Talk about a road trip! Throughout October, NECHE staff is holding eight regional meetings to engage our members in conversation about the revision of our Standards of Accreditation, a process that takes place every ten years. This is the most important undertaking that I will lead during my tenure as NECHE President. Our Standards are used…Continue readingPit Stop #70: Community College of Rhode Island
Category: Rhode Island
At the very start of this summer, I had the privilege of visiting Bryant University and its President Ross Gittell. This was my first trip to Bryant, located in Smithfield, Rhode Island just fifty miles south of Boston and twelve miles north of Providence. President Gittell, in addition to being an accomplished economist and economic development…Continue readingPit Stop #63: Bryant University
Mid-January took me back to the picture-perfect coastal city of Newport, Rhode Island,one of my favorites. Readers of this blog may recall a prior entry on Salve ReginaCollege, perched on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. This trip was to a very differentinstitution, but one also set on the water, this time Narragansett Bay. Its aquatic…Continue readingPit Stop #60: Naval War College
Providence College (or PC as it is known to Friartown aficionados) is home to one of NECHE’s commissioners, John Sweeney, and I’ve owed John and PC a visit for too long. John is finishing his sixth and final year volunteering with NECHE and his service to the organization has been extraordinary. In his “day job”…Continue readingPit Stop #59: Providence College
It’s always a treat to revisit the great, but not-so-large, state of Rhode Island. I grew up in Delaware, a state with a similar reputation for its grand quality and not-so-grand size, so Rhode Island always feels a bit familiar. This trip took me to Roger Williams University, with its main campus in the beautiful waterfront…Continue readingPit Stop #49: Roger Williams University
On the heels of visiting St. Michael’s College in Vermont, I traveled south to another of NECHE’s liberal arts campuses, Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. One couldn’t ask for a more majestic setting for a college, as Salve’s 80-acre campus is literally perched on the cliffs of the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, the…Continue readingPit Stop #48: Salve Regina University
The afternoon after we visited Brown, we drove about twenty minutes south to the campus of the New England Institute of Technology (NEIT). At first blush, you would think Brown and NEIT –one, a famed member of the Ivy League and the other a technical university with its roots as a trade school– have absolutely nothing…Continue readingPit Stop #36: New England Institute of Technology
Brown University is doubtless known to every reader of this blog as one of the eight famed Ivy League colleges (four of which NECHE accredits). I happen to know Brown a little more personally, as my older daughter is a very proud 2008 graduate. Brown is renowned in higher education for its open curriculum, meaning…Continue readingPit Stop #35: Brown University
It’s clear to me now that every visit to a NECHE institution will enlighten and surprise me in some way, but today’s trip to the Rhode Island School of Design, or RISD, took the proverbial cake. For one thing, we don’t accredit many art schools, much less one of RISD’s reputation and caliber. We were…Continue readingPit Stop #34: Rhode Island School of Design
Johnson & Wales University (JWU) was Stop #3 on this Rhode Island road trip, but it was actually Stops #3 and #4, with a Stop #5 to come, as we hope to visit JWU’s North Carolina campus in the future. JWU is a fascinating institution with an equally fascinating history. Founded in 1914 by two women, Ms. Johnson and…Continue readingPit Stop #33: Johnson & Wales University