As American colleges and universities emerge weaker but wiser from the Great Recession, it is also time to think about how best to move forward with capital projects long delayed or shelved. What, then, are the preconditions determining which projects go forward? What seemed to be an essential capital expenditure five years ago may not…
At the undergraduate level, colleges and universities have always relied upon first-time, first year students as the foundation of their freshman class. Historically, these students were drawn from four categories: legacies, student athletes, students seeking admission to a well-differentiated academic program, and qualified students who came in “over the transom” as part of a general…
It’s summer. The college road trip experience has begun in earnest for many high school students. The approach to this search by students and their families varies widely. It often depends upon a number of factors including a family’s connection to an institution, the recommendation of guidance counselors, peer pressure, and social and print media…
As a new president in the 1990s, one of my early tasks was to sign an exchange agreement with a private Russian university. The provost and I completed our business in Moscow and headed through London to visit a second exchange program of long-standing with a British institution. While passing through Heathrow airport, a British…
Let’s assume for the purposes of this analysis that getting a college degree is good for most Americans. This assumption does not mean that every American needs a college degree to lead a productive life. But in most areas and in many industries a college degree will open the same doors for students that a…
Admissions is hard, grueling and anxiety-filled work today. It is as much an art as a science. The best enrollment leaders must have great gut instincts that allow them to see the relationship among strategic planning, university budgets, friend and fund raising, federal and state regulations, and a common vision set by the president and…
There are excellent philosophical arguments about why universities are expressions of the public good. They are accurate, time-honored and true. But the best demonstration – and the most closely watched – is how a university responds to its environment. Before local budgets tightened in the 1990s, there was something sacrosanct about town/gown relations. Colleges were…
When they opened, American colleges and universities offered a classical curriculum drawn from older education practice that balanced the needs of an agricultural economy–often deeply religious–with a small commercial class. The Industrial Revolution transformed higher education in the 19th century. Education served new masters as the demands of a growing, industrializing economy forced it to…
Periodically, it’s always prudent to take a step backward to reflect on the state of American higher education in the first years of the 21st-century. It looks very different today from the higher education system that we inherited from the leadership guiding higher education policy after the Vietnam War. The currents affecting American colleges and…