The nation’s premier organization on higher education, the AAC&U, recently published a report from President Obama’s National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement. An extension of the President’s call for a college-educated populace, the Task Force sought to facilitate a national conversation about learning and democracy. Further, the charge examined how education can…
Category: Deanspeak
Posts about the wide realm of higher education from a deanly perspective
Accreditation In The Spotlight – But What’s New?
The American Council on Education (ACE) is a national organization that seeks to provide leadership and a unifying voice for higher education. Headquartered in Washington, DC, ACE tries to influence public policy. Its impact, like that of other similarly situated organizations, is difficult to gauge. Perhaps best known for its work with college and university…
Lost in Transition and Translation
Capturing attention and fears with the ominous subtitle “The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood,” Christian Smith’s Lost in Transition is a sociological study of 18-23 year old Americans. These are the early “emerging adults” discussed by many social scientists. Emerging adults have some of the traits of the adults of earlier generations, but are marked by delayed settling down,…
How Now, Mission Statement?
What makes for institutional effectiveness? If looking at a business organization, an array of well-recognized and well understood measures can answer the question. Profitability, market share, growth, earnings per share – the list is exhaustive and recognized. The measures themselves are also constantly being tested, evaluated and critiqued, for the market provides multiple incentives to…
Business and Higher Education: convergence or divergence
A truism about business quality is that an organization is only as good as its employees. That is just about always the situation in higher education. Institutional reputation and effectiveness rests on the quality of faculty and staff, and is often determined by the quality of its students, who also serve as a proxy for…
On Cancelling Courses
I hate, truly hate, cancelling courses. A canceled course is more than an inconvenience. It is a failure, an unfulfilled idea, an unanswered question, a planned journey never taken. In my various roles in higher education I have had to cancel, or have been part of the decision to cancel, developmental courses, regular undergraduate courses,…
High Class Problem
Stanford University. It’s stunningly attractive, wealthy, and chock full of extremely clever people. Talent attracts talent, quality begets quality. In higher education it usually takes many years to reach a critical mass that ensures long-standing appeal to the brainy and ambitious. Most institutions never make it. Stanford hit the mark decades ago and has continued…