Northeastern University breaks ground on Portland campus
-- Northeastern University's rendition of what its Roux Institute campus on the Portland waterfront will look like.
Edited from a New England Council report
“On Friday, Sept. 13, New England Council member Northeastern University held a groundbreaking ceremony to mark construction on its new campus in Portland, Maine, that will let the university to double the student body at the location.
“The Roux Institute at Northeastern University’s new campus will mark a significant step forward for Northeastern. The institute opened in 2020, thanks to a $100 million donation from technology entrepreneur David Roux, a Maine native, as well as another $100 million gift months later. The school has 800 students today, but it expects to have room for 2,000 when the new campus is completed, in 2028. The Roux is focused on technology research and development and graduate education.
“‘Our mission is to be a driver of the future Maine economy…. A larger permanent home for the university’s efforts in Maine is essential,’ the Roux Institute’s chief administrative officer, Chris Mallett, said in an interview.’’
Getting into AI ‘black boxes’
Edited from a New England Council report
“Northeastern University, in Boston, has been granted $9 million to study how advanced artificial intelligence systems operate and their societal impacts. The grant, announced by the National Science Foundation (NSF), will let Northeastern to create a collaborative research platform.
“This platform aims to let researchers across the U.S. examine the internal computation systems of advanced AI, which are currently opaque because of their ‘black box’ nature.
“NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said: “Chatbots have transformed society’s relationship with AI. However, the inner workings of these systems are not yet fully understood.’
“The research will focus on large language models, such as ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. These models will be used alongside public-interest tech groups to ensure that AI advancements adhere to ethical and social standards.’’
Northeastern University's EXP research building.
John O. Harney: An early look at 2022’s college-commencement season in New England
BOSTON
From The New England Journal of Higher Education (NEJHE), a service of The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE.org)
Long before COVID changed everything, NEJHE and NEBHE’s Twitter channel kept a close eye on New England college commencements. “The annual spring descent on New England campuses of distinguished speakers, ranging from Nobel laureates to Pulitzer Prize winners to grassroots miracle-workers, offers a precious reminder of what makes New England higher education higher,” we bragged. “It is a lecture series without equal.”
In the past two pandemic years, we tracked a lot of postponements and virtual commencements on this beat, as well as Olin College of Engineering’s March 2020 “fauxmencement” ceremony right before coronavirus shut down the campus. Some medical schools at the time moved up graduation dates so graduates could join New England’s COVID-fighting health-care workforce. Dr. Anthony Fauci addressed graduates of the College of Holy Cross, his alma mater.
Going virtual meant hard times for some small New England communities where college-commencement days were crucial to local hospitality providers and the economy. Not to be confused with such larger commencement hosts as the Dunkin Donuts Center for Rhode Island College and Providence College and TD Garden for Northeastern University (switched to Fenway Park during COVID).
This year, as we all hope the pandemic is easing, some New England colleges plan to celebrate not only the class of 2022, but also the classes of 2020 and 2021—for the most part, in person.
Many years, we would pay special attention to the first few announcements of the season. When there was a season. Generally it was spring in the old days. But today’s nontraditional student pursing higher ed on a nontraditional academic calendar might just as easily graduate in January … or any other time for the matter.
As with other stubborn aspects of higher ed, the richest institutions often announced the heavy hitters, though sleepers at quieter places add special value too (think Paul Krugman at Bard College at Simon’s Rock or Rue Mapp at Unity College).
Harvard University, for its part, announced that the principal speaker at its 369th commencement, on May 26, would be New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Not a bad pick. Ardern has been lauded for her work on climate change and gender equality and, lately on how she has guided New Zealand through COVID. Harvard noted she will be “the 17th sitting world leader to deliver the address.”
John O. Harney is executive editor of The New England Journal of Higher Education.
John O. Harney: N.E.’s changing ethnic demographics; shrinking police forces; honorary degrees and culture wars
1. Northwest Vermont 2. Northeast Kingdom 3. Central Vermont 4. Southern Vermont 5. Great North Woods Region 6. White Mountains 7. Lakes Region 8. Dartmouth/Lake Sunapee Region 9. Seacoast Region 10. Merrimack River Valley 11. Monadnock Region 12. North Woods 13. Maine Highlands 14. Acadia/Down East 15. Mid-Coast/Penobscot Bay 16. South Coast 17. Mountain and Lakes Region 18. Kennebec Valley 19. North Shore 20. Metro Boston 21. South Shore 22. Cape Cod and Islands 23. South Coast 24. Southeastern Massachusetts 25. Blackstone River Valley 26. Metrowest/Greater Boston 27. Central Massachusetts 28. Pioneer Valley 29. The Berkshires 30. South Country 31. East Bay and Newport 32. Quiet Corner 33. Greater Hartford 34. Central Naugatuck Valley 35. Northwest Hills 36. Southeastern Connecticut/Greater New London 37. Western Connecticut 38. Connecticut Shoreline
BOSTON
From The New England Journal of Higher Education (NEJHE), a service of The New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org)
Population studies. The U.S. Census Bureau released new population counts to use in “redistricting” congressional and state legislative districts. Delayed by the pandemic, the counts came close to the legal deadlines for redistricting in some states, raising concerns about whether there would be enough time for public input.
The U.S. population grew 7.4% in 2010-2020, the slowest growth since the 1930s, according to the bureau. The national growth of about 23 million people occurred entirely of people who identified as Hispanic, Asian, Black or more than one race.
The Associated Press reported:
The population under age 18 dropped from 74.2 million in 2010 to 73.1 million in 2020.
The Asian population increased by one-third over the decade, to stand at 24 million, while the Hispanic population grew by almost a quarter, to top 62 million.
White people made up their smallest-ever share of the U.S. population, dropping from 63.7% in 2010 to 57.8% in 2020. The number of non-Hispanic white people dropped to 191 million in 2020.
The number of people identifying as “two or more races” soared from 9 million in 2010 to 33.8 million in 2020, accounting for about 10% of the U.S. population.
A few New England snippets
Maine remains the nation’s oldest and whitest state, even though it saw a 64% increase in the number of Blacks from 2010 to 2020, as well as large increases in the number of Asians and Pacific Islanders.
Connecticut’s population crawled up 0.9% over the decade from 2010 to 2020 to 3,605,944 residents. The number of residents who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) increased from 29% of the population in 2010 to 37% in 2020. Connecticut’s number of congressional seats won’t change, but district borders will.
The total population of the only city on Boston’s South Shore, Quincy, Mass., topped 100,000 (at 101,636), as its Asian population grew to represent nearly 31% of all residents. Further south, the city of Brockton’s population increased by nearly 13% as the white population dropped by 29%, and the Black population increased by 26%.
Amazon jungle. Amazon last week announced it will pay full college tuition for its 750,000 U.S. hourly employees, as well as the cost of earning high school diplomas, GEDs, English as a Second Language (ESL) and other certifications. While collecting praise for its educational goodwill, stories of dire conditions in the e-commerce giant’s workplace also triggered a new California law that would ban all warehouses from imposing penalties for “time off-task” (which reportedly discouraged workers from using the bathroom) and prohibit retaliation against workers who complain.
Police shrink. Police forces in New England have recently felt new recruitment and retention pressures. In August 2021, The Providence Journal ran a piece headlined “Promises made, promises delivered? A look at reforms to New England police departments.” GoLocal reported that month that Providence policing staff levels stood at 403, down from 500 or so in the 1980s under then-Mayor David Cicilline. The number of officers employed by Maine’s city and town police departments and county sheriffs’ offices shrank by nearly 6% between 2015 and 2020, according to the Maine Criminal Justice Academy. Reporter Lia Russell of the Bangor Daily News noted, “It’s also a challenge that police in Maine are far from alone in facing, especially following a year during which police practices across the nation were called into question following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin.” The Burlington, Vt., City Council in August defeated efforts to reverse a steep cut in city police ranks. The police department currently has 75 sworn officers, down from 90 in June 2020. A survey by the police officers’ union found that roughly half of Burlington cops were actively seeking employment elsewhere.
Honor roll. Honorary degrees are becoming something of a frontline in the culture wars. Springfield College alumnus Donald Brown, who recently coauthored a piece for NEJHE, tells of his alma mater revoking the honorary master of physical education degree it had bestowed on U.S. Olympic Committee Chair Avery Brundage in 1940. In 1968, Brundage pressured the U.S. to take action against two Olympic athletes who gave the Black Power salute after finishing first and second in the 200 meters. That event was only the tip of the iceberg. Brundage had a history of anti-semitism, sexism and racism. Springfield President Mary-Beth Cooper met with the trustees and others and decided to take back the honor. Meanwhile, the University of Rhode Island has been tying itself in knots over the honorary degree it bestowed on Michael Flynn in 2014, before he was appointed Trump’s national security adviser and accused of sedition.
Refugees. After the U.S. ended its longest war (so far) in Afghanistan and the capital of Kabul fell, the question arose of where Afghan refugees would resettle. New England cities, including Worcester, Providence and New Haven, are among those that have readied plans to welcome Afghan refugees. In higher education, Goddard College President Dan Hocoy said it was a “no-brainer” to offer to house Afghan refugees at its Plainfield, Vt., campus for at least two months this upcoming fall. Back in 2004, NEJHE (then Connection) featured an interview with Roger Williams University President Roy J. Nirschel, who died in 2018, and his former wife Paula Nirschel on the university’s role in its community as well as their pioneering initiative to educate Afghan women.
Sunshine state. Before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took his most recent stand against fighting COVID, he displayed a narrow-mindedness that seems to always be in fashion. As Inside Higher Ed reported, after expressing concerns about faculty members “indoctrinating” students, DeSantis signed a law requiring that public institutions survey students, faculty and staff members about their viewpoint diversity and sense of intellectual freedom. The Miami Herald reported that DeSantis and state Sen. Ray Rodrigues, the original bill’s Republican sponsor, suggested that the results could inform budget cuts at some institutions. Faculty members have opposed the bill, which also allows students to record their professors teaching in order to file free speech complaints against them.
New colleges in a time of contraction. The nonprofit Norwalk (Conn.) Conservatory of the Arts announced plans to open a new performing-arts college and welcome its first class in August 2022. It’s unusual news amid the stream of college mergers and closures only widened by the pandemic. Among the challenges, many of the faculty members don’t have master of fine arts degrees that accrediting agencies require and, without accreditation, the college’s students won’t be eligible for federal financial aid or Pell Grants.
The Conservatory says the college will consolidate a traditional four-year undergraduate program into two years of intense training and a two-year graduate program into one year. Meanwhile, up the coast, the (Fall River, Mass.) Herald News reports that Denmark-based Maersk Training and Bristol Community College will work together to turn an old seafood packaging plant in New Bedford, Mass., into a National Offshore Wind Institute training facility to train offshore wind workers, complete with classrooms and a deepwater pool to train and recertify workers. (NEJHE has reported on the need to train talent for the burgeoning industry and the coastal economy’s special role in New England.)
Other higher-ed institutions are shapeshifting. After months of discussions and lawsuits, Northeastern University and Mills College reached agreement to establish Mills College at Northeastern University. Founded in 1852, Mills is renowned for its pre-eminence in women’s leadership, access, equity and social justice. Also, billionaire investor Gerald Chan and his family’s Morningside Foundation gave $175 million to the University of Massachusetts Medical School, which will be renamed the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. That’s the largest-ever gift to the UMass system.
Land deals. I was recently struck by a report titled We Need to Focus on the Damn Land: Land Grant Universities and Indigenous Nations in the Northeast. The report was born of a partnership between Smith College students and the nonprofit Farm to Institution New England (FINE) to look at how land grant universities view their historic relationships with local Indigenous tribes and how food can play a role in repairing those relationships. It grabbed my attention, partly because NEJHE has published some interesting stories about Native Americans and New England higher education. (See Native Tribal Scholars: Building an Academic Community and A Different Path Forward, both by J. Cedric Woods and The Dark Ages of Education and a New Hope, by Donna Loring.) And partly because two NEBHE Faculty Diversity Fellows, professors Tatiana M.F. Cruz of Simmons University and Kamille Gentles-Peart of Roger Williams University, are spearheading a fascinating Reparative Justice initiative. Among other things, Cruz and Gentles-Peart have had the courage to remind us that land grant universities in New England occupy the land of Indigenous communities. The Smith-FINE work offered sensible recommendations: Financially support Native and Indigenous faculty, activists, programs on campuses and beyond; offer free tuition for Native American students; hire Indigenous people, and fund their research.
John O. Harney is executive editor of The New England Journal of Higher Education.
A better networking app than Zoom?
“The Conversation” (circa 1935), by Arnold Lakhovsky
From The New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com)
Northeastern University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed an app to allow for causal networking. Minglr, a video conferencing app, seeks to replicate the experience of conference attendees bouncing ideas off each other in the real world.
Thomas Malone, founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, worked with MIT Sloan doctoral student Jaeyoon Song and Chris Riedl, an associate professor at Northeastern’s D’Amore McKim School of Business, to create the app. Currently, the Minglr is a fairly simple program, with users inputting their primary interests and selecting individuals to talk to. If the selection is mutual, a chat window will be opened. The team hopes that Minglr will allow conference goers to participate in the informal flow of ideas characteristic of conferences and innovation.
“It was so much better than being in just one giant Zoom meeting,” said Malone, who tried out the system at MIT’s Collective Intelligence 2020 virtual conference in June. “I had all the kinds of conversations you’d have in the lobby of a conference.” A survey of attendees who tested Minglr found that 86 percent liked the system and wanted it made available for future conferences, he said.
The New England Council congratulates MIT and Northeastern on their innovative work to tackle one of the many unique challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more from the Boston Globe.
Neeta P. Fogg/Paul E. Harrington: Taking a ‘gap year' can be disastrous
From The New England Journal of Higher Education, a service of The England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org)
BOSTON
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused elected officials to shut down large segments of the U.S. economy, within 30 days of President Trump’s National Emergency Proclamation in mid-March, putting more than 26 million American payroll workers out of work and shuttering countless small businesses, thereby shutting down the self-employment option upon which workers frequently rely in times of economic trouble.
The initial shutdown is already having substantial secondary effects in sectors of the economy that have not been closed by state officials. The college labor market —largely composed of employment in professional, technical and managerial occupations—was mostly insulated from the early effects of the shutdown. One exception was healthcare, which experienced substantial employment losses as delivery of non-essential healthcare services was sharply curtailed is now shedding workers at an accelerated pace as employer revenues decline precipitously.
Putting the world’s largest economy into a sort of induced coma means two important things for higher education consumers. First, family incomes and wealth are declining, and this results in reduced consumption, including reduced enrollment in higher education programs. Second, a cloud of uncertainty remains around the virus, and this uncertainty results in a more conservative approach to family finances led by increased savings and reduced consumption, including college consumption.
During the Great Recession of 2008-09, undergraduate and graduate enrollment rates skyrocketed as students sought shelter from the very weak labor market conditions of mass employment losses and rising unemployment among college graduates. However, it appears unlikely that this sort of enrollment surge will occur in this unprecedented economic decline, particularly as options for a “full-college experience” (stereotyped as an 18-year-old going off to a campus with all its social, sports, travel and cultural amenities) seem to be narrowing, by state mandate
Rethinking college decisions
Declining income and wealth and rising uncertainty mean that families are rethinking their college-enrollment decisions. Indeed, several new surveys suggest that among the prospective freshman class, a lot of consideration is being given to alternative ways to reduce spending on higher education, without giving up on it altogether.
Surveys of college-bound seniors find that substantial shares of students who were intent on starting at their first-choice four-year college are thinking about lower cost four-year college options. One recent survey by the Arts and Science Group estimates that about two-thirds of graduating seniors are considering some type of alternative to their first-choice option, with about 20 percent reporting that such a change is likely. Similarly, shifting from a four-year residential college to a two-year community college is now on the radar for many college-bound seniors who would not have considered a community college prior to the pandemic. A third option for students is to delay enrollment for a year until family income has had time to recover and the uncertainty about future possibilities is reduced as the pandemic abates over time.
The first two adjustments may be sensible for some families but does that third scenario, taking a so-called “gap year” make sense?
We believe that taking a gap year is not a good option. Delaying college for most college-bound seniors is disastrous. Delayed enrollment sharply reduces the likelihood of earning a degree.
Our large-scale longitudinal research of a cohort of 9th graders in Philadelphia found that after controlling for demographic and socioeconomic traits as well as in-school behavioral traits and measures of academic performance, delaying college enrollment after high school and subsequently enrolling in a community college reduced the likelihood of earning a college award (including certificates) by a massive 39 percentage points, compared to their counterparts who had enrolled in a four-year private college immediately after high school graduation. Among those who delay and then enroll in a four-year public college the completion rate is reduced by 20 percentage points. (This study tracked students for seven years after the expected date of high school graduation. Only a handful of students in the study remained enrolled at the end of the period. Because these students had not dropped out and were continuing their study, we counted them as completers in our study, although they had not yet earned an award.)
Other researchers have also found substantial negative effects on college completion associated with the gap year.
If students don’t earn a degree, the investment returns to their college education are essentially zero. Almost all the employment and earnings advantages to higher education are associated with an academic award of a degree or a certificate.
Despite the image created by the popular press about the benefits of a gap year between high school and college, the typical delayed-enrollment student is not the stereotypical high-income bon vivant touring the continent. Rather, delayed-enrollment students are about six time more likely to come from families in the bottom 20 percent than the top 20 percent of the nation’s socioeconomic distribution, according to research by Sara Goldrick-Rab and Seong Won Han. This suggests that delay in college enrollment is much more likely to be associated with less ability to pay than perhaps has been assumed in the past.
Income and wealth changes
The prevailing income and wealth developments in the U.S. will have an adverse impact on the college-going decisions of high school seniors. The closing of much of the nation’s college housing facilities and lingering uncertainty about their fall opening means that the “college experience” of living away from home and leading the idealized life of a resident undergraduate has become more distant to many newly minted high school graduates preparing to start their next phase of life.
Much of the “college experience” that many students desire is not an investment in higher education insofar that the campus experience doesn’t contribute much to post-graduation success. It is really just another form of consumption. (Indeed, when economists measure the cost of higher education, room and board costs are not included, as they are part of normal consumption of the individual. However, it is useful to note that the cost of forgone earnings as student allocate their time to schooling is included in economic measures of college costs.) College investment comes in the form of course-taking and study that leads to growth in the knowledge, skills and abilities of students that are valued in the labor market and yield large and sustained employment and earnings advantages.
The opportunity cost of a gap year is very high. The proficiency and human capital gap between those who enroll and those who do not will widen. The cost is essentially a lost year of investment, during a time in life when human capital investment should be at its greatest. Students who take a gap year will find it very difficult to secure paid work. The labor market is awash with massive numbers of job-seekers and this will continue as economic re-opening begins in a phased and cautious manner. New high school graduates, not especially welcome in the labor market in the best of times, will struggle to find employment. Even for students with strong financial resources, the opportunity to engage in the sort of gap year experiences such as cultural or environmental travel will likely be greatly diminished. A gap year for many young people will just mean an extension of the lockdown; in this instance, it will mean being locked out of work and school.
School and work are the two primary ways in which individuals build their stock of human capital. Students who opt for a gap year will find themselves left behind as their peers continue their education and develop their productive capacities. College-bound seniors are right to think carefully about adjusting to the COVID-19 environment, but one adjustment that is almost guaranteed to lead to financial failure is that of doing nothing—the gap year.
Neeta P. Fogg is research professor at the Center for Labor Markets and Policy at Drexel University, in Philadelphia; Paul E. Harrington, formerly of Northeastern University, is director of the center.
N.E. Council COVID-19 update: Beth Israel's new testing swabs; Samuel Adams aid program and more
— Photo by Raimond Spekking
BOST0N
From The New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com)
As our region and our nation continue to grapple with the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, The New England Council is using our blog as a platform to highlight some of the incredible work our members have undertaken to respond to the outbreak. Each day, we’ll post a round-up of updates on some of the initiatives underway among council members throughout the region. We are also sharing these updates via our social media, and encourage our members to share with us any information on their efforts so that we can be sure to include them in these daily round-ups.
You can find all the council’s information and resources related to the crisis in the special COVID-19 section of our Web site. This includes our COVID-19 Virtual Events Calendar, which provides information on upcoming COVID-19 Congressional town halls and webinars presented by NEC members, as well as our newly-released Federal Agency COVID-19 Guidance for Businesses page.
Here is the April 6 roundup:
Medical Response
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Develops Prototype Testing Swabs – Confronting a shortage of testing swabs, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) is leading efforts to mass-produce swabs. After only 15 days of research with both private and public partners, BIDMC expects to produce 10,000 swabs each day beginning next week week, eventually ramping up to 1 million daily—likely enough to supply all of America and part of Europe. Read more in The Boston Business Journal.
MIT Researchers Create Equipment Decontamination Resources– To provide advice on best practices for decontaminating and reusing protective equipment used by healthcare providers, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) entered a consortium to create an online resource page. The site aims to help providers with limited time and resources make informed decisions on how to best use existing supplies. More from MIT News
Economic/Business Continuity Response
Boston University Provides Online Learning Resources for Deaf Children – Boston University (BU) has created a new resource—the Deaf Education Library—for deaf children to access courses, curriculum, and books in American Sign Language while they learn at home. In providing this new tool, BU noted that deaf children can find themselves in “double seclusion” as they navigate both the transition to remote learning and being sequestered with people who may struggles to communicate with them. BU Today has more.
Verizon Increases Access to Internet Resources, Employee Pay – To facilitate as smooth a transition as possible to remote work and learning, Verizon is offering access to learning tools and news channels at no additional cost. The network provider has also expanded its Pay It Forward Live gaming campaign to support small businesses affected by the outbreak, and has committed to increasing the pay for its essential employees. Read more.
Lowe’s Takes Steps to Protect Employees – To best comply with social distancing protocols, Lowe’s is working to ensure that its essential employees are protected during the pandemic. Lowe’s announced measures to restrict the number of customers in locations and has expanded remote purchasing offerings. The more stringent guidance come after Lowe’s $170 million commitment to relief efforts. Read more in The Charlotte Business Journal
Community Response
City of Boston Announces $2 Million Small Business Relief Fund – Boston Mayor Martin Walsh announced a relief fund to support small businesses directly affected by closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The fund—with contributions from city, private, and federal sources—will target those businesses that do not qualify for federal relief or unemployment benefits. The Boston Business Journal has more.
Northeastern University to Provide Employment and Educational Opportunities for Third-Party Employees – Northeastern University will provide educational assistance and temporary employment opportunities for campus workers who employed by third-party vendors, such as those working in dining and parking services—. Utilizing its existing network of employers usually used for its co-op program, the university will provide language, educational, and career support to address the immediate needs of these workers. Read more from News@Northeastern
Samuel Adams Offers $1,000 Payments to Out-of-Work Food Industry Employees – After establishing its Restaurant Strong Fund to raise money for workers in food service affected by revenue losses, Samuel Adams (part of Boston Beer Company) has expanded the fund’s operations to 19 additional states and is now offering a $1,000 grant to workers who have suffered financial hardship due to the pandemic. CBS Boston has more.
Stay tuned for more updates each day, and follow us on Twitter for more frequent updates on how Council members are contributing to the response to this global health crisis.
Update from New England Council on region's response to COVID-19 crisis
Headquarters building of the Stop & Shop supermarket chain, in Quincy, Mass. The company is donating food to health-care workers.
Update from The New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com):
As our region and our nation continue to grapple with the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic, The New England Council is using our blog as a platform to highlight some of the incredible work our members have undertaken to respond to the outbreak. Each day, we’ll post a round-up of updates on some of the initiatives underway among council members throughout the region. We are also sharing these updates via our social media, and encourage our members to share with us any information on their efforts so that we can be sure to include them in these daily round-ups.
You can also check our COVID-19 Virtual Events Calendar for information on upcoming COVID-19 related programming – including Congressional town halls and webinars presented by NEC members.
Here is the April 2 roundup:
Medical Response
Northeastern University Models Used in White House Response to Virus – The White House coronavirus response team has been using models produced by the Network Science Institute (NSI) at Northeastern University to project how varying mitigation strategies could “flatten the curve” of COVID-19. The models allow policymakers and members of the response team to visualize the effects of policies being considered, such as specific travel restrictions and staggered school closings. Read more.
Boston Scientific Begins Work to Produce Ventilators, Protective Equipment – To confront the growing need for medical equipment, Boston Scientific is collaborating with public and private partners to bring necessary devices to market. From making more affordable and portable ventilators to producing face shields and reusable protective equipment, the company continues to use innovation to address some of the most pressing problems facing healthcare workers. Read more.
Abiomed Expands Remote Training for Medical Providers – Medical device manufacturer Abiomed is expanding its utilization of its online physician community to provide expanded physician education and training. The company has plans to launch its largest interactive educational site in its history in April. More information can be found here.
Economic/Business Continuity Response
Proctor & Gamble Increases Production During Crisis – In the wake of shortages of some of its most common products—including napkins, paper towels, and diapers—P&G has increased production of all paper goods at its factories. The company is also manufacturing face masks to help alleviate the increasing demand of protective equipment. USA Today has more.
M&T Bank Provides Hardship Assistance – M&T Bank has created an impact form for its clients to identify their need for a variety of assistance options, including late fee suppression and changes to loan payment plans. In addition to case-by-case measures, the bank is offering unsecured personal loans, suspending negative credit reporting, and more. More information can be found here.
Community Response
Stop & Shop Donates Daily Meals to Healthcare Workers, $500,000 for Research – Using its expansive food production and delivery network, Stop & Shop (owned by Ahold Delhaize) will provide 5,000 meals daily to health-care providers in the greater New York City and Boston areas. In addition to the daily meals, the grocer is providing $500,000 to Boston Children’s Hospital for research on a potential vaccine. Read the press release here.
DraftKings Announces New Charity Initiative, $500,000 Donation – DraftKings has created its own charity initiative, #DKRally, to mobilize sports fans to donate to relief efforts. In addition to an initial $500,000 donation, the betting service will match up to a total of $1 million from contributors. The donations to the initiative will be distributed to United Way to support relief efforts across the country. US Betting Report has more.
Holy Cross Student-Run Nonprofit Raises Over $23,000 for Response Fund – Working for Worcester, a student-run nonprofit founded at the College of the Holy Cross, has raised more than $23,000 for the Worcester Together COVID-19 emergency response fund. The money was raised in just five days as part of a blitz from the school’s alumni and students. The Worcester Together fund provides money for immediate needs and to support local community organizations. The Worcester Business Journal
Stay tuned for more updates each day, and follow us on Twitter for more frequent updates on how Council members are contributing to the response to this global health crisis.
Verizon's Boston 5G network concentrated in the Fenway area
Aerial view of West Fenway and Kenmore showing the Back Bay Fens (lower left), Fenway Park (center) and the edge of Kenmore Square (right)
From The New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com)
“As of Nov. 19, customers have been able to access Verizon’s 5G Ultra-Wideband network in various parts of Boston. The telecommunications company made a promise to bring 5G to mobile customers in more cities by the end of 2019.
“Verizon’s 5G network will be concentrated in the Fenway area of Boston, along Brookline Avenue and near Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The service will also be available near Harvard Medical School, Northeastern University, Fenway Park, and Emmanuel College. 5G has a greater bandwidth than 4G, allowing for the transfer of more data in the same amount of time at a lower latency. The network also allows for more devices to be connected at the same time. Verizon began its rollout of 5G in Providence earlier this year.
“We are building our 5G Ultra-Wideband network to support the type of transformative breakthroughs people imagine when they think of next-generation connectivity, and we’re working to build those services with leaders in manufacturing, publishing and entertainment, and in our 5G Labs,” said Kyle Malady, Verizon’s chief technology officer.’’
Henrik Totterman: What would higher education look like if it were run by IKEA?
Hult International Business School’s U.S. facility, in Cambridge. The school also has operations in San Francisco, London, Dubai and Shanghai.
From the New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org)
As a professor of entrepreneurship and management, who received his master’s and doctoral degrees in northern Europe, I often come to think of IKEA as one of the most mission- and value-driven examples of disrupting an industry and the way people live globally today.
Most of us have experienced the “mile-long IKEA walk” through the second floor furniture haven, to end up with a pyramid of meatballs on the plate in the store restaurant. Once culinarily satisfied, our journey has continued toward the increasingly automated cashiers, where consumers line up to pay for tightly packed furniture boxes and an amazing range of household accessories. Before exiting the building, we have routinely visited the IKEA food store to buy some Nordic delicacies and sweets. We do this primarily to bribe ourselves through the inevitable struggle of IKEA furniture assembly using the magic hexagon key, leading us toward the ultimate satisfaction of Nordic design interiors.
So the question is, what if anything, can higher education learn from a Swedish furniture manufacturer?
International higher education is facing increasing competition and pressure from new market entrants, who are introducing disruptive models of delivering more affordable education on scale. Higher education is definitely more than ever at a crossroads in terms of securing its future existence, which is why it becomes essential for academic leaders to benchmark and recalibrate their strategies, operational models and academic programs for survival and long-term relevance.
Higher education is often criticized for high tuition prices, outdated curriculum design and poorly scalable delivery formats. Typically, institutions operate in a regulated regional setting with voluntary international quality controls through self-governance, peer-assessment and university rankings. Despite all the hype around globalization of higher education, most institutions remain fairly small or at least regional with few examples of a true global reach.
Interestingly, IKEA has built its global presence in a complex and regulated market by addressing challenges similar to those higher education institutions are facing today. To support its success, IKEA’s corporate values build on offering decent quality for an affordable price, enabled by efficient logistics, strict quality and process control, and engaging strongly the target audience in delivering the brand promise. IKEA relies on extensive quality testing, and always aims to scale and increase efficiencies over time. This is done to reduce the price for the consumer, without scarifying the user experience.
In contrast to many higher education institutions, the IKEA journey is a unique experience that feeds creative minds, enables problem scoping and culminates in the collection and enrichment of core essentials and beyond. The educational journey across universities, schools and programs increasingly resemble one another. This is at least partially due to the ease of global benchmarking and the influence of international accreditations, government regulations and rankings that standardize the norms of education.
The IKEA customer is typically equipped with a curious mindset and a willingness to engage socially in constructing the journey, with enough guidance and ease of access to make it worthwhile and part of their lives. Where IKEA has succeeded in bringing costs down through operations on scale, in favor of their customers, very few institutions of higher education are actively engaged in a paradigm shift to reconfigure their operations to reach more favorable terms for their students and alumni.
Similar to higher education, the IKEA experience builds on a feeling of belonging—a social gathering of likeminded people. This enriching experience ensures that there is something for everyone, both in terms of education and building a network. However, in contrast, IKEA focuses especially on price-quality conscious young urban people, who typically appreciate affordability, functionality and flexibility to support their lifestyle and careers.
As with traditional higher education, the physical building space and printed product catalogs remain key for IKEA's success. Peculiarly, as for most higher education institutions, the online presence came late to IKEA and has only gradually increased over time. The challenge for higher education is twofold: how to build virtual social and career networks, while ensuring that engagement in the educational journey remains at the core. In many countries, faculty have strong academic freedom, but struggle with intellectual property-related issues in terms of course content ownership. On the flip side, higher education is currently defining the future in an increasingly digitalized educational space, without proper curriculum oversight and means for controlling content quality.
Here is how faculty and leaders in higher education can build on the values of IKEA to ensure their future prosperity:
In general, institutions should be more ambitious in driving tuition prices and costs down, while embracing academic quality and operations excellence in terms of resource allocation, service delivery and measuring outcomes.
Avoid offering one-size fits all pedagogy, and instead introduce real-world, problem-based learning. The modern form of problem-based learning starts from a real-world issue that needs to be addressed, in this case by students. In some European programs, learning is primarily based on students signing up for research/client consulting projects, and faculty then facilitate rather than lecture the learning. One such example is Academic Business Consulting, an incorporated company solely operated by graduates at Hanken School of Economics, as part of their capstone project.
Create unique study paths by allowing students to take detours from the norm; a good example is Northeastern University's cooperative-education program, which allows students to satisfy their educational desires by working for an extended time in a practical business context with strong academic ties.
In addition to small and exclusive classroom experiences, design learning activities with reach, access and scalability in mind, like Harvard University Extension School’s HELIX learning pedagogy. HELIX implies that a faculty member teaches simultaneously students in a class and online.
Institutions should emphasize unique educational approaches, true to their mission and values, like Hult International Business School offering a global, responsive and practical education in line with the ambition of being the most relevant business school.
Another example from Hult is topping the core educational experience with electives teaching essential tools and practices, along with offering lifelong learning opportunities through complimentary electives and innovative ways of aligning scholarly activities with the educational mission.
Finally, higher education would benefit from more transparency and objectivity in the way educational outcomes are measured. For instance, a company like Linkedin has comprehensive and fairly accurate data to compare the quality of incoming students and the impact of received education on alumni, in terms of career progression and importantly depth and breadth of their professional networks.
Henrik Totterman is professor of practice, entrepreneurship and management at Hult International Business School, a member of the teaching faculty at Harvard Extension School, and president of LeadX3M LLC.