Posted on April 25, 2018

I’m speaking at EUNIS 2018 in Porto, Portugal this week. EUNIS is a meeting of the heads of European universities and John O’Brien, President and CEO of EDUCAUSE, and I will be the Americans in attendance and speaking. Having to be there on Wednesday, we decided to take the first two days of the week […]

Posted on January 15, 2018

We recently did a family trip to Argentina. In trying to better understand Argentina’s history and ongoing struggles with inflation, corruption, and wealth inequity, I asked our guide about his theory on the source of the issue. He posited that there was an enormous opportunity for Argentina at the end of WWII, when Europe and Asia […]

Posted on January 4, 2018

Growing up in a working-class family in Waltham, the only people in the neighborhood who traveled and had been outside the U.S. were the unlucky older brothers and cousins whose draft number had come up and were sent off to Vietnam. The closest thing to a vacation we ever had was a trip back across the […]

Posted on November 13, 2017

It has become commonplace for people taking motorcycle trips to make two observations: that riding a motorcycle is like meditation and that meeting “locals” across the country is a reminder that people are mostly good and kind, even when they seem so different than the rider.  Four friends and I just completed a 1400 mile, […]

Posted on September 28, 2017

  I write this blog while on a flight to Beirut, where I’ll meet our dynamic duo of Chrystina Russell and Nina Weaver, the fearless and passionate leaders of our effort to bring American college education to refugees around the world. We’re meeting with our partner in Lebanon, the American University of Beirut (seen as […]

Posted on July 8, 2015

By way of introduction, I’d like to share a letter written to the campus by our new Executive Director of the Innovation Lab, Michelle R. Weise. Michelle is a nationally known researcher, thinker, and writer in higher education and it is a real coup for SNHU to land her in this new role. In her […]

Posted on June 27, 2015

With occasional access to email these last weeks, the response to my standard “Sorry for the slow response, but travelling in Rwanda with spotty connectivity at times” email opening has been some variation on “Rwanda?  Really?  Not a place I would have guessed.”  Prior to our arrival here, I might have had the same response […]

Posted on June 27, 2015

In my first blog about our Rwanda trip, I focused on the good, the considerable good that Rwanda offers.  From its people to its landscapes to its amazing animals to the ways it has hit the “reset” button and is rebuilding the nation, largely in the shaping vision of its president, Paul Kagame.  I promised […]

Posted on July 13, 2014

We arrived back in NH last night, exhausted from the hours of travel and the time difference, and happy to be back home.  While we have a deep abiding passion for travel, coming home to one’s dog — who in truth greets us as excitedly when we return from the bathroom as from Spain — […]

Posted on July 6, 2014

Geez, the Portaguese countryside is loud.  On a Saturday morning by 9 AM we’ve had church bells, firecrackers echoing along the valley (announcing some small town’s saint’s day), a farmer with a weed whacker, and a political candidate traveling these country roads with a loudspeaker.  What peace and quiet? Noise issues aside, we feel like […]