Summer Reading: How 5 colleges are forging change in higher ed

College presidents are leading their institutions at a pivotal moment in higher education. Unprecedented amounts of data, the rise of online education and a heightened focus on student outcomes are together pressuring them to develop innovative approaches to get students to complete college and land a good job.  Our regular President Speaks column gives college leaders the opportunity to highlight the issues facing their institutions and show how they're stepping up to the challenge — from strengthening student supports to reforming remedial education. Below, we round up some of our most popular posts from the series in recent months. Are you interested in contributing to the President Speaks column? Let us know. The digital age has opened the gates to unprecedented levels of information, but Maryville University of St. Louis President Mark Lombardi argues that colleges have not fundamentally changed how they teach students. "As colleges and universities, it's time to recognize that we are no longer keepers of knowledge," he writes. "We must serve instead as agile facilitators of knowledge, evolving and adapting to the new reality of how information flows through the world.