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
Category: Small private colleges
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
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
Stop #2 on my Greek institutional tour was to Hellenic American College in Athens (HAEC). An “institutional” tour… as opposed to an official “initial tour” for accreditation, as at Bahçeşehir University in Turkey… is just a fancy way of expressing my commitment to visit as many NECHE institutions as I can. The HAEC campus is in the urban center of Athens, a location designed to…Continue readingPit Stop #88: Hellenic American College in Athens
My second stop in Hartford was at Trinity College, a school I knew well by reputation but had never visited in person. One of my nieces attended Trinity years ago and loved the school, and I was also aware that Trinity is perennially found on the list of America’s most beautiful campuses, so I was eager to see the place for myself. First impression: that honor is well deserved! …Continue readingPit Stop #82: Trinity College
Stop #3 on my Vermont trek was lovely Champlain College, at home on a sweeping campus overlooking the lake from which it takes its name. NECHE accredits all the Burlington, Vermont area institutions of higher education including the University of Vermont, Champlain, St. Michael’s, plus a campus of the Community College of Vermont. In fact,…Continue readingPit Stop #72: Champlain College
This third week of October was Vermont Week for our blog. Allegedly, it was days after peak leaf season but the trees hadn’t gotten the message. The drive up was breathtakingly gorgeous. First stop was Norwich University. Norwich was founded in 1819 by Captain Alden Partridge, a military educator and former superintendent at West Point. Partridge believed in the “American…Continue readingPit Stop #71: Norwich University
While I have visited the campus of Endicott College before, my first comprehensive tour of this Beverly, Massachusetts institution was hosted by President Steven DiSalvo on the kind of glorious mid-September day that makes you believe that summer will never end. There’s plenty I can (and will) say about this strong and thriving college, but…Continue readingPit Stop #69: Endicott College
The end of summer brought me on an enlightening visit to Wheaton College – that’s Wheaton College in Massachusetts, of course, not the one in Illinois. Wheaton is the home of President Michaele Whelan, whom we were fortunate to have assume the role of Chair of the New England Commission on July 1. An experienced and energetic leader…Continue readingPit Stop #68: Wheaton College
Recently, I made the two-hour drive from Boston to visit St. Joseph’s College in Maine, located fifteen miles northwest of the booming city of Portland. It was cloudy, and then the skies erupted in a downpour, so my photos don’t quite do the campus justice, but trust me — St. Joseph’s campus is both beautiful and…Continue readingPit Stop #67: St. Joseph’s College