Reported by Inside Higher Ed, New York University has created a Manager of Online Program Quality position. Different from an instructional designer, this position is focused on ensuring the high-quality delivery of the designed course materials – making sure faculty are successfully supported and delivering best-practice online course instruction.

According to a new report by New America, hospitals with more BSN’s do generate better patient outcomes, but asking RN’s to get their degree while working full-time is admittedly difficult.

For those who say higher ed is slow to innovate, we sure are making some serious progress in higher ed, folks.

Reported by Inside Higher Ed, The University of the Cumberlands will cut their on-campus undergraduate tuition by 57% next year, from a $23,000 sticker price down to $9,875. Like many tuition resets, this one mostly impacts the university’s discount rate, with students actually saving $1,298 a year on average – but with prospective students able to see a much less scary sticker price when college-shopping.

Student demographics in the U.S. are changing rapidly – but faculty demographics haven’t. Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, in 2016, more than 43% of college students were members of racial and ethnic minority groups, up 6 points from 2010.

With more and more global companies like Disney, Walmart and Amazon offering relatively free college for their employees (for specific programs and through specific institutions), will this employer-sponsored model change how adults seek to degree complete?

Reported by Education Dive, Saint Louis University is putting an Amazon Echo Dot in every student dorm room and apartment, pre-loaded with an Alexa Skill that allows a student to ask Alexa more than 100 questions about college services, including library hours, directions across campus, and campus activities. These questions can be updated and added to by SLU over time.

Reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education, faculty should consider replacing a standard student introduction on the first day of class with three icebreakers suggested by the publication, That Wasn’t on the Syllabus. These could include “speed friending”, where each student has a quick 2-minute conversation with another student, then moves down to the next one; or having students present 3 images, memes or fictional characters that best represent them.

Reported by Education Dive, while textbook costs continue to create a financial burden for higher ed students, Ohio University’s campaign for their faculty’s adoption of Open Educational Resources is expected to save its students $1 million in textbook fees this year alone.

Reported by EAB, Temple University’s “Fly in 4” initiative is designed specifically to reduce students’ reliance on part-time employment earnings. At Temple, students working more than 15 hours a week at off-campus jobs had lower persistence and graduation rates, so they gifted $4,000 grants to 500 of their highest-need students, contingent on additional behavioral asks. This has created a 5% persistence rate improvement for those students in the program.