Part I of this series on first-generation students looked at the value of talking about social class in reducing the achievement gap compared to continuing-generation students. This week’s post will look at how the cultural fit between first-generation students and colleges and universities can impact student success. “Unseen Disadvantage: How American Universities’ Focus on Independence…
MarYam G. Hamidani (Stanford University), Nicole Stephens (Northwestern University), and Mesmin Destin (Northwestern University) are co-authors on a 2014 report in Psychological Science that looks at factors that affect the college success of first-generation students. Hamidani, a psychologist and associate director of Stanford’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, spoke about the paper…
Making news this past May was the release of employee diversity information at large tech firms, including Google, LinkedIn and Yahoo, which indicated, not that surprisingly, that these Silicon Valley companies employed primarily men (60-70%). The news was more discouraging when the data was disaggregated into tech-related and leadership positions, with the percentage of women…
Clayton Christensen, the opening keynote speaker at the fourth annual Harvard IT Summit, talked about the ways online learning is transforming higher education. Christensen, the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS), asked and answered a question specifically about HBS, but that can be asked by any college or university,…
Was last week a bad week for the liberal arts and liberal arts majors? Not really, but it was hard to tell with headlines such as Liberal Arts Majors are Screwed, (More) bad news for liberal arts majors, and New Study: Is No Degree Better Than a Liberal Arts Degree. All three headlines were referring…
At The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) Presidents Institute this past January, the theme was Leading Wisely: Linking Tradition and Innovation. The conference “explored ways presidents can tackle today’s unprecedented leadership challenges with a mix of time-tested solutions and new approaches.” CIC’s focus on ways for leadership at small and mid-size liberal arts colleges to…
I will begin by quoting Florence Nightingale, (I heard the full quote at all three of our Nursing Pinning ceremonies over the past week and a half), “to stand still is to go back”. As we look at the strategies that different institutions are using to respond to the challenges that are facing small colleges…
For many non-traditional students, Commencement Day will be a day of celebration on a Saturday or Sunday, followed by back to work on Monday morning. The adult or non-traditional learner has mastered the art of juggling school, family and work, and will look at graduation as an opportunity to take a breath. Fitting classes into…
At The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) Presidents Institute this past January, the theme was Leading Wisely: Linking Tradition and Innovation. The conference “explored ways presidents can tackle today’s unprecedented leadership challenges with a mix of time-tested solutions and new approaches.” CIC’s focus on ways for leadership at small and mid-size liberal arts colleges to…
In February, an op-ed by Thomas Freidman in The New York Times summarized an interview with Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president of people operations for Google, on how to get a job at Google. Bock is involved in about 100 hires at Google per week. With college graduations approaching, Freidman went back to Google…