This article is the first installment of a new column in "Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning" which will explore current gaps, challenges, and trends in global higher education, as well as their implications for college and university leaders. In this issue, the author argues for taking into account data about international higher…

Collaboration between colleges of liberal arts and sciences and health professional schools provide fertile ground for undergraduate programs focused on health education, advocacy, and research. Complex collaboration can sometimes challenge disciplinary boundaries and traditional processes, which may need to be updated to maximize student…

The intentional scaffolding of research practices and experiences across a 4-year curriculum provides a developmental and sustainable model to guide students to greater independence and ownership of their learning and offers a supportive framework for advancing equity of opportunity and outcomes. Curricular transformation can be a daunting…

Based on working with the Boyer 2030 Commission and strategizing around its focus on the equity/excellence imperative, the author argues that the main impediments for change in U.S. research universities are phenomenological in nature; that is, having to do with the way systems of meaning are structured and experienced. The author argues that U.S.…

While occupying various academic leadership positions, the authors repeatedly encounter the use of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accreditation to influence decision making around engineering curricula. For instance, ABET criteria are commonly cited as the reason why particular changes to engineering programs, such…

What should doctoral training in the humanities and humanistic social sciences look like in the 21st century? This question has prompted a steady stream of foundation inquiries over the past two decades, including "The Graduate Education Initiative" (Mellon Foundation), "The Responsive Ph.D." (Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship…

Serious curricular reform is both exhilarating in its possibilities and exhausting in its particulars. When its scope is significant and it is undertaken in response to a variety of difficult challenges, curriculum revision becomes more about cultural change than a mere matter of logistics. While studying adaptive leadership with colleagues at the…

Competency-based education (CBE) refers to online and hybrid courses and programs that offer credit or degrees based on evidence of student learning, or competencies, rather than on the amount of time spent in a course. Students work at their own pace, receive personalized academic support, and demonstrate mastery as they progress through their…

If educators want students to practice and prepare for challenges they might eventually face, there are a number of useful strategies to connect academic learning to the "real world." One is to ask students to complete what are variously called "performance tasks," "case studies," "simulations," or "project- or problem-based learning units."…

This article explains how the authors are able to take results from a regular program of course-level assessment, use them to inform curricular changes, and then measure the learning in those revised courses to determine whether and which changes made a difference. The authors discuss why it was important for Kaplan University to implement…

Now more than ever, it is urgent that colleges and universities mobilize themselves to produce graduates who are capable of being productive, creative, and responsible members of a global society. Employers want clear communicators who are strong critical thinkers and who can solve real-world problems in an ethical way. To achieve these outcomes,…

There is no shortage of challenges facing postsecondary institutions in the US. One that cuts to the core of the enterprise is whether they are preparing their graduates to live productive, civically responsible lives in a dynamic global marketplace mapped onto diverse, yet increasingly interdependent, social and cultural systems. Much of the…

Throughout the 1990's, many people saw information technology as a silver bullet that could solve many of higher education's problems, among them the need to improve learning outcomes and control the ever-upward trajectory of higher education costs. The term "silver bullet" connotes a direct and effortless solution to a problem.…

In recent years, student interest in civic engagement has resulted in increased opportunities to volunteer on college campuses across the country. Unfortunately, these efforts are often not supported by or coordinated with academic curricula, and, as a result, their benefits can be short-lived. Despite a growing consensus that civic education…

Many would say that while there are two ways to enter the teaching profession--traditional and alternative--there seems to be a common way to leave it: quickly. Across the board, more than half of beginning teachers leave teaching before their fifth year, and that percentage is even higher in urban public schools and for those prepared by some…