Tag: Higher Education

Gregory Britton, JHUP editorial director, notes that the publication of Designing the New American University comes at a time when higher education faces remarkable challenges. “As many states withdraw their support for public higher education and the rising costs of providing quality education is evident in the increase in student debt, Crow and Dabars propose…

Guest post by Kristen A. Renn The recent and—to many—unexpected announcement of the fast-track closing of Sweet Briar College has sent shockwaves through the private liberal arts college sector. Nearly all of the remaining women’s colleges in the U.S. are also in this sector and thus face a dual threat to continued existence: the decreasing…

Guest post by Doris Iarovici Is mental health among college students continuing to decline, as various headlines suggest? This year’s “The American Freshman: National Norms 2014” survey, released at the beginning of February, again found “record” lows. Among the more than 150,000 first-year students from more than two hundred universities, only about half—the lowest number…

The following post about MOOCs is an excerpt of Teaching Machines: Learning from the Intersection of Education and Technology, by Bill Ferster The allure of educational technology is easy to understand. In almost every other area of our modern world, machines have significantly contributed to modern life, but they are largely missing from our schools. A nineteenth-century…

Guest post by Bill Ferster The pressure from skyrocketing costs and competition from e-learning efforts at universities have made online educational technology a source of much discussion. Teresa Sullivan, the president of the University of Virginia, was summarily fired in a coup d’etat in 2012 (and subsequently rehired because of protests from an outraged faculty…

Guest post by Michael A. Olivas If any of you are at all known to your campus or law school immigration/international student advisors, you may find yourself in regular contact with them and your general counsel. I am regularly in touch with these folks, in part because I teach higher education law, in part because I…

Guest post by Howard L. Nixon II Arguments in favor of “pay for play” for college athletes in big-time college sports make National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and university officials cringe. However, both groups have had to address this issue repeatedly this year in the face of media attention to the Northwestern University National Labor Relations…

Guest post by Michael A. Olivas, discussing the case of Fisher v. University of Texas. In several important respects, Fisher v. University of Texas breaks no conceptual ground or doctrinal ground since the 1978 Bakke case or the 2003 Grutter case, both of which upheld the modest use of race in college admissions. These cases…

Guest post by Doris Iarovici, MD Life with a college student in the family is full of change, but folding your child back into the family for the long summer break can be a surprisingly challenging transition. Whether they’re home for the entire summer, or for a few weeks before an internship or travel abroad…

Guest post by Michael A. Olivas On March 26, 2014, National Labor Relations Board Chicago regional director Peter Ohr held that Northwestern’s football players were employees and, as a result, eligible to vote whether they would unionize. Ohr wrote, “It is clear that the scholarships the players receive are compensation for the athletic services they perform…