Some results from the Society for College and University Planning's (SCUP) ongoing environmental scan for resources relating to higher education planning.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Use of Campus Space and Soaring Energy Costs
Here in the SCUP office, we've been bombarded by calls from reporters looking for information on new trends in employee work hours, the timing of the use of classroom and other campus buildings, and innovations in ride-boards - all in relation to both soaring energy costs and to the effort on 500+ campuses to meet the carbon footprint challenges of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education is an example of how that reporting is coming out. May require subscription or day pass for access.
First Buy Myers University, Then Put Seven Socks On the Octopus
So . . . "It's a unique non-profit business failure saved from closure in the nick of time by a special form of receivership." Significant Partners purchased Myers University in a 'distress sale' situation and intend to turn it into a for-profit. Now what? "The Higher Learning Commission has life or death power over the institution's future as its re-accreditor for the change of ownership. They have been incredibly helpful and receptive since our announcement last week, for which we're grateful. The Ohio Board of Regents have approval power. And because we're going to convert Myers into a for-profit entity, we'll need an approval from the State Board of Career Colleges and Schools. The U.S. Department of Education will also be involved when ownership changes. I feel like I'm putting seven socks on an octopus." Read about it in The Greentree Gazette.
Many of the community colleges that GAO visited integrate with their one-stops by operating the one-stop centers, colocating college staff at the one-stop, and participating on workforce investment boards. Nationwide, GAO estimated that about 11 percent of one-stops are operated solely or jointly by a community college, while 34 percent have community college staff colocated at the center. Similarly, GAO estimated that, nationwide, 49 percent of local workforce investment boards have community college presidents represented on their boards. Some of the benefits of these arrangements include cost sharing and improved communication among participating programs. Officials at the colleges and one-stops that GAO visited reported also conducting other joint activities, such as strategic planning and data sharing.
New Report Recommends Tenure Policy Reforms for the Engaged University
"A new report from Imagining America, Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy in the Engaged University, proposes 'concrete ways to remove obstacles to academic work carried out for and/or with the public by giving such work full standing as scholarship, research, or artistic creation.'" The entire 60-page PDF document is available for free download.
We propose concrete ways to remove obstacles to academic work carried out for and/or with the public by giving such work full standing as scholarship, research, or artistic creation. While we recommend a number of ways to alter the wording and intent of tenure and promotion policies, changing the rules is not enough. Enlarging the conception of who counts as “peer” and what counts as “publication” is part of something bigger: the democratization of knowledge on and off campus. We want this report to serve as a toolkit for faculty, staff, and students who are eager to change the culture surrounding promotion and tenure. It offers strategies that they can use to create enabling settings for doing and reviewing intellectually rigorous public work.
Understanding the Influence of Academic Disciplines on Those Within Them Who Become Presidents
This is a too-brief article (PDF) on a study of college and university presidents and how the academic discipline that formed their earlier years as academics may influence their presidential style. This should be a useful read for planners who must deal with presidents, and definitely a must-read for those who need to interact with any one of the many presidents represented in the story's vignettes.
Chilled Beams & Blue Water: Innovative Sustainability Technology on Southern Campuses
At Emory University a new residence hall (LEED Gold) uses grey water, but local officials have demanded that it be dyed blue (and circulate in blue pipes), while at Furman University, a major renovation of the Charles H. Townes Center for Science (LEED Silver, maybe Gold) uses European-originated "chilled beam" technology to overcome short floor-to-floor heights. Isn't it great how striving for sustainability brings about innovative technologies? More details from the Buildings & Grounds Blog.
What is the impact of a building that is a clear expression of its architect’s personal signature on a campus? . . . in most good campus settings, these prima-donna buildings can strike a crushing blow. A campus with a whole series of strutting divas could become just a petting zoo for famous architects’ personal statements. Is that really what institutions of higher education should be communicating about themselves?
The Ripple Effect of Virginia Tech: Assessing the Nationwide Impact on Campus Safety and Security Policy and Practice
Writing in Inside Higher Ed, Doug Lederman, notes that a recent study on on the whole, campuses discussed major changes in admissions and other areas, but mostly just beefed up emegrency notification systems:
"It's interesting what they talked about and didn’t do,” said Gina Johnson, a researcher at the Midwestern compact who co-wrote the report with Chris Rasmussen, director of policy research there. Despite significant pressure from many sources (legislators, parents, etc.) to react aggressively to the Virginia Tech crisis, in many cases campuses “didn’t go to extremes” in response.
Course Construction Toolbox or Trap? Course Management Systems and Pedagogy
Shortly put, Lisa M. Lane decries the limitations of course manegement systems: "The default design of commercial course management systems limits instructional creativity and pedagogical approaches, particularly for novice users . . . If we were building something tangible out of wood or metal, for instance, it would be silly let the tools in our toolbox determine what we construct and how we construct it. I wouldn't set out to build a Victorian dollhouse and switch to a modernist garden bench because I couldn't find the scroll saw. And yet this type of shift often happens when faculty encounter a CMS."
You probably don't use MySpace or Facebook, but the incoming waves of freshman of the immediate future engage now in social networking that is as real a part of their lives as your commute to work is yours. But is their online connectivity enhancing any learning skills? This author reports on a well-funded study of the social network actions of K-12 students and concludes:
Certainly, social learning theory is not new, but some would argue that while the social learning theorists hold that social interaction is at the center of effective learning and that no individual learns in isolation, social networking software does not provide a helpful context within which social interaction skills are developed. In other words, the valuable social skills that support learning are not the skills developed within current Internet-based social spaces.
The demand for interdisciplinary teaching and research suggests the need to understand how universities are undertaking and fostering interdisciplinarity. Through an examination of strategic and master plans at 21 research universities, this article explores how institutions plan and foster interdisciplinary engagement through the use of space on campus. The construction of such space acknowledges that the discrete functions of the university, frequently attributed to the disciplines and departments, are not generally conducive to interdisciplinary engagement. Physical space is a necessary component for successful interdisciplinary initiatives both functionally and symbolically.
Citation Michael S. Harris and Karri Holley. 2008. Constructing the Interdisciplinary Ivory Tower: The Planning of Interdisciplinary Spaces on University Campuses. Planning for Higher Education. 36(3): 34–43.
How the Ideas and Events of 1993 Created the World We Live in Today
Sometimes you can get perspective from which to look ahead, if you look back a bit. This brief article, with a nice graphical timeline, from Wired magazine, takes us back to 1993 to examine manifestations, then, of change that has occured in the intervening time. The graphic is interactive and you can move in and out of it for intellectual stimulation. It wasn't too long after that that SCUP published Transforming Higher Education: A Vision for Learning in the 21st Century. If you've got a copy of that book handy you might browse through it. We think the changes coming in the next 15 years are going to be even more transformative.
34th Annual Official Education Construction Report
Joen Agron, of American School and University magazine, reports that its annual survey shows that "spending on construction by the nation's school districts and colleges slowed in 2007." According to his summary of the detailed report, which you can read here:
Spending on construction by the nation's school districts and colleges slowed in 2007, representing the fourth consecutive year total expenditures dropped from the year before and setting a low point in spending so far this decade. . . . A difficult economy and rapidly rising costs took their toll as many education institutions trimmed or postponed planned projects. Total spending on new, addition and modernization construction . . . dropped to $32.9 billion from $36.6 billion in 2006. . . . while total spending slowed, the amount K-12 institutions and colleges allocated to new buildings increased, reflecting the pressure to continue constructing new spaces to keep up with enrollment growth . . . college spending on new construction jumped to $7.3 billion from $5.3 billion in 2006.
[I]t has been “a project with a thousand surprises” — partly because Rudolph’s contract with the university had permitted him to make an unlimited number of changes, many of them undocumented, while the building was under construction. Most famously, perhaps, the eight-story building ended up with 37 levels, counting a multi-level terrace, stair landings for which Rudolph designed bench seats, and a penthouse with spectacular views of the Yale campus. The complexity of the renovation, along with Mr. Stern and Mr. Gwathmey’s insistence on living up to Rudolph’s high standards, accounts for its $126-million price tag.
The Bologna Club: What U.S. Higher Education Can Learn from a Decade of European Reconstruction
We'd like to say that this 118-page document (PDF) from Clifford Adelman is a "must read"; but we know you're probably too busy. So why not peruse this Inside Higher Ed article from Scott Jaschik, titled "Wake-Up Call for American Higher Ed," about it instead? It is really important. From the article:
The vision set out in “The Bologna Club: What U.S. Higher Education Can Learn From European Reconstruction,” is sure to be controversial. As Adelman explains it, the European model for making higher education harmonized should lead to similar efforts in the United States, with states taking the place of countries, and pushing colleges for agreements on what a bachelor’s degree truly represents in various fields. In plenty of states, where flagships, regional publics, community colleges and private institutions compete for students and funds — with a range of philosophies — that would appear easier said than done. But it is worth noting that Adelman — who spent years at the Education Department before joining the Institute for Higher Education Policy — has a track record of putting issues in play. The institute issued the report, which was supported by the Lumina Foundation for Education.
Website includes a project overview, project teams, design and construction, live views of the Thompson Project, project update newsletter, and FAQs. According to the Library Director, the challenge of this project is to design a library for the 21st century that is beautiful, functional, and flexible enough to bring paper- and digital-based information services together.
To try to remain aware of our irrationality in situations where we have a strong tendency to act irrationally. This is easier in situations where we have a history of acting irrationally. For instance, since we are all realizing that we’re not saving enough for retirement maybe it is time to take action and force ourselves to behave better. One way to do this is by having money automatically transferred from our checking account into a retirement savings account at the beginning of each month—essentially taking the decision outside of our consideration so that we don’t even give ourselves the opportunity to think about spending money that we know we should save. As a result of putting such plans in action, our behaviors will coincide with our intentions.
How do you plan to 'scale up' from a successful piloting of an academic program or other initiative? From the League for Innovation in the Community College comes this Leadership Abstract:
To understand the complexities of going to scale in educational settings, Chris Dede, Harvard Graduate School of Education, has created a framework that illustrates five dimensions of taking an innovation to scale—from its success in a single instance to its becoming effective across a broad range of situations or contexts. The five dimensions that make up his framework include depth, sustainability, spread, shift, and evolution. Each dimension has specific characteristics that when optimized, can achieve scale; yet each also carries its own set of risks that can trap innovations from achieving success in scaling up
Although actuaries and accountants are involved, the calculation mechanics are not the challenge. Rather, understanding the drivers of results and the options that make sense for your institution or system provides the real challenge. “This is not simply a choice of vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry,” says Steinberg. “There are 40 or 50 different ‘flavors’ for your institution, and the choice depends upon the context and your institution’s focus.” . . . Because people are the greatest resource in a service industry like higher education, decisions involving funding and benefit selections are extremely important and can become extremely public in a hurry. . . . Now is the time to work across your campus, system, or state to accurately and creatively address the standard’s requirements for reporting other postemployment benefits.
If you like this, you'll love learning that SCUP is offering CPEs for CPAs at its conference this summer. Thanks to great work by SCUP's Resource and Budget Planning Advisory Group, headed by Carol Rylee of the University of Delaware, as well as a huge effort by SCUP's professional development staff, all sessions at SCUP-43 in Montreal are available for CPE continuing education units for CPAs.
The latest grandiose and probably unrealistic idea for establishing a world-class university is Anil Agarwal's Vedanta University, which is planned to be opened in 2008 in the state of Orissa, India. Mining magnate Agarwal has pledged an initial $1 billion for this project. International architects have been hired, the authorities in Orissa are on board, and a group of academic leaders is being hired from around the world. The idea is to create a university with 100,000 students, offering degrees in the major fields and stressing an interdisciplinary approach. While the details of the university's organization have not been revealed, it is intended to look like Harvard and Stanford. While it is always a good deed when one of the world's richest men takes an interest in higher education, it is unlikely that Vedanta University will achieve the desired results, no matter how much money Mr. Agarwal spends on it.
Sirens cannot convey a lot of information. Even two or three different siren codes are enough to confuse almost everyone. They are, however, cheap (typically $50,000 per siren) and reliable. They get people to turn on their cell phones and check their e-mail. Some of the more sophisticated systems can also broadcast a brief audio message as well as a siren tone. Some siren vendors are: American Signal Corp., ATI Systems, Federal Signal, Hormann America, Klaxon, Sentry Siren, and Whelen.
Q: TI donates to the universities, and they give you products? Is it that simple?
A: No, not anywhere near as simple. There's no product development going on between ourselves and universities. They have people who dream of what can be done or what may be possible. They also have a powerful capability to assemble multidisciplinary teams. In medical technology, they can get electrical engineers, computer scientists, biologists, chemists and people from the med schools in the same room.
The intersection between IT and being green is something we pay a lot of attention to. A lot of what we know about systems thinking and sustainability would not be possible without the computing power of our electronic machines. It's really nice to see Cynthia Golden, EDUCAUSE vice president, writing this piece in EDUCAUSE Review:
The inability to effectively recycle this hazardous waste is one of a multitude of challenges feeding today’s “green” computing initiatives in government, industry, and higher education. The very real pressures of global warming, excessive energy consumption, and overdependence on fossil fuels, especially coal and oil, pose a serious threat to the planet. We must find ways to reduce our energy consumption, to provide power through alternative methods, and to deal with the electronics we produce, use, and discard: the “e-waste.” IT divisions in higher education can and should take a leadership role in improving the sustainability of their campuses by following environmentally friendly and responsible computing practices.
She goes on to concisely list several things that IT staffers can do. Be sure to forward this to yours!
Every state offers community colleges as the first rung on the ladder of higher education. They prepare students for four-year colleges, educate key professions like nursing and firefighting, offer job training and basic skills, and bolster economic development. A new Education Policy Brief from the Rockefeller Institute finds that the 50 states differ widely in the extent to which they use their community college systems: "So the differences in the use that states make of their community colleges are clear - but the causes are not. And because these differences matter, there is a clear challenge for community college leaders, policymakers and researchers to dig deep enough to explain the differences, and to help states make better use of this dynamic and growing force in education."
Brain Scans and the Desire to Avoid a New 'Phrenology'
So . . . the brain is an integrated network: "The functional activity of the brain . . . is nearly as invisible to us as the atom, and so we employ metaphors. Over the centuries the brain has been compared to a hydraulic machine (18th century), a mechanical calculator (19th century) and an electronic computer (20th century). Today a popular metaphor is that the brain is like a Swiss Army knife, with specialized modules for vision, language, facial recognition, cheating detection, risk taking, spirituality and even God. . . . A consensus is building that '[m]ental modules are complete nonsense. There are no modules that are encapsulated and just send information into a central processor. There are areas of specialization, yes, and networks maybe, but these are not always dedicated to a particular task.' Instead of mental module metaphors, let us use neural networks.
Volume 3, Issue 2 of this Web publication from NACUBO is available on line. It contains useful information about how institutions are cutting health-care costs, especially by turning to wellness and fitness programs, as well as by using other techniques. Among other topics, Duke University's Prospective Health program and Rollins College's 100 percent coverage of preventive care. Even if this does not fit into the scope of your professional responsibilities, or your personal interests, you should ensure that those on your campus who do address these issues are aware of this publication.
[W]e needed this prototype to guide UMSL in evolving new approaches to learning appropriate to our context. We also needed an efficient process for the project and to demonstrate effectiveness of the resultant space. . . . [T]his article's title3 was suggested by a student entry in the assessment blog created for faculty and students using the new space: "This is my 2nd semester in this classroom, and every day, I like it more than the first. I feel that this classroom promotes a positive learning environment the second you walk in the door. No longer do we sit in a stark classroom, walls white, with windows that make a classroom feel like a prison. No longer are we confined to one, hard-seated desk. . . . The warm walls and pictures, colorful carpet, and welcoming couches beg to be noticed. Students sit where they choose, at group tables or individual tables. . . . When you walk in the room, you want to learn."
The Eras of Publishing, Participation and (Now, We Hope?) Certitude
How do we deal with the abundance of digital information now available? Brad Wheeler posits that we are in or approaching the Era of Certitude, which follows and enlarges upon first the Era of Publishing (pre- and early-Internet information world) and then the Era of Participation. (unlimited, fast, production and dissemination of information). He says that colleges and universities must be leaders in the Era of Certitude, which "is about the timely extraction of meaningful answers from content and distribution. . . . As the Era of Certitude evolves, information seekers in college and university communities will continue to look for, and find, improved tools and services for greater certitude. This trend is in motion now, and as noted, many knowledge sources and service providers are implementing tools to span distance and enable real-time responses. Some providers will choose vended systems that enable chat, logging, and modest knowledge-management capabilities. Others will look to open source or homegrown tools, and still others may choose to work out legal agreements with third-party service providers. Blended models of institutional and commercial platforms seem ripe with promise."
Two University Projects Receive AIA Green Building Awards 2008
Architecture Week does its usual excellent job of describing the 10 projects which won these awards for 2008. Reading the article is a lesson on state of the art. Two of the winners are at a college or university, the Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life at Tulane University and the Sculpture Building and Gallery at Yale University. On a related note, the SCUP/AIA-CAE 2008 Awards recipients are now on line, with information about each project, on SCUP's website.
Architects and planners who design for colleges must be aware of how today's students live and how their social networks function. Before cellphones spread across campuses, for instance, students relied on common gathering spaces for both planned and spontaneous meetings. Now that just about every student has a cellphone, though, students have much less need for lobbies and atriums — they can track down their friends instantly. And generous public spaces will not encourage social interaction if there's a stigma attached to being seen without your friends (you should at least be seen talking to them on your cellphone). So should that space be devoted to some other use? What other new priorities for planners and architects have been prompted by the cellphone generation? Are traditional notions of the college campus due for a radical rethinking?
The old cliché that the pursuit of greenness in buildings is inevitably in conflict with the pursuit of aesthetic quality is disappearing fast. Green features are no longer being thought of as “tack-ons,” like solar roof panels, but instead as elements as integral as support beams or doors. One must design using green features and making them as aesthetically rich and appealing as any other aspect of buildings. The goal of sustainability integrates professions because it forces comprehensiveness and interconnection in addressing all elements of the project: infrastructure, architecture, landscape, and place-making. Only sophisticated engineering and technology can mitigate the impact of development. We must begin to think not of Leo Marx's “machine in the garden” but of the machine as the garden. Acknowledging the engineered nature of the built habitat is a necessary step for embracing sustainable design at the campus scale.
The Private Sector Role in Global Higher Education
Doug Lederman, in Inside Higher Ed, writes about a recent three-day meeting "sponsored by the International Finance Corporation, a World Bank agency that aims to build the private sector in developing countries." In the first day of the conference, sponsored by the International Finance Corporation, a World Bank agency that aims to build the private sector in developing countries, Doug Becker, who heads a $B company - Laureate Education, Inc. - which has 70 campuses in 17 countries, noted that he sees:
an international landscape in which demand for higher education among 18- to 24-year-olds is growing by 10 percent a year, drawing ever more institutions into the market seeking to meet the burgeoning demand that countries’ government cannot. Gone, he said, are the days when would-be providers of private higher education were satisfied creating vocational schools; and with the heightened ambition of those institutions has sometimes come more scrutiny and suspicion.
At more higher education institutions: HR leaders are finding creative ways to drive participation to record numbers, then examining their effects on specific areas such as employee attendance and health care claims. Their hope is to identify and expand programs that offer high ROI, eliminate those that don't, and fill in the gaps to help employees reach health goals.
The challenge for the years ahead is to achieve a public agenda in an era of diminished public purposes. Many have observed that in the relative decline of policy as a motivating force, higher education institutions may choose priorities primarily from market considerations, setting agendas that seek to advance their own prestige and market position more than the fulfillment of publicly defined purposes. If markets have supplanted the force of policy per se as the primary drivers of higher education’s motivations, what actions will create the market that engages universities and colleges in solving the nation’s most important challenges? Any successful strategy must recognize that no single, centralized approach—no one 'market'—can enlist the energies and passion of higher education to achieve a particular purpose. Higher education in the U.S. rightly and productively proceeds from a system of incentives rather than control.
PBS' Frontline's website for its program, 'Growing Up Online', includes many resources beyond the full program that was broadcast on television. But it also includes the full television program in streaming video format. Those of us who've lived through the last 15 years or so in higher education have been astonished by the changes. But the next ten years may be even more transformative in terms of the the expectations and capabilities of our future students.
No, but really. If you have not been paying close attention to the OpenCourseWare (OCW) movement, taking a look at what Utah State has done will show you that is alive, well, and growing in sophistication. President Stan Albrecht really puts it well on the OCW home page: "In the tradition of land grant universities, Utah State University OpenCourseWare assures that no individual who is prepared and who desires the opportunity to advance his or her education is turned away. USU OCW provides an unprecedented degree of free and open access to the knowledge and expertise of our faculty for the benefit of every citizen of the state of Utah and every person in the world. As we enter the 21st century, services like OpenCourseWare will enable land grant institutions to more fully accomplish their missions."
Young people often turn deaf ears to the adult platitudes hurled at them every day, such as "you are what you eat." As good as that advice may be, youth often make better judgments based on personal experiences. For environmentally conscious youth, that means it's not just what you eat but where the food comes from and how it was grown or raised. These days, college students around the country are demanding sustainable food practices from their dining services. From supporting local farm stands on campuses to teaching dining service staff how to cook with local and sustainable ingredients to participating in national campaigns to raise awareness about green eating, young learners have become integral to the larger process of change. The term "sustainable" in this case refers to agricultural practices that are environmentally friendly (i.e. organic or with minimal pesticides), support local small farmers and promote healthy, diversified diets.
"Students get it," said Anna Lappé, a sustainability food expert, author and the co-founder of the Small Planet Institute who often speaks at campuses around the country to promote sustainable eating. "The most common question I get from students is, 'We know we need to be promoting sustainable food -- what can we do?'" She usually responds to the question with examples of what other schools have done, which is no short list.
I am a big fan of college campuses that have a real sense of order, cohesiveness, and harmony. I think universities have produced some of the most outstanding physical environments in the United States primarily because they have believed in planning and in the power of multiple buildings to create a whole that is much greater than the sum of the parts. I think contextual concerns should be a major design determinate in creating any building on a college campus.
But I am dismayed by what seems like a current trend among many universities to establish a style for buildings on their campuses and to slavishly replicate buildings in that style.
"This book is about getting beyond all the lip service and horn honking to actually doing something to protect this beautiful planet that is our home," writes Walter Simpson, who is the energy officer at the State University of New York at Buffalo and a prominent advocate for sustainability. With that, the book begins a series of instructive essays from people in the trenches about the nuts and bolts of running a sustainable campus. Mixed in are some more philosophic discussions about sustainability. . . . Overall, the book is a trove of great information for any administrator trying to get on the road to sustainability. It even includes a helpful appendix with a checklist of things to do and a directory of organizations that can help."
About a year ago, Heidelberg College pumped up its spending for a new, streamlined scholarship program, and then promoted its simplified formula so that students would know how much they could get before they even applied.
It worked. Last fall this small, mostly residential liberal-arts college on a campus dotted with Collegiate Gothic buildings brought in the second-largest class in its 158-year history, and, more significantly, a net increase in tuition revenue. It is on track for similar success this year.
At Tiffin University, a newer, more-Modernist campus across town, enrollment has been at least as solid. Thanks to its distance-education program and 11 satellite campuses, Tiffin's student population has risen by more than 50 percent over the past five years, far outpacing growth at other private or public colleges in the state.
Together, these two very dissimilar colleges — located at opposite ends of this town of 18,000 in the farm flatlands of north-central Ohio — present a living laboratory for the variety of experiments and strategies that many small, private colleges are now undertaking.
Once a purely American innovation — or problem, depending on how you look at it — lists of “best colleges” are everywhere. Even as the Times Higher is competing to establish the definitive worldwide college rankings, scores of nations from Kazakhstan to Peru are fast developing new systems to evaluate and publicly rank their institutions of higher education. College rankings have gone global. To observers of international higher education, this should come as no surprise. Widely cited statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) suggest that many nations are closing in on the United States’ decades-old lead in college attainment.
Since colleges, departments, and individual courses have diverse missions, goals, and objectives, should smart classrooms be clones of each other?
Should we make all classrooms on a campus smart?
Are teachers ready to adapt to a new, smart environment?
How can we help teachers take advantage of a smart environment?
Three of these questions are easily answered with a "No." We should not make all classrooms technologically enhanced clones of each other, and, no, many teachers are not ready to take full advantage of such environments. So, how does a university get to be smart? By finding answers to the other three questions—recruiting and developing smart teachers, obtaining and effectively deploying smart technology, and sustaining faculty efforts with the aid of smart pedagogical centers.
At present, the response of most educators is to ignore or dismiss this epistemological clash. Many faculty force students to turn off electronic devices in classrooms; instead, students could be using search tools to bring in current information and events related to the class discussion. Some faculty ban the use of online sources and deride the validity of any perspective that does not come from a disciplinary scholar. Many see social networking sites as useless or dangerous and do not recognize the diagnostic value of folksonomies for understanding the language and conceptual frameworks that students bring to the classroom. This refusal to acknowledge the weaknesses of the Classical perspective and the strengths of Web 2.0 epistemologies is as ill-advised as completely abandoning Classical epistemology for Web 2.0 meaning-making.
Debra H. Allison, Peter B. Deblois, and the 2008 EDUCAUSE Current Issues Committee have published the latest in their annual series of top-ten issues listings, with deep analysis regarding each issue and changes in their relative importance. SCUPers Mary Doyle and David Stack are members of that committee.
The most important part of BI is getting people to ask the right questions, notes Rafn, whose institution receives on-site technical support from SunGard. NWTC employees are receiving training that will help build a culture of evidence on campus. All constituents also have the ability to run ad hoc reports to find the information they need. After all, Rafn points out, if people have to go through the IT department, "they either don't ask or they create something outside the system."
DeHart echoes the sentiment. "We're trying to get away from the burden of one person running all the reports." End users at DMACC can create and save data sets on their own. And DeHart's starting to see a culture shift. "In higher ed, if you ask people what they want they won't know, but if you give them something to respond to, it gives them ideas. They'll see a report and ask for budget data too."
But being data driven isn't easy or inexpensive. "It complicates our lives to a degree," Drennon says, adding that making an investment up front is critical to staying competitive and retaining State Fair's niche, since students have many educational options.
The rollout was a three-year effort--although what took most of the time wasn't the software installation itself. "The technology end is so easy that we rolled [WebFOCUS] out to the entire department at once," Zang said. Instead, the brunt of project time was spent creating business rules designating how the accounting data should be handled. That was a complex process because the two accounting systems that WebFOCUS accesses--Oracle Financials for the university, and a system called Epicor for outpatient billing by the School of Medicine--are set up to use different fiscal years and different general ledgers. "We had to figure out how to marry up the two," Zang explained.
Worldwide higher education rankings, of which the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities is now a leading example, have highlighted research intensity as the defining characteristic of higher education. Around the world, governments and higher education institutions are responding, and these developments are forcing changes in higher education systems. This trend is especially true in Europe where efforts to establish the European Higher Education Area and the European Research Area are challenging traditional assumptions about higher education systems and the balance between equity, diversity, and excellence.
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The details in each country vary but do represent a growing urgency to reform Europe's higher education institutions for competitiveness, while acknowledging that traditional universities can no longer meet all the geopolitical demands for research, development, and innovation. As part of this process, the European Commission is funding the development of a European "Carnegie Classification" with emphasis on broadening both horizontal and vertical differentiation.
High marks for academic programs can’t offset criticism about inefficient operations. A deliberate framework for organizational development can raise your institution’s overall score. . . .
Mitchell advocates “working with the largest system possible to implement change.” In this case, engaging champions and detractors and facilitating the sustained involvement of campus leaders were critical elements in redefining and addressing the information technology challenges. “If we tried to do this department by department it would have taken decades to accomplish what’s now in place,” she says.
At the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Office of Quality Improvement provides strategic planning and process improvement services, while the Office of Human Resource Development oversees professional development and leadership training. The two offices work in close collaboration.
Often a project conducted for one department will find applications in other parts of the university. For example, Cotter tells the story of a history department dean who was convinced that his department was so different from others that the administrative improvements developed there would not work anywhere else. However, her office found applications for the structure in 20 other departments.
Renee Aitken, John Primo and Chip Stoll helped me see the matter from their viewpoints. As a newly hired director of the Center of Instructional Technology and e-learning at Ohio Dominican University in 2005, Renee was told that the LMS in their use would no longer be supported. John Primo looked forward to Rose State’s LMS purchase as a consortium deal to maximize purchasing power. And Chip Stoll began to look at other LMS options when the system they were using was acquired by another company.
