I've long admired Northeastern University's College of Professional Studies (I had the honor of serving as an external reviewer of the college some years ago). They're again demonstrating the true value of a school or college of professional & continuing studies.
First, the college was named to the inaugural cohort of the Future Universities Alliance's Innovation Sandbox, a Duke incubated network built to universities learn from each other and turn scattered innovation into something durable. The college landed a spot alongside 49 institutions from 23 countries, including Georgetown and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Second, and maybe even more fun, three first year graduate students from the college's won the Lahey Clinic's inaugural Care-AI-thon, taking home an AI Innovation Award.
All of this great news about Northeastern University's College of Professional Studies matters because the college is a distinct academic unit within Northeastern. The college has the flexibility to build an Applied AI master's program that moves at the speed industry needs, the institutional muscle to compete for slots in something like the Innovation Sandbox, and the institutional mandate and Provost-assigned authority to send its non-traditional students into clinics and hackathons.
So to say it plainly, yet again... universities that are debating whether to shutter their CPS equivalents, or fold them quietly into "the main campus," are making a disastrous strategic mistake. And they're making it at exactly the wrong moment. Continuing and professional studies units are where the fastest, most applied, most industry connected work happens. They're built for speed and relevance in a way that traditional academic departments, encumbered by legacy structures, aren't.
If your university is eyeing its school or college of professional & continuing studies as overhead to trim rather than an engine to invest in, take a hard look at what Northeastern has been doing for years.
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