By Matt Reed. Most community college alumni live within fifty miles of their alma mater.  Yet as a sector, we’ve done a far weaker job of recruiting alumni support than our four-year counterparts. More...

By Matt Reed. The thematic approach would also make inter-institutional movement much harder. “I need to hire someone to teach Intro to Sociology. Is a graduate of a program in “Body” or “Water” capable? How the hell do I know?” And the impact on graduate students hitting the market would be catastrophic. “Sorry, ‘water’ grad.  We’re into ‘money’ now. Your graduate work is so last year.” The entire edifice takes for granted the support structures it proposed to supplant. More...

By Matt Reed. I don’t live in Connecticut, but I have ties to it. I know people who work at colleges there. I’ve done two NEASC site visits there. I was even once a finalist for a community college presidency there, back when they still hired presidents. More...

By Matt Reed. As a writer, I hope to be read and understood. This week, I was thrilled to see that someone went from understanding to acting. More...

By Matt Reed. One of the shocks of moving into community college administration is discovering how many “academic” decisions are made based on financial aid rules. More...

By Matt Reed. The value of faculty spaces.
A piece in The Chronicle a couple of weeks ago asked whether faculty offices have a future. More...

By Matt Reed. One merger approved. One merger rejected.
If you saw the title to this piece and kept reading anyway, bless you. More...

By Matt Reed. A tweet last week caught a bit of fire, so I thought it might be worth revisiting. Last week we had graduation, and we gave a Distinguished Alumnus award to a graduate who has gone on to achieve great things. A professor introduced me to her the day before; she mentioned that when she started in 1978, tuition was $6 per credit. More...

By Matt Reed. We recently had an internal search for an interim administrative position. Four people initially applied, each with an individual letter. More...

By Matt Reed. Most public high schools supply textbooks free of charge to their students. Most colleges don’t. When a college teaches courses in a high school for high school students, someone -- whether the district, the students, the parents, or the external funder, if any -- is likely to get sticker shock at the cost of the books. That’s because they’ve been working on a “free textbooks” model forever. The aspect of OER that seems so novel in the college setting is old hat in the high school setting. More...