What will happen to the 70,000+ students who will be left in the lurch by Corinthian’s closing? This is a great time to do an independent evaluation and case study to see where they go and what they do, real time. Much has been written about the DoE’s decision to close Corinthian Colleges. Some misguided observers have praised the decision as long-overdue and evidence that … Continue reading Who Stands for the Students?

Having made clear my aversion to the notion that you can regulate your way to quality just as well as you can save your way to a profit, let’s discuss rankings that might work and some of the obstacles that obstruct us from achieving them. There are several characteristics that have to be interwoven to get a complete picture of how well a college is … Continue reading Rankings As If People Mattered

On Tuesday, June 17th I had the privilege of presenting “Learning in the Digital Dimension: Big Data and Video” at the Kaltura Connect Video Experience Conference in New York City. Kaltura is an extremely interesting company with both non- and for-profit arms that support video-based solutions in higher education as well as in other settings. This conference was jam-packed with innovation and the people who … Continue reading Presenting at the 2014 Kaltura Connect Video Experience Conference

On a few occasions, my life has been changed by the action, work, or example of one person. The next few blogs in the Turning Points series will describe three such people and moments that changed the direction of my life before the age of 30, helping establish, for better or for worse, the foundation on which my career and personal life have been based. … Continue reading A Life-Changing Encounter with David Flaherty

Remember this: In education you can’t regulate your way to excellence.  The same environment that encourages innovation and quality also, unfortunately, opens the door to some people who do not carry high standards for their work. At the same time, however, if you regulate to eliminate the “bad actors,” using metrics that cut across important institutional and learner characteristics, you create exactly the opposite environment, … Continue reading You Can’t Regulate Your Way to Excellence

Many thanks to Haley Sweetland Edwards for raising, in a thoughtful manner, the issue of college ratings in a Time Magazine piece entitled “Should US Colleges Be Graded by the Government?”  In her article, Edwards covers the gamut of issues driving the debate, including the dramatic increase in loan debt, the terrible approach to evaluating and approving student loans, and the federal budget burden of … Continue reading “Quality” Defined by Government-run College Ratings?

Recently, I have read a series of articles that suggest that the “new order” brought on by the Digital Dimension is ready to settle to be understood, organized, and controlled by existing and new institutions and practices. So colleges are going to control the MOOCs and assessments learners will be offered in institutional settings, and so on and so forth. While it is a natural … Continue reading Don’t Pack the Snowball Yet!

The image and the general reality of being a university president are so ingrained in our cultural consciousness that it is extremely difficult to imagine another type of higher education leadership model. It includes a commitment to faculty and governance, research, fund-raising, alumni , and current students, all intertwined in a 60 hour/week DNA that also includes intercollegiate athletics and on-campus cultural and student events. … Continue reading What is “Educational Leadership” in a World Running a MOOC?

I have had the honor and the privilege of serving on the Advisory Board to the MIT OpenCourseWare project since its inception over 10 years ago. From that vantage point, followed by my tenure as UNESCO’s Assistant Director General for Education, and now as SVP for academic strategy at Kaplan Higher Education Group, I have had a front row seat to watching, participating in, and … Continue reading Are We Running a MOOC? And if so, why?

“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started  And know the place for the first time…” -T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets As Eliot tells us, in the exploration of life, the journey will take us to greater understanding, “(arriving) where we started and (knowing) the place for the first time.” For me, … Continue reading Living, Learning, and Arriving Where I Started