Getting a spring cancellation from a confirmed commencement speaker—particularly a high-profile one—is a planning team’s nightmare. Pepperdine University’s Seaver College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences had Sir Anthony Hopkins lined up to speak for its May 2 commencement, but a scheduling conflict for the actor called for a new plan. To the rescue: health technology […]

Higher ed institutions are expanding interdisciplinary research activity by hiring groups of faculty from multiple disciplines at the same time. The idea, pioneered by the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the late 1990s and sprouting up elsewhere since then, is to formalize the expectation of working collaboratively across the university. It may involve a variety of […]

Rumors about the nearly two miles of tunnels that lie beneath Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, often revolve around its location near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Some people have suspected the tunnels were designed as an Air Force/Wright State bomb shelter—or even that top-secret military experiments have been conducted in laboratories there. For graduating […]

A brighter alternative to the pedestrian tunnel is a ground-level enclosed pedestrian street. It’s a concept that the University of Regina in Saskatchewan has taken to the extreme. Nearly 100 percent of the main campus buildings are connected by these walkways, which form a figure-8-like loop. “I think we have probably the most planned campus […]

Admissions marketing pros have heard a wide variety of reasons why prospective students don’t believe they can go—or go back—to college. Park University in Missouri’s “Excuses” campaign, wrapping up this spring, takes an entertaining approach to breaking down access barriers. Promos poke fun at excuses that range from “no pens” and “no matching socks” to […]

Parking complex and residence halls at Morehead State University (Ky.): Four new facilities are on the way for fall 2016 openings. The East Parking Complex and Dining Commons—at a cost of $17.6 million and designed by EOP Architects (Lexington)—will offer about 400 parking spaces as well as a 25,000-square-foot dining area that overlooks the campus’ […]

Dan Darkow, age 21 and graduating this spring from Wright State University in Ohio, is president of the National Residence Hall Honorary and a resident assistant. He serves as director of disability affairs for the WSU student government, and he also happens to get around in a wheelchair due to a form of muscular dystrophy. […]

Today’s approach to the complex challenge of ensuring students and graduates are successful is captured by this simple Helen Keller quote: “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” The idea of student success has evolved in higher ed, from a concept focused mainly on academic success and graduation rates to […]