As concerns grow over labor shortages in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, the colleges ready students for jobs or more education. Educators are also looking to community colleges to fill the gap. With their high enrollments of minority and low-income students, community colleges are obvious places to recruit a diverse work…

Traditional college campuses need to capitalize more effectively on the facts that they are a physical presence within a natural environment; that their presence plays host to many people working and living together in myriad formal and informal communities; that those communities are driven by educational, philosophical, economic, and…

In late December, a set of articles and essays in "The New York Times" focused on the public library as a place, and on the changing meaning of that place with the rise of electronic books and the demise of brick-and-mortar bookstores like Borders. As librarians "struggle with the task of redefining their roles and responsibilities in a digital…

A two-year Congressionally mandated assessment of financial threats to the nation's research universities ended on Thursday with the offer of a grand bargain: Cut costs and form more partnerships with communities and industry, and expect increased revenues and fewer regulations. A report on the study, coordinated by the National Research Council…

Nearly three years ago, in a span of just nine months, the North Harris Montgomery Community College District lost a bond referendum and its chancellor. Nine months later, the Houston-area district had a new leader, a new name, and a victorious bond issue. And this May--a year after the successful bond vote--the college bought an office complex…

The service learning movement has gained new energy with the election of President Obama, who has made increasing service a central plank of his higher-education agenda. But across the board, colleges and universities struggle with service learning's twin goals of providing meaningful help to the community and academic rigor to students. The…

Western Michigan University is building an innovative program to make welcome those students who were raised in foster care and to help them earn their diplomas without having to shoplift or trespass over the holidays. Many of the students have comfortable apartments on the campus, and a hall was kept open over the holiday break for dorm residents…

Bob Greenstreet is the dean of the architecture school at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. He is the longest-serving dean of any architecture school in the country, starting in 1990, and, since 2004, he has also been the leading planner for the city of Milwaukee. Greenstreet's position is a culmination of a relationship between the city…

By just about every objective measure, the $88-million in debt that Wartburg College has carried since late 2005 poses a risk. The college's debt load--twice the amount that it takes in annually from tuition and other revenue--has raised red flags with its accreditor, alarmed some faculty members, and left Wartburg with a credit rating just one…

Colleges have lived a charmed life. According to the public-opinion studies that the authors have conducted over the past 15 years, many fields--athletics, accounting, politics--have lost the public's trust, but higher education continues to receive praise for its accomplishments, while criticisms usually fail to stick. The honeymoon may be slowly…

In this article, the author features Ben Gurion University of the Negev, which was established in 1969 in Beersheba, the south's largest city, with a self-proclaimed double mission: to educate students and to help solve the many problems that have plagued the communities that surround it. While it is clear that one university cannot solve the…

Economic news today is filled with discussion about whether the United States has entered a recession. For the author and other presidents of public colleges and universities, whether the downturn can be labeled a recession is far less important than dealing with the effects of economic conditions on institutions. During hard times, both public…

The pressures on community colleges have mounted for years; they must balance: competition from the growing for-profit-education industry, demands from lawmakers for more accountability, and the shifting needs of an increasingly complex student body. Most recently, intense financial pressure has been added to the mix as states once again face…

In this article, the author examines the "citizenship role" of community colleges, which causes them to devote time and resources to activities that have little to do with higher education: Is it a legitimate one for community colleges, or does it siphon off resources and energy that should be devoted to the primary educational mission? He draws…

This article reports that Temple University, like several other urban institutions, has revamped its core curriculum to focus on its location. The "Creative Spirit" course, which fills the university's arts requirement, is one of about 30 courses in Temple's new core curriculum that are taking students off the campus and into the heart…