Dean Hoke and Kent Barnds Relaunch Acclaimed Series to Explore the Future of Small Colleges
Bloomington, Indiana – February 3, 2025 – Small College America, the podcast dedicated to exploring the strengths, challenges, and future of small colleges, is officially relaunching with a new season. The series is co-hosted by Dean Hoke, Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Group and former President/CEO of the American Association of University Administrators, and Kent Barnds, Executive Vice President for Strategy and Innovation at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.
Both Hoke and Barnds are passionate advocates for small colleges, having graduated from Urbana University (OH) and Gettysburg College (PA), respectively. Their personal experiences and professional expertise have shaped their commitment to highlighting the vital role these institutions play in American higher education.
“The landscape for small colleges is shifting rapidly, and we believe now is the time to amplify the conversation about their future,” said Kent Barnds. ” Dean and I are both passionate advocates for these institutions because we’ve experienced firsthand the impact of a small college education.” Dean Hoke stated, “The first season of Small College America confirmed that there is a deep need for dialogue about the opportunities and challenges facing these schools. With this new season, we aim to engage with higher education leaders to explore innovative strategies that will help small colleges not just survive but thrive in an evolving higher education environment.”
The original four-part series first aired on January 10, 2023, and was hosted by Dean Hoke and Tom Davisson, who now serves as Charter Commissioner for the National Association for Academic Excellence (NAAE). The inaugural season featured insightful conversations with small college presidents, including:
Dr. Barry Ryan, Former President of Woodbury University (Burbank, California)
Stefanie Niles, President of Cottey College (Nevada, Missouri)
Ryan Smith, President of the University of Rio Grande and Rio Grande Community College (Rio Grande, Ohio)
Janelle Vanasse, President of Alaska Pacific University (Anchorage, Alaska)
The new season of Small College America will continue its mission of bringing critical discussions to the forefront by interviewing higher education leaders, policy experts, and innovators. The podcast will delve into the evolving role of small colleges, their economic impact, innovative strategies for sustainability, and how they can continue to provide a highly personalized educational experience.
Season Two will begin weekly on March 11th at 11AM Eastern. More details, including upcoming, will be announced soon.
For updates, visit [Podcast Website] or follow Small College America on [Social Media Links].
About the Hosts
Kent Barnds is the Executive Vice President for Strategy and Innovation at Augustana College, where he has been a senior administrator since 2005. A recognized thought leader in enrollment management and institutional strategy, Barnds is deeply invested in the success of small colleges and the students they serve.
Dean Hoke is Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Group, a higher education consultancy, and formerly served as President/CEO of the American Association of University Administrators (AAUA). With decades of experience in higher education leadership, consulting, and institutional strategy, he brings a wealth of knowledge on small colleges’ challenges and opportunities.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced today it agrees with a federal court ruling that appropriately found the Biden-era Title IX rules to unconstitutionally restrict student First Amendment rights.
Those rules, effective in August 2024, infringed on constitutionally protected speech related to sex and gender. They also rolled back crucial due process rights for those accused of sexual misconduct on campus, increasing the likelihood that colleges would arrive at unreliable conclusions during those proceedings. OCR announced it will instead enforce the 2020 rules adopted during the first Trump administration which carefully considered the rights of complainants and respondents alike, while providing robust free speech and due process protections.
The following can be attributed to Tyler Coward, FIRE lead counsel for government affairs:
The return to the 2020 rules ensures that all students — whether they are the accused or the accuser — will receive fair treatment and important procedural safeguards. That includes the right of both parties to have lawyers present during hearings, the right for both attorneys to cross-examine the other party and witnesses, and the right to receive all of the evidence in the institution’s possession. Colleges are also required to adopt a speech-protective definition of sexual harassment that enables schools to punish genuine harassment instead of merely unpopular speech.
Restoring the Trump administration’s rules means that students can once again feel secure that their rights to due process and free speech will be respected while ensuring administrators have the tools they need to punish those who engage in sexual misconduct and harassment.
During the 2016-2017 school year, the Brothers to Sisters Club at Compton College reserved a portion of their meetings for “Real Talk.” This allowed students to share their current feelings and experiences. During one of these meetings, two students spoke up and shared that they were homeless. This moment inspired Joshua Jackson and Dayshawn Louden, then student leaders at Compton College, to begin campaigning and advocating for student housing and increased basic needs on campus.
“Immediately, Dayshawn and I went into planning,” says Jackson,
Eight years later, Compton College is breaking ground on a 250+ bed housing facility, becoming the first community college in Los Angeles County to offer campus housing to its students.
CCCD Student Housing RenderingCompton College President and CEO Dr. Keith Curry says Jackson and Louden were worried about their peers’ lack of basic needs and immediately brought their concerns to him.
“It was a great conversation when they first brought it forward, and their question was, ‘How do we do it,” says Curry in an interview with Diverse. “I give them the credit for it because they got me to think about it differently and what we could do. I’m a former student activist, so seeing student activists seeing what we need was good.”
Jackson and Louden had just begun their roles as Compton College’s Associated Student Body President and Vice President when they approached Curry.
“We were motivated, and I think we felt that space gave us the courage to believe that we could create change,” says Jackson. “Our roles also gave us the conviction that we should.”
Rallying The Community
After their conversation with Curry, the student leaders called on their community at Compton College for support. Under Curry’s leadership, their efforts grew into a larger task force committed to addressing housing, food, and basic needs for the student body. Their next step was to identify Compton College students who identified as homeless.
“We took it upon ourselves,” says Louden. “I recall me and Joshua going into classrooms to say, ‘hey, utilize your voice,’ because the school can’t address a problem if there’s no need for it.”
Louden says that their roles as campus leaders positioned them to advocate for their fellow students and the longevity of the institution.
“Housing was like a five-to-six-year plan, but to address the needs that we could see that Compton College had, we pushed for a pantry, opening the showers that were going unused by the football team, and supplying bathroom kits and supplies,” he says.
Within weeks, Compton College began implementing additional programs designed to serve students’ needs.
Dr. Keith Curry“It’s not just about a lack of physical space to live. It’s about the absence of opportunity, the absence of safety, the absence of stability,” says Louden. “This was not just about providing resources. This was about fostering community and belonging.”
Curry, who previously served as the Dean of Student Services at Compton College and has been instrumental in the college’s growth, success, and rebuilding, says that his role in this process was to also be courageous.
“I announced at one of our professional development days the need to build student housing, and I think people were like, ‘What is he talking about,’” he recalls. “I said, ‘we’ll be the first ones to build housing,’ and sometimes you have to dream. Sometimes you have to say stuff and get people united because you said it.”
Curry also became one of the founding chairpersons of the Chief Executive Officers of the California Community Colleges’ Affordability, Food & Housing Access Taskforce in spring 2018. This group provides system-wide recommendations to address housing and food insecurities for California Community College students.
“I was advocating statewide for basic needs, so then I was able to fold in that advocacy to include food and also housing,” says Curry.
Once Compton College gathered all of the data and support they needed, college leaders submitted a proposal. Curry, however, was intentional about the request. “I think the most important piece to this was we didn’t ask for the planning grant,” remembers Curry. “We went directly for the project funding grant. We went for the entire dollar amount, and that was the strategic plan.”
Over the course of about five years, what began as a conversation in a student club meeting eventually became a reality.
Celebrating In Community
In June 2022, California lawmakers moved to include a student housing grant totaling $80,389,000 in the 2022-2023 State Budget for the Compton Community College District to build their proposed 250+ bed student housing facility.
“We proved our critics wrong,” says Curry, who has emerged as a national thought-leader on community colleges. “When we’re talking about student housing and having conversations, we were able to take a dream that some people thought was not possible and made it possible for the community that we serve.”
The Compton College Housing Project Groundbreaking Ceremony took place last month, a win that those involved hope to share with the entire Compton community and Compton Community College District (CCCD).
“We’re serving Black and Brown individuals within our community, and for me, it gives these students hope,” says Curry. “They can see a college campus that looks like a four-year college with new facilities but also with student housing. That means that they will not be looked at as less than.”
Phase one of the 86,000-square-foot building will include three floors of affordable student living quarters with 100 percent occupancy designated for students in need. The facility will provide three types of living configurations: 50 double-room units with access to shared bathrooms and common spaces, 50 double-suite units with bathrooms and access to common spaces, and 50 studio units for single occupants. The student housing will also include study areas, lounges and shared kitchens.
“We’re showing other colleges that this can be done,” says Curry. “Compton is the model for that. When you think about our history, we’re the first community college in the state of California whose accreditation was revoked, and to go from that in 2006 to be where we’re at now and to be on the cutting edge, that tells you that transformation can happen, but transformation can happen in communities where we look like the students.”
Curry marks this moment as one of hope, not just for Compton but for communities of color all over the country.
“We’re always criticizing what we don’t do in our communities. Now we see what we can do, and that gives people hope that change is coming,” he says. “But also, this gives the students the opportunity to say look at my backyard, and my community college matters.”
Big things have been on the horizon for Compton College for some time now. Just last year, rapper Kendrick Lamar surprised 2024 Compton College graduating students as their graduation speaker.
“If you look at our video from graduation, you can see the words from Kendrick Lamar where he talks about the value of our degree and how important it is and what it means to be a Compton College graduate,” says Curry. “It gives our students hope. When you’re told you’re not good enough, and now you see a college in your community that is doing stuff that makes you proud, that means you know you’re a part of something that’s bigger than us.”
Phase one is just the beginning of Compton College 2035, a comprehensive master plan outlining the college’s plans to provide students with state-of-the-art facilities, including a physical education complex and a visual and performing arts complex, over the next decade and beyond.
“The city is already going up, as you can imagine why, but this is another notch to add under the belt of why Compton is just a historic and beautiful place,” says Jackson.
Serving As A Model For Other Community Colleges In California And Beyond
In addition to Compton College being the first community college in LA County to have student housing, the housing project is also the first prefabricated modular student housing project that is design-approved by the California Division of the State Architect.
A prefabricated modular means that most of the building will be built thousands of miles away.
“It’s a unique project,” says David Lelie, senior project manager with Gafcon, the construction management company managing the project. “They’re going to build them in a factory in Idaho, and then they’re going to ship them by truck to our site and use a crane to place them.”
This model is designed to decrease construction time and disruptions.
“What we’re saving is sustainability and time nuisance for the students,” says Lelie. “So, instead of bugging students for two years, you’re dropping all those modules into place in two weeks.”
Once the building is placed on campus, the exterior and final touches will be completed, which is projected to be done by May 2027. This will save about six months of traditional construction time.
“It’s a seed, and eventually other campuses will use this idea and this method of prefab modular in order to build their student housing,” says Lelie. “Yes, we’re housing 250 students, but now other colleges, especially in California, can take this model and replicate it, and every time you replicate it, it’s like a car, they get less and less expensive.”
HPI, which is the architecture company responsible for some of the first non-modular student housing on community college campuses, took on this project to continue building cutting-edge experiences and homes for community college students.
They wanted the design to provide not only a place to sleep but also academic support and integration into the broader campus.
“As we learned about how to deliver modular student housing, it was really taking the program that [Compton College] had already established in terms of number of beds and the types of beds and then looking at how we could do that in a way that created community,” says Larry Frapell, principal and president of HPI architecture.
“We wanted the amenities to be easy to get to, a combination of both indoor and outdoor spaces, and a sense of security.”
HPI has a long history of serving higher education and, specifically, larger community colleges.
“We have a good understanding of not only the need for housing but how housing relates to community college students and how to integrate that in a community college campus,” says Frapell. “It’s part of a greater campus and part of a greater community, so we hope that this becomes a home for students and that this is a desirable place to live.”
Jackson and Louden are proud of the legacy they left to be continued for generations to come. Jackson says that he recently spoke with the two students who inspired the project’s advocacy.
“They’re housed, and they’re happy,” he says. “So, I’m grateful to be a part of history in this regard. I’m grateful for what I call following a tradition of activism that’s taking place at Compton College and just through our history as Black folks generally. We didn’t know it at the time, but that’s what we were doing. We just wanted to help.”
Louden believes now, more than ever, that Compton’s faith in humanity is one of its superpowers.
“Compton made that choice as an institution to restore faith in humanity,” says Louden, “and in the words of Compton College’s late great Dr. Joseph Lewis, ‘Compton makes the world go around.’”
Undergraduates’ level of trust in their institution has been positively linked to individual student outcomes, as well as the broader institutional culture and reputation. So trust matters. And a new analysis of data from Inside Higher Ed’s annual Student Voice survey with Generation Lab shows which groups of campus employees students trust the most—and least—to promote an enriching experience.
Asked to rate their level of trust in the people in various roles across campus to ensure that they and other students have a positive college experience, nearly all students have some (43 percent) or a lot (44 percent) of trust in professors. This is consistent across institution size, classification (both two-year and four-year) and sector, though students at private nonprofit institutions are somewhat more likely than their peers at public institutions to say they have the highest level of trust in their professors (51 percent versus 42 percent, respectively).
Methodology
Nearly three in 10 respondents (28 percent) to Inside Higher Ed’s annual Student Voice survey, fielded in May 2024 in partnership with Generation Lab, attend two-year institutions, and closer to four in 10 (37 percent) are post-traditional students, meaning they attend two-year institutions and/or are 25 or older. The 5,025-student sample is nationally representative. The survey’s margin of error is 1.4 percent.
Other highlights from the full survey and from follow-up student polls on key issues can be found here, while the full main survey data set, with interactive visualizations, is available here. In addition to questions about academic life, the main annual survey asked questions on health and wellness, the college experience, and preparation for life after college.
Trust in professors is also relatively consistent across a swath of student characteristics, including gender, household income level and even political affiliation, with 47 percent and 44 percent of Democratic- and Republican-identifying students, respectively, having a lot of trust in them. By race, however, Black students (32 percent) are less likely to say they have a lot of trust in professors than are white (47 percent), Asian American and Pacific Islander (42 percent), and Hispanic students (41 percent).
Academic advisers come next in the list of which groups students trust a lot (36 percent), followed by campus safety and security officers (32 percent). The trust in security is perhaps surprising, giving heightened concerns about overpolicing in the U.S., but some general public opinion polling—including this 2024 study by Gallup—indicates that confidence in policing is up year over year. That’s as confidence in other institutions (including higher education) remains at a low. In a 2022 Student Voice survey, undergraduates were about equally likely to have a lot of trust in campus safety officers.
Toward the bottom of the list of campus groups students trust a lot is financial aid staff (23 percent). This finding may be influenced by the tenor of national conversations about college costs and value, as well as last year’s chaotic Free Application for Federal Student Aid overhaul. Revised national data suggests that the FAFSA mess did not have the negative impact on enrollment that was feared. But another Inside Higher Ed/Generation Lab flash survey in 2024 found that a third of students disapproved of the way their institution communicated with them about the changes, with lower-income students especially likely to say this communication had been poor.
Victoria Nguyen, a teaching fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and a program coordinator in the Office for Community Conduct at the university, recalls worrying about the financial aid process during her undergraduate years. “The issue is transparency and understanding … Did my scholarship go through? Are they going to reimburse me [for tuition paid]? … It’s not a lack of trust, but since there’s no transparency it feels as though financial aid staff does not have that care,” says Nguyen, who earned her bachelor of science degree in 2023.
At the very bottom of the trust hierarchy are presidents and other executive-level college and university leaders, with just 18 percent of students expressing a lot of trust in this group. It’s been a tough few semesters for college leaders, with presidents, in particular, in the hot seat—including before Congress—over their responses to campus dynamics surrounding the war in Gaza. And those current tensions aside, the presidency appears to be getting harder and harder to hold on to, with average tenures shrinking.
In any case, the newly released Student Voice data shows that students, too, may be losing faith in presidents and other senior leaders. These findings are relatively consistent across institution and student type.
Closing the Presidential Trust Gap
One recent study that sought to identify essential competencies for any modern college president ranked trust-building No. 1 in a list of seven that emerged from focus groups and surveys of presidents themselves: Some 96 percent emphasized that presidents need to behave “in a way that is trustworthy, consistent and accountable.”
Jorge Burmicky, assistant professor of higher education leaders and policy studies at Howard University and co-author of that study, says that while this particular survey item on trust-building was drafted without a specific population in mind, presidents in focus groups emphasized the importance of building trust with students, as well as with faculty members. Participants’ ideas for building trust included bringing campus stakeholders into decision-making processes, minimizing surprises, supporting shared governance and showing consistency by aligning actions with personal and institutional values. Respondents also identified listening to and understanding the needs of various campus groups as a related, critical skill.
Presidents “shared that it was important for them to maintain visibility on campus and that they often took time to visit with students as a way of staying connected to their campus,” Burmicky notes. He also encourages further study on what students—not just presidents—think about core competencies for presidents and means of building trust, including and perhaps especially around communication. Some presidents in his study shared feelings of frustration that students were not reading weekly or monthly presidential newsletters, and he advises that presidents develop trust in a way that works for their campus. Town hall–style gatherings might work in smaller settings, but not others, for instance.
“There is clearly a perception gap between students and presidents on important issues such as trust-building and feeling heard,” he says. “Presidents ought to reach students where they’re at by using outlets that are relevant to their day-to-day lives,” such as social media or athletic events.
Nguyen of Harvard would like to see college presidents showing care by attending more events where they can listen to students’ concerns, such as student organization meetings and workshops, or meetings of task forces that include students. Leaders’ “presence in the room matters so much more than they think,” she says.
Tone and authenticity are additional considerations: Generic messages “do not resonate with most people as they lack empathy, as expressed by our participants,” says Burmicky.
Nguyen adds that campus leaders should assess their communication to ensure they’re not “using tactics from 20 years ago that don’t match our student population anymore.”
Faculty ‘Trust Moves’
Another study published last month shed new light on the concept of student-faculty trust, seeking to better understand how students perceive its value. The study, involving hundreds of engineering students in Sweden, identified showing care and concern as the most important trust-building approach for professors. Teaching skills also mattered.
Co-author Rachel Forsyth, of Lund University, explains that students “seem to want to have confidence that the teacher knows what they are talking about, is able to communicate their ideas and will attempt to build an effective relationship with them.” Student participants indicated that they could learn without trust, “but that the process felt more effective if it were present and that they had more options in terms of supporting that learning and extending their engagement with the materials.”
The question of faculty trust is only gaining urgency with the rise of artificial intelligence–powered teaching tools, she adds.
Peter Felten, executive director of the Center for Engaged Learning, professor of history and assistant provost for teaching and learning at Elon University, notes that prior research in this area has defined trust as both “students’ willingness to take risks based on their judgment that the teacher is committed to student success” (original study here) and as “the perception that the instructor understands the challenges facing students as they progress through the course, accepts students for who they are and cares about the educational welfare of students.”
Felten says that his own research—completed with Forsyth and involving experienced faculty members teaching large science, engineering, technology and math courses—found there are four categories of “trust moves” faculty can make in their teaching:
Cognition, or showing knowledge, skill and competence
Affect, or showing care and concern for students
Identity, or showing sensitivity to how identities influence learning and teaching
Values, showing that they are acting on professional or cultural principles
These trust moves, Felton says, include “not only what instructors do and say, but how they design their courses, how they assess students and more.”
What do you do to build trust in your classroom or on your campus? Let us know by sharing your ideas here.
I have now been teaching at Duke University for 20 years. I have been through all kinds of teaching fads—active learning, team-based learning, alternative grading, service learning, etc. You might assume that I have become a better teacher over these many years. Yet I am noticing a curious trend in my course evaluations: Some of my students like me and my courses less and less.
As a teaching faculty member, this matters greatly to my own career trajectory, and so I’ve wondered and worried about what to do. Why am I struggling to teach well and why are my students struggling to learn?
Looking back on the past two decades of my teaching and reaching further back into my own college experience, I see six clear differences between now and then.
Difference No. 1: Access to Information
When I took my first college environmental science class, way back in 1992, I was mesmerized. This was before the days of Advanced Placement Environmental Science, so I came into the class knowing almost nothing about the topic, motivated by my naïve idea to be part of “saving the world.” To learn, I had a textbook (that I still have, all highlighted and marked up) and the lectures (for which I still have my notes). Sure, I could go to the library and find books and articles to learn more, but mostly I stuck to my textbook and my notes. I showed up to the lecture-based class to learn, to listen, to ask questions.
Today, my students show up in my course often having taken AP Environmental Science, with access to unlimited information about the course topics, and with AI assistants that will help them organize their notes, write their essays and prepare for exams. I have had to shift from expert to curator, spending hours sifting through online articles, podcasts (SO many podcasts) and videos, instead of relying on a single textbook. I look for content that will engage students, knowing that some may also spend their class period fact-checking my lectures, which brings me to …
Difference No. 2: Attention
When I lecture, I look out to a sea of stickered laptops, with students shifting their attention between me, my slides and their screens. I remind them that I can tell when they are watching TikTok or texting, because the class material probably isn’t causing their amused facial expressions.
Honestly, I am finding myself more distracted, too. While lecturing I am not only thinking about the lecture material and what’s on the next slide—I am also wondering how I can get my students’ attention. I often default to telling a personal anecdote, but even as they briefly look up to laugh, they just as quickly return their eyes to their screens.
The obvious advice would be to have more engaging activities than lecturing but …
Difference No. 3: More Lectures, Please
After 2020, one comment showed up over and over on my course evaluations: lecture more. My students seemed not to see the value of small-group activities, gallery walks, interactive data exercises and discussions. They felt that they were not learning as much, and some of them assumed that meant that I didn’t know as much, which leads me to …
Difference No. 4: Sense of Entitlement
While I teach at a private elite university, my colleagues across a range of institutions have backed this up: Some students seem to not have much respect for faculty. The most common way this shows up is at the end of the semester, when students send me emails about why my course policies resulted in a grade they think is unfair, or after an exam, when they argue that I did not grade them fairly, which leads me to …
Difference No. 5: Assessment Confusion
When I was in college, I took midterms and finals. I rewrote my notes, made flash cards, created potential exam questions, asked friends for old exams and studied a lot. I took multiple-choice exams and essay exams, in-class exams and take-home exams. When I first started teaching my lecture-based class, I assigned two midterms and a final. I took the business of writing exams seriously, often using short-answer and essay exams that took a whole lot of time to grade. I wanted the experience of taking the exam to help students feel like they had learned something, and the experience of studying to actually entice them to learn.
Then, two things happened. We faculty got all excited about alternative assessments, trying to make our classes more inclusive for more learning styles. And the students started rebelling about their exam grades, nitpicking our grading for a point here and there, angry that, as one student put it, I was “ruthless” in my grading. Students didn’t show up at my office hours eager to understand the concepts—they wanted more points.
So, I threw out exams in favor of shorter papers, discussions and activities. In fall 2024, I had 74 students and I gave a whopping 67 of them A’s. To do well in my class now, you don’t really have to learn anything. You just need to show up. Except the problem with grading for attendance is …
Difference No. 6: Our Students Are Struggling
We all know that our students are struggling with more mental and emotional health issues, perhaps due to COVID-related learning loss, the state of the world and so many other things. Many of us include mental health resources in our syllabus, but we know that’s not enough. Students are much more open about their struggles with us, but we aren’t trained therapists and often don’t know the right thing to say. Who am I to determine whether or not one student’s excuse for missing a class is valid while another’s is not? How can I keep extending the deadlines for a struggling student while keeping the deadline firm for the rest? Sure, there are suggestions for this (e.g., offer everyone a “late assignment” ticket to use), but I still spend a lot of time sifting through student email requests for extensions and understanding. How can we be fair to all of our students while maintaining the rhythm of course expectations?
Usually, one acknowledges the differences between students now and “back then” at retirement, reflecting on the long arc of a teaching career. But I am not at the end—I have a long way to go (hopefully). I am expected to be good at this in order to get reappointed to my teaching faculty position.
Teaching requires much more agility now as we attempt to adapt to the ever-expanding information sphere, our students’ needs, and the state of the community and world beyond our classrooms. Instead of jumping to solutions (more active learning!), I think it’s reasonable to step back and acknowledge that there is no one change we need to make to be more effective educators in 2025. We also can acknowledge that some of the strategies we are using to make our classes more engaging and inclusive might backfire, and that there still is a time and place for really good, engaging lectures and really hard, useful exams.
There are fads in teaching, and over the past 20 years, I have seen and tried plenty of them. We prize teaching innovation, highlighting new techniques as smashing successes. But sometimes we learn that our best-laid plans don’t work out, that what students really want is to hear from an expert, someone who can help them sort through the overwhelming crush of information to find a narrative that is relevant and meaningful.
The students in our classrooms are not the same students we were, but maybe there is still a way to spark their enthusiasm for our subjects by simply asking them to be present. As debates about the value of higher education swirl around us, maybe caring about our students and their learning means asking them to put away their screens, take out a notebook and be present for our lectures, discussions and occasional gallery walk. For my part, I’m reminding myself that some students aren’t all that different than I was—curious, excited, eager to learn—and that I owe it to them to keep showing up committed to their learning and, maybe, prepared with a fewmorelight-on-text lectureslides.
Rebecca Vidra is a senior lecturer at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.
When the King’s College in New York shut down in summer 2023, its leadership said the cancellation of fall classesand termination of faculty and staffdid not mean permanent closure. Now its Board of Trustees is seeking to revive the evangelical institution, according to a report from Religion Unplugged.
The news outlet obtained a document that detailed a plan “to gift the college, including its charter and intellectual property … to likeminded evangelical Christians who propose the most compelling vision to resume the operations of the college.” The document—reportedly a request for proposals—listed a deadline of Feb. 7 for potential partners.
TKC officials did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.
The King’s College shut down in July 2023 amid severe financial pressures and a failed $2.6 million fundraising effort earlier that year that officials said was necessary to meet immediate needs. However, the emergency fundraising effort only brought in $178,000 by its initial deadline.
The college, which enrolled a few hundred students a year, had faced declining enrollment in its final years and the loss of generous donors who had long buoyed TKC. Richard DeVos—the co-founder of Amway and father-in-law of former education secretary Betsy DeVos—donated millions of dollars to the college before his death in 2018. Another major donor, Bill Hwang, also contributed several million before he was arrested in 2022 on fraud charges.
Facing financial pressures in 2021, the college put its faith in another wealthy entrepreneur, striking a deal with Canadian investment company Primacorp Ventures, owned by Peter Chung, a for-profit education mogul who had also loaned the college $2 million in early 2023. Acting as an online program manager, Primacorp Ventures promised to enroll 10,000 students over three years, sources previously told Inside Higher Ed. The catch, according to one source, was that Primacorp would collect 95 percent of the revenue generated from online enrollment, a deal that struck experts as predatory. The online program—which cost TKC at least $470,00 to launch, according to tax documents—delivered around 150 students its first year and soon folded.
The college had previously tried and failed to find a partner to keep it open in 2023. If it finds one this time, the board will submit a “go-forward plan” to the New York State Education Department by mid-July, according to the RFP obtained by Religion Unplugged.
The King’s College willface a series of obstacles in its reopening effort, including accreditation. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education stripped TKC’s accreditation in May 2023, noting a failure “to demonstrate that it can sustain itself in the short or long term.”
If the King’s College manages to reopen, it would be history repeating itself. Founded in New Jersey in 1941, TKC closed in 1994, only to be revived in 1997 and re-established in New York City.
A comprehensive new study by education research firm EAB has identified the most influential factors shaping how students choose colleges, with academic program variety, campus safety, and student organizations emerging as the top three drivers of student attraction.
The research, analyzing data from U.S. four-year colleges, found that schools offering a wider range of majors see significantly higher student interest, with each additional program contributing to increased application and enrollment rates. Campus safety measures and the number of available student organizations were also found to be major factors in students’ decision-making process.
“What’s particularly interesting is how these factors play out differently across institution types,” said Dr. Ryan Gardner-Cook, the project director. “For example, smaller schools gain more from incremental improvements in campus amenities and academic offerings compared to larger institutions.”
The study also revealed that affordability remains a critical factor, especially for first-generation and low-income students. Schools with lower net prices and stronger financial aid packages showed notably higher attraction rates among these demographics.
Environmental factors like climate and location also play a significant role. Schools in temperate climates and growing urban areas generally showed stronger appeal to prospective students. State-level political environments were found to increasingly influence student choice as well.
The research identified nine distinct “institutional personas” ranging from “Accessible Education Anchors” to “Rigorous Academic Giants,” each with unique characteristics and challenges in attracting students. This classification system aims to help institutions better understand their competitive position and develop more effective recruitment strategies.
For institutions looking to improve their student attraction, the study recommends focusing on controllable factors like admissions processes, student life offerings, and academic programs while finding ways to mitigate challenges related to location or cost.
The findings come at a crucial time as higher education institutions face evolving student preferences and increasing competition for enrollment.
Engineering college management software is an essential tool that automates the higher education sector from admission to graduation and beyond. It helps institutions achieve their mission and goals, increase student enrollment, and streamline college administration. For engineering colleges and higher education institutions, this software provides a comprehensive suite of features across web and mobile platforms, enabling them to manage records, enhance the student learning experience, improve operational efficiency, and reduce costs.
The program is customizable, scalable, and versatile. It provides accurate administrative and academic information to college leadership, improving decision-making. Administrative, professor, and student communication is improved by this program, improving efficiency and effectiveness.
Why Choose Engineering College Management Software?
Managing admissions, academic progress, and finances are just a few of the many hats an engineering college administrator must wear. By providing a unified, user-friendly platform, Engineering College Management Software streamlines operations, increases productivity, and keeps campuses one step ahead of the competition. This allows institutions to concentrate on what’s important—providing a high-quality education and boosting student success—by automating laborious operations and providing real-time insights.
Why Is It Game-Changing? Benefits of Engineering College Management Software
Reduces Difficulty: From enrolling students to keeping tabs on their classes, you may do it all from a central location.
Access Data Effortlessly: Make better decisions and respond faster with access to real-time analytics.
Efficient Communication: Facilitate the easy connection of staff, students, and professors to encourage collaboration.
Preparing for the Future: It is designed to be easily expanded to accommodate your growing institution.
Saves Money and Time: Reduces human effort and administrative burdens by automating routine tasks.
Tracking progress and offering timely interventions can greatly enhance student support, leading to better outcomes.
The engineering college management software isn’t just software—it’s a smarter way to run your campus.
Key Features of Engineering College Management Software
The strong features of Engineering College Management Software simplify operations, improve student experience, and improve engineering institution decision-making. These characteristics, from pre-registration to placements, help engineering colleges compete in a competitive academic environment. See it closer:
1. Streamlined Pre-Registration Process
Use simple web forms to manage inquiries and registrations.
Gather students’ personal, contact, and course information.
Receive real-time status updates and automatic follow-up reminders.
Use dashboards and reports to keep track of inquiries and encourage student enrollment.
2. Simplifying Admissions, One Click at a Time
Let students apply online and breeze through the admissions process.
Break it down: Create multiple phases for a clear, step-by-step journey.
Use entrance tests and ratings to admit the best-fit students effortlessly.
Auto-generate timetables that work like magic—no conflicts, no chaos.
Juggle faculty and classroom availability with ease.
Get a clear picture of faculty workloads across programs and subjects.
Create classroom-specific timetables without breaking a sweat.
7. Simplified Attendance & Leave Tracking
Track attendance for students and staff on the go—web or mobile, your choice.
Use RFID or biometric systems for attendance that’s automatic and hassle-free.
Generate detailed attendance and leave reports in seconds.
Streamline leave applications and approvals without manual back-and-forth.
8. Exams & Report Cards Made Easy
Run online exams and assessments without the usual stress.
Let the system do the math—automate mark calculations with predefined weightages.
Create professional marksheets and report cards with built-in approval steps.
Manage result announcements for students and parents with zero fuss.
9. Hassle-Free Fee Management
Choose from multiple invoicing options for tuition and other charges.
Automate recurring invoices to simplify scheduled payments.
Collect fees effortlessly with integrated online payment gateways.
Send students automated fee reminders so no deadlines are missed.
10. Streamlined Library Management
Search the catalog like a pro with advanced search and barcode/QR integration.
Reserve and renew books on the go using a mobile app.
Automate issuing, returns, renewals, and fines with smart rules.
Get all the library stats you need with detailed reports and dashboards.
11. Placement Made Simple
Plan placements with ease—set criteria, schedule assessments, and more.
Keep students updated with placement trends and training notifications.
Organize tests, interviews, and group discussions without the hassle.
12. Smart Alerts via Email & SMS
Set up automated email and SMS alerts in just a few clicks.
Schedule reminders and updates to go out like clockwork.
Use an internal mailbox to keep communication streamlined and organized
13. Interactive Online Notice Board & Forum
Schedule and share event updates and important announcements effortlessly.
Spark instant discussions and engage students and faculty in lively forums.
Post images, collect feedback, and keep the conversation flowing with comments.
14. Smarter Dashboards, Sharper Insights
Dive into everything you need with one-click reports and dashboards.
Keep an eye on attendance, leaves, exams, fees, and more—all from one spot.
Stay on top of your finances with clear, detailed income and expense reports.
15. Convenient Mobile App Access
Keep everything at your fingertips—access data on the go.
Mark attendance, approve leave, and manage student information anytime.
Create assessments, check grades, and send instant notifications with ease.
Ready to Revolutionize Your Engineering Campus?
Ready to take your engineering college to the next level? Creatrix Campus is the ultimate cloud-based education management system for managing everything from admissions to campus operations, designed with your unique needs in mind. Whether it’s simplifying administrative tasks, enhancing student engagement, or keeping faculty workloads in check, we’ve got it all covered. With real-time data, seamless integrations, and an intuitive interface, your institution will be equipped to tackle the challenges of today and embrace the opportunities of tomorrow.
So, why wait? Let’s talk about how Creatrix Campus can streamline your operations and drive your institution’s success, all while giving you the flexibility and control you need to thrive. Your engineering campus deserves the best—let’s make it happen!
The maximum number of organizations, including colleges with endowments over $1 billion, that President Donald Trump asked each federal agency to identify as potential targets for “civil compliance investigations.” The directive — which targets diversity, equity and inclusion programs — came in an executive order on Tuesday, the first full day of the new Trump administration.
