As I read Bernard Condon and Nathan Vardi’s fascinating recent article in Forbes, it would seem that Harvard and Lehman had rather similar investment philosophies - and ended up with similar results. Harvard, in its search for ever higher returns and a conviction that the good times would roll for...

This is a continuation of Creativity and the Research University II. The creative faculty The issues are different here from those encountered in looking at student creativity, because we are dealing with a class of accomplished scholars who have already shown capacity for creativity.  Thus the env...

As I went over the not-done parts of my “to do� list from 2008, I found that I had never gotten around to a post about an excellent book on for-profit higher education written by two of my USC colleagues, Bill Tierney and Gib Hentschke.  So although it is a year late - I want to comment on what...

The New York Times had a very nice article yesterday (1/12/2009) on new ways of teaching freshman physics. I have written previously about some of the drivers behind these new approaches (A D- in science education) . A key driver was the demonstration that students generally were learning only a sma...

Doug Becker, the CEO and Chairman of Laureate, has done a masterful job of inventing a truly global university.  He and his excellent team have built a very visible, positive global brand for Laureate, one that depends on more than their many campuses spread around the world.  He has understood th...

The ongoing and very widespread economic problems are having a major impact on higher education, as I noted in a previous post.  Two recent articles in the New York Times provide some interesting examples of the problems.  The first, Tough Times Strain Colleges Rich and Poor, outlines some of the ...