laws and regulations that are impacting colleges and universities, and their employees. Wage and hour challenges As HEIs grapple with COVID-19 fallout, in...
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March 31, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Barabino Gilda Barabino, dean of the Grove School of Engineering and the Daniel and Frances Berg Professor at ghe City College of New York, was named president of Olin College of Engineering, effective July 1. While a faculty member at Northeastern University, Barabino served on NEBHE's Advisory Committee on Equity and Diversity from 2000 to 2007...
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March 31, 2020
DC Shuttle ... Stimulus Package Includes Some Relief for Higher Education. The $2 trillion financial stimulus package passed on Friday affords about $14 billion to colleges and universities as they navigate closing campuses and remote learning. The funds dedicated to higher education represent about 46% of the education stabilization measures in the package. Although higher than the original $6 billion...
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March 30, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic is top of mind for everyone. There’s no aspect of our lives that’s been untouched. For colleges and universities, the novel coronavirus crisis has caused a major educational shift. Campuses are closed to students. Courses have moved online. And many graduation ceremonies will be canceled or postponed. How long the new norm continues is unknown, but there is bound to be an...
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March 24, 2020
The 2020 state legislative sessions started off “business as usual,” but this legislative year has quickly become anything but usual. The recent state-by-state implementation of aggressive social distancing measures to mitigate the further spread of COVID-19 effectively ended most states’ 2020 legislative sessions. Massachusetts—the only New England state legislature that continues to meet—is focusing its efforts almost exclusively on bills...
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March 24, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Deborah Hedeen The University of Maine System named Deborah Hedeen, currently provost and vice chancellor for academic and student affairs at the University of Montana Western, to be president/provost of the University of Maine at Fort Kent, effective July 1. Simmons University appointed Ray Pfeiffer, a CPA who formerly held faculty positions at Texas Christian University...
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March 24, 2020
As our computer screens filled with tiny squares of faces of students and faculty alike, we watched them fidget with their chairs and screens and heard their voices ring in our earphones ... Social distancing measures took hold at Wheaton College forcing the same screen encounters that are now spreading across higher education nationwide. In the wake of the effort to control the rapid spread of...
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March 23, 2020
DC Shuttle ... New England Council Calls on Senators to Provide COVID-19 Relief to Colleges. The New England Council sent a letter calling on Congress to provide relief to colleges and universities in light of the COVID-19 public health crisis that has forced them to close their campuses to students. In a letter sent to each New England senator, as...
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March 16, 2020
DC Shuttle ... U.S. Education Department Eases Regulations as Colleges Move to Online Learning. A new guidance document released by the Department of Education granted "broad approval" to schools as they transition to digital learning amid the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Per the document, the department will still allow schools to qualify for Federal Work Study and Pell...
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March 10, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Gittell The Bryant University Board of Trustees announced that after an extensive national search it has appointed distinguished economist and economic development expert Ross Gittell, who is currently chancellor of the Community College System of New Hampshire, as the university’s next president. Gittell will succeed Ronald K. Machtley, a former member of Congress, who has served...
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March 10, 2020
Last November, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the administration could rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), with the fate of over 650,000 DACA recipients in the balance. While a decision is expected by June 2020, colleges and universities—including New England institutions—can begin preparing now. As of September 2019, New England is home to more than 10...
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March 9, 2020
DC Shuttle ... Senators Write to Education Department Over Racial Disparities in Student Borrowing. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) wrote to the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) asking how the office plans to address racial disparities in federal student loans. The letter cites studies that have shown black students are 20%...
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March 9, 2020
The number of articles on the impact of the coronavirus on higher education is growing by the minute. That’s understandable and necessary. The spread of this virus (which happens easily in a campus setting) raises critical questions about what educational institutions can and should do in light of the now spreading COVID-19 virus. And the raised issues are remarkably varied and call for all thos...
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March 3, 2020
Nearly 1.3 million students were enrolled exclusively in distance education programs at institutions participating in National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA) in fall 2018, according to new data from NC-SARA’s fourth annual enrollment report. That’s a 5% increase over fall 2017 data, illustrating continued growing demand for postsecondary distance education opportunities. The data provide a more complete national...
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March 3, 2020
Doran Comings and Goings ... Sandra J. Doran, NEBHE's first director of the New England State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA), was named the sixth president of Bay Path University, succeeding Carol Leary, who retires in June following her 25-year presidency. Doran has recently been serving as interim president of Salem Academy and College, a private women’s school in Winston-Salem, N.C....
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March 2, 2020
A few years back NEJHE featured Boston freelance writer Matt Robinson on a program called "Training Transformational Teachers" that uses research from various fields to help teachers understand the ways the brain learns best, then shows them classroom-tested strategies to boost student interest and retention and creative applications of what they're learning. Now, Robinson has authored Lions, Tigers, and…Bulldogs? An...
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March 2, 2020
DC Shuttle ... Democratic Lawmakers and Attorneys General Demand Education Department Withdraw Religious Exemption Draft Rules. Sixteen Democratic senators wrote a letter to U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over her proposed draft rules in relation to Title IX and religious institutions and groups. The proposed rules would expand eligibility for institutions claiming a religious exemption from parts of Title IX,...
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February 25, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Katherine Newman Katherine Newman, who served as interim chancellor of UMass Boston in 2018 and 2019, was named to the new UMass position of system chancellor of academic programs in the system president's office, overseeing teaching and research and economic development. She is expected to begin in the new role when Marcelo Suárez-Orozco starts as chancellor...
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February 18, 2020
Lynn Perry Wooten Comings and Goings ... Simmons University named Lynn Perry Wooten, a crisis leadership expert who served on the faculties at Cornell University and the University of Michigan, to be the next president of the private Boston university, succeeding Helen G. Drinan, who ends her term in June after 12 years as president. Katie Conboy, who has held...
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February 12, 2020
Percentage of Massachusetts adults who are women: 52% MassForward: Advancing Democratic Innovation and Electoral Reform in Massachusetts Percentage of seats in the Massachusetts Legislature held by women: 29% MassForward: Advancing Democratic Innovation and Electoral Reform in Massachusetts Number of votes by which Boston elected its first Latina city councilor in 2019: 1 Boston Elections Commission Percentage of U.S. labor force...
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February 11, 2020
Torrecilha Comings and Goings ... Westfield State University President Ramon Torrecilha announced he will retire in August. The Coalition for College named University of Vermont Vice President for Enrollment Management Stacey Kostell to be the new CEO of the group that brings together colleges and universities to improve college access and success....
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February 11, 2020
DC Shuttle ... U.S. Education Secretary Threatened with Subpoena by House Oversight Committee. House Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) threatened to subpoena U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, citing her activities on the campaign trail for President Trump and her office having "stonewalled and delayed" when the committee tried to confirm a date for her testimony. In the letter sent to...
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February 11, 2020
This photograph from Gov. Charlie Baker’s State of the Commonwealth address last month shows more than just happy college students in their sweatshirts. These students, from Northern Essex Community College and Merrimack College, are part of cohorts of students who have graduated from “early college” programs (with up to a year’s college credit) and successfully matriculated into a two- or...
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February 11, 2020
“Accountability” is one of the buzzwords of contemporary U.S. higher education. At times, it’s deployed primarily to strike a pose: We’re tough, we mean business. At other times, when this noun conveys not only muscularity but a real commitment to substantive results, its use is often imprecise. This imprecision has consequences and poses a danger. The concept of accountability, deploye...
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February 4, 2020
The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) and its sister regional higher education compact organizations—the Midwestern Higher Education Compact (MHEC), Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) as well as the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET)—are exploring the development of a national network to support scaling and adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER)...
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February 4, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Photo of Marcelo Suarez-Orozco courtesy of Harry Brett. The committee searching for the next permanent chancellor of UMass Boston voted to recommend only one candidate, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco. Since 2012, Suárez-Orozco has been dean of UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Among previous positions, he has been a professor at New York University and at...
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February 3, 2020
DC Shuttle ... House Passes Holocaust Education Bill. The U.S. House voted 393 to 5 to pass the Never Again Education Act, a bipartisan bill granting $10 million over five years to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The bill (HR 943) provides the funds to the museum in order to expand resources and programming to teachers for education about the...
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February 3, 2020
A recent report released by the National Association for College Admission Counseling found that only 29% of public schools surveyed had a full-time or part-time counselor who is solely focused on college admission counseling, compared with 48% of private schools. Furthermore, public school counselors across the U.S. in the 2016-17 school year were responsible for an average of 455 students each�...
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January 28, 2020
Single mothers make up an increasing part of the postsecondary student population in the U.S., and a growing movement has emerged to better understand and address their unique set of challenges and experiences. The National College Transition Network (NCTN) at World Education launched College Success for Single Mothers, a three-year project that will help eight community colleges identify the needs...
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January 28, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Paul Grogan Boston Foundation President and CEO Paul Grogan, one of New England's most influential foundation leaders, announced he’ll step down after 19 years leading the foundation with net assets of $1.3 billion. Grogan will continue in the job until a successor is named. The foundation has been a key contributor to civic life in Massachusetts,...
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January 28, 2020
“Traditionally, New England has been at the forefront of the leading innovations in education and I am hopeful we will give birth to some exciting new models again that will deliver value to learners and meet the needs of our economy.” Former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift became president of the education innovation organization LearnLaunch in July 2019. In 1998, Swift was elected lieute...
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January 27, 2020
Some news and thoughts from the NEJHE beat … ICE-y conditions. MIT recently alerted its staff that federal immigration officials would be checking the status of foreign postdoctoral students, researchers and visiting scholars in the sciences, and urged them to cooperate. ... Meanwhile, an Iranian student, returning to study at Northeastern University, was detained at Boston’s Logan Internat...
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January 21, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Jose Fuentes Hampshire College named technology entrepreneur and alumnus Jose Fuentes as the new chair of the 20-member board of trustees, succeeding Luis Hernandez. Originally from Guatemala, Fuentes oversees Maison, an educational technology company that helps community colleges retain and graduate more students using online services. He was a managing partner at Savory, a food and...
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January 21, 2020
DC Shuttle ... New Data Released on Returns of a College Degree. A report released this week showed new findings on the return-on-investment of a college degree. The report, released by the College Board, shows, amid other research indicating that students and their families are questioning the worth of a college education, that a bachelor's degree significantly increases median lifetime...
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January 21, 2020
This question probably seems like a lead-in for a funny non-sequitur, but bear with me for a moment. The American University in Bulgaria (AUBG), where I currently serve as interim president, was founded in 1991, soon after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, originally as a branch campus of the University of Maine. Like several other international institutions, AUBG is accredited by the Ne...
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January 14, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Fithian Clark University named University of Chicago Executive Vice President and Clark alumnus David Fithian to be the Worcester, Mass. university's 10th president, succeeding David P. Angel, who retires in June after 10 years as Clark’s president. Katie Stebbins left her post as vice president of economic development at the University of Massachusetts to start her...
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January 14, 2020
Higher Ed and the Law ... Title IX, the federal civil rights law passed in 1972, was a landmark piece of legislation that prohibited sexual discrimination in educational institutions across America. It reads, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or...
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January 13, 2020
DC Shuttle ... State Funding for Higher Education Increases 5% in 2020. The latest Grapevine report, released by the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, shows an increase in state appropriations for public higher education of 5% in fiscal 2020. While all but three states (New York,...
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January 7, 2020
Comings and Goings ... Caprio Western New England University President Anthony S. Caprio announced he'll retire at the end of June 2020 after 24 years of leadership. The university's longest-serving president, Caprio oversaw the launch of its first doctoral program and 2011 transition from Western New England College to Western New England University. The Vermont College of Fine Arts Board...
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January 7, 2020
In late September 2019, I joined NEBHE as its Open Education Fellow to help build upon the grassroots efforts that have been underway for years in the Northeast aiming to lessen the burden that textbook costs place on higher education students and their families. Like so many of my colleagues doing this work day in and day out, I’m passionate about breaking down this very real barrier to student...
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December 23, 2019
DC Shuttle ... New Data Shows Higher Education Enrollment Reaches 10-Year Low. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center published a study showing the number of students enrolled in college has fallen below 18 million for the first time in a decade. Overall higher education enrollment for the fall 2019 semester fell 1.3%. Four year, for-profit schools posted the biggest drop,...
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December 19, 2019
2019 was a great year for NEBHE! As we look back over the past year, here are some of the highlights. UPSKILLING NEW ENGLAND We launched an upskilling initiative, with support from Strada Education Network, to build collaboration and alignment between New England’s educators and employers As part of this project, we hosted nearly 40 employers, education providers and policymakers...
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December 17, 2019
All signs indicate that high school graduation rates will continue to drop due to low birth rates, leading to a potential higher education metldown that is likely to affect all academic institutions, big and small, in the years after 2024. What steps do colleges and universities need to take to survive? The answer lies in subscribing to the law of survival of the fittest and in increasing marke...
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December 17, 2019
Higher education is awash with challenges. While young people today need college more than ever, college attendance across the country has dropped in each of the last eight years, including 300,000 fewer students last year alone. This is happening at a time when almost all new well-paying jobs require postsecondary training and study. As enrollment declines threaten the survival of more tha...
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December 16, 2019
DC Shuttle ... Trump Signs Executive Order on Campus Anti-Semitism. President Donald Trump signed an executive order focused on anti-Semitism on college campuses. The order threatens to cut off federal funds to schools that don't curb discrimination against Jewish individuals. The Anti-Defamation League, a group that fights anti-Semitism, welcomed the executive order citing their reports of an increase in anti-Semitic...
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December 9, 2019
DC Shuttle ... DeVos Calls for Federal Student Aid Office to Spin Off into a New Agency. U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos pitched a proposal for federal student loans to be operated by "a stand-alone government corporation, run by a professional, expert and apolitical board of governors," instead of by the Education Department's Office of Federal Student Aid. At the...
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December 4, 2019
The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) received a three-year implementation grant co-funded by the Teagle Foundation and the Davis Educational Foundation to develop systematic transfer pathways between community colleges and four-year independent colleges in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, with a focus on the liberal arts. NEBHE is grateful for the continued support of the Teagle Foundation, which...
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December 4, 2019
Kelly Comings and Goings ... Sterling College named Maxine Kelly, formerly finance & human resources director at Vermont Studio Center, to be Sterling's dean of finance & operations. Michelle Elias Bloomer, formerly of the division of professional studies at Bunker Hill Community College, became associate dean for undergraduate programs at Boston College’s Woods College of Advancing Studies. Bay Path University...
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December 3, 2019
NEBHE convenes leaders on the economy and the future of higher education ... Times are already complex for higher education. In Massachusetts, 18 higher education institutions (HEIs) have closed or merged in the past five years. In Vermont, College of St. Joseph, Green Mountain College and Southern Vermont College all held their final graduation ceremonies in the spring. What would happen if a ...
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November 25, 2019
DC Shuttle ... Ed Dept Updates College Scorecard Database to Include Average Debt, Earnings of Specific College Programs. The U.S. Department of Education announced that its database College Scorecard will now let users compare data on the average student loan debt and postgraduate earnings by program of students within institutions. The site's new update reflects the bipartisan push for transparency...
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November 19, 2019
International student enrollment grows modestly in Massachusetts, declines across the rest of New England ... The total number of enrolled international students at New England colleges and universities increased by 2.2% at all academic levels in academic year (AY) 2018-19, according to the 2019 Open Doors Report on International Education Exchange. The study, published annually by Institute of International Education...
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November 18, 2019
DC Shuttle ... Supreme Court Hears DACA Case, Reveals Little Hope for Program's Survival. The U.S. Supreme Court heard the oral arguments of a case to evaluate whether the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) decision to shut down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy is lawful. The conservative majority on the bench expressed little to no support of...
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November 17, 2019
In a matter of seconds, a student at a high school in Santa Clarita, California, injured and killed a handful of his fellow students and then shot himself. He died shortly thereafter. We read about such incidents and lament their happening. We see television footage and peruse articles and social media postings. We mourn for the students injured and killed and worry about their families and friend...
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November 12, 2019
Comings and Goings … Nitin Nohria Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria announced he will step down from the post in June 2020, after more than 30 years at the B-school, including 10 as dean. U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa Scott Brown—who had defeated Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley in 2010 to become a U.S. senator from Massachusetts,...
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November 12, 2019
DC Shuttle ... DeVos Declines to Testify Before House Panel; Subpoena Possible. U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos turned down House Education Committee Chair Bobby Scott's (D-VA) request that she testify in front of the committee in regard to the Education Department's role in the erroneous collection of student loans from former Corinthian College students. House Democrats scheduled a hearing for...
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November 12, 2019
Unemployment for college graduates is at its lowest point in over a decade at just 2.1%, compared with 3.7% for those with a high school diploma, according to October 2019 figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But a familiar tale of frustration simmers below the surface of these seemingly positive numbers. College graduates report difficulties in finding jobs that correspond to their level ...