Inside Higher Ed - Mergers and Apprehension (November 22, 2011) - Connecticut's community colleges now share both a governing board and a bad state budget with the Connecticut State University System. State legislators created the new Board of Regents for Higher Education in July, merging the boards and system offices of Connecticut's 12 community colleges...

Inside Higher Ed - Sports Slashed at Maryland (November 22, 2011) - The University of Maryland at College Park president's announcement Monday that he would follow a panel's recommendations to terminate a third of its sports teams from an athletic program whose resources are spread too thin didn't come shock some observers, who say the university has found itself in circumstances in recent years that made cuts, in one way or another, all but inevitable...

Community College Times - An entrepreneur's take on job skills (November 22, 2011) - In her work developing new vaccines and cancer therapies, Mary Pat Moyer finds that the people she employs are as important as the science that her biotech company uses...

Inside Higher Ed - Pepper Spray Outrage (November 21, 2011) - The University of California at Davis has pledged an investigation and has suspended two police officers, but video of campus police using pepper spray against students who were nonviolent and stationary has students, faculty members and civil libertarians stunned and outraged...

New England Journal of Higher Ed - Implementing System-Level Graduation Standards (November 21, 2011) - Driven by external pressure for increased accountability and internal pressure for improved learning outcomes, colleges across the country have been developing and refining assessment systems for several decades...

Inside Higher Ed - Refusing to Pay (November 21, 2011) - For two months, the Occupy protests have focused attention on student loan debt. Today, a group that started with the Occupy movement will propose a solution: stop paying...

Wall Street Journal - Most 2-Year Students Quit (November 21, 2011) - Most City University of New York community college students drop out before graduating, squandering the system's resources as enrollment soars, according to a report set to be released on Monday...

Inside Higher Ed - All Aboard (November 21, 2011) - Massachusetts should expand statewide control of its 15 community colleges, according a new report from the Boston Foundation, and create a more centralized system that is judged by performance metrics...

The Chronicle of Higher Ed - The 'Fearmonger' (November 20, 2011) - Campus officials panic over the threat of a federal investigation. And few issues are as perilous as sexual assault. Administrators anxious about the Education Department's new rules for resolving complaints also dread being sued by students on either side...

The Chronicle of Higher Ed - Unions Confront the Fault Lines Between Adjuncts and Full-Timers (November 20, 2011) - The largest organizers of college faculty unions-the American Association of University Professors, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National Education Association-have made big strides in recruiting adjunct instructors and helping them gain representation through collective bargaining...

The Chronicle of Higher Ed - Engineering Majors Hit the Books More Than Business Majors Do, Survey Finds (November 17, 2011) - The average full-time undergraduate student studies about as much as faculty members expect-15 hours a week-but the duration varies by major, according to this year's National Survey of Student Engagement, released today...

Inside Higher Ed - Dispute Over Military Student Aid (November 23, 2011) - Many colleges and universities, including many selective institutions, may choose to drop out of the military's tuition assistance program for active-duty service members if changes are not made to Defense Department guidelines, several higher education groups warned Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in a letter Monday...

Ludington Daily News - Free college education could reduce poverty (November 21, 2011) - High school students in some of Michigan's most impoverished communities may soon have access to free college tuition...

WFSB - National Guard descends on Simsbury (November 4, 2011) - There are 168 National Guard troops in Simsbury that were rerouted Thursday from other parts of the state to remove downed trees to make way for utility crews...including Jose Santiago...

CT Mirror - With deadline looming, state still far from finish line on integrating Hartford schools (November 21, 2011) - Connecticut is running out of time to comply with a court order to reduce the racial isolation of Hartford's largely black and Hispanic school population, and it's still far from the finish line...

Inside Higher Ed - What Now? (November 22, 2011) - With a few terse paragraphs Monday evening, the Congressional "super committee" on deficit reduction announced that it could not reach an agreement, setting the stage for $1.2 trillion in sweeping automatic spending cuts over the next decade if Congress does not act by 2013 to compromise on the deficit...

NPR - After Pepper-Spraying, A Powerfully Silent Protest At UC Davis (November 22, 2011) - Hundreds were injured and at least one person died Saturday in Cairo when police swept through a camp of protesters in Tahrir Square. A crackdown continues in Syria. Yemen's oppressive government remains in place...

Inside Higher Ed - Real World Teams (November 22, 2011) - A critical challenge to American industry, and hence to our competitiveness in the global innovation economy, is the availability of a talented workforce. Despite historically high unemployment, the U.S. continues to experience worker shortages across a wide spectrum of jobs - in large part because students don't understand the wealth of opportunity available to them in growing fields...

Inside Higher Ed - "General Education," Within and Without (November 21, 2011) - What do you expect a college graduate to know? What do you expect a college graduate to be like? The questions are very different. They start from different assumptions, and are usually asked by different people with different goals. A good answer to one may not shed much light on the other...