I Ride the MegaBus

On December 1st, right after Matt Hartley's governance class (which is going to be an elaborate role play that day), I will hop on the MegaBus to Washington D.C. to interview two people for my group's short film on for-profit education. We will be interviewing Barmack Nassirian, the Associate Executive Director of External Relations for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers and Diane Jones, Vice President of External and Regulatory Affairs for Career Education Corporation (the holding company for a number of for-profit institutions). Both are very active in terms of speaking out on for-profit education. Diane is for it, Barmack is against it! It is going to be interesting to have the interviews back-to-back with these two very different people. 

 

While on the Megabus, I will probably work on my governance paper for Matt Hartley's class. Because I have always been fascinated by how community college administrators are expected to do so much with so little, I am writing on the purpose of the community college from the president's perspective. How does the president understand and manage the external pressures on the institution and how does that process help articulate the purpose of the community college?

Wednesday, November 30th, the day before I ride the MegaBus to D.C., I will be walking over to the Art Institute of Philadelphia after Marybeth Gasman's History of higher Education class to interview one of the instructors there. I am interested to learn about her perspectives on for-profit education. I hope to create the kind of environment where she can speak freely, because I am genuinely interested, but also because I want our documentary to be very good!

Each day, I get a little closer to that bus (Two days to go)! With every assignment, every course reading and every day that passes by, it gets nearer to the time that I will ride the MegaBus.

On Thursday, December 8th from 8 - 9 pm (EDT), a few days after I have ridden the Megabus, Penn GSE Admissions & Financial Aid will be holding another web chat! This will be our last web chat of the semester and a wonderful way to get to ask questions to some of our current students and Emily Schrag, our Assistant Director of Admissions & Financial Aid! Register for the web chat  here.