Dear Commons Community,

The Ohio institution that educated American businessmen John D. Rockefeller and Harvey Firestone is closing after 165 years of service.  The Huffington Post is reporting that Chancellor University announced yesterday that it will stop offering classes in late August. The school did not provide reasons for closing.

The university was founded in 1848. It began facing financial difficulties in the early 2000s.

The school closed between 2007 and 2008 before it was bought out of bankruptcy and turned into an online-only, for-profit institution. Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric Co., then founded his management institute at the university, but he severed ties with the institution in December 2011.

The school said in a release on its website that the university’s students will be transferred to Alliant International University, a California-based, not-for-profit school next month.

As the economy sputters and the cost of college operations rise, I think we will see more such closings and not just in the for-profit sector over the next few years.

Tony

Dear Commons Colleagues,

It was a fine day yesterday at the  10^th Annual Sloan-C Conference and Workshop.  I attended a workshop on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), presentations by colleagues at CUNY and LIU, and participated in a focus group discussion sponsored by the American Public University System.  APUS, a major online learning institution  that is considering a move to blended learning.

The keynote address given by  Dr. Alec Couros, an Associate Professor of educational technology and media at the University of Regina, was a resounding presentation on the increasingly important role that social media is playing in our lives and in education.  Couros began by providing media-filled descriptions of the prevalence of software tools, open sources, gift economies, and the shift towards social and networked learning. He concluded by stressing their importance for faculty and instructional designers involved with blended learning.

In the evening, I had dinner at The Rumpus Room, one of Milwaukee’s especially good  restaurants, with a host of colleagues from the University of Wisconsin, the University of Maryland, LIU, SUNY, and the University of Central Florida

In sum, new information, provocative ideas, and great camaraderie!

Tony