Van Davis
A Road to Somewhere

Last month I asked our readers to contemplate whether or not we’re “on a road to nowhere” as we prepare for the fall and beyond. Today, I want to take a look at where we are on that road and consider what this journey may look like for the next several months.

A Road to Somewhere
Van Davis
Avoiding a “Road to Nowhere:” What We Must Do ...

In 1985 The Talking Heads released “Road to Nowhere.” That song, and that metaphor, have been on my mind a lot lately as I think about where higher education is going in the fall and beyond.

Avoiding a “Road to Nowhere:” What We Must Do This Fall
Van Davis
Update on Federal Regulations Impacting ...

I suspect many of us feel a bit like Phil Connors right now—every day seems like the last as we go through a seemingly endless series of Zoom meetings, emails, and revisiting many of the same issues over and over as circumstances require us to reevaluate and revise former decisions. High on that list of issues is likely questions about federal regulations and regulatory relief in this time or remote education.

Update on Federal Regulations Impacting Distance Education During the Pandemic
Van Davis
Fall and Beyond: Higher Education in the Age of ...

Even before the COVID-19 global pandemic, higher education was struggling to make sense of what David La Piana and Melissa Mendes call a VUCA world in The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution: Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid-Response World. Originally coined by the US military to describe a post-Cold War world, VUCA stands for:

· Volatile– The world is rapidly changing and is no longer static.

· Uncertain– The world is unpredictable.

· Complex– The world is interwoven and interconnected.

· Ambiguous– We no longer understand what the change levers are or even the extent to which everything is interconnected.

Fall and Beyond: Higher Education in the Age of COVID-19 and Other Disasters
Van Davis
Regulations Review #1: Regular and Substantive ...

This post will examine the proposed changes to the distance education and credit hour definitions. We’ll have another post early next week that will dig deeper into the proposed changes related to direct assessment and competency-based education as well as a few other select issues such as proposed changes to the credit hour definition, calculating financial aid eligibility for correspondence education, and defining an instructional week for asynchronous delivery.

Regulations Review #1: Regular and Substantive Interaction

Show me the money: Shifting legislative conversations about the cost of distance education

Show me the money: Shifting legislative conversations about the cost of distance education

I recently had the opportunity to attend the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE)’s Legislative Advisory Committee and participate in a panel on crafting sustainable infrastructure in higher education. The panel’s focus was on crafting capital funding models that “take into account not just buildings and maintenance, but also key 21st century considerations such as technology.” I joined the panel to talk about the role and the costs of online education. As a veteran of Texas higher education budget wars who once had the unenviable task of trying to explain online education costs to Texas legislators (and an evaluator on more capital improvement proposals than I want to remember), this experience got me thinking about how we, as practitioners of and advocates for online education, should be talking about its perceived and real costs.

College affordability and the Democratic presidential debates: Is free college higher education’s moonshot?

College affordability and the Democratic presidential debates: Is free college higher education’s moonshot?

Although we’re a little over 500 days out from the 59th presidential election, last week marked a new period of activity with the first round of debates for a very crowded Democratic field. On display last Wednesday and Thursday nights in Miami were 20 of the more than two dozen Democratic presidential candidates; ten debating each night. Although the size of the debates meant that there was little time for anyone to do much more than try out soundbites, it’s notable that a discussion of affordability and access to higher education made an appearance within the first 15 minutes both nights. So, let’s take a look at how the Democratic hopefuls are talking about higher education.

A Push Button Education: The Role of AI in Higher Education

A Push Button Education: The Role of AI in Higher Education

For well over a hundred years, various futurists have given us vivid illustrations of what the future of a technologically enhanced education will look like. One of the earliest of these illustrations is Jean-Marc Côté’s depiction of the 21st century classroom, At School, displayed as a part of the 1900 Paris World Exhibition. Although his depiction is a bit cheeky—no one seriously thought that books would be fed into a hopper that would somehow magically transmit the information to students via headphones—it does speak to this emergent belief that the future of education will somehow leverage technology for mass education.

A First Look at the House's Version of HEA Reauthorization

A First Look at the House's Version of HEA Reauthorization

On November 8, 1965, in a crowded gymnasium at his alma mater Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University), President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965 proclaiming, “I want you to go back and say to your children and to your grandchildren, and those who come after you and follow you—tell them we have made a promise to them… And tell them that we have opened the road and we have pulled the gates down and the way is open, and we expect them to travel it.”

Since that fall morning, the HEA has served as the primary federal legislation governing student financial aid and higher education regulation. It has been reauthorized several times – most recently in 2008 – and is several years overdue for reauthorization. And although Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee, and his co-chair Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) have been vocal about their commitment to reauthorizing the act, it was Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, who released the first draft of a bill to reauthorize HEA last Friday.

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The OIG Report on WGU, Part 3: A Brief History of Regular and Substantive Interaction

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The OIG Report on WGU, Part 3: A Brief History of Regular and Substantive Interaction

A little over two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) released its long-awaited and much anticipated financial aid audit of Western Governors University (WGU). Since then, there have been a number of great discussions of the report as well as its potential impact on higher education. Today, in the third post of our series on the audit, we are going to take a trip down memory lane and revisit a post that we wrote last year that reviewed all of the available information at that time on “regular and substantive interaction,” the issue at the heart of both the audit findings and the source of much discussion among online educators.

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The OIG Report on WGU, Part 2: React... But Don't Overreact

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The OIG Report on WGU, Part 2: React... But Don't Overreact

It has been more than a week since the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued its Final Audit Report declaring that “Western Governors University Was Not Eligible to Participate in the Title IV Programs.” Both of us (Russ Poulin, WCET and Van Davis, Blackboard) have been following the activities surrounding the audit (competency-based education, regular and substantive interaction, the definition of faculty) for some time. Last year we wrote a post trying to compile and interpret previous OIG and Department of Education information about “regular and substantive interaction.”

This is the second in a series of blog posts on the OIG Report. This post begins with some additional background. We also want to be the first to provide advice as to what this means for distance educators and suggest some issues you and your institutional colleagues should consider.

Future Forward: The Next Twenty Years of Higher Education

Future Forward: The Next Twenty Years of Higher Education

Our world has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. In 1997 the internet was still in its infancy with only around 119 million users. Distance education – a concept that began in Sweden during the mid-19th century – was only beginning to transition from analog to digital delivery. Today, we live in a much different world where the Internet has not only radically transformed the way colleges and universities teach, but has greatly expanded access to education around the globe. At Blackboard, we are proud to be a part of this journey.

Today we released Future Forward: The Next Twenty Years of Higher Education, a series of interviews with American higher education leaders. We asked this group of leaders to reflect on the last 20 years of higher education as well as consider what the next 20 years might hold. Forecasting the future is always a difficult affair, especially in this age of rapidly changing technology. Across the interviews, however, we heard several themes emerge time and again.

Apprenticeships: A Renewed Focus in the United States

Apprenticeships: A Renewed Focus in the United States

Apprenticeships, which are training programs that combine on-the-job training with accompanying study, have functioned as pathways to careers since the Middle Ages. These programs are especially popular in a number of European nations as an alternative to higher education for career development. Although apprenticeship programs have long been a part of the landscape in the United States, there is renewed interest in how they might be used to address our rapidly evolving workforce needs.

This renewed interest was recently on display as President Trump signed the Presidential Executive Order Expanding Apprenticeships in America on June 15. Proclaiming, “In today’s rapidly changing economy, it is more important than ever to prepare workers to fill both existing and newly created jobs and prepare workers for the jobs of the future,” the executive order instructs the Department of Labor to promote the development of new and existing apprenticeship programs. Trump echoed these sentiments in his address prior to signing the executive order when he said, “Not only will our apprentices transform their lives, but they will also transform our lives in the truest sense. Today’s apprentices will construct the roads and bridges that will move our citizens, they will bend the metal and steel that shape our cities, and they will pioneer the new technology that drives our commerce.”

Trump on Higher Education: What to Watch For

Trump on Higher Education: What to Watch For

Recently I reviewed how education fared during the first 100 days of the Trump administration. Today we’ll take a look at the recent Congressional budget continuing resolution and what to watch for during the next 100 days. 

The budget deal

Earlier this year the White House released its FY 2018 proposed “skinny” budget, America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again, which proposed a $59.5 billion increase for the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security. In order to offset the increase, the proposal also included cuts from fifteen different agencies including a 13 percent reduction to the Department of Education’s budget. And although we are a long way off from reaching a deal on the 2018 budget, the recent FY17 continuing budget resolution (CR) to formalize appropriations for the remainder of the fiscal year gives us some ideas of how Congress might respond to President Trump’s proposed education cuts.

Trump on Higher Education: His First 100 Days

Trump on Higher Education: His First 100 Days

Saturday, April 29, marks President Trump’s 100th day in office. The first 100 days of a new president is often considered a bellwether for the remainder of the presidency; it can serve as a general indicator of the administration’s priorities, tactics, and relationships with Congress. In the case of President Trump, many hope that it can aid their understanding of a president who is still largely seen as an unknown quantity. Candidate Trump gave little attention to education during his campaign and President Trump continues this practice.

So what has happened during Trump’s first 100 days regarding education?