Whose College Unbound?

Adding to the ever-growing library of “higher education is failing” is Jeffery J. Seligno’s College (Un)Bound: the Future of Higher Education and What It Means For Students. An editor at large for the Chronicle of Higher Education, academia’s publication of record, Seligno is a well-respected writer on education issues. Seligno believes that higher education has lost…

Workplace Skills and Liberal Education – AAC&U Panel

It was my pleasure to present on a panel, “Workplace Skills and Liberal Education: Equity and Access . . . and Quality and Depth” at the national AAC&U conference. Organized by Saul Fisher, Executive Director for Grants and Academic Initiatives and Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy at Mercy College, I also shared the table with…

AAC&U Presidents Debate College Ratings

President Obama has made it clear that a higher education rating system is on the near horizon. Members of his administration have been engaged in listening sessions across the country for months, hearing from students, families, faculty, and administrators. At the national meeting of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC,…

Don’t Stop – Even If You’ve Heard This Before

While most all of us who pursue careers in higher education are idealists, those that are willing to share their aims and ideals are not all that common. The realities of academia in the twenty-first century are sobering and it’s often safer to keep idealism closeted. When we do encounter the baldly stated hope for education that…

More Readings For the New Community College President

Did the holidays come and go without you finding the perfect gift for the new community college president on your list? Or the aspiring college president? Rest easy – I have two reading recommendations. Even though full-time administrators rarely curl up with a book, I am confident that these two volumes will be read, studies,…

Institutionalized Inequity and Chicago Real Estate

Beryl Satter’s Family Properties: How the Struggle Over Race and Real Estate Transformed Chicago and Urban America is a brilliant book. A historian with a personal history with Chicago real estate, Satter’s father, Mark Satter, was a lawyer and landlord in Lawndale, a working west-side neighborhood in Chicago. Mr. Satter died in 1965, short on funds and…