“Time is our most precious resource.” I’ve heard it, said it, written it and discussed it again and again. On consideration, time is a funny kind of resource. We don’t really know how much of it any of us have over the long term. Over the short term, everyone has the same 24 hours in…
Author: David Potash
Building a Better Hispanic Serving Institution
Latinos in Higher Education and Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Creating Conditions for Success is an ASHE (Associate for the Study of Higher Education) report from 2013. It’s concise, well-written, grounded in research and scholarship, and an extraordinarily handy guide. It helps provide an understanding of better and best practices across HSIs (Hispanic Serving Institutions) and other MSIs…
Thinking Through Anchor Institutions
The Obama presidency ushered in many educational initiatives, including a more comprehensive look at what role universities and colleges might take in strengthening communities. The idea of an “anchor institution” has been in play for several decades as scholars, politicians, activists and others considered the many ways that placed-based nonprofits impacted their surrounding communities. Institutions…
Learning from Southwest
The airline industry, in its many permutations, is fascinating. Not only is the very idea of flight amazing (How many tons of equipment get up in the air?), but equally so is crafting a business that can profitably move masses of people around the world safely, inexpensively, and in a timely manner. When one flies…
Latino Change Agents
In 2008, Leonard A. Valverde and Associates published Latino Change Agents in Higher Education: Shaping a System that Works for All. An emeritus professor at Arizona State University, with more than 45 years of education under his belt – at all levels in a host of different kinds of institutions – Valverde is one of…
A Closer Look at Grit
Some ideas seem so accessible and “right” that we accept them without much question. They resonate with our assumptions and align with common sense, or at least our common thinking. I don’t know if higher education is more susceptible than other sectors to these kinds of group-think trends, but we know that it happens. Certain…
Democracy and Higher Education
Colleges and universities are products of and contributors to our broader civic culture. Higher education reflects the world and often can point to where things are headed. Occasionally it may even influence direction. Untangling what our collective responsibilities are, within academe, to the development of a healthy civic culture, particularly an engaged democracy, is a…