Features
Working Learners and Work Colleges: Innovating at the Intersection of Education and Life
For 72 million American workers without a college degree, blending education, work, and life can unlock high-paying jobs in the knowledge economy. Louis Soares and Vickie Choitz explore how “work colleges” offer a template for supporting these learners.
Redefining Prestige
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has laid out plans to hold higher education more accountable for student success. Devorah Lieberman, president of the University of La Verne, writes that we owe it to our students—and ourselves—to embrace his vision.
Why Climate Action Is in Higher Education’s Best Interest
Taking a leadership role on finding solutions to the climate crisis is an important way universities can remind the public that higher education benefits all of society—not just those who earn a degree, writes CU Boulder Chancellor Philip DiStefano.
Accountability for Campus Equity Is Everyone’s Work
Making progress on narrowing gaps and creating more inclusive and anti-racist campus environments means spreading the work to more faculty, staff, and administrators on campus rather than marginalizing it to one or two offices.
Organizing Shared Equity Leadership: How to Structure the Work
As colleges and universities continue to work to transform themselves into more equitable spaces, leaders are grappling with the best ways to address entrenched structural problems. Elizabeth Holcombe and Adrianna Kezar look at the different shared equity leadership models that can help campuses move forward.
COVID-19 and Self-Injury Among College Students: Risks and Mitigation Strategies
Over the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant effect on student wellbeing. One area of particular concern is the impact of the pandemic on non-suicidal self-injury. What can we do to address the increased risk?
Let’s Educate More and Better Leaders—The World Needs Them
Good leadership can give our work and lives meaning and foster stability, unity, innovation, and equity. With so much at stake, Scott Cowen, president emeritus of Tulane University, suggests that leadership studies should be a strategic priority and part of the core curriculum at all colleges.
Meeting Gen Z: Avoiding the Demographic Cliff and Preparing for Their Future
Colleges must understand and respond both to the concerns and needs of Gen Z and the evolving demands of the marketplace—and do it fast—or they will fail, writes Allegheny College President Hilary Link.
Helping Students Explore Transfer: How Phi Theta Kappa’s Transfer Honor Roll Can Help
Earning a bachelor’s degree is not as straightforward as it used to be. As the possible pathways have opened up, students need more intentional transfer policies to guide them through.
Trauma-informed Colleges Begin With Trauma-informed Leaders
As higher education institutions move into the post-pandemic era, those with trauma-informed leaders will be better positioned to meet new challenges in creative ways while promoting safe and healthy campus communities, writes Appalachian State’s Jason Lynch.
What Campus Data Tell Us About Student Mental Health and COVID-19
Recent stories have warned of a “mental health tsunami” and a “mental health crisis on campuses” as over the past two years, students and campus communities worked to master the new normal of masking, vaccines, and social distancing in a global pandemic. As we look toward the future, what should campuses do about the mental health of students?
Many American colleges should be proud of how they navigated COVID-19. The next draft of history should reflect their success.
Campuses across the country are moving toward a more a sustainable set of pandemic-response practices—a transition with which much of society is struggling. Longwood University’s Justin Pope thinks history will show that many liberal arts colleges were in the lead, both in 2020 and today.