Thinking: The Missing Responsibility

We sometimes bemoan the lack of time for reflection. Jerry D. Campbell calls it "thinking," or at least we think it's the same thing:

Unfortunately, in failing to emphasize thinking in the workplace, we risk losing its potential. Thinking must be nurtured and facilitated. It is not so easy sometimes to get into the thinking mode. Those “to do” lists in our Blackberries are always stalking us. We feel like we are wasting time if we are not doing something tangible: making calls, answering e-mails, starting the next assignment or project. Nonetheless, it is critically important to develop the discipline of turning off the ringer, putting away the Blackberry, moving aside the laptop, and turning mentally to the challenges in our work.

But again, this is hard to do. Without institutional encouragement, we start to feel guilty, like we’re wasting time. Just sitting and thinking—isn’t there something “real” we should be doing? And even with encouragement, making the time to think takes practice, especially for those of us who have been out of school for a while. Thinking—especially useful, creative thinking—must be cultivated.

Glimpses of Our IT Future: What’s Green, Mobile, and Regulated All Over?

This resource is from EDUCAUSE Review: "Focusing on “glimpses of the future,” the 2008 EDUCAUSE Evolving Technologies Committee looked at five IT technologies and trends of importance to higher education: green enterprise computing; location-aware computing; virtual worlds; business process management; and regulatory compliance."

No, it’s not a corny joke your six-year-old might tell. “What’s green, mobile, and regulated all over?” is a fairly succinct description of today’s evolving IT environment. More than ever, we find we are dealing with a new interpretation of Moore’s Law. As technical capabilities continue to double regularly, energy, economic, and regulatory constraints on those capabilities are increasing exponentially as well. The 2008 EDUCAUSE Evolving Technologies Committee attempted to capture a glimpse of the collective future for IT professionals in higher education, anticipating not only the evolving technologies but also ways to address the ever-evolving constraints placed on our ability to provide the technologies that our institutions have come to expect.

Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth

Maybe you use Wikipedia, maybe you sneer at it, maybe you contribute to it. No matter, it's an important part of academic life in 2008 and if you read this article, subtitled "Why the online encyclopedia's epistemology should worry those who care about traditional notions of accuracy," you will certainly know more about how Wikipedia content gets to where it is than almost anyone else you know:

Why should we care? Because Wikipedia's articles are the first- or second-ranked results for most Internet searches. Type "iron" into Google, and Wikipedia's article on the element is the top-ranked result; likewise, its article on the Iron Cross is first when the search words are "iron cross." Google's search algorithms rank a story in part by how many times it has been linked to; people are linking to Wikipedia articles a lot.

This means that the content of these articles really matters.

Could Colleges Recycle Buildings From Elsewhere (for use on campus)?

As SCUP readies to move ahead, in partnership with the Getty Grant Foundation, on research about campus heritage preservation planning, it seems kind of "wild" to consider a campus purchasing old buildings elsewhere and moving them onto campus. This interesting speculation by Lawrence Biemiller notes that the practice is not unknown, and the commenters on this Buildings & Grounds Blog have shared additional instances of the practice:

[P]reserving buildings by taking them apart and reconstructing them on campuses elsewhere wouldn’t be a good idea. Maybe trustees who dislike contemporary design would be more excited by a preservation project that brought an institution a handsome work of architecture as well as new space. And reusing an existing building’s material is a highly sustainable approach to construction, assuming the cost remains reasonable. Obviously an old building’s utilities could be replaced during the reconstruction, and changes could be made to provide handicap access and meet the college’s current needs.

How to Get the Academic Side of Things More in Synch With Sustainability

It should be especially interesting to SCUPers that some very intriguing thoughts about curriculum change are coming from the anonymous Getting to Green blogger, G. Rendell. His latest post is titled "Realistic Radicalism."

[David Orr is] quoted as saying, “The main architecture of the curricula is sacrosanct ... Conversations still don’t easily cross back and forth between disciplines. And anything that begins to threaten that structure dies a pretty quick and painful death.” . . . In a nutshell, the complexity inherent in the information we need to exist in this world intelligently has surpassed the organizational capacities of our current system of academic disciplines. . . . So here’s a modest proposal — no more single-subject, or even single-faculty (in the British usage) degrees. If your major is already trans-disciplinary, you’re fine. If you have two majors, drawing on differing academic traditions, you’re fine. However, if you’re majoring only in a subject among the humanities, you need to at least minor in a social or a physical science. If you’re majoring only in a physical science, you need to at least minor in one of the humanities or social sciences. And so forth.

As a solution to strict disciplinary thinking, this is an incomplete solution. But it’s one which could be implemented more quickly and with less resistance (note, not zero resistance) than a true trans-disciplinary reworking of the academic organization.

Students Eye Cheaper Colleges as Crisis Deepens

As the semester goes on, we wonder how many students are looking at the next semester and wondering what the heck they're going to do. Generally, "back to school" is one of the options for people who lose their jobs, but in this climate, how viable is that option? This article suggests that more than half of high school students are looking at less prestigious schools than before, due to financial considerations:

For high school seniors like KC Martin of Englewood, Colo., even a four-year public university feels out of reach. She says she'll probably go to a community college, a decision she reached with her parents. "It's a tough one, because I want to go to a four-year school, but it's expensive," she says.

Community colleges typically swell during economic downturns, but with the financial crisis and the loss of state revenues, it will be daunting for some to accommodate what could be unprecedented demand, says Norma Kent, spokeswoman for the American Association of Community Colleges in Washington. Without funding to hire more faculty or build labs, "there's a de facto cap," she says, despite their mission to be accessible to everyone.

Red, White, Blue, and Green: The University of West Georgia

This is one in a series of "chapters" (PDF) about college and university best practices, written by presidents for the Presidential Perspectives.org website. In it, Beheruz N. Sethna, president, The University of West Georgia, writes about his campus' successes in sustainability achievements. His "recommendations for implementation" of any successful initiative at a university are: "First, Make it an institutional priority"; "Second: Create a plan of action to generate the conservation"; "Third: Present the implementation plan to the leadership of the institution"; "Fourth: Roll out the plan with the endorsement of the leadership"; "Fifth: Monitor the progress with regularly scheduled metric analysis":

The title of this essay also emphasizes how the University of West Georgia (UWG) would not be able to realize its Green Initiative without the involvement of the entire campus. Add together, in approximately equal parts, the faculty, staff, students, alumni, and a large external community. Next, mix in undergraduate and graduate student research with faculty and staff research and continuous monitoring, assessment, and reporting. You begin to get an idea of the complexity of a Green Initiative that partners with a multitude of public entities.

The combination of academic research, staff training, and implementation of sustainable measures has made the Green Initiative and energy conservation programs an ongoing success story on the UWG campus. We have already received several best practice awards, and we have assisted in the dissemination of ideas that work. We stand ready to continue to do the same for other institutions.

NAICU Survey Finds Impact from Student Loan Crunch, but No Widespread Loan Crisis for Fall 2008 Semester

NAICU surveyed its 953 member institutions about the effect of the credit crunch on student loan availability for ths current semester. Good news: Not much of a strong impact, yet. Here's the press release and here's the full report. This quote is from the press release:

While there was no widespread student loan crisis this fall, there were multiple instances of students taking time off of school, switching to part-time status, and turning to alternative forms of financial support, according to the results of a survey conducted by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. The survey, released today, also found a considerable amount of behind-the-scenes scrambling by private colleges to keep loan capital flowing to their students.

"In the main, the survey shows that independent higher education and our students weathered the student loan crunch through September," said NAICU President David L. Warren. "To varying degrees, individual students and institutions were impacted by the crunch, but no widespread access crisis materialized in the first half of the fall semester.

"However, the full-blown effects of the credit crunch and the nation's economic struggles are yet unknown," Warren said. "It is impossible to predict the possible future consequences of the nation's continuing economic struggles on students and colleges."

Higher Ed Presidents Write to the Presidential Candidates

A recent letter (PDF) to Barack Obama and John McCain from the presidents of the AACC, AAU, AASCU, NAICU, ACE, and NASULGC:

Dear Senator McCain and Senator Obama:

America is a nation of unparalleled opportunity. The richness and diversity of our national fabric - by faith, by national origin, and by cultural traditions - are woven into a single national character. We are a people unified by a belief in collective ideals of economic opportunity, freedom of thought, protection of individual liberties, and commitment to advancing America's security and prosperity.

America's higher education system is a reflection of that same national character. We have the most diverse system in the world - from open-access community colleges that are the envy of other countries to the world's most highly regarded research universities. From trade schools that specialize in job training to colleges whose entire curriculum focuses on the Great Books. Unlike other nations, our system of higher education is open to all with the desire to grow and succeed - from students straight out of high school to older working adults looking to learn new skills.

As representatives of our higher education institutions, we wish to suggest several areas of consideration for strengthening higher education, preserving America's economic and national security, and ensuring that our citizens have full opportunity to succeed in a world undergoing vast and rapid change.

Main points:

1. Solving the Access Problem, Together
2. Maintaining the Public Trust through Greater Transparency
3. Maintaining Our Competitive Edge - From Research to Job Training
4. Advancing International Education – Our Best Diplomatic Tool
5. Success Through a Proactive Partnership

From Academic to Architectural Practice, and Back

This brief (4.5 minutes) video begins, "Life is a design problem. Anything is a design problem."

Mardelle Shepley, DArch, director of the Center for Health Systems & Design at Texas A&M University, describes her adventures moving from the academic setting to an architectural practice for several months, and what the experience taught her about the information needs of practicing architects wanting to pursue evidence-based design.

Postcard from Chief Dull Knife College

Yes, there really is a Chief Dull Knife College. As you can learn very quickly from this "postcard," meaning a text and visual snapshot of a unique institution:

Littlebear, 68, has a doctorate in education from Boston University and is fluent in Cheyenne; he teaches evening courses in it. He refers to tribal colleges as "underfunded miracles." With a meager $4.9 million budget provided mostly by the Federal Government, his school operates on a thin shoestring indeed. But Chief Dull Knife College perseveres, holding out hope for a new generation of Northern Cheyennes. More than half its graduates now go on to four-year schools.

Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources

Everyone complains about textbook prices. Who's going to do something about them? A consortium of community colleges has created the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources. Its goal is "to identify, create and/or repurpose required course content as Open Textbooks and make them available for use by community college students and faculty in America and globally."

The first open textbook, Collaborative Statistics, is now freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license for use by community college statistics professors at http://cnx.org/content/col10522/latest/. More open textbooks are now being identified for use in the months and years ahead. As CCCOER develops and more open textbooks are created, located, and used by community college professors, more information will be added to this website.

Community College and Industry Partner for Economic Development: North Carolina

Wilkes Community College is the leader of the Northwest North Carolina Advanced Materials Cluster, Inc. (Cluster), "a public/private partnership for economic development focused on enhancing research, education, and economic infrastructure."Read this League for Innovation Leadership Abstract to learn more:

The Cluster (www.advancedmaterialsnc.org) formed in January 2004, when county managers of Wilkes, Ashe, and Alleghany Counties joined WCC to create a sustainable economy in northwest North Carolina. Under the direction of WCC, the Cluster forged partnerships among a number of industries, educational institutions, and governmental agencies. An executive committee guides the mission of research, education, job growth, and infrastructure. Collaboratively, the committee makes strategic decisions regarding programs, organizational structure, and partnerships. What began as a three-county economic development effort under the leadership of their community college has now grown to encompass several counties, partners, and networks across the state.

As the three-county service area’s higher education institution, WCC saw the webs of interconnections that weave the region together; became more aware that the region lives in relationship, connected to everything else; and learned that profoundly different processes explain how open systems emerge and change. Many disciplines, in different sectors and voices, now speak about the advantages of networks, the value of relationships, the importance of context, and new ways to honor and work with wholeness.

From Martha Piper: A Five-Step Program for Change

SCUPers enjoyed Piper's plenary address at SCUP–43. A lot of what she had to say there is now covered in this new article from University Affairs:

Let me start with a quote by James Duderstadt, from the book A University for the 21st Century: “We must take care not simply to extrapolate from the past, but rather to examine the full range of possibilities for the future.”

But there’s a problem with that quote as far as I’m concerned – it doesn’t resonate particularly well in universities.

Why do I say that? Because universities relish the past. They’re built on the history of centuries. They pride themselves on not changing. Scholars are taught by scholars who were taught by scholars. Teaching methods and cultural values have been handed down from generation to generation to generation. They actually resist change because they believe they’ve done it right, and the traditions are so ingrained in the culture.

With Free Bikes, Challenging Car Culture on Campus

It sure looks like a combination of gas costs, the economy, sustainability, and even fitness considerations (No more Freshman Fifteen!) has created a strong push toward bicycle use on campus: (And a recent related article is College Students Adapt to High Gas Prices; plus once you get the students using bikes, then you have more problems as noted in Stanford U. Tries to Calm Bike Traffic at 'Intersection of Death'.

The University of New England and Ripon College in Wisconsin are giving free bikes to freshmen who promise to leave their cars at home. Other colleges are setting up free bike sharing or rental programs, and some universities are partnering with bike shops to offer discounts on purchases.

The goal, college and university officials said, is to ease critical shortages of parking and to change the car culture that clogs campus roadways and erodes the community feel that comes with walking or biking around campus.

“We’re seeing an explosion in bike activity,” said Julian Dautremont-Smith, associate director of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, a nonprofit association of colleges and universities. “It seems like every week we hear about a new bike sharing or bike rental program.”

Rethinking Choices (After the Financial Crisis Has Hit)

Former GWU president Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is blogging for The Chronicle Review in its "Brainstorm: Lives of the Mind" blog. His latest post is about the financial situation "forcing campus constituencies to rethink their choices." From his perspective, "[a]ssumptions are being thrown out the door" (or will be soon).

The administration. Strategic plans traditionally look ahead five to ten years, carefully laying out institutional goals and mission, putting building blocks in place, charting the course for the future. Every sound administrator expects to make mid-course adjustments, to tweak the strategic model, to respond to small bumps in the road. Very few, however, could have predicted the perfect storm: horrendous loses in endowments; the tightening of credit for capital projects; lack of liquidity available for short-term loans; possible reduction of personal and foundation philanthropic gifts; and the potential loss of student applicants.

This is the time for reinvention. As the president of the University of Arizona recently said, “We cannot achieve our aspirations with either our current funding or operational models.” How this is accomplished will depend on how quickly colleges and universities (and the rest of the world) sense that a stable floor has returned to the economy. If the markets continue to tumble, some decisions — and possible draconian ones — will need to be made quickly, and if the markets take a deep breath and appear to return to a calm, then decisions can be made with greater deliberation. To paraphrase the old education expression — here are the new 3-Rs for these troubled times: Reorganizing, Restructuring, and Reformatting how the business of higher education is accomplished.

The Impact of Culture on Organizational Decision Making: Theory and Practice in Higher Education

William G. Tierney's new book is making some waves. He was recently interviewed by Scott Jaschik at Inside Higher Ed. From the interview:

Q: What are the key ways higher education organizational structure differs from other sectors of American society?

A: Traditional colleges and universities have two key differences with other organizations.

First, the central force of a university is its commitment to academic freedom — the ability for individuals to speak out without fear of reprisal. Some years ago I visited universities in Afghanistan to help them think through what possible next steps might be after years of devastation. Although the universities suffered from horrific infrastructure problems, what struck me more than anything else was the lack of a tradition of academic freedom and the inability of individuals to speak freely without having to look over their back. Those who deride the faculty’s ability to speak out suffer from historical amnesia and overlook the centrality of a public sphere that enables, foments, and sustains healthy intellectual dialogue in a democracy.

Second, universities suffer from messy decision-making. Multiple constituencies have to be involved if a decision is to be successful. Trust is central to an effective culture. Those institutions that are most effective succeed less by formalized rules and regulations and more by the consent of the governed.

Town & Gown: Things Go Better With Some Sugar

Lesley University, in Boston, recently made some news with its elaborate courting of its neighbors in the planning process for a new student housing project. Jack Stripling writes about that town and gown "partnership" in the context of its location in a difficult town for such things: Boston, MA:

As the Boston Globe recently reported, the partnership marked a departure from what have sometimes been contentious negotiations between residents and Boston College, Northeastern University and Harvard. Far from stifling the project, however, the neighborhood committee approach ended with Lesley getting support for a larger project that included two buildings, instead of the one building initially proposed.

“I think the lesson is if you’re a university planner is talk to your neighbors early and often,” Meyer said. “Don’t wait; get them involved in the process. Tell them what your needs are, and listen to what their needs are … and you may get more than you dreamed from the neighbors.”

In February, Lesley officials drew up a plan for a five-story building that would house about 80 students. But in order to accommodate the neighbors’ desire to shield a parking lot from public view and to include retail space on the first floor, the project grew to two buildings that will serve 98 students. That required changes in zoning, and neighbors actually petitioned city officials to make that happen.

Financial Crisis Could Give Jolt to Strategic Planning on Campuses

A thoughtful article by Paul Fain of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Fain talked to a lot of people and put his 30,000-foot view goggles on. Definitely worth a read:

No university leader could have predicted the full brunt of the financial turmoil of recent weeks. But colleges with solid strategic plans are more likely to remain on track and perhaps even spot opportunities, planning experts say.

"If you're really strategic in your thinking," says Thomas C. Longin, an independent consultant for colleges, "a crisis like this doesn't throw you."

However, Mr. Longin and other planners say many institutions do not adequately grasp strategic finance, focusing mostly on short-term budget needs. And they say most strategic plans take too long to prepare and are not nimble enough to respond to serious challenges.

A welcome shake-up in university planning is in the works, says Sal D. Rinella, a strategic consultant and former university president who is president of the governing board of the Society for College and University Planning.

"Strategic planning is really going to need to change," says Mr. Rinella. He adds that a tight economy "forces an institution to focus on what is most important."

Colleges will need to shorten their time horizons, with strategic plans lasting no more than three to five years. They must revisit them often, experts say, and make difficult choices, quickly, to stick to their stated priorities.

Princeton’s Campus Plan Comes Into Full Bloom

Princeton University has a new campus plan that dovetails nicely with its recent commitment to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels . . . by 2020. Here's an Architectural Record article about the new campus plan, pointing out that Princeton's initial plan had many conservation features. We also have a link directly to the front page of an extensive website about the plan.

The Chronicle of Higher Education's International Section

The Chronicle's International section is not just the table of contents to its articles and stories. It's also a useful page with a long listing of links for US-Based Organizations, International Organizations, and related Data Sources.

Creating Time and Space for Faculty Reflection, Risk-Taking, and Renewal

From the Tomorrow's Professor Blog, comes this interesting piece originally published in the Summer 2008 issue of The Department Chair: A Resource for Academic Administrators:

Faculty today must stay up to date in their fields and energetic in their classrooms or they cannot provide the quality education that students deserve. However, as faculty duties expand and their personal lives become more complex, it is increasingly difficult for faculty to find the space and time necessary to grow professionally and support their institutional communities. Frequently, faculty are overextended in their personal and professional roles while trying to maintain their stride on the academic treadmill. In this climate, institutions must try to find places within the lives of faculty that enable them to reflect on their work,take risks, and reenergize themselves and their academic careers.

In this article, we share the insights we gained by studying the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Faculty Career Enhancement (FCE) program. The Mellon Foundation sought to promote the development of faculty across the academic lifecycle by providing support to selected institutions to design programs tailored to the distinctive needs of their faculty members.

Beyond the Sticker Shock 2008: A Closer Look at Canadian Tuition Fees

This is a recent Educational Policy Institute monograph (PDF). To be cited as: Usher, Alex, and Duncan, Patrick (2008). Beyond the Sticker Shock: A Closer Look at Canadian Tuition Fees. Toronto, ON: Educational Policy Institute. Worth a read if you'd like to understand that costs and tuition look like in Canada.

In 2006 the Educational Policy Institute released the first edition of ‘Beyond the Sticker Price: A Closer Look at Canadian University Tuition Fees’. The report presented a new way by which to look at the prices and costs associated with university tuition, an alternative to the annual tuition fee report produced by Statistics Canada which more accurately reflects what students and their families actually pay in tuition fees once all various subsidies are taken into account.

The purpose of this paper is to build upon the research and analysis conducted for this paper’s original release. This paper will present available data from a ten year period from 1997‐98 to 2007‐08 and look at real changes in tuition fees, educational tax credits and tax rebate programs over that period. Of particular importance in this paper is the effect of the introduction of new tax rebate programs in four provinces since the last report. These programs have reduced the net cost of education substantially, particularly in Manitoba and New Brunswick. This new data will permit us to generate some alternative calculations of net tuition which are substantially more accurate as measures of cost than the simple tuition fee data. These measures, in turn, will permit us to see precisely how changing government policies on education tax credits and programs are affecting the people who receive them.

Hazards and Hurricanes: Hallmarks of IT Readiness, Response, and Recovery

This publication of the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) is available to staff and faculty at ECAR subscribing institutions and companies. Especially if you are at a large institution, even if you are not directly connected with ECAR you may be able to complete an EDUCAUSE personal profile and access this and other reports.

This report is based on an interview with Louisiana State University's Melody Childs about that institution's readiness and reactions to the recent Hurricane Gustav.

Abstract and citation:

This ECAR research bulletin provides five hallmarks for IT readiness, response, and recovery in the face of a devastating natural disaster. It is based on an ECAR interview with the deputy CIO of Louisiana State University conducted 10 days after Hurricane Gustav shut down the city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on September 1, 2008. It illustrates the fortitude of an institution that has built a campus environment based on a culture of safety, security, and trust—especially in times of crisis. The bulletin also illustrates the power of planning, openness, communication, teamwork, training, attention to detail, focus, practice, and leadership.

Citation for this work: Childs, Melody. “Hazards and Hurricanes: Hallmarks of IT Readiness, Response, and Recovery.” (Research Bulletin, Issue 21). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2008, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

World Rankings Provoke Global Reaction

See the listing of the current top 200 universities, worldwide. Does this list matter? Some have suggested that few pay attention to world rankings. However, the media is paying more and more attention. The latest "Top 50" list has been published and here are some of the reactions by the top leaders at those schools. As well, Times Higher Education is exploring the reactions from the international higher education community:

In the US, which once again dominates the top of the league table, the Chronicle of Higher Education highlighted that 37 of the top 100 institutions are American, including six of the top ten, while the Ann Arbor News noted that the University of Michigan, placed 18th in the table, was the highest-ranked public university in the country.

Meanwhile, the news agency Bloomberg calculated that US universities occupy 20 of the top 50 slots and British institutions eight.

In Canada, much was made of McGill University’s appearance at 20th spot in the rankings, a fall of eight places for the country’s best-rated institution.

Call to Arms for Adjuncts . . . From an Administrator

A nicely-done article about an important issue that was heavily discussed at CUPA-HR recently:

Why doesn’t the adjunct system work managerially? “We’ve created a two-tier instructional staff” without telling the students or the public, he said. “You know that if you have two people do the same jobs and one is paid three times the other, one is going to get ticked off,” he said.

But the ones who are suffering from “gross disparities in salaries and benefits,” he said, are the ones who are doing an increasing share of the teaching. Monaco acknowledged that at research universities, there is a genuine need for faculty members to have extended non-teaching time to perform their responsibilities to advance scholarship. But he said that, up to master’s institutions, adjuncts and tenure-track faculty members have become largely indistinguishable in quality or classroom duties, but one group has much better pay and benefits. At most institutions outside the research elites, he said, the professors teaching less to do research “aren’t curing cancer.”

He said that this is creating a disaster for higher education. Colleges justify the higher pay and tenure for some by saying that these professors are the very best. But if these are the best, Monaco said, why are colleges letting others do most of the teaching of undergraduates? Further, he said, it is more difficult to defend tenure or a permanent faculty when those with job security “teach Milton to 5 people,” while those off the tenure track who teach freshman comp must have packed classes of 28, and teach off of a syllabus they played no role in creating.

Big Man on Campus: An Interview with Stephen Joel Trachtenberg

This interview is available both as streaming audio and in transcript form. Trachtenberg was president of George Washington University for 19 years. Prior to that he served as president of the University of Hartford for 11 years. His latest book is titled Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education. When asked about his comments in the book that he hoped the GW board would treat his successor more humanely, he replied:

Well, I was being slightly tongue in cheek of course. What I meant was that college presidents, and my successor is no exception in this regard, are being driven to raise more and more funds in order to feed the institution. And this is daunting and I anticipated that with a new president coming in, the university would have ambitions and would want to take the institution to the next level. That's why we bring in new presidents—to help us focus on the future, to help us define where we want to go, and to write the next chapter of the institutional history. And I had just left office—during my tenure, we had gone from $200 million in endowment to about a billion four hundred million dollars in endowment. And, this gives people appetite. And I thought, my goodness, they need to have a certain amount of compassion for this new man coming in not knowing his constituencies, not yet having a vision for the institution. They had to work with him, and understand he was not a magician.

College Portraits - New Website of the Voluntary System of Accountability

AASCU and NASULGC have been cooperating on the Voluntary System of Accountability and have now opened a new website, College Portraits. Here are a couple of statements from the accompanying press release:

“The College Portrait places America’s four-year public colleges and universities at the forefront of the higher education accountability movement,” said Peter McPherson, president of NASULGC. “College PortraitTM is designed to be trustworthy source of reliable data for prospective students, families, policymakers and the general public. It becomes the only voluntary accountability program that includes student learning outcomes and easily comparable information for a majority of the nation’s public four-year colleges and universities.”

“No one should be surprised that public higher education has taken the lead on accountability,” said Constantine W. (Deno) Curris, president of AASCU. “Our institutions have a long history of commitment to public accountability and learning outcomes. College PortraitTM is being unveiled at a time when severe financial constraints for both families and state governments increase our obligation to provide dependable, accurate information in keeping with our public trust.”

Guidelines for Collaboration: The Dean's Perspective

A concise Project Kaleidoscope essay with a lot of heft to it:

It is important to remember that when committees are established for a specific task, existing relationships between people often change. People, some of whom may have worked together in other arenas, are coming together around a new task. They are being asked to think in a different way as they begin collaborating on a difficult, demanding and complex assignment, understanding how to use their differences in ways that advance their collective agenda. It is vital that the early life of the group be built around trust, with procedures, time frames, work plans, and schedules established openly and transparently.

Ownership of the task connects to trust. Everyone needs to feel that her or his individuality is acknowledged, even as the group joins together for the larger goal. Those in leadership roles, particularly the project shepherd (a PKAL title for the key person in a facilities planning effort), must continually see that diversity of perspectives are brought to the table and that disagreements are addressed in a timely manner. This recognition of the value of the different and diverse perspectives at the table helps to build trust in the process, enfranchises all involved, and leads to wide-spread ownership of both the process and the outcome.

The Certainty Bias: A Potentially Dangerous Mental Flaw

You know one or more of these people: Always certain they are right, making important decisions on the certainty of "gut feelings" or personal beliefs. Every planner has to deal with them. These ensights on the "Certainty Bias" from neuroscientist Robert Burton offer some help in understanding the phenomenon:

I have looked upon those who ooze self-confidence and certainty with a combination of envy and suspicion. . . . It is easy to be cynical and suspect the worst of motives, from greed to ignorance, but I have known many first-rate, highly concerned and seemingly well motivated physicians who, nevertheless, operate based upon gut feelings and personal beliefs even in the face of contrary scientific evidence. After years of rumination, it gradually dawned on me that there may be an underlying biological component to such behavior.

The Lucky Ones Are on the Iceberg, Even as it Melts

We've linked to previous writing by Wick Sloane, who is "embedded" at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston with a modest fellowship to write about the finances and inequities in community colleges. He starts this essay by noting that he has just been asked by a publisher for a student's permission to publish his English essay in a textbook, but Sloane can no longer even locate his previous student.

We know the six million credit students now in community colleges have little chance of completing even an associate degree. Yet, community college is voluntary. These are individuals who, against the odds, choose education over extra food in the kitchen and who, often on top of 50- and 60-hour work schedules, choose to come to school and learn.

Here’s an e-mail from a student last week: “My 10 mo. old daughter is very sick and I have been at the hospital since last night. She will get monitored all day today to track her progress. I will email some assignments later today. Thanks in advance!” His daughter has meningitis. He did e-mail me the homework.

Causes need a visual. I can’t find one for community colleges. With the Wal-Marting of America, the students have perfectly normal clothes. Their pain and their wounds are of the soul.

Chief Business Officers Speak Out

This worthy read is subtitled "Four campus business leaders discuss daily and long-term challenges, from breaking down silos across campus to controlling tuition."

In it, one CBO, when asked "How do you keep peace between the business and academic camps on campus?" responded:

This is a biggy. You need to help them understand you are there to support their success. I need to do everything I can do to help them teach better—things as simple as making sure the classroom is clean, do they have the technology and equipment they need. If they see I’m doing everything I can to support their teaching, that goes a long way toward establishing trust. As the head of finance, I look at the world of opportunity rather than the world of scarcity. I’m always looking for creative revenue generation to support them—grants, advertising opportunities. When the faculty see you are doing everything you can to bring them the best learning environment, it goes a long way to establishing trust.

Smart Planning: Why Do Any Other Kind?

This brief article highlights, for readers of University Business magazine, some of the programming that we enjoyed at SCUP–43 in Montreal back in July—while making the case for smart planning:

Who should be doing smart planning? Everyone on campus who has any administrative or leadership role. Sadly, many plan without even realizing that is what they are doing. Even a senior administrator who manages a large budget may not be conscious of the fact that a budget is, in reality, a plan, expressed in dollars instead of the letters of the alphabet. Fewer still plan with the context of the entire institution in mind. Some are so focused on departmental or unit issues that they do not consider the effects of their planning on other units, or the potential synergistic opportunities that arise from integrating with the plans of other units. All of us can do our job better if we work at integrating our planning with the work of others. That’s just smart.

Hard Work! Where Do Administrative Policies Come From?

In the Getting to Green blog, the anonymous administrator continues his observations from the work to shift an entire campus toward greater sustainability:

So where do little administrative policies come from? Well, I wish they sprung full-grown from the head of Zeus (or should that be Wotan?). They don’t. Even the simplest policy Greenback publishes is the result of a disheartening amount of effort. Getting to the appropriate key decision-maker; convincing that individual that a policy mandating, prohibiting, or encouraging a specific form of behavior would benefit the university; identifying the various stakeholders on campus who will implement (or neuter) the policy when it’s been published; getting a consensus among them as to what the gist of the policy should be; finding a wording which is strong enough but not too strong; which captures the thinking of the ultimate decision-maker(s) without offending those one or two levels down the administrative hierarchy; getting everyone onside and the decision actually made — all of that takes far more work than I ever would have guessed.

The Governance We Deserve

From Kristen Esterberg and John Woodling, in Inside Higher Ed, write about "the real bitterness and enmity that existed between too many faculty and administrators, on both sides of the divide" and offer the results of some research on ways to lower the tension a bit:

No longer administrators, we returned to the faculty. But we remained concerned about how difficult it was to manage the university, let alone change it in fundamental ways. Trying to find an answer, we embarked on a research project that sought explanation in the identities, experiences, and careers of both administrators and faculty at public institutions. We interviewed 30 administrators and faculty members from public campuses in the Northeast. We mined our own experience. We read widely about higher education. We thought about what we were reading. We talked to a lot of people. What we present here is part of a book-length study of public higher education based on this research.

University Risk Management and Insurance Association (URMIA)

From this organization:

Goals: To protect the reputation and resources, both human and financial, of institutions of higher education through the incorporation of sound risk management practices into all aspects of their operations; to make available the best and complete risk management information for institutions of higher education; and to provide excellent professional development opportunities for the risk management professionals in higher education.

International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA)

The following organization is either wholly dedicated toward certain kinds of disaster and crisis plans in higher education or are engaged in meaningful related initiatives.

The International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) advances public safety for educational institutions by providing educational resources, advocacy, and professional development services. IACLEA is the leading voice for the campus public safety community. IACLEA was created by eleven college and university security directors who met in November of 1958 at Arizona State University to discuss job challenges and mutual problems, and to create a clearinghouse for information and issues shared by campus public safety directors across the country. Today, IACLEA membership represents more than 1,200 colleges and universities in 20 countries. In addition to the colleges and universities, which are institutional members, IACLEA has 2,200 individual memberships held by campus law enforcement staff, criminal justice faculty members, and municipal chiefs of police.

Campus Safety, Health, and Environmental Management Association (CSHEMA)

The following organization is either wholly dedicated toward certain kinds of disaster and crisis plans in higher education or are engaged in meaningful related initiatives.

CSHEMA provides information sharing opportunities, continuing education, and professional fellowship to people with environmental health and safety responsibilities in the education and research communities. CSHEMA leads by listening to its members, organizing their efforts, developing leadership that responds to the needs of the education and research communities, and striving for excellence in everything it does.

Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Communications & Marketing

The following organization is either wholly dedicated toward certain kinds of disaster and crisis plans in higher education or are engaged in meaningful related initiatives.

Welcome to the Communications and Marketing section of the CASE Network. Whether you are a public relations counselor or a market researcher, a media relations officer or a periodical editor, a campus events coordinator or a speechwriter, here you will find a wide array of regularly updated resources designed to enhance your work and to advance your career.

EDUCAUSE Connect: Business Continuity Planning

From this article:

Business continuity (BC) can be defined as an institution's ability to maintain or restore its business and academic services when some circumstance disrupts normal operations. BC involves disaster recovery, the many activities that are necessary to restore the institution to operational status after a disaster. BC planning is an institution-wide responsibility and needs a champion at the executive level in order to make progress. A collaborative effort is needed to do a robust risk assessment, to prioritize what business processes need to be restored in what order, and to plan and practice the steps needed to restore operations back to a working level after an event. This integrated approach involves every department understanding and preparing for the role it will play in keeping the entire institution functional in a crisis and operational long-term. BC involves more than just traditional administrative information systems recovery; it also means planning for contingencies for teaching and research in the event those systems on which these services depend are inoperable. Academic sustainability needs to be at the forefront of BC planning. Recent incidents such as Katrina have brought BC planning into sharp focus for higher education institutions.

Building a Disaster-Resistant University

From this article:

In the last decade, disasters have affected university and college campuses with high frequency. They sometimes cause death and injury and always impose monetary losses and disruption of the institution's teaching, research and public service. Damage to buildings and infrastructure and interruption to the institutional mission result in significant losses that can be measured by faculty and student departures, decreases in research funding, and increases in insurance premiums. These losses can be substantially reduced or eliminated through comprehensive pre-disaster planning and mitigation actions. 'Building A Disaster-Resistant University' is both a how-to guide and a distillation of the experiences of six universities and colleges that have been working to become more disaster-resistant. This guide provides basic information designed for institutions just getting started, as well as concrete ideas, suggestions, and practical experiences for institutions that have already begun to take steps to becoming more disaster-resistant.

Business Continuity Planning Model from NACUBO (DOC)

From this article in NACUBO online:

How would your educational institution handle a similar situation? Suppose a natural disaster—an earthquake, flood, fire, or tornado—occurred tomorrow. Or, what would happen if your institution experienced a widespread technology failure or became the target of terrorists? In the wake of such a traumatic event, does your institution have a plan in place that would ensure the business continuity of its operations? This model provides you with guidelines for developing such a plan. It grew out of the work of CampusRelief, a joint effort sponsored by the American Council on Higher Education (ACE) and the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). Established in September 2005, the short-term CampusRelief project provided an Internet-based community and resource center for institutions, faculty, staff, and students struggling to recover from the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

How Prepared Are America's Colleges and Universities for Major Crises?

From this article by Ian I. Mitroff, Michael A. Diamond, and C. Murat Alpaslan, initially published in Change magazine:

The purpose of this article is to outline a set of recommendations to college and university leaders and governing bodies on how to develop crisis-management systems to ensure that their institutions are as well prepared as possible for a wide range of crises. These recommendations are based, in part, on crisis-management programs developed for various business organizations by one of the authors. Since there is virtually no national research that details how colleges and universities have prepared for such events, we also conducted a survey of colleges and universities to determine the level of crisis-management preparation among American colleges and universities. The results of that survey also inform our recommendations.

Lessons From the Front: The Presidential Role in Disaster Planning and Response

From this article:

This monograph by SCUP President Sal Rinella was published in early 2007 and distributed electronically and via hard copy to every college and university president in the United States. Designed to live in the briefcase or backpack of those presidents, it is a summation of lessons learned by a number of college and university presidents who have led their campuses through the aftermath of major disasters.

In New Orleans, Move-In Day (Again)

From this article:

Across St. Charles Avenue from Loyola University New Orleans, the grounds of Audubon Zoo were littered with branches and other debris on Sunday, but the university's green spaces were pristine. And as students moved into their residence halls on a hot late summer afternoon, it seemed like any other such day on any other campus—except that, for those at Loyola and many other universities in the Gulf Coast region, they were moving back into their dorms, two weeks after the real 'move-in' day of the 2008–2009 academic year. Loyola's students and employees dispersed to Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and elsewhere late last month as Hurricane Gustav threatened to lash New Orleans with 100-mile per hour winds. Three years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita did tens of billions of dollars of damage to homes, businesses and institutions in New Orleans, catching many officials off-guard, administrators at Loyola and other area colleges took no chances this time around.

Power Outages After Hurricane Ike Will Keep Campuses Closed

From this article:

College officials in Houston, Galveston, Beaumont, and other parts of the Gulf Coast spent the weekend slogging through flooded and debris-strewn campuses, trying to assess how much damage Hurricane Ike had wreaked and when they could safely resume classes. . . . Even though many campuses appear to have escaped serious structural damage, their ability to resume classes this week may be hampered by widespread power outages in the region. That was the case earlier this month when Hurricane Gustav interrupted the fall semester for thousands of students in Louisiana and bordering areas of Texas.

Midwest Colleges Struggle to Bounce Back From Hurricane's Fury

From this article:

A few days after the remnants of Hurricane Ike swept through the Midwest after pounding coastal Texas and Louisiana, colleges and universities across Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and other states in the region continued to be hamstrung on Tuesday by wide-ranging power outages and flooding. . . . Ohio colleges are trying to clear debris and restore power after the state saw hurricane-force winds over the weekend as Ike made its way through the Ohio Valley. Repairs to the electrical grid could be delayed because a number of utility workers from Ohio were sent to help restore infrastructure hammered by Ike in Texas, before the extent of the damage in Ohio became clear. But some utility companies in Ohio are recalling their workers, according to the Associated Press.

Texas Campuses Begin Cleaning Up After Ike, and Some Reopen

From this article:

Officials at colleges and universities along the Texas Gulf Coast continued to catalog damages and get their facilities back online on Monday in the wake of Hurricane Ike, and a few that were in the storm's path were even reopening. The availability of electrical power was a deciding factor for many, as the storm destroyed power grids as it roared ashore early Saturday with peak winds at 110 miles an hour, leaving more than three million utility customers in the dark.

In Devastated Galveston, a Hospital Is on Hold

From this article:

Three days after Hurricane Ike devastated this island community, along with much of the Texas Gulf Coast, the teaching hospital that has survived hurricanes for more than a century was once again getting back on its feet. . . . Campus officials say it could be a month or more before the hospital resumes regular operations and is able to bring all of its students and residents back. In the meantime, administrators are working on temporary placements for 557 medical residents and about 2,400 medical, nursing, allied-health, and graduate students. The hospital has about 12,000 employees, 8,000 of whom work in Galveston.

Tapping State College Research and Development Capacity in Support of State Economic Development

AASCU staffer Daniel Hurley writes in Policy Matters (PDF):

Conclusion

Among the direct benefits of state investment in university research and development activities are new business start-ups, job creation, the attraction and retention of highly skilled, highly paid workers, increased tax revenues, and an elevated standing on the national innovation scene. The return on investment of these public tax dollars is accompanied by additional positive impacts derived from this research and technology transfer activity that benefit society as a whole, such as improvements in health care, the environment, transportation, and public safety.

In their efforts to implement a broad economic development strategy that includes applied research and product commercialization activities, state policymakers, in partnership with the private sector, should seek to tap the full potential of all four-year state colleges and universities. The extent to which individual regional state colleges are involved in applied research and entrepreneurial support activities varies greatly. Collectively, however, these institutions make a meaningful contribution to states’ overall economic development agendas. Granting all public postsecondary institutions the opportunity to participate in state-funded research and development grant programs, lending legislative and public policy support to facilitate state colleges’ efforts to attract, retain and expand businesses and industry clusters, and tapping the full slate of intellectual resources offered by university scientists will enhance states’ capacity to increase their competitiveness in the knowledge-age economy.

Painting a Post-Election Picture: Higher Education Policy After November 5

A good, thought-provoking article (PDF) from Public Purpose:

By the end of the next President’s first term:

✔ the United States will have three million more jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree and not enough college graduates to fill them;

✔ 90 percent of the fastest-growing jobs, 60 percent of all new jobs, and 40 percent of manufacturing jobs will require some form of postsecondary education; and

✔ global competition will demand research and innovation on a scale that even the U.S. is not yet prepared to sustain.
Yet little has been said at the hustings. In July, William Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, said, “I am disappointed that the candidates have not spent more time on higher education, and in particular on the issues of access to higher education and the urgency of having a much higher percentage of our young people go to and succeed in college.”

Leadership, Incompetence, and Delegation (or Lack Thereof)

We don't know about you, but we are regularly enjoying G. Rendell's anonymous posts in the Getting to Green blog at Inside Higher Ed. The sustainability content is good, of course, he's a sustainability director and involved with his institution's ACUPCC planning. What we really love, though, is his regular observations on the struggle and the insights that come from engaging different parts of the campus in integrated planning efforts. Here, he describes why he is not particularly keen on senior faculty taking charge of change initiatives:

Where the skin does come off my nose is when some of these professors, very senior in their fields and thus likely to take a back seat to nobody, get themselves put in charge of campus events and projects. Some of these folk shouldn’t be charged with organizing a church bake sale. They apparently can think abstractly, but they can’t think concretely. And the concrete world is where things happen (or fail to).

Now I’ve worked in the corporate world, and I know that a lot of managers are in their respective positions because they’ve gotten promoted to the level at which their incompetence is unmistakeable. But in the business world, the organizational hierarchy gives the incompetent a survival tactic — they learn to delegate. (Some do it well, some do it badly, but even Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss does it.) Academe, of course, is famously non-hierarchical. My observation is that, probably as a result, the delegating skill is rarely learned. (Teaching assistants and academic secretaries might disagree in part, but they’ll certainly agree that skillful, effective delegation is extremely rare in academic departments.) Where there’s no delegation, there’s no management. And where there’s no management, projects tend to end badly.

Planning for Contraction. Is Expansion in Higher Education Over?

Timothy Burke has long been seeing a problem with what he sees as an innate assumption in thinking by academic stakeholders— "the assumption of growth or plenitude is deeply ingrained."

Even before the economic news of the last year, I was increasingly convinced that all but perhaps four or five American universities with extraordinary wealth had come to the end of a long period of expansion. . . . So, the party’s over. However, I’m not hearing a lot of preparation for what higher education will look like if growth is over. Planning for minimal growth or even contraction in some cases might just require budgetary prudence and restraint, but I that’s not enough. There’s a different mindset involved. . . . Here are some of the shifts in thinking needed.

As Credit Crisis Freezes Colleges, Worries Mount

Many thanks to our friends at The Chronicle of Higher Education for allowing us to share this comprehensive report with SCUPers free of password protection.

When the stock market plunged 778 points this week, losing almost 9 percent of its value in one day, higher education responded in an uncharacteristic way: It began to buckle.

Colleges have often considered themselves recession-proof. But this week’s events compounded an already difficult year for many institutions, which have suffered from declining state support, tightening credit, and losses on endowment earnings. As a result, the financial meltdown—with its promise of a prolonged economic downturn—prompted some institutions to take radical steps and wreaked havoc on the way colleges do business.

APPA & NACUBO 2008 Conference Reports

Who doesn't want to know what went on at the conference they didn't go to? Brief summaries of what went on at the NACUBO and APPA conferences this past summer are linked to here: APPA 2008 Conference Highlights (PDF), NACUBO in the Windy City.

The 'Developing Country" Model of Information Technology: How is Afghanistan Like Miami Dade College?

Yet another source of information about how financial pressures may be causing pragmatic leaps forward in virtual education.

Miami Dade College is unique in that it is arguably the largest and most diverse college in the nation, but our concerns are the same as those of smaller, community-based colleges in Florida and elsewhere. We serve students who need financial and academic support in order to attend college, and we do so with a per-student allotment that is several times lower than that of public universities in the state. In terms of institutional funding, Miami Dade is the equivalent of Afghanistan competing against the European Union.

However, leaps in the adoption of technology can help Miami Dade to keep up with the Joneses. More and more, students are pushing the future landscape of education toward online learning. The Miami Dade Virtual College, established in 1997, has exceeded annual growth projections of 25 percent. Seemingly overnight, the student population of the Virtual College has become bigger than that at four of the eight actual campuses, and it is hard to predict how much larger it will grow. Twenty years ago, we could have easily predicted new construction, but who could have predicted a landless, building-less college? Even though online courses require investments in software and course design, the cost savings from the reduction in physical space are obvious and extensive.

Systemwide Use of APPA's Facilities Performance Indicators

The University of North Carolina system used APPA's Facilities Performance Indicators (FPI) systemwide, as part of a planning process described in Facilities Manager (PDF):

Jack Colby, assistant vice chancellor for facilities at North Carolina State University, saw yet another opportunity for FPI. His vision was to utilize the FPI to address the University of North Carolina System’s PACE initiative. The PACE initiative (President’s Advisory Committee for Efficiency and Effectiveness) was put in place to encourage universities within the UNC System to look for opportunities to benchmark their facilities organizations and continually improve their performance. Jack made his presentation to the System Board and got a commitment to support a systemwide initiative for the facilities managers at each of the system’s 17 campuses.

Perhaps the most important reason this initiative was so successful is that there was an agreement that each institution would go into this with the goal in mind of improving their own organization by reallocating resources within their operations. There would be no realignment of appropriations from one campus to another. This commitment by the System office helped institutions feel comfortable in participating without a fear of loss.

Cost/Benefit for Sustainable Design

A design time in 2008 has a lot more options than before to find sustainable design applications (and LEED credits) that don't cost a ton of money. Paying attention to site selection, for example, can gain credits early on and no additional cost. Another factor is to ensure that whenever you're going to have to conform to environmental regulations anyway—such as local runoff water regulations—be sure to get those related credits. In this 5-minute video from Healthcare Design magazine, James Moler covers some of this ground.

Parag Khanna: Embrace the Post-American Age

Parag Khanna opened our eyes to higher education in the "Second World" at SCUP–43 last summer. (Seems like so long ago!) Now he's one of the 15 smart people who Wired magazine believes the next American president needs to listen to. Note to the world: SCUPers listened to him first! If you didn't take good notes at his plenary session in Montreal, you now have the choice of his book or this briefer article in Wired.

Here's one view of America circa 2008: The US is a modern-day Roman Empire — overstretched, underperforming, slowly crumbling into history's dustbin. Here's Parag Khanna's view: Nonsense. The geopolitical wooziness Americans are feeling isn't decline. It's realignment.

In his book The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, Khanna, 31, describes a planet dominated by a trio of superpowers: the US, China, and Europe. In this tripolar era, America's fate depends on tough national choices, not lame historical analogies. If the US wises up — by tightening trade and energy ties to the rest of the hemisphere, pursuing economic innovation at home, and establishing a "diplomatic-industrial complex" — it can grow stronger even as the globe becomes less red, white, and blue.

Worldmapper: A New Way of Looking at the World

This nifty online resource is a collaborative effort between the University of Sheffield (UK), the University of Michigan, and others. It is "a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest." This specific map illustrates spending on tertiary (higher) education. (Territory size shows the proportion of all spending on tertiary education worldwide that is spent there, when measured in purchasing power parity US$.)



© Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).

Of all spending on tertiary education, when measured in US$ adjusted for local purchasing power, 61% occurs within North America and Western Europe. At the other extreme, the total tertiary education spending in all of Central Africa and Southeastern Africa was 1.5% of the total worldwide spend.

Tertiary education includes the training required for jobs such as being a doctor, an engineer or a scientist. Investing in tertiary education can therefore benefit society more widely. For pupils to reach tertiary education they must first attend primary and secondary schools.

An Investigative Interdisciplinary Lab: The Harvey Mudd College Story

For many years now, SCUPer Jeanne Narum and Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) have been engaging in research and learning related to all aspects of improving STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education. Aspects of PKAL's research range from studying the development of faculty leadership through the design of learning space. This item is a "What Works - A PKAL Essay" titled An Investigative Interdisciplinary Lab: The Harvey Mudd College Story:

This laboratory course was developed by a small core of committed faculty with the support of the three participating departments and the vice president for academic affairs/dean of faculty.

The faculty members met once a week in the spring semester to design the laboratory with the intention of testing the proposed experiments in the following summer with a team of undergraduate students prior to the fall semester implementation. This planning time was crucial to the efficient use of the summer.

What Are Some Potential Consequences for Campuses, of the Current Financial Crisis?

In a recent meeting between some SCUP volunteers and staff in Ann Arbor, it was noted that one of the consequences of the current financial crisis might be an especially difficult time for small private colleges without large amounts of very liquid capital. We hypothesized that, because of the financial crisis, campuses might have limited access to capital, in places where they had stored or invested it, and that might cause them cash flow problems. Now, the New York Times article quoted from below, Bank Limits Fund Access by Colleges, Inciting Fears, shows that at least in some places, this is happening. And this excellent piece, As Credit Crisis Freezes Colleges, Worries Mount, by several Chronicle of Higher Education reporters and editors is a useful scan of the external financial environment and possible effects on higher education.

In a move suggesting how the credit crisis could disrupt American higher education, Wachovia Bank has limited the access of nearly 1,000 colleges to $9.3 billion the bank has held for them in a short-term investment fund, raising worries on some campuses about meeting payrolls and other obligations.

Wachovia, the North Carolina bank that agreed this week to sell its banking operations to Citigroup, has held the money in its role as trustee for a fund used by colleges and universities and managed by a Connecticut nonprofit, Commonfund.

On Monday, Wachovia announced that it would resign its role as trustee of the fund, and would limit access to the fund to 10 percent of each college’s account value. On Tuesday, Commonfund said that by selling some government bonds and other assets held in the fund, it had succeeded in raising its liquidity to 26 percent.

Still, Wachovia’s announcement sent shock waves through higher education, sending hundreds of college presidents rushing to check their financial vulnerability on every front.

Some smaller colleges that had not previously arranged lines of credit were feverishly seeking to negotiate those on Wednesday. And some large institutions said they were facing, at the least, a major financial inconvenience as a result of Wachovia’s action.

The Learning Paradigm College

Book Review of The Learning Paradigm College by John Tagg, Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 2003, 379 pages, ISBN 1-882982-58-4. Reviewed by Sandra L. Kortesoja.

A book by one of the authors in this issue of Planning argues that changing students will be demanding more change of instructional styles than we yet realize.

Read the entire review here. Use the commenting functionality in this blog to comment or share your own opinion, or suggest related good books.

The Inheritance of Millenial Students: What They will Inherit from their Campus Experience — What Legacy Will They Leave

Students need to see examples from society’s leaders of actions to address urgent sustainability challenges in order to motivate them to take actions of their own.

Read the full article here. Then use this blog's capability to comment or share additional, related resources. Thanks.

Millennial students can be inspired to create a legacy for future generations by the recognizable actions of campus planners to create more sustainable campuses through smart growth planning, green buildings, transportation planning, and energy- and water-efficiency retrofits. This article describes policies, programs, and projects at The University of British Columbia; presents student concerns about the future and their reactions to campus initiatives in sustainability, and discusses recent research regarding student responses to green buildings on campuses in Canada.

From the October–November–December 2008 issue of Planning for Higher Education, this "SCUP Links Blog" post provides an opportunity for you to share comments or additional resources/links about the focus of the article, The Inheritance of Millenial Students: What They will Inherit from their Campus Experience — What Legacy Will They Leave, v37n1, pp. PAGES, by AUTHORS. You can read the entire article here.

Note that this issue of Planning is the first of a two-part themed volume with the overall title, Student Life. The second part will be published in January 2009. Assembled, the two parts will be available in late January 2009 for purchase as a single PDF document for your quick and easy reference.

The Inheritance of Millenial Students: What They will Inherit from their Campus Experience — What Legacy Will They Leave

Students need to see examples from society’s leaders of actions to address urgent sustainability challenges in order to motivate them to take actions of their own.

Read the full article here. Then use this blog's capability to comment or share additional, related resources. Thanks.

Millennial students can be inspired to create a legacy for future generations by the recognizable actions of campus planners to create more sustainable campuses through smart growth planning, green buildings, transportation planning, and energy- and water-efficiency retrofits. This article describes policies, programs, and projects at The University of British Columbia; presents student concerns about the future and their reactions to campus initiatives in sustainability, and discusses recent research regarding student responses to green buildings on campuses in Canada.

From the October–November–December 2008 issue of Planning for Higher Education, this "SCUP Links Blog" post provides an opportunity for you to share comments or additional resources/links about the focus of the article, The Inheritance of Millenial Students: What They will Inherit from their Campus Experience — What Legacy Will They Leave, v37n1, pp. 49–58, by Freda Pagani. You can read the entire article here.

Note that this issue of Planning is the first of a two-part themed volume with the overall title, Student Life. The second part will be published in January 2009. Assembled, the two parts will be available in late January 2009 for purchase as a single PDF document for your quick and easy reference.

Colleges and Universities Want to be Your Friend: Communicating via Online Social Networking

Like it or not, communicating via online social networking sites is what millions of young people do each day.

Read the full article here. Then use this blog's capability to comment or share additional, related resources. Thanks.

This article presents a compilation of data regarding the role of online social networks within campus communities, specifically for nonacademic purposes. Both qualitative and quantitative data methodologies are used to provide a unique perspective on a constantly evolving topic. Interviews of students and administrators allow for candid discussion, while primary and secondary data offer an understanding of current use and trends within the realm of online social networking. Theories of self-esteem and interpersonal communication are integrated throughout the article.

From the October–November–December 2008 issue of Planning for Higher Education, this "SCUP Links Blog" post provides an opportunity for you to share comments or additional resources/links about the focus of the article, Colleges and Universities Want to be Your Friend: Communicating via Online Social Networking, v37n1, pp. 35–48, by Tamara L. Wandel. You can read the entire article here.

Note that this issue of Planning is the first of a two-part themed volume with the overall title, Student Life. The second part will be published in January 2009. Assembled, the two parts will be available in late January 2009 for purchase as a single PDF document for your quick and easy reference.

Let’s Hear from Students

Since this issue is all about students, we thought you might like to hear from some.

Read the full article here. Then use this blog's capability to comment or share additional, related resources. Thanks.

This special two-part series on student life would not be complete without a student perspective. What do real, live, individual students from the Net generation think, experience, dream, and plan? Are they as “wired in” as Mark Milliron describes in his article? Is communication strongly linked to technology as outlined by Tamara Wandel? How do student characteristics affect teaching and student learning (John Tagg), student services (Simone Himbeault Taylor), and a student’s overall college experience (Freda Pagani)?

From the October–November–December 2008 issue of Planning for Higher Education, this "SCUP Links Blog" post provides an opportunity for you to share comments or additional resources/links about the focus of the article, Let's Hear From Students, v37n1, pp. 32–34, by Claire L. Turcotte. You can read the entire article here.

Note that this issue of Planning is the first of a two-part themed volume with the overall title, Student Life. The second part will be published in January 2009. Assembled, the two parts will be available in late January 2009 for purchase as a single PDF document for your quick and easy reference.

What's Past is Prologue: The Evolving Paradigms of Student Affairs

Is the traditional framework for student services getting creaky? Consider these varied paradigms within which to plan the future of student services.

Read the full article here. Then use this blog's capability to comment or share additional, related resources. Thanks.

The purpose of this article is to frame—and reframe—the work of student affairs. Evolving paradigms have defined and advanced this work, which is dedicated to total student development and the betterment of society. The article promotes integrative learning as a new framework for student affairs. This paradigm, grounded in theory, research, and practice, crosses all boundaries of what, where, how, and with whom learning occurs to advance cohesive and synergistic student-centered learning. To live into this seamless model, student affairs professionals must go beyond the “what” to living into the “so what” of their work as educators and reflective practitioners.

From the October–November–December 2008 issue of Planning for Higher Education, this "SCUP Links Blog" post provides an opportunity for you to share comments or additional resources/links about the focus of the article, What's Past is Prologue: The Evolving Paradigms of Student Affairs, v37n1, pp. 23–34, by Simone Himbeault Taylor. You can read the entire article here.

Note that this issue of Planning is the first of a two-part themed volume with the overall title, Student Life. The second part will be published in January 2009. Assembled, the two parts will be available in late January 2009 for purchase as a single PDF document for your quick and easy reference.

Changing Minds in Higher Education: Students Change, So Why Can't Colleges?

Click here to comment on this PHE article!

The problem today is that when students change, colleges don't have to because they camouflage and conceal the evidence that could guide change.

Read the full article here. Then use this blog's capability to comment or share additional, related resources. Thanks.

College students have changed dramatically, and the skills needed for productive employment have changed as well. But colleges and universities have been slow to respond, often innovating in only small ways while leaving the core practices of undergraduate education the same. This article examines the barriers to transformational change in higher education in five categories: structure, information, incentives, finance, and culture. It suggests that the initial approach to overcoming these barriers involves generating better information in the form of feedback concerning student learning processes and outcomes.

From the October–November–December 2008 issue of Planning for Higher Education, this "SCUP Links Blog" post provides an opportunity for you to share comments or additional resources/links about the focus of the article, Changing Minds in Higher Education: Students Change, So Why Can't Colleges?, v37n1, pp. 15–22, by John Tagg. You can read the entire article here.

Note that this issue of Planning is the first of a two-part themed volume with the overall title, Student Life. The second part will be published in January 2009. Assembled, the two parts will be available in late January 2009 for purchase as a single PDF document for your quick and easy reference.

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Building a New Generation of Learning: Conversations to Catalyze Our Conversation

Our newest generation of learners: If we build it, they will come; if we build it well, they—in the broadest sense of the word—will learn.

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Rather than focus primarily on the next generation of learners, the authors argue we are best served to focus on building out our on-ground and online infrastructures for a new generation of learning—blending multiple learning modes, technologies, and techniques over the course of the next 15–20 years to serve the diverse array of students from multiple generations that will be coming our way. They offer seven catalytic conversations to start this process on the topics of blended learning, mobility, gaming, social networking, holographics, analytics, and a renewed focus on the human touch.

From the October–November–December 2008 issue of Planning for Higher Education, this "SCUP Links Blog" post provides an opportunity for you to share comments or additional resources/links about the focus of the article, Building or a New Generation of Learning, v37n1, pp. 7–14, by Mark David Milliron, Kathleen Plinske, and Coral Noonan-Terry. You can read the entire article here.

Note that this issue of Planning is the first of a two-part themed volume with the overall title, Student Life. The second part will be published in January 2009. Assembled, the two parts will be available in late January 2009 for purchase as a single PDF document for your quick and easy reference.

'Millennial' or 'Net Generation' Students and Their Impact on the Development of Student-Centered Facilities

This is the first of two themed issues of SCUP's journal that examine both the evolving student and the changing learning and living experience. This first issue focuses on key questions surrounding today's students: What do we know about them? What can we observe in their lifestyle and learning tendencies that would have an impact on learning experience design perspective? In the second issue, we will investigate how higher education institutions are responding to these changes. . . . To accomplish this purpose, we strive first to create a broad understanding of this context of change. We then explore the changes in programs, physical facilities, and environment that have and are being planned in response to these trends.

Read the full article here. Then use this blog's capability to comment or share additional, related resources. Thanks.

From the October–November–December 2008 issue of Planning for Higher Education, this "SCUP Links Blog" post provides an opportunity for you to share comments or additional resources/links about the focus of the article, 'Millennial' or 'Net Generation' Students and Their Impact on the Development of Student-Centered Facilities, v37n1, pp. 5-6, by John A. Ruffo. You can read the entire article here. It is an introduction, by Guest Editor John Ruffo, to the overall concept of this two-part, themed issue of Planning.

Note that this issue of Planning is the first of a two-part themed volume with the overall title, Student Life. The second part will be published in January 2009. Assembled, the two parts will be available in late January 2009 for purchase as a single PDF document for your quick and easy reference.