What Happens to the Built Environment Without People?

This Scientific American interview is with Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us. The book has a very simple premise: What would happen to the built environment, and how quickly, if people just went somewhere else. It sounds like a fascinating read for anyone who plans, designs, builds, and maintains parts of our built environment.

I had a fascinating time talking to engineers and maintenance people in New York City about what it takes to hold off nature. I discovered that our huge, imposing, overwhelming infrastructures that seem so monumental and indestructible are actually these fairly fragile concepts that continue to function and exist thanks to a few human beings on whom all of us really depend.

Free Archived Webcast: Education for a Sustainable Future: What You Need to Know

Education for a Sustainable Future: What You Need to Know was a webcast transmitted live on June 6, 2007. A PDF of the presentation slide show and the audio file are both available on the website of the Higher Education Associations Sustainability Consortium (HEASC) website. There is also a voluminous set of resource links that was created for the webcast.

This webcast was intended to be a "Sustainability 101" introduction for higher education faculty and staff who have not previously been heavily involved in sustainability work or understanding. The presenters included:

Terry Calhoun, MA, JD
Director of Media Relations and Publications
Co-Founder of Campus Sustainability Day (CSD 5.0)
Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)

Debra Rowe, PhD
President
US Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development

Judy Walton, PhD
Director of Strategic Initiatives
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE)

What Is Your Institution's 'Brand'?

Stand Out is from Business Officer by Douglas Vaira.

Some view branding as smoke and mirrors, a lot of hooey, the stuff of corporate boardroom flip charts, or nothing more than the New Coke. Employees are as likely as customers to express skepticism about branding initiatives. Yet, within higher education, brand development is garnering greater curiosity as competition grows for new students and top-notch faculty and as relations with campus constituents and the wider community propel institutional leaders to rethink mission and communication strategies.

The pursuits of several institutions to rediscover their fundamental nature - that thing that makes them tick—demonstrate the essence of branding and its potential impact on current and would-be campus stakeholders.

Research Universities Doing Good with International Partnerships

Thinking Locally, Acting Globally is from The Chronicle of Higher Education by Sara Hebel and addresses an area of sustainability that is often not at the forefront when higher education and sustainability are being discussed together.

American universities have long been involved in research and service work abroad. But as Indiana-Purdue's Kenya venture illustrates, they are now taking a more deliberate and comprehensive approach to where and how they invest their time, money, and talent. Many hire senior-level administrators to coordinate international projects across disciplines. They are rewarding faculty members who lead these ambitious projects and are providing institutional grants to get them off the ground. They are also searching for ways to involve students — all while looking to bring the benefits of this work back to their home states.

Career Colleges Release First-Ever Economic-Impact Study

From The Chronicle of Higher Education by Goldie Blumenstyk.

The report says the colleges, which often boast that they are the "tax-paying sector" of higher education, pay about $82-million a year in local and federal taxes. The report's authors say the figure underestimates the actual amount of taxes paid because it was calculated based on a figure for the overall fraction of revenues that all education entities pay in taxes, and most pay little or no taxes.

The study suggests that the overall economic impact of the for-profit sector approaches $39-billion, taking into account the $14.6-billion in revenue going to the colleges and the additional $4-billion that students spend beyond tuition to attend, along with the indirect impact of the higher wages earned by career-college graduates and the added value they bring to the industries where they go to work.

Complimentary copies of the report, which does not appear to be available on the Web yet, are available from Kerry Turner - kerryt@career.org - at the Imagine America Foundation.

Teaching Graduate Students How to Teach Better

What a novel concept. Somehow this reminds of us of the comment that Bill McDonough made at a SCUP plenary session a few years ago about if we're so bright how come it took us until just recently to figure out that we should put wheels on luggage.

Tufts' approach is emblematic of a growing recognition among doctoral programs that they need to impart skills for teaching, not just research. As college classrooms diversify and the pace of technology quickens, there's a demand for scholars who have a flair for more than just a traditional lecture. More than 100 universities now have formal programs to prepare future faculty, many of them spawned by grants administered by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) in Washington between 1993 and 2003.

"Buildings & Grounds" - New Chronicle Blog

We're not sure if the name is really "Buildings & Grounds" or "Architecture," but The Chronicle of Higher Education has added timeliness to the portion of its website that addresses the built environment. If you have not yet visited it, you should. In addition to the annual special supplement which has a series of wonderful articles and images, there is a database of several hundred recent campus-based building projects.

New Book: How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything

The new book is How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything...in Business (and in Life) by Dov L. Seidman.

Have you kind of, sort of, followed some of the news about students getting into trouble for posts about their teachers on their MySpace pages? Has the US Attorneys scandal penetrated through the news well enough for you so that you understand the role that blogs played in encouraging tens of thousands of 'Netizens to scour through thousands of pages of PDF documents dumped onto the Internet by the Department of Justice? Do you occasionally wonder about if there ever again is really going to be anything like what we remember privacy to be?

Dov Seidman says we need to get used to it:

We will never become less connected. We will never become less transparent…With all these changes to the way we live, connect and conduct our professional and personal lives, the questions become: How do we now thrive? How can we turn these challenges into strengths?

Here's a link to the book on Amazon. Here's a link to Tom Friedman column about it (need New York Times access to open it); here's a link to a non-password protected blog about it with regard to its implications for educators.

Budget Woes in Higher Education: A Call for Leadership

This article from Academic Leadership: The Online Journal focuses on

how department chairs might manage their dwindling budgets and find new resources to maintain and improve program integrity, to retain and recruit quality faculty, and to attract top students.

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An online survey was designed to collect data about the conditions and the extent of the budget reductions in academic departments across the country. Academic departments that experienced significant budget reductions provided numerical data about the extent of their budget cuts, rated a number of strategies used at their campuses, and elaborated on their answers with written comments to further explain their reactions and how both they and their campus leaders dealt with the budget crisis. The survey included questions on the amount of current and planned budget cuts, the strategies that were being used to address cuts, the effects on programs and faculty morale, and a number of questions about what these academic unit leaders wanted from their campus-wide leaders and what advice they would have to offer to others. A complete list of the questions can be found by accessing the on-line instrument.

The survey was sent via email to approximately 275 participants who had attended the National Academic Department Chairs Conference in Orlando, Florida.

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Developing Leadership Skills [in Academia]

This excellent article from Academic Leadership: The Online Journal, is by SCUPer Gerald H. Gaither of Texas A&M Praire View.

In today's climate of balancing competing constituency interests, financial contraction, growing student populations, and abundant public criticism, it seems clear that the higher education community needs to hone and apply its skills to better meet the strident leadership demands of our time. It is the purpose of this paper to build upon previously learned precepts of leadership and provide practical guidance to assist interested individuals with this process.

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Trends V: Universities Shaping the European Higher Education Area

This is a 97-page PDF document from the European Universities Association which:

[P]rovides the most comprehensive view available of the state of European higher education - as seen by higher education institutions themselves.. . . more than 900 European higher education institutions contributed to this report, either by responding to a wide-ranging questionnaire, or by hosting visits of research teams, or through providing input in other meetings.. . . [it] shows the progress made by Europe’s universities in implementing the Bologna reforms, and outlines the main challenges ahead. It is thus a significant publication for all those concerned with European higher education, whether universities and students, or governments, business and industry, or other stakeholders.. . . [and] is also the European universities’ report to the Conference of Ministers of Education meeting in London on 17/18 May 2007 to discuss the culmination of the Bologna process by 2010. It thus mirrors issues addressed by the stocktaking exercise of the Bologna governments - degree structures, Bologna tools, quality and recognition. In addition Trends V also examines the response of higher education to lifelong learning, pays attention to the services in place to support students, and looks at the particular challenges being faced in the countries that are recent entrants to the Bologna process.

A Provost and Librarian Walk Into a Meeting . . . How to Approach a New College Official

This article contains insightful advice for anyone who has to approach a newly-hired senior academic official.

During 'The Art of Persuasion: Strategies for Effective Communication with Chief Academic Officers,' organized by the Association of College and Research Libraries [ARL], the provosts and vice presidents for academic affairs on the panel shared a list of their do’s and don’ts when approaching new college officials in their positions.

Campus Accountability Projects - Good Article

This new Inside Higher Ed article is a nicely comprehensive look, with lots of links out to documents and other articles, at two new accountability proposals: One from NAICU (National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities) and one from a collaboration between AASCU (American Association of State Colleges and Universities) and NASULGC (National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges). Here is a PDF document containing a "mock up" of a report from "Accountability University" demonstrating the AASCU/NASULGC initiative's Voluntary System of Accountability. Here is NAICU's Consumer Information Template.

We know that former SCUP visiting board member, John Hammang, a senior AASCU official, has been instrumental in developing the AASCU/NASULGC initiative.

P.S. Here is a link to similar coverage by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

P.P.S. If you are interested in this article, you may be interested in taking a look at SCUP's resource page regarding Academic Planning and if your interest is related to the accreditation process, you are surely interested in the SCUP book, Integrating Higher Education Planning and Assessment: A Practical Guide.