Bloomberg Businessweek - How Universities Fail Women Inventors (December 28, 2011) - The founders of Google, Genentech, Netscape, and Yahoo! have two things in common: All of them are university inventors whose companies grew out of the technologies they developed on campus. And all of them are male...

Community College Times - Sowing the seeds of chemistry along border towns(December 27, 2011) - With two years of planning and a $150,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Southwestern College (SWC) chemistry professor David Brown endeavored to make the International Year of Chemistry a transformative learning experience for youngsters along the U.S.-Mexico border...

Inside Higher Ed - Letting Go of Lecture (December 23, 2011) - The remedial math class at Montgomery College thrums with the sounds of clicking keyboards and low murmurs. Students pack the room and stare intently at computer terminals...

Community College Times - When it comes to immigrants, colleges offer an open door (December 22, 2011) - Community colleges across the country are not only providing extensive assistance and services to their immigrant students-whether they are here legally or not-they are also educating the public about the value of educating all students...

Forbes - M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All (December 21, 2011) - For Wall Street Occupiers or other decriers of the "social injustice" of college tuition, here's a curveball bound to scramble your worldview: a totally free college education regardless of your academic performance or background...

Inside Higher Ed - Mismatch on Loan Negotiations? (December 23, 2011) - When the U.S. Education Department announced in October that it would hold negotiations to recommend new rules on student loans, the topics on the table appeared to be the sorts of nitty-gritty, in-the-weeds matters that might produce heated discussions among hard-core financial aid administrators but put anyone else to sleep: "repeal of unnecessary regulations" because of the government's switch to 100 percent direct lending...

New York Post - Nail that trend! (December 28, 2011) - On a recent Sunday in Bushwick at the Tomahawk Salon, manicurist/painter Fleury Rose was holding court at an end-of-the-year nail party for her most loyal customers...After moving to New York three years ago having graduated from Manchester Community College in Connecticut, Rose did her nails for fun while figuring out how to pursue a career in the arts...

Manchester Patch - Meet Frances Segal, 102 (December 26, 2011) - I was introduced to Frances Segal at a luncheon held by the Organization of Active Adults of Manchester Community College by organization president Elaine Sweet. Frances was being awarded a lifetime membership at the age of 102...my daughter-in-law Barbara suggested that I take classes at Manchester Community College. I hadn't been in a classroom for 59 years. I was 77 when I took my first class...

CT News Junkie - Meriden Lands U.S. Department of Education Grant (December 28, 2011) - Embracing the old proverb that it takes a village to raise a child the U.S. Department of Education awarded Meriden Children First a $460,000 planning grant to develop a community approach to educating neighborhood blocks of children...

Hartford Courant - Blumenthal discussing community colleges in Conn. (December 21, 2011) - Connecticut's junior senator is meeting with administrators, professors and business leaders to discuss the role of community colleges in helping boost states' economies...

AACC - Congress Wraps Up FY 2012 Funding Package (December 19, 2011) - Congress has approved final FY 2012 appropriations legislation, a nine-bill "megabus" that provides $915 billion to fund education, workforce training, and many other community college priorities. The House-Senate compromise legislation was developed largely behind the scenes and entailed major concessions from all sides...

Community College Times - Developing a successful entrepreneurship program (December 28, 2011) - One way to provide students and entrepreneurs opportunities to work with and contribute to the success of local economies is through the creation of an on-campus entrepreneurship program...

Campus Technology - Curiosity as a Learning Outcome (December 28, 2011) - When we speak of learning outcomes, we typically mean either skill mastery or successful recall of information. Indeed, we often make successful recall--what our students tend to call regurgitation--an easy-to-measure proxy for mastery. Inputs match outputs, and the student passes the class. Problem solved--or is it...

Inside Higher Ed - Campus Chasm (December 23, 2011) - I'm beginning to think academic affairs leaders are from Mars and student affairs leaders are from Venus. Imagine the following scenario. A vice president for academic affairs and a vice president for student affairs arrive at the student union for lunch, each carrying a book camouflaged in brown paper...

The Washington Post - Eight thoughts on higher education in 2012 (December 22, 2011) - These days it's perplexing and painful to think about the future of traditional universities. How do we know what's coming and how quickly it will come? How can we properly prepare for change without sacrificing the university's best traditions...