By Matt Reed. Do you ever have the experience of seeing where somebody else appears stumped by a dilemma, and not knowing why, because the answer seems obvious. More...

By Matt Reed. On Monday I had a heartening discussion with a professor on campus about some promising practices to improve student retention that he had seen discussed at a recent conference. I don’t want to betray any confidences, so I’ll just say that they sound potentially fruitful, but also labor-intensive. More...

By Matt Reed. I’m not a fan of scary movies generally. I don’t seek out haunted houses. I even look away during particularly vivid surgical scenes on tv. The way I see it, reality can be frightening enough. I don’t need my entertainment to be scary. Give me “slapstick” over “scary” any day of the week. More...

By Matt Reed. It’s a little bit like watching your kids grow. On a day-to-day level, you barely notice it. But a photo at 10 and a photo at 15 look unmistakably different. You just have to step back a bit to see it. More...

By Matt Reed. The AACC named its finalists for excellence awards this week. I read the list, noting with pleasure that I know personally both of the presidents who are finalists for “best CEO/Board relationships.” (They’re both great.)  But then I noticed the geographic distribution of nominees. More...

By Matt Reed. The hot policy topic around higher education right now is “risk-sharing,” or what sometimes gets called “skin in the game.” It’s the idea that colleges should bear some of the risk for payback of student loans, so they’ll have an incentive to turn their back on risky students. More...

By Matt Reed. Someone emailed me this week with a question about procrastination in administrative roles. It got me thinking. More...

By Matt Reed. As both a parent of teenagers and an educator, I’ve been both appalled and impressed over the past week. The massacre in Parkland was horrifying, both in itself and in context of a long string of mass killings in schools, colleges, theaters, concerts, and other public venues. But the response of the students there -- their poise, purpose, and moral force -- in confronting political leaders has been absolutely heartening. More...