Colleges appear to be doing more to assess student learning, according to a report scheduled for release today by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. The report, which is based on a survey of academic officers at 433 of the association’s member institutions, says that 78 percent of those institutions have established common learning goals for all of their undergraduates, and that 72 percent try to assess learning outcomes across the curriculum...The survey was developed in parallel with a project that the association calls "Liberal Education and America's Promise," which promotes the value of the traditional liberal-arts framework, as distinct from narrowly vocational college programs... (paid subscription required)
Remember all of that talk from the Spellings Commission about how American colleges were in danger of decline because they didn't assess learning outcomes and didn't even know the learning outcomes they favored? A study being released today by the Association of American Colleges and Universities finds that in fact assessment has been well accepted for years at most colleges, and is widespread, complete with learning outcomes. What isn't widespread and should be, the study says, is communication with students about curricular goals and how the colleges measure them...
In a speech on Monday at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, President Obama presented a vision of a new era in research financing comparable to the Sputnik-period space race, in which intensified scientific inquiry, and development of the intellectual capacity to pursue it, are a top national priority. The president laid out an ambitious plan to invigorate the country’s pipeline for innovation, from grade-school classrooms to corporate, government and academic research laboratories...
Faced with a bearish job market, many soon-to-graduate MBAs have dismissed the idea of making their marks -- and big bucks -- at Wall Street investment banks. Instead, a bevy of B-schoolers are launching fledgling firms...
College officials in the United States have not yet moved to pull students and faculty members out of Mexico, but they say they are closely monitoring the deadly outbreak of swine flu in that country... (paid subscription required)
College health officials across the country are preparing for potential outbreaks of swine flu on their campuses. In the process, they are also keeping students and faculty and staff members up to date with e-mail messages and health bulletins on campus Web sites... (paid subscription required)
It's different this time. This is not the recession of the early 1990s, not the aftermath of the tech-bubble burst, not the downturn that overtook the American economy and psyche after September 11. The still-unfolding economic crisis is bigger, more fundamental, and for good or ill, transformational for all of society. Yet the reaction in higher education has been, for the most part, strikingly timid... (paid subscription required)
