At a recent college retreat my leadership team watched Simon Sinek’s TED talk about how great leaders inspire action. It is a good video and like most popular TED talks, it provoked reflection and discussion. We did not, though, sort it all out. I sensed that the key message of the presentation – the importance…
Category: Reviews
Reviews of books, articles, and the like
Big Data and WMDs – A Cautionary Tale
Cathy O’Neil has penned perhaps my favorite book title of the past few years – Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. Better still, her work is substantive and worthy of its clever name. Read it and you will never think of “systems” and data in quite the same way. O’Neil…
People Mapping: Friends Matter
Sometimes the most basic functions of higher education are missed or ignored. Take, for example, the influence of friendships on college students. We all know that friends matter greatly to the college experience. Talk with a college graduate and more often than not, their best friends for life are college friends. People meet their spouses…
An Ambitious Agenda for Community Colleges
America’s community colleges – and there are about 1,200 of them – educate more than 10 millions people every year. Community colleges serve a myriad of needs, ranging from training to swimming to language to college courses. Most community college students hope to obtain a four-year degree. Unfortunately, less than 40% are successful in earning…
There’s No System In Our Financial Aid System
Sara Goldrick-Rab is a respected professor of education with a rare trait: she is comfortable in the role of public intellectual. Her most recent book, Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream, has generated a good deal of well-deserved interest. It is a data-driven study that argues that the…
Lessons Learned: Manage From Your Outbox
William G. Bowen was a wise man of higher education. He passed away recently at the age of 83. As articles appeared in the press assessing his many accomplishments, I decided to read one of his nineteen books: Lessons Learned: Reflections of a University President. I wish I had earlier. It is full good observations and…
College Costs and the Price of Higher Education
It is rare to come across a book both so enlightening and as frustrating as “Why Does College Cost So Much?” The authors, Robert B. Archibald and David H. Feldman, are economists at the College of William and Mary. They are strong researchers and thoughtful analysts of higher education. They write well and their book…