NBC Connecticut - MCC Expanding Downtown (October 12, 2011) Manchester Community College will expand to downtown after a sizable donation from First Niagara Bank...

Manchester Patch - First Niagara's $1.3 Million Donation to Spur Downtown Partnership Between Town and MCC (October 12, 2011) - Leaders from the town, Manchester Community College and First Niagara bank announced an intriguing new partnership Wednesday that will see the bank donate $1.3 million to the town, including a building in the downtown area, in an effort to create a "satellite" center of the college to promote educational and cultural programs in the downtown area...

Hartford Courant - Conn.'s largest community college expanding (October 12, 2011) - The largest of Connecticut's 12 two-year community colleges is expanding with a satellite campus in downtown Manchester under an arrangement between the state, town and a regional bank. The plan, announced Wednesday, involves transforming a former men's clothing store building into classrooms, office space and other facilities for Manchester Community College...

Hartford Courant - Board Of Regents For Higher Education Hires New Human Resources Chief; Looking For New CFO (October 13, 2011) - When Gov. Dannel P. Malloy proposed a new Board of Regents for Higher Education, he aimed to reduce the size of higher education's central administrative staff. But the regents' administrative office recently created several new positions...

Inside Higher Ed - Freeing the LMS (October 13, 2011) - Last year, the media conglomerate Pearson controlled a shade over 1 percent of the market for learning management systems (LMS) among traditional colleges, according to the Campus Computing Project. This year, Pearson is taking aim at the other 99 percent...

Inside Higher Ed - Not Quite a Dr. (October 12, 2011) - The top two officials at Bishop State Community College could be enjoying praise for helping to rescue a college on the brink. Instead they are the subject of an embarrassing inquiry into their doctoral degrees, which were earned from unaccredited colleges that experts call diploma mills...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Activist Pushes Colleges to Make Sustainability Worth Its Cost (October 11, 2011) - You might not know his name, but you would probably recognize what Mark Orlowski-a polarizing figure in higher education's sustainability movement-is known for...

Inside Higher Ed - Wait and See (October 12, 2011) - The broad authority of the deficit "super committee," and its secrecy, have presented challenges for college groups hoping to protect student aid, research and other higher ed priorities...

Inside Higher Ed - Hitting Hard on Fraud (October 11, 2011) - A fast-moving effort by the U.S. Education Department to crack down on financial aid fraud faces a common dilemma in higher education: how to protect the integrity of government aid coffers without harming students...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Faculty Unions in Ohio and Wisconsin Hunker Down (October 9, 2011) - The attacks on Ohio's and Wisconsin's public-sector unions mounted by fiscally conservative lawmakers this year are forcing unions that represent public-college faculty in those states to rethink their strategies and basic missions...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - New Digital Tools Let Professors Tailor Their Own Textbooks for Under $20 (October 9, 2011) - For his marketing course at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Daniel Flint wanted his students to read a white paper on public relations, a couple of case studies, an industry report, and a chapter of a forthcoming book. So he created a textbook with just that-more than 100 pages of material in one customized package for his students...

Inside Higher Ed - Big History on Campus (October 7, 2011) - Last month, freshmen at Dominican University of California spent a night stargazing with the help of 20 amateur astronomers from San Francisco. The night under the stars was part of their academic year, in which they will study the history and evolution of the universe...

Inside Higher Ed - 'A Good Investment' (October 6, 2011) - Every university thinks its researchers' ideas are good ones. The University of Michigan is putting its money behind its claim...launching an initiative to invest some of the university's endowment money directly in start-up companies developed through university research when they seek venture capital funding...

Inside Higher Ed - Getting Credit (October 6, 2011) - Rapid growth in the number of students earning credentials at community colleges over the last two decades has outpaced enrollment gains at those institutions, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Association of Community Colleges. Findings include faster gains for minority students, meaning a partial closing of the "achievement gap" in credentials awarded...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Completion Rates Outpace Growth in Community-College Enrollment, Report Says (October 5, 2011) - The percentage of students who successfully earn credentials from community colleges has increased greatly over the last 22 years, especially among students of color, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Association of Community Colleges...

Fast Company - Why Education Without Creativity Isn't Enough (September 14, 2011) - Last April, when sharing a stage at Facebook with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, President Obama summed up the conventional wisdom on what's needed to shape American minds for the global marketplace. "We've got to do such a better job when it comes to STEM education," he said. "That's how we're going to stay competitive for the future." If we could just tighten standards and lean harder on the STEM disciplines--science, technology, engineering, mathematics--we'd better our rigorous rivals in India and China, and get our economy firing on all cylinders. As with much conventional wisdom, this is conventional in the worst sense of that word...

Inside Higher Ed - Suddenly Ineligible (October 10, 2011) - The House Republicans' plan to change Pell Grant eligibility would disqualify hundreds of thousands of students in order to preserve the maximum grant at $5,550 for fiscal year 2012. The brunt of those changes would fall on the highest-earning families who are still eligible for Pell Grants -- who on average make slightly over $40,000 per year...

New England Board of Higher Ed - Higher Ed Prices Still Going Up: NEBHE Releases 2011 Report on Tuition and Mandatory Fees at Public Postsecondary Institutions (October 6, 2011) - NEBHE released its 2011 report on tuition and mandatory fees at public postsecondary institutions available online. In an effort to inform the decision-making of state policymakers as well as public higher education leaders and trustees, this report provides details of public postsecondary tuition and mandatory fee rates for the past five years, collected during the summer of 2011...

Hartford Courant - Silk City Flick Fest: Four Days Of Steampunk, Horror, Gambling (October 13, 2011) - When Keith Rocheleau was studying video editing at Manchester Community College, he made a short crime drama. After graduating, he bought himself a video camera to make a full-length movie, and looked no further than his own previous creation...

Hartford Courant - Canceled Poster Boy Show Moves to RAW (October 6, 2011) - The New York-based street artist, whose planned exhibit at Trinity College in September, "Street Alchemy," was canceled at the last minute, will reassemble that exhibit at Real Art Ways, from Oct. 20 to Jan. 30, 2012. It will be called "Street Alchemy 2.0." Poster Boy is the pseudonym used by Hartford native and Manchester Community College graduate Henry Matyjewicz...

Educations News - Parent 'Unions' Pushing for Education Reform (October 11, 2011) Newly formed parents unions are springing up with the same goal - to push schools to improve academic achievement in their communities. School parent groups are no longer just about holding the next bake-sale fundraiser. They're about education reform...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - California's 'Dream Act' Becomes Law, but Affirmative-Action Measure Is Vetoed (October 9, 2011) - Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. of California signed legislation on Saturday that will allow thousands of illegal immigrants who graduated from high school in California to receive state financial aid for college, but he vetoed another bill of interest to higher education that would have tried to allow public colleges to consider race in admissions...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - For Colleges, Location Matters (October 12, 2011) - Even if college students in the future are likely to take more of their classes online, few of us think that the vast majority of bricks-and-mortar campuses will disappear, at least not overnight. Like real estate, location matters in higher ed. But unlike many homeowners, colleges looking for a better neighborhood can't simply hang a "For Sale" sign and move to a more desirable place...

Inside Higher Ed - What We Talk About When We Talk About Markets (October 12, 2011) - The recent silliness in Florida, in which the governor is questioning the need for more anthropologists, got me to thinking about the whole idea of market demand for degrees. When we speak of market demand for certain disciplines, which market do we mean...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Smartphones Present Growing Security Problems on Campus, Report Says (October 12, 2011) - As technology advances, so do the threats posed to its users and their devices. One growing area of concern for colleges, highlighted in a report released today by the Georgia Tech Information Security Center and the Georgia Tech Research Institute, is the increasing number of attacks on smartphones and their mobile Web browsers...

Inside Higher Ed - Occupation (October 12, 2011) - The word "occupation" has been getting a workout lately. The Occupy Wall Street movement, which seems to have gone viral around the country, is emerging as a welcome and badly-needed counterweight to the Tea Party. It has given rise to an Occupy College movement, in which students protest excessive tuition increases, student loan burdens, and, implicitly, the lack of well-paying jobs available upon graduation...

Mansfield-Storrs Patch - How You - Yes You - Shape Economic Policy (October 12, 2011) - To what extent does public policy impact the economy and to what extent do the participants in the economy impact public policy...Angelo Messore, professor of economics and political science at Manchester Community College, also believes that a breakdown in communication can undermine policymakers...

Higher Ed Live - 4 Reasons You Need LESS Pages on Your University Web Site (October 7, 2011) - Ok, it's time to re-design one of your department sites. So, what does that mean? It means you have a great opportunity to start killing some unnecessary pages. "Wait...no. We actually have more things we want to add to the site. That's why we want to do the re-design...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Should Illegal Immigrants Pay In-State Tuition? (October 7, 2011) - As Republican presidential candidates pound one-time front-runner Rick Perry like a piñata, one of the attack lines that has resonated well with some is that Perry is sanctioning illegal immigration by offering in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants living in Texas. So I asked my sidekicks at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity: do you think Perry is right or wrong...

Community College Times - Practical advice on social media (October 6, 2011) - The use of social media for business and organizational purposes has exploded in recent years. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media have gone mainstream and are no longer the exclusive territory of computer geeks...