Confessions of a Community College Dean

Wouldn’t it be great if we had some sort of dedicated room with plenty of up to date technology, where faculty could go to learn how to use some of the latest tech in their courses?

There’s nothing quite like taking the kids to the hotel breakfast only to see on the tv that the major city just north of you has gone on lockdown.

It’s school break week for K-12, so we’re off to see Plymouth Rock. I’m told there isn’t much of it to see at this point, but history is history.

Last week’s article on Thinking Like an Administrator reminded me of my favorite metaphor to describe the difference between faculty life and administrative life: faculty are sprinters, and administrators are distance runners.

A savvy professor caught me in the hallway to discuss a presentation we had both seen on social media and its potential for local businesses. She had a great question that really threw me: what if colleges actually used social media well?

At this writing, I’m still reeling from the news of the Boston Marathon explosions. Rumors are flying, and nobody yet knows who did it or why. I hope that by the time people read this, we’ll know.

A single college struggling could be a sign of management failure. Entire sectors of colleges struggling suggests something deeper.

For a brief spell in the 80’s and 90’s, higher education was consumed by the canon wars. For those too young to remember, the canon wars were some earnest and intense battles among people who couldn’t agree on which authors needed to be taught for students to be considered properly educated. Allan Bloom usually gets credit (or blame) for picking the fight, but the battle was joined quickly on many sides.