Credentials: Understand the problems. Identify the opportunities. Create the solutions.

The credentials environment grows more complicated by the day, but key questions help us understand why we need this book to help us grapple with those complexities: 

•     Given the expansion in the variety of higher education credentials and in approaches to earning them, why are so many students disappointed with their post-secondary credentials?

•     Despite the proliferation of credentials tailored to specific careers, why do so many employers complain that the preparation of their new hires is inadequate?

•     Despite their investment in new programs meant to attract new enrollees, why are so many colleges and universities facing issues with student persistence, timely credential completion, and career success?

The plan of the book reflects the authors’ practical aim. In the first of three parts, they offer a broad view of the credentials environment―how credentials work, how a proliferation in credentials has created an unprecedented array of educational choices, and why this abundance is a mixed blessing. In the second part, they focus on categories of credentials, from the associate degree to doctoral degrees to non-degree credentials. The book concludes with two chapters that consider the implications of the information the authors provide for leadership in volatile times: one discusses the importance of maintaining a priority on equity; the other offers 12 propositions for action.    

To help make the book useful, each chapter begins with a paragraph that summarizes the emphases to follow, and ends with a list of initiatives, i.e., “takeaways,” that leaders (and those attentive to what leaders are doing) should consider.

Paul L. Gaston, Trustees Professor Emeritus at Kent State University (Ohio), has served four universities as a faculty member, dean, and provost. Having offered 14 years of university service as a provost (Northern Kentucky and Kent State), he has focused more recently on teaching, writing, and consulting.

His recent books include General Education Transformed: How We Can, Why We Must (AAC&U, 2015), Higher Education Accreditation: How It’s Changing, Why It Must (Stylus Publishing, 2014), General Education and Liberal Learning (AAC&U, 2010), The Challenge of Bologna: What U.S. Higher Education Has to Learn from Europe and Why It Matters That We Learn It (Stylus Publishing, 2010), and Revising General Education, with Jerry Gaff (AAC&U, 2009). His most recent book prior to this one, Ohio’s Craft Beers (Kent State University Press, 2017), explores alternate approaches to “higher” education.

His more than 50 published articles on literature and higher education include studies of the British hymn tradition, Anthony Powell, George Herbert, the role of the provost in fund-raising, the Bologna Process, minor league baseball, accreditation reform, Il Gattopardo, interart analogies, and the cultures of futures markets. He is one of the four original authors of the influential Degree Qualifications Profile (Lumina Foundation: 2011, 2015.)

He received his degrees from Southeastern Louisiana College (BA) and from the University of Virginia (MA, Ph.D.), where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. He is now Distinguished Fellow at the Association of American Colleges and Universities and a consultant to Lumina Foundation.
He lives in Northeast Ohio with his wife, Eileen, and two cats, Scout and Binx. For recreation, he enjoys hiking, cycling, reading, and supporting Chelsea (soccer) and the St. Louis Cardinals. His Twitter name is CardsFaninOhio.

Michelle Van Noy is an Associate Research Professor in the Labor Studies and Employment Relations Department and the Director of the Education and Employment Research Center at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She is also on the faculty of the Higher Education Ph.D. program at Rutgers. Previously, she has conducted research at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers; the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University; and Mathematica Policy Research.

She has 25 years of research experience on the connection between education and work. Her research has included studies of technician education, community college noncredit education, student decision making about majors and careers, quality in non-degree credentials, higher education labor market alignment, and effective practices in workforce education.

She recently published an edited volume for New Directions for Community Colleges “Lessons Learned from TAACCCT” documenting findings from DOL’s $2 billion investment in community colleges through the TAACCCT grant program. She has published articles in the Community College Review and Economics of Education Review. She publishes widely for practitioner audiences with over 50 papers and reports on workforce and education related topics.

She holds a Ph.D. in sociology and education from Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, a M.S. in public policy from the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers, and a B.A. in psychology and Spanish from Douglass College, Rutgers.

She lives in central New Jersey with her two sons, Evan and Andre, and her cat, Momo. She enjoys running, reading, cooking, and watching her sons play in local youth soccer.

Peter Ewell is President Emeritus of NCHEMS, the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems.