Comprehensive Educational Platform

Back to School — A Questionnaire from What to Do When College Is Not the Best Time of Your Life

August 23rd, 2010

David Leibow’s new book What to Do When College Is Not the Best Time of Your Life comes just in time for those returning to school, particularly for those whose experience has been disappointing.

At the beginning of his book, Leibow presents a questionnaire designed “to help you clarify whether you’re having the college experience you hoped for—and that you still could have if you made a few changes.” Below are some questions from the questionnaire and you can download it in its entirety here :

General 1. Is college a disappointment? Is it less fulfilling or fun than youthought it would be? 2. Are you having more trouble fitting in or getting adjustedthan you expected? 3. Do you think about transferring or dropping out? 4. Do you feel you’re not ready to be in college or in this college? 5. Do you feel lost, confused, overwhelmed, stressed out, or sad a lot of the time? 6. Do you get anxious or depressed when you think of returning to college at the end of a vacation or visit home? 7. Does it see

Read more…

Tags: Best Time, Life, When College

Posted in College Section | No Comments »

Huffington Post on the 17 Most Innovative University Presses

August 23rd, 2010

The Huffington Post recently highlighted university presses, their distinctive lists, and what separates them from trade publishers.

Though the list of selected presses is somewhat idiosyncratic (some great presses were not included), the piece by Anis Shivani does nicely summarize what university presses have to offer: “They may not be into showmanship and high-stakes publicity maneuvers, but their steady, unrelenting focus on particular subject areas creates vast bodies of new knowledge….There are books here for everyone’s taste. Check out what these presses have to offer. You’ll often discover history, depth, seriousness, charm, and beautiful design–all at once.”

Here’s what the post had to say about Columbia titles.

If cutting-edge literary theory excites you, CUP is the place for you. Asian studies and literature, with a focus on core teaching courses, is another great specialization. In recent yea

Read more…

Tags: Huffington Post, Presses, University Presses

Posted in College Section | No Comments »

MSP University to Offer CoreConnex’ Corelytics™ Financial Dashboard and Business Analytics to Members

August 23rd, 2010

MSP University is proud to announce our newest strategic partnership with CoreConnex, whose Corelytics Financial Dashboard receives data from a company’s financial accounting systems and provides a secure, hosted platform to display financial performance, key indicators and forecasts. When utilized by an IT Solution or Managed Services organization, the Corelytics Financial Dashboard empowers the organizations’ leadership with information to calculate their true cost of service delivery for each of their lines of business, along with margins and profitability. See my previous posts here and here regarding the importance of calculating the profitability of every one of a provider’s deliverables, including service desk.

Read the Press Release here

We feel this partnership will provide MSP University members with the business intelligence, benchmarking metrics and financial management tools necessary to run their practices by the numbers and improve their net profits.

Click here to find out how to attend our next 3-Day Boot Camp Sept. 1

Read more…

Tags: Dashboard, Financial Dashboard, Msp University

Posted in University Stories | No Comments »

R2T rejection leaves a sour taste

August 22nd, 2010

State officials argued Tuesday that Colorado wasn’t judged “objectively” in the Race to the Top competition, which left the state scoring 17th out of 19 finalists and out of the money.

Gov. Bill Ritter and Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien weren’t at all happy with the way the state’s Race to the Top Application was judged, and they said so at a news conference Tuesday.

“There were some flaws in how objective the scores were,” said Gov. Bill Ritter at a late-morning news conference with education officials and legislative leaders. “We believed all along we would be funded.”

Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien, who’s led the state’s R2T effort since last year, said reviewers had “a tin ear about how things are done in the West,” where local control of schools is the tradition. “A couple of reviewers had trouble recognizing that.”

Education Commissioner Dwight Jones and others vowed the state would continue to pursue the reform policies laid out over the last three years, although he acknowledged, “It does slow down how we move forward.”

See the videos Scroll to bottom to see videos of Gov. Bill Ritter reacting to Tuesday Read more…

Posted in Education Stories | No Comments »

School year starts with bigger classes, reduced resources

August 22nd, 2010

School is back in session in most local districts, and students and staff are noticing big changes.

Last year, public school districts started the year with fewer teachers, bigger classes and reduced resources.

This year, it’s worse.

Classes of 30-plus students are now commonplace in Sacramento-area schools, as districts have laid off teachers to balance deflated budgets.

Many students are starting the year with little or no access to a library or school bus. There are fewer nurses, counselors and administrators. And sports, music, art, shop and other programs have become luxuries some districts simply can’t afford. Most students will attend school for fewer days and could be on an entirely different calendar.

Here is a sampling of this year’s school changes:

School libraries cut back

Principal Michelle Jenkins spends her mornings in the Elitha Donner Elementary library in Elk Grove shelving books. In the afternoon, she checks them out for students.

Read more…

Tags: Bigger Classes, Reduced

Posted in Education Stories | No Comments »

The Late Age of Print Coming to a Syllabus Near You

August 19th, 2010

The Atlantic recently posted C. W. Anderson’s syllabus for his class at CUNY on the history of print culture. Anderson, who is also a a visiting fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project and a Knight Media Policy Fellow at the New America Foundation, describes the course:

The primary goal of this class is to teach students about the culture of “print media” in an era when that culture is being joined (and in some cases, overtaken) by a culture that we might variously call digital culture, online culture, or the culture of the web. What does “print” mean in our digital age? And what does “culture,” mean, for that matter? By culture I mean something that is not reducible to “economics,” “technology,” “politics,” or “organizations” — although culture emerges out of the nexus of these different factors, and others. In other words, I want to disabuse my students of the notion that new technologies or new economic arrangements can create digital or print culture in the same way that a cue ball hits a billiard ball on a pool table.

One of the books included on his list is Ted Striphas’s The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control. Anderson, writes “Striphas does a n

Read more…

Tags: Syllabus

Posted in College Section | No Comments »