Microcredentials are rooted in the digital badge movement that first gained traction to support adult learning in the workforce. One of the earliest players was a group called Open Badges, created by Mozilla Foundation in 2013 with funding from the MacArthur Foundation. This focus can be traced back to the “use of symbols in ancient times to reflect different meanings (and) has evolved into modern-day usage of digital badges and microcredentials to indicate achievements, knowledge, skills, and competencies.”[1]
Saturday, December 31, 2022
Friday, December 30, 2022
The Reason Why Google Doesn't Require Cover Letters Is Counterintuitive And Brilliant - Kelly Main, Inc.
Recently, Jess Penkhues, a Google recruiter said what job seekers have been longing to hear: "applicants don't need to submit a cover letter," reported Business Insider. She goes on to explain how the weight is placed on an applicant's resume, rather than their cover letter. This message was music to many people's ears. But for those looking to increase their chances of being considered for a job, the message this sends that cover letters are a waste of time is a bit misleading, for two key reasons.
Thursday, December 29, 2022
Truly Innovative Leaders Balance Tradition and the Future - Greg Fowler, Illumination
In the fourth episode of our series on Continuing Education as a Leadership Incubator, Greg Fowler, President of the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC), joined us to reflect on the nature of innovation in modern leadership, and how leaders with a background in continuing education are prepared for this environment. Leadership in a challenging era requires flexibility. An openness to being connected with the mission and purpose of the institution, but an openness to adapting that vision for modern realities.
Wednesday, December 28, 2022
Community engaged learning can help fix recurring issues - James Kennedy, University World News
Increasingly, universities are being asked to prove their contribution to society. Many citizens, aided by social media, have become more overtly critical of science and the democratisation of knowledge has challenged higher education as the sole proprietors of knowledge. Just as important are doubts about the legitimacy of the university that are coming from within. Emerging critiques have questioned the priorities and pressures of the neoliberal university, with some denizens wondering if the university has become too insular, too unmoored from – particularly local – society. The call to become more socially engaged has become more pronounced.
Tuesday, December 27, 2022
State Universities and the College Meltdown - Higher Education Inquirer
While for-profit colleges, community colleges, and small private schools received the most attention in the first iteration of the College Meltdown, regional public universities (and a few flagship schools) have also experienced financial challenges, reorganizations, and mergers, enrollment losses, layoffs and resignations, off-campus learning site closings and campus dorm closings, lower graduation rates, and the necessity to lower admissions standards. They are not facing these downturns, though, without a fight.
Monday, December 26, 2022
This university says it cut emissions by 19% since 2019. Was it all changes in commuting? - Lilah Burke, Higher Ed Dive
Vanderbilt University credits carbon emissions cuts to efficiency, energy sourcing and, yes, travel changes. Here’s what other college leaders can do. While Vanderbilt has an endowment of more than $10 billion and resources to dedicate to such a greenhouse gas reduction, experts say huge spending isn’t necessary for every college that wants to make an impact. Indeed, colleges and universities that top an annual sustainability index from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education are in many cases public institutions — like North Seattle College, New Hampshire’s Keene State College, Michigan’s Grand Valley State University, and Arizona State University.
Sunday, December 25, 2022
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/5184871474086069774/3209594621854021535
The U.S. Department of Education recently announced a new initiative that aims to bridge the gap between education and quality jobs. The new plan from the Biden-Harris Administration, Raise the Bar: Unlock Career Success, supports career-connected learning to increase job pathways for students. Supported by the Departments of Commerce and Labor, the announcement of Raise the Bar: Unlock Career Success pledges to increase and expand access to quality training programs to better prepare students in entering high-demand industries.
Saturday, December 24, 2022
Can We Improve Grading by Collaborating with Students? - Brett Whysel, Faculty Focus
What is wrong with grades? Instructors and students have different ideas about what grades are supposed to measure: Should they be about how much students have learned? How much work they have completed? How well they have mastered the subject? (Arguably, they measure none of these well.) Grades can perpetuate bias, inequalities, and injustice, reduce student motivation and willingness to challenge themselves, and add enormous administrative burdens. No wonder many students and faculty dislike grades! However, grades are not going away as a tool for evaluation, sorting, and gatekeeping by institutions and employers, and as a measure of success by students.
Friday, December 23, 2022
Warren Buffett's recent life advice to deal with the stresses of inflation gives you full control of the outcome.- MARCEL SCHWANTES, INC.
Years ago, he counseled that investing in oneself and improving one's own talent "is the best thing you can do." That's why sharpening your skills and becoming consistently good at something is one of the strongest protections against inflation. "Whatever abilities you have can't be taken away from you. They can't actually be inflated away from you," he said. "The best investment by far is anything that develops yourself, and it's not taxed at all." To heed Buffett's advice about being exceptionally good at something, we need to know what exactly we should be good at.
Thursday, December 22, 2022
A look at trends in college consolidation since 2016 - Higher Ed Dive
The last few years have been tumultuous for many U.S. colleges. Pressure to lower tuition, stagnating state funding and a shrinking pool of high school graduates has strained many institutions’ bottom lines and questioned their long-term viability. Those pressures have caused some to close. For many still in operation, the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impact is adding a host of uncertainties to already tight operations. We’ve been tracking consolidation across higher education since the fall of 2018, looking back as far as 2016. Our goal was not to create a death watch but rather to give our readers a tool to show the scope of that activity and any patterns within it. To make those trends easier to detect, we updated our tracker with a map showing closings and significant consolidations by state.
Wednesday, December 21, 2022
Differential in Starting Salaries between Bachelor's and Master's Grads is Diminishing - Kevin Gray, NACE
Although there remains a salary advantage for college students obtaining a master's degree, the differential between average starting salaries of recent graduates earning bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees is diminishing, according to results of NACE’s First Destinations for the College Class of 2021 report. The survey found that there is currently a 22.5% salary differential between the degree levels. This is the lowest differential in recent years and is a drop from 26.1% for the Class of 2020 and from 31.8% for the Class of 2017. (See Figure 1.)
Tuesday, December 20, 2022
Artificial Intelligence - Charlie Giattino, Edouard Mathieu, Julia Broden and Max Roser, Our World in Data
It is easy to underestimate how much the world can change within a lifetime, and so it is worth taking seriously what those who work on AI expect for the future. Most AI experts believe there is a real chance that human-level artificial intelligence will be developed within the next decades, and some believe that it will exist much sooner. How exactly such powerful AI systems are built and used will be very important for the future of our world, and our own lives. All technologies have both positive and negative consequences, but with AI the range of these consequences is extraordinarily large: the technology has an immense potential for good, but also comes with large downsides and high risks.
Monday, December 19, 2022
37 Years Ago, Steve Jobs Said the Best Managers Never Actually Want to Be Managers. Science Says He Was Right - Jeff Hayden, Inc.
Steve Jobs obviously didn't build Apple on his own; when he died, the company had approximately 40,000 employees. Since Jobs reportedly interacted with only about 100 employees, Apple naturally employed hundreds of managers. Here's Jobs, in 1985, on the early process of recruiting and hiring managers: We're going to be a big company, we thought. So let's hire "professional managers." We went out and hired a bunch of professional management, and it didn't work at all. They knew how to manage, but they didn't know how to do anything.
Sunday, December 18, 2022
The search for a unified model of modern academic life - William G Tierney, University World News
The internet has exploded the idea that place-based institutions are one culture. To be sure, some institutions still have students in physical classrooms, but even the nature of those interactions has shattered the institutional culture of the faculty. A professor used to be the arbiter of knowledge. We have seen, however, the gradual acceptance of laptops in the classroom such that a professor might make a statement that was once taken as fact and can now be disputed by a simple search of a website immediately after a statement has been made. Students now have a vastly different interpretation of what constitutes a classroom and, by inference, what constitutes the faculty.
Saturday, December 17, 2022
Creating quality online learning through strategic planning practices - Times Higher Education
As universities seek to boost student enrolments, it’s clear that providing quality, online-only courses will be crucial in attracting the best talent and keeping up with student needs. At the Times Higher Education World Academic Summit, Darcy Hardy, associate vice-president for academic affairs (US) at global edtech company Anthology spoke to educators about the importance of incorporating e-learning into their institutions’ long-term strategy and vision. Hardy revealed figures from a survey of students and university leaders undertaken by Anthology this year, showing that 80 per cent of students prefer at least some courses to be completed online, and 41 per cent prefer fully online courses over hybrid or face-to-face teaching.
Friday, December 16, 2022
The right online learning experience will boost retention and engagement - Phill Miller, eCampus News
While colleges can make getting a degree more affordable, flexible, and adaptable by implementing more online teaching/learning processes, most universities are stuck using archaic systems that aren’t catered to online students. They are clunky, difficult to use, and fail to create an engaging environment. That’s why higher education institutions need to prioritize delivering an interactive online learning experience. Here’s how.
Thursday, December 15, 2022
What’s New in Digital Equity: Data Shows Digital Divide Progress - Jack Quaintance & Julia Edinger, GovTech
A new analysis of government data by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society found that the United States as a whole is making some progress toward closing the digital divide. While experts in the space often say the digital divide is never going to be all the way closed — technology evolves too quickly for digital skills training to sufficiently keep up with it — there are some metrics you can look toward, including those related to broadband adoption. The analysis looked at data from the American Community Survey that showed wireline broadband adoption rose by 4.7 points between 2019 and 2021. That is more than twice the 2 points of growth that occurred between 2017 and 2019.
Wednesday, December 14, 2022
4 Keys to Getting Rural Broadband Right - Brent Skorup and Patricia Patnode, Governing
It’s not just about the dollars but about spending the money effectively. The focus should be on reducing costs for the private companies that provide most of the investment, rather than propping up sickly projects. In our estimation, the main villain for states and Internet service providers is complexity. The Government Accountability Office recently reported that there are more than 100 federal broadband programs at more than a dozen agencies. The GAO declared bluntly: “The U.S. broadband efforts are not guided by a national strategy with clear roles, goals, objectives, and performance measures.” Yet new federal subsidies are flowing, and there are already signs of weak programs and excessive costs, including one project spending more than $200,000 per household.
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
Comprehensive Learner Record Standard™ - IMS Global
The Comprehensive Learner Record Standard™ (CLR Standard™) is the new generation of secure and verifiable learning and employment records supporting all nature of academic and workplace recognition and achievements including courses, competencies and skills and employer-based achievements and milestones. Recommended by AACRAO, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, the Comprehensive Learner Record Standard™ from 1EdTech is a technical specification designed to support traditional academic programs, co-curricular and competency-based education as well as employer-based learning and development—in any domain where it's important to capture and communicate a learner's and worker's achievements in verifiable, digital form. Designed to be used, curated, and controlled by the learner, the CLR Standard™ is a modern and web-friendly interoperable learner record structured for easy understanding yet flexible enough to support a wide range of use cases to meet the needs of learners and workers, registrars and employers.
Monday, December 12, 2022
Accessibility can’t be an afterthought in college programs - Laura Ascione, eCampus News
A new Open Education Resources (OER) initiative from the nonprofit Teach Access aims to expand awareness of digital accessibility in higher education. Teach Access works with education, industry, and disability advocacy organizations to enhance students’ understanding of digital accessibility as they learn to design, develop, and build new technologies–has launched. Built in collaboration with instructional design firm iDesign, the organization has launched Teach Access Curriculum Repository, which brings together more than 250 teaching resources to support teaching accessibility across a wide range of computer science, technology, and design programs.
https://www.ecampusnews.com/2022/11/30/accessibility-oer-college-programs/
Sunday, December 11, 2022
What Smart Leaders Do to Make Every Meeting Remarkably Effective - Jeff Haden, Inc.
Whenever someone said something like, "That will never work," he immediately interrupted. "Reframe that," our boss would say. So we did. "There's no way we can get everyone to work overtime this weekend" turned into "What do we need to do to make sure everyone will be willing to work this weekend?" Now you're in problem-solving mode. Maybe you can temporarily move a few people from another department. Maybe you can change your production flow so finished product is pulled, not pushed. Maybe you can work with freight carriers to reduce the number of packages staged in the shipping area at any time.
Saturday, December 10, 2022
If You Can Pass Any of These 6 Leadership Tests, Science Says You'll Be a Much More Effective - Jeff Haden, Inc.
Inspiration. Collaboration. Authenticity. Engagement and empowerment. It's easy to name some of the qualities of a great leader. Still: Since most great leaders are made, not born, it's a lot harder to possess those qualities when you have little or no leadership experience. Fortunately, there are a number of research-based leadership strategies you can embrace that will start paying instant dividends -- both in terms of employee engagement and bottom-line results -- on your path to gaining broader leadership skills.
Friday, December 9, 2022
Understanding the Approach to Lifelong Learning - Tanya Zlateva, Evolllution
To help prospective students navigate the complex landscape of degrees, certificates, micro-credentials and delivery formats, a successful marketing approach must provide individualized outreach in addition to rich content on programs, modalities, employment trends on multiple venues such as social media, webinars, interactive panels, peer discussions and industry presentations. Marketing is transformed into mentoring and coaching for career success. We have implemented this approach through our admissions office, which proactively reaches out to students and guides them through the process.
Thursday, December 8, 2022
Women prefer text contributions over talk in remote classes - Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive
Female students show a stronger preference for contributing to remote classes via text chat than their male counterparts, according to peer-reviewed research published in PLOS One, an open-access journal. Researchers also found all students were more likely to use the chat function to support or amplify their peers’ comments than to diminish them. Given these findings, the researchers suggested incorporating text chats into class discussions could boost female participation in large introductory science classrooms, where women are less likely to participate than men.
Wednesday, December 7, 2022
Rethinking professional learning and development - Alison Bell, eCampus News
There’s a common denominator for our workforce, and it’s that nearly every worker craves learning and development opportunities – something not all employers offer to employees. Since the pandemic, 3 in 4 Americans agree acquiring new skills leads to more job opportunities. We can think of learning and development as everything an organization does to encourage professional development to enhance workplace performance, including online learning, training programs, or any opportunity to help its employees continue their higher education while also being able to work full time.
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
The Shifting Role of Technology in Higher Ed -James Wiley, Illumination
The rapidly evolving digital space is shifting the way higher ed leaders look at enrollment trends. Finding new strategies to leverage technology across the institution may be their best chance to thrive. On this episode, James Wiley, Principal Analyst at Eduventures talks about enrollment woes and how modern institutions are looking using technology to not only attract and retain students, but also leverage it to create a seamless backend framework.
Monday, December 5, 2022
Building a Team to Lead in a Crisis: Four Key Steps - Erkia James, Knowledge at Wharton
As a Prepared Leader, you need to be ready to do the following: Make space for other people to stand up, speak up, and contribute as the situation dictates. Let go of your ego and be humble enough to allow others to take the lead as the situation dictates. Let these things happen spontaneously and without obstacles as the situation changes. Building a crisis team is like putting together a puzzle. Each piece should play its role and fit well enough with the others to make a complete picture. The four action steps linked below can be used to guide your efforts.
Sunday, December 4, 2022
PROOF POINTS: 861 colleges and 9,499 campuses have closed down since 2004 - Jill Barshay, Hechinger Report
Despite high profile stories about the closing of small liberal arts colleges, such as California’s Mills College and Vermont’s Green Mountain College, college closures have actually declined in the past five years. But the numbers may spike again as declining U.S. birth rates soon translate into fewer graduating high schoolers after 2025. First, the numbers. Thirty-five colleges and universities shut down in 2021, a 70 percent decrease from 2016, when a peak of 120 colleges shuttered, according to an analysis of federal data by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO). For-profit operators ran more than 80 percent of the 861 institutions that ceased operations between 2004 and 2021.
Saturday, December 3, 2022
Distinctive Excellence: The Key to Effectively Managing Continuing Education Units - Michael Frasciello, Evollution
Distinctive excellence is where the quality question is best addressed. Quality is an experience our students perceive from their first inquiry to their last learning engagement. When the entire student lifecycle experience is perceived as high quality, we see enrollment growth, more consistent persistence and increased retention in our programs. In this context, the most important aspect of quality is doing what we have always done in our CE units: recognizing that our students bring valuable experience and perspectives into our programs and classrooms. We best address the quality question by not viewing our students through a deficit lens but through a distinctiveness lens—through their life experiences, perspectives, discipline, focus, prior learning and potential.
Friday, December 2, 2022
Faculty elitism is hurting your institution - Cheryl Hyatt, eCampus News
One of the most pernicious ways we undercut the vital work of higher education is through maintaining a culture of faculty elitism. In most colleges there is a stark division between faculty and professional staff. At its worst, that can lead to costly errors from undervaluing the input of others or noxious work environments where professional staff are treated as underlings. Snobbery on college campuses is one of the most counterproductive things we do.
Thursday, December 1, 2022
Faculty elitism is hurting your institution - Cheryl Hyatt, eCampus News
One of the most pernicious ways we undercut the vital work of higher education is through maintaining a culture of faculty elitism. In most colleges there is a stark division between faculty and professional staff. At its worst, that can lead to costly errors from undervaluing the input of others or noxious work environments where professional staff are treated as underlings. Snobbery on college campuses is one of the most counterproductive things we do.
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
Young adults with degrees say they need more real-world training - Kate Tornone, Higher Ed Dive
Individuals with degrees often find their education failed to prepare them for the realities of the workforce, according to Nov. 15 survey results from Multiverse. A majority of young adults (those age 18-26) with degrees said real-world workforce training is the most important element to preparing for a career. But that factor is missing from many higher education programs, they said. The top three elements that a college education lacks are “having a clear idea of what a job is like,” “real workforce training” and “quality time with industry professionals,” that group said.
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
Putting Students First: Balancing Priorities Like a CIO - Lois Brooks, Modern Campus
Technology no longer plays a supporting, peripheral role in the operations of a higher education institution. As digitization becomes our norm, technology—and leaders who can strategically deploy technologies—are playing a more central role than ever. On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, EvoLLLution Editor-in-Chief Amrit Ahluwalia sat down with Lois Brooks—Vice Provost and CIO at University of Wisconsin-Madison—to discuss the evolving role of technology leaders.
https://moderncampus.com/blog/balancing-priorities-illumination.html
Monday, November 28, 2022
Clarity, Confusion on ‘Regular and Substantive Interaction’ - Susan D'Agustino, Inside Higher Ed
The Education Department has left room for online colleges to innovate while maintaining eligibility for federal financial aid. But the lack of clarity carries some risk that colleges could run afoul of unarticulated rules. Only online colleges that provide “regular and substantive interaction” between faculty members and students are considered distance education providers; those that fall short are in the business of correspondence education. The regulation is intended to prevent bad actors from gaining access to federal financial aid funds for courses that are devoid of human interaction.
Sunday, November 27, 2022
Most workers are thinking of quitting. The real surprise is what's forcing them to leave - Jada Jones, ZD Net
Riding the coattails of last year's Great Resignation, employees are demanding more out of their employers than ever. But according to an external survey conducted by Amazon, younger workers don't feel their employers are delivering, with 74% saying they are likely to quit their job in the next year - due to a lack of development opportunities. In a survey of 3,000 US professionals conducted by Amazon and Workplace Intelligence, 64% of employees said they feared losing their job due to new skills requirements for which they have not been equipped. A further 58% of employees said they were worried that their skills had gone stale since the pandemic, while 70% reported feeling unprepared for the future of work.
Saturday, November 26, 2022
Reflecting on Our Roots to Define Our Future: Establishing a Path for Lifelong Higher Ed - Rovy Branon, Modern Campus Illumination
The higher education space is transforming rapidly. Evolving learner demands and fast-changing demographic realities are pushing colleges and universities of all descriptions to find new ways to serve new students. But in this quest for “the new”, Rovy Branon—Vice Provost of Continuum College at the University of Washington—says leaders should reflect back on their history for guidance. “I think education itself is a technology, and I don't mean computers,” Branon continued. “It is a tool to get something done for humanity. And technologies must co-evolve or they get out of balance one with another. And you begin to lose the ability to have influence over our new technological environment if we're not recognizing that the technology that we call education also has to change to keep up with the reality of how the world is changing.”
Friday, November 25, 2022
The Three Key Principals of Continuing and Professional Education - Rebecca Cook, Evolllution
Building and maintaining a successful and dynamic continuing and professional education portfolio can be a daunting proposition. It requires, in equal measure, old-world prognostication and new-world data analysis, an understanding of learner audiences past, present and future, and an appreciation for the institution’s mission, goals for equity and access, and the potential for new revenue streams. At the University of Arizona’s office of Continuing and Professional Education (CaPE), we approach this challenge with three key principles in mind: relevancy & demand, institutional alignment and balance.
Thursday, November 24, 2022
A Life of Learning: Diversifying Continuing Education’s Audience - Ryan Torma, the Evolllution
Continuing, Professional, Workforce and Online Education divisions have a wide mandate to serve learners whose needs aren’t necessarily met by traditional, main campus programming. There are a wide and varied range of learners that fit this description—of all ages, at all levels of employment, at every stage of life. For future-oriented CE units, this presents a unique opportunity, so long as the pieces are in place to deliver a relevant experience to every learner coming through the door.
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
The Future of Leadership - Jacob Morgan, Futurati
Leadership. For as much as it's discussed in business-school textbooks and TED talks, there's a lot of confusion over what it is and why it matters. And with talk about 'headless organizations' and 'flat hierarchies' becoming so common, you might wonder whether leadership will even matter in a few decades. We had some of the same questions, so we got in touch with Jacob Morgan. Jacob is a trained futurist and one of the world’s leading authorities on leadership, the future of work, and employee experience. He is also the best-selling author of four books: The Future Leader, The Employee Experience Advantage, The Future of Work, and The Collaborative Organization.
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Will Tech Company Layoffs Spread to Higher Ed? - Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed
Higher ed people may think we are insulated from the layoff contagion spreading to our campuses. We aren’t. It is distressingly simple to come up with scenarios where many colleges and universities might need to resort to downsizing to stay financially viable. The drop in post-pandemic enrollments may not reverse. High inflation and low unemployment are major disincentives for working adults to take on graduate school debt. Labor costs, which comprise the vast majority of every university budget, continue to increase rapidly.
Monday, November 21, 2022
The Top 10 IT Issues for Higher Ed in 2023 - Brandon Paykamian, GovTech
With students growing more accustomed to the flexibility of online and hybrid courses, higher ed leaders are grappling with how to give CIOs more say in institutional decision-making to better manage growing IT networks, as well as retaining professors who now teach more online courses than ever before. These were among the chief IT challenges for higher education described by Educause Vice President of Partnerships, Community and Research Susan Grajek in — “Higher Education’s Top 10 IT Issues for 2023.” At the Educause Annual Conference, the webinar focused on a recent report from the ed-tech advocacy organization exploring solutions to challenges such as these.
https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/educause-22-the-top-10-it-issues-for-higher-ed-in-2023
Sunday, November 20, 2022
Rethinking how technology innovations can support students - Iain Sloan, University World News
After all, some students love the flexibility online learning gives them to study around part-time work, childcare and other commitments. Equally, there are students who find learning in large groups intimidating, challenging or simply uninspiring and they prefer to retreat to the back row, silent and unnoticed. Being able to access a course digitally can make a world of difference to students who, for whatever reason, do not flourish in face-to-face sessions. A sizeable group of students might prefer not to go back to a full timetable of on-campus teaching. On the other hand, many students fall behind without regular in-person sessions because they haven’t developed the independent learning skills they need to stay on track.
Saturday, November 19, 2022
How to Use the Dall-E AI Art Generator to Create Stunning Images From Text - Eric Griffith, PC Mag
Dall-E is at the forefront of artificial intelligence art creation, which anyone can use. AI art generators have been in the news a lot this year, be it for their amazing advances or questionable uses. OpenAI’s Dall-E 2 is one of the major names in this space. It's now open to the public and developers, and soon it’ll be built into Microsoft software and the Bing search engine. But how, exactly, do you work with Dall-E? Is it really as simple as typing in a description—called a prompt—and getting back a picture? To be honest, yes. But there’s a lot more to be aware of if you want to get anywhere close to the perfect result.
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-use-dall-e-ai-art-generator
Friday, November 18, 2022
Our future depends on the sharing of intellectual resources - Nic Mitchell, University World News
The pandemic showed the downsides of an interconnected world with the rapid spread of the virus. However, to address the global challenges of our time, higher education needs to strengthen global discourse and international collaboration, delegates to the first general conference of the International Association of Universities (IAU) for six years were told. Addressing higher education leaders from the four corners of the globe who were meeting together in Dublin, Ireland, Patrick Deane, principal of Queen’s University, Canada and president of the governing council of the Magna Charta Observatory, said there were still some who need convincing that international cooperation must triumph over self-reliance if the world is to learn the lessons of a pandemic that could have extinguished the population.
Thursday, November 17, 2022
Critical thinking: More important than grades – IAU told - Nic Mitchell, University World News
Universities should develop critical thinkers who are able to identify and solve real problems rather than steering and controlling students just to get good grades, higher education leaders attending the 2022 International Association of Universities (IAU) General Conference in Dublin, Ireland, were told. Speaking at a plenary session on teaching and learning for tomorrow’s world, Hanne Leth Andersen, rector of Roskilde University in Denmark, urged university leaders to “practise what we preach about student-centred learning” and build skills and competencies for the future.
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Universities Looking Beyond the Traditional For-Credit Semester Experiences - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
A recent survey shows nearly half said they chose their college on the basis of potential career prospects, but only 11 percent felt prepared to enter the workforce. In response to these concerns, we are seeing a flood of universities offering alternative credentials to document workforce skills and knowledge. Clearly, we are seeing a popular, but relatively uncoordinated, movement to address the disconnect between the university and the workforce. Finding the best ways to help rebuild that bridge may require looking back at the motivating factors of the past, including internships, apprenticeships, and credit-for-prior-learning.
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
How college became so expensive, and how we can turn it around, according to a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist - Annie Nova, CNBC
How college became so expensive, and its consequences on families and U.S. society, are the issues explored in Will Bunch’s new book, After the Ivory Tower Falls. “The impact of this decision to privatize higher education, which was done with shockingly little public debate, has been enormous,” Bunch said.
Monday, November 14, 2022
The good and bad of virtual on-demand tutoring - Susanna Loeb and Carly D. Robinson, Brookings
Tutoring is perhaps the best-studied and consistently effective educational intervention we have. So it should come as no surprise that policymakers and educational leaders across the country are investing money, time, and political capital into tutoring initiatives. The influx of interest in tutoring is, at least in part, to support the struggling and marginalized students whose learning dropped most during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, educational programs can only benefit students if students access those resources, and tutoring is no different.
Sunday, November 13, 2022
These 3 trends are shaping the future of ed tech - Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive
Ed tech companies and college leaders shared their predictions for higher education’s future during Educause’s conference in late October. “Things are different these days — they’re different from the way they were before the pandemic,” said Susan Grajek, vice president for partnerships, communities and research at Educause, during a speech at the conference. “We’re seeing that institutional and technology leaders are ready for a new approach.” Here are three major ed tech trends colleges can expect.
Saturday, November 12, 2022
Technology Continues to Transform Higher Education Pedagogy - Peggy Bresnick, Fierce Education
Technology is transforming higher education in many ways and colleges and universities need to keep pace in order meet the evolving needs of students. “The big change post-2020 has been the pedagogical improvements that have occurred across the board because faculty needed to switch to online within two to three weeks at the beginning of the pandemic” Cardelle pointed out. “An opportunity now exists for instructional continuity over time, so snow days and faculty having to be away are less of an issue with a hybrid model.”
Friday, November 11, 2022
Opinion: Higher Ed CIOs Need More Than Technical Skills - Brian Cohen, GovTech
I am encouraged to see how the role of the technology leader has evolved over the years. I can’t imagine any higher education institution going through this transformation now without one. Higher education needs CIOs who are strategic partners to all business leaders and who can align functional needs to their technology plans; who know how to balance the technical challenges and priorities they already face with new demands for innovation and progress; who are risk takers, but not so risky that they put continuity of operations at risk; who understand cybersecurity and will do what is needed to protect the college or university; who can communicate in basic terms and put away the technical dictionary; and who know how to lead a team, advocate for them and in the end manage the work successfully.
Thursday, November 10, 2022
Coursera's global CEO says companies now look for candidates with both offline and online qualifications - Nidhi Singal, Business Day
The advent of Covid-19 saw online learning platform Coursera clocking high growth, going from 47 million learners worldwide at the beginning of the pandemic to 77 million in just one year. Professionals acknowledged the need for upskilling and reskilling for better career prospects, with many management students and executives opting for a professional certificate along with a management degree, says CEO Jeff Maggioncalda. "This space has changed tremendously. And it’s going to be some kind of a new normal. What the pandemic did was it made virtually every campus in the world shut down. Now, what’s been interesting is that people are going back to campuses, but they are still learning online. There’s that permanent presence of online learning."
Wednesday, November 9, 2022
What does the ‘metaverse’ mean for education? - Javeria Salman, Hechinger Report
In a true metaverse experience, your digital identity travels between the physical and virtual worlds, Platt said. With the help of blockchain technology, that identity — your preferences, your achievements, your educational records, other elements of who you are — is maintained across platforms and applications. “So, when you get credit for classes, when you get badges and certificates and minors and majors and all these kinds of academic credentialing,” Platt said, “it can be cobbled together from various different digital and physical places and all attached to this single identity.”
https://hechingerreport.org/what-does-the-metaverse-mean-for-education/
Tuesday, November 8, 2022
Emerging Models of Education and Career Preparation - Annie Galvin Teich, Fierce Education
A new report asserts that “requiring a degree as a condition of employment restricts the size of the labor pool, limiting employers’ access to talent and resulting in workforces that aren’t racially and ethnically diverse.” The research was commissioned by American Student Assistance (ASA) and Jobs for the Future (JFF) and conducted by Morning Consult earlier this year. While a college degree used to be the most important requirement for a good job, now 81% of employers in this poll believe that organizations should hire based on skills instead of degrees.
Monday, November 7, 2022
Cisco Networking Academy Partners with Universities to Provide Digital Skills - Susan Fourtané, Fierce Education
According to the World Economic Forum, by 2025, 97 million new jobs will be created due to advances in technology and automation. However, according to a Korn Ferry extensive report, by 2030, over 85 million jobs could go unfilled due to lack of enough skilled people to take them. Today, colleges and universities must step up their game in order to update and upgrade their offers in order to offer their graduates the right and necessary skills they will need tomorrow.
Sunday, November 6, 2022
Don't Hire for Skills, Hire for Personality Instead - Tommy Mello, Inc.
Here's what Herb Kelleher, the late co-founder and CEO of Southwest Airlines, said in a Bloomberg interview: "We will hire someone with less experience, less education and less expertise, than someone who has more of those things and has a rotten attitude. Because we can train people. We can teach people how to lead. We can teach people how to provide customer service. But we can't change their DNA."
Saturday, November 5, 2022
Whose learning counts? State actions to value skills from outside the classroom - Annelies Goger and Felix Laniyan, Brookings
What are states’ roles in reducing these labor market frictions and providing more accessible opportunities for quality jobs and higher education, especially to those who are priced out of formal degree programs? This report provides an overview of the policy mechanisms that U.S. states can leverage to build systems that support learners without degrees. It addresses two challenges. First, how can states help learners without degrees communicate their skills and qualifications to employers more effectively? And second, how can states enable learners to receive credit for skills and knowledge attained outside of a formal accredited program, so they can complete a degree without having to repeat content they already mastered?
Friday, November 4, 2022
Our future demands critical and creative thinking skills - Patrick Blessinger, Abhilasha Singh, Amudha Poobalan and Sarwat Nauman, University World News
A paradigm shift must take place in the global education system worldwide by narrowing the education-industry knowledge and skill gap. The focus has shifted from employment to employability; that is, educating students so they are capable of evolving and adapting to any changes that may arise. This is no small task but one that higher education is well-suited for. This will require input from students, faculty, employers and government authorities. Part of this paradigm shift entails shifting the focus from a competence-based learning model to a lifelong-lifewide learning model, which is critical in an intensely competitive and highly fluid knowledge-based economy and society.
Thursday, November 3, 2022
Opinion: Higher Ed CIOs Need More Than Technical Skills - Brian Cohen, GovTech
I am encouraged to see how the role of the technology leader has evolved over the years. I can’t imagine any higher education institution going through this transformation now without one. Higher education needs CIOs who are strategic partners to all business leaders and who can align functional needs to their technology plans; who know how to balance the technical challenges and priorities they already face with new demands for innovation and progress; who are risk takers, but not so risky that they put continuity of operations at risk; who understand cybersecurity and will do what is needed to protect the college or university; who can communicate in basic terms and put away the technical dictionary; and who know how to lead a team, advocate for them and in the end manage the work successfully.
Wednesday, November 2, 2022
5 Signs to Immediately Recognize a Toxic Manager at Work - Marcel Schwantes, Inc.
I've seen enough corporate disasters ending in failed businesses because of catastrophic mistakes by managers who lacked successful people leadership skills. It shouldn't come down to this, but here's the plain truth that will save your bottom line: Stop hiring or promoting people and putting them into leadership roles when they don't have the human skills and traits to do the job well. Period.
Tuesday, November 1, 2022
Students' Message to Higher Education: Time to Rebalance - Annie Galvin Teich, Fierce Education
New results from a spring 2022 undergraduate survey, using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, revealed key findings: The physical campus is still an important piece of a student’s access to education. While respondents generally deal with their own tech issues, they still use computer labs and campus Wi-Fi. Face-to-face instruction is being disrupted. Students’ preferences have shifted to online options since the pandemic. Even students who prefer face-to-face courses want more online resources and activities. All respondents want more flexibility, social interaction, and academic engagement. Device access is an equity issue. Students with disabilities and pandemic-related housing issues were less likely to use their preferred devices. Assistive technology helps all students. For example, more than one third of respondents said they need captions on videos.
Monday, October 31, 2022
$1M ED Challenge Seeks Digital Tools to Help Adult Learners Navigate to Careers - Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology
The United States Department of Education has launched the Future Finder Challenge, calling for strategists, developers, user-centered designers, and educators to build digital tools that better support adult learners in their journey from education to the workforce. The multi-stage challenge is offering a prize pool of $1 million: $50,000 each for up to five finalists; $500,000 for one grand-prize winner; and $250,000 shared between up to two runners-up.
Sunday, October 30, 2022
How do colleges decide when to schedule courses? - Rick Seltzer, Higher Ed Dive
Two-thirds of colleges are thinking about the courses students will need to complete their degrees on time when they build their schedules, according to a survey released Tuesday by Ad Astra, a scheduling software and analytics provider. Meanwhile, 51% said they considered when they could offer courses to help students avoid conflicts in their schedules, and 30% looked at balancing in-person, online and hybrid courses.
Saturday, October 29, 2022
Continuing Ed Is the Nimble, Revenue-Focused Department the Institution Can Rely On - Deborah Keyek-Franssen, Evolllution
Among external forces impinging on postsecondary institutions are a tumultuous labor market, highlighted by The Great Resignation, and the constant acceleration of technological advances that create new jobs and fields, putting pressure on institutions to constantly evolve credential and even degree offerings. Continuing and professional education units have long understood these issues, responding by being nimble, revenue-focused and workforce-aligned. The characteristics of our current environment and postsecondary ecosystem point to the need for Continuing Education and professional education units to scale and adapt their offerings, in the process maturing, making more efficient and perhaps even growing their units to meet the unprecedented demands we now face.
Friday, October 28, 2022
Updated Magna Charta Universitatum marks shift in universities’ thinking - Brendan O’Malley, University World News
The signing was witnessed by more than 150 presidents and rectors of universities globally and brought the total number of Magna Charta signatories to 965 universities worldwide. As the first universities to sign the 2020 version in person – due to previous meetings being postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic – the ceremony had additional symbolic value as the first public event to mark an important shift in universities’ thinking about why they exist. A road map was agreed upon by all participants, a “living document, nourished by research and wide consultation”, Giannini said. It sets out six critical transitions to imagining higher education for a more sustainable and equitable future.
Thursday, October 27, 2022
In Just 2 Sentences, Bill Gates Taught a Great Leadership Lesson to Every Manager - MARCEL SCHWANTES, INC
What most people forget is that this shift was already taking place before Covid-19 changed our lives forever. Bill Gates knew this decades ago when he predicted what we now see as commonplace in most hybrid and remote work environments. The Microsoft co-founder said:
The competition to hire the best will increase in the years ahead. Companies that give extra flexibility to their employees will have the edge in this area.
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Technology’s Role in Revitalizing Higher Education - Vistasp M. Karbhari, Fierce Education
The need for sustaining high quality education through the COVID-19 pandemic not only accelerated the use, and acceptance, of online/digital modalities, but also fast-tracked the development and implementation of a range of technologies, enabling new opportunities for institutions of higher education to enhance the quality of education, focusing on equity of opportunity and access for all learners, while also offering new mechanisms for greater engagement between those with knowledge and those seeking it (learners), and for bringing the world (and through it critical experiences) into the classroom.
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
Your Broken Back-End is Killing Your Staff - Modern Campus
Continuing Education staff are doing far too much work these days. Actions that should require one click require 20. Processes that should be automated aren’t. Data that should be easily accessible isn’t. Systems that should work… don’t. Non-traditional divisions are hailed as hubs of ingenuity and innovation. But their capacity to innovate is hampered by inefficiency. After all, when staff are picking up the slack for outdated processes and software, their energy goes less towards innovation and more toward doing work that could be done instantly by a computer. Inefficiencies of this magnitude don’t just negatively affect the student experience. They’re also the death knell for staff satisfaction and retention.
Monday, October 24, 2022
Can the U.S. Embrace a Four Day Work Week? - Angie Basiouny, Knowledge at Wharton
When Wharton management professor Matthew Bidwell first came to the United States from England in the 1990s, he was struck by the dogged American work ethic. “It was a culture that was much more organized around work than in the U.K.... More than 3,300 employees across 70 companies in the U.K. are participating in a pilot program to work four days a week in exchange for the same productivity and pay. Launched in June, the six-month experiment led by the nonprofit 4 Day Week Global relies on previous research that finds employees are happier, healthier, and more efficient with reduced working hours.
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-the-u-s-embrace-a-four-day-workweek/
Sunday, October 23, 2022
Are OPMs meeting college officials’ expectations? - Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive
A survey of chief online learning officers indicates that online program management companies, or OPMs, aren’t meeting their expectations for marketing and recruitment, even though these are the services the college officials said they needed most. That’s according to a new report from the University of Louisville and the University Professional and Continuing Education Association, or UPCEA. The report also found the top reason chief online learning officers work with OPMs is to respond to increased competition in the online education marketplace.
Saturday, October 22, 2022
5 Challenges of Navigating a Lifetime Alt-Ac Career - Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed
Alt-acs are traditionally trained academics working outside of traditional faculty career paths. The trajectory of an alternative academic is not the tenure track. Instead of the assistant/associate/full path, alt-acs are on a non-linear and often less-traveled career journey. How does a PhD navigate a decades-long academic career lacking the established milestones of the tenure track? As the status of an alternative academic has only been relatively recently recognized within higher ed, I'm not sure we have enough examples of decades-long alt-ac careers serving as models for the rest of us.
Friday, October 21, 2022
One-third of meetings are unnecessary, costing companies millions (and no one is happy about it) - Otter
Otter.ai, the world’s leading meeting transcription and collaboration tool, in partnership with the University of North Carolina Chancellor’s professor and award-winning author, Dr. Steven Rogelberg, released new findings on the cost of unnecessary meetings and its impact on organizations and their employees. The report found that almost a third of meetings are unnecessary and organizations waste millions of dollars on them. The findings put a spotlight on the amount of strain unnecessary and wasted meeting attendance places on companies’ financials and their employees, including: Companies pay an average of $80K per professional employee to attend meetings each year and $25K (31%) is to attend meetings deemed “unnecessary.” [I don't think we do any better in higher ed! - ed.]
Thursday, October 20, 2022
Despite Hopes for a Rebound, Enrollment Falls Again - Liam Knox, Inside Higher Ed
Overall enrollment fell by 1.1 percent, closer to pre-pandemic levels than the more drastic declines that shocked leaders over the past two years. The rate of decline has decreased by almost a third since fall 2020. But Doug Shapiro, the research center’s executive director, said that while a slower descent is welcome, this semester’s numbers are no cause for celebration. Some new trends emerged as well. More traditional-age college students were enrolled in online programs this fall, a trend that Shapiro said seems like “a natural outcome” of the normalization of online learning during the pandemic.
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Breaking Down Barriers to Internships - Melissa Ezarik and Daisy Gonzales, Inside Higher Ed
A Student Voice survey of 2,116 students, conducted in mid-August by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse with support from Kaplan showed the majority of student interns surveyed did earn pay, and in some cases also college credit, for their most recent internship. That was a lot less likely to happen for community college students, 42 percent of whom were paid or received money and credit. That’s compared to 71 percent of students at four-year institutions who participated in internships. Some respondents did note the benefits of virtual and hybrid-format internships in landing an opportunity. “It has certainly made it easier!” wrote a student at a California community college.
Tuesday, October 18, 2022
Innovation in the classroom - Marisa Demers, MIT Open Learning
Designing and refining curricula and courses can be a solitary endeavor, but Residential Education doesn’t want it to be that way. A trio of pedagogical specialists — a learning engineer, data scientist, and learning scientist — take deep dives into peer-reviewed research and data analysis to offer recommendations to instructors. Aaron Kessler, assistant director of learning sciences and teaching, says the Residential Education group works on a wide range of issues, including transitioning a course from in-person to online to back to in-person again. He also has assisted instructors as they implement new instructional technologies and make challenging concepts easier for students to understand.
Monday, October 17, 2022
As cybersecurity threat rages, colleges invest in risk prevention and pay higher insurance premiums - Rick Seltzer, Higher Ed Dive
Warnings about cyberattacks targeting colleges come from all sides. Corporate experts suggest ways to stave off breaches. Companies publish research about the sector’s lack of readiness. The FBI has flagged university login credentials being for sale online. Only 13% of institutions with cyber insurance in S&P’s portfolio reported a data breach because of a cyberattack. Cyber insurance policies are getting more expensive for the higher ed sector. Policy renewals are typically increasing prices by between 40% and 60%, with some premium increases hitting the triple digits, S&P said.
Sunday, October 16, 2022
Struggling small colleges are joining the ’sharing economy’ — teaming up to share courses and majors - Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report
The approach is a response by some small colleges to a worsening enrollment crisis, mounting competition from educational providers that focus mainly on job skills, and increasing skepticism among consumers that an investment in a higher education will pay off. The technologies that took a huge leap forward during the pandemic — most notably, the delivery of education online — course sharing generally teams up universities and colleges that have extra space in online classes with partner institutions that want to add new programs but can’t afford the time or money to develop them alone.
Saturday, October 15, 2022
The Role Artificial Intelligence Will Play in Continuing Education - Daniel Piedra, Evolllution
Handheld devices or laptops are pretty much feeding us all sorts of information that are all AI driven. I think that will become part of all that we do in education. I can see it expanding into learning platforms that’ll continue to get better. AI will make learning management systems and similar tools that we use, drive content and make recommended next steps for learning to really make that learning journey more personal, which I think is great because that is what students want, particularly in the world of continuing education and contract training. It is very much about the individual and tailoring the needs to them. AI makes this a more certain reality.
Friday, October 14, 2022
Faculty advisory boards – A valuable link to the workplace - Nita Temmerman, University World News
Advisory boards facilitate active external engagement between academics and expert representatives in the professions, business and-or industry. Advisory boards can be established at the university level and-or at the faculty or school level. At the university level such a board usually advises the president of the university on aspects of broad institution-wide strategic positioning, but my focus is on faculty or school boards which advise the dean or head about strategic issues relevant to programme offerings and activities.
Thursday, October 13, 2022
Who’s in Charge: Why Higher Ed Culture Demands a Certain Type of Leader - Kathy Sandeen, Illumination Modern Campus
The state of education is evolving, and although the four-year degree is not going anywhere, there has to be a focus on non-traditional pathways. Higher ed leaders need to lead through influence. In continuing education especially, there is no power, Sandeen says. Continuing ed leaders are not at the top of the hierarchy, so they need to lead with data-proven techniques, persuasive arguments and strong arguments. Each of those skills is also key for running the entirety of university, making CE leaders exceptionally strong candidates to become university presidents, chancellors and deans.
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Survey: IT Pros Remain Conflicted Over AI's Potential, Peril - Neil McAllister, PC Mag
Companies are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to automate and optimize business functions. But according to recent research, the IT professionals who will be asked to implement the technology have decidedly mixed feelings about it, ranging from optimism to outright dread (and sometimes both at the same time). On the positive side, many IT pros see AI as a beneficial technology that can help advance their careers. Fully 74% of survey respondents agreed with the statement, "AI will automate tasks and enable more time to focus on strategic IT initiatives." The prompt, "AI will create major data privacy issues" drew agreement from 55% of respondents.
Tuesday, October 11, 2022
EDITORIAL: Online learning remains paramount component of education after pandemic - Daily Targum
Now that we have returned to mostly in-person learning, it has become evident that online learning was not as terrible as we had originally thought. Its flexibility empowered students to pursue their interests, focus on internships and manage jobs. Certainly, an in-person learning environment is conducive to a range of other experiences that we think of when we decide to go to college, but there is something about the virtual landscape that should be taken seriously as future discussions about technology and the digital age in pedagogy happen.
Monday, October 10, 2022
Long COVID Could Cost the Economy Trillions, Experts Predict - Solarina Ho, Medscape
"There's a lot we need to do to understand what it takes to enable disabled people to participate more in the economy," says Katie Bach, a senior fellow with Brookings Institution and the author of a study looking into long COVID's impact on the labor market. Data from June 2022 from the CDC shows that of the 40% of American adults who contracted COVID-19, nearly 1 in 5 still have long COVID symptoms. That works out to 1 in 13, or 7.5%, of the overall U.S. adult population. [ed note: What is our role to prepare this population to contribute while accommodating their lingering conditions?]
Sunday, October 9, 2022
Digital Transformation in Higher Education: 7 Areas for Enhancing Digital Learning - Florence Martin and Kui Xie, EDUCAUSE
Higher education is in the era of digital transformation (Dx). Learning technologies and digital platforms are no longer an afterthought; they are critical for teaching and learning. The COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for Dx, forcing colleges, universities, instructors, and students to shift online rapidly. Some instructors and students were prepared for the shift; those who were unprepared had to catch up quickly.Footnote1 This article reflects on current practices and directions for Dx through a framework that supports the strategic responses and structural changes that higher education institutions could implement to enhance digital teaching and learning.
Saturday, October 8, 2022
Preventing Burnout: The Demand-Control-Support Model - Adam Grant, Knowledge at Wharton
Burnout is not a problem in your head; it’s a problem in your circumstances. Stress may be inevitable, but burnout can be prevented and reduced — even in high-pressure jobs. It requires structural and cultural change, and my favorite model is demand-control-support.
Friday, October 7, 2022
The Public’s Growing Doubts About College ‘Value’ - Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
Americans aren’t questioning the importance of higher education, but they’re concerned it is unaffordable and unavailable for too many people. Experts dig into the data. After decades of almost unquestioned public support as some of America’s most valued institutions, colleges and universities are facing growing questions—not about whether higher education remains important but whether it’s available, affordable and valuable enough. An episode of Inside Higher Ed’s The Key podcast recently explored the public’s evolving attitudes toward higher education, part of a three-part series on the concept of “value” in higher education, made possible by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Thursday, October 6, 2022
This Vote Could Change the Course of Internet History - Justin Ling, Wired
UN countries are preparing to pick a new head of the International Telecommunications Union. Who wins could shape the open web's future. According to their election platforms, Bogdan-Martin and Ismailov signal the same core objective: connecting every person in the world to the internet and cellphone service by 2030. The two candidates, however, represent fundamentally different visions for the future of the internet. Bodgan-Martin’s campaign has focused on her track record of navigating the complex machinery of the United Nations body. Ismailov, meanwhile, has promised a “humanization” of telecommunications infrastructure—and has invoked his candidacy as a way to reject American “dominance” online.
Wednesday, October 5, 2022
How administrators can give campus staff what they need - Steven M. Baule, eCampus News
Time is the most important thing for administrators to give to their faculty and staff. Beyond time itself, administrators need to show sincere appreciation for those who work for them. Being visible and accessible are two simple ways to show appreciation. Most people will work harder for those who are viewed as appreciative. We all know administrators have packed schedules, but helping their schedule by empowering people and hearing their stories and daily experiences will improve both their leadership and potentially the span of their impact.
Tuesday, October 4, 2022
Bridge Between Worlds: How Continuing Ed Connects the Classroom and The Working World - Brad Mahon, Illumination by Modern Campus
If continuing education is anything, it’s versatile. Its adaptability is its strength and what is so appealing to so many students. The flexibility learners have is why these units are so successful. On this week’s episode, host Amrit Ahluwalia is joined by Brad Mahon, President and Chief Executive Officer of Great Plans College. They discuss how Continuing Education leaders are shaped by meeting learner needs and what leaders of other departments can learn from CE.
Monday, October 3, 2022
Battered Florida Colleges Regroup in Ian’s Wake - Liam Knox, Inside Higher Ed
Colleges and universities in southwestern and central Florida are assessing damage and evaluating reopening plans in the wake of Hurricane Ian. Some colleges that prepared for severe conditions, including the University of Tampa and the University of South Florida, emerged from the storm with minimal damage and were able to reopen residence halls by Friday morning. Others were hit harder. UCF, which initially canceled classes through Friday, extended its suspension of normal operations to Tuesday due to the damage.
Sunday, October 2, 2022
4 signs you’re ready for higher-ed career advancement - Cheryl Hyatt, eCampus News
Career growth often happens organically, but it does not occur automatically. Natural junctures for change happen, but it is up to you to recognize and capitalize on them. If you have leadership ambitions, you must pair thoughtful reflection with strategic action. I’ve seen individuals stagnate by staying put in a role too long. Others pivot at the wrong time, moving capriciously from one position to the next. How can you tell when it’s time to pursue additional opportunities? I have found that there are four characteristics that reflect aptitude for advancement.
Saturday, October 1, 2022
Remote Leaders: How Continuing Education Paved the Way for Online Learning - Nancy Coleman and David Cillay, Illumination Modern Campus
Continuing education was the driver behind the shift to online learning in March 2020 for so many institutions. What could’ve been a nightmarish scenario for administrators, flocking to find the best way to reach thousands of students remotely, needed only to turn to their CE units. On this episode of the Illumination podcast, host Amrit Ahluwalia is joined by Nancy Coleman, Dean of the Division of Continuing Education and Extension at Harvard University, and Dave Cillay, Vice President for Academic Outreach & Innovation and Chancellor of Global Campus at Washington State University. They discuss the transforming professional, continuing and online education (PCO) space, and reflect on lasting impact of the role these units played in helping their institutions adapt to the pandemic.
Friday, September 30, 2022
Transforming education systems: Why, what, and how - Rebecca Winthrop and David Sengeh, Brookings
It is with this moment in mind that we have developed this shared vision of education system transformation. Collectively we offer insights on transformation from the perspective of a global think tank and a national government: the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at Brookings brings years of global research on education change and transformation, and the Ministry of Education of Sierra Leone brings on-the-ground lessons from designing and implementing system-wide educational rebuilding. This brief is for any education leader or stakeholder who is interested in charting a transformation journey in their country or education jurisdiction such as a state or district. It is also for civil society organizations, funders, researchers, and anyone interested in the topic of national development through education.
Thursday, September 29, 2022
Tips for Engaging a Remote Workforce - Rhea Kelly, Campus Technolgy
As flexible work policies become the norm, institutions must rethink their approach to employee engagement and workforce culture. Here's how Southern New Hampshire University is building a remote-first workplace centered on the employee experience. But ultimately, our North Star is meeting the needs of our learners, who are experiencing all of the same obstacles that we are experiencing. So from an empathy perspective, we're in a great position. And the good news for us is, we're used to moving quickly.
Wednesday, September 28, 2022
The Future of the Web: The good, the bad and the very weird - Steve Ranger, ZD Net
\Concepts like Web3 promise a decentralised vision of the internet whereby the power of the big tech companies is broken. Web3 would use blockchain technologies to effectively create digital assets which you are then able to exchange or trade as you see fit. Of course, the reputation of NFTs, blockchain, Bitcoin and much of the De-Fi world has taken a hammering recently, being widely viewed more as a source of dismal get-rich-quick schemes and projects with major security flaws than the future of the internet. However, it's clear that beyond this messy current situation lies the potential for significant disruption. Virtual reality and augmented reality could allow the digital world to become visible around us -- overlaying everyday reality with fantastic creatures or simply serving up reminders of useful information (what was his name again?).
Tuesday, September 27, 2022
Gates Foundation pours $100M into college transformation effort - Rick Seltzer, Higher Ed Dive
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will spend $100 million over five years to fund a group of nonprofit organizations working to help colleges “transform themselves” in the face of falling enrollment, increasing demands for educated workers and declining public confidence in higher education, it said Thursday. That means overhauling colleges’ business models, structures and cultures to boost student outcomes, which can be measured by metrics like graduation rates and successful transfers from community colleges to four-year institutions. The foundation also wants the effort to help institutions address stubborn equity gaps so race, ethnicity, family income and other demographics don’t predict whether a student is likely to graduate from college.
Monday, September 26, 2022
House Democrats introduce bill to double Pell Grant, rework federal loan system - Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Higher Ed Dive
Two prominent House Democrats introduced a bill Thursday that would double the maximum Pell Grant award and substantially rework the federal student loan system, including changes to the troubled Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. The Lowering Obstacles to Achievement Now, or LOAN, Act, would also make certain unauthorized immigrant students eligible for federal financial aid, and it would attempt to lower interest rates on student loans so they would not exceed 5%.
Sunday, September 25, 2022
Students Graduating with Critical Thinking Deficiencies - Peggy Bresnick, Fierce Education
A new report from The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries that aims to stimulate economic progress and world trade, Does Higher Education Teach Students to Think Critically?, found that there is a growing gap between the qualifications students acquire at colleges or universities around the world and essential 21st-century skills. These include literacy and critical thinking skills that include problem solving, analytic reasoning and communications competencies.
Saturday, September 24, 2022
New study on financial management in higher ed shows that budgeting flexibility is the key to security - Strategic Management Society, Phys.org
A new study from the Strategic Management Journal (SMJ) finds that the universities thriving in this environment are doing more with less simply by adopting more flexible budgeting. The problem is, many universities face internal and external pressures that inhibit financial flexibility. "Universities that reallocate resources more regularly are more likely to run larger budget surpluses," says Sohvi Heaton, a visiting assistant professor at Santa Clara University. "However, this is far more likely to be true at universities where external governance arrangements allow greater executive discretion."
Friday, September 23, 2022
To Improve Outcomes for Students, We Must Improve Support for Faculty - David Wiley, Campus Technology
The doctoral programs that prepare faculty for their positions often fail to train them on effective teaching practices. We owe it to our students to provide faculty with the professional development they need to help learners realize their full potential.
Thursday, September 22, 2022
FBI, CISA Ransomware Alert Warns of Vice Society Targeting Education Orgs - Kristal Kuykendall, Campus Technology
A joint Cybersecurity Advisory released by the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center warns that Vice Society threat actors are disproportionately targeting the education sector as recently as this month. Such so-called #StopRansomware advisories describe observed tactics, techniques, and procedures as well as indicators of compromise to help organizations protect themselves against the newest ransomware threats. "The FBI, CISA, and the MS-ISAC anticipate attacks may increase as the 2022/2023 school year begins and criminal ransomware groups perceive opportunities for successful attacks," the advisory states.
Wednesday, September 21, 2022
Imagine We Are Starting a University Now - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
In so very many ways, we in higher education have fallen behind business, industry, governments and society as a whole. We are offering programs and products that may have been relevant 50 or a hundred years ago but are not in touch with the society of the fourth industrial revolution. Imagine for a moment that we are creating a university anew in 2022. What would we change? What would we retain? How would it differ from what students, faculty and staff currently experience? Within some broad topical areas, here are starting points for the discussion.
Tuesday, September 20, 2022
Online learning is no longer novel—how can you stay ahead of the curve? - Andrea Maconachy, eCampus News
Will student enrollment continue to drop? Are microcredentials becoming more popular than degree programs? Is a recession on the way–and if so, how might it affect college attendance? Higher education faces a sea of questions about enrollment trends and how they might play out in the near future. But one thing is certain: Online education is here to stay. Just take a look at MBA programs, which last year saw online enrollment surpass residential enrollment for the first time ever.
Monday, September 19, 2022
9 Ways To Improve College Grad Work Readiness - Brandon Busteed, Forbes
Doubts about the work readiness of college graduates run rampant in the U.S. Mixed in with rising college costs and growing college alternatives, these work readiness doubts have created a new generation of college shopper among prospective students and parents: the ROI generation. The ROI (return on investment) generation is asking tough questions of colleges and universities about career outcomes and they are prompting many higher ed leaders to create intentional and scalable initiatives to improve career readiness and outcomes for students. Here are nine immediate steps university leaders can take - see link below.
Sunday, September 18, 2022
How Emotion AI will change the online learning landscape - Vishal Soni, Times of India
With the development of technology, it has become evident that comprehension of both the cognitive and affective channels of human connection is crucial. Emotion recognition is a branch of affective computing that seeks to do this. Understanding someone’s feelings requires being able to recognise, sort through, and interpret verbal and nonverbal cues. With the upcoming mainstream adoption of emotional AI, tech giants and startups across a variety of industries—including automotive, retail, edtech—have invested in making their technology more human using computer vision and speech recognition. Moreover, Gartner predicts that 10% of individual gadgets will have emotional AI capabilities in two years.
Saturday, September 17, 2022
Students Vote for Remote (Employees) - Melissa Ezarik, Inside Higher Ed
When making decisions about whether employees’ jobs could be done remotely or under a hybrid arrangement, college and university officials may not realize that most students don’t expect or feel they need in-person staff. Although many campus departments managed to function fully remotely during the unprecedented medical emergency in spring 2020, “now we’re mainly sort of in this post-COVID period,” Stephens says. An estimated 60 to 70 percent of his unit’s employees are hybrid or fully remote now; “pre-COVID, that was zero. We didn’t even think about it.”
Friday, September 16, 2022
4 Things Good Leaders Do When Facing Obstacles That Bad Leaders Don't - Marcel Schwantes, Inc.
Effective leaders put aside their expertise to get the best out of colleagues. They heighten the collective genius of those in their organizations. Ineffective leaders, on the other hand, flex their expertise in the moment. They feel good about their decisions, while their colleagues feel isolated, unheard, and undervalued. To understand the tactics of effective leaders in high-functioning organizations during difficult times, I caught up with Dr. Richard Winters, author of You're the Leader. Now What?: Leadership Lessons from Mayo Clinic.
Thursday, September 15, 2022
The most-regretted (and lowest-paying) college majors - Andrew Van Dam, Washington Post
Almost half of humanities and arts majors regret their choice — and enrollment in those disciplines is shrinking rapidly. Nearly half of humanities and arts majors have studier’s remorse as of 2021. Engineering majors have the fewest regrets: Just 24 percent wish they’d chosen something different, according to a Federal Reserve survey. As a rule, those who studied STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — are much more likely to believe they made the right choice, while those in social sciences or vocational courses second-guess themselves.
Wednesday, September 14, 2022
8 big questions as colleges start fall 2022 - Rick Seltzer, Higher Ed Dive
Will higher ed’s financial picture clear? Can campuses innovate? Is a new generation of presidents ready to rise to the moment? All summer, we’ve been monitoring developments affecting the sector and asking higher ed leaders what’s on their minds. We condensed their thoughts into eight big questions for the fall.
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Degree vs. Experience: How important are degrees to employers? - Preston Wickersham, Remote
Many career and job opportunities which were formerly reserved for university graduates are now accessible to people without degrees, reshaping the job market and ushering in new attitudes around the value of a degree. Making hiring decisions based on experience, attitude, and value-match rather than focusing on specific academic achievements advances equality and opens up the playing field for talented individuals from a range of different backgrounds.
Monday, September 12, 2022
The Stories Behind Service Matter - Holly Zanville, Evolllution
The United States needs a postsecondary system that captures and validates uncounted learning to enable all individuals to earn recognition for what they know and can do. Credential As You Go is working toward that vision, embarking on a movement to inform and facilitate the development and adoption of a nationally recognized incremental credentialing system to improve education and employment outcomes for all learners. Such a system will build on efforts to create greater transparency of credentials across education and industry, while integrating industry credentials and prior learning into our degree system.
Sunday, September 11, 2022
No Paywall for Taxpayer-Funded Research, U.S. Declares - Susan D'Agostino and Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
White House mandates free, immediate public access to government-funded research. Many open-access advocates celebrate the decision, but some scholars wonder who will fund the policy. Any research based on federally funded studies must be made freely available to the public without an embargo under a policy announced Thursday by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The new requirement, which is due to take effect by the end of 2025, updates an existing policy that allowed a 12-month embargo for making research freely available.
Saturday, September 10, 2022
An AI Model Named BLOOM, Larger than OpenAI’s GPT-3 and MetaAI’s OPT, Will Be Open Sourced - IBL News
A large language model (LLM) named BLOOM will be available for free as open source software. These models are used to write essays, generate code, and translate languages. Its openness can democratize access to AI technologies, making a deep impact on society, according to experts talking at TheNextWeb.com. It’d free AI from big tech labs that have spent millions of dollars developing systems such as LaMDA (Google) and GPT-3 (OpenAI).
Friday, September 9, 2022
College Suicide Rates and Statistics - Jackie Burrell, Very Well Mind
]** Information presented in this article may be triggering to some people. If you are having suicidal thoughts, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.**
According to the American College Health Association (ACHA), the suicide rate among young adults ages 15–24 has tripled since the 1950s. Suicide is currently the second most common cause of death among college students.
https://www.verywellmind.com/college-and-teen-suicide-statistics-3570768
Thursday, September 8, 2022
Serving and Leading Through Controversy, Calamity and Chaos - Tonya Amankwatia, Evolllution
Academic journals, webinar titles and popular media headlines over the last few years have commonly highlighted leaders who offer solutions to prevalent higher education challenges. I have been especially tuned into higher education leader and faculty perspectives about challenges activated by demographic, societal, economic and political shifts. As I observe controversy and catastrophe, I recognize the leadership opportunity for those who provide nontraditional educational offerings to adult learners. How might our extended and professional education units add value?
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
Longevity Declining Among Campus Employees: What’s to Lose? - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
More than half of college employees say they’re likely to leave their jobs in the next year, a new survey finds. The most common reasons: prospect of higher pay, an opportunity to work remotely and more flexible work hours. Increasingly, many universities are engaged in developing and offering alternative credentials aimed at those in the workforce seeking to enter a new field or move up the ladder into leadership positions. We, in higher ed, should be first in line to take advantage of these programs to upgrade knowledge, skills and abilities for our own employees. In short, we may be able to retain the institutional history, culture and connections of employees while at the same time giving them the changes they are seeking.
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