Several Community College Presidents' Expense Accounts Under Scrutiny

In a recent Inside Higher Ed report, former Brookdale employee and current Bergen Community College President, G. Jeremiah Ryan as well as other college presidents have come under fire in recent weeks for their expense account spending.  Some critics argue the amounts budgeted are too generous given the cutbacks their institutions are being forced to make in this rough economy.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/05/27/community_college_presidents_and_expense_account_spending

Ocean County College Partners with Monmouth University to Offer Homeland Security Degree

The following article appeared in the May 10, 2011 Asbury Park Press
TOMS RIVER — Ocean County College and Monmouth University signed an agreement Monday to establish a partnership for a curriculum that will offer students a four-year degree in homeland security.  OCC is the first community college in New Jersey to offer an associate’s degree in homeland security.  The partnership with Monmouth will allow students here to make a seamless transition to the university to continue their undergraduate work.  The first transfer of OCC students to Monmouth under the terms of the new agreement is expected to take place in the fall of 2013. 
“One of the things that people find it hard to envision is how enormous the scope and scale of this discipline is and what the potential is for future employment,” OCC President Jon H. Larson said in public remarks at a signing ceremony for the agreement Monday afternoon on the Toms River campus.  “Osama bin Laden’s (death) notwithstanding, the issues are not going to go away.And we are going to be in this business for a long time to come.”  Thomas Pearson, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Monmouth, said the United States has a vital need for colleges and universities to develop such curricula in homeland security.  “One of the great opportunities in partnership is that we will be learning from you and your faculty, just as your faculty will learn from us,” Pearson said.  “And we think we’re putting together a curricular path for students who start here to come to Monmouth and do very, very well in homeland security and perhaps go onto pursue a master’s degree in homeland security.”  Ben Castillo, dean of OCC’s School of Social Sciences and Human Services, said when the two-year college began to put together a curriculum, the question was how focused the area of study homeland security should be.  “If you just take a look at some of the threat potentials, whether it be ... chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear.  “You go into the medical field ... engineering. It’s not only the emergency response component, but those things that are sort of in the background, the people who are in the background to keep us safe,” Castillo said.  Therefore, the agreement with Monmouth University will serve to narrow the focus of where OCC’s homeland security program should best funnel its resources and attention, Castillo explained.  “It’s a good marriage between the two institutions,” said Stan Green, dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Monmouth.  The university has developed a five-year-program for undergraduate and graduate degrees in homeland security, and so this now adds an associate’s degree component as a step in that process, Green said.  Monmouth University President Paul G. Gaffney II will deliver the commencement address at OCC’s 44th annual graduation ceremony May 26.

Erik Larsen

Transfer Program Pays Off for Community College Honors Students

Inside Higher Ed reported about a successful transfer program at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, where minority honors students coming from Montgomery County Community College, Maryland were awarded financial aid packages.  Great opportunities and partnerships can come from outside state borders.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/05/17/community_college_transfer_students_excel_at_dickinson_college

New National Group Advocates for Affordable Quality Higher Education

The Campaign for the Future of Higher Education - CFHE for short - is a new grassroots national campaign to support quality higher education. It was initiated in Los Angeles, California on January 21, 2011 by leaders of faculty organizations from 21 states. The mission of this campaign is to ensure that affordable quality higher education is accessible to all sectors of our society in the coming decades. This is a time of great change in higher education.
http://futureofhighered.org/index_HEUK.html

Is College Worth It?

The following report is based on findings from a pair of Pew Research Center surveys conducted this spring. One is a telephone survey taken among a nationally representative sample of 2,142 adults ages 18 and older. The other is an online survey, done in association with the Chronicle of Higher Education, among the presidents of 1,055 two-year and four-year private, public, and for-profit colleges and universities.  Among the findings:

"A majority of American general public (57%) say the higher education system in the United States fails to provide students with good value for the money they and their families spend. An even larger majority—75%—says college is too expensive for most Americans to afford. At the same time, however, an overwhelming majority of college graduates—86%—say that college has been a good investment for them personally."


"Only a quarter (24%) of college presidents surveyed say that, if given a choice, they would prefer that most faculty at their institution be tenured. About seven-in-ten say they would prefer that faculty be employed on annual or long term contracts."
http://pewsocialtrends.org/2011/05/15/is-college-worth-it/

New Research Criticizes the Quality of Undergraduate Learning

In a recent New York Times article, "Your So-Called Education," authors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa question the management and resulting quality of higher education in the United States.  They write, "Too many institutions, for instance, rely primarily on student course evaluations to assess teaching.  This creates perverse incentives for professors to demand little and give out good grades."  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/opinion/15arum.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=your%20so-called%20education&st=cse
Arum and Roksa are also the authors of the book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, which is in the Bankier Library collection.
http://library.brookdalecc.edu/record=b1134609~S0

Aspen Institute Eyes 120 Community Colleges as Potential Prize Winners

As reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "The community colleges chosen represent the top 10 percent in the country, according to the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program. President Obama announced the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence during the White House Summit on Community Colleges, in October. The purpose of the prize is to recognize community colleges with outstanding academic and work-force outcomes."  Interestingly, none of the 120 community colleges selected are in New Jersey.
http://chronicle.com/article/120-Community-Colleges-Are/127249/?sid=cc&utm_source=cc&utm_medium=enc (authentication required for off-campus access)

The Aspen Institute's website describing their million dollar prize for college excellence:
http://www.aspeninstitute.org/policy-work/aspen-prize

Professor X Discusses Higher Education from an Adjunct's Perspective

In the new book, In the Basement of the Ivory Tower, an anonymous English adjunct faculty member presents a critical view of academic life.  As noted in the New York Times book review, "To teach a rising tide of students, colleges have increasingly turned to adjuncts, holders of advanced degrees who are lured in by the prestige of college teaching, hired on a piecework basis, paid low wages and shut out of academic decision-making."  Professor X is particularly caustic in his discussion of undergraduates unable to produce college-level work:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/books/review/book-review-in-the-basement-of-the-ivory-tower-by-professor-x.html