NEJHE’s New Directions for Higher Education series examines emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices.

The convergence of forces driving change in higher education is transforming the academic enterprise—reinventing what a university is, what a course is, what a student is and what the value of higher education is.

One significant sign of change could be the end of the credit hour—higher education's prevailing unit of measure. This century-old, time-based reference for measuring educational attainment used by American universities and colleges is under serious scrutiny by its creator, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

In this first installment of the series, Philip DiSalvio, dean of the College of Advancing & Professional Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, speaks with Anthony Bryk, president of the Carnegie Foundation about the foundation’s efforts to study alternatives to the current system and the possibility of recommending revisions to the credit hour.