Confessions of a Community College Dean

I don’t know if I’m just the fluky exception or if this is indicative of a larger truth, but I don’t Google job candidates.

By Matt Reed

My Dad used to teach courses on advertising, which was how he justified his weird attention to commercials. He used to pick up on odd turns of phrase from locally produced ads -- anyone who lived in Rochester circa 1980 will remember those awful/great Hill T.V. ads, with Dick and Linda Hill -- or anything by Ronco. Three easy payments! But wait, there’s more! Now how much would you pay? If you act now...

By Matt Reed

Nate Kreuter’s latest is well worth checking out. It’s about the fear -- sometimes founded, sometimes not -- that people have when they look for other jobs that their current employer will hold it against them.

By Matt Reed

In college, I don’t remember spending much time worrying about syllabi. They’d typically be about a page, and would include the professor’s name, office number, office hours, the course title and number, sometimes a brief description of the topic of the course, a list of major (graded) assignments, some due dates, a list of required books, and maybe a late paper policy. Many of them looked like they had been copied from copies from years before, and they may have.

By Matt Reed

The kids (and TW) had a snow day earlier this week, so she took them sledding. At one point, when she was standing on a sled, the sled went one way and she went another, with her knee sort of splitting the difference.

By Matt Reed

American Career Institutes, a for-profit higher ed chain that specialized in computer-based career-oriented majors, just closed abruptly. It had campuses in Maryland and Massachusetts, including one in Springfield, which is HCC’s largest feeder city.

By Matt Reed

Apparently, San Jose State University has contracted with Udacity to run credit-bearing basic algebra classes -- both developmental and college-level -- at a cost to students of $150. Some folks are already manning the battle stations.

By Matt Reed

I read somewhere that the mark of an educated mind is the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts at the same time. If that’s true, then I’m feeling particularly educated of late.

By Matt Reed