Daily Lumina News 092023

Complex and often-confusing policies and processes by which students move between colleges can be a barrier to postsecondary completion, particularly for underrepresented students.
This episode of The Key explores how several university systems are working to improve student mobility between and among institutions. Two transfer specialists join the conversation.

Going to college can be challenging for anyone. But have you tried being at least 30 years older than most of your classmates? James Hatch did.
Hatch had a career in the Navy—including more than 20 years as a SEAL—before heading to Yale University. In this interview, he talks about initial struggles to fit in—and how his past is informing his education.

For decades, higher ed has consistently drifted away from employing full-time faculty in favor of part-time, or adjunct, instructors.
But one Michigan community college is shaking up the sector’s employment model in a different way. As of July, Northwestern Michigan College’s new adjuncts aren’t even institution staff; instead, they work for Edustaff, a staffing firm. It’s one of several Michigan community colleges, like North Central Michigan College, to adopt this approach.

Students don’t always understand the potential value of office hours—and even when they do, many are hesitant to meet with professors.
In response, professors are coming up with a variety of ways to make their office hours more inviting. For Hailey Sheets, a professor at Southwestern Michigan College, that means providing more than just academic support. It also includes helping students who are dealing with food insecurity.

It’s not what you know but who you know that matters, or so the saying goes. And at New College of Florida, that cliché seems to be playing out in a number of recent hiring decisions.
Since February, Florida’s public liberal arts college has hired numerous employees with little or no experience in higher education. But they do have one thing in common: deep ties to the Republican Party.

Calls for more educational opportunities in Georgia's prisons are growing stronger as research shows benefits extend far beyond prison walls and into neighboring communities.
Patrick Rodriguez of the Georgia Coalition for Higher Education in Prison has first-hand experience with the success of a prison education system. Rodriguez was previously incarcerated at five different Georgia facilities before his pursuit of education in prison kept him out for good.