Surveys Highlight Student and Faculty Experiences with Remote Learning

July 8, 2020.Reading time 13 minutes.

Two new surveys show the reactions and resilience of students and faculty in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic this spring. Overcoming conjecture and some bold (often unsupported) statements about the move to remote teaching, the survey results provide real insights into what happened. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Science Foundation […]

Avoiding a “Road to Nowhere:” What We Must Do This Fall

June 22, 2020.Reading time 32 minutes.

In 1985 The Talking Heads released “Road to Nowhere.” That song, and that metaphor, have been on my mind a lot lately as I think about where higher education is going in the fall and beyond. It’s all too clear that we are going somewhere, but I’m not sure that any of us are very […]

Quarantainment – A Summer Reads, Listens, and Watch (And more!) List from WCET

June 12, 2020.Reading time 34 minutes.

Welcome to Quarantine Lindsey and I (Rosa) began plans for this blog very soon after quarantine began back in March. We wanted to put together something fun to share that would contrast with the other conversations happening about the future of higher education that would hopefully help people decompress from the stress of life and […]

Online Learning: Let Students Learn Where They Are

June 4, 2020.Reading time 10 minutes.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced colleges and universities to move their face-to-face courses to remote and online formats. Instructors heroically worked to ensure continuity of learning for their students. Considering this shift online, Mark Porcaro, the Executive Director of Online Learning at Wichita State University and WCET Steering Committee member, reflected that learning isn’t all about […]

Update on Federal Regulations Impacting Distance Education During the Pandemic

May 22, 2020.Reading time 13 minutes.

In Harold Ramis’ 1993 classic, Groundhog Day, Bill Murray portrays a television weatherman sent to cover Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day who ends up repeating the day over and over again. At first, Murray’s character, Phil Connors, uses the time loop to his advantage—binge eating, having one night stands, committing robbery, and manipulating local residents […]

Our Reflections on a Virtual Event – the 2020 WCET Policy Summit

May 14, 2020.Reading time 15 minutes.

The WCET team enjoys planning our two live events each year. Our goal is to provide an opportunity for our community to come together to network, discuss new ideas, learn from each other, and bring important promising practices back to our organizations. This year, in the “Age of COVID-19,” we were unable to host our […]

Fall and Beyond: Higher Education in the Age of COVID-19 and Other Disasters

May 8, 2020.Reading time 24 minutes.

Even before the COVID-19 global pandemic, higher education was struggling to make sense of what David La Piana and Melissa Mendes call a VUCA world in The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution: Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid-Response World. Originally coined by the US military to describe a post-Cold War world, VUCA stands for: Volatile– The world […]

Licensing Certification and Dispersed Students, Oh My!

April 30, 2020.Reading time 16 minutes.

Photo of the united states in the dark with lights showing heavy populated areas

Institutions have juggled many issues to maintain educational continuity during the pandemic. WCET has addressed accessibility, Veterans benefits, crisis coordination, Open Educational Resources, the U.S. Department of Education’s ability to exercise enforcement discretion for Title IV eligibility , and more! However, we must now address the issue of institutional management of state licensing board requirements […]

Communicating About the Crisis – with Help from Cowboy Joe

April 28, 2020.Reading time 10 minutes.

A pony with a cover that says Cowboy Joe University of Wyoming, posing with two women in cowboy hats

Today’s installment of What’s Next comes from Katie Carroll, Assistant Director of Admissions from the University of Wyoming. Katie shares with us how Wyoming is using Cowboy Joe, the institution’s chatbot, to help students, faculty, and staff navigate many of the challenges resulting from the pandemic. As the need for answering questions and providing information […]

Promising Practices for Navigating “What’s Next”

April 23, 2020.Reading time 31 minutes.

I have long marveled at how quickly and effectively WCET pivots to support its members when we most need assistance. Remember the announcement of new guidelines that regional accreditors were going to use to evaluate distance education (CRAC-2001)? State authorization enforcement by the Department of Education? WCET helped us navigate around those icebergs. The Coronavirus […]