Through the activities of the House and Senate Conferees on Tuesday of this week, language that would require distance education universities to implement monitoring systems that may jeopardize the privacy of their students was removed.  The Conference Report states:

“The Conferees adopt the provision as proposed by both the Senate and the House.  The Conferees expect institutions that offer distance education to have security mechanisms in place, such as identification numbers or other pass code information required to be used each time the student participates in class time or coursework on-line.  As new identification technologies are developed and become more sophisticated, less expensive and more mainstream, the Conferees anticipate that accrediting agencies or associations and institutions will consider their use in the future.  The Conferees do not intend that institutions use or rely on any technology that interferes with the privacy of the student and expect that students’ privacy will be protected with whichever method the institutions choose to utilize.”

Please see my post titled, “New Language in Higher Education Act Legislation” for more information on the Higher Education Act.

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s July 25th issue references language in the HEA reauthorization bill that “could lead distance-education institutions to require spy cameras in their students’ homes.”  The article profiles a few technologies that institutions are piloting to confirm that the student taking the exam/quiz is the individual who registered for the course.  Some of these technologies can invade the individuals’ privacy, even collecting fingerprints.

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Michael Rabjohns sent me a note informing me of an article in the July Harvard Business Review written by Anita Elberse.  Elberse is an associate professor of business administration in the marketing department at Harvard Business School.  Her article leads off with a portrayal of Grand Central Publishing, a company that lists 275-300 books each year in its catalog and identifies two (my emphasis) for which it will pull out all the stops in marketing.  Grand Central pursues a blockbuster strategy for which Elberse gives credit to economists Robert Frank and Phillip Cook (an economist at my alma mater, Duke University) for endorsing in their 1995 book, The Winner-Take-All Society. 

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Randy Pausch, Computer Science Professor at Carnegie Mellon and author of The Last Lecture, died of complications from pancreatic cancer at the age of 47.  I didn’t know Randy, but like many, I was inspired by his story.  If you would like to listen to his last lecture, it’s available on YouTube.  If you want to read his book, it’s available at Amazon.com or other bookstores.  My blog review is at http://wallyboston.com/2008/07/09/the-last-lecture/.

Randy expressed no regrets professionally for his terminal diagnosis at such an early age.  He said that he had accomplished everything that he set out to accomplish other than playing professional football in the NFL.  His only personal regret was that he would miss growing old with his wife and children and he did the book and lecture for them.  Randy, you were right; there are thousands of people like you.  We just need more of them to stand up, like you did.  My life is richer for hearing your story.  It’s my understanding that on Tuesday night (7/29) Diane Sawyer will do a story on ABC’s Primetime celebrating your life.  I’ll be sure to tune in.

Bob Zemsky, co-author of Remaking the American University: Market-Smart and Mission-Centered led a session for Presidents and Trustees of colleges and universities at the 2007 Higher Learning Commission annual meeting in Chicago.  At the time, he was a member and participant on the Spellings Commission and he provided the audience with an update on the Commission’s findings from his perspective.  I was pleasantly surprised when he did not take the side of many in Higher Education who prefer that the government and corporations leave the accountability issue alone.

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Paul Jansen and Debby Bielak, consultants at McKinsey & Company, published an article in the June 2008 Business Officer publication of NACUBO which summarizes the five key trends in higher education.  In conducting their research, McKinsey engaged with institutions affiliated with the Forum for the Future of Higher Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  The authors maintain that the five trends have the potential to be disrupters that could affect the status quo at many institutions.  The trends are:  1) growth of digital and other non-traditional students, 2) price-productivity squeeze, 3) new paradigm competitors, 4) globalization, and 5) answering to accountability.

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