In the last few years, American Public University System (APUS) has begun a unique initiative of hosting online, live-streamed debates. In those contests, faculty members spar on important and controversial issues, including technology threats, domestic and foreign policy issues, and human rights concerns.
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Learning Innovation and the Future of Higher Education
Just before traditional campuses sent all of their faculty and students home and transitioned courses to some form of online instruction for the rest of the spring semester, I finished reading Joshua Kim’s and Edward Maloney’s new book, Learning Innovation and the Future of Higher Education. The authors teach and work at traditional universities (Dartmouth and Georgetown) and wrote the book to discuss ways that colleges and universities can better align teaching practices with the science of learning, given the rising cost of education for students and the financial pressures on colleges. Given the acceleration of financial pressures on colleges and their temporary migration to online courses, I have a feeling that the authors have been too busy for a road show to promote their book.
Life in the Office Will Change – Are You Ready to Return?
In a recently published article, Wall Street Journal reporters Dana Mattioli and Konrad Putzier ask the question, “When It’s Time to Go Back to the Office, Will It Still Be There?” Mattioli and Putzier state that because of the coronavirus pandemic, there will likely be fewer offices in the center of big cities. Companies will build hybrid schedules that will allow workers to stay home part of the week to free up space for social distancing, and smaller satellite offices will pop up in less-expensive suburbs as the workforce becomes less centralized.
Remembering the Simpler Times and Other Life Stories
A major weather front passed through our area the other night, bringing lots of rain, thunder, and lightning. I don’t consider myself a light sleeper, but whenever the rain falls hard or the thunder roars resoundingly close, I wake up. The storm didn’t end until late in the morning.
Commencement Weekend 2020: Reflecting on the ‘Favorite Weekend of the Year’ at Our University
As many of you know, American Public University System (APUS) has always operated online through American Military University and American Public University. Our first class of 22 graduate students started in January 1993 and since then, we’ve grown to 82,000+ students with nearly 100,000 alumni.
How Should We Measure Financial Solvency for Colleges and Universities?
Inside Higher Ed’s Rick Seltzer writes about two initiatives related to measuring institutional financial health. Mr. Seltzer reports that the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA) voted to continue to use the federal financial composite scores as the primary factor for evaluating whether or not institutions are eligible to be members.
Coronavirus: Its Impact on the Higher Education Experience
The month of March was not a good month for higher education. With the national, state, and local social distancing recommendations, college leaders recognized that college campuses had to be closed. Within two weeks, almost all of our colleges and universities transitioned to online classes with students attending classes remotely from home, their off-campus apartments, or in a few cases, from their dormitories.
Interoperability, Not Third-Party Assessors, Is the Answer: A Response to Creating Seamless Credit Transfer
It’s always a joy and a challenge for me to read the work of Michael Horn and Richard Price coming out of the Christensen Institute. I revel in the creativity of ideas, the diversity of examples and the parallels they make to other industries and times in higher education. And it’s a challenge in the climb-a-mountain-for-a-better-view variety. The document "Creating Seamless Credit Transfer: A parallel higher ed system to support America through and beyond the recession" did not disappoint in the ideals I hold for these scholars’ thinking.
A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond
College bookstores can be a great source for books that haven’t yet made their way into the popular distribution. On my last trip before the shelter-in-place orders were issued, I visited the University of Pennsylvania’s bookstore and saw copies of Daniel Susskind’s latest book, “A World Without Work.”