where higher education & the real world meet
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…
Alfred North Whitehead (1862-1947) was an influential philosopher who worked across disciplines. One of his more famous and influential arguments is that reality was best understood as a process. More than a few thinkers agreed with him, leading to schools of process theology and process philosophy. In the US, perhaps the most influential process thinker,…
Accenture, a global professional services company, is one of my college’s most active and generous business partners. We have learned so much from them through meetings, projects, collaboration, and day-to-day interaction. Consistently collegial and extraordinarily professional, the team at Accenture have helped to strengthen us and our students – and we’re not even their clients.…
At the request of a neighborhood high school principal, I recently gave a short speech at their commencement. I was honored by the request, but to tell the truth, the invitation gave me pause. I’ve been to several high school graduations, including my own, and for the life of me I cannot remember who spoke…
What does a student know and how do we know that they know it? This fundamental question in higher education drives learning outcomes assessment, a critical component in providing a quality education. Those that are more removed from the classroom and assessment committees may not to give much consideration to the ongoing demanding work that…
Peter Cappelli, the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, is a prolific author, advisor to governments and organizations, researcher, scholar and influential public intellectual. He’s been called one of the worlds most important business thinkers. In 2015, he took a break from his academic and management…
Academia is an odd place, sometimes a world unto itself. Higher education’s traditions, titles and ceremonies are unique, and can be obscure and remarkably persistent. Why, after all, do students pay fees to a bursar and move a tassel on a mortar board at graduation? Why do faculty publish or perish? For those of us…