The Key with Inside Higher Ed: Recent Episodes
insidehighered
Hear candid conversations with higher-ed newsmakers on how colleges and universities are coping with the pandemic and recession -- with a special focus on equity and lower-income students. Hosted by Inside Higher Ed. Inside Higher Ed is the leading source for the latest news, analysis, and services for the entire US higher education community.
Venu Govindaraju is the senior vice president for research, innovation and economic development and a distinguished professor at the University at Buffalo. He's spent more than 30 years working in AI, building systems with real social impact — and he's also a poet, with a simple way of describing why the humanities still matter: AI finds the patterns. The humanities find the meaning behind them.
Inside Higher Ed editor in chief Sara Custer talks with him about the place of universities in the age of AI, why scientists should fail on purpose and how New York's Empire AI consortium model could help counterbalance big tech's grip on AI development. Stay tuned until the end of the episode when Venu reads a poem from his new collection or poetry Discovery of Self.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Terah Crews, chief executive officer of ReUp Education, joins IHE’s student success reporter, Joshua Bay.
While many students stop out before earning a credential, often they plan to return. Yet reenrolling can prove just as challenging as enrolling in the first place. As colleges look to reenroll adults with some college but no credential, they are rethinking how they support students whose educational journeys aren’t linear. They discuss why students stop out, what motivates them to return, the barriers colleges still place in their way and what it will take to build institutions that truly serve today’s adult learners.
This episode features an Inside Higher Ed newsroom discussion about a five-part series on registered apprenticeships. Underwritten by Ascendium, the six-month project saw the team battling hailstorms in Missouri, visiting factories in upstate New York and embedding themselves with learners on the job in South Carolina. What emerged is a clear picture of the American apprenticeship, distinct from decades-old European models, and how higher ed institutions can play a greater role in these pathways to careers.
Editor in chief Sara Custer is joined by Colleen Flaherty, senior editor for special content, senior report Sara Weissman, digital producer Justin Morrison, and Johanna Alonso IHE’s reporter for admissions and enrollment.
Read the full series:
Why and how higher education is leaning into apprenticeships
How apprenticeships and apprentices themselves are changing
A photo essay showing what apprenticeships really look like
Where apprenticeships are benefiting rural learners and their communities
What’s needed to scale apprenticeships?
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Sara Weissman, senior reporter at IHE, joins student success reporter, Joshua Bay.
For generations, colleges were largely designed around the idea of an 18-year-old who enrolled straight out of high school, attended full time and followed a relatively linear path to graduation. But today’s students increasingly look different. In this episode, they explore who today’s college students really are, how higher education demographics have changed and why institutions are being challenged to rethink the traditional student model.
IHE editor in chief Sara Custer speaks with Devin Duncan, the student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an incoming junior. Duncan is passionate about making higher ed a better place for the next generation of students and wants to see colleges do more to support students’ complex needs. In this episode, he shares his thoughts about free speech on campus, tenure, what it’s like to be a Black student at a university that has ended all DEI programing and how he thinks higher ed can regain the public’s trust.
As we approach the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, an old historical narrative of American exceptionalism is taking hold. Meanwhile, evidence-based historical research is disappearing. The federal government has shuttered museum exhibits, politicized federal funding and removed any monuments seen to disparage Americans past or present.
In this episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed's editor in chief Sara Custer speaks with Sarah Weicksel, the executive director of the American Historical Association, about the organization’s efforts to double down on research integrity and its new approach to advocacy. She also explains how material objects can help reveal hidden stories and gives some advice on how to think about our shared history during politically divided times.
An update on the higher ed headlines from Inside Higher Ed's newsroom.
Inside Higher Ed’s editor in chief Sara Custer and news editor Katherine Knott discuss the latest higher ed headlines: the proposals to change accreditation, the latest from the Office for Civil Rights, the GOP’s plan to plug the hole in Pell grant funding and how the administration is redirecting grants that support low-income students.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Zoe Ragouzeos, vice president for student mental health and wellbeing at New York University, joins IHE’s student success reporter, Joshua Bay.
As institutions face growing demand for mental health support, rising rates of loneliness and new questions about where students are turning for help, many campus leaders are being forced to rethink what student success actually requires. They explore where institutional responsibility begins and ends, how campuses can move beyond reactive approaches to mental health and what it would take to build environments where students don’t just persist—but truly thrive.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Alison Lee, chief research and development officer of The Rithm Project, joins IHE’s student success reporter, Joshua Bay.
As colleges struggle to meet growing mental health needs, they explore how more young people are opening up to chatbots and conversational AI tools for comfort, advice and connection. They also examine where AI may genuinely help students, where the ethical and emotional risks emerge, and what institutions may still not fully understand about why students are turning to these tools in the first place.
Policy makers and higher ed institutions have worked to provide better opportunities and resources for underserved communities, but access to affordable education and supports for rural students remains challenging. Meanwhile, threats to federal funding for TRIO programs could make it even harder for rural students to get into college and when they get on campus, few institutions understand their specific needs.
Mara Tieken, a professor of education at Bates College whose research centers on racial and educational equity in rural schools and communities, speaks with Inside Higher Ed’s editor in chief Sara Custer about the rural students she followed into an elite institution for her most recent book, how their challenges represent the experiences of many rural students in the country and what support for rural students on campus looks like.
Thanks to the University of Georgia for sponsoring this episode.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Carson Domey, a fourth-year student at the University of Texas at Austin, and Adaora Lee, a graduate student at Meharry Medical College, joins IHE’s student success reporter, Joshua Bay.
They discuss student loneliness and what social isolation looks like in a post-pandemic, always-online world. From fewer close friendships and more device-mediated relationships, to the role platforms like Instagram and TikTok play in shaping how students understand their mental health, they explore how connection is changing on campus. They also look at how experiences differ for commuter and online students, how campus design and housing shape opportunities for connection, and what’s actually working when it comes to addressing student isolation.
In this episode of The Key, we’re digging into the minds of college presidents and how they’re dealing with the chaos of the current moment. Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed’s special content editor joins editor in chief Sara Custer to share some key findings from IHE’s 2026 survey of college and university presidents on what leaders see are the immediate and long-term risks to their institutions and how they’re managing to handle the mounting pressure on the college presidency.
Later, Marjorie Hass, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, explains why discussions about mergers and acquisitions are more common among private, non-profit institutions.
Thanks to Baylor University for sponsoring this episode. Join our conversation on human flourishing on May 4th in a webcast brought to you in partnership with Baylor University.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Dr. Katie Hurley, vice president of community initiatives at The Jed Foundation (JED), joins IHE's student success reporter Joshua Bay.
They discuss the state of student mental health on college campuses, including what's driving increased demand for support, how counseling centers are adapting under strain and why student experiences vary so widely across different contexts and identities. The conversation also examines where institutions are still falling short—and what a more comprehensive approach to campus mental health could look like.
Thank you to our partners at Strada for sponsoring this episode.
Sara Custer, editor in chief at Inside Higher Ed, speaks with Andrew Delbanco, the Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University and the president of the Teagle Foundation, about how humanities-based general education courses can provide short and long-term benefits to students – from ethical questions on the job to deeper self-reflection throughout life. He also argues that a core education is one of the rare ideas that could find advocates across the political spectrum.
Thank you to our partners at Strada for sponsoring this episode.
In this episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, IHE’s student success reporter Joshua Bay joins editor in chief Sara Custer. They discuss the trends in student success that have caught Joshua’s eye including libraries and AI literacy, workforce readiness and tackling loneliness. He shares case studies from programs that are making a difference for students in and outside of the classroom. He also gives a sneak peak of his new project.
Thanks to our partners at Strada for sponsoring this episode.
Inside Higher Ed’s editor in chief Sara Custer is in the studio with news editor Katherine Knott and federal policy reporter Jessica Blake to hear the latest about movements on The Hill and in the White House affecting higher ed.
On the agenda: the interagency agreements between the Department of Education and agencies across the federal government are the latest efforts by officials to close the department. Meanwhile, the department’s plans to allow some graduate programs access to higher federal loan caps over others attracted more than 80,000 public comments. And accreditation is back in the news with an eventful NACIQI meeting and the run up to negotiated rulemaking.
Sonya Christian is chancellor of California Community Colleges, the largest higher ed system in the country with 116 institutions and 2.2 million students. The sheer size of the system makes every initiative an exercise in scale. In this episode of The Key, Sonya speaks with Inside Higher Ed’s editor in chief Sara Custer about the governor’s proposed $15 billion investment in the system as well as her team’s efforts to use AI to create a credit for prior learning framework for all 116 colleges and why she thinks the institutions in her system should be creating more four-year degrees.
Last month the Congressional Budget Office projected an $11.5 billion shortfall in Pell funding by fiscal year 2027. The program provides need-based federal financial aid for more than 30 percent of American college students. Part of the funding problem is that Congress made getting aid easier without appropriating more money to cover the increase in students gaining access.
Finding a solution requires out of the box thinking that creates sustainable funding without limiting opportunity for first-generation students, according to this week’s guest, Kristin Hultquist, the founder and CEO of HCM strategies and an expert in higher education policy and strategy development. In this episode of The Key, Hultquist speaks with Inside Higher Ed’s editor in chief Sara Custer about what a long-term funding strategy for a modern Pell Grant program could look like.
Thank you to our partners at the Gates Foundation for sponsoring this episode.
Robert Zemsky is a pioneer in market analysis of higher education and served as the founding director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Research on Higher Education, one of the country's leading public policy centers specializing in educational research and analysis. In this episode of The Key, Zemsky speaks with Inside Higher Ed's editor in chief Sara Custer about his biggest project yet: championing three-year bachelor's degrees in the U.S.
He argues that higher education is seeing "product rejection" from students and that three-year degrees are the solution. But Bob is careful not to be proscriptive about how colleges develop shorter programs. His message to educators is: try it, you might like it.
News editor Katherine Knott joins editor in chief Sara Custer for an IHE newsroom updated on federal policy. Katherine shares what she expects will be on the agenda in the negotiated rule making for accreditation and how the department will run the process. At the time of recording the government was shut down, but Katherine explains how the budget bill awaiting passage in the House is far more generous to higher ed than the White House’s proposals. And rumors are swirling that the administration will unveil a second compact soon.
Thanks to our partners The Gates Foundation for sponsoring this episode.
Best-selling author, Inside Higher Ed columnist and educator John Warner joins IHE’s editor in chief Sara Custer to discuss how institutions can continue to help students learn and grow when AI threatens to do everything for them.
Read John’s IHE column “Just Visiting”
Check out John’s latest book More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
Collecting and analyzing student data and then acting on any findings to support student success is a struggle for many institutions. Often data is in the wrong format, inaccessible to the right teams or there are so many analytics colleges don’t know where to start. Many administrators also lack the data literacy needed to make accurate, data-informed decisions.
In this episode, we’re sharing a discussion Inside Higher Ed Editor in Chief Sara Custer had with higher ed leaders at IHE’s Student Success 2025 event. Courtney Brown, vice-president of strategic impact and planning at the Lumina Foundation, Elliot Felix, the higher education advisory practice lead at Buro Happold and Mark Milliron the president of National University bring unique experiences and perspectives to the question of how institutions can be data-driven and student centered.
This episode is sponsored by the Gates Foundation.
In the final Key episode of 2025, IHE’s news editor Katherine Knott and federal policy reporter Jessica Blake join editor in chief Sara Custer to discuss the three stories that encapsulate the year in state and federal policy.
In her final episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed reporter Ashley Mowreader walks through some of the latest trends in student success in higher education including generative artificial intelligence tools, mental health resources for students, affordability in higher education and internship requirements for students.
Later, hear from Joshua Bay, Inside Higher Ed’s new Student Success reporter, who started Dec. 4.
This episode is sponsored by TimelyCare.
This series of Voices of Student Success focuses on the use of generative artificial intelligence in higher education and how technology can support student success goals.
Central New Mexico Community College is deploying a new AI-powered predictive analytics tool, CampusLens, part of CampusWorks, to improve data visibility in student retention, early alerts and career outcomes.
In the latest episode of Voices of Student Success, Tracy Hartzler, president of Central New Mexico Community College, discusses the risks with taking on new tools, the college’s approach to change management and the need for more responsive data.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success reporter Ashley Mowreader, this episode is sponsored by TimelyCare.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
This series of Voices of Student Success focuses on the use of generative artificial intelligence in higher education and how technology can support student success goals.
Since 2022, there’s been a surge in the number and types of applications using generative AI, but not all tools are the same. So how can faculty, staff and students learn to identify the differences and determine when it’s appropriate to leverage these tools?
Colby College developed a platform, called Mule Chat, that allows users to explore several large language models, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and LLaMA. The platform provides a safe “on ramp” into GenAI usage and relies on student tutors to disseminate information to their peers.
In the latest episode of Voices of Student Success, David Watts, the Director of Colby College's Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and Michael Yankoski, Davis AI research and teaching scientist, discuss the college’s AI institute and how Mule Chat works.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success reporter Ashley Mowreader, this episode is sponsored by TimelyCare.
Read a transcript.
In this episode, Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed’s news editor, is back to help us unpack the latest higher ed news out of Washington. She speaks with editor in chief Sara Custer about the Trump administration’s higher ed compact—who’s said no, who’s said yes please and who’s artfully dodging the question. We’ll give you the latest on the current round of negotiated rule making. Plus: the TRIO funding cuts affecting 40,000 students, UVA’s zero-dollar settlement that still cost them their president and looking for signs of life at the Department of Education.
Track how institutions have responded to the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education
"Reading Between the Lines on Compact Responses", Inside Higher Ed, Oct. 24, 2025
This series of Voices of Student Success focuses on the use of generative artificial intelligence in higher education and how technology can support student success goals.
A 2025 Inside Higher Ed survey of college provosts found that nearly 30 percent of respondents have reviewed curriculum to ensure that it will prepare students for AI in the workplace, and an additional 63 percent say they have plans to review curriculum for this purpose.
Touro University in New York was an early adopter of AI-powered tools for experiential learning, encouraging faculty to integrate AI simulations into academic programs to advance students’ career success.
In the latest episode of Voices of Student Success, Shlomo Argamon, associate provost for artificial intelligence at Touro, discusses the university policy for AI in the classroom, the need for faculty and staff development around AI and the risks of gamification of education.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success reporter Ashley Mowreader, this episode is sponsored by TimelyCare.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
Public scholarship is about more than just getting published. It’s about joining the public conversation at a time when expertise matters more than ever.
In this episode of The Key, Philip Gray, Op-Ed Editor at The Los Angeles Times, and Susan D'Agostino, mathematician-turned-writer and columnist behind The Public Scholar at Inside Higher Ed join IHE’s editor in chief Sara Custer to pull back the current on what editors really want in submissions, what scholars get wrong and how to turn your expertise into compelling public writing.
Read Susan's conversation with Phillip in The Public Scholar.
This series of Voices of Student Success focuses on the use of generative artificial intelligence in higher education and how technology can support student success goals.
While AI tools have proliferated in education and workplace settings, not all tools are free or accessible to students and staff, which can create equity gaps regarding who is able to participate and learn new skills. To address this gap, San Diego State University leaders created an equitable AI alliance in partnership with the University of California San Diego and the San Diego Community College District. Together, the institutions work to address affordability and accessibility concerns for AI solutions, as well as share best practices, resources and expertise.
In the latest episode of Voices of Student Success, James Frazee, San Diego State University’s chief information officer, discusses the alliance and SDSU’s approach to teaching AI skills to students.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success reporter Ashley Mowreader, this episode is sponsored by TimelyCare.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
In this episode of The Key, we're diving deep into what’s happening on Capitol Hill and inside the White House—and how it’s all affecting higher ed.
Joining Sara Custer, IHE's editor in chief, is news editor Katherine Knott to unpack everything: the funding cuts hitting Minority Serving Institutions, restrictive policies upending life for international students and scholars, the latest twists in negotiated rule making around student borrowing, and yes—that Compact for Excellence in Higher Education everyone's talking about.
Thank you to the Gates Foundation for sponsoring this episode.
This series of Voices of Student Success focuses on the use of generative artificial intelligence in higher education and how technology can support student success goals.
Upward transfer is viewed as a mechanism to provide college students with an accessible and affordable onramp to higher education through two-year colleges, but breakdowns in the credit transfer process can hinder progress toward a student’s degree.
A recent survey by Sova and the Beyond Transfer Policy Advisory Board found the average college student loses credits transferring between institutions and has to repeat courses they’ve already completed. Some students stop out of higher education altogether because transfer is too challenging.
CourseWise is a new tool that seeks to mitigate some of these challenges by deploying AI to identify and predict transfer equivalencies using existing articulation agreements between institutions. So far, the tool has been adopted at over 120 colleges and universities, helping to provide a centralized database for credit transfer processes and automate course matching.
In the most recent episode of Voices of Student Success, Joshua Pardos, an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, discusses how CourseWise works, the human elements of credit transfer and the need for reliable data in transfer.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success reporter Ashley Mowreader, this episode is sponsored by Strada Education Foundation.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
Beverly Daniel Tatum—two-time college president, New York Times bestselling author, and one of the country’s most influential voices on race and education – joins Inside Higher Ed’s editor in chief Sara Custer to discuss her latest book, College Leadership in Turbulent Times: Peril and Promise.
Tatum shares lessons from her own leadership journey serving as president at Spelman College and serving as interim president at Mount Holyoke and dives into some of the biggest issues facing colleges today, from diversity equity and inclusion to politics and finances.
Thanks to the Gates Foundation for sponsoring this episode.
This series of Voices of Student Success focuses on uses of generative artificial intelligence in higher education and how technology can support student success goals.
As generative AI tools become more common, a growing number of young people turn first to chatbots when they have questions. A survey by the Associated Press found that among AI users, 70 percent of young Americans use the tools to search for information.
For colleges and universities, this presents a new opportunity to reach students with curated, institution-specific resources via chatbots.
In the most recent episode of Voices of Student Success, Jeanette Powers, executive director of the student hub at Western New England University, discusses the university’s chatbot, Spirit, powered by EdSights, and how the technology helps staff intervene when students are in distress.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success reporter Ashley Mowreader, this episode is sponsored by Strada Education Foundation.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
For more than 20 years, StoryCorps has been documenting conversations between Americans and broadcasting them on public radio. In 2017, StoryCorps launched One Small Step, a new project that pairs strangers on opposing sides of the political divide for one-on-one conversations. The organization is now bringing its initiative to college campuses.
Dave Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, speaks with Sara Custer, Inside Higher Ed’s editor in chief, about the power of conversation and how seeing the common humanity in everyone can help foster understanding and belonging among students.
Thanks to our partners The Gates Foundation for sponsoring this episode.
This series of Voices of Student Success focuses on adult learners in higher education, the various challenges they face as well as the successful support mechanisms employed to aid their retention and completion.
Approximately 65 percent of the 1.2 million active duty service members of the U.S. Armed Forces have less than an associate degree-level of education, according to 2023 data; many of them hold some college credits but no degree. Federal aid programs make it accessible for military-affiliated students to enroll in college and earn a degree, but not every student is aware of academic interventions that can help them complete a credential sooner, including credit for prior learning.
In the most recent episode of Voices of Student Success, three experts from the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education—senior fellows Matt Bergman and Dallas Kratzer, and Tracy Teater, associate director of adult learner attainment—discuss the state’s adult education attainment goals, challenges in CPL rollout and other models of success across the country.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader, this episode is sponsored by Strada Education Foundation.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
In this episode of The Key, Jenny Billings, the program chair of Associate in Arts and division chair of English and study skills at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College in North Carolina tells IHE editor in chief Sara Custer about going through the stages of AI grief –from freaking out, to begrudging acceptance, to working with colleagues to figure out how to respond to eventually creating an institution-wide framework that teaches students how to use AI to enhance their learning.
She’s seen improvements in retention and confidence among students in the developmental English program at Rowan-Cabarrus after they started using AI and the new model of telling all students how they can use approved AI tools has helped them have more open conversations with their professors.
One of those AI tools is Grammarly and also joining us today is Jenny Maxwell, the head of higher education at Grammarly. She tells us how they’re developing tools that flip AI detection products on their heads and encourage students to engage more with their writing before they turn it in.
This series of Voices of Student Success focuses on adult learners in higher education, the various challenges they face as well as the successful support mechanisms employed to aid their retention and completion.
Continuing education programs are one way for colleges and universities to provide targeted offerings and credentialing opportunities for alumni, adults in the region lacking postsecondary education and the local workforce. They also provide flexible support offerings, recognizing the competing identities and responsibilities adult learners hold.
The School of Continuing and Professional Studies (CAPS) at Washington University in St. Louis houses certificate programs, undergraduate and graduate degrees, prison education initiatives and lifelong learning courses for adults in retirement.
In the most recent episode of Voices of Student Success, Sean Armstrong, dean of the school of continuing and professional education, talks about the program’s goals and ways the school uplifts adult learners of all types.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader, this episode is sponsored by Grammarly.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
The ongoing uncertainty in the economy, the government demanding enormous sums from Ivy League institutions, research funding freezes and changes to the endowment tax mean that everyone has their mind on higher ed’s money and higher ed’s money on their mind.
Kara Freeman, president and CEO of the National Association of College and University Business Officers joins Inside Higher Ed's editor in chief Sara Custer to share how NACUBO members are adapting their budgeting practices to respond to heightened unpredictability. Kara also explains how some colleges are diversifying revenue streams to meet the moment and discusses what she’s most concerned about when she looks at the federal policy landscape.
Later in the episode, Dee Goines, the higher education lead at KI, joins Sara to discuss a new study that surveys the strategic and master plans of institutions in Texas, Arizona, New York and Florida.
Thanks to KI for sponsoring this episode.
This series of Voices of Student Success focuses on adult learners in higher education, the various challenges they face and successful support mechanisms to aid their retention and completion.
Credit for prior learning (CPL) is one strategy colleges and states can employ to expedite adult learners’ progress toward degree and promote student success. Past research also shows that students’ who take advantage of f CPL opportunities have higher employment rates and increased earnings after graduation.
But administering CPL can be a challenge in part because of different departmental and academic disciplines’ understandings of and evaluation of prior experience.
In the most recent episode of Voices of Student Success, Colleen Sorensen, Utah Valley University’s director of CPL and student assessment services, discusses how her university is encouraging faculty and department heads to offer and promote CPL pathways.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader, this episode is sponsored by KI.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
In this episode, we’re bringing you a conversation between Inside Higher Ed’s senior editor for special content Colleen Flaherty and Stephanie Moore, an associate professor in organization, information and learning sciences, at the University of New Mexico, from the Digital Universities event in Salt Lake City earlier this year. A leading researcher in online learning, Moore addresses what she sees is a false binary between in-person learning and online learning, arguing that more modalities meets more diverse student needs and keeps colleges nimble.
She also talks about where belonging fits into to online learning and what strategies educators can use to promote it.
And drawing on Seneca and Quintilian she tells Flaherty why she thinks AI will be no more disruptive than any other communication technology that’s come before it.
This series of Voices of Student Success focuses on adult learners in higher education, the various challenges they face and successful support mechanisms to aid their retention and completion.
An estimated one in five college students has dependents, and research shows that parenting students are more likely to experience basic needs insecurity in their pursuit of a degree. A 2024 survey by Trellis Strategies found that 6 percent of student parents self-identified as unhoused and 17 percent indicated some level of housing insecurity since they started college, or during the 12 months leading up to the survey.
A recent brief from New America and Princeton Eviction Lab tied the threat of eviction to negative student outcomes; student parents who face eviction are 23 percent less likely to complete a bachelor’s degree compared to their housing secure peers, and more likely to have lower quality of life, including higher mortality rates and lower earnings years later.
In the most recent episode of Voices of Student Success, Edward Conroy, senior policy manager at New America, and Nick Graetz, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, discuss their research and how universities can better support parenting students experiencing housing insecurity.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader, this episode is sponsored by KI.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
The second Trump administration will mark its six-month birthday on Sunday July 20, so in this episode of The Key, we’re checking in on the federal policy beat. IHE news editor Katherine Knott joins editor in chief Sara Custer to discuss the big changes in store for the sector now that congress has passed the Big Beautiful Bill and when the new policies will start to take effect–a potentially difficult task with the paltry staff left at the education department. They also check in on Trump’s dealings with Harvard, Penn and Columbia, run through the Department of Justice’s intervention at the University of Virginia, and look at what the next six months will hold. Teaser: it could be another reconciliation bill.
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This series of Voices of Student Success focuses on adult learners in higher education, the various challenges they face and successful support mechanisms to aid their retention and completion.
Research shows that adults often enter college with a goal in mind, such as a career pivot, further education in their current industry or completion of a degree they previously started,. But returning to the classroom can be challenging, particularly for first-generation students or those who haven’t been in school for a while.
In 2024, Wichita State University launched a college bridge program, the Adult Learner Community and Connections Program, to ease the transition for adult and online learners. The program, part of the university’s “Shocker Pre-Season” series, offers them eight modules of self-paced, online content designed to assist them in their first term at the university.
In the most recent episode of Voices of Student Success, Brett Bruner, assistant vice president for student success and persistence at Wichita State, discusses adult learner pedagogy and the lessons learned in the program’s first year.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader, this episode is sponsored by KI.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
“Innovation” is one of those buzzwords that means everything and nothing. “Culture” is even harder to pin down. But in this episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, senior editor for special content Colleen Flaherty speaks with two people working hard to foster both on their campuses.
In a panel discussion at the recent Digital Universities US event in Salt Lake City, Colleen spoke with Maricel Lawrence the innovation catalyst at Purdue Global and Kevin Yee special assistant to the provost for AI and director of the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Central Florida about how bottom up leadership, empowering people to try new things and universal design thinking are helping to create a culture where innovation thrives.
This series of Voices of Student Success focuses on adult learners in higher education, the various challenges they face and successful support mechanisms to aid their retention and completion.
Over 820,000 undergraduates are connected to the U.S. military, including those who are actively serving or enlisted in the National Guard, former service members and spouses or dependents of military servicemembers.
The University of Texas at San Antonio, located in Military City USA, serves over 5,000 military-affiliated students, including veterans, service members and their families, in a region that has the largest concentration of military bases in the country.
In this episode, Michael Logan, UTSA’s senior director for veteran and military affairs and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, discusses how his institution supports military-affiliated students through their transition into higher ed and the role of community in student veteran retention.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader, this episode is sponsored by Grammarly.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
Throughout the first half of the year several colleges have announced hiring freezes and budget cuts in response to the Trump administration’s slashing of federal researching funding and general financial instability across the sector.
And these cuts come after years of stagnating pay for faculty and staff. A recent CUPA HR analysis of salary data shows that across higher ed, employees are still being paid less in inflation-adjusted dollars than were before the pandemic.
To help us understand what this environment means for the future of the higher ed workforce, Sara Custer, Inside Higher Ed's editor in chief, recently spoke with Kevin McClure professor of higher education and chair of the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
He says there’s no doubt the workforce is struggling and hasn’t totally recovered from the great resignation spurred on by Covid. McClure is also seeing what he calls “ripple effects” on working conditions. Can colleges hire students for summer jobs? Can faculty travel to conferences? Are there enough people on staff for colleges to keep doing what they’re doing? And one big question – will the sector be able to attract the next generation of faculty and staff?
McClure also talks about shared governance as a practice that people need to be trained to participate in and how one solution to some of the current workforce struggles could be right under our noses.
Find out more about Kevin and his work here.
Thanks to Grammarly for sponsoring this episode.
This season of Voices of Student Success, “Preparing Gen Z for Unknown Futures,” addresses challenges in readying young people for the next chapter of their lives in the face of large-scale global changes.
As climate disasters become more frequent and severe, more institutions are investing in programs to address environmental changes and prepare students to engage in green careers.
Clark University plans to launch its school of Climate, Environment and Society this fall, institutionalizing the university’s commitment to climate action and investing in interdisciplinary learning for students interested in the work of sustainability. Lou Leonard, the inaugural dean of the school of climate, environment and society, discusses the need for the school and how climate education can tackle climate anxiety in young people.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader.
This episode is sponsored by Grammarly.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
Anxiety and depression are on the rise among college students driven, in part, by pressures to balance academics with personal, economic and family responsibilities. In this episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, two mental health leaders talk about how the current political climate and economic uncertainty are exacerbating the existing mental health challenges on campuses.
Tara Harper, assistant vice president for student wellbeing and clinical operations at Lincoln University and Seli Fakorzi, director of mental health operations at TimelyCare, join IHE’s editor in chief Sara Custer to discuss what colleges are doing to address rising symptoms of anxiety and depression among students and how they’re keeping everyone safe and healthy during a time of great upheaval.
Thank you to Timely Care for sponsoring this episode.
This season of Voices of Student Success, “Preparing Gen Z for Unknown Futures,” addresses challenges in readying young people for the next chapter of their lives in the face of large-scale global changes.
A workshop series at George Mason University in Virginia helps build students’ practical knowledge and well-being by giving them life advice and skills, such as how to change a tire. The program was created by Ethan Carter, associate director of programs, well-being and assessment, and supported by graduate student assistant Dianna Phillips, who talk about the logistics of delivering the workshops and how they support student success.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
Since the beginning of the second Trump administration, the American Council on Education has been early out of the gate in responding to the federal government’s onslaught of funding freezes, executive orders and threats to institutions. In February, ACE along with the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and other institutions sued the government over its decision to cap indirect costs at 15 percent for National Institutes of Health grant recipients, which resulted in a permanent nationwide injunction on the plans in April. Ted Mitchell, president of ACE, joins Sara Custer, editor in chief at Inside Higher Ed, to discuss the nature of the federal government’s attacks on higher education and what responsibility the sector has in the public losing trust in our institutions. They talk about how the sector is responding to the situation, including the many open-form letters, and as the former under secretary for the Department of Education in the second Obama administration, Ted shares why he thinks higher ed knows how to play the game of politics and which policy issues he thinks can get bipartisan support—as long as there is a receptive partner on the other side of the table.
This season of Voices of Student Success, “Preparing Gen Z for Unknown Futures,” addresses challenges in readying young people for the next chapter of their lives in the face of large-scale global changes. Encouraging students to engage with people who they disagree with can be a challenge for many in higher education. A class at the University of San Diego’s Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies put students on a train to crisscross the nation, encouraging them to speak across differences and engage in unfamiliar places and spaces.
Sarah Federman, associate professor of conflict resolution, spoke about her class and the trip, as well as some of the lessons she learned about engaging students in constructive dialogue.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
Whether you’re a die-hard fan, sports curios or someone who sees college athletics as a very expensive distraction, you should know about the fundamental changes to NCAA policies because they will have profound impacts on institutions, students and even the future of U.S. Olympic teams.
To help us make sense of the latest developments including name, image and likeness earnings, the transfer portal and the $2.8 billion anti-trust House settlement, Inside Higher Ed’s editor in chief Sara Custer speaks to Karen Weaver, an adjunct assistant professor in the graduate school of education at the University of Pennsylvania where she teaches higher education leaders about the role that college athletics will play as it evolves into a very different governance and financial model. She’s also a former athletic director and coach of 30 years.
This episode is sponsored by the Strada Education Foundation
Inside Higher Ed’s editor in chief, Sara Custer, speaks with IHE’s news editor Katherine Knott and reporters Liam Knox and Johanna Alonso about the executive orders, funding cuts and visa revocations of the last three months that have sent shockwaves through the higher education sector.
Read more of Inside Higher Ed's coverage of Trump's first 100 days. This episode is sponsored by Strada Education Foundation.
This season of Voices of Student Success, “Preparing Gen Z for Unknown Futures,” addresses challenges in readying young people for the next chapter of their lives in the face of large-scale global changes.
The latest episode, featuring Handshake’s chief educational officer Christine Cruzvergara, discusses the current job market, graduating seniors’ perceptions of launching their careers and the role higher education can play in supporting students.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
In this episode of The Key, we turn the tables on host Sara Custer, editor in chief at Inside Higher Ed as she joins David Hummels, professor of economics and dean emeritus at Purdue University, and Jay Akridge, trustee chair in teaching and learning excellence, professor of agricultural economics and former provost at Purdue, in conversation with host Colleen Flaherty, senior editor, special content at Inside Higher Ed. They discuss the findings from the Inside Higher Ed/Hanover Research 2025 Survey of College and University Presidents which show that two in three presidents doubt the value of tenure, half think that higher ed has a real affordability problem and a mere 3 percent say that higher ed has been highly effective at responding to the growing education divide in the electorate. Hummels and Akridge are also co-authors of a Stubstack newsletter called Finding Equilibrium, which seeks to provide data-driven, research-informed takes on where higher education is and where it’s going. They’ve done recent deep dives into tenure, the college value debate and more. The conversation doesn’t suggest that there’s any silver lining to what’s happening to higher education at the moment. But it does highlight opportunities for action, including local engagement, pricing transparency, career readiness and targeted sharing of the tangible benefits of higher education to counteract declining public confidence. This episode is sponsored by Strada Education Foundation.
This season of Voices of Student Success, “Preparing Gen Z for Unknown Futures,” addresses challenges in readying young people for the next chapter of their lives in the face of large-scale global changes. The latest episode addresses how digitalization has made it easier for young people to engage in unhealthy habits, including substance abuse, pathological gambling or social media addiction, compared to past generations.
Amaura Kemmerer, director of clinical affairs for Uwill, discusses the role of preventive health measures and how existing research can provide a roadmap for addressing new challenges.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
Many college leaders turned to civil discourse and dialogue programs in response to students protests that roiled campuses after the start of the Israel Hamas war. It’s work that they have been doing for decades, but a big question around these programs is: how do we know they’re working?
That question led to Raj Vinnakota, president of the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, an 80-year old non-profit that works with leaders in higher education, business and philanthropy to equip young people with the skills they need to be engaged citizens.
In 2023, the institute launched its College Presidents for Civic Preparedness initiative and its membership has grown to over 120 leaders from 2 and 4-year institutions in 35 states. Part of its mission is to develop ways to assess and measure the level of civil discourse and critical thinking on campuses.
In this interview, Raj talks with Sara Custer, editor in chief at Inside Higher Ed, about the grassroots beginnings of the program and how creating language around the concepts of free speech and open inquiry is important for engaging with stakeholders on both sides of the political divide.
This episode is sponsored by Grammarly.
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This season of Voices of Student Success, “Preparing Gen Z for Unknown Futures,” addresses challenges in readying young people for the next chapter of their lives in the face of large-scale global changes. This episode focuses on the world of work and how experiential learning can provide students with a glimpse into professional careers and what they don’t know about work.
Jane Swift, president of Education at Work, describes how private partners can help higher education meet workforce needs through intentional internship experiences.
Later, Jocelyn Frelier, associate director of the Brown in Washington program, discusses how the program uses internship experiences in Washington, D.C. to connect curricular and co-curricular learning.
Hosted by Inside Higher EdStudent Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
We’ve turned the page on the third month of the Trump administration and the White House has shown no signs of slowing down when it comes to actions that have direct impacts on higher education in this country.
Linda McMahon was confirmed as education secretary and has made quick work of shrinking the size and influence of her department. At the same time the agency opened investigations into reports of antisemitism on dozens of college campuses and has threatened to withhold $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University unless it agrees to demands from the government. Also this month, president Trump signed the long-awaited executive order to dismantle the department of education and international students and scholars are on edge after a series of arrests and deportations.
In this episode of The Key, Sara Custer, Inside Higher Ed's editor in chief, check in on the latest developments in Washington with federal policy reporter Jessica Blake and news editor Katherine Knott.
There are a few elements of the student lifecycle in higher education that are unavoidable, one being general education courses. While a majority of college students are unaware of support resources or unlikely to engage with all of them, each student must fulfill common core curriculum.
For over a decade, the University of Louisville has offered an Oral Communication Success Guide for students in the public speaking general education course. Now a digital resource embedded in learning software, the guide helps connect students’ learning to institutional services and supports.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, oral communications faculty member Elyssa Smith and Katherine Taylor, director of the oral communication basic course, outline the process of digitalizing the guide, the benefits for student access and how it breaks down barriers across the institution.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by KI.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
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People across higher education are calling on college presidents to speak out against the onslaught of threats and funding caught imposed by the Trump administration. But that is just one kind of leadership.
Jorge Burmicky, assistant professor in education leadership and policy studies in the school of education at Howard University, joins Sara Custer, editor in chief at Inside Higher Ed, for this episode of The Key.
Burmicky's research focuses on the core competencies for the modern presidency and at the very top is trust building. He stresses that the list is ever changing and discusses what competencies would best serve presidents now at such a pivotal moment for higher education.
Read more about Burmicky's work: "The 7 Competencies Presidents Need"
Mental health is one of the greatest threats to student persistence and retention in higher education, but providing large-scale preventative and responsive mental health care is a looming challenge for colleges and universities.
In addition to having sufficient clinicians and trained professionals to support students in need, finding ways to deliver wellness support to students before they’re in crisis is critical.
One strategy is embedding mental health counselors into student spaces or academic departments. By integrating services into a physical location, such as a student center, clinicians can connect with students in informal and intentional ways, gaining their trust and supporting specific pockets of the campus community.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Estevan Garcia, chief wellness officer at Dartmouth College, talks about the root of the youth mental health crisis and some of Dartmouth’s embedded services for student athletes.
Later, hear from Casey Fox, associate director of integrated services from the University of South Carolina, who leads the university’s integrated mental health program, about the benefits of these services for students and community members.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by KI.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
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In this episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, editor in chief Sara Custer speaks with IHE’s news editor Katherine Knott about the policies, people and surprises from the first 30 days of the second Trump administration.
They discuss the executive orders and actions that could have the most impact on higher ed and what pushback they’ve seen from the sector, as well as the people who Trump has tapped to lead the department. Katherine shares what has surprised her the most in the last month and what she and the IHE reporters will be watching in the next 30 days.
Stay on top of the key developments in federal policy and funding by subscribing to The First 100 Days, IHE’s pop-up newsletter explaining the week’s news out of Washington. Learn more.
Having successful career outcomes is important for colleges and also for students, but getting students to engage in career services can feel like an uphill battle.
Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania leaders decided to bring careers to students with an event called LVC Success Expo. During this day, LVC cancels classes so students can engage in an all-day career fair or meet with academic support staff to ensure their success in and after college.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Tomomi “T” Horning, vice president of college partnerships and strategic initiatives, and Jasmine Bucher, senior director of the Breen Center for Career and Professional Development, discuss the event, campus partnerships and how it contributes to a larger institutional mission.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
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At the beginning of February, the deadly L.A. wildfires were fully contained after burning for nearly a month. A few weeks ago we spoke with colleges in the city whose communities were upturned by the fires. Hundreds of students and staff had lost their homes and thousands more were displaced from evacuation zones. Now that the embers have died out, we wanted to check back in with one college to see how it is managing to rebuild.
In this episode of The Key we speak with Ryan Cornner president of Glendale Community College which serves 24,000 students on a campus about five miles from where the Eaton wildfire burned. Dozens of GCC students and employees lost their homes and many more were displaced for more than a week. The college has expanded its efforts to provide access to basic needs for its students and has recognized that its part-time adjunct faculty need the most support.
Hosted by Sara Custer, editor in chief of Inside Higher Ed
Study abroad is tied to personal and professional growth for college students, but crossing the border can be an enormous hurdle for some learners or feel unattainable.
A new initiative at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania seeks to empower and support first-generation and low-income students who are interested in experiential learning and study away through workshops, financial aid and mentorship.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Chris Brown, Bucknell’s Andrew Hartman ‘71 & Joseph Fama ‘71 executive director of the Center for Access & Success, talks about the center and how it reduces barriers to student participation in high-impact activities.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
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In the run up to the presidential inauguration on Jan. 20, Inside Higher Ed’s editor-in-chief Sara Custer and news editor Katherine Knott discuss what we know and what we don’t know about president-elect Trump’s policy agenda and how it could affect universities and colleges.
Katherine and Sara discuss what sources are telling IHE reporters about incoming education secretary Linda McMahon and who the key players in the Republican-led Senate and House are. It's anyone's guess what the administration's policy priorities will be, but Katherine shares what she and Inside Higher Ed journalists will be looking for to get a sense of which way the wind might be blowing for higher ed on Capital Hill.
Hosted by Sara Custer, editor-in-chief of Inside Higher Ed.
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Highly customized admissions information and processes. Credit transfer evaluations that take minutes, not days or weeks. Precision tuition discounting estimates. Student success interventions informed by data gathered about students before they ever even applied to their institution. These are some of the ways that artificial intelligence is or may soon be improving the enrollment management experience for students, teams and institutions. That’s according to our recent panel discussion with experts Joseph Paris, dean of graduate and professional studies at Delaware Valley University, Naronda C. Wright, president of NAGAP at The Association for Graduate Enrollment Management and associate dean of the Jack N. Averitt College of Graduate Studies at Georgia Southern University, and Claire Brady, president of Glass Half Full Consulting. The discussion, featured on this episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed's news and analysis podcast, also draws on insights from “Beyond the Hype: Understanding and Unlocking AI’s Potential in Enrollment Management,” a recent special report Inside Higher Ed published on the following: * How admissions and enrollment management teams are already deploying AI to assist their work * The potential near- and longer-term future of AI in enrollment management * Best and emerging practices for building data readiness and AI literacy among admissions and enrollment management personnel
Download that report, written for Inside Higher Ed by journalist Ben Upton, here.
Hosted by Colleen Flaherty, senior editor of special content at Inside Higher Ed. This episode is sponsored by Liaison.
In his final days in the newsroom, editor and co-founder of Inside Higher Ed and host of The Key, Doug Lederman, sits down with editor-in-chief Sara Custer to discuss his nearly 40-year career in higher education and what he plans to do next.
Doug talks about his work as a journalist over four decades, including leading Inside Higher Ed for the past 20 years. Doug shares what kept him up at night when he and Scott Jaschik started a new, independent media company in 2003 and the big breaks along the way that helped establish Inside Higher Ed as a trusted source of news for universities and colleges across the country.
Doug and Sara discuss the future of IHE and how its role to both explain higher education to readers and hold it to account is more critical now than it has ever been.
"I don’t think us journalists would be writing about higher education if we didn’t think it was important,” he says.
Hosted by Sara Custer, editor in chief of Inside Higher Ed. This episode is sponsored by the Gates Foundation.
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College presidents don’t work in a bubble and there are a multitude of competing priorities jostling for their time and attention on a daily basis. It can be an overwhelming job, but having a guiding purpose behind every decision a president makes, the teams they form and the long-term strategies they develop can help keep leaders on the right track. How do they know which areas deserve their attention and which should be delegated to talented team members? How do they know they are making the right decisions and doing good by their institution? When should they take risks?
In this episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, Donde Plowman, the chancellor at UT Knoxville, Harry Williams the former president of Delaware State University and the current president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall Foundation, and Jonathan Koppell, president of Montclair State University tell an audience at the Student Success US event how they keep their purpose front of mind as they lead their institutions.
They share their experiences of making tough decisions, championing student success to stakeholders, lobbying for greater funding from legislators and striking out on paths unknown with new partners.
Hosted by Sara Custer, editor in chief of Inside Higher Ed. This episode is sponsored by the Gates Foundation.
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Over the past two years, generative AI has blazed its way on to college campuses, first in the students’ hands and increasingly in the hands of administrators and instructors to improve campus operations and enrollment management, as well as teaching and learning.
One of the greatest challenges of using generative AI in teaching is providing students with skills without interrupting the process of learning or introducing errors or misinformation. The University of Texas at Austin is in the initial stages of launching a custom GPT model, UT Sage, which serves as a tutor of sorts for students who need help related to a specific course.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Julie Schell, assistant vice provost of academic technology at UT Austin, shares the inspiration behind the tool, her work with AI in the classroom and teaching the ethics of AI use.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by KI. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
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A recent IHE survey of university and college student success administrators found that they are confident in the quality of education their institution provides and say their college is effective in making student success an institutional priority. There are, however, still many areas where administrators say their institution can improve, with greater effort among faculty being the most common desired action.
This episode of The Key explores the results of our survey and how they compare with what students have told us in other polls. We’ll also hear a case study on how a teaching and learning center is encouraging faculty to be active participants in students’ success. Joining the discussion are Colleen Flaherty, special content editor at Inside Higher Ed, and Trey Conatser, assistant provost for teaching and learning at the University of Kentucky and director of UK’s Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning.
Both discussions paint an overall optimistic picture of how institutions are working to find innovative ways to support their students to stay in college and graduate.
You can read more about our survey findings in our article “Survey: Student Success Administrators Optimistic”.
Hosted by Sara Custer, editor in chief of Inside Higher Ed. This episode is sponsored by the Gates Foundation.
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A growing number of colleges and universities are integrating life design into the student experience to improve student well-being, academic pursuits and future planning beyond graduation. Life design, which originates from the 2016 book Designing Your Life, uses design thinking principles to help guide individuals as they navigate change and transition, ultimately helping them find meaning and purpose in their lives.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Adrienne Ausdenmoore, assistant vice president and executive director, Geoffrey H. Radbill Center for College and Life Design at Bowling Green State University, shares how the university is implementing campus-wide changes to integrate life design into the student experience. Later, hear from Stanford University’s James Tarbox, assistant vice provost and executive director of career education, who shares how life design is essential in career services.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by KI. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
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Many college libraries have undergone transformation in recent years to serve as hubs for student success, offering a central location for students to hang out, work with peers and connect to support resources like tutoring. This reimagination of the library often comes with a physical reconfiguration, relocation of offices and expanded services, all in hopes of supporting access and student success.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Katie Clark, higher education market manager for KI and a former campus administrator, speaks to the evolution of the campus library and what it means for students and practitioners. Later, hear from Marquette University’s Lemonis Center director Marilyn Jones and vice provost for academic affairs and student success, John Su, to discuss how Marquette remodeled its Memorial Library to better support students.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by KI. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
Internships are a high-impact practice that can provide students with valuable career skills, a professional network and on-the-job experience, but not every student has the opportunity to participate. A recent report found of the 8.2 million students who wanted to intern in 2023, close to half didn’t participate in one. Many of these students are from historically marginalized groups, including first-generation, low-income, community college students and students of color.
The University of New Hampshire launched Campus-2-Career in 2022, a campus-wide program that equips students with career competencies through their on-campus work positions.
In this episode, Gretchen Heaton, associate vice provost for career and professional success and high impact practices at the University of New Hampshire, discusses how UNH is increasing rich work-based learning opportunities through intentional professional development.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by KI. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
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The partisan divide in the U.S. seems unbridgeable at times, and many issues in higher education are deeply dividing politicians. But with the 2024 election just days away, there’s a remarkable amount of alignment around the importance of workforce development and training and how to strengthen it.
A new episode of The Key explores explores the relative consensus between the parties and its implications. Joining the discussion are Amanda Winters, program director for postsecondary education at the National Governors Association, and Michelle Van Noy, director of the Education and Employment Research Center at Rutgers University’s School of Management and Labor Relations.
They examines how this alignment around workforce training is affecting policy development at the state and federal levels, and how November’s election might change what happens in the next few years, if at all. Hosted by Doug Lederman, editor and co-founder of Inside Higher Ed. This episode is sponsored by The Gates Foundation.
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In this episode of The Key, Melissa Ezarik speaks with University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s chancellor, Donde Plowman, and Amber Williams, vice president of student success on their efforts to ensure their teams—and students—are aware of and confident about their strengths as they navigate their work.
Williams, who joined the institution in 2020, soon before it fell a bit short on its retention increase goal, has found it helpful to remind colleagues that data is about individuals and showing what can be done to meet their needs. “One of my framings for leadership is that you lead through people, priorities and then projects,” she says. “People is the first thing. If you don’t get the people part right, the rest of it doesn’t work.”
On October 28, 29 and 30, student success professionals from across the country will visit UT’s campus to share their challenges and successes in supporting students at their own institution. Learn more about the Student Success US event here, and look out for coverage in Inside Higher Ed.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Editor, Melissa Ezarik. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
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In July 2023, Congress lifted a ban on federal Pell Grant funding for incarcerated individuals in prison education programs, but there still remain barriers to enrollment and success for these learners. The Petey Greene Program (PGP), a non-profit organization that partners with prisons and higher education institutions, launched a College Bridge program in 2020 to increase college-level writing, reading and math skills for incarcerated students.
In this episode, PGP’s Chiara Benetollo, executive director of The Puttkammer Center for Educational Justice and Equity, and Katherine Meloney, director of the Villanova Program at SCI Phoenix, discuss the college bridge program and the ways higher ed can support justice and learning for incarcerated individuals.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader.
This episode is sponsored by KI. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
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Prior research shows students who have at least one connection to campus are more likely to persist, retain and complete a college degree, particularly for students from historically marginalized or less privileged backgrounds. However, building high-quality and long-lasting relationships can feel challenging or unattainable for many college students.
In this episode, Elon University’s Peter Felten, and Emily Krechel, who serve as members on the Mentoring Initiatives Design Team, discuss the role of relationships in student success and how Elon stakeholders look to create a relationship-rich university community.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by KI. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
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Rising costs of living and increasing student housing rates have exacerbated college retention efforts as campus leaders look to tackle a rising concern: basic needs insecurity.
A lack of essential resources such as food, housing and clothing and general financial strain are two of the top reasons students say they leave college.
To address this issue and provide resources to students, the University of Houston opened its Center for Student Advocacy and Community in 2020, which houses some of the university’s essential needs programs. I spoke with the center’s director and assistant director about the relationship between student success and basic needs and how to promote resources across campus.
In this episode, host Ashley Mowreader speaks with the University of Houston’s director, Michael Crook, and associate director, Kevin Nguyen, of the Center for Student Advocacy and Community to learn more about how the center operates, the ties between basic needs and student success and some of the center’s future goals.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
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Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, colleges and universities have seen heightened tensions on campus as student protesters demand change from their administrators.
Anti-war protests on college campuses are not a new phenomenon, with many institutions seeing similar unrest during the 1960s during the Vietnam War. The University of South Carolina was one such institution, which saw a general unrest among its student body amid racial tensions, the anti-war movement and other institutional grievances which came to a head in May 1970.
The University of South Carolina took an unconventional approach to mitigate student frustrations, which included implementing a comprehensive University 101 course that infused feelings of belonging among participants. The initiative was largely successful, with the university experiencing no student riots for another 50 years.
In this episode, John Gardner, one of the professors who helped create the first-year seminar at USC and founder of the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, reflects on the protests of the 70s and shares how campus leaders today can learn from the past.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
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With student mental health concerns on the rise, college leaders have turned their attention outward to campus facilities and the role space, light, sound and décor can play in student learning and healthy living. Many college campuses have established wellness rooms, sensory spaces or relaxation zones to promote healthy habits and academic success for learners.
The focus on environmental wellness is also an inclusive effort, supporting students who struggle with sensory issues, including those with learning or developmental disabilities, and promotes universal design thinking.
In this episode, experts from design firm HKS, Renae Mantooth, research lead in education, and Brad Robichaux, studio practice leader, discuss the science behind environmental wellness and how colleges are adapting to serve their students. Later, hear from Lauren Kehoe, then-accessibility and accommodations librarian at New York University, about how NYU adapted a room in the library to create a safe space for neurodiverse students to study and destress.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
Community college students make up 40 percent of enrollment in U.S. higher education, and 80 percent of those students want to go on to earn a bachelor’s degree. However, only around 16 percent of those students will be successful in transferring and completing a four-year degree within six years after transferring.
Transfer students often lose credits when continuing to their bachelor’s degree, slowing their progress toward graduation and increasing the costs associated with higher education. Transfer advocates recognize the need for state and institutional interventions (both at the two- and four-year level) to improve processes and promote degree attainment.
In this episode, researchers from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College, Aurely Garcia Tulloch and Tatiana Velasco Rodriguez, discuss CCRC’s current projects to improve transfer across the country. Later, hear from Pamela Johnston, dean of career and academic planning at Tallahassee State College, about how the institution has revised its advising process to make registration, transfer planning and working with an adviser more seamless for students.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
Discussions about the impact of generative artificial intelligence in teaching and learning are steadily moving beyond questions about whether and how students will cheat.
Today’s episode of The Key is drawn from a workshop expertly led by Inside Higher Ed’s Colleen Flaherty at the Digital Universities U.S. conference at Washington University in St. Louis.
The conversation on “Teaching with Generative AI: Benefits and Risks” featured four thoughtful experts on teaching and learning: Asim Ali, executive director of the Biggio Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at Auburn University; Trey Conatser, director of the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching at the University of Kentucky; Emily Thompson, director of online programs at Washington University’s School of Medicine, and Michael Reese, associate dean at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation.
You’ll hear precious little discussion about cheating, but a lot of talk about the need for faculty training and support and the importance of bridging potential gaps in access and overcoming bias in the technology, among other things.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by Mongoose.
Student mental health is a growing concern for higher education administrators and practitioners as national rates of anxiety, depression and loneliness grow among college learners. During the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities made heavy investments into digital solutions to improve students’ health and wellness, but how well do these applications serve students?
In this episode, Sara Abelson, assistant professor and senior director of training and education at The Hope Center, explains what digital mental health interventions are, how they support students’ mental health and the need for more data regarding these interventions and the students who use them. Abelson is one of four authors of a recently published report by the Hope Center, commissioned by the Ruderman Family Foundation and in partnership with the Healthy Minds Network and Boston University.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
Nationally, Black students are less likely than their white peers to persist, retain and earn a degree. Many interventions at colleges and universities seek to support struggling Black students, but a new program at Sacramento State University aims to celebrate Black excellence and history, recognizing Black students as scholars.
In this episode, hear from Luke Wood, president of Sac State about the California State University’s commitment to improve Black student success, the foundation of the Black Honors College and a state-wide bill to recognize California institutions that help Black students achieve.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
A new episode digs into one of the knottier problems in higher education: how learning is recognized across institutions. We often call this transfer of credit, but “learning mobility” is broader than that, given the expanding array of educational institutions, alternative providers, employers and others that, in one way or another, help people develop their skills and knowledge.
This episode of The Key explores the creation of the Learning Evaluation and Recognition for the Next Generation (LEARN) Commission, a joint project of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) and the consulting firm Sova.
Joining the conversation are Melanie Gottlieb, AACRAO’s executive director, and Juana H. Sánchez, a project director at Sova. They discuss the commission’s goals, why the demographic, economic and social demands of this moment make “learning mobility” particularly important right now, and steps that colleges, governments and others might take to help learners navigate our diffuse postsecondary ecosystem.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by the Gates Foundation.
Recent public polls have found American’s confidence in higher education is waning, but current college students say they still see the investment they’re making in their future. Colleges, universities and national groups are looking to help students make the most of their degree through professional skill development and embedding careers into curriculum.
In this episode, hear from Shawn VanDerziel, CEO of the National Association for Colleges and Employers about the national state of career curriculum in higher education, and Jim Duffy, associate dean of co-curricular education from Gettysburg College, to learn more about the college’s new strategic plan, which incorporates career development throughout the student experience.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader.
Colleges are increasingly being judged by how well they prepare students for jobs and careers after they leave, and in response most are trying to adapt their programs and offerings to align with the needs of employers. How are they doing?
This week's episode of The Key uses two recent studies (from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce and from the Upjohn Institute) as a jumping-off point for a larger conversation about how colleges and universities are responding to the growing pressure to prepare learners for work.
Our guest is Michelle Van Noy, an associate research professor and director of the Education and Employment Research Center at Rutgers University New Brunswick. In a wide-ranging conversation, she discusses the complex set of factors that make easy answers hard to come by in this realm, the differing expectations of different types of institutions, the roles that employers and learners themselves have as well as institutions, and the emergence of skills-based hiring, among other topics.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by the Gates Foundation.
National estimates find around one in five students have dependents, but few colleges and universities have accurate numbers of who their parenting students are and what their circumstances may be. Student parents are faced with additional financial stress and time constraints compared to their non-parenting peers, so how can higher ed leaders find these parents and better serve them?
In this episode, hear from Eddy Conroy, and Da'Shon Carr from the think tank New America to learn about their Student Parent Initiative and federal policy movement on student parent data, and Ray Murrilo, interim vice chancellor for student affairs, belonging and equity at the California State University Chancellor’s office, to discuss state legislation that provides priority registration for student parents at the CSU.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader.
Read a transcript of the podcast here.
Colleges and universities are undergoing intense pressure from a lot of angles – and their provosts are arguably at the epicenter of most of them.
A new episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, explores our 2024 Survey of College and University Chief Academic Officers and topics such as the future of tenure, cost-cutting around academic programs, and the potential impact of generative artificial intelligence.
Joining the discussion are Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed's special content editor, and Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed's faculty issues reporter, who together have reported on the faculty and academic issues for a dozen years.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by Interfolio from Elsevier.
The last year has been a hellish one for many college financial aid directors – and, not surprisingly, for the head of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, who’s leaving his role after 14 years.
This episode of The Key features a conversation with Justin Draeger, who recently announced that he would soon wrap up his work as president and CEO of NASFAA for a new role leading Strada Education’s efforts to make higher education more affordable.
In the conversation, he discusses the impact of the FAFSA mess, possible approaches to make college more affordable, and the state of the financial aid workforce, among other topics.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by Mongoose.
Discussions about the impact of generative artificial intelligence in teaching and learning are steadily moving beyond questions about whether and how students will cheat.
Today’s episode of The Key is drawn from a workshop expertly led by Inside Higher Ed’s Colleen Flaherty at the Digital Universities U.S. conference at Washington University in St. Louis.
The conversation on “Teaching with Generative AI: Benefits and Risks” featured four thoughtful experts on teaching and learning: Asim Ali, executive director of the Biggio Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at Auburn University; Trey Conatser, director of the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching at the University of Kentucky; Emily Thompson, director of online programs at Washington University’s School of Medicine, and Michael Reese, associate dean at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation.
You’ll hear precious little discussion about cheating, but a lot of talk about the need for faculty training and support and the importance of bridging potential gaps in access and overcoming bias in the technology, among other things.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by Mongoose.
How Arizona State University is working with Open AI to shape the development of generative AI.
This week’s episode of The Key explores the recently announced partnership between Arizona State University and Open AI – one major way colleges and universities are trying to make sure higher education isn’t left behind in generative AI’s development.
The conversation that follows was drawn from a session last week at the Digital Universities U.S. conference that Inside Higher Ed put on with our partner Times Higher Education.
It features Lev Gonick, the enterprise chief information officer at Arizona State, talking with Inside Higher Ed editor Doug Lederman about the university’s goals in its partnership with Open AI, how ASU and other institutions hope to influence the development of generative AI, and how other colleges might be thinking about their own AI futures.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by Mongoose.
Zakiya Ellis, a longtime policy expert, on whether we’re asking the right questions and have the right data.
This weeks’s episode of The Key podcast explores a vexing question: how might policy makers and college leaders go about showing that getting a postsecondary education pays off for later in life?
The episode features a conversation with Zakiya Smith Ellis, a principal at the education policy consulting firm Education Counsel and former senior Obama education aide and secretary of education in New Jersey.
Ellis shares her thoughts on how we’ve gotten to the point where we are assessing college value primarily by looking at individuals’ financial outcomes, whether we’re asking the right questions about the benefits of college-going, and what institutional leaders should be doing to make sure their academic programs are serving students well.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by the Strada Education Foundation.
This week’s episode of The Key explores whether the emergence of shorter-term and alternative credentials pose a threat -- or offer salvation – to traditional colleges and universities.
The episode draws from a panel discussion at last week’s annual ASU+GSV Summit involving a number of thoughtful higher ed leaders. It featured Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, President Marlene Tromp of Boise State University in Idaho, Ann Kirschner, interim president of Hunter College of the City University of New York, and Maria Anguiano, executive vice president for learning enterprise at Arizona State University.
The conversation explored whether or not colleges and universities will adapt their curriculums and their delivery models to supplement degrees with certificates and credentials, sustaining their historical advantage as the primary path for learners seeking career advancement and better futures.
The group was overall pretty bullish about higher education’s ability to adapt to the changing expectations of learners, but also clear-eyed about the fate of colleges that don’t: declining relevancy and, in some cases, extinction.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by the Strada Education Foundation.
Half of all graduates don’t work in jobs that require a bachelor’s degree. What can institutions do to best prepare their students for work?
More than half of bachelor’s degree holders are underemployed a year after graduation, and roughly four in 10 are still underemployed a full decade later. How worried should we be about those rates, and what can colleges and universities do to decrease them?
That question was at the heart of “Talent Disrupted,” a recent report from Strada Education Foundation and the Burning Glass Institute, which adds important nuance to the larger discussion about post-college outcomes for graduates.
In this episode, we dig into the report with two experts. Carlo Salerno is a managing director at the Burning Glass Institute and an author of the aforementioned report. Gary Daynes is founder and principal of Back Porch Consulting and a former professor and senior administrator at several private nonprofit colleges.
They discuss what underemployment means and how serious a problem it is, the conditions that contribute to it, and what colleges and universities can do to shield their graduates from it.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by the Strada Education Foundation.
Many students on college campuses struggle with substance use and abuse, but fewer have a supportive community they can turn to.
In this episode, Angela Lauer Chong, associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students at Florida State University speaks about supporting students’ physical and emotional health through LIFT, a collegiate recovery program.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by InsideTrack. Read a transcript of the podcast here.
The “guided pathways” model as not just a student success initiative, but a way to redesign how a college operates.
This week’s episode of The Key podcast explores the “guided pathways” model, which hundreds of community colleges have embraced to give students a clearer path to reaching their educational goals.
Davis Jenkins, a senior research scholar at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and Hana Lahr, a senior research associate and director of applied learning there, join The Key to discuss their recent papers evaluating how guided pathways has spread, what iterations of the model work best, and what it takes to bring about this kind of sweeping, “whole college” change at institutions that can be both tradition-bound and financially strapped.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by Coursedog.
In this episode, host Ashley Mowreader spoke with Ron Slinger, president of Miles Community College, to learn more about the college’s Opportunity Realized program and how the initiative is benefiting Montana, the college and students’ futures.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by InsideTrack.
A panel of news hounds discusses some of the biggest stories involving colleges.
This week’s episode features a conversation about some of the hottest news developments unfolding in higher education today.
Topics include how the recent formation of a union for basketball players at Dartmouth College might help to reshape college sports, the turmoil created by the federal government’s botched roll-out of the federal financial aid form, and what Inside Higher Ed’s recent survey of college and university presidents says about higher education and about campus leaders themselves.
Joining the discussion is Katherine Knott, who covers federal policy for Inside Higher Ed, and Erin Hennessy, executive vice president at TVP Communications and an acute observer of higher education.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by Coursedog.
Affordability is a top concern for higher education leaders, and professors are directly responsible for the affordability of their course materials. In this episode, Patty Goedl from the University of Cincinnati at Clermont discusses her OER e-textbook, which she wrote and developed to make her managerial accounting course more accessible to learners.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by InsideTrack.
What would postsecondary education look like in a world where true lifelong learning – people engaging in education or training at many points throughout their lives – was the norm?
This week’s episode of The Key features a conversation with Mauro F. Guillén, the William H. Wurster Professor of Multinational Management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Perennials: The Megatrends Creating a Post-Generational Society.
The book isn’t about higher education; it explores cross-cutting trends -- people living longer and healthier lives, and technological changes that shorten the half-life of our knowledge and skills – that promise to blur the “stages” (play, schooling, work and retirement) into which most of us have historically divided our lives.
In the conversation, Guillén discusses the implications of these shifts for institutions and learners, and what it would take for colleges and universities to truly operate as providers of lifelong learning for people in a society where one’s chronological age becomes less meaningful and work and learning blend throughout our lives.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by Coursedog
The episode features two higher education professionals, Mike Krause from the John M. Belk Endowment and Ashley Flood from Purdue Global, on adult learners. Krause and Flood talk about the needs of adult learners, how an institution can support their success and practical ways to assist students.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by InsideTrack.
This week’s episode of Voices of Student Success features Jody Greene, associate campus provost for academic success at the University of California, Santa Cruz, on the relationship between faculty and student success, how UCSC is empowering faculty to practice equitable course design and the future of academic success.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by InsideTrack.
This week’s episode of Voices of Student Success features Adelí Durón, the inaugural director of the Latinx Resource Center at the University of California, Irvine, on its mission and how she works to ensure student voices inform programming, engagement and center leadership.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by InsideTrack.
Three years ago, Inside Higher Ed created a podcast to try to give its audience insight into how the COVID-19 pandemic was affecting colleges, employees and students, with a particular focus on the more “invisible” students who too often fly under the radar of journalists and campus leaders.
This week’s episode, The Key’s 100th, features a discussion with Paul Fain, who as Inside Higher Ed’s news editor launched the podcast and nurtured it through its first year. Paul, whose newsletter The Job explores the intersection of employment and education, talks with The Key’s host, Doug Lederman, about the people working on behalf of those invisible students and the issues they’re addressing.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“Gateway courses” are supposed to clear the path to fields of study, but for millions of students who struggle in those key classes, they often shut the door prematurely.
This week's episode of The Key digs into early efforts to develop courseware for 20 high enrollment courses that can make or break whether students from all backgrounds persist and ultimately complete their educations. The goal of the initiative, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is to bring together colleges, companies and research organizations to build digital courses that can be used on dozens if not hundreds of campuses to eliminate gaps in performance by students from different backgrounds.
Ariel Anbar is a President’s Professor at Arizona State University, which is working with Carnegie Mellon University and the publisher OpenStax to create a general chemistry course heavy on active learning and real-world problem solving. Jeanette Koskinas is chief product officer at Lumen Learning, which is developing an intro statistics course in close collaboration with students and instructors at institutions like Rockland Community College and Santa Ana College.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The complex, confusing process by which students move between colleges has been an acknowledged barrier impeding postsecondary completion, particularly for underrepresented students. The issue is drawing increasing attention from policy makers, given rising concerns about value and equity.
This week’s episode of The Key looks at some of the transfer work being done by the major college and university systems that enroll a majority of today’s learners. Two experts participate in the discussion.
Dan Knox is director of the Institute for Systems Innovation and Improvement at the National Association of System Heads, known as NASH, which is undertaking various efforts to align the work of state systems on attacking this problem. Rebecca Karoff is associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Texas System, where she oversees a transfer advisory group and works with other systems in the state on these issues.
The Key is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Key continues to share Inside Higher Ed’s latest collaboration with Times Higher Education – Campus Podcast. Eve Riskin, dean of undergraduate education at Stevens Institute of Technology, talks about the power of mentorship, diversity in excellence and what she, as an electrical engineer and computer scientist, thinks about the emergence of generative AI.
Episode sponsored by Stevens Institute of Technology.
The Key shares Inside Higher Ed’s latest collaboration with Times Higher Education – Campus Podcast. This interview features Montclair State University President Jonathan Koppell as he discusses how universities can be more proactive in rebuilding public trust in higher education. It’s tied to accessibility and degree completion, he argues, and universities need to acknowledge their failures in meeting those objectives. Meanwhile, service learning and supporting minoritized groups are central to Dr. Koppell’s institutional strategy. And with many institutions in the US facing financial difficulties, he discusses his decision to merge Bloomfield College into the Montclair system.
This week’s episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, builds off a great conversation that took place earlier this month at Digital Universities U.S., an event Inside Higher Ed co-hosted in Chicago with our partners from Times Higher Education. The conversation featured leaders from three very different institutions talking about how their institutions create online or blended educational experiences that build a sense of community and belonging for students, prepare faculty and staff members to respond to learners’ social and psychological needs as well as academic ones, and use data effectively.
Joining the discussion were Sarah Dysart, senior director of online learning at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor; Omid Fotuhi, director of learning innovation at WGU Labs; and Jeremy Alexis, vice provost in the office of professional and continuing education at Illinois Institute of Technology. Times Higher Education’s Charlotte Coles moderated the conversation.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
As public support belief in the value of higher education has steadily declined in recent years, most of the attention for turning that around has been on improving the career readiness of graduates and making college more affordable.
But an emergent group of college leaders believes the real key may be to ensure that all learners, regardless of background, have experiences in college that help them develop identity, agency and purpose with the goal of improving their well-being 30 years down the road.
This episode of The Key features a conversation with Richard K. Miller, president emeritus of Olin College of Engineering and a driving force behind the Coalition for Life Transformative Education. In our interview, he discusses how the coalition’s diverse group of members are using data-informed experiments to rework their curriculums and scale the use of project-based experiences to build a sense of belonging and a growth mindset for all of their students.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Are we in the midst of a mental health “crisis” for college students and other young people? How should campus administrators and faculty members be thinking about the mental health of their students and their roles in addressing it? And do we perhaps need to reframe the discussion around what “mental health” even is?
This week’s episode of The Key explores an issue that has been at or near the top of the worry list for those who work in and around higher education, as learners report record levels of depression, anxiety and other conditions; strain campus counseling and health centers seeking treatment; and struggle academically, sometimes to the point of stopping out altogether.
Joining the discussion are Lisa Damour, a psychologist and author of The Emotional Lives of Teenagers, Nance Roy, chief clinical officer at the Jed Foundation; and R. Ryan Patel, senior staff psychiatrist at Ohio State University and chair of the mental health section of the American College Health Association.
This episode is sponsored by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman.
Terry Hartle retired last fall after 30 years as the chief government and public affairs officer at the American Council on Education, where he had a front-row seat to virtually every important higher education policy discussion. In this week’s episode of The Key, Hartle talks about the partisanship and inertia that afflicts today’s politics, politicians’ increased questioning and oversight of higher education, and the implications for colleges, their employees, and their students.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed's Editor and Co-Founder Doug Lederman
Does the possible sale of the University of Phoenix to a public university system signal the demise of the for-profit higher education sector that Phoenix once epitomized? This week’s episode of The Key analyzes the implications of recent news that a nonprofit affiliated with the University of Arkansas System might buy the former giant among for-profit colleges. Joining the discussion are Kevin Kinser, who heads the department of Education Policy Studies at Pennsylvania State University; Julie Peller, executive director of the nonprofit Higher Learning Advocates and a longtime expert on federal higher ed policy; and Paul Fain, who edits a weekly newsletter called The Job and a former editor of Inside Higher Ed. The episode focuses less on the possible sale of Phoenix -- about which details remain sketchy -- than on the overall state of for-profit institutions, the changing definition of “for-profit” in higher education, and how to regulate the increasingly blurry landscape of postsecondary education and training.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman.
In 2010, a book called DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education envisioned a wholesale shift in how people learned. More than a decade later, how has that panned out?
This week’s episode features a conversation with Anya Kamenetz, the author and journalist who in 2010 tapped into an emerging set of issues around student debt, rapid technological change and political upheaval to lay out a portrait of a world in which individuals could learn when and how they wanted and be far less dependent on instructors and institutions.
She discusses the current landscape and what she got right and wrong 12 years ago.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by Kaplan.
During the pandemic, many colleges and universities embraced a form of blended learning called HyFlex, to mixed reviews. Is it likely to be part of colleges’ instructional strategy going forward?
This week’s episode of The Key explores HyFlex, in which students in a classroom learn synchronously alongside a cohort of peers studying remotely. HyFlex moved from a fringe phenomenon to the mainstream during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the experience was imperfect at best, for professors and students alike.
This conversation about the teaching modality features two professors who have both taught in the HyFlex format and done research on its impact. Enilda Romero-Hall is an associate professor in the learning, design and technology program at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville who got her doctorate in a HyFlex program and taught using it pre-pandemic. Alanna Gillis, an assistant professor of sociology at St Lawrence University, had her first Hyflex experiences during COVID-19.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. Episode sponsored by Kaplan.
Colleges are under growing pressure to prove their “value” to students, parents, legislators and others. The scrutiny can be uncomfortable, but more institutions are responding with serious efforts to measure and explain their value.
This week’s episode of The Key, the last in a three-part series on value in higher education, examines the data and metrics we’re using now – and those we might use going forward – to gauge the value colleges and universities are providing to their students and other constituents.
The conversations include Michael Itzkowitz, senior fellow in higher education at the center-left think tank Third Way; José Luis Cruz Rivera, president of Northern Arizona University and a member of the Postsecondary Value Commission; and Pamela Brown, vice president for institutional research and academic planning for the University of California president’s office.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman This episode was made possible by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
As recently as a decade ago, the concept of “value” rarely found its way into discussions about federal and state policymaking about higher education. Now it’s unusual to hear a meaningful conversation that doesn’t raise the issue.
This week’s episode of The Key, the second in a three-part series on the value of higher education, examines how politicians and policy makers are responding to growing public doubt about the value of colleges and credentials by defining and trying to measure whether individual institutions and academic programs are benefiting consumers.
Guests include Clare McCann, who until last month was a key member of the Biden administration’s higher education policy team, and is now higher education fellow at Arnold Ventures; Will Doyle, a professor of higher education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, who studies the government’s role in higher education; and Ernest Ezeugo, a federal policy strategy officer at Lumina Foundation who previously worked at Young Invincibles and the State Higher Education Executive Officers association.
They discuss how the concept of value is factoring into state and federal policy, what’s driving that trend, and whether an overdependence on economic outcomes can lead to unintended consequences.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman Episode sponsored by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
For decades, colleges and universities enjoyed almost unquestioned public support as some of America’s most important institutions. Like most institutions, they’ve been knocked off that pedestal in recent years, amid growing questions not about whether higher education remains important but whether it’s available, affordable and valuable enough.
This week’s episode of The Key is the first in a three-part series on the concept of “value” in higher education, made possible by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The topic has gotten increasing attention as college prices and student debt continue to rise and policy makers develop data showing the return on investment for specific academic programs.
Today’s episode looks at several recent surveys of public attitudes about higher education. Participants include Sophie Nguyen, senior policy analyst with New America’s Education Program, which publishes Varying Degrees and numerous other surveys about higher education; David Schleifer, vice president and director of research at Public Agenda, a national research organization; and Natasha Quadlin, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and co-author of Who Should Pay? Higher Education, Responsibility, and the Public, published this year by the Russell Sage Foundation.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman Episode sponsored by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Most business officers are upbeat about their colleges’ financial future. Why is that so, and are they right to be so optimistic?
This week's episode of The Key features a discussion about Inside Higher Ed’s 2022 Survey of College and University Business Officers, which generally found college chief financial officers feeling pretty good about how their institutions are faring and how they’re positioned for the future.
The episode explores the survey’s results, but also digs into whether financial and other leaders in higher education think their institutions need to make meaningful changes in how they operate to be financially sustainable and stable down the road – and whether their pretty rosy view might make them less inclined to see the need for significant changes on their campuses.
The conversation features three business officers: Diane Snyder, vice chancellor of finance and administration at the Alamo Colleges District in Texas; Cynthia Vizcaino Villa, senior vice president for administration and finance at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and Mark Volpatti, vice president for finance and chief financial officer at Indiana’s Valparaiso University.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. Sponsored by EY-Parthenon.
Many people in higher education recoil at the idea of merging institutions, and it’s little wonder: in most such arrangements, one institution swallows the other, which virtually disappears. But that doesn’t mean the alternative is for every college to remain an island unto itself.
Recent events – last month’s merger between Saint Joseph’s University and University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, and last week’s news that Antioch University and Otterbein University are teaming up to create a new national system of nonprofit colleges and universities – make this an opportune time to revisit an April 2021 discussion about transformative cross-college collaborations at a time of constrained resources.
The conversation includes John MacIntosh of SeaChange Capital Partners, a driving force behind the Transformational Partnerships Fund; Art Dunning, former president of Albany State University, who oversaw that institution’s merger with Darton State College; and Sister Margaret Carney, president emerita of St. Bonaventure University, who offers a cautionary tale about a merger that didn’t happen – and what went awry.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman.
College and university enrollments – particularly at community colleges – continue to plummet. Have they bottomed out? Will they recover if the economy cools off as expected? Has enrollment dropped to a new lower plateau that’s likely to be the baseline going forward?
This week’s episode of The Key explores the 7.5 percent decline that college enrollments have suffered since the pandemic, with a focus on community colleges that enroll working learners and first-generation students, which have been especially hard hit.
Digging into the reasons behind the enrollment declines and offering some insights into what’s ahead are Joe Garcia, chancellor of the Colorado Community College System, and Nate Johnson, a researcher and policy analyst whose firm, Postsecondary Analytics, advises states, foundations and businesses on education and workforce policy.
They surmise that some of the enrollment losses of the last two years may represent a new lower baseline going forward, and discuss the implications for institutions and students.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. Sponsored by Anthology.
How are colleges and universities going about rethinking their teaching and learning strategies in the wake of widescale experimentation with digital instruction?
This week’s episode is the last of a three-part series on digital teaching and learning, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The first two episodes explored how the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped what researchers and practitioners know about the role of technology in learning, and how well the hundreds of ed-tech companies that work with colleges, professors and students meet the needs of the institutions and their people and what they can do better.
In this week’s episode, we look more closely at how individual colleges and universities are rethinking the role of digital learning. Dhanfu E. Elston, chief of staff and senior vice president for strategy at Complete College America, discusses an effort involving six historically black colleges and universities.
Then we hear administrators from Arizona State, DeVry and Yale Universities describe the work they’re doing to evolve their strategies for using digital tools and approaches in instruction.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. This episode was made possible by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The last two years disrupted many aspects of higher education, and the educational technology market -- and the relationship between colleges and companies – are no exception.
This week’s episode of The Key explores how well the many hundreds of ed-tech companies that work with colleges, professors and students actually meet the needs of the institutions and their people, where they fall short, and how they can do better.
The discussion includes two guests who’ve sat at the intersection of where technology meets teaching and learning. Kara Monroe is the founder of Monarch Strategies, a consulting firm she founded early this year after 25 years as an academic administrator at Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana. Kelvin Bentley is a senior consultant at WGU Labs, where he works with companies that want to help colleges and universities educate students at scale. Over 25 years, he has worked with a range of public two-year and four-year colleges and multiple ed-tech companies.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. This episode was made possible by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
This week’s episode of The Key explores whether and how the landscape of digital teaching and learning has been changed by the last two years of global pandemic, recession, upheaval over racial justice, and more.
Participants in the conversation are Shanna Smith Jaggars, assistant vice provost of research and program assessment in Ohio State University’s Office of Student Academic Success, and Jessica Rowland Williams, director of Every Learner Everywhere, which pursues equitable outcomes in higher education through advances in digital learning.
In our discussion, they explore such topics as whether student expectations have changed about when, where and how they learn, if most faculty members are likelier to incorporate technology into their pedagogy than they were before, and what institutional leaders need to do to ensure that whatever role digital learning plays in their future strategies, they do it well.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. This episode was made possible by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Student loan debt forgiveness. Free community college. Pell Grants for short-term programs. Those are just some of the higher education issues occupying the federal policy landscape in Washington.
This week’s episode of The Key features a conversation with Under Secretary James Kvaal, the Education Department’s senior official on higher education. He discusses the administration’s current thinking about those and other issues, including the challenges of operating in a highly partisan era.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman.
Has higher education’s forced experimentation with remote learning changed how students, professors, colleges and the public view online education? And will it make them more or less likely to participate in it?
This week's episode of The Key explores Inside Higher Ed’s recent report, The Evolving Conversation About Quality in Online Learning.” The report examines a wide range of issues around the current and future state of technology-enabled learning to try to help administrators and faculty members prepare to deliver high-quality virtual instruction, however it fits into their institutional missions.
Lori Williams, president and CEO of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA), joins The Key this week to discuss the report and its implications for colleges, professors and policy makers. NC-SARA. Williams discusses how the pandemic has changed perceptions and practices around online education and how to judge quality in virtual learning, among other topics.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by NC-SARA.
This week's episode of The Key explores why some institutions use those policies and why consumer advocates think they're pernicious, even though they're only a small fraction of the $1.7 trillion student debt problem in American higher education.
Martin Kurzweil, director of the institutional transformation program at Ithaka S+R, discusses research on what it calls “stranded credits” that colleges sometimes hold hostage from former students and a promising experiment that could offer a way out for students and colleges alike.
Melanie Gottlieb, executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, explains why many higher ed officials oppose potential federal regulation to ban such policies, but acknowledges the need for colleges to limit the kinds of debt they try to collect from students.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by Kaplan.
Last month the State of Maryland announced that it would no longer require a bachelor’s degree in the hiring process for nearly half of its jobs, joining a growing number of companies and other employers.
Some people in higher education might view steps like that as a slight, since Maryland and other employers are responding in part to questions about the value of degrees and growing concerns about the cost – and opportunity cost – of earning one.
But in this week’s episode of The Key, Bridgette Gray of the nonprofit group Opportunity@Work, which is helping Maryland identify non-degreed workers to fill jobs in technology, administration and customer service, describes the market conditions that prompted the state’s decision and why equity was a primary factor behind its move.
And Brandon Busteed of Kaplan explains how colleges and universities can respond in ways that not only sustain their relevance but position them better for the coming changes in how learning is likely to happen.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by Kaplan.
Employers of all kinds are struggling to hold on to their employees in the wake of the pandemic and amid a white-hot job market. Data recently released by the University of North Carolina system, for instance, shows that faculty and staff turnover in the first half of this academic year was about 40 percent higher than the average of the last four years.
Are colleges and universities just dealing with the same issues other industries are facing? Or are there unique problems in higher ed that campus leaders need to acknowledge?
This week’s episode of The Key features a discussion with Kevin McClure, associate professor of higher education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, who’s been writing about these issues and this summer will begin a three-year research project examining working conditions at public institutions in his state.
In our conversation, he explores some of the reasons for the turnover, assesses the impact of the pandemic, and explains the difference between burnout and demoralization, both of which are probably playing a role.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Doug Lederman.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, student academic misconduct spiked, and an episode of The Key explored the reasons why and steps colleges and professors might take to combat it.
The issue hasn’t gone away, even though a lot of instruction has returned to the physical classroom. So this week we revisit the February 2021 conversations, which remain timely and relevant.
First up is Bradley Davis, associate director of the office of student conduct at North Carolina State University, who discusses the steps the university took in response to a roughly three-fold increase in academic misconduct cases NC State experienced in the wake of the shift to remote learning.
In the second half of the episode, we bring in some national context through a conversation with two experts on academic integrity and learning. David Rettinger is a professor of psychological science and Director of Academic Integrity Programs at the University of Mary Washington, as well as president emeritus of the International Center for Academic Integrity. Kate McConnell is assistant vice president for research and assessment and director of the Value Institute at the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic and the other upheaval of the last couple of years changed the outlook for colleges, their students and their employees?
Bryan Alexander is a writer, author, teacher and “futurist.” He wrote the 2020 book Academia Next and hosts his own series of video conversations, The Future Trends Forum.
In this week’s episode of The Key podcast, he first explains the work of professional futurists, and how they differ from other kinds of analysts who operate as if they owned crystal balls. Then Alexander explores a wide range of topics about how the COVID-19 pandemic, the drive for racial justice and other recent phenomena might affect the next few years in higher education, touching on technology, the curriculum, and his current focus, environmental sustainability.
This episode is sponsored by Pearson Inclusive Access. Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman.
“Transformation” is a buzzword in today’s world, and it’s easy to talk about why it’s necessary. But how do you actually do the hard work of bringing about change within a college or university?
This week's episode of The Key features highlights from a panel session at this month's SXSWedu conference in Austin, Tex. The discussion, heavy on practical advice for leading change within and across institutions, includes Michael Sorrell, president of Paul Quinn College; Michelle Weise, vice chancellor for strategy and innovation at the National University System; and Bridget Burns, executive director of the University Innovation Alliance.
Inside Higher Ed's editor and host of The Key, Doug Lederman, moderated the discussion. This episode is sponsored by Pearson Inclusive Access.
Like a lot of undergraduate-focused, smaller institutions, historically black colleges and universities typically went online selectively, sporadically – or not at all. But that’s beginning to change, thanks to significant multi-college collaborations and help from funders increasingly recognizing the value and importance of these underresourced institutions.
This week’s episode of The Key examines several major initiatives in which major philanthropies, corporations and nonprofit organizations are helping groups of HBCUs strengthen their ability to reach and serve students by improving their digital infrastructures, training their faculty and launching a joint platform for virtual courses.
Featured on today’s episode is Ed Smith-Lewis, vice president for strategic partnerships and institutional programs at the United Negro College Fund, which is at the fulcrum of these efforts. He discusses how HBCUs have historically approached online and digital education, why those institutions are drawing so much attention (and funding) now, and the opportunities and challenges of getting numerous colleges to collaborate rather than compete.
This episode is sponsored by Pearson Inclusive Access. Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman.
It only took a few decades, but colleges and universities are hiring more Black and brown presidents to lead their institutions.
This week's episode digs into data Inside Higher Ed published last month showing a big upturn in the proportion of minority presidents and chancellors that colleges hired in the year and a half after the death of George Floyd. Better than one in three presidents hired from June 2020 through November 2021 were people of color, a full quarter were Black, and the proportion of Latinx presidents who were appointed roughly doubled from the previous 18 months.
Two guests join to dissect the data, what they mean and how much they matter.
Lorelle L. Espinosa is program director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, where she focuses on grantmaking that drives evidence-based change around diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM education. She formerly oversaw research on the college presidency and other topics at the American Council on Education.
Eddie R. Cole, associate professor of higher education and history at the University of California, Los Angeles, offers some context about the current moment based on his study of the civil rights era, when colleges also sought to diversify their leadership (for a while).
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Doug Lederman
The Carnegie Classifications are an enduring institution in higher education – but they’re about to undergo a facelift that could be dramatic.
This week’s episode of The Key explores the recent news that the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching -- which created the main system we use to differentiate among types of colleges and universities about 50 years ago – had chosen the American Council on Education, the largest and most diverse association of college presidents, to remake and run the classifications going forward.
Tim Knowles of Carnegie and Ted Mitchell of ACE discuss the new partnership and why the time is right to refresh the classifications. They emphasize their plan to add a significant focus on whether and how much colleges and universities contribute to social mobility and racial equity, potentially by adding an entirely new classification that would sort institutions by the degree to which they are engines of mobility and equity.
The episode includes a conversation with Brendan Cantwell, an associate professor and coordinator of the Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education program at Michigan State University, who discusses the potential unintended consequences of focusing too much on social mobility in college rankings.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman
College students almost certainly lost ground academically during the pandemic. But do we know how much? And what should colleges do about it?
This week’s episode explores a free report Inside Higher Ed published in December, “Back on Track: Helping Students Recover From COVID-19 Learning Disruption.”
It examines the available evidence about how the pandemic affected students’ educational paths, and finds, somewhat unsurprisingly, that most colleges really don’t know whether their students suffered what in the K-12 context is often called “learning loss” or “learning disruption.” But that doesn’t mean they aren’t adapting their practices and policies in areas such as placement, instruction, grading and assessment to help students make up whatever ground they’ve lost.
Participating in this discussion are Natasha Jankowski, a higher education and assessment consultant and former executive director of the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment; Matthew Gunkel, chief online learning and technology officer for the University of Missouri System; and Michael Hale, vice president of education at VitalSource. Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman.
This episode is made possible by the support of VitalSource.com.
Colleges tend to compete rather than collaborate. That’s why a new five-college cooperative in New Mexico is so unusual.
This week’s episode explores the Collaborative for Higher Education Shared Services, or CHESS. It’s made up, so far, of five independent community colleges in New Mexico that have teamed up because they think they’re stronger together than apart.
They’ve started by agreeing to create a common enterprise resource planning structure to share resources and information in areas such as accounting, student records, human resources and payroll, but the vision ultimately includes many of the features you might see in a formal college system, including smoother student mobility and more efficient and cost-effective campus operations.
In the conversation, the presidents of two of the colleges, Becky Rowley of Santa Fe Community College and Tracy Hartzler of Central New Mexico Community College, discuss the combination of trust, subjugation of institutional ego, and internal culture change required to bring about a massive cross-institutional collaboration like this. They acknowledge the help they’ve gotten from the external partners guiding their work, CampusWorks and Workday.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is made possible by the support of Formstack
The era of flexible work in higher education has begun.
The pandemic drastically altered our collective relationship with work in the moment, but how will faculty, staff and administrative jobs look differently going forward? In this week’s episode, administrators at two institutions that are addressing these questions head-on discuss their approaches.
Natalie McKnight is dean of the College of General Studies at Boston University and co-chair of its Committee on the Future of Staff Work, whose recommendations underpinned the university’s new policy allowing many employees to work up to two days a week from home. And Bryan Garey, vice president for human resources at Virginia Tech, discusses the university’s evolving “flexible work” policy under which nearly 10 percent of the workforce has already qualified to work 100% off site.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman. This episode is sponsored by Formstack.
In the last month, California enacted a law that could greatly expand the number of bachelor’s degree programs being offered by the state’s 116 community colleges. And Arizona approving legislation allowing massive systems like the Maricopa Community Colleges to award their own four-year degrees for the first time.
Half of all states now enable their community colleges to offer baccalaureate degrees, but how many, and in what fields, remain a source of contention in many places. Advocates for the programs say they fill essential gaps left by four-year institutions in their states in providing educational opportunities to adults and other underrepresented students and meeting essential needs in health care and other industries. Efforts to create or expand community college bachelor’s programs are often opposed by four-year colleges and universities concerned about the quality of the programs and, let’s be honest, lower-cost competition.
There’s a lot we don’t know about these emerging programs, and in this week’s episode of The Key, Debra Bragg of New America describes a report mapping the community college baccalaureate landscape. In the interview, she describes what we already know – and have yet to learn – about these programs, how we might gauge their effectiveness, and what they tell us about why so many students struggle along the traditional path of transferring from two-year to four-year institutions.
Are politicians and the public losing faith in higher education?
Last week delivered unwelcome news to colleges and universities. New data from the National Student Clearinghouse showed that college enrollments tumbled again this fall, with hundreds of thousands fewer students opting to start or continue their educations than even during the heart of the pandemic last fall.
And a scaled-back version of President Biden’s Build Back Better Act contained about $40 billion in new funds for colleges and their students -- barely a third of the previous iteration and missing key initiatives such as much-touted tuition-free community college.
This week’s episode features three thoughtful observers of the higher ed landscape on what these developments mean and why they matter. Tamara Hiler is director of education at Third Way, a center-left think tank in Washington. Robert Kelchen is professor and chair of education at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. And Teresa Valerio Parrot is a principal at TVP Communications.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman.
This episode is sponsored by Formstack.
Federal data now allow anyone who wishes to identify academic programs whose graduates on average earn more than enough to repay their student debt -- or don’t. As journalists and think tank analysts dissect the data, many of the programs whose graduates don’t earn enough to repay their debt prepare people for industries that don’t pay very well but that society values, such as teaching or the clergy.
Degrees in the arts are a particular target. In this week’s episode of The Key, New America’s Kevin Carey and Doug Dempster, former dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, debate the wisdom of pursuing degrees in the arts and other low-paying fields, whether economic outcomes are the best way to judge the value of those programs, and the prospects for driving down the costs of those programs.
“Time is growing short.” That’s how Bloomfield College’s president, Marcheta P. Evans, described the struggling private college’s situation this week in an atypical plea for help.
Bloomfield, whose students are overwhelmingly black, Hispanic and from low-income backgrounds, acknowledged that it won’t make it through the 2022-23 academic year in its current condition, and asked for help from potential philanthropists and partner institutions to keep its mission alive.
In this week’s episode, Marcheta Evans discusses the New Jersey college’s unexpected approach to an increasingly common plight. She explains why it chose to go public about a situation many institutions hide, and it’s options for surviving and even thriving.
This week’s other guest is Barbara Brittingham, president emerita of the New England Commission of Higher Education, who as leader of the accrediting body in the demographically challenged Northeast encountered more than her fair share of financially ailing institutions.
This episode is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman.
Sponsor is Formstack
Data is a four-letter word in some quarters of higher education, even as many people call for colleges and universities to get better at using data and analytics to support institutional decision-making. Plenty of academics equate discussions about “data” with an overemphasis on efficiency or productivity or accountability, and worry that college leaders will put algorithms and numbers ahead of thoughtful analysis.
Amelia Parnell strongly believes in the power of good information to help college faculty and staff members make better decisions. But in her new book, “You Are a Data Person: Strategies for Using Analytics on Campus,” from Stylus Publishing, Parnell describes a very expansive view of data-informed conversations that just about everyone in a campus community can and should be able to participate in.
Parnell, vice president for research and policy at NASPA–Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, joins this week’s episode of The Key for a conversation about the different ways that professors, administrators and staff members can use data in their everyday work and contribute to important discussions across the institution – whether they consider themselves “data people” or not.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman.
This episode of The Key is sponsored by D2L.
This episode explores the retailer’s $1.2 billion investment in helping workers earn degrees -- and how it reflects the complicated, sometimes conflictual relationship between colleges and employers.
Last month Amazon announced a plan to spend $1.2 billion by 2025 to expand its employee education and training offerings, which include a set of internal programs but also cover the full cost of academic programs up to bachelor’s degrees for its front-line workers.
In this week’s episode of The Key, Amazon’s vice president for workforce development, Ardine Williams, discusses the company’s new investments as well as its relationship with colleges and universities, which she describes as more cooperative than competitive.
Williams also discusses the signals that employers like Amazon send about how they view the quality of traditional higher education programs and institutions and her views about the value of a liberal arts education.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman.
This episode of The Key is sponsored by D2L.
Many employers and critics of higher education think many colleges and universities focus too little on ensuring that their graduates thrive after they leave, and favor holding institutions accountable for how their students fare in the job market. That’s unpalatable to a lot of academics, who view a college education as about more than how much you earn.
The guests in this week's episode, Wake Forest University’s Andy Chan and Christine Cruzvergara of Handshake, endorse the view that colleges and universities should be collecting and sharing data about how well they are preparing students for success in the workplace, given that that’s the primary reason many students go to college.
But the set of common metrics they propose colleges use to measure their own performance is broad, and it includes such data as how much institutions expose students to experiential learning in college to graduates’ satisfaction with their jobs once they leave.
Chan and Cruzvergara discuss the need for colleges to prioritize their students’ career readiness, and to move beyond tired debates pitting learning against vocation.
Hosted by Doug Lederman, co-editor of Inside Higher Ed
This episode is sponsored by D2L.
Despite our expectations and hopes, here we are in another COVID fall. This week’s episode of The Key examines how the pandemic is affecting institutions, students and employees as most colleges and universities strive to keep their reopened campuses … open.
Elizabeth Redden, a senior reporter who has driven Inside Higher Ed’s coverage of the pandemic since its earliest days, joins The Key to discuss a wide range of issues:
- Enormous variation in how the coronavirus – and politics related to the pandemic -- are playing out in different parts of the country.
- How students are complying with their colleges’ vaccination mandates.
- What we know, and may not know, about the state of COVID infection on campuses.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman.
This episode of The Key is sponsored by D2L.
The Biden administration has promised once-in-a-generation investments and changes in higher education. Legislation introduced in the House of Representatives this month would take meaningful steps in that direction.
This week’s episode of The Key digs into what could end up being one of the most significant pieces of federal higher education policy making in many years: the Build Back Better Act. It includes the American College Promise, his plan to make community college tuition-free, significantly expanded funding for Pell Grants, and, for the first time, a fund that would give colleges incentives for retaining their students and ensuring that they graduate. It would also reshape the relationship between federal and state governments, through a partnership that would give state governments billions but require a lot from them in return.
The episode includes conversations with Michele Streeter, associate director of Policy & Advocacy at the Institute for College Access and Success; Jee Hang Lee, senior vice president (and incoming president) at the Association of Community College Trustees; and Will Doyle, a professor of higher education at Vanderbilt University.
This episode is sponsored by D2L.
Most of us had hoped for a lot more stability this fall, but here we are. For those of you involved in teaching and learning at your colleges and universities, that means continuing to live in that sometimes uncomfortable space you’ve inhabited for the last 18 months: Will my class have to go remote tomorrow? Have I designed my course to withstand that kind of disruption? Can I be effective no matter what setting we’re in?
These may not be fleeting questions for institutions and instructors, as higher education deals with a new reality that whether it’s a global health pandemic, or hurricanes or forest fires, or any other kind of interruption or disruption, circumstances may require – and students may demand – flexibility in how and when academic instruction is delivered.
This week’s episode of The Key features a discussion with Jeff Borden, chief academic officer at D2L and executive director of Institute for Inter-Connected Education. The conversation examines how colleges are striving to balance and mix in-person and virtual modalities; the growing recognition of students’ non-cognitive as well as cognitive needs; and how the pandemic may have altered student and faculty expectations.
Sponsored by D2L
Much higher education coverage related to COVID-19 focused on 18-year-old students being displaced from their dorms and listening to history lectures or watching biology videos in their childhood bedrooms. Relatively little attention was paid to the pandemic’s impact on career and technical education, much of which involves hands-on learning.
In this week’s episode of The Key, Shayne Spaulding, a senior fellow in the income and benefits policy center at the Urban Institute, discusses research the think tank released this spring about how the pandemic may have changed the role of online and blended learning in community college career and technical programs. The conversation also explores the role of alternative providers in the CTE space and whether vocational learning is undervalued in American society.
This episode is hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman.
Sponsored by ECMC Foundation.
A wide range of education and training providers strive to help working adults enter or advance in the workforce. Community colleges and a growing number of other nonprofit and for-profit universities are intensifying their longstanding efforts. Companies like Amazon, Google and others are investing in their own programs, with and without colleges. And an almost endless array of startups, funded by investors seeing a new market, are creating shorter, less expensive programs aimed at getting people into well-paying jobs fast and without significant time out of the workforce.
This episode of The Key explores another approach to serving working adults. Merit America is a nonprofit organization that connects adults to short-term certification programs and to professional coaches to help move them quickly into high-demand jobs like IT support and data analytics. Its co-CEOs, Rebecca Taber Staehelin and Connor Diemand-Yauman, join The Key to talk about their work and how it fits into the larger landscape for working adults. They’ll discuss their unusual mix of corporate and philanthropic funding, how they think training providers like them should be judged, and how they plan to grow from about 1,500 learners this year to 10,000 and ultimately 100,000.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman.
This episode of The Key is sponsored by ECMC Foundation.
The set of programs, policies and pathways by which learners move between colleges and universities is complex and often incoherent. Many students enter the transfer maze and never get through it, costing them time and money.
That’s especially problematic because the students who seek to transfer are disproportionately those whom higher education has historically served least well – students from low-income backgrounds, members of underrepresented minority groups, working learners.
This week’s episode of The Key discusses the work of the Tackling Transfer Policy Advisory Board. The group of national experts convened to try to “fix” transfer, but its new report, out this week, concludes instead that this moment really demands a broader “reset.”
Marty J. Alvarado, executive vice chancellor for educational services at the California Community Colleges chancellor’s office and a leader of the advisory board, discusses the effort and the transfer landscape.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman.
This episode of The Key is sponsored by ECMC Foundation.
“Learning loss” – the idea that students failed to stay on their previous trajectory – has been much discussed in K-12 education during the pandemic. We hear far less about it in higher education, even though students and faculty members alike consistently say they believe students have learned less in the last year than they usually do.
In this week’s episode of The Key, we discuss what colleges and universities will be facing as most prepare to welcome students back to their physical classrooms this fall, and how professors and staff members who work with students might go about understanding which students have been set back and in what ways, and how to get them back on track.
We talk with Natasha Jankowski, former executive director of the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment who is now a consultant on student learning and a lecturer at New England College, and Ereka R. Williams, associate provost for academic strategy and institutional effectiveness at Winston-Salem State University, in North Carolina.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman.
Students have offered mixed assessments of their learning experiences during the pandemic year. Many of them have complained about the lack of interaction with peers and professors in virtual environments, but appreciated the flexibility they gained in when and how they learned.
With many colleges planning a significant if not full return to their physical campuses this fall, what will students be expecting from their institutions and their professors when it comes to learning?
Have the last 15 months reinforced their appreciation for learning in person, or will they expect to have the option to attend class remotely when it suits them?
Will professors who changed their teaching practices when they were forced to teach virtually embrace some of the new approaches or tools they adopted during the pandemic, or will they revert to their old ways of doing things?
We’re joined in this week’s episode of The Key by three experts on student learning and online education: Justin Louder, associate vice provost for eLearning & Academic Partnerships at Texas Tech University; Michelle Miller, professor of psychological sciences at Northern Arizona University; and Alexandra Salas, dean for innovation, teaching, digital learning excellence and educational support services at Delaware County Community College.
This episode is sponsored by Blackboard.
Many college students and professors will return to their physical campuses this fall, and it’s tempting to think things will return to “normal” when they do. But given the events of the past 15 months, what happens in the classroom come September is likely to be anything but normal.
In this week’s episode of The Key, Mays Imad, professor of pathophysiology and biomedical ethics and coordinator of the Teaching & Learning Center at Pima Community College, looks both back at what students and instructors experienced during the past year and ahead at how they can prepare to teach, learn and support each other this fall.
Imad, mixing her personal story with practical advice, draws on her writings for Inside Higher Ed, including her March 2020 column that has been viewed more than 800,000 times and a new essay with 13 steps educators can take to promote students’ mental health (and their own).
This episode of The Key is sponsored by Blackboard.
Listening to alternative points of view isn’t a particularly favored activity in many corners of society these days. But it remains one of the best ways – perhaps one of the only ways – of bridging the many divides (racial, economic, cultural) currently afflicting many aspects of our world. So argues Ronald A. Crutcher, president of the University of Richmond and author of I Had No Idea You Were Black: Navigating Race on the Road to Leadership (Clyde Hill Publishing). In this week’s episode of The Key, Crutcher discusses his leadership style, his views on campus race relations and affirmative action, and the importance of understanding the pain words can cause while still favoring free speech over limiting it.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman.
This episode is sponsored by Wiley Education Services.
What skills, knowledge and abilities do students develop as they navigate through college? How do students themselves know, and how do institutions arm their graduates to show prospective employers what they know and can do?
This week’s episode explores an effort to iterate beyond the academic transcript, which has historically been the main tool available to students, institutions and employers alike to sum up what’s gained during the college experience. And a not very effective one at that.
In this episode, Insiya Bream, assistant vice provost for data and systems at the University of Maryland Global Campus, explains the “comprehensive learner record” it has created for its MBA students. And Matthew Pittinsky, CEO of Parchment, describes why a “better transcript” – which is often discussed in the context of professionally-focused learning like at UMGC – could actually help liberal arts institutions make their case for the value of what they do.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman.
This episode is sponsored by Wiley Education Services.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced almost every college or university to make do without a physical campus at some point in the last 15 months. But many students and employees yearned to return, and most institutions anticipate resuming at least quasi-normal in-person operations this fall.
But changes in how students learn and employees work will almost certainly compel most colleges and universities to reassess how they use their physical campuses – one of the many ways institutions may rethink how they best fulfill their missions.
This episode of The Key podcast examines that landscape by looking at the University of Akron’s decision to sell, repurpose or otherwise shed nearly 1 million square feet of the land and buildings it owns – about one-eighth of its total holdings.
Nathan Mortimer, vice president of operations at Akron, discusses the university’s evolving strategy. Lander Medlin, executive vice president of APPA: Leadership in Educational Facilities, offers a national perspective on the analysis college leaders are doing to assess their own situations. And Tomas Rossant and Alex O’Briant of Ennead Architects share their insights on the continuing importance of the physical campus and the link between mission and place.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed co-founder and editor Doug Lederman.
This episode is sponsored by Wiley Education Services.
Students and state and federal governments alike are asking increasingly hard questions about the return on their investment in postsecondary education, as tuitions and debt grow.
In this episode of The Key, which is sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, three experts with a diverse set of perspectives discuss the government role in ensuring value from academic institutions and programs: the complexity of any attempt to formally measure postsecondary value; the importance of focusing on historically underrepresented students; and the centrality of the federal role in holding colleges accountable.
Jamienne S. Studley is president and CEO of the WASC Senior College and University Commission, an accrediting agency. Kim Hunter Reed is a former senior Education Department official who is now commissioner of higher education in Louisiana. Barbara Mistick is a former private college president who leads the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which has historically bristled at federal attempts to regulate higher education too closely.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Founder and Editor Doug Lederman
Most Americans say they pursue a degree or other credential after high school to improve their job or career prospects. So many efforts to judge the value of a college credential have focused exclusively on graduates’ income. A new report from the Postsecondary Value Commission expands that definition, considering other, longer-term economic measures (such as economic mobility and wealth) and recognizing the non-economic benefits that accrue to individuals and society when people get more postsecondary education.
But ultimately, the report from the commission recommends that institutions and programs be judged primarily by economic outcomes – and analysts are divided on that approach.
In this episode of The Key, which is sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute’s Beth Akers argues that it’s logical to focus on economic measures given that postsecondary education in the United States is increasingly funded by individuals. Meanwhile, Claude Pressnell Jr., president of the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association, says that overdependence on income and other career outcomes in judging institutions’ success minimizes colleges’ role in preparing graduates to be productive members of our society. Pressnell also notes that like many such studies, the value commission’s report largely ignores independent nonprofit colleges and universities, which make up nearly 40 percent of American colleges and educate about one in five U.S. undergraduates.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman.
Rapid growth in college debt and families’ out-of-pocket expenditures on higher education, along with complaints from employers about the preparedness of the people they hire, have intensified questioning about the value of postsecondary degrees and credentials.
This week’s episode of The Key explores a report from a high-powered group of policy makers, college leaders, researchers and others that proposes a new way of judging whether colleges and programs are providing a good return on investment to their students – with a particular focus on whether they’re ensuring equity. The report comes from the Postsecondary Value Commission, which was convened two years ago by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
This episode, which is sponsored by the Gates Foundation, features three perspectives on the report. Two are members of the commission: Margaret Spellings, secretary of education under President George W. Bush and former president of the University of North Carolina system, and José Luis Cruz, provost at the City University of New York System and incoming president of Northern Arizona University. The third is Tamara Hiler, director of education at the think tank Third Way.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman.
Congress is considering expanding use of the federal government’s main postsecondary grant program to cover enrollment in training programs as short as eight weeks. Supporters – community college leaders, corporations and advocates for a more skilled workforce – believe the change is essential to serve tens of millions of Americans who don’t have the money or time for degree and other longer-term programs. Those who oppose “short-term Pell,” though, say proponents exaggerate the quality and value of most short-term credentials and that this change will exacerbate existing equity gaps that leave Black, brown and low-income Americans behind.
In this episode of The Key, Monty Sullivan, president of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System, and Amy Laitinen, director for higher education at New America, discuss the promise and the potential pitfalls of short-term Pell.
Getting a job or improving career success is a primary reason why many students pursue a postsecondary degree or other credential. So it’s logical to assess the performance of colleges and universities – at least partially – by how their students fare after they leave.
This week’s episode of The Key examines a new way of judging colleges and universities based on how quickly their students recoup what they spent out of pocket for their degree or certificate. (Spoiler alert: students at one-fifth of institutions still hadn’t gotten a return on their investment within a decade.) Michael Itzkowitz of Third Way discusses the think tank’s analysis, and Rutgers University’s Michelle Van Noy talks about the overall landscape for holding colleges accountable for their students’ workplace success.
Merger is something of a dirty word in higher education, given that most of them are takeovers in which one college usually disappears. But as financial, demographic and other changes force many colleges to consider significant changes in how they operate, a cross-institutional collaboration of one sort or another – be it sharing of back-office operations, cooperation on academic programs or a merger – is likely to grow.
In this week’s episode of The Key, we discuss the Transformation Partnerships Fund, a new philanthropic effort to encourage colleges and universities to contemplate alliances that can better help them serve students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. The conversation features John MacIntosh of SeaChange Capital Partners and Art Dunning, former president of Albany State University, who oversaw that institution’s merger with Darton State College and advises the fund. And Sister Margaret Carney, president emerita of St. Bonaventure University, offers a cautionary tale about a merger that didn’t happen – and what went awry.
Adult students are key to meeting the postsecondary attainment goals in many states and the U.S., given the projected enrollment declines in traditional college-age Americans. Yet adults remain underrepresented in higher education, and they’ve been disproportionately hurt by the pandemic and ensuring recession.
This episode of The Key explores the landscape of current and prospective adult learners, examining why they often struggle to find their way to and through college, the institutional practices and government policies that can hamper them, and possible approaches to eliminating those obstacles. We talk with Su Jin Jez, executive director of California Competes, whose recent report looks at the state’s nearly 7 million adults who could be “prospective graduates,” and provide a national perspective from Lisa Soricone, senior research director at Jobs for the Future.
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman
Use of free, openly licensed textbooks and other curricular materials have been on the rise amid growing concerns about college affordability. But uptake stalled last year as professors and students struggled with the transition to digital learning and the tumult of their lives, a new annual report on usage of OER finds.
This week’s episode of The Key examines the state of open educational resources and other affordable textbook options with Jeff Seaman, co-director of Bay View Analytics and the author of the OER report; Robbie Melton, a professor of educational administration at Tennessee State University and an advocate for OER use at historically black colleges; and Jorgo Gushi, a student at Quinsigamond Community College in Massachusetts. A key question: will the widespread shift to virtual learning and continued pressure on colleges to improve affordability and access for underrepresented students create opportunity for OER – or strengthen the hand of low-cost alternatives from publishers?
Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Doug Lederman
Inequality in digital access is not a new problem in higher education – but COVID-19 has spotlighted just how much some students struggle to stay connected to their colleges and universities because they lack adequate technology, sufficient internet access or safe, quiet places to study. This week’s episode of The Key delves into topics such as digital inequity, broadband access for online education, and digital literacy with Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed’s technology reporter and author of our new report, “Bridging the Digital Divide: Lessons from COVID-19;” Lori Williams, president and CEO of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements; and Reggie Smith III, CEO of the U.S. Distance Learning Association. Plus we hear from a university student about her experiences staying connected during COVID.
This episode explores Inside Higher Ed's news hub featuring student polling data, news and analysis to ensure that the perspective of college students is heard on the issues that matter in higher education.
Student Voice's editor, Melissa Ezarik, discusses the goals of the new collaboration between Inside Higher Ed, College Pulse and Kaplan, and shares the findings of the first survey, which examines whether students feel "heard" in their classrooms and on their campuses. And Matthew To, a senior at Cal Poly Pomona, shares his thought on how campuses can create environments that not only invite students to speak out but make them feel listened to.
Many colleges are seeing increases in reports of academic misconduct. In this episode, North Carolina State University’s Bradley Davis discusses a nearly three-fold increase in academic violations, what’s causing it, and how university officials are responding to it. And two national experts, David Rettinger and Kate McConnell, explore steps faculty members and administrators can take both to minimize cheating and to build a culture of academic integrity – with the goal of improving student learning at the same time.
Do professors believe their virtual teaching improved with more time to prepare? Did institutions step up their training and support for instructors? And did some students fare better than others in the online and blended classroom? This week’s episode explores those questions with Kristen Fox of Tyton Partners and Jessica Rowland Williams of Every Learner Everywhere – with answers both heartening and troubling.
This episode features Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, and Juana Sánchez, senior associate on the HCM Strategists postsecondary team. We analyze the national data on postsecondary enrollment, with a focus on the particularly damaging impact the pandemic and the recession have had on the most vulnerable students – those from underrepresented minority groups and low-income backgrounds, working learners and adults.
This episode looks back at 2020 and the podcast's eight months of discussions about the impact of the pandemic on higher education and vulnerable college students.
Erin Hennessy, a vice president at TVP Communications, joined us to talk about what we learned during this unprecedented year. The episode also features portions of interviews from the previous 34 episodes, including discussions about the pivot to distance education, the difference between "toxic positivity" and trying to be hopeful, the enrollment hit felt to the industry (particularly community colleges) and how the pandemic exposed and exacerbated pre-existing problems in higher ed.
Thanks for listening to The Key's inaugural season. Happy New Year.
This episode features leaders from Purdue Global University and Broward College in Florida, two institutions that are focused on offering credentials that work for under-served student groups, including students who hold down jobs while pursuing credentials.
Gregory Adam Haile, Broward's president, talked about the college's work to add short-term credentials that are stackable and feature embedded professional certifications. He also talked about how the college travels into its community to help find students who may not be interested in pursuing a degree right now.
We also spoke with Frank Dooley, chancellor of Purdue Global University, an online, public institution that enrolls roughly 36,000 students, 70 percent of whom are eligible to receive federal Pell Grants. Dooley talked about Purdue Global's philosophy on growth and how to be nimble to better meet the demands of students and employers.
This episode is sponsored by TimelyMD, a telehealth provider whose mission is to improve the well-being of college students by making virtual medical and mental health care accessible anytime, anywhere. With immediate medical care, scheduled and on-demand counseling, psychiatry and health coaching services, TimelyMD partners with institutions to empower students to thrive in all aspects of their lives. Learn more at timely.md.
Many colleges and universities have partnered with ed tech companies to help expand their online offerings. This episode looks at two different approaches to partnering online.
We spoke with Andrew Clark, the founder, president and CEO of Zovio, a publicly traded education technology services company that just closed on the sale of its online Ashford University to the University of Arizona. Clark talked about the partnership between Zovio and the new University of Arizona Global Campus as well as his take on emerging business models in online education.
Also featured in this episode is Jill Buban, vice president of digital strategy and online education at Fairfield University. The private institution in Connecticut is looking to grow its online graduate and professional programs, and has added new online credentials and partnerships with intermediaries such as Guild.
This episode is sponsored by TimelyMD, a telehealth provider whose mission is to improve the well-being of college students by making virtual medical and mental health care accessible anytime, anywhere. With immediate medical care, scheduled and on-demand counseling, psychiatry and health coaching services, TimelyMD partners with institutions to empower students to thrive in all aspects of their lives. Learn more at timely.md.
Many colleges and universities wrapped up their fall terms before Thanksgiving. We spoke with officials from two institutions -- Paul Quinn College and the University of Notre Dame -- about their efforts to protect the health and wellbeing of students this fall.
Michael Sorrell, Paul Quinn's president, talked about how the work college sought to stay connected with students during an online term. He also described his take on how college leaders should look out for students' best interests.
Christine Gebhardt, the University of Notre Dame's assistant vice president for student services, talked with us about how the university expanded the reach of its counseling and health services this fall. It was all hands on deck, she said.
This episode is sponsored by TimelyMD, a telehealth provider whose mission is to improve the well-being of college students by making virtual medical and mental health care accessible anytime, anywhere. With immediate medical care, scheduled and on-demand counseling, psychiatry and health coaching services, TimelyMD partners with institutions to empower students to thrive in all aspects of their lives. Learn more at timely.md.
Joseph I. Castro, Fresno State's president, will become chancellor of the California State University System in January. The system is one of the nation's largest, enrolling roughly 500,000 students across 23 campuses.
Castro talked about his top priorities as he steps into the new role, including to continue Cal State's push to improve student completion rates while cutting achievement gaps. He also discussed the need for state, federal and philanthropic investment to help Cal State students stay on track.
Tim White, the system's current chancellor, joined us in May to discuss the system's early decision to stick with a largely online fall. Castro revisited that move and talked about how it may have contributed to record enrollment levels and improved student retention rates at Fresno State and across Cal State.
Education drives economic mobility. Strategic Education, Inc. is dedicated to helping improve lives through education. Strategic Education’s institutions -- including Strayer and Capella Universities, the Jack Welch Management Institute, Hackbright Academy and Sophia Learning -- create innovative and relevant learning experiences that prepare our students for the workforce -- today and in the future. Learn more at strategiceducation.com.
This year has been filled with challenges for college athletics, as programs wrestle with safety protocols, COVID-19 outbreaks, game cancellations and the elimination of some team sports amid widespread financial pain.
To help get a handle on where things stand -- and where they're headed -- we spoke with Amy Privette Perko, CEO of the Knight Commission, a nonprofit organization of college leaders focused on reforming athletics.
Perko spoke about big-time college football's season so far, budget crises, revenue distribution and the commission's top priorities -- including changes to FBS football.
This podcast is sponsored by Strategic Education, Inc. At Strategic Education, our mission is to help advance economic mobility for all. Strategic Education institutions -- including Strayer and Capella Universities, the Jack Welch Management Institute, Hackbright Academy and Sophia Learning -- innovate and infuse technology into higher education to provide a highly relevant and flexible education experience that results in economic mobility for working adults. Learn more at strategiceducation.com.
Some experts think competency-based learning could get a boost amid the pandemic, in part because of the flexibility CBE programs offer to students.
To get the lay of the land, we spoke with Charla Long, executive director of the Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN), a national consortium of colleges and systems. Long talked about the outlook for CBE and what might take it to the next level.
We also spoke with Dick Senese, the president of Capella University. Senese described how Capella began focusing on competencies long ago and was among the first to offer direct assessment, which is untethered from the credit hour.
This episode is sponsored by Capella University, a subsidiary of Strategic Education, Inc. Capella University’s online degree programs offer working adults the flexibility of a guided or self-paced learning model so learners can gain the relevant skills and qualifications they need to help advance in their jobs or to launch new careers. To learn more about our competency-based education, visit Capella University at https://www.capella.edu/capella-experience/competency-based-education/.
A growing body of evidence finds high student anxiety and uncertainty about what comes after college.
To get a better sense of how students are feeling, we spoke with Livia and Julia Morris, recent UC Davis grads who conducted a survey of college students around the country. The survey featured questions about career exploration.
We also spoke with Kai Drekmeier, the founder and chief development officer at InsideTrack, which offers coaching and other supports to students. Drekmeier talked about rising student demand for crisis help and what that means for higher education.
This episode is sponsored by Pearson. Educators around the world rely on the trusted content and digital learning resources from Pearson to improve outcomes in face-to-face or hybrid learning environments. Visit Pearson for all of your online teaching resources, at go.Pearson.com/teachingonline.
Student transfer is down this fall, with new data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center showing the anticipated influx of students transferring to community colleges from four-year institutions didn't happen.
To make sense of these numbers, we spoke Iris Palmer, a senior advisor for higher education and workforce with the education policy program at New America. Palmer talked about state policies and incentives to help students transfer more seamlessly.
We also spoke with Alison Kadlec, a founding partner with Sova, an organization that works on transfer and student success. Kadlec describe how colleges typically have treated transfer students, and what the enrollment crunch most institutions now face could mean for that dynamic.
This episode is sponsored by Pearson. Educators around the world rely on the trusted content and digital learning resources from Pearson to improve outcomes in face-to-face or hybrid learning environments. Visit Pearson for all of your online teaching resources, at go.Pearson.com/teachingonline.
As higher education faces a potential exodus of students -- particularly lower-income students who attend community colleges -- what role could creative financing play in helping students bridge the gap from college to a career?
Chris Keaveney thinks Meritize can be part of solution. The private lender focuses on reducing risk and friction for students, colleges and employers. Keaveney, the founder and CEO, talked about what the model could mean for skills-based learning.
We also spoke with Carlo Salerno, vice president for research at Campus Logic, a student financial success technology company. A higher education economist, Salerno gave a national perspective on Meritize as well as income-share agreements.
This episode is sponsored by Pearson. Educators around the world rely on the trusted content and digital learning resources from Pearson to improve outcomes in face-to-face or hybrid learning environments. Visit Pearson for all of your online teaching resources, at go.Pearson.com/teachingonline.
A growing body of research has shown that anxiety and mental health issues have become primary concerns for college students.
To get a leadership perspective on this challenge, we spoke with Elfred Anthony Pinkard, the president of Wilberforce University, who talked about how his students have been coping with the nation's racial reckoning as well as the pandemic.
We also spoke with Dr. Alan Dennington, the chief medical officer at TimelyMD, a telehealth provider focused on college students, who described a spike in demand for mental health counseling among students, and what appears to be driving it.
This episode is sponsored by Cengage, from online to hyflex learning, Cengage supports your changing pedagogy at scale. Learn more at cengage.com/institutional.
Amid fears about a possible exodus of lower-income students from postsecondary education, and community colleges in particular, what can policymakers do to help vulnerable students stay on track?
For answers, we spoke with Morna Foy, president of the Wisconsin Technical College System. Foy spoke about barriers faced by students across the system and why she and other two-year college leaders want more federal stimulus help for part-time students.
Also featured in this episode is Lexi Barrett, an associate vice president at Jobs for the Future, who leads the group's state and federal policy efforts. Barrett put the enrollment crunch many community colleges are facing in a national context, and talked about some possible policy fixes.
This episode is sponsored by Cengage, from online to hyflex learning, Cengage supports your changing pedagogy at scale. Learn more at cengage.com/institutional.
The pandemic has brought new urgency to the creation of a learner record system, which could help students more smoothly transfer between colleges and find a job.
We spoke with Scott Cheney, the CEO of Credential Engine, to hear about the potential for such a system, as well as how his organization is seeking to bring transparency to credentials while creating a marketplace for them.
Also featured in this episode is Kendall Bailey, who leads SEI Labs. She spoke about how interoperable learner records could improve equity by helping students more efficiently bridge the gap between postsecondary education and the workforce.
This episode is sponsored by Cengage, from online to hyflex learning, Cengage supports your changing pedagogy at scale. Learn more at cengage.com/institutional.
The College of Health Care Professions is the largest producer of allied health graduates in Texas. Most of its students are Latino, Black and from lower-incomes backgrounds.
We spoke with Eric Bing, CHCP's CEO, to hear how the college and its students are holding up during the pandemic. Bing talked about how the college has designed its credentials to be stackable, and how higher education can better serve adult students.
This episode is sponsored by Cengage, from online to hyflex learning, Cengage supports your changing pedagogy at scale. Learn more at cengage.com/institutional.
Community colleges and their students are wrestling with plenty of challenges this fall, including obstacles related to affordability, childcare and the digital divide. We spoke with two community college leaders to hear what their institutions are doing to help keep students on track.
Sue Ellspermann is president of Ivy Tech Community College, Indiana's statewide two-year system. She spoke about how Ivy Tech used its CARES Act funding and what she'd like to see in a future federal stimulus.
We also spoke with Margaret McMenamin, president of Union County College in New Jersey. She talked about the pandemic's impact on enrollment and what the college is doing to make sure all students can access online courses.
This episode is sponsored by Cengage, from online to hyflex learning, Cengage supports your changing pedagogy at scale. Learn more at cengage.com/institutional.
Amid growing evidence the pandemic and recession are worsening equity gaps, Excelencia in Education last month released an analysis on Latino representation in higher education, as well as on degree attainment and completion rates.
We spoke with Deborah Santiago, Excelencia's co-founder and CEO, about the report's findings and to hear about key data points it identified. She also spoke about what some institutions are doing right with Latino students and where opportunities exist for colleges to do better.
This episode is sponsored by Cengage, from online to hyflex learning, Cengage supports your changing pedagogy at scale. Learn more at cengage.com/institutional.
Consumers and employers increasingly are turning to short-term, online alternatives to the college degree, and alternative credential pathways are projected to grow in popularity.
To help make sense of this complex issue, we spoke with Paul Freedman, a veteran of innovations in online education and president of the Learning Marketplace at Guild Education, a major player in employer-connected online learning.
We also spoke with Jane Oates, president of WorkingNation and a former official at the U.S. Department of Labor during the Obama administration.
Earlier this month the University of Arizona announced a deal to acquire Ashford University, a fully online, for-profit institution enrolling roughly 35,000 students.
The arrangement, which in some ways resembles Purdue University's 2017 acquisition of Kaplan University, quickly drew lots of attention, and controversy.
To help make sense of the news, we spoke with Kelly McManus, director of higher education for Arnold Ventures and formerly director of government affairs for the Education Trust.
We also spoke with Trace Urdan, a managing director at Tyton Partners and an expert on for-profit colleges and online education.
Michael Yarbrough, an assistant professor of law and society at the City University of New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and his students in a senior colloquium this spring documented the pandemic's impact on CUNY, students in the class and their families.
Marjorie Valbrun, a senior editor at Inside Higher Ed, wrote about the group project. And Yarbough wrote about it in a powerful opinion piece in the New York Daily News.
For this episode, Valbrun spoke with Yarbrough and Paula-Camila Caceres, a student in the class who helped lead the project, about that experience and how it affected their views about CUNY and higher education.
Many colleges were facing financial pressure before the pandemic. But the crisis has exacerbated those challenges and stoked more questions about the sustainability of colleges with shaky finances.
Nick Ducoff is cofounder and CEO of Edmit, a college financial education company. He has weighed in on this issue with projections of when private colleges are likely to run out of money. We spoke with Nick about those analyses and the gaps he sees in what students and their parents can find out about the financial health of colleges.
We also spoke with Barbara Brittingham, who just stepped down as president of the New England Commission of Higher Education, a regional accreditor. Brittingham has been a well-placed observer of the financial woes of struggling colleges, and is an expert on the U.S. regulatory system's role in overseeing higher education finance.
Many questions loom about remote learning in coming months. Will online offerings from colleges be more sophisticated? What steps need to be taken to ensure academic quality in online learning? And will short-term credentials be more popular?
To get some answers to these tricky questions, we spoke with Lori Williams, president and CEO of NC-SARA. Williams discussed ideas from an opinion piece she wrote for Inside Higher Ed on the role for states in quality assurance in online education.
We also spoke with Marni Baker Stein, provost and chief academic officer for Western Governors University. Stein spoke about how the large, online and competency-based university has worked to help its students cope with disruptions, as well as her outlook for the fall and the potential for short-term programs.
In roughly a month, many colleges and universities are planning to welcome back students to campus-based learning. But surging COVID-19 cases across much of the country have kept college administrators busy adjusting their plans.
The University of Kentucky this spring brought together more than 500 people to create its 187-page "Playbook for Reinvented Operations." The flagship public university also has been particularly open about how it's dealing with the pandemic.
We spoke with Eli Capilouto, UK's president and an expert on public health policy, about how the university developed the playbook, and how it's continuing to prepare for the looming fall term.
Also featured in this episode is Erin Hennessy, vice president of TVP Communications, who wrote a recent opinion piece for Inside Higher Ed about how circumstances may force colleges to change their fall plans. Hennessy, who is based in D.C., also spoke about how institutions should communicate about those plans.
The pandemic has exposed and worsened equity gaps in higher education, as its impacts have been felt most by Black, Latino and lower-income Americans. What policies and incentives could help close those gaps?
To help grasp the scope of the challenge, we spoke with Michelle Asha Cooper, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a nonpartisan research and policy group. Cooper talked about why higher education needs to change, and how.
We also spoke with Kim Cook, executive director of the National College Attainment Network, which has been tracking federal data that suggest some lower-income students may leave higher education. Cook spoke about doubling federal Pell Grant awards and other policies she'd like to see enacted.
This episode is sponsored by the ECMC Foundation, which supports building a postsecondary education system that works for all learners through its grant making focus areas of college success and career readiness.
A steep decline in enrollments of international students is among the wide range of possible disruptions U.S. colleges face this fall. To get an entrepreneurial take on what to watch in coming months, we spoke with two experts with global perspectives on higher education and ed tech.
John Fillmore is chief strategy officer for Chegg, a learning platform company formerly focused on textbook rentals, which now offers credentials, online tutoring and more. Our conversation with Fillmore also drew from his background as a former planning and research official for California.
We also spoke with Doug Becker, the founder and former CEO of Laureate Education, a large higher-education provider with a global footprint. Becker now leads Cintana, a partnership with Arizona State University to create an international network of universities.
This episode is sponsored by the ECMC Foundation, which supports building a postsecondary education system that works for all learners through its grant making focus areas of college success and career readiness.
The pandemic and unrest over racism in society have further exposed existing inequity in higher education and the workforce. For example, survey data from the Strada Education Network show that black and Latino Americans are more likely than white Americans to have been laid off during the crisis, and to have changed or canceled their postsecondary education plans.
To get a broad perspective on these problems, we spoke with Johnny Taylor, president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management. Taylor is the former president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and was appointed by President Trump to chair the White House advisory board on historically black colleges and universities.
We also spoke with Lorelle Espinosa, vice president for research at the American Council on Education. Espinosa has researched how minority-serving institutions serve as engines of upward mobility, and she's an expert on equity in higher education.
This episode is sponsored by the ECMC Foundation, which supports building a postsecondary education system that works for all learners through its grant making focus areas of college success and career readiness.
Several colleges and universities have eliminated intercollegiate sports teams in recent weeks, just as big-time college football gears up for a season filled with uncertainty amid a time of great unrest over racism in society.
Welch Suggs, a professor at the University of Georgia, former journalist and university administrator, talked with us about what's happening with revenue-generating college sports, team cuts and efforts to protect the health of football players in coming weeks. Suggs discusses whether this moment could provoke reflection about the purpose of college athletics.
This episode is sponsored by the ECMC Foundation, which supports building a postsecondary education system that works for all learners through its grant making focus areas of college success and career readiness.
The University of Alaska, Anchorage, in recent years has experienced its share of tight budgets and other crises, including an earthquake and merger proposals.
Cathy Sandeen, chancellor of the multi-campus institution, talked with us about how the university remains focused on its open-access mission and trying to prevent the creation of education deserts amid the budget turmoil and other challenges.
For a national view of the murky revenue and policy outlooks for public colleges, we spoke with Brian Sponsler, vice president of policy at the Education Commission of the States.
This episode is sponsored by the ECMC Foundation, which supports building a postsecondary education system that works for all learners through its grant making focus areas of college success and career readiness.
The California State University system announced on May 12 that its fall term would be mostly online. The system was the first major U.S. university to make this move, and the announcement set off a flurry of news media coverage and debate among policy makers and college leaders.
Tim White, Cal State's chancellor, takes us inside this decision during the episode. In his discussion with Paul Fain, host of The Key, and Lilah Burke, a reporter at Inside Higher Ed, White talks about how the system is trying to balance its two top goals of protecting the health and safety of more than 480,000 students and 50,000 employees while trying to maintain academic progress at 23 campuses.
This episode is sponsored by the ECMC Foundation, which supports building a postsecondary education system that works for all learners through its grant making focus areas of college success and career readiness.
California has seen 3 million new unemployment claims filed in recent months, and the state proposed a $740 million budget cut to its community college system. But California's two year colleges are drawing from lessons learned during the last recession to cope with mounting challenges amid the pandemic.
Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor of the system, which enrolls more than 2 million students across 115 campuses, talked with us about how the colleges are preparing for the fall. He described how the system has become more flexible for students, and why its leaders aren't counting on a federal bailout.
To help broaden Oakley's perspective to the rest of the nation's community colleges, we also spoke with Karen Stout, president and CEO of Achieving the Dream, and the former president of Montgomery County Community College.
This episode is sponsored by the ECMC Foundation, which supports building a postsecondary education system that works for all learners through its grant making focus areas of college success and career readiness.
Earlier this year, most of higher education moved its instruction online in a matter of days or weeks. After making this unprecedented shift, and amid great uncertainty, faculty members and college leaders are scrambling to prepare and improve online learning options for the fall.
To take stock of the great online pivot, where things stand now and what to expect for the fall, we spoke with Lindsay McKenzie, a reporter at Inside Higher Ed who covers technology. We also spoke with Myk Garn, assistant vice chancellor for new learning models at the University System of Georgia. Myk talked about the potential of hybrid learning, social engagement online and how microlearning might expand during these unusual times.
Southern New Hampshire University recently turned heads with a broad reboot of its campus-based programs, including slashed tuition and allowing students to choose hybrid online and other modalities.
To better understand what this means for the private, nonprofit university, we spoke with Paul LeBlanc, SNHU's president and the chair of the American Council on Education's Board of Directors. The episode also features Carla Hickman, vice president of research for EAB, who put the SNHU news in context by discussing where it fits amid the big higher-ed market shifts that have been accelerated by the pandemic.
The disruption and uncertainty caused by the pandemic pose challenges for all colleges and universities. But community colleges typically had tight budgets before the crisis, and serve the largest share of the nation's most vulnerable students.
For insight into the questions community college leaders are wrestling with, this episode features a discussion with Steven Johnson, president of Sinclair Community College. Johnson talks about budget planning and the enrollment picture for Sinclair, which is located in Dayton, Ohio. He also describes how the college has maintained its robust prison education programs amid the pandemic, and how Sinclair is planning for when it emerges on the other side of this crisis.
Many colleges moved to pass/fail grading amid the pandemic. While that change was designed to help students, it can cause disruptions as community college students transfer to four-year institutions, or as students seek admission to graduate or medical school.
The episode features Lilah Burke, a reporter at Inside Higher Ed, who has written about this issue. And to describe how college leaders can help students avoid disruptions from the "Asterisk Semester," we spoke with Anne Kress, president of Northern Virginia Community College, and Marie Lynn Miranda, incoming provost of the University of Notre Dame.
Roughly 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the crisis began, and the estimated unemployment rate stands at 12 to 15 percent, the highest level since the Great Depression.
As Washington begins negotiating a federal jobs bill, we hear from two experts about lessons learned from the last recession, and how such a bill can help displaced workers and college students without creating more hurdles for them.
The episode features Maria Flynn, president and CEO of Jobs For the Future, and Mary Alice McCarthy, director of the Center on Education and Skills with the education program at New America.
Colleges and are scrambling to distribute roughly $6.3 billion from the federal government for emergency aid aimed at students whose lives and educations have been disrupted by the pandemic.
To better understand this fast-moving story, Paul Fain, the podcast's host, interviews David Baime, senior vice president for government relations and policy analysis for the American Association of Community Colleges, and Amelia Parnell, vice president for research and Policy at NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.