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March 25, 2011

In January, we revived the collection of facts and figures called "Data Connection" that we had published quarterly for nearly 20 years in the print editions of The New England Journal of Higher Education. The latest ... Change in Connecticut State University System (CSUS) "administrative and residual" staff, fiscal 2006 to fiscal 2011: -15% Connecticut State University System Change in...

March 23, 2011

Daniel Mark Fogel announced he would step down as president of the University of Vermont, effective June 30, 2012, after 10 years at the helm of Vermont's land-grant university. In a letter to the UVM community, Fogel cited successful UVM initiatives such as the creation of the Honors College, a six-credit diversity requirement and the UVM Transportation Research Center.****Brown University...

March 21, 2011

The New England Board of Higher Education held its 9th annual New England Higher Education Excellence Awards Dinner on Friday, March 11, at the Long Wharf Marriott in Boston. But the conversation continued beyond the dinner, thanks to a variety of social media.To track our social media coverage, check out the links below: NEBHE's Twitter page. NEBHE's staff: Check out...

March 18, 2011

Median faculty pay did not increase this year at public colleges and universities, and inched up just 2% at private institutions, according to a study from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR).The CUPA-HR's annual National Faculty Salary Survey covers more than 800 four-year institutions nationwide and includes salary data from well over 200,000 full-time faculty members...

March 17, 2011

The New England Council announced a slate of events for spring 2011 … Congressional Roundtable Luncheon with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Monday, March 21, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., The Society Room of Hartford, 31 Pratt Street, Hartford, Conn. Congressional Roundtable Breakfast with U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine) on Thursday, March 24, from 8 a.m. to 9:30...

March 17, 2011

Students who left postsecondary institutions before earning a degree or certificate—and students who attended two-year and for-profit institutions—faced delinquency on their student loans at much higher rates than their peers, according to a new study released by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP). Delinquency: The Untold Story of Student Loan Borrowing, by Alisa F. Cunningham and Gregory...

March 15, 2011

University of Maine System trustees approved Chancellor Richard Pattenaude's recommendation of Paul Ferguson as the next president of UMaine, the state's flagship and land-grant university in Orono. Currently provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Ferguson will succeed Robert Kennedy at Orono on July 1. UMaine noted that the president's salary of $270,000 is...

March 14, 2011

Following last week's 8.9 magnitude earthquake off Northeastern Japan, continuing aftershocks and a massive tsunami, colleges and universities are keeping a close eye on that part of the world. Below are some updates from New England institutions. Boston University's Daily Free Press reports BU students in Tokyo O.K. 19 Yale Students Safe in Tokyo, reports The New Haven Register WTNH...

March 14, 2011

More than 300 Southeastern Massachusetts secondary and postsecondary faculty and administrators are expected to discuss the high school-to-college transition and building a better-aligned P-20 curriculum at a conference on 'Pathways to College Readiness and College Success,' to be held Wednesday, April 13, from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., at the Indian Pond Country Club in Kingston, Mass.Attendees at the free...

March 7, 2011

NEBHE will hold its 9th annual New England Higher Education Excellence Awards Dinner on Friday, March 11, at 6:30 p.m., at the Marriott Long Wharf Hotel in Boston. Join NEBHE and hundreds of New England's business, education, government and nonprofit leaders to celebrate the best in New England higher education! Awardees will include: The Hon. Patrick J. Leahy, U.S. Senator,...

March 4, 2011

Citing the 'new normal' and impending budget cuts, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan urged state leaders to boost student achievement despite dwindling resources."There is a right way and a wrong way to cut spending, and the most important guiding principle I can offer is to minimize the negative impact on students and seize this opportunity to redirect your spending priorities,"...

March 3, 2011

Massachusetts College of Art and Design named Dawn Barrett to be its next president, succeeding Kay Sloan, who will retire after 15 years as president. Barrett is currently dean of the Architecture and Design Division at Rhode Island School of Design. MassArt trustees named Sloan president emerita. She created The New Partnership for MassArt, a pioneering financial and governance model...

March 1, 2011

NEBHE will host its 9th annual Excellence Awards celebration at the Marriott Long Wharf Hotel in Boston on Friday, March 11. But the conversation has already started thanks to a variety of social media, creating a digital time line that includes information leading up to, during and after the event.To track our social media coverage, check out the links below:...

March 1, 2011

NEBHE launched the first phase of its college-completion project, New England 2025.Supported with a Lumina Foundation grant and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, NEBHE's Department of Policy and Research built a series of state-level "dashboards" and models that can examine college completion and various metrics with new levels of sophistication.These models allow decision-makers and users to take...

February 28, 2011

It's happening again: New England colleges and universities are assembling the academics, business gurus, heads of state and, of course, celebs, who make the region's spring college commencements the world's best regional lecture series. Some stars of this year's commencement season so far (in order of appearance) ...****Marc A. Nivet, the chief diversity officer at the Association of American Medical...

February 25, 2011

In September 2006, Harvard made the decision to end early admissions. Early admissions takes on two forms: early action and early decision. What Harvard had in place was non-binding early action, meaning that a student applies before the regular deadline—in early November—and has until admissions decisions come back from other schools before deciding where to attend.Early decision, on the other...

February 22, 2011

Complete College America launched the Completion Innovation Challenge, a $10 million competitive grant program for states to significantly boost college completion and close attainment gaps for traditionally underrepresented populations.A national organization whose mission is to work with states to increase the number of Americans with college degrees or certificates of workplace value, Complete College America established the grant program with...

February 19, 2011

The National Farm-to-School Network was awarded a $250,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperative Agreement Contract to expand farm-to-institution work throughout the six New England states.Demand for fresh local food has been rising not only from schools but also from colleges and hospitals as people seek healthy foods while supporting local farmers and reducing the environmental impacts of shipping foods long...

February 12, 2011

Findings presented in the latest issue of Postsecondary Education Opportunity put a new twist on the adage 'the harder you work, the luckier you get.' In fact, it may be true that the older you are, the harder you work.The latest issue of the data-rich newsletter published monthly by higher education analyst Thomas G. Mortenson and his colleagues explores 'Time...

February 11, 2011

The annual Horizons report by Educause and The New Media Consortium has a pretty good track record identifying technologies that will have a significant impact on education. For example, the 2006 report cited social computing such as Wikipedia, Skype and internet tagging to be technologies that would soon have an immediate impact.So what does the 2011 Horizon Report see as...

February 11, 2011

Northeastern University Center for Labor Market Studies associate director Paul E. Harrington moved to Philadelphia-based Drexel University. Harrington has been a frequent contributor to NEJHE and to NEBHE events****Joseph M. O'Keefe, S.J., will also leave leave Boston for Philly, departing as dean of Boston College's Lynch School of Education to become the 27th president of Saint Joseph's University, starting May...

February 5, 2011

In a recent article in Inside Higher Education, transfer expert Marc Cutright of the University of North Texas writes about the growing importance that four-year colleges and universities should place on students transferring from community college. Public colleges, led by community colleges, grant more than a half million associate degrees annually and the number grew by 27% over a decade....

February 4, 2011

Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J., announced he will be step down as the 31st president of the College of the Holy Cross once a successor is in place.A computer scientist with an interest in the intersection of technology and ethics, McFarland was named president of the Worcester, Mass., Jesuit college in 2000. Before that, he served as dean of the...

February 3, 2011

The University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography will host an eight-part lecture series on the ocean environment, including discussions of ocean exploration, threatened habitats, ocean policy, climate change, and oceans and human health.The free public lectures will be held Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m. in Edwards Auditorium on URI's Kingston campus.The first lecture, to be held on Feb. 8,...

February 2, 2011

"Making higher education more affordable" tops the list of solutions that the public believes would help people become more economically secure, according to a new Public Agenda survey, "Slip-Sliding Away: An Anxious Public Talks about Today's Economy and the American Dream."The New York City-based Public Agenda finds four in 10 Americans are struggling to pay bills and worried about maintaining...

February 1, 2011

"Science courses belong in the liberal arts curriculum for the benefit of both science and non-science majors." That's one of the main findings in a study released by the Cambridge, Mass.-based American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Science and the Educated American: A Core Component of Liberal Education warns that the pace of scientific and technological change means all adults...

January 28, 2011

The National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO) will hold its "2011 How to Market to State Governments Meeting" at Boston's Marriott Copley Place from Sunday, April 3, through Tuesday, April 5.Noting that the U.S. elected 26 new governors this past fall, 15 of whom reflect a change in political party, NASPO plans one session to provide the audience insight...

January 28, 2011

The Maine Center for Economic Policy (MCEP) will hold its 10th State Tax & Budget Conference on Monday, Feb. 14 at the Augusta Civic CenterFeatured speakers will include Sawin Millett, commissioner of the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services. Millett will make a presentation on the proposed biennial budget, which is scheduled for release in early February.Other scheduled speakers...

January 26, 2011

The College Board's Advanced Placement (AP) exams, often preceded by AP courses, have a reputation for spitting out an overwhelming amount of information, but that is about to change. The nonprofit, which also administers the SATs, says it will revamp the biology and U.S. history tests to give students the opportunity to learn the materials, rather than cram for the...

January 22, 2011

Sterling College will serve up a new academic program in farm-to-table food studies in summer 2011.'Vermont's Table: Farming, Cooking, and the Rural Experience' will combine hands-on culinary training using local vegetables and meats with in-depth examination of Vermont farms, cheesemakers and agricultural businesses. The program will include courses in Whole Farm Thinking and Farm-Scale Production of Value-Added Products, seminars in...

January 19, 2011

Yale University could offer a firsthand curriculum on the fickle nature of philanthropy.First, there's the lesson on dirty money. Last week, the Yale Daily News reported that the university agreed to pay $1 million to Industrial Enterprises of America, to settle the company's complaint that its former CEO, a Yale alumn named John Mazzuto, made a $1.7 million donation to...

January 18, 2011

University of Maine System Chancellor Richard L. Pattenaude announced that a search committee has identified four finalists to become president of Maine's flagship public university in Orono after current President Robert Kennedy steps down in June 2011.The finalists are: · Donald J. Farish, president of Rowan University in New Jersey; · Paul W. Ferguson, provost and vice chancellor for academic...

January 18, 2011

The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) will hold its ninth annual New England Higher Education Excellence Awards on Friday, March 11, at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf Hotel. Each year, NEBHE presents Regional Excellence Awards to individuals and organizations that have shown exceptional leadership on behalf of higher education and the advancement of educational opportunity, and State Merit...

January 14, 2011

The University of Massachusetts selected Robert Caret, president of Towson University, to succeed Jack M. Wilson as head of the five-campus university.A chemist with degrees from the University of New Hampshire and Suffolk University, Caret will need to concoct an effective potion for UMass, which the Boston Globe described as "struggling to climb into the elite ranks of public universities...

January 13, 2011

In August 2010, nine openly gay college leaders met to form a first-of-its-kind collegiate organization, the LGBTQ Presidents in Higher Education. Among their ranks were three officials from New England: Ralph Hexter, past Hampshire College president and among the first openly gay presidents; Katherine Ragsdale, president of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge; and Theo Kalikow, president of the University of...

January 9, 2011

For nearly 20 years, the print editions of The New England Journal of Higher Education (and its predecessor Connection) published a quarterly collection of facts and figures called "Data Connection." It was a sort of ripoff of the underrated Harper's Index. The key was to cleverly juxtapose pieces of interesting data, with no expressed overarching context. The glue, in our...

January 8, 2011

The good news is that the New England states are showing slight gains in revenue collections. The bad news is that it will not be enough to stave off a new round of budget cuts for the coming fiscal years. States are preparing budgets for FY12 and FY13 while addressing shortfalls in FY11 budgets. Most states have spent stimulus funds...

January 7, 2011

Comings and Goings ... Jack Wilson said ... Departing University of Massachusetts President Jack Wilson told the Sun newspaper of Lowell, Mass., that he will join the faculty at the UMass Lowell campus when he steps down from the system presidency this summer. Wilson will become a tenured professor of emerging technologies in the College of Management. He was named...

January 6, 2011

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine announced the 'Best Values in Public Colleges 2011," its annual ranking of 100 public colleges and universities in the U.S.Four New England institutions are on the list: the University of Connecticut, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the University of New Hampshire and the University of Vermont. Among the 100 public colleges in terms of value for...

December 30, 2010

The University of Rhode Island, in collaboration with Rhode Island Hospital, will offer a five-year dual degree program to teach graduates to apply physics to treating cancer and other human diseases.Set to launch in September 2011, the 162-credit program combining a bachelor's degree in physics and a master's in medical physics, will be the first of its kind in New...

December 30, 2010

The weekly Mass High Tech newspaper recently published a list of New England institutions with the largest "tech graduate enrollment." The list of 20 includes some famous New England private research institutions such as MIT and Harvard as well as seven public universities.Although Mass High Tech didn't use a specific definition of "tech" programs, it offered survey respondents examples of...

December 29, 2010

Trustees at Northern Essex Community College in Massachusetts seemed poised to choose Lane Glenn to succeed David Hartleb, who is retiring in June after 15 years as president.Glenn has been vice president of academic affairs since 2006 at the 7,439-student college with campuses in Haverhill, Mass., and Lawrence, Mass. Before joining Northern Essex, he was dean of academic and student...

December 29, 2010

The University of Maine at Augusta found a new niche for its online program in Information and Library Services thousands of miles away in Micronesia.UMA has partnered with Palau Community College to bring its bachelor's program to students in Micronesia.UMA is also helping the community college build an online format for its associate degree program to make it more accessible...

December 21, 2010

The University of Connecticut appointed Susan Herbst as its first female president. Herbst was executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer at the University System of Georgia and, before that, acting president of the State University of New York at Albany. Her brother, Jeffrey Herbst, is president of Colgate University.Meanwhile, New England will have to learn to live without two...

December 15, 2010

The nation is consumed by the quest to grant more college degrees. A new report by Douglas Harris and Sara Goldrick-Rab if the University of Wisconsin-Madison offers a look at how to do that cost-effectively.'The (Un)Productivity of American Higher Education: From Cost Disease to Cost-Effectiveness" compares several practices to see which are cost-effective for producing more degrees. The practices include...

December 14, 2010

The rising cost of tuition, the loan burden, the diminished grant availability—these usually come to mind when the subject is paying for college. Surprisingly, though, many students are actually entitled to thousands of dollars in refunds, usually paid when students borrow more then they need to, or when late federal aid arrives supplementing already paid tuition fees.The distribution of these...

December 13, 2010

A mismatch is brewing between the supply of skilled workers in New England and the increasing demand for such workers, according to a new report by the New England Public Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.The study by senior economist Alicia Sasser Modestino shows that, over the next 10 years, New England will face not only a...

December 8, 2010

Hebrew College of Newton, Mass., announced it will be move its operation to Andover Newton Theological School in 2011 or 2012, contingent on the sale of its current building.The college is facing debt of more than $32 million.Hebrew College offers undergraduate degrees and several master's degrees and certificates in Jewish Studies and Jewish Education.Hebrew recently teamed up with Northeastern University...

December 2, 2010

Private colleges, nonprofit hospitals, museums, soup kitchens and churches are exempt from property taxes. As cash-strapped host municipalities look for more revenue, their interest in collecting payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) from charitable nonprofit organizations will grow, according to a report by the Cambridge, Mass.-based Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. In recent years, many cities have expanded PILOTs and...

December 1, 2010

Ten of the 32 new Rhodes Scholars are from New England or studied in the region.They are: Mark Jia and Nicholas DiBerardino, both of Princeton University; Laura Nelson of the University of Virginia; Zachary Frankel, Daniel Lage and Baltazar Zavala of Harvard; Alice Baumgartner and William Zeng of Yale; Gabrielle Emanuel of Dartmouth; and Jennifer Lai of MIT.Chosen from regions...

November 30, 2010

According to a June poll by First Focus, an advocacy organization dedicated to making children and families a priority in federal policy, 70% of Americans support the DREAM Act. Rallies are occurring all across the country. There is even a hunger strike in Texas to help get the bill passed. In addition, legislators from the six New England states seem...

November 30, 2010

World-class and working class New England colleges made changes at the top today.Tufts University, the world-famous research university centered in Medford, Mass., announced its next president will be Anthony P. Monaco, pro-vice-chancellor for planning and resources at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. A neuroscientist, Monaco identified the first gene specifically involved in human language. He will succeed...

November 29, 2010

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick vowed to push for in-state tuition for illegal immigrant students at state colleges during his second term.Patrick announced the plan earlier this month at the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition's annual Thanksgiving luncheon. Though no specific details were revealed, Patrick's plans draw on many of the 130 immigration reforms recommended by an advisory panel a...

November 22, 2010

The Florida Department of Education announced the nation's first state assessment to incorporate common core standards.Working with the test developer McCann Associates, Florida will launch the test at 28 colleges in an effort to both place students and assess readiness for college-level work. Florida's Postsecondary Education Readiness Test (PERT) will be given to high school and entering postsecondary students.PERT uses...

November 18, 2010

Trustees of the University of Maine System got an update this week regarding the financial and programmatic health of the state's seven university campuses and its online and distance-learning initiative called University College.Last year, projected budget shortfalls to the tune of $42.8 million prompted administrators to reevaluate the management and academic structures of the Maine system. At its November 2009...

November 12, 2010

The Malden, Mass.-based Immigrant Learning Center Inc. (ILC) and Babson College will collaborate on a statewide conference for immigrant entrepreneurship to be hosted at Babson's Executive Conference Center in Wellesley, Mass. on Wednesday, Nov. 17, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.The ILC says immigrants are "jet fuel" for entrepreneurship in Massachusetts, from neighborhood revitalization to increasing numbers of transnational businesses...

November 10, 2010

It's over. Gone are the acrimonious debates, boisterous crowds, vicious campaign attack ads, incessant robo calls and campaign paraphernalia cluttering street corners, highways, lawns and sidewalks. The voters have spoken in New England and across the nation.Nationally, Republicans swept races for governor, the state legislatures and the U.S. Congress. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Republicans now...

November 10, 2010

The percentage of state lawmakers who are women will shrink to 23% in 2011, down slightly from almost 25% in 2010, according to a new report by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).This reverses a trend in which women made up a larger proportion of state legislatures each year back to 2005 when women comprised just over 22%.While New...

November 5, 2010

MassBay Community College was awarded a five-year, $2 million grant under the U.S. Department of Education's Strengthening Institutions Program, which aims to help campuses serve lower-income students by enhancing academic quality, institutional management and fiscal stability. The Wellesley, Mass. college also won approval of a three-year Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) grant from the Education Department for...

November 3, 2010

The Boston think tank MassINC will present "What just happened?" First impressions of the 2010 election results" with panelists Alison King of New England Cable News, Scot Lehigh of the Boston Globe and Steven Koczela of MassINC Polling Group, on Friday, Nov. 5, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. To register, click here.****The...

November 3, 2010

For-profit colleges such as the University of Phoenix and Kaplan University offer an alternative to traditional two-year and four-year non-profit institutions by focusing, if their rhetoric is to be believed, on learning 'relevant material you can apply immediately to your workplace.' With the rise in unemployment and the difficulties college grads are experiencing securing jobs, for-profit colleges are able to...

November 1, 2010

Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU) will host a lecture by University of Connecticut economics professor Fred Carstensen, director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis, on Wednesday, Nov. 10, at 11 a.m., in the J. Eugene Smith Library.The lecture is part of the David T. Chase Free Enterprise Institute's Distinguished Lecture Series and is open to the public.Carstensen has completed...

November 1, 2010

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter will speak at the Regis College Fine Arts Center in Weston, Mass., on Monday, Nov. 8, at 4 p.m. Carter will be promoting her new book, Within Our Reach, which addresses a mental health system that, Carter says, "continues to fail those in need" despite recent scientific breakthroughs in diagnosing and treating mental illnesses. Carter...

October 29, 2010

Gateway Community College (GCC) looks to go full speed ahead this spring with a new associate degree in railroad engineering technology (RET), the first of its kind offered by an institution of higher education in the Northeast.Metro-North Commuter Railroad approached GCC more than a year ago to find ways to enhance the education of current Metro-North employees who are eligible...

October 29, 2010

Only a small fraction of the billions of dollars that foundations grant annually for education goes toward the specific needs of lower-income and vulnerable students, according to a study by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog.The committee's new report Confronting Systemic Inequity in Education calls on foundations to address the root causes of intergenerational inequality...

October 28, 2010

The Rennie Center released A New Era of Education Reform: Preparing All Students for Success in College, Career and Life which calls attention to the need for 21st century skills in today's classrooms.The report, funded by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, summarizes a survey of Massachusetts district and school leaders coupled with their opinions on the importance of 21st century...

October 27, 2010

The College Sustainability Report Card 2011 is out today, revealing the profiles of 322 schools and their sustainability policies. The fifth edition of the report by the Sustainable Endowments Institute assesses 52 indicators, ranging from green initiatives to recycling programs, and uses an A to F letter-grading system to evaluate different colleges and universities nationwide.Some New England campuses made honor...

October 26, 2010

Average student loan debt grew to an average of $24,000 per student in the Class of 2009, up 6% over the Class of 2008, according to the latest national report from The Project on Student Debt.The report is especially worrisome for New England where all six states have higher student debts levels than the national average. New Hampshire had the...

October 25, 2010

Do you feel a chill? Recently, the trustees of the Connecticut State University System decided not to raise tuition and fees. This decision marks the first time in a decade that tuition and fees have not increased within the four-school system.'It would be awesome. It is kind of expensive enough now,' says Sara Perran, a student at Central Connecticut State...

October 22, 2010

The Nellie Mae Education Foundation posted an RFQ to its website for a consultant/consulting team to help guide its Proficiency-Based Pathways project.The project aims to: deepen the foundation's understanding of the emerging sector of proficiency-based education systems; and support the development of quality proficiency-based pathways to high school graduation and beyond. Proficiency-based pathways would reform the educational process so a...

October 22, 2010

The Maine Coalition for Excellence in Education is organizing the Prepare Maine Gubernatorial Forum. Sponsored by WABI-TV5, the televised forum will be held at Bangor High School on Wednesday, Oct 27, at 7 p.m. The forum will provide opportunity for candidates to share their platforms on education, workforce development and Maine's economic future.Prepare Maine looks to ensure that all young...

October 21, 2010

More than 100 Green Party candidates nationwide called for a “Green New Deal” that includes making tuition free at public universities. It's not the first time. California public campuses charged no tuition (but increasing fees) for state residents for decades. in 2003, Preston H. Smith II of Mount Holyoke College and Sharon Szymanski of The Labor Institute wrote a piece...

October 21, 2010

Most colleges reported an increase in student applications for fall 2009 admission, while 29% reported decreases (the largest proportion since 1996), according to the 2010 State of College Admission report released Wednesday by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC).The share of applicants offered admission at four-year institutions was 67% for the fall 2009 admission cycle. The average institutional...

October 20, 2010

College of the Atlantic President David F. Hales announced he will retire at the end of the academic year. During his tenure, the college became a carbon-neutral institution, expanded its faculty and diversified its academic programs. A search for a new president is underway for the 2011-12 academic year.Suffolk University President David Sargent, whose high pay captured regional and national...

October 18, 2010

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston will host a free forum, titled "Mismatch in the Labor Market? Ensuring an Adequate Supply of Skilled Labor in New England," on Tuesday, Nov. 30, from 8:30 a.m. to noon.Alicia Sasser Modestino, senior economist at the FRBB's New England Public Policy Center will describe the misalignment between the number of workers employed and the...

October 18, 2010

If you sometimes suspect college rankings are pushing the agenda of some untold sponsor, here's a poll whose sponsor is nakedly advertised: the "State of Scruff" Schick Hydro Hairiest Colleges Study from the makers of Schick Hydro® razors and Sperling's Best Places.The findings suggest Rutgers, Harvard, the University of South Florida, Georgetown and American University are the hairiest colleges in...

October 15, 2010

Employed wives brought home 47% of their family's total earnings in 2009, up from 45% in 2008, according to a new report by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.That 'marks the largest single-year increase in 15 years,' according to the report Wives as Breadwinners: Wives' Share of Family Earnings Hits Historic High during the Second Year of...

October 15, 2010

Members of NEBHE's STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) PBL (Problem Based Learning) project recently visited Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz., to film solar-energy production sites. The film will become part of a multimedia case study for use in high school and college classrooms. The STEM PBL project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education project of the...

October 15, 2010

In line with the priorities set forth by the Obama administration and the Lumina Foundation, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) released a report outlining the goals and policy initiatives needed to propel the 16 Southern states to 60% postsecondary degree and certificate attainment by the year 2025.In the preface to No Time to Waste, SREB President Dave Spence points...

October 14, 2010

Business professionals interested in learning how to better identify and manage financial risk can turn to a new master's program in Financial Risk Management at the University of Connecticut.The program's location in Stamford, Conn., provides students with the opportunity to interact with finance professionals in Stamford and New York. Not only that, residents of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island...

October 13, 2010

Like the traditional four seasons in New England, election season has the potential to bring about stunning change. This year, races at the gubernatorial, federal and state legislative levels will have significant impacts on education and policy in the region for years to come.The political landscape in New England will be dramatically altered following the Nov. 2 midterm elections. At...

October 13, 2010

In this recession, one market is thriving—community colleges. Just last week, the White House held the first-ever national summit for community colleges. President Obama proposed that by 2020, an additional 5 million adults will hold community college degrees and certificates and announced millions of dollars in privately funded grants. [Participate in our Forum on the president's goal for community colleges.]With...

October 12, 2010

The New England Board of Higher Education held a conference on Reinventing the University: New Models & Innovations for 21st Century Realities at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston last Monday, Oct. 4. But the discussion continues thanks to a variety of social media.To track our social media coverage check out the links below: NEBHE's Twitter page. #NEBHEcon hashtag (real-time...

October 12, 2010

Over their lifetimes, holders of associate degrees earn almost 25% more than their peers who only completed high school. Bachelor's degree holders earn around 66% more than those same high school-educated peers, according to Education Pays, the College Board's compilation of data that emphasizes the personal benefits of pursuing higher education.College graduates have a much lower probability of being unemployed,...

October 8, 2010

The University of Massachusetts Amherst will offer formal, three-year bachelors degree programs in selected academic disciplines. Beginning next fall, first-year students seeking majors in Economics, Music and Sociology can elect to travel a shortened route to their diplomas; other programs (e.g. Linguistics, Dance and Spanish) could be added to this pilot program in the future.UMass Amherst emphasizes that in order...

October 8, 2010

Look for more new bylines in NEJHE's online incarnation at www.nebhe.org ...Join me in welcoming interns to NEBHE's Department of Policy and Research: Darrell Aaron, David Mabe and Courtney Wilk, all of the Harvard Graduate School of Education....

October 8, 2010

The MacArthur Foundation recently listed its 2010 Fellows on its website. Awardees of the fellowships, sometimes referred to as "genius grants," range from artists and linguists to historians and scientists.Among the 2010 awardees are two educators: high school teacher Amir Abo-Shaeer, a physics teacher and director of Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy in Goleta, Calif., and music educator Sebastian Ruth, the...

October 6, 2010

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people face a 'chilly' climate on college campuses, according to the first-ever national report chronicling LGBT experiences at U.S. colleges and universities.The State of Higher Education for LGBT People for 2010, published by Charlotte, N.C.-based Campus Pride, reports that LGBT students experience significantly greater harassment and discrimination than their heterosexual peers. LGBT people also...

October 3, 2010

Jane Goodall will speak at Western Connecticut State University's O'Neill Center in Danbury, Conn., on Saturday, Oct. 9, at 8 p.m., as part of her Roots & Shoots North America Training Summit. Events to be held from Friday, Oct. 8, through Sunday, Oct. 10, will mark the 50-year anniversary of the anthropologist's groundbreaking scientific research on chimpanzees....

September 30, 2010

Stonyfield Farm CEO Gary Hirshberg, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CEO Paul Levy, Boston Globe writer Scott Kirsner, Cape Wind CEO Jim Gordon and Northeastern University economist Barry Bluestone will be among speakers at the Progressive Business Leaders Network's 4th Annual CEO Summit to be held Friday, Oct. 8, from 7:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Bentley University in Waltham,...

September 29, 2010

Award-winning film director, producer and writer Spike Lee will speak about his life, his work and the capacity for film to effect social change, during a talk at Boston University's George Sherman Union on Wednesday Oct. 6, at 4 p.m.The event is free and open to the public. No RSVP required. Admission is first-come, first-served....

September 29, 2010

The New England Council (NEC) will sponsor remarks by U.S. Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) and U.S. Department of Labor Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training Jane Oates on strengthening connections between business and postsecondary education for young adults in New England. The event will be held Thursday, Oct. 21, at 8 a.m., at Northeastern University.The remarks by Tierney and Oates...

September 29, 2010

The New England Board of Higher Education's Reinventing the University: New Models & Innovations for 21st Century Realities conference is Monday Oct. 4 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.Whether or not you're attending, NEBHE wants YOU to join in the conversation!Follow @NEBHE on Twitter and make sure to use hash tag #NEBHEcon for real-time updates, live chat and more...

September 28, 2010

Education technology boosters see the classroom as a changing frontier. New gadgets. New connections all the time. But with continuing budget cuts, teachers stuck to traditional modes of instruction and little support from district administrations, new tech advances often go unused or misused, according to education leaders, technology providers and policymakers who gathered in Boston today for EdNet's 2010 conference....

September 28, 2010

The International Institute of Islamic Thought awarded the Hartford Seminary $1 million to help endow a professorship in Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations.The gift will help fund a chair in the Islamic Chaplaincy and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary's Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations.Timur Yuskaev, assistant professor of Contemporary Islam and director of the Islamic...

September 14, 2010

As the New England Board of Higher Education celebrates its 55th anniversary this year with our new content hub website, Facebook, Twitter and other social media, it is comforting to know our early history has a place in one of the oldest journals in New England. The New England Journal of Medicine recently added online archives containing material published between...

September 3, 2010

The monthly jobs report released today provided little comfort to those hoping for a strong turnaround in the job market over the next few months. Private-sector payroll employment levels in the nation increased by just 67,000 jobs between July and August. However, most of the gains in private sector employment came from health services (+28,000) and social assistance agencies (+12,000),...

August 26, 2010

The New England Council announces two congressional breakfasts in September. The business group will present U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.) on Friday, Sept. 10, from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., at the Bedford Village Inn, and U.S. Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) on Tuesday, Sept. 21, from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., at The Hartford Club.There is no cost for NEC...

August 26, 2010

Among recent comings and goings on New England campuses, Kenneth W. Freeman, former CEO of Quest Diagnostics Inc., was appointed dean of Boston University's School of Management. Freeman also chairs the board of trustees at Bucknell University and is an executive-in-residence at Columbia Business School.****Harvard Business School also welcomes a new dean, Nitin Nohria, who served as co-chair of the...

August 26, 2010

Richard D. Kahlenberg, senior fellow at the Century Foundation, will discuss his book Tough Liberals: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy, at a forum sponsored by the Pioneer Institute, the Boston-based think tank that advocates free-markets and limited government.The forum will also feature remarks from panelists including Deborah A. Gist, commissioner of the Rhode Island...