Hartford Courant - Manchester Community College: Full Green Ahead! (June 19, 2011) - The MCC Farmers' Market opening day is Wednesday, June 29, 1:30-5:30 p.m. located at the Manchester Bicentennial Band Shell. The MCC Community Garden has doubled the number of gardeners to 40 this year (with the generous support of the Mazur Family)...

Inside Higher Ed - Borrowed Gravitas (June 22, 2011) - What's in a domain name? As far as using a university e-mail account for non-university purposes, not much, according to Elliot Cramer, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Administrators at Chapel Hill disagree. The university recently canceled Cramer's UNC e-mail account, dropped his faculty web page, and barred him from using electronic library resources and other network privileges...

Inside Higher Ed - ACT's Validity Questioned (June 21, 2011) - A new study has found that two of the four main parts of the ACT -- science and reading -- have "little or no" ability to help colleges predict whether applicants will succeed...

Hartford Courant - Conn. community college chief explains departure (June 20, 2011) - The longtime chancellor of Connecticut's community colleges on Monday explained his sudden plans to step down, saying he decided to retire earlier than expected after the General Assembly approved a plan to change how much of the state's higher education system is governed...

Diverse Issues in Higher Ed - UNCF Green Building Institute Focuses on Helping Schools Find Funds, Save on Costs (June 20, 2011) - To tap into federal money to make campus infrastructures more energy efficient, college and university leaders must be strategic, collaborative and pay close attention to details when submitting proposals...

New England Board of Higher Ed - Recovery at Risk: New England Economic Partnership Releases New Outlook Forecasting Sluggish Bounceback (June 20, 2011) - The New England economy continues to outperform the national economy. That is the good news. But both the region's and nation's economies continue to have low and staggered growth...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Academics and Colleges Split Their Personalities for Social Media (June 19, 2011) - Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association, recently experienced something of an identity crisis through her use of social media...

Inside Higher Ed - Line in the Sand on Hiring (June 17, 2011) - As the use of adjuncts has proliferated, opponents of the practice often base their objections on social and economic justice grounds. Adjunct faculty, they say, tend to be exploited and seldom benefit from meaningful job security...

Inside Higher Ed - Trendless Summer (June 17, 2011) Last year, many colleges enjoyed record-breaking summer enrollment, growth that was largely attributed to the poor economy and students wanting to get out of college as quickly and cheaply as possible (many institutions mark down tuition and housing costs during the summer term)...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Gates Foundation Weighs In on Credit-Hour Rule (June 16, 2011) - The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has spent millions trying to improve college-completion rates and lower college costs, is warning the Education Department that its controversial "credit hour" rule could undermine the foundation's efforts...

Diverse Issues in Higher Education - College Mentoring for Access and Persistence Program Gives Graduating High School Seniors a Boost (June 16, 2011) - What started as a group of high school students who stopped by for pizza and soft drinks at a monthly meeting with mentors from the Big Four accounting firm Ernst & Young has turned into a cohort of polished college-bound seniors...

Inside Higher Ed - Accreditation vs. Eligibility (June 17, 2011) - Student loan defaults are rising, sparking real concern among policy makers and the higher education community. At the same time, there is confusion about the respective roles of accreditation and U.S. Department of Education's determinations of institutional eligibility for federal student aid programs...

Diverse Issues in Higher Ed - Averting Deportation, Undocumented Student Realizes Dream (June 21, 2011) - Heavier than the books Mariano Cardoso had to carry to class at Capital Community College in Hartford, Conn., was the weight of the deportation order he lived with for nearly three years...

Education News - US Students Don't Know Their US History (June 21, 2011) - American students are apparently far less proficient in their nation's history than in any other subject.  This, according to results of a nationwide test released yesterday, means that most fourth-graders were unable to say why Abraham Lincoln was an important figure, and few high school seniors able to identify China as the North Korean ally that fought US troops in the Korean War...

Education News - THE GLOBAL SEARCH FOR EDUCATION: AUSTRALIA ON THE MOVE (June 14, 2011) - In Vicki Abeles' movie, Race to Nowhere, we met U. S. kids who were so overscheduled they had no time to be kids. The film suggested we were preoccupied with testing and performance, undermining what our kids should be doing in the classroom, let alone in their down time. So what is happening down under...

CT Mirror - Prospects unclear for town aid, social services if labor deal fails (June 22, 2011) - For the past five months, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has put a scare in municipal governments and social service providers, warning they could well face deep cuts in aid if unionized state employees refuse concessions...

CT Mirror - As concessions face defeat, unions and administration react cautiously (June 22, 2011) - On the eve of a vote by AFSCME that is expected to kill a tentative union concession plan, a top adviser to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said the administration might be open to a new vote by the bargaining units that voted it down, but it won't offer new terms...

CT Mirror - With givebacks in doubt, Malloy and legislators face new fiscal gap (June 22, 2011) - The apparent rejection of a concessions deal by state employees leaves Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the General Assembly with a sizable hole in the budget for the year that begins in just over a week. The question is, how much do they have to make up...

Inside Higher Ed - Ask the Administrator: Mandatory Workshops (June 23, 2011) - I'm an adjunct at a community college. My community college recently instituted a requirement that everyone who teaches an online class take an eight hour workshop, which is quite burdensome...

Confessions of a Community College Dean - Ask the Administrator: Chairing at the Hotel California (June 23, 2011) - I am long serving chair at a CC, and no one in my division wants to run for the position. In fact, it is a widespread problem at my college. With a few overloads, faculty can actually make more money teaching than they can as a chair, but our complaints to the administration fall on deaf ears...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Reverse-Transfer Programs Reward Students and Colleges Alike (June 19, 2011) - Community-college officials must have a special love-hate relationship with the motivated, successful students who leave their institutions with a good number of credits, but no degree, to transfer to four-year institutions. Such students should be counted as institutional successes rather than failures, but until recently, little could be done to officially record them as such...