The world’s response to the situation in Haiti over the next few days will be critical in finding survivors, helping the injured, and providing food, water, and other supplies to a nation devastated by the disastrous earthquake which hit that country on January 12th.  We know that we will have students and faculty members deployed to Haiti as members of the Marines, Coast Guard, Navy, Army, Air Force, emergency and disaster rescue teams from states, counties, and municipalities, United Nations peacekeeping troops, and other agencies that have yet to be named in the press.  Please know that we will support you in your need to adjust your academic schedules based on your new assignment.  Thank you for serving our nation and the citizens of Haiti.  Godspeed!

For a number of years, we have printed a calendar for our students serving in the armed forces.  In previous years, the theme for the pictures was “Our Athletes Don’t Play Games” with pictures of service members provided by the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security.  This year, we altered the theme to “A University of Heroes.”  Somehow in the changing of the theme and printing format, our marketing department left out the Coast Guard.  This was an inadvertent, but unfortunate error and we are reprinting the calendar.  The Coast Guard is the only branch of the Armed Services that resides outside of the Pentagon although it reports to the U.S. Navy in times of war or at the direction of the President.  There are approximately 40,000 men and women who serve on active duty with the Coast Guard.   For a short history of the Coast Guard, please see my birthday greeting article.

Meanwhile, students, alumni, and friends who are members of the Coast Guard, please accept my apologies.  Please also accept my sincere thanks for the many efforts that you engage in daily to keep our nation’s ports and waterways safe for all.

I haven’t written for this blog in almost a month.  The reason is simple.  I have not been able to bridge the gap between thoughts and comments on primarily current events in higher education and academic research.

Several years ago, I heard about a doctorate program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education that was designed for people who were employed full-time in higher education.  The doctorate was in higher education management.  With an ongoing interest in learning (what else is lifelong learning), I engaged in a dialogue with the Board of Trustees of the American Public University System (APUS) and the Board of Directors of American Public Education, Inc. (APEI) about the merits of enrolling in this program if I were accepted.  Both of the boards were supportive of my interest.  The primary question was related to timing.  I applied and was accepted.  There were several doctoral programs around the country designed for people working full-time, but the program at UPenn was the one that I wanted to attend.

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This past Thursday, October 15th, APUS had a ground breaking ceremony at the site of its newest addition to the Charles Town, West Virginia campus.  Construction will soon begin on a four-story LEED certified building that will house our Academics and Admissions departments.  The building will sit on a site of abandoned and underutilized former industrial space including a junkyard.  The building will be approximately 45,000 square feet of office space for our expanding academic administrative staff and our admissions department and will represent a significant economic investment in the downtown Charles Town area.

One of the tangible actions to which APUS committed when I signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in September 2007 was a policy of building all new campus construction projects to LEED Silver standards.  The newest addition to the APUS Charles Town campus will meet or exceed those standards.  Environmentally friendly elements of the building will include solar panels on the roof which should provide some 30 percent of the building’s energy needs, bike racks to encourage employees to cut down on commuting by car, parking spaces for energy-efficient vehicles, highly efficient insulation and windows, a modern variable refrigerant HVAC system, and lighting controls to manage energy use, to name only a few.

As APUS has expanded its campus to house a growing staff tasked with accommodating the needs of our increasing student body, we have remained mindful of our responsibility to our Charles Town neighbors as well as our environment.  The new building will blend old and new, traditional and modern in an attempt to keep it similar in character to the historic nature of Charles Town’s other buildings, most of which were constructed in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. 

Joining me at Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremony in addition to APUS staff were various members of the local Charles Town community as well as several state representatives.  David Lloyd, Director of the EPA’s Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization, was also in attendance and expressed his approval of the planned construction and use of the brownfields site for this purpose.

Please see below for a photo gallery of images from the ground breaking event.

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Between August 10th and September 1st, I did not post a single written word to this blog.  I wasn’t boycotting it, nor was I burned out from more than 100 posts to an “experiment” suggested by our public relations staff over a year ago.  I just didn’t have the time.

My time off from the blog occurred because my wife had knee replacement surgery, and I no longer had the luxury of writing a piece or two in the evenings after the evening rush hour in our house had settled down.  I gained an appreciation for the things that my wife did for us when I had to take those over too.

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As Congress and President Obama continue to seek ways to improve the post-secondary degree attainment of our population, I suggest adding to or modifying the classifications commonly used in higher education reports, regulations, and statistics.

My first suggestion is that, in the case of most classifications, the term “for-profit” be removed as a separate distinction. This term refers to corporate structure and institutional governance, neither of which is of particular relevance in describing contemporary American higher education. Also, and unfortunately, the pejorative innuendo and labeling associated with the term are not warranted or representative of the academic quality and educational impact associated with many for-profit institutions; moreover, the term does not provide a meaningful form of differentiation between institutional types.
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