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Post-Annual Meeting Resources

Even though the 2012 NAICU Annual Meeting is history, you can continue to benefit and learn from the many presentations and speeches that were offered, and are now available on line.


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Another Highlight


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Higher Education Reform/Innovation


The Evolution of American Higher Education

U.S. News & World Report - Opinion Piece
January 25, 2012

James M. Danko, president, Butler University, writes:  Like the auto and newspaper industries, American higher education needs to innovate and reinvent itself if it's going to survive, thrive, and recapture its earlier glory. Industries  I would argue that we're already in the midst of a changing higher education model. My colleagues across the country and I are working to ensure that college is affordable and accessible. And we are looking carefully at our curricular and extracurricular programs to determine if the status quo truly meets the needs of our students.

Massive Courses, Sans Stanford

Inside Higher Ed
January 24, 2012

A pair of part-time Stanford instructors who co-taught the most successful of the university's open courses, on artificial intelligence, now have co-founded a company that will offer two similarly "open" courses beginning in February, this time independently of the Stanford name. The company, called Know Labs, aspires to be a for-profit enterprise that offers high-quality college courses on the cheap to tens of thousands of students at a time through an online learning portal called Udacity.

Redoing Pell

Inside Higher Ed - Opinion Piece
January 24, 2012

There is little evidence that the large investments over time in the Pell Grant program have moved us much closer to meeting national goals such as narrowing gaps in the participation, completion and attainment rates of rich and poor students and those from different ethnic and racial groups.  One way to react is to make further modifications in the current program structure in the hope that such changes will lead to greater effectiveness. But a better way to proceed, in my view, is to start from scratch, including a reaffirmation or an adjustment in principles for modern times and then designing a program that meets those principles.

A Global Take on the ‘Badge’ Debate

Chronicle of Higher Education - Blog
January 24, 2012

Within the United States, debate about whether certifications in individual competencies may someday replace degrees is often centered on the fear that such "badges" will make learning a splintered commodity, rather than a holistic experience that graduates critical thinkers who can make a broad contribution to society. But from developing countries, the view is very different. There is a hunger for knowledge, in any form. You need a brick or a board to start building a house. You need a course to start building a curriculum.

Free courses may shake universities’ monopoly on credit

The Hechinger Report
January 23, 2012

Several new companies and organizations with impressive pedigrees are harnessing the Internet to provide college courses for free, or for next to nothing. And while many traditional universities are slowing this trend by refusing to give academic credit toward degrees to students who complete such programs, several no- and low-cost startups are doing an end-run around this monopoly by inventing new kinds of credentials that employers may consider just as good.

Excelsior College Launches $10,000 Bachelor’s Degree Program

News Release
January 23, 2012

Excelsior College has launched a new, innovative $10,000 pathway to a bachelor's degree. A regionally accredited, nonprofit leader in distance and online learning, Excelsior is the first educational institution to offer this price-guaranteed degree. The program provides adult learners with a quality, flexible and affordable means to earn a primarily examinations-based bachelor's degree in liberal studies. In addition to the guaranteed cost, students in the program will have a full complement of student support services, including unlimited tutoring, access to the college's career center and its online library provided in collaboration with the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University.

The 21st-Century Education

New York Times "Education Life" - Opinion Piece
January 22, 2012

The world is changing very rapidly. Yet undergraduate education changes remarkably little over time. It may be that inertia is appropriate. Part of universities' function is to keep alive man's greatest creations, passing them from generation to generation. Nonetheless, it is interesting to speculate: Suppose the educational system is drastically altered to reflect the structure of society and what we now understand about how people learn. How will what universities teach be different? Here are some guesses and hopes.

The fading dream of higher education in the US

Aljazeera
January 20, 2012

The current situation - higher costs, lower quality - has created a weird love-hate relationship between the US public and the academy. More than ever, higher education is perceived as crucial for both national and individual success, yet its apparent inability to deliver the goods occasions considerable hand wringing, as well as demands for accountability. Most of the time, however, those who deplore the decline of the university pick the wrong targets.

A Fool Hedges His Bets

The Motley Fool
January 20, 2012

I've made no secret of my general disdain for the for-profit education industry -- whether it is higher education or K-12. Misleading recruiting tactics, graduates exiting the schools with crippling debt, and a general lack of accountability are enough to leave an awful taste in one's mouth. But a speech by innovation guru Clayton Christensen recently gave me reason to pause. Could it be that online education is the next great disruptor?

Disruption: Coming Soon to a University Near You

Forbes Magazine - Column
January 19, 2012

University experiences are increasingly being characterized by: impractical learning, out-of-touch faculty, exorbitant tuitions, time-wasting requirements and diminishing probabilities of employment. At the same time, we are living in an era when many of our heroes are university drop-outs, calling into question the validity of the university path for advancement in some of the most exciting realms of our society. Not surprisingly, we are beginning to see widespread frustration crystalizing into a variety of efforts to unseat the "monopoly position" that university education has traditionally held on job-seeking preparation, and replace it with different, often less-costly alternatives.

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