Confessions of a Community College Dean

In response to yesterday’s post about the seeming invisibility of the social sciences, a commenter asked me why, if I value the social sciences so highly, I strongly advise against people getting Ph.D.’s in them. Shortly after that, I saw Michael Berube’s essay about graduate admissions, in which he kinda, sorta suggested that they should be cut back, but not unless the departments are willing, and it’s complicated, and anyway aren’t we all “awesome.”

By Matt Reed

STEM initiatives are all the rage in academia these days. They’re popular with policymakers, who see them as a form of high-end workforce development; they’re popular with parents, who see them as high-end job placement; and they’re somewhat popular with students. At the community college level, developmental math has long been -- and continues to be -- a major challenge for graduation rates; it continues, rightly, to receive substantial attention.

By Matt Reed

From the “other duties as assigned” file: yesterday I had to go in for a medical procedure. In the course of making small talk with the tech, she mentioned that her daughter is looking at colleges, but they’re both worried about student loans. I mentioned where I work, and for the next half hour, the conversation was all about transfer, comparative tuition levels, student loans, and the difficulty for new grads who can’t find jobs but have huge loans to pay off. All of this during the procedure.

By Matt Reed

I’ve been a fan of Kevin Carey’s for some time. He gets a lot right, and even when he’s off, he’s interesting. This week he's true to form.

By Matt Reed

One of the reasons I like President Obama is that he’s clearly a Dad. I don’t just mean that he has children; I mean that he’s obviously an involved parent. (If you haven’t seen the video of the two-year-old at the Medal of Honor ceremony, check it out. Obama responded as a seasoned parent would.)

By Matt Reed

I need some help from my wise and worldly readers on this one. A longtime reader writes: Do you know of any data, reporting, etc, on the information-seeking habits of transfer students when looking at four-year colleges? I would make a guess that some things are the same, but if there are differences, then we should be taking them into account.

By Matt Reed

The last time I wrote about Sandy Shugart, I gave him a bit of a hard time. Based on his essay last week, I regret that. It’s a wonderful piece, well worth reading. It’s about the “completion agenda,” and the useful and destructive ways that it can be interpreted.

By Matt Reed

The dean of the Health division -- which includes nursing -- and I took a field trip to a local health care provider to talk about working together to give nursing students some exposure to what goes on there. These wouldn’t be full-fledged clinical placements -- we already have those -- but a sort of structured introduction to a part of the health care system that isn’t always top-of-mind for nursing students.

By Matt Reed