Kudos
For the West’s higher education and research institutions, 2007 was a very good year. Scientists and technical staff at Boulder’s National Center for Academic Research shared in the Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore for their work on the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The MacArthur Foundation awarded “genius grants” to five scientists working at Western institutions: Caltech molecular biologist Michael Elowitz; UC Riverside spider-silk biologist Cheryl Hayashi; UC Berkeley conservation biologist Claire Kremen; UW Seattle computer scientist and neuroroboticist Yoky Matsuoka; and Caltech nanotechnologist Paul Rothemund. Other Westerners honored include inventor Saul Griffith of Squid Labs in Alameda, CA; Sven Haakanson, curator and anthropologist at the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, AK; chemist My Hang Huynh of Los Alamos National Lab; and Mark Roth of Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Students prospered, as well. Five of the 36 Rhodes Scholars of 2007 attended Western schools, with two of them studying at WICHE schools, the University of Oregon and Montana State University–Bozeman. And this year the Western presence will be even stronger. The 2008 Rhodes Scholars, announced in November, included seven students who’d attended Western schools, including Aaron Polhamus, who attended a WUE school, Western Washington University, before transferring to Stanford; and Hila Levy, a student at the Air Force Academy, the first Puerto Rican resident to win a Rhodes Scholarship. Congratulations to them and to all the West’s Rhodes Scholars – as well as to the academicians and researchers who make our region’s educational institutions so valuable.
--David Longanecker
WICHE Wins Grant for Adult Learner Project
Lumina Foundation for Education has awarded WICHE a $755,100 grant for the Non-traditional No More: Policy Solutions for Adult Learners project, whose goal is to increase adult learners’ access to and success in postsecondary education. WICHE will work with three states (to be announced shortly) over the next two years to stimulate and guide policy and practice changes that will create a more navigable path to degree attainment for adults. Non-traditional No More will provide state and institutional leaders with a unique opportunity to address critical needs in the adult population. “The title of this project captures it all,” says Executive Director David Longanecker. “Those we have called non-traditional are now becoming quite traditional within American higher education. And that trend must continue if we are to meet the emerging high-skills/high-wage employment requirements of this global age and if more Americans are to be enabled to enjoy a high standard of living.”
As a first step, Non-traditional No More will help states identify their “ready adult” population – those adults who are just shy of having enough credits to obtain a degree but have not yet returned to college. Next, the project will help states create a navigable path to college success for adults through a comprehensive focus on academic policies, financial aid and financing, student support services, and information sharing, including marketing and communications designed to reach out to the ready adult population. Further, states will be aided in enacting new policies and practices and sustaining them.
WCET Focuses on Access and Authentication
WCET has joined a national consortium to promote system change for web accessibility in education. The project, funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, centers on the development, evaluation, and dissemination of materials and web accessibility processes designed to help educational institutions and accrediting bodies boost web accessibility at a system level. Leading the consortium are WebAIM and the National Center on Disability and Access to Education; other members include Kentucky’s Council on Postsecondary Education, AdvancED, and Western Heights School District in Oklahoma City. For more information, contact Pat Shea, WCET assistant director, at pshea@wiche.edu.
WCET is also closely monitoring the progress of two bills that have moved through the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives to amend and extend the provisions of the 1965 Higher Education Act. While much attention has been focused on the accountability, student learning outcomes, transfer of credit, and illegal file-sharing provisions of S.1642 and H.R. 4137, one of the provisions is of particular interest to institutions and programs that offer distance education. The proposed legislation requires “an institution that offers distance education to have processes through which the institution establishes that the student who registers in a distance education course or program is the same student who participates in and completes the program and receives the academic credit.” WCET is producing a briefing paper to inform members of some of the strategies and practices that many online college and university programs utilize to ensure academic integrity through student authentication, such as the use of multiple assessment techniques, test banks, and timed delivery of exams.
SSI National Summit
The State Scholars Initiative will hold the invitational National Summit on Academic Rigor and Relevance in Boston on April 29-30, 2008. The summit will draw on national business and education leaders to serve as thinkers and speakers and to develop strategies for the improvement of high school rigor and relevance. For those not in attendance, a detailed follow-up report will be published (and available on the SSI website) in June. Several white papers on the topics discussed at the summit will appear later in the year. For more information, visit the SSI website (www.wiche.edu/statescholars).
WICHE ICE and NWAF Meeting
The steering board of the WICHE Internet Course Exchange (ICE), an initiative designed to help institutions share online courses and programs, will meet at Boise State University on April 2-3, preceding the annual meeting of the Northwest Academic Forum (NWAF) on April 3-5. The ICE Steering Board will discuss the annual workplan, which encompasses financing, marketing and recruitment, assessment, and other issues that pertain to ICE’s growth and sustainability. NWAF members will explore the theme “Local to Global: Partnerships and Strategies for Improvement” at their meeting, with presentations and discussions on issues regarding globalization and internalization, accountability for higher education, and course redesign. WICHE provides NWAF with staff support and is its fiscal agent.
Mixed Media
The 7th edition of Knocking at the College Door, WICHE’s projections of high school graduates, will be released in February. An invaluable resource for decision makers in education and government, Knocking provides fresh data on high school graduation rates by state and region, as well as information about the demographic make-up of each year’s graduating class, projected from 2005-06 through 2021-22.
Contacts
David Longanecker, President - Phone: (303) 541-0201, email dlonganecker@wiche.edu
Jere Mock, Vice President, Programs and Services - Phone: (303) 541-0222, email jmock@wiche.edu
The fifteen member states of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education work collaboratively to expand educational access and excellence for all citizens of the West. By promoting innovation, cooperation, resource sharing, and sound public policy among states and institutions, WICHE strengthens higher education's contributions to the region's social, economic, and civic life.
