Glenn Cummings announced he will step down as president of the University of Southern Maine at the end of June 2022 after seven years in charge and return to the university’s faculty as a professor of public policy and educational leadership. A former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, majority leader and chair of the state’s Joint Committee of Education and Cultural Affairs, Cummings sponsored the bill that created the state community college system. ... Rev. Kenneth R. Sicard, who has served Providence College as executive vice president and treasurer among other posts, was inaugurated as the college's president, succeeding Father Brian J. Shanley, who left Providence last November to lead St. John’s University in New York City. ... See more on these and other changes in NEJHE's Comings and Goings tally of new appointments in New England higher ed and beyond.

Pictured: Glenn Cummings

The Summer 2009 issue of NEJHE featured a forum on President Obama's goal to make the U.S. the world leader in college degree attainment as well as commentaries exploring policy journalism in the new media age. Authors in this forum included U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan; Capitol Hill education expert Terry Hartle; Muriel Howard, the first minority woman to lead one of the big D.C. higher education associations; and Nellie Mae Education Foundation President Nicholas C. Donohue. NEJHE also explored the future shape of education policy-related publishing in an age of blogging and Twitter with articles by social technology guru Brian Reich and two NEJHE editorial advisors: Robert Whitcomb, then vice president at the Providence Journal, and Ralph Whitehead, a journalism professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Other features included Salem State University education prof R. Clarke Fowler on teacher reciprocity; Bowdoin College associate director of dining services and executive chef Kenneth Cardone on learning to eat in the college cafeteria; Amherst College athletic director Suzanne R. Coffey on development of student-athletes; and Donna Loring, who served in the Maine Legislature as a tribal representative of the Penobscot Nation for 12 years, on teaching Native American history in schools.

The Winter 2009 issue of NEJHE examined how New England colleges and universities were wrestling with financial challenges—old and new—against the backdrop of a deep recession. Authors included: State Higher Education Executive Officers President Paul E. Lingenfelter; National Center for Higher Education Management Systems President Dennis Jones; then-Massachusetts College of Art and Design President Katherine Sloan; and Tamara Draut, author of Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead. 

To subscribe to The Monthly Policy Dispatch, click here or contact policy@nebhe.org.