The Other 85 Percent

Earlier this year, The Korn Ferry Institute published a book titled Letters to the Next President: Strengthening America’s Foundation in Higher Education. The book was the idea of Stephen Joel Tractenberg, who served as president of The George Washington University from 1988-2007. Tractenberg edited the book with contributions from some 20 other [...]

Change Magazine, in its July-August 2008 edition, covers the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA).  The VSA publishes the College Portrait, which provides consumer information on public colleges and universities.  It is a joint project of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC) and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities [...]

In an earlier post, I referenced Peter Ewell’s book on accreditation, and his discussion of five core values that undergird American higher education accreditation.  One of those core values is the combination of academic freedom and shared governance.  Both of these concepts are cited by some who resist increased accountability and assessment, and both concepts [...]

In his recent publication, U.S. Accreditation and the Future of Quality Assurance, published by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), Peter Ewell devotes a chapter examining the relationship of accreditation and “the academy.”  Indeed, one of the original reasons that higher education institutions created accreditation was to “define the academy,” to draw boundaries that [...]

As readers of this blog are aware, I have been keeping track of the presidential candidates’ positions on higher education and watching for recognition of the other 85% – adult, part-time, financially independent students.
This article in the Chronicle of Higher Education is a report on the first day of the Democratic National Convention and adoption [...]

Recently the Chronicle of Higher Education had two articles on the same day reporting on accountability issues being discussed at the annual meeting of the Association for Institutional Research.
http://chronicle.com/news/article/4552/colleges-must-prepare-for-new-wave-of-federal-oversight-speaker-warns?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/05/2972n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
In the first article, the speaker “expressed regret” that the relationships of colleges, accreditors, and federal regulators are being transformed and predicts a number of new data [...]

This recent coverage of the 21st Century GI Bill reveals that veterans tend to enroll in community college and for-profit institutions because of cost, convenience, and because these institutions cater to their needs. The bill is a very good thing for veterans and is the right thing to do. It basically provides veterans [...]

This study found that graduates of PhD programs are being prepared to teach only at research institutions. They do not feel prepared or confident to teach in other settings, settings where most of them actually get jobs and where most of higher education actually takes place. This unfortunately reflects the American higher education [...]

In higher education, one of the things that gets talked about but rarely defined with any clarity is “quality.’  What is quality?  How do we know that the rigor is there to drive quality? For years colleges referred to quality in terms of input.  The most award-winning faculty, the largest library, the availability of labs.  [...]

Back in March, I posted an essay by Judith S. Eaton on the future of accreditation that resulted in a number of responses. Ms. Eaton is the head of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and her essay was discussed at CHEA’s summer workshop.
It was agreed during the CHEA discussion that “colleges have [...]