Late last week Masha Alexander and I were at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami. Among other cool stuff, I had the chance to hold a hefty Aplysia californica – a.k.a. a common sea slug. Aplysia are bred in quantity at Rosenstiel because their neurons are large and [...]
A recent posting on The Chronicle of Higher Education blogsite worries, “Is it possible that higher education might be the next bubble to burst (pdf)?” Now, I’ve never been one to denigrate hyperbole – believing it, in fact, to be the most outstanding rhetorical device that has ever been employed!!! – but this strikes me [...]
There is a plethora of news stories emerging right now about colleges – particularly elite schools – and the trouble they’re having making their fall 2009 class. The focus is typically on yield — the percentage of admitted students who enroll at an institution. Why yield? Because this metric has long been considered the bellwether [...]
Education Secretary Arne Duncan was handed the proverbial golden ticket in President Obama’s stimulus package, and the good times for the education world should continue into the next decade if the President’s education priorities survive the 2010 budget process. Secretary Duncan has been given a huge – even by Washington standards – increase in the [...]
That Ol’ Fat Envelope: May is “sweeps” month in the higher ed community, when deposits are made, when students for once in their lives value fat over thin (we’re talking envelopes, here), and when colleges and universities nervously track their yield and fry the bushings in their financial aid calculators. We’re privileged to have a [...]
I had the opportunity to sit on the judging panel for the upcoming AMA Higher Education Symposium – coming up November 15-18 in Boston. Not that I was able to be there the day the selections were made, having been called to a “can’t miss” meeting near Atlanta. So, rather than sitting with my colleagues [...]
As The New York Times reported recently, a study performed by Blackbaud Analytics appears to suggest that donors who give online don’t always give online again. Alarming! Especially in the midst of a recession! But hold on—that sentence is fairly packed with qualifiers. Retaining donors is always hard. Would we be surprised to learn that [...]
Forget the futures market. Turn off Bloomberg. Hold off on those put and call orders. You’ve got a report to read, first. The 2008 Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy – researched and written by staff at The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, with sponsorship by Bank of America – suggests that the nation’s [...]
Feeling a bit dizzy? You’re not alone. The rush to social media is a neck-snapping blur, powered in part by the economic downturn. In fact, it seems ages ago that a certain law school warned its students not to avoid indulging in street drugs, kidnapping, or other patently illegal acts, but to avoid…blogging. (True story, [...]
When Curt Simic kicked off his afternoon plenary at the CASE Conference for Institutionally Related Foundations by saying he was going to quote from my earlier session (see presentation below), I was both delighted and – potentially – worried. Where was he going to go with this? He might quote my new aphorism, “If frugality [...]