Opinion

It's easy for academics to scoff at the entrepreneur who tells students they don't need college degrees, but he's raising important issues (even if he isn't offering the right solutions), writes Ryan McIlhenny.

Not a week goes by that I don’t hear about (or from) some Federal initiative asking community colleges to solve this social problem or that one, generally by being innovative and forward-looking. And I’m actually sympathetic to many of the calls.

It's been several months now since I cleaned all the tech blogs out of my RSS reader, a process that I talked about here. Needless to say, I haven't added them back. I'm experimenting with Prismatic, a social news discovery app instead.

I’m preparing to speak at the GMAC Annual Conference next week and thought I’d preview one of the topics here, to get your reaction.

The Good News: Audible.com has finally started to roll out some social features designed to crowdsource audiobook buying recommendations by connecting subscribers with reviewers (and reviews) that may be of interest. The Bad News: I only have 2 followers.

It's summer, so I thought it would be a good idea not just to add to my CV, but completely reimagine it.

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) is widely regarded as one of our most important research instruments. The data that is collected from 584 colleges and universities is used to improve and enhance the experience of undergraduate students. Almost every Student Affairs practitioner has heard of the NSSE. Student engagement is a core concern for higher education. And the NSSE, well, it's an institution in and of itself.

Yesterday’s post was about the contradictory pressures facing many colleges. Today I was confronted with another dilemma. Colleges are being pushed to increase “service learning” and “civic engagement” initiatives at the exact same time that they’re being pressured to move online.