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Widmeyer Communications works with nonprofit organizations, companies, foundations and government agencies on issues throughout the preK-20 pipeline, ranging from early childhood and STEM education to Common Core and teacher quality to issues of funding and accountability affecting schools, community colleges, colleges and universities. Many of them are asking: How will the November 6th election results affect federal education funding, policymaking and reform efforts over the next two to four years?

 

“What’s Foursquare?”

It was three years ago that I asked my friend about Foursquare, the location-based social media platform, as we shared a pizza on U Street. I knew nothing about it, and I was quizzing her on how it was used, so that I could potentially show it to a client someday. She was using it socially, and was also trying to get her nonprofit to use Foursquare to reward its donors.

The devastation wrought this week by Hurricane Sandy reminds us all of the fragility of life, and the things that we take for granted.  Sandy touched so many of us, whether we live in the New York/New Jersey region or in other locations along the mid-Atlantic devastated by this superstorm.  The Wednesday Washington Post banner headline summed it up smartly, “This is New York’s Katrina.”

At the conclusion of this year’s Education Nation, NBC News’ annual summit on education reform that includes significant coverage of education topics on all of its television and online platforms, managing editor Brian Williams dedicated the first five minutes of Nightly News to educator evaluation, the role of teachers unions, and the achievement gap.  As a result, eight million Americans know more about education reform today than they did 24 hours earlier.

Remarkable.

 

Not long after graduating college, two friends teamed up to start a news outlet by pulling what they considered to be the most interesting stories from outlets throughout the country. For those of us who get our news from blogs and social media, this sounds all too familiar. But in 1923, Briton Hadden and Henry Luce, founders of Time magazine, were on to something new.

It’s an old joke, ‘you can’t have it all…where would you put it?’ Yet, the obvious logic here does not prevent us from asking the question or, even more importantly, from having the expectation of ourselves.

Americans are channeling their inner Howard Beale from Network. As he suggested, they’re getting up out of their chairs, opening their windows, sticking their heads out and yelling, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” It seems as though I see a new survey each day affirming this sentiment. It might be 58 percent of Americans who say the country is headed down the wrong track or 75 percent who say they disapprove of Congress’ job performance.

Not long after graduating college, two friends teamed up to start a news outlet by pulling what they considered to be the most interesting stories from outlets throughout the country. For those of us who get our news from blogs and social media, this sounds all too familiar. But in 1923, Briton Hadden and Henry Luce, founders of Time magazine, were on to something new.

The magazine was a hit. Their expertly aggregated, well-rounded stories appealed to a wide audience and helped create what grew into a media empire.

John Burness, senior counsel to Widmeyer, is an expert in crisis communications. He recently served as the Interim President at Franklin & Marshall College. He was the senior public affairs leader at prestigious public and private institutions including Duke University, Cornell University, the University of Illinois and the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

 

The following is a conversation I had with the dean of Valparaiso Law, Jay Conison. Conison has been dean since 1998, and has held executive positions with the American Bar Association, the Association of American Law Schools and the Law School Admission Council. Dean Conison addresses the value of law schools, changes he has seen over the past decade in law education and refutes the criticism law schools are experiencing.

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