Blogs

For the last two days UD has been in Washington DC, at a high-level gathering of federal government, Gates Foundation, and university people, all of whom convened to talk about how to use online technology to improve education for American students, from elementary to graduate school.

I’ve been a fan of Kevin Carey’s for some time. He gets a lot right, and even when he’s off, he’s interesting. This week he's true to form.

I'm a huge fan of what Drexel University Online has done in online learning. A recent example of Drexel’s leadership role in the development of online learning is its Gateway to Online Learning Scholarship, a program designed to allow an initial group of RN's to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN).

A colleague of mine from another college came back from a work/life balance seminar where the speaker focused on four different quadrants in which to divide work. Urgent, Important; Urgent, Unimportant; Not Urgent, Not Important; Not Urgent; Important. The speaker argued that too many people focus only on the first two areas, rightfully ignore the third, but also skip out on the fourth which may be the most important area to focus on. In actuality, my colleague was mocking the talk as yet another waste of his time. For me, though, I was hungry for any new (to me, at least) outlook. As the Chair of a large academic department at a small liberal arts college, an Associate Professor, and the mother of three young children (8, 6, and 4) juggling and prioritizing are a daily part of my life.

One of the reasons I like President Obama is that he’s clearly a Dad. I don’t just mean that he has children; I mean that he’s obviously an involved parent. (If you haven’t seen the video of the two-year-old at the Medal of Honor ceremony, check it out. Obama responded as a seasoned parent would.)

Valentine’s Day is finally here, although the decorations and candy have been on shelves for the past month. Last year for this heart shaped holiday we gave some advice on how to negotiate the dating scene. We gave some advice on potential ways to meet people and some advice on how to make time for it. In this post we want to talk about negotiating the relationship in grad school. This year we want to focus on celebrating all of your relationships: family, friends, co-workers and significant others! Beyond thinking about academic (and non!) crushes, how do you see yourself in your existing multiple relationships both within and outside of academia?

Does your student affairs / higher education graduate program have a technology class? Have you ever hoped for a student affairs technology book? Maybe it's time to look at something outside of our usual wheelhouse. What am I talking about? Well, last October, I tweeted out a question about whether or not we should look at creating a Student Affairs Technology MOOC.

This January, my University hosted a group of Monash University students from Malaysia on nine-day, non-credit study tour. Eighteen months of logistical preparation, including securing permission from University authorities, preparing University facilities and recruiting student guides, preceded this visit. While we are not strangers to international exchanges, this marks the first time we are doing institutional hosting of this scale.