When I used to think of bundling, two thoughts come to mind. The first is colonial America’s enthusiasm for torturing love-struck adolescents. Parents would place young couples in a bed with a wooden “bundling” board between them. The covers would be tied down and the aspiring couple would be able to converse and sleep, but…
Category: Deanspeak
Posts about the wide realm of higher education from a deanly perspective
Community College Agenda – Shared Presidential Perspectives
I recently had an opportunity to talk shop with a dozen community college presidents from around the country. The similarities – personal and professional – were fascinating. We are all focused, somewhat intense people, and we all have a passion for all things academic. We are, in a sense, higher education nerds. Being in the…
Disappointment and Higher Expectations Writ Large
We know them from class: they are smart, often male, and they tend to sit in the front of the room, close to the lectern. They are well read, well-informed, and they raise their hands before speaking. They come before class and stay after. They always have something to say – but they do not ask real…
When Talking About Higher Education, Be Inclusive
More than 19 million people are enrolled in higher education in the US today and more than 16 million of them take classes at the undergraduate level. The popular conception of college is young men and women living in dorms and taking classes full-time. Reality is different. Less than one in five students attend a…
Whose Transcript Is It Anyway?
It’s nearing the start of the fall semester and transfer students are flocking to college. No news with this – every year millions of students enroll in a new college or university. Throughout the nation the process is similar. Students gain acceptance, submit transcript from their home institution for evaluation, and then after processing, are…
Tipping Points and Higher Education
Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point is now fifteen years old. It has weathered financial crises, dramatic innovation in technology and science, and the inevitable backlash that accompanies success. For a while, it was what everyone talked about. You found it in airport bookstores and on magazine covers. The book was, in many ways, a tipping point for…
A Welcome Reminder Of Why We Do What We Do
Higher education is a twelve month a year, seven-day a week enterprise, but summers feel different. In the summer, students gather and disperse in hard-to-discern patterns. Faculty come and go. Some teach and some are away. The pace shifts for those on campus, compressed for some and leisurely for others. In the summer, administrative, logistical and…