Navigating the Volatility of Higher Education

Navigating the Volatility of Higher Education
Author: Brian L. Foster
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1641131454

Applied Anthropology provides a new perspective on today’s higher education environment. Volatile and unpredictable forces affect research and instruction across many sectors and levels, and global dynamics are among the strongest drivers of change. Further, within American higher education, daunting complexity and multiple layers of activity weave a rich tapestry of environment, structure, and culture. This book provides three complementary anthropological perspectives as a framework for analyzing the ground-shifting changes underway in higher education – the higher education mindset, political and policy perspectives, and instruction and learning. These domains intersect with many operational dimensions of higher education – research, health care, athletics, economic development, fiscal management, planning, and faculty roles/challenges – another way of framing the complexity of the situation we are addressing. Book chapters also provide a set of implications for higher education policy. The book concludes with a vision of next steps in research and practice to further anthropology’s contribution to higher education policy and practice. The intended audience includes both academic and professionals—e.g., faculty and students in departments of higher education, anthropology, and education policy. Higher education leaders, administrators, governing board members, and many others will find the book helpful in providing insight into today’s challenges. The book will also be of use to professionals outside higher education who work on policy issues, on meeting the needs of employers, and on preparing students for careers in public service.

Higher Education's Road to Relevance

Higher Education's Road to Relevance
Author: Susan A. Ambrose
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2020-01-02
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1119568382

Explores the current context, role, and challenges of post-secondary education and presents options for promising pathways forward. The post-secondary educational system has undergone dramatic changes and experienced immense stress in the past two decades. Once regarded as the logical next step toward career opportunities and financial security, higher education is a subject of growing uncertainty for millions of people across the United States. It is more common than ever to question the return on investment, skyrocketing cost, and student debt burden of going to college. Prospective students, and many employers, increasingly view attending institutions of higher learning as inadequate preparation for entering the 21st century workforce. High-profile scandals—financial impropriety, sexual abuse, restrictions of free speech, among others—have further eroded public trust. In response to these and other challenges, leading voices are demanding strengthened accountability and measurable change. Higher Education's Road to Relevance illustrates why change is needed in post-secondary education and offers practical solutions to pressing concerns. The authors, internationally recognized experts in college-level teaching and learning innovation, draw heavily from contemporary research to provide an integrative approach for post-secondary faculty, staff, and administrators of all levels. This timely book helps readers identify the need for leadership in developing new networks and ecosystems of learning and workforce development. This valuable book will help readers: Understand the forces driving change in higher education Develop multiple pathways to create and credential self-directed learners Promote access to flexible, cost-effective, and relevant learning Adapt structures and pedagogies to address issues and overcome challenges Use an inclusive approach that extends to employers, K-12 educators, post-secondary educators, and policy-makers, among others Higher Education's Road to Relevance is a much-needed resource for college and university administrators, academic researchers, instructors and other faculty, and staff who support and interact with students.

Paths to the Future of Higher Education

Paths to the Future of Higher Education
Author: Brian L. Foster
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2021-02-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1648024084

The rapid change that higher education is undergoing is impacting all of the core mission elements: teaching and learning, research, service, and engagement with the external world (e.g., community engagement and health care delivery). Navigating this environment requires understanding of the underlying dynamics, with particular attention to how the issues are affecting the directions higher education will take. The main focus of the book is on teaching and learning (Section 3), with Sections 1 and 2 providing important context for understanding dynamics affecting how we can achieve our goals in teaching and learning. The section on “Institutional Culture, Structure, and Public Engagement” addresses issues such as promotion and tenure, interdisciplinary collaboration, dissemination and archiving of research outcomes and data, student engagement with community development, and evaluation of research projects. Section 2 on “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” goes far beyond the usual “diversity discussion” to include addressing faculty racial disparities, intersectionality, and “parity in participation.” Then, Section 3, “Teaching and Learning” focuses on out-of-the classroom teaching and on technology enhanced learning, all with many connections to Sections 1 and 2. The intended audience includes both academics and professionals (e.g., faculty and students in departments of higher education, anthropology, and education policy). Higher education leaders, administrators, governing board members, and many others will find the book helpful in providing insight into the future of higher education, especially as it concerns instruction and learning. The book will also be of use to professionals outside higher education who work on policy issues, on meeting the needs of employers, and on preparing students for applying knowledge in their personal lives. Praise for Paths to the Future of Higher Education: "Higher education in the United States is currently undergoing a transformation as a result of unprecedented pressures. Disruptive forces such as rapidly evolving technology, eroding financial support for public universities, proliferation of forprofit entities, changing expectations of students and employers, our country’s reckoning with its history of racism and white supremacy, as well as the politicization of higher education demand changes in systems hundreds of years old. The recent COVID epidemic has forced a radical change in the delivery of higher education – will we ever return to our old ways?" Daniel L. Clay, PhD, MBA Dean and Professor, College of Education, University of Iowa "One of the great challenges facing higher education today involves the changes that are necessary in the fundamental activities of teaching and learning to respond to changing social factors such as diversity, internationalization, the rapid evolution of technology, and unpredictable social needs (e.g., COVID 19). Brian Foster and his colleagues have assembled an important collection of papers on this subject, the future of teaching and learning at the higher education level, in part from an anthropological perspective, but also within the important context of our changing world. As such, the book provides a valuable insight into the perspectives that both faculty and their institutions need to address the changes in their most fundamental roles in providing teaching and learning for future generations." James J. Duderstadt President Emeritus, The University of Michigan

Volatility in State Spending for Higher Education

Volatility in State Spending for Higher Education
Author: Jennifer A. Delaney
Publisher: American Educational Research Association
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2023-10-30
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1960348981

The severity of cuts and the unpredictability in state funding for higher education have garnered headlines across the nation since the turn of the present century. In this context, the authors in this new groundbreaking volume argue that too little attention is paid to the consequences of volatility in funding, as most discussions focus on levels of funding. Their research addresses an important blind spot in the academic literature since predictability matters—to institutions, students, families, and states. In addition, the risks of operating in an uncertain financial environment have led to behaviors that are not always in the best interests of states, institutions, faculty, students, or the public good.

College Sports and Institutional Values in Competition

College Sports and Institutional Values in Competition
Author: Jennifer Lee Hoffman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2020-03-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0429679947

College Sports and Institutional Values in Competition interrogates the relationship between athletics and higher education, exploring how college athletics departments reflect many characteristics of their institutions and are also susceptible to the same challenges in delivering on their mission. Chapters cover the historical contexts and background of campus athletics, issues and institutional tensions over market pressures, the spectacle of college athletics and how this spectacle influences athlete experiences, and the ways in which leaders are navigating these issues. Through stories of higher education that focus on the ways athletic departments leverage their institutional values, this book encourages readers to examine the purpose, mission, and academic values of their institutions, and to evaluate the role of their athletic programs, to improve outcomes and experiences on campus for students and student-athletes alike.

Navigating The Markets Amid Extreme Volatility

Navigating The Markets Amid Extreme Volatility
Author: Shazir Mucklai
Publisher: Shazir Mucklai
Total Pages: 80
Release: 2020-03-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Shazir Mucklai says, “The coronavirus outbreak ensured that the Year of the Rat didn’t get off to the most propitious start. Over 7,900 people dead so far, more than 190,000 infected and 40+ countries affected. Cities in lockdown, travel restrictions in place, plant closures mounting. Global trade, commerce, tourism, investment and supply chains in disarray.” In an interview, Mucklai said it’s important for us as a country to come together to foster and cultivate the resources during this pandemic, he continues, the stock market erased $6.9 trillion in shareholder wealth in 2008 and has only lost about $2.5 trillion since the crisis started in late February. Mucklai predicts the US Debt and equities markets can drop another 30% based on projections. Mucklai was the youngest writer for Forbes and now runs a public relations digital arbitrage boutique based out of Dallas and Los Angeles. Mucklai says, “Global Growth Rates To Take A Hit” Mucklai recalls “Today, China’s economy is much more deeply intertwined with the world’s economy—a 17% share of global GDP with trade accounting for 34% of domestic GDP—than it was during the 2003 SARS outbreak. At this time, no one knows how long it will take to control the virus or how widespread the epidemic will become. What we do know is that this will have negative economic repercussions. The recent behavior of the stock market would imply that the economic repercussions will be shallow and short-lived. Mucklai says, “The bond market, on the other hand, appears to have the opposite view, as bond yields have fallen precipitously since the virus reared its ugly head.” The most likely scenario is one of Gradual Abatement where cases remain concentrated in China in Q1 2020, before gradually being eliminated from March 2020. In this scenario, the global economy would grow by 3.1% in 2020 with China’s GDP growth slipping from pre-outbreak forecasts of 5.9% to 5.4%. The report also finds that in the worst case scenario or what it terms the Severe Pandemic scenario, where the outbreak intensifies and spreads worldwide before being brought under control by June-July, global GDP growth could dip to below 2%.

Higher Education Policy Analysis Using Quantitative Techniques

Higher Education Policy Analysis Using Quantitative Techniques
Author: Marvin Titus
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2021-05-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 303060831X

This textbook introduces graduate students in education and policy research to data and statistical methods in state-level higher education policy analysis. It also serves as a methodological guide to students, practitioners, and researchers who want a clear approach to conducting higher education policy analysis that involves the use of institutional- and state-level secondary data and quantitative methods ranging from descriptive to advanced statistical techniques. This book is unique in that it introduces readers to various types of data sources and quantitative methods utilized in policy research and in that it demonstrates how results of statistical analyses should be presented to higher education policy makers. It helps to bridge the gap between researchers, policy makers, and practitioners both within education policy and between other fields. Coverage includes identifying pertinent data sources, the creation and management of customized data sets, teaching beginning and advanced statistical methods and analyses, and the presentation of analyses for different audiences (including higher education policy makers).

The Messy Middle

The Messy Middle
Author: Scott Belsky
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2018-10-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0735218080

NATIONAL BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INSPIRING BOOKS OF 2018 BY INC. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST STARTUP BOOKS OF ALL TIME BY BOOKAUTHORITY The Messy Middle is the indispensable guide to navigating the volatility of new ventures and leading bold creative projects by Scott Belsky, bestselling author, entrepreneur, Chief Product Officer at Adobe, and product advisor to many of today's top start-ups. Creating something from nothing is an unpredictable journey. The first mile births a new idea into existence, and the final mile is all about letting go. We love talking about starts and finishes, even though the middle stretch is the most important and often the most ignored and misunderstood. Broken into three sections with 100+ lessons, this no-nonsense book will help you: • Endure the roller coaster of successes and failures by strengthening your resolve, embracing the long-game, and short-circuiting your reward system to get to the finish line. • Optimize what’s working so you can improve the way you hire, better manage your team, and meet your customers’ needs. • Finish strong and avoid the pitfalls many entrepreneurs make, so you can overcome resistance, exit gracefully, and continue onto your next creative endeavor with ease. With insightful interviews from today’s leading entrepreneurs, artists, writers, and executives, as well as Belsky’s own experience working with companies like Airbnb, Pinterest, Uber, and sweetgreen, The Messy Middle will outfit you to find your way through the hardest parts of any bold project or new venture.

Learning to Hide

Learning to Hide
Author: Tricia Hagen Gray
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2024-02-01
Genre: Education
ISBN:

Just inside the school doors from the back parking lot, in the farthest reaches from the school entrance, there is a short corridor that leads to the hallway that houses Washington River High School’s two English Learning classrooms. These classrooms offer both safe sanctuary for the school’s growing population of Latinx students and a troublingly hidden space that allows most of the school and community to maintain the pretense of the generally prosperous, White, neighbor-helping-neighbor place of their myopic nostalgia. This Mayberry-like imaginary excludes the divisive sociopolitical battles of the last decade that have earned Washington River both local and national attention for a city ordinance that would fine landlords who rented to undocumented residents, a de jure policy that became de facto racial profiling. The English Learning classrooms are thus sites for the work of learning English and other academic subjects alongside the more abstract but no less important work of constructing citizen identities. In these spaces, adolescent Latinx newcomers negotiate and assert complicated claims about how they get to be of Washington River High School, the wider community of Washington River, and of the United States. As established residents and newcomers interact with each other (or not) in Washington River, they confront people who are linguistically, culturally, racially, and socially different from themselves. The polarized and contentious sociopolitical context of the United States in the wake of Donald Trump’s election to the United States presidency in 2016 provides the backdrop to this nine-chapter book. The book centers the experiences of newcomer students as they construct citizen identities within the microcontext of their classroom and school and the macro-context of a changing and polarized United States. While this is an account of the local context of Washington River, the issues raised—welcome, unwelcome, belonging, and claiming rights—are not particular to Washington River. As part of the changing sociocultural landscape of the Midwestern United States, in which historically distinct groups come together in common spaces, Washington River High School offers an example of the concurrently familiar and uncomfortable ways that new receiving communities in the New Latino Diaspora (Hamann & Harklau, 2015; Hamann, Wortham, & Murillo, 2002) “host newcomers” (Lamphere, et al., 1992) within the common and complex institution of high school.

Let’s Stop Losing Them

Let’s Stop Losing Them
Author: Dr. David Lee Mount
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2024-07-14
Genre: Reference
ISBN:

“Veteran (Purple Heart) & higher ed survivor, I applaud this book! Finally acknowledging the ‘distance traveled’, this book exposes hidden student traumas and offers solutions. It tackles retention with a student-centered approach. A gamechanger for veterans navigating college.” Dr. Andrew Kelly, Lieutenant Colonel (LTC), US Army (Ret.), Purple Heart recipient “As a physician-scientist and medical school administrator dedicated to diversifying medical school applicants and motivating traditionally underrepresented students to embrace STEM pathways, I find Dr. David Lee Mount’s ‘Let’s Stop Losing Them’ to be a vital resource. We must start asking how medical school retention is being affected by the wounds of educational and academic engagement trauma. Dr. Mount’s work provides crucial insights into these upstream issues, highlighting the essential connection between college retention and the future diversity of our medical workforce. Examining student performance threat through the lens of the neuropsychosocial root causes paradigm, this book is an indispensable guide for educators, policymakers, and medical school administrators committed to fostering resilience and success in our future healthcare professionals.” John H. Stewart, IV, MD, MBA, FACS; Professor and Chair of Surgery, Associate Dean for Oncology Programs, Morehouse School of Medicine “Dr. Mount’s book brilliantly addresses the complexities impacting student success. He exposes hidden factors behind disengagement, offering innovative solutions for colleges to foster resilience. By acknowledging neurodiversity, ‘Let’s Stop Losing Them’ calls for personalized learning and a more inclusive educational landscape.” Pastor Debra Terry Stephens, MA; Cornerstone of Faith Ministries Wife/Mother/Comedian/Actor/Writer/Mental Health Assistant Higher education’s dropout cycle has lacked a solution. Dr. Mount’s ‘Let’s Stop Losing Them’ breaks ground with ‘educational and academic engagement trauma’ – a powerful concept for student retention. Practical strategies illuminate the path to success. A must-read for anyone invested in student outcomes and a stronger academic environment. Dr. Tom Coaxum, Former Director, Associate VP, VP in Higher Education (Ret.) “Dr. Mount, renowned for his expertise in neuropsychosocial root causes and retention strategies, has crafted a comprehensive guide that goes beyond conventional approaches. His insights, drawn from years of research and practical experience, shed light on the nuanced interplay of academic anxieties, social isolation, and neuropsychosocial factors that shape students’ educational journeys.” TanYa M. Gwathmey, MS, PHD, Tenured Associate Professor; Director of Research in Health Equity Education and Training, Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity Wake Forest University School of Medicine “Dr. Mount’s groundbreaking book confronts hidden trauma in community colleges, the true cost of disengagement, and the power of personalized support. It’s a must-read for educators who want to nurture the whole student, not just graduation rates.” Shelton M. Charles, Ph.D. Associate Dean of Sciences and Engineering, Forsyth Technical Community College; Father/Role Model/Leader/Mentor/Community Ambassador/ Health Advocate/ Innovator “Dr. Mount’s innovative book ignites hope, and reverse engineers the pressing issue of college disengagement head-on revealing the hidden wounds causing attrition. Powerful narratives and actionable strategies empower students and institutions to build resilience and foster success.” Nayeka Uitenham, Psy.D. NeuroEducational Clinical Postdoctoral Fellow, Mind Body Institute Beyond; Educator-Centered Professional Coaching; Former Elementary School Educato