Manchester Patch - Blumenthal Tours MCC, Talks Debt Ceiling (August 9, 2011) - U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal paid a visit to Manchester Community College on Monday to talk about the important rolls that community colleges play in helping the nation invest in its future, but all students wanted to talk about was the debt ceiling...

Danbury Patch - Blumenthal, NVCC Officials Discuss Ways to Fill Manufacturing Void (August 9, 2011) - Manufacturers in Southwest Connecticut are looking to hire skilled workers who have specialized training in areas such as welding or computerized numerical control, or CNC, operation...who said she has teamed up with Naugatuck Valley Community College to develop and shift programs to quickly meet the demands of the local workforce...

Inside Higher Ed - 'Running in Place' (August 11, 2011) - Examining what causes stratification in higher education over time, a new study arrives at a grim outlook for socioeconomic equity by debunking two myths: that, unlike their wealthier peers, most low-income students don't know how to prepare for college and aren't making strides to improve their academic credentials; and that those who do prepare still don't apply to the best institutions they could get into...

Harvard Business Journal - It's the Leadership, Stupid (August 9, 2011) - The morning coffee break had wrapped up and we were back at it, involved in a deep discussion. Some people were at the whiteboard, some debating one another, and some listening attentively as we batted an issue around the room. The door to the conference room swung open and it seemed that a new member was joining the meeting...

Community College Times - 11 states to revamp adult basic ed programs (August 9, 2011) - Eleven states are participating in a new national initiative to redesign adult education to better prepare adults for jobs. Nearly 40 community colleges across the country will be involved...

Inside Higher Ed - Freedom at a Price (August 9, 2011) - Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Jim Petro will on Thursday unveil a plan designed to reduce government involvement in the state's 14 public universities, giving the institutions more authority in administrative and financial matters if they meet certain performance benchmarks...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Emeritus Status: It's a Matter of Honor, Especially When It's Denied (August 7, 2011) - Robert G. Natelson had been retired from the faculty of the University of Montana Law School for more than a year when he learned in June that his former colleagues had voted to deny him emeritus status...

Inside Higher Ed - The DA Thinks You Are Liberal (August 8, 2011) - Whether professors lean left or are so liberal that they are biased is much debated in higher education and in American society. But in what may be a new twist, the Nevada Supreme Court last week upheld the exclusion of a faculty member from a jury. His disqualifying trait? Being a professor...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Want Data? Ask Students. Again and Again. (August 7, 2011) - All year long, from every direction, surveys bombard students. On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied are you with campus career services? Health-center programs? Library space? How often do you discuss course topics outside of class...

Inside Higher Ed - The Remedial Ph.D. (August 5, 2011) - More than one-third of all entering college students need at least one remedial course, and the proportion is much higher at most community colleges. That means that college students may be more likely to take a remedial course than a class in most academic disciplines. But who teaches the courses? And who leads the efforts to study and improve remedial education...

Inside Higher Ed - Degrees of Wealth (August 5, 2011) - Reports of the demise of certain glass ceilings have been greatly exaggerated. Women may dominate college enrollments, and may soon dominate the upper echelons of the U.S. workforce. But they need more degrees than men do in order to earn the same amount of money...

Campus Technology - The Price of an Online IT Degree: Fort Hays Cheapest; Mercy College Priciest (August 4, 2011) - The average cost for an online bachelor degree in information technology or computer science currently stands at $46,758. At the low end of the range is Fort Hays State University, which charges about $21,000 for both in-state and non-resident students. At the top end is Mercy College in New York, which charges about $86,340 for its online degree program...

Danbury Patch - Pell Grant Funding a Concern at NVCC (August 9, 2011) - Possible future cuts to the Pell Grant program could impact students' abilities to be trained for the work force, official said...

New England Board of Higher Ed - DC Shuttle: Debt Deal Boosts Pell Grants (August 8, 2011) - The debt-ceiling deal signed by President Obama last week will cut over $900 billion in federal funding over the next 10 years. Yet even in an extremely budget-conscious atmosphere, members of Congress singled out the Pell Grant program for an increase in funding to guarantee college access for low-income students...

Hartford Courant - Windham Hospital Auxiliary Awards Scholarships To Local Students (August 9, 2011) - The Auxiliary to Windham Hospital recently presented $1,000 scholarships to three local graduating high school seniors who are interested in pursuing a career in health care. Monique Gagnon, who graduated from Windham Regional Technical High School in Willimantic, will attend Manchester Community College...

Inside Higher Ed - Factory Worker to President (August 8, 2011) - Lynn Pasquerella is president at Mount Holyoke College...The following fall, I continued working 35 hours a week while attending Quinebaug Valley Community College in order to pursue a college degree....

CT Mirror - Small program meets a big need for teachers in hard-to-fill slots (August 11, 2011) - Retired Navy Commander Len Cooke understands why school districts across the state have a difficult time hiring math teachers. "Students hate math. Who wants to teach a student's least favorite subject?" he said. Well, it turns out he does...

Diverse Issues in Higher Ed - Study: Minority, Low-Income Students Lack Adequate Access to Educational Opportunities (August 8, 2011) - Low-income, African-American and Hispanic students continue to face significant disparities in access to quality educational opportunities and resources at the K-12 level - including access to services critical for college success...

CT Mirror - ConnCAN's Johnston leaving divided opinions as he moves on (August 4, 2011) - Six years after launching what's become the highest-profile education reform group in the state, ConnCAN's controversial leader is moving on--and leaving Connecticut's education system pretty much the way he found it...

CT Mirror - Failure of new concession vote could pit Malloy against legislature (August 11, 2011) - If unionized state employees reject concessions a second time, it could have repercussions beyond the deep cuts and layoffs Gov. Dannel P. Malloy ordered four weeks ago: It also could trigger a showdown between Malloy and the legislature over just how much authority the governor has to slash spending...

CT Mirror - Malloy hedges on budget cuts as union voting nears the end (August 8, 2011) - When Gov. Dannel P. Malloy was announcing budget cuts in mid-July that would close prisons, courts, group homes, and agency offices, cut dozens of academic and social service programs, and eliminate 6,500 jobs, he said he couldn't be dissuaded by union leaders scrambling to breathe new life into a dead concession package...

CT Mirror - Study: Connecticut one of few states spending above pre-recession levels (August 8, 2011) - Connecticut is one of just seven states that has elevated spending above the levels budgeted before the recent recession, after adjustments for inflation and federal assistance are made, according to a recent study by a nonprofit fiscal policy think-tank...

CT Mirror - Clarified concession deal puts retiree health care funds in lock box (August 4, 2011) - State employees have never warmed to the idea of having to contribute a portion of their pay to help fund their retirement health care, and one of the arguments they make against it is the history of special accounts' being used as a piggybank by legislators and governors when money is tight...

Inside Higher Ed - Student Affairs Social Media Examples (August 10, 2011) -Student Affairs practitioners are always asking me to showcase student affairs units that are using social media. They want to see those who are "doing it best." During a webinar that I recently facilitated on strategic student affairs communications, this question came up during the Q/A portion and was referenced by a few folks in their evaluations. Since there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of useful examples readily available on the series of tubes known as the Internet, I have decided to share a few sites and to share how I go about finding examples of student affairs social media use...

Campus Technology - "Narrate, Curate, Share:" How Blogging Can Catalyze Learning (August 10, 2011) - As I talk at colleges and universities across the country about the blogging initiatives I've led at the University of Mary Washington, Baylor University, and now at Virginia Tech, my audiences consistently ask about several issues...

CT Mirror - States taking steps to discourage extended college careers (August 10, 2011) - Texas is the latest state to discourage students from extending their stays at public colleges and universities, Ben Wieder reports at Stateline.org, with a new law requiring students to prepare plans detailing how they will achieve their degrees-and then obtain permission any time they want to deviate from the plan...

Inside Higher Ed - Why We Inflate Grades (August 9, 2011) - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill made headlines recently by announcing a plan to fight grade inflation: all grades received will be contextualized on student transcripts, allowing graduate schools and potential employers to see grade distributions for each course and thus to determine just how much value to attach to those ever-prevalent As and Bs. This move is the latest in a series of attacks on what is perceived by many (rightly) to be an epidemic in higher education today, particularly among those institutions that seem to do well in the national rankings...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Professor as Student: A Gym Perspective (August 9, 2011) - Earlier this summer, I joined a nationally-known health club. Working out daily and having numerous personal trainers show me the finer art of weight lifting has taught me much about the art and skill of my profession as an educator...

Inside Higher Ed - Confessions of an Edu-Traitor (August 8, 2011) - I am an Edu-Traitor. I am a college professor. What I am about to say may well be perceived as supporting attitudes thought to be against the interests and well-being of college professors. Here goes: I do not think going to university should be the be-all and end-all of K-12 education. The importance of going to college should be intrinsically the rationale by which we justify public support of higher education. Higher education is incredibly valuable...

Inside Higher Ed - Blind Pigs (August 7, 2011) - A few programs here went prereq-happy a few years ago, putting up all manner of prerequisites on courses that had previously been open to anyone. The argument was that some students were simply underprepared, so their failures were unsurprising. Put up curricular walls, the argument went, only the worthy would find their way in, and pass rates would soar...Enrollments in the affected courses dropped, predictably, but pass rates didn't budge...