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If you are reading Nate Silver's awesome book The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't you know that: a) The track record of forecasters for predicting future events is abysmal. b) There is no correlation (and indeed an inverse correlation) between the confidence that one makes predictions and the accuracy of these prognostications.

This post will go up on Election Day in the US. I'm writing it on the afternoon before, and I have not yet voted. Virginia doesn't have early voting without a valid excuse, and I have to confess that even if it did, I would probably have waited: I like participating in a civic duty along with my fellow-citizens. There's always a festive air at the polling place, a sense that something important is going on, and I like to be a part of that. I also like wearing my "I Voted!" sticker to class, reminding my students (many of whom will have voted by absentee ballot already, I hope) that there's still time.

Any observer of higher education in Africa would immediately realize that African universities, with the exception of a handful, stand no chance of appearing under the THE Rankings; or for that matter under other global university rankings that use criteria with a heavy bias on research, publications in international refereed journals and citations. African universities have to cope with huge student enrolment with limited financial and physical resources. They are short of academic staff, a large proportion of whom do not have a PhD. Not surprisingly, their research output and performance in postgraduate education are poor. It is clear that in the rankings race, they are playing on a non-level field.

Given the critical need for change in American higher education, many schools would gain a strategic advantage if they genuinely provide connections between educating for the liberal arts and the professions.

With its headquarters in the Boulder area and many a national conference in Denver, Colorado is EDUCAUSE country! It is great to be back here for another stunning national convention!

Last Monday, Hurricane Sandy was still being spoken of in the mainstream media as a threat to the East Coast. By late Tuesday, the vocabulary had changed -- Sandy was a "super-storm", flooding was pervasive and (for too many) fatal, and climate change was here and now. Denialists may not have changed their tunes all that much, but (at least in my perception) the tide (sorry about that, folks) of public climate discourse in North America had turned. The operative phrase seemed to be "new normal". Nobody who used it was smiling.

It is now Monday morning and we are resuming classes today. The campus has been very fortunate. Our loss of power was limited and of short duration and the campus damage was mostly limited to trees with very little other damage. Long Island’s damage was extensive with reports of 100,000 homes lost and almost 300,000 homes still without power 5 days later. The devastation on the north shore and south shore of the Island was massive.

Colleges and universities agree that student success is their central focus. But what important factors contribute to student success? An under-emphasized contributor is student campus work.