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April 24, 2023

As more college and university faculty create courses that use Open Educational Resources -- which are free to use, customize and share -- an important next step is alerting students to their availability when they are registering for classes. The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) announces the four selected independent institutions in the Northeast participating in the Open Educati...

March 21, 2023

Legislators, state education policymakers and college and university leaders representing all six New England states gathered at Lasell University for the semiannual meeting of the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) on March 13, 2023, to discuss how the region’s higher education stakeholders can address pressing issues ranging from access to education to workforce shortages and skills...

December 13, 2022

Comings and Goings ... The University of California Board of Regents approved Katherine S. Newman, currently the system chancellor for academic programs and the senior vice president for economic development at the University of Massachusetts, to be provost and executive vice president for academic affairs in the California system. An expert on income inequality who recently served as...

December 6, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Former U.S. Education Secretary John B. King Jr. was named the next chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY), the largest comprehensive public higher education system in the U.S. King will begin heading the 370,000-student system in January, succeeding Jim Malatras, who resigned last year, and Deborah Stanley, the former president of SUNY Oswego, who serv...

December 5, 2022

DC Shuttle ... U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Student Debt Forgiveness Case in February. The Biden administration's plan to forgive up to $20,000 in debt for millions of federal student loan borrowers has sparked legal battles across the country. This week, the Supreme Court agreed “to decide whether the Biden administration had overstepped its authority with its plan to wipe out billions of doll...

November 22, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Tufts University named Johns Hopkins University Provost Sunil Kumar to be the Massachusetts institution's next president, succeeding Anthony Monaco in July 2023. Born in India, Kumar will be the first Asian American and first person of color to serve as Tufts president. He has previously served as dean at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and a facu...

November 15, 2022

Comings and Goings ... University of Connecticut Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Eleanor “Elly” JB Daugherty announced she is leaving UConn in January to become vice president for student affairs at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Her duties in Connecticut will be split between current UConn employees, Pamela Schipani who will become interim a...

November 15, 2022

NEBHE’s Transfer Initiatives team is excited to present the inaugural New England Transfer Guarantee Enrollment Report. The groundbreaking initiative is fully operationalized in the southern New England states of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island as of 2021. The program enables eligible community college graduates to transfer into participating four-year institutions—admission guaran...

November 9, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) selected materials scientist “Grace” Jinliu Wang as its 17th president, effective April 3, 2023. She succeeds Laurie Leshin, who served as WPI president for eight years before joining NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as director in May. WPI Provost Winston “Wole” Soboyejo has served as interim preside...

November 8, 2022

As NEJHE noted last month, the topic of cybersecurity and higher education is not going away any time soon. On Oct. 27, Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) and a consortium of Western Massachusetts colleges and universities received a $1.46 million state grant to establish a Cybersecurity Center of Excellence at Springfield’s Union Station. STCC will open its facilities in 2024....

November 2, 2022

Ranks of New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine as the least diverse states in America based on measures of socioeconomic, cultural, economic, household, religious and political diversity: 47th, 48th, 49th WalletHub Ranks of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Maine and New Hampshire among the most expensive U.S. states to retire in: 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 10th, 14th Bankrate Increase ...

November 1, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Montserrat College President Kurt T. Steinberg announced he will step down as head of the arts college in Beverly, Mass. in January 2023 to become chief operating officer of the Peabody Essex Museum in neighboring Salem, Mass. Before joining Montserrat, Steinberg was interim president and executive vice president at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design for 12 yea...

October 26, 2022

Comings and Goings ... MIT selected Duke University Provost Sally Kornbluth as its new president, succeeding L. Rafael Reif, who announced in February that he would resign after 10 years leading the world-famous research university. A cell biologist, Kornbluth will begin as MIT's 18th president on Jan. 1, 2023. The Boston Architectural College named Lindsay Hummer as its new vice p...

October 18, 2022

Comings and Goings ... The Assumption University Board of Trustees appointed Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Greg Weiner to be the college's next president. Weiner has served as the Worcester, Mass. Catholic college's interim president since April, when Francesco C. Cesareo announced his planned retirement. Worcester Polytechnic Institute appointed Stanley Horton as its direct...

October 11, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker appointed Stephen Karam, principal of the Fall River, Mass. benefit consulting group Karam Associates, to chair the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees. He succeeds Robert Manning, who served as chair for the past seven years. Karam’s father, Robert Karam, and uncle, James Karam, both previously served as board chairs for the...

October 4, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Radenka Maric, who has been interim president of the University of Connecticut since February, was named the 17th president of the state’s flagship land-grant institution. Formerly UConn’s vice president for research, innovation and entrepreneurship, Maric succeeded former interim president Andrew Agwunobi. Maric becomes the second woman president of the universit...

October 3, 2022

DC Shuttle ... Generating an Unnecessary Inequity. “The federal student aid formula disproportionately benefits upper-middle-class white families,” according to a new paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The authors of the paper found that “racial disparities creep into the [federal student aid] system because the federal formula for estimating how much a family can affo...

September 27, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Terry Hartle, senior vice president for government relations and public affairs at the American Council on Education (ACE) since 1993, announced he will retire at the end of this year. Before joining the higher education lobbying group, Hartle was a key aide to the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resourc...

September 26, 2022

DC Shuttle ... Lowering Obstacles to Achievement Now (LOAN) Act. U.S. Reps. Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Frederica Wilson (D-FL) introduced the Lowering Obstacles to Achievement Now (LOAN) Act “to lower the cost of college for current and future student borrowers and their families.” This proposed legislation would double the Pell Grant, improve the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and mak...

September 20, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Smith College selected Swarthmore College Provost and Dean of the Faculty Sarah Willie-LeBreton to be the 12th president of the Seven Sisters and Five Colleges institution in Northampton, Mass. She'll succeed Kathleen McCartney, who announced that she will step down in 2023. A sociologist, Willie-LeBreton studies social inequality and race and ethnicity. As Swarthmore...

September 19, 2022

DC Shuttle ... URI Lands $1 Million in Federal Funding for Plastics Pollution Research. U.S. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) and U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI) announced a $1 million federal earmark, secured through fiscal 2022 appropriations legislation, to support University of Rhode Island (URI) research on the polluting effects of microplastics in land and sea. “In the grand scheme of things, mi...

September 13, 2022

Comings and Goings ... In a stream of high-profile changes at the largest higher education institution in New England (if you don't count the heavily online Southern New Hampshire University), Boston University (BU) President Robert A. Brown announced he will step down at the end of the academic year after 17 years in charge. The university also reported that Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Glo...

August 31, 2022

Holyoke Community College (HCC) President Christina Royal announced she will retire from the college at the end of the 2022-23 academic year, after serving as the first woman, first openly gay and first biracial leader of the 75-year-old institution, the oldest two-year college in Massachusetts. Before joining HCC in 2017, Royal was provost and vice president of academic ...

August 16, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Steve Kaplan, who has led the University of New Haven for nearly 20 years as president, then chancellor and CEO, told the university community that he will retire in June 2023, a year earlier than expected. In February, the university promoted an “innovative presidential transition plan” in which Kaplan moved from president to chancellor, while Sheahon...

August 16, 2022

Percentage of U.S. counties where more people died than were born in 2021: 73%  University of New Hampshire Carsey School of Public Policy analysis of National Center for Health Statistics data Number of additional births that would have occurred in the past 14 years had pre-Great Recession fertility rates continued: 8,600,000 University of New Hampshire Carsey School of Public Policy analysis...

August 9, 2022

Comings and Goings ... LearnLaunch Executive Director and President Jane Swift announced she will step away from the day-to-day leadership of the nonprofit educational technology group she has led since 2019 and become its board president and senior advisor. She will be succeeded as executive director by Kate Donaghey, who has served as executive vice president of policy at LearnLaunch and ...

August 3, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Harvard Institute of Politics Director Mark D. Gearan announced he will step down after more than four years to become president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y., a post he earlier held from from 1999 to 2017. Setti D. Warren, the institute's executive director, will serve as its interim director, while the Harvard Kennedy School searches for a new lon...

August 2, 2022

Though home to  more than 250 colleges and universities, New England boasts only nine so-called minority serving institutions (MSIs)—institutions focused specifically on providing an abundance of resources to equip  minority students with the tools they need to be successful in furthering their education. MSIs are colleges or universities that enroll a high percentage of minority and histor...

August 1, 2022

DC Shuttle ... Biden Considers New Pause on Paying Back Student Loans, $10,000 Relief. Ahead of the November midterm elections, and in an attempt to engage voters under age 30, President Joe Biden may be considering extending the pause on student loan repayments for several more months. Biden may also be considering forgiving $10,000 in student loan debt per borrower, with the caveat that borro...

July 26, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Dartmouth College Trustees elected cognitive scientist and Barnard College President Sian Leah Beilock as the Hanover, N.H. Ivy League institution's first woman president. She'll take over next July, succeeding Philip Hanlon. Beilock's research has focused on brain science and performance anxiety in areas such as test-taking. Though Beilock is the first woman to be el...

July 25, 2022

DC Shuttle ... Democrats Want Public Service Loan Waiver Made Permanent. The “Simplifying and Strengthening PSLF Act” would make permanent some of the changes made through the temporary Public Service Loan Forgiveness waiver announced by the Biden administration last year. These changes both simplified the application process for borrowers while also shortening the length of time a borrower...

July 20, 2022

NEBHE and the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) awarded grants to seven business-higher education partnerships in Connecticut as part of an initiative to rapidly increase the competitiveness of the state's postsecondary institutions and meet growing business demand for tech skills. In Connecticut, tech talent is critical for the state’s economic competitiveness and fostering the long-ter...

July 19, 2022

Comings and Goings ... The State University of New York (SUNY) appointed Connecticut State Community Colleges Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Alison Buckley as the next president of SUNY Ulster, succeeding Alan Roberts who has led the university since 2015. Thomas College hired Chelsea Moeller as its new vice president for advancement. Moeller recently served...

July 18, 2022

With funding secured, NEBHE will begin expanding community college transfer program to Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont …

July 18, 2022

With funding secured, NEBHE will begin expanding community college transfer program to Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont ... The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) will begin scaling the New England Transfer Guarantee (the Guarantee) to Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont this month, having recently secured a three-year implementation grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (AVDF)...

July 12, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Lasell University President Michael B. Alexander announced he will step down at the end of the 2023 academic year after 16 years leading the Newton, Mass. college-turned-university. Alexander is also the CEO of Lasell Village, a model senior living community located on the school’s Newton campus. A NEBHE delegate, he is the founder of the Lower Cost Models for Indep...

July 5, 2022

Comings and Goings ... University of Massachusetts Global named David Andrews to be the next chancellor of the online adult-focused nonprofit institution formerly known as Brandman University, which affiliated with the public UMass system in September 2021. He was president of National University from 2016 to 2021 and before that led the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University, wher...

June 28, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Emmanuel College selected chemist Mary K. Boyd to be its 13th president. Boyd is currently provost of Georgia's Berry College. She was previously dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of San Diego and worked as a principal investigator for a National Science Foundation grant supporting the research of female faculty, particularly instructors of co...

June 27, 2022

DC Shuttle ... House Appropriators Draft $28.5 Billion Boost for Labor-HHS-Education. U.S. House appropriators released a draft fiscal year 2023 Labor-HHS-Education spending bill that would allocate $242.1 billion in discretionary funding. Specifically, the draft House bill text would allot for: $86.7 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Education, which would be a $1...

June 21, 2022

DC Shuttle ... King Cosponsors the Civics Democracy Act. U.S.  Sen. Angus King (I-ME) announced that he is cosponsoring the Civics Democracy Act which was introduced by Sens Chris Coons (D-DE) and John Cornyn (R-TX) earlier this year. This bill would authorize federal grants for educators, nonprofits and others to “improve [and] strengthen civics education from early childhood to higher educ...

June 21, 2022

Comings and Goings ... President Joe Biden appointed Lynn Malerba, chief of the Mohegan Tribe, as treasurer of the United States, the first Native American to hold the position. Malerba earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Connecticut’s University of Saint Joseph (USJ) in 1983 (then called Saint Joseph College), received USJ’s Distinguished Alumni Nightingale Health Science Aw...

June 15, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow announced he plans to step down next June 30, 2023, after five years at the helm of America's oldest higher education institution. An economist, lawyer and environmental public policy expert, he helped lead Harvard through the Covid-19 pandemic and launched a panel to examine the university's ties to slavery. As president of...

June 13, 2022

DC Shuttle ... Ed Dept Cancels Remaining Loans for Over Half Million Borrowers who Attended Corinthian. The U.S. Department of Education “announced it will discharge all remaining federal student loans borrowed to attend any campus owned or operated by Corinthian Colleges Inc. ... from its founding in 1995 through its closure in April 2015,” impacting 560,000 borrowers. This $5.8 billion lo...

June 8, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Dean College named Boston University Associate Provost and Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore to be its 14th president, succeeding Paula Rooney, who announced her retirement in October after leading the Franklin, Mass. college for 27 years. Echoing an increasingly popular dual leadership strategy, Dean named former Worcester City Manager Edward Augustus to be its first-e...

May 31, 2022

Comings and Goings ... The University of New England appointed Rutgers University School of Health Professions dean Gwendolyn Mahon to be provost and senior vice president for academic affairs of the Biddeford, Maine university, effective Oct. 24. Mahon previously was associate dean for administration at the the Rutgers Health Professions school, assistant dean for research at Rutge...

May 24, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Michael R. Laliberte withdrew as the choice for the next president of the University of Maine at Augusta (UMA) after the revelation that he had received a vote of no confidence from his former university, the State University of New York at Delhi, which led to a flurry of votes of no confidence in the University of Maine System. The system initially announced Lalibert...

May 17, 2022

Comings and Goings ... The University of Maine System selected Jacqueline Edmonson, the currrent chancellor and chief academic officer at Penn State Greater Allegheny, a mostly commuter college near Pittsburgh, as the 18th president of the University of Southern Maine, also a mostly commuter college. She'll succeed Glenn Cummings, who served as president for seven years and announced his re...

May 10, 2022

Comings and Goings ... The UMass System Board of Trustees named Julie Chen as the next chancellor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She will succeed Jacquie Moloney, who last year announced her plan to step down this June. Chen will be the first Asian American to lead the 18,000-student university. She has been on the UMass Lowell faculty since 1997, including serving as vice pro...

May 9, 2022

DC Shuttle ... Senate Banking Committee Holds Hearing on Student Debt. The U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs held a hearing titled “Examining Student Loan Servicers and Their Impact on Workers.” Earlier in the week, Committee Chair Sherrod Brown (D-OH) convened a listening session to hear from borrowers across the country about their experiences with student loan ...

May 3, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Dr. John Maduko The Connecticut Board of Regents for Higher Education appointed Dr. John Maduko, a medical doctor and current vice president of academic and student affairs for Minnesota State Community and Technical College, to serve as the inaugural president of Connecticut State Community College, the planned merged community college system in Connecticut. He will lead...

May 2, 2022

DC Shuttle ... Hearings & Markups of Interest The U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety will hold a hearing on Connecting Workers and Communities: Preparing and Supporting the Broadband Workforce on Tuesday, May 3 at 9:30 a.m. in 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Education Department Expands Second Chance Pell Grants to Support More...

April 26, 2022

In its 64th year of enrollment, the New England Board of Higher Education’s Tuition Break, the Regional Student Program (RSP), continued to enhance access and affordability for residents of the six New England states while helping to support enrollment at the region’s public colleges and universities. The 9,101 students enrolled in programs offered through the RSP in fall 2021 saved...

April 26, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Venky Venkatachalam The University of Massachusetts Boston named University of South Dakota business school dean Venky Venkatachalam as the next dean of its College of Management. Venkatachalam will assume the Boston dean’s position from current interim dean Arindam Bandopadhyaya. Previously, as a professor and associate dean at the University of New Hampshire’s Peter T. Paul College...

April 19, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Parwinder Grewal (UTRGV Photo by Paul Chouy) Parwinder Grewal, an entomologist and administrator at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), was named as the first president of Vermont State University (VSU), which will launch in summer 2023 with the consolidation of Castleton University, Northern Vermont University and Vermont Technical College. The flagship University of...

April 12, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Michael Laliberte The University of Maine System appointed State University of New York (SUNY) at Delhi President Michael Laliberte as the next president of the University of Maine at Augusta (UMA), effective Aug. 1. As president of SUNY at Delhi since 2016, he added 19 new degree programs to address local and state workforce needs, launched...

April 11, 2022

DC Shuttle ... Senate Covid-19 Relief Compromise Would Repurpose $500 Million in Higher Ed Funding. The U.S. Senate reached a bipartisan “agreement in principle” for a $10 billion Covid-19 relief bill. The compromise reprograms billions in unused money from other coronavirus bills to fund Covid-19-related therapeutics, testing and vaccine distribution efforts. It proposes to rescind $500 million of higher education...

April 5, 2022

Comings and Goings ... Beverly Daniel Tatum Mount Holyoke College named former Spelman College President Beverly Daniel Tatum as interim president, taking over in July for Sonya Stephens, who announced she would be leaving in the summer to head the American University in Paris. A clinical psychologist, Tatum served as acting president of Mount Holyoke in 2002, was dean of...

April 5, 2022

Percentage of students who rated themselves as very or extremely proficient in critical thinking last year: 80% National Association of Colleges and Employers Percentage of employers who agreed with that assessment: 56% National Association of Colleges and Employers Percentage of students who rated themselves as very or extremely proficient in technology: 65% National Association of Colleges and Employers Percentage of...

April 4, 2022

DC Shuttle ... President Biden Releases Fiscal 2023 Budget Proposal, Including Big Increase for Pell Grants. President Joe Biden released his budget proposal for the fiscal year 2023 appropriations bill. The most notable provisions include a proposal to double the maximum Pell Grant by 2029 and increase the maximum Pell Grant amount by $2,175 for the 2023-24 academic year. Biden...

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 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 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 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 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 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 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...

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 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 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...

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 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 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 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...