Tom Snyder retired from the presidency of Ivy Tech, Indiana’s only public community college, in 2016. He led the statewide institution for nine years, seeing it grow in enrollment and scope. Snyder was an outsider to higher education when he took the position. Before he was chairman/CEO of Delco Remy, an automotive parts supplier, and…
Category: Reviews
Reviews of books, articles, and the like
College to Work: Beyond the Skills Gap
One of the more heralded higher education books of the past few years, Beyond the Skills Gap: Preparing College Students for Life and Work is timely, relevant and most welcome. Kudos to Matthew Hora and his colleagues, Ross J. Benbow and Amanda K. Oleson, for looking beneath, behind, and beyond the sound bytes. Far too…
Men Without Work: An Army of Disengaged
If you work in the community college world, awareness of current economic statistics and trends is useful. In fact, if you work anywhere in higher education, familiarity with economic data is helpful. Higher education is directly and indirectly affected by economic trends. Enrollment has an inverse relationship with recessions and depressions. People go to college when they…
False Smiles: The Happiness Industry
Like a chipped tooth that you can’t leave alone, William Davies’ The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being provokes, rankles, and works its way into your thinking. No dry academic text, it’s lively, well-written, and a sprawling, expansive book. The arguments in The Happiness Industry have been kicking around in my head since…
Memoir or More: On Hillbilly Elegy
One of the most popular non-fiction books published in the last few years in J.D. Vance’s memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. Readers across the political spectrum have praised it. Colleges are assigning it to entering students as the required “freshman read.” You’ll find it at airport bookstores. Ron Howard is…
Paths for Leadership in Higher Education
A recurring theme in higher education is the rise of the “nontraditional president.” We increasingly hear about politicians and businessmen – they are usually men – who reach a point in their careers where they want to “give back.” A college presidency beckons. Their appointment is saddled with the allure of new ways of thinking,…
The Feds and Higher Education Through A Different Lens
The story the American higher education over the past century is a tale of increased access, influence, scope, and scale. Viewed at a macro level, American higher education has become central to the nation’s economy, power, and role in the world. How that happened is the focus of Christopher P. Loss’s Between Citizens and the…