As an associate vice president at the University of Utah, part of my job is to oversee the continuing and distance education programs for the university, including accreditation visits from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

And so begins another semester or term. Being in a job with so many endings and beginnings has its advantages. Sometimes I think we take them for granted and might need a gentle reminder of the promises they hold.

If there’s a silver lining to the bad economy … and couldn’t we all use some good economic news about now … consider the results of an annual survey on online education. Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008 reports that higher education institutions believe that the economic changes will have a positive impact on overall college enrollments, with online courses and programs for working adults seeing the greatest interest.

Campus safety issues remain a critical concern for the higher education community. During the past 10-15 years, incidents of disruptive behavior have increased on colleges campuses nationwide. For college administrators, choosing the appropriate response can make a big difference in the outcome of the situation and the student's future at your institution.

Much attention continues to be directed at those freshman experience programs in college. As important as that time is, it’s not the only portion of a student’s career to which attention should be directed. True, seniors are no longer likely to drop out of college, but they face a transition just as compelling as the one that brings them from high school to college. They are about to depart from college to professional lives. It is a time for reflection, integration, and closure.

Well, it’s a new year, and with it comes new hopes, new dreams, new possibilities…and, for online teachers, new courses and/or continuation of existing courses. While we can certainly do course adjustments any time during the year, the beginning of a new year is always a great time to do this, if only because it’s a psychological kickoff to doing things different and better.

More and more, university faculty and students are going online… There. That’s the last time I will consciously write that phrase. And when Brad Mehlenbacher reads it, he will likely say, “thank heavens.”

Campus tragedies, like those at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, served as a wake-up call for the need to refocus efforts and attention to campus safety issues, and the role that everyone plays in recognizing potential red flag behaviors among students and others on campus.

In the early 1990s, higher education researcher James Fairweather used data from the National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty to explore relationships between teaching, research, and faculty pay. Five years after this first analysis, Fairweather repeated the study to see if a growing emphasis on teaching was being reflected in faculty salaries.