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Alma Mater
A new college president ponders liberal education and the changing landscape of academe.

Taking One for the Team
By Jeff Abernathy October 3, 2011 3:06 pm UTC

When our communications director suggested that I “star” in a jesting video for an event celebrating the College’s 125th anniversary last spring, I was extremely apprehensive. As an undergraduate, I was without question the worst actor in a troupe that included a stray cat, blind in one eye. I did not make a keepsake of the review that described my acting as “wooden,” but I well ...

Confessions of a Community College Dean
In which a veteran of cultural studies seminars in the 1990’s moves into academic administration ...

Ask the Administrator: Helping, Cheating, or Marketing?
By Dean Dad October 20, 2011 9:47 am UTC

A returning correspondent writes: I teach history in the major university in my area. Every year I get 3-4 emails from high school students who want help with their papers. They often describe their topic with a phrase that sounds suspiciously like a high school essay question. High school instructors seem to feel that students are showing "initiative" by asking somebody else to do their ...

Digital Tweed
Digital Tweed

Ten Questions to Ask About LMS Migrations
By Kenneth C. Green October 13, 2011 1:45 am UTC

Ok, so the campus LMS market is in transition. Blackboard’s announced plans to retire its legacy LMS applications is a major catalyst for this transition: upwards of 700 Blackboard LMS clients, primary but not exclusively colleges and universities, confront “up or out” decisions regarding their current campus implementations of retiring Angel, WebCT, and other older Blackboard-branded LMS ...

Getting to Green
An administrator pushes, on a shoestring budget, to move his university and the world toward a more ...

Digestive dissonance
By G. Rendell October 19, 2011 9:46 pm UTC

I recently participated in an event on Greenback's campus where food was served to students. Food wasn't the main focus of the event, but "if you feed them, they will come," as most of us on campus learned a long time ago. The refreshments were products of industrial agriculture, and the event was supposed to be sustainability-themed, so I placed some info near the food table relating to the ...

GlobalHigherEd
Surveying the Construction of Global Knowledge/Spaces for the ‘Knowledge Economy’

Is higher education fit for the global urban era?
By Kris Olds October 17, 2011 3:00 am UTC

Our era of ‘global urbanization’ -- one where the majority of the world’s population now lives in ‘urban’ areas – raises some interesting opportunities and challenges for higher education systems and institutions. This issue came to mind today when Roger Keil (Professor and Director, The City Institute at York University) tweeted a link to this story ('How Cities Grow: Dispersion, not ...

Law, Policy -- and IT?
Tracy Mitrano explores the intersection where higher education, the Internet and the world meet ...

Steve Jobs: The Stuff of Memories
By Tracy Mitrano October 7, 2011 4:39 pm UTC

We all knew he was ill, but his passing still comes as a shock to many people. We have come a long way since our first introduction to an Apple computer. Reading about his magnificent public biography can't help but make us think about our own personal journeys. That those journeys have computers, network systems and applications woven into them says a lot about our age. But the technology is ...

Library Babel Fish
A college librarian's take on technology

Occupy Knowledge: It's Ours, After All
By Barbara Fister October 21, 2011 1:30 am UTC

Among the recurring images from Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are the signs held by young people tallying their college debt. They’ve been jeered at for wanting their loans forgiven, but deep in debt and without a job is a terrible way to start your adult life. I didn’t have to take out loans. I was able to pay my tuition bills, and I only had to work part time while taking classes; ...

Mama PhD
Mothers attempting to balance parenthood and academics

Mama PhD on the road
By Aeron Haynie October 20, 2011 9:50 am UTC

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to be part of a panel on “performing motherhood” with other mama PhDs at the OCSLG Conference at Loyola University Chicago. Elizabeth Coffman and I discussed our writing for this blog, while Shannon LC Cate and CL Cole discussed Shannon’s writing about their family in her own blog and at BlogHer.com and Babble.com. Although all four of us are mothers with ...

Provost Prose
A provost examines the world on campus and in higher ed.

Demand and Supply
By Herman Berliner October 17, 2011 12:05 am UTC

The 2010 Georgetown University Center for Education and the Workforce study of “Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018” concluded that “by 2018 we will need 22 million new college degrees- but will fall short of that number by at least 3 million postsecondary degrees, Associate or better.” Furthermore, the report states “we will need at least 4.7 million new workers ...

Reality Check
The Reality Check blog, from John V. Lombardi, follows the endlessly fascinating parade of ...

In Praise of Librarians
By John Lombardi October 19, 2011 8:01 pm UTC

I had a chance to participate in a recent meeting of the Association of Research Libraries, the famous ARL. Before commenting, let me clarify how I come to praise librarians. I am not neutral on this subject. When engaged in real academic work, I am a historian, and historians of my ancient generation lived dependent on our librarians. Moreover, my life as a reader began in the Carnegie Library ...

Statehouse Test
Statehouse Test is a weekly analysis of governors' inaugural and state-of-the-state addresses, and ...

Embracing Our Demographic Future: The True Test for Higher Education
By Kristin Conklin March 1, 2011 6:28 pm UTC

The message from governors during the National Governors Association meeting this week is abundantly clear: any additional budget cuts at the federal level represent economic Jenga at the state level. Economic recovery at the state level is precarious. States continuing to bear the brunt of high unemployment and anemic job growth simply cannot endure any further burden or upset wrought by their ...

Student Affairs and Technology
News, tips, and practical insights about technology for student affairs practitioners.

#EDU11: Are You Going to Start-Up Alley at EDUCAUSE
By Eric Stoller October 16, 2011 9:30 pm UTC

The exhibit hall at the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference is enormous. Higher education technology providers construct massive display booths to engage conference attendees. However, for companies who are just starting out, large displays are just not possible. At this year's EDUCAUSE Annual Conference (#EDU11 on Twitter) there will be a new area in the exhibit hall for new companies. Start-Up Alley ...

Technology and Learning
A space for conversation and debate about learning and technology

EDUCAUSE Day #1 Observations
By Joshua Kim October 20, 2011 9:41 am UTC

Looking forward to hearing your take-aways and observations from EDUCAUSE.A few un-filtered reactions from day 1:Godin's Keynote: I'm of two minds on Seth Godin's keynote, "Invisible or Remarkable?" The keynote was hugely enjoyable. Godin, if nothing else, offers all of us an example of how we should present and communicate. Lots of slides with evocative images, set to a story-telling type ...

The Education of Oronte Churm
Looking for Radio Free AWP, the series of literary podcasts posted here the first week of February? ...

Columbus Discovers Illinois
By Oronte October 11, 2011 3:00 am UTC

Columbus arrived triumphantly here in the Midwest this past week, dressed in his embroidered robes and that pincushion hat thing he wears. At some point he no doubt strode ashore and had some buffalo wings and a Diet Coke at The Loading Dock, where families and bikers were already enjoying the long weekend. But then he's always gotten to the party a little late--about 18,000 years after those who ...

The World View
A blog from the Center for International Higher Education

Enrolments decreasing by one million students? System contraction in Poland and the implications
By Marek Kwiek October 18, 2011 12:15 pm UTC

The fall in enrolment levels in Poland expected for 2025 is the highest in Europe, and comparable in the OECD area only to Korea and Japan (OECD volume on Higher Education to 2030). In one scenario that Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin presents, enrolments in 2025 are expected to fall to 55% of the 2005 levels or dwindle by almost one million students. In Europe only Spain and Germany can expect ...

University Diaries
A professor of English describes American University life.

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT
By UD July 25, 2011 7:09 pm UTC

Let's take a look at the controversial cover to Steve Reich's 9/11 composition, WTC 9/11. Why is it controversial? Should it be? The cover is an iconic photograph from that morning, showing the second plane about to hit. The cd designers have darkened and muddied the image considerably from the pure blue clarity of that September morning. Indeed they have sepia-toned it, giving it an archival ...

University of Venus
GenX Women in Higher Ed, Writing from Across the Globe

So it’s Sunday evening and I’m in my office on campus.
By Janine Utell October 18, 2011 11:15 pm UTC

I like being here when it’s unnervingly deserted. It’s a great time to make sure I’m up to speed on everything, and plan for the week ahead. I especially needed this time to regroup and catch up because of the way the previous week ended.Not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with an obnoxious flurry of emails for which I would like to right now offer a public apology to all my ...

Archived Blogs

Adviser in the Classroom
In which an academic adviser and political theorist tries his hand at science.

“Solar,” Part 2
By Dermot O'Brien April 20, 2010 3:15 am UTC

There’s lots of science and mathematics in “Solar” and given Ian McEwan’s reputation as a very assiduous researcher and given whatever I’ve picked-up in “Energy & the Environment,” I think that most of it is not bullshit. But, of course, that assumption does not apply to physicist Michael Beard’s brand new process for solar power. The process involves reverse engineering ...

Getting Back to #1
A group discussion on efforts to improve opportunities for college students.

The Truman Commission Redux
By Arthur Levine August 10, 2009 3:39 am UTC

In his previous post, Jamie Merisotis makes a compelling case for the importance of seeing American higher education in the context of higher education worldwide, and for treating our system of higher education as an imperiled competitive advantage.As Jamie notes, U.S. educational attainment “has remained flat for 40 years” -- a fact all the more worrisome in light of rising college ...

Keywords From a Librarian
A librarian writes about teaching and information.

FUNQs: Won’t Ask, Won’t Tell
By Mary W. George November 2, 2009 1:59 am UTC

Today I have the urge to address a perennial, insidious, and unnecessary condition that afflicts higher education in this country. It results from the most Frequently UNasked Question (by students) that is also the most Frequently UNanswered Question (by faculty): What is a primary source?The silence surrounding this question is deafening. Undergrads are oblivious to the issue, think they already ...

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