Category: Higher Education/System

The idea that higher education is creeping toward an all-digital future has turned textbook season into a spectator sport. Will this be the year e-textbooks make their move?

Despite a palpable anxiety in the United States over China?s looming political power, American academe is also optimistic about China. Colleges and universities are drawn toward the nation not only as a haven for international exchange, but also as a source for full-tuition-paying students.

Minnesota has finalized an agreement with the state of Wisconsin that will continue a tuition reciprocity program for college students from both states. But changes are in store for Wisconsin students.

Not only are more women enrolling and graduating from college than men these days, but a national survey released Wednesday also indicates women have a more positive view than men about the value and benefits of higher education.

American graduate schools accepted 11 percent more international applicants in 2011 than they did in 2010, according to a report being released today by the Council of Graduate Schools. That?s the largest percentage increase since 2006. Last year the gain was 3 percent, and the year before that saw a 1 percent drop.

When the easy pork runs out, institutions have to take a different approach if they want to bring home the bacon.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is slotted 19th in this year?s Academic Ranking of World Universities, which is compiled by Jiaotong University in Shanghai. UW-Madison is the top-ranked Big Ten Conference school, with the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor next at No. 22. However, UW-Madison dropped two spots from a year ago, when it was 17th.

The debt deal that President Obama announced on Sunday ends a weeks-long stalemate over the nation?s borrowing limit that had threatened to disrupt the flow of federal student aid and drive up the interest rate on colleges? debts.

A group of 12 high-profile research universities is currently negotiating with commercial e-mail providers to create a standard contract that would reduce the costs and anxieties associated with outsourcing the handling of sensitive institutional data to cloud-based vendors.

Noted: That finding itself isn?t particularly surprising to Sara Goldrick-Rab, an associate professor of educational policy studies and sociology at the University of Wisconsin. But seeing the same outcomes established over time — the study looked at four cohorts, from 1972 to 2004 — is yet another indication that, regardless of how many billions of dollars are devoted to closing this gap, there?s been little change.

Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Jim Petro will on Thursday unveil a plan designed to reduce government involvement in the state?s 14 public universities, giving the institutions more authority in administrative and financial matters if they meet certain performance benchmarks.

One of the lesser-known factors in why East Asian students have trouble seeking counseling lies not in the Chinese or Taiwanese culture, nor in the upbringing of these students, nor in one of the numerous myths and stereotypes that follow them around campus.

Often overlooked amid the competitive exploits of the Big Ten Conference is the leagues academic counterpart, a decades-old consortium of research institutions that focuses more on collaboration than game-day conquests.

Colleges are on social media, regardless of whether they have figured out what it is worth to maintain an institutional presence there. A recent survey by the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth found that 98 percent of higher ed institutions are on Facebook, and 84 percent are on Twitter. Those numbers have risen dramatically in the past few years, college recruiters, fund-raisers, and marketers having bought into the value ? much of it speculative ? of keeping active in those communities.

The National Science Foundation announced on Thursday that it planned to spend $1.25-million this year on a program designed to connect 100 of its university grantees with members of the private sector to help convert academic research into marketable products.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday criticized leaders of California?s public universities for recruiting highly paid “hired guns” from across the country to run campuses instead of looking for home-grown talent that might be willing to work for lower salaries.

As the Aug. 2 deadline for increasing the federal debt limit approaches with little sign of an agreement between President Obama and Congressional Republicans, the uncertainty is growing at colleges: what happens to financial aid and federal research funds if the government defaults?

In the pharmaceutical industry, universities appear to have found a partner willing and able to buy big chunks of their research. Beyond making drugs, however, such big-dollar corporate alliances remain rare.

With public universities getting less of their funding from the states, it?s hard to argue that their priority should be state residents, according to Dr. Carlos Santiago, chief executive officer of the Hispanic College Fund.Santiago believes people don?t fault flagships such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison for aiming to become global institutions, with global impact. While serving as chancellor at UW-Milwaukee, he said he told legislators his school was a Wisconsin institution and deserved support as such.

Greg Kliebhan, senior vice president at Marquette University, will retire at the end of the month, the school announced Tuesday.

Florida State University?s review of a controversial deal with Charles G. Koch found the school “maintained its integrity” in its hiring of two faculty members funded by the conservative billionaire. FSU faced a wave of negative publicity in May after the St. Petersburg Times reported that the university made some significant concessions to secure a $1.5 million gift in 2008 from a foundation backed by Koch.

Among the greatest strengths of the American higher-education system are its openness to outsiders and its relative lack of nepotism and cronyism.

As policymakers debate options about how to deal with a likely shortfall in funding for Pell grants?the federal government?s primary vehicle for aid to low-income and working-class students?a new research paper from the University of Wisconsin suggests that scarce Pell dollars should be targeted to the neediest Pell students.

Departing University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks calls it one of his proudest achievements: The state?s flagship campus in the Twin Cities, which serves 50,000 students, has done a better job than most across the country at steering scholarships to its poorest undergraduates.

No cold feet here. Like a giddy bride about to marry her high school sweetheart, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is making last-minute preparations and ensuring all members of the wedding party are in their proper places for the walk down the aisle.

After experiencing the busiest academic years of our respective lives, we?ve decided to adjust the pitch of GlobalHigherEd, somewhat, and include a broader mix of long (for a weblog) analytical entries with shorter updates regarding important new reports, interesting visualizations, video clips, links to key stories or event-related websites, and so on. This should enable us to keep the weblog moving on a more measured pace, and also complement our active Twitter feed (which now has 2,700+ followers).

Noted: When chancellors appear to work back channels without buy-in from a system, they often undermine their own causes, says Aims C. McGuinness Jr., a senior analyst at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, a nonprofit consulting group. He equated Mr. Holubs medical-school move with recent efforts to gain autonomy by Carolyn A. Biddy Martin, the departing chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was criticized by system officials when they learned of her quiet pursuit of a plan to break away from the system.

Mission statements, despite being referenced as the philosophical essences of their respective institutions, don?t get much respect on college campuses. Often wordy and cumbersome, they don?t get the airtime or T-shirt placement enjoyed by new advertising slogans or the classic Latin motto. Experts say the ideal statement for all organizations is between 40 and 70 words, and clearly articulates the organization?s desire to satisfy the needs of various stakeholders using aspirational and superlative terms. One can easily find numerous examples of declarations that fall outside suggested parameters. The City University of New York?s Borough of Manhattan Community College has a 338-word statement. The University of Wisconsin at Madison?s mission stretches to 425 words. And the University of Texas system?s multifaceted, bulleted statement tops out at 478 words.