NECHE on the Road
Recently I had the chance to visit Franklin Cummings Tech and President Dr. Aisha Francis, who is a new NECHE Commissioner and beginning her seventh year as president & CEO of FC Tech. This private, non-profit, two-year technical college has a brand-new campus in the Nubian Square area of Roxbury, Massachusetts, with a $75 million, 68,000 square-foot building replacing its 118-year-old campus in Boston’s South End.…Continue readingPit Stop #98: Franklin Cummings Tech
At a recent NECHE event, I crossed paths with North Shore Community College President Bill Heineman. And I had to apologize. You see, I have driven by the Lynn campus hundreds of times, but somehow I neglected to reach out to request a visit. So it was a great privilege to spend a few hours last week with Bill and members of his team, and I…Continue readingPit Stop #97: North Shore Community College
It occurred to me, as we near 100 NECHE visits, that it might be time to shake things up a bit. So…this post will not be about a single school visit, but about my attendance at an association of a bundle of schools: the International Association of University Presidents (IAUP.) With members representing nearly 100 countries, IAUP has a mission to:…Continue readingPit Stop #96: A Post of a Different Color
It is always astonishing to comprehend what a small world this is, and how we remain connected to each other across space and time. In 2004, Patrick Awuah, the co-founder of Ashesi University in Ghana, was awarded an honorary degree at his (and my) alma mater of Swarthmore College. At the time, I was working at the college and it was my…Continue readingPit Stop #95: Ashesi University
This was an unusual trip for me — not to visit a particular university, but to attend athree-day summit sponsored by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI), Thailand. In the fall of 2025, after extensive research into international accrediting agencies across the globe, the Ministry selected NECHE to assist as it…Continue readingPit Stop #94: Thailand!
A few days before the holiday season began in earnest, I made a trip to Geneva to visit the Geneva School of Diplomacy (GSD), an institution just starting on the path to NECHE accreditation. What a charming time of year to visit! The Geneva School of Diplomacy was founded in 2003 by one career diplomat with a passion for international relations, and one…Continue readingPit Stop #93: Geneva School of Diplomacy
Recently, I had the opportunity to visit with an old friend, President Arthur Levine, on the campus of Brandeis University. Arthur, a Brandeis alum, stepped into the presidency in the Fall of 2024 –after happily retiring and promising himself he would never take on a third college presidency. I suppose such promises are destined to be broken, because when duty called, Arthur (who had remained incredibly loyal and…Continue readingPit Stop #92: Brandeis University
It’s hard not to love the founding story of Lasell University in Newton, Massachusetts. It all began with the light. Legend has it that in the spring of 1851, a group of individuals gathered together and as the sun rose in the sky, illuminating Bragdon Hill, they made the laser-like decision to found a new school on that spot. As the founders, known as boomers, put shovels into…Continue readingPit Stop #91: Lasell University
My final stop on this Turkey and Greece tour was to Perrotis College, part of the American Farm School. The American Farm School is an independent, nonprofit educational institution founded in 1904 to serve the population of Greece and the Balkans. Major educational divisions include the Primary School, Haseotes Middle School, Vocational High School, General High…Continue readingPit Stop #90: American Farm School
After three splendid, warm and sunny days in Athens spent visiting NECHE institutions, I arrived at the airport for a flight to Thessaloniki… and landed a quick 35 minutes later — perhaps my shortest flight ever! Thessaloniki is a historic, Biblical city on the coast of the Aegean Sea. While half of Greece’s ten million people live in Athens, Thessaloniki boasts a mere one million — but…Continue readingPit Stop #89: Anatolia American University