This article first appeared in Academic Leader on January 1, 2018 © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. A recent article, “Higher Education’s Data Experts Face a Crossroads,” in the Chronicle of Higher Education examines the changing profile of institutional researchers. Akin to the characters…
By: Lolita Paff, PhD
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on August 25, 2017 © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. Faculty and students are not on the same page about what makes a course rigorous. Draeger, del Prado Hill, and Mahler (2015) find that “faculty…
By: Dennis Pierce
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on June 15, 2019. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. To help students understand how global “grand challenges” cut across multiple fields, a growing number of colleges and universities are creating courses, faculty clusters, and…
As an online administrator, I can tell you that it feels like we have been talking about ways to improve faculty buy-in for online education for the past 10 to 15 years. And we have. While online courses and degree…
At my institution, academic administrators on a 12-month contract can receive up to a full semester of paid leave to complete scholarship in their fields. Unlike a traditional sabbatical, which is taken for a full semester, flexible sabbatical weeks are taken in clusters throughout the academic year. In this way, academic departments are minimally impacted and administrators can enjoy the benefit of well-deserved leave time.
I began my flexible sabbatical just after graduation and completed it a year later. During that time, I was able to accomplish my scholarship goals and experience the rejuvenation for which sabbaticals are known. In reflecting on my experience, I recommend the following steps to anyone interested in pursuing this type of leave:
By: Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti, MS
How do we know if a student has learned enough to attain a degree or credential? Likely, the answer is currently phrased in the form of credit hours: 64 semester hours to earn an associate’s degree, 128 semester hours to earn a bachelor’s degree, and so on. But the credit hour, the most widely used currency of determining work put in toward a degree, was never intended to measure student learning at all.
By: Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti, MS
Much focus is currently turned on the metrics that measure the effectiveness of higher education. Selectiveness of admissions is certainly one such metric, but universities are also being judged on employability. However, it is not just the first job that matters; how employable graduates are long after they don cap and gown is also a critical measure of the effectiveness of an education, and institutions need to turn their focus to the lifelong relationship they will have with their graduates.
By: Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti, MS
A while back, an image went viral of a group of school children sitting engrossed in front of Rembrandt’s famous painting, “The Night Watch,” in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Only, seemingly instead of drinking in the influence of the old master, their heads were bent over their cell phones, opting for the small screen over the large canvas.
By: Russ Olwell, PhD, Lynn Malinoff, EdD, and Debra Kellen, PhD
The last few years have brought an explosion of interest in the role of non-cognitive factors in education, those behaviors outside of course content that make a real difference in student success. Educational researchers have begun to examine the ways in which colleges and universities can encourage students to develop the attitudes, habits of mind, and behaviors that enhance their classroom performance and raise their grades, and ultimately result in higher student retention and graduation rates.
By: Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti, MS
Ask any potential student or their parents about their top concerns when choosing a college, and “employability” will likely be on the list. A host of societal factors have combined to make this true: First, the Great Recession of 2008 made families much more concerned about the cost/benefit rationale for higher education, with the hope that the increasingly expensive investment will pay off in greater lifetime earnings. Second, businesses increasingly work with colleges and universities to provide much-needed input on the real-world skills graduates need to demonstrate, while also providing subtle (or not-so-subtle) pressure on institutions to train graduates to be ready to work from day one. Finally, governmental oversight and regulations such as the “gainful employment” rules have turned the spotlight on how effectively institutions are preparing their graduates to find jobs.