Universities Are Wary of Drawbacks to a Huge Boost in Federal Spending

Well, it didn't take long for that perspective to cycle through 360 degrees.

After a month of celebrating the largest boost in federal spending on scientific research that most of them have ever seen, university presidents are increasingly tuned to the possibility of a downside.

The new money—primarily from a $21.5-billion jump in research-and-development spending in the economic stimulus law—is certainly welcome, several university presidents and higher-education officials said on Tuesday during a lobbying trip to Capitol Hill.

Yet, the leaders said, many institutions struggled over the past decade to retain promising young researchers and their investigative projects through upward and downward spikes in the budget of the National Institutes of Health, And they’re now hoping to avoid repeating that pattern with the stimulus money.

Residence-Hall Market Sees Rising Demand and Falling Construction Prices

A "Buildings & Grounds" blog post by Lawrence Biemiller notes a residence hall building boom in Western Pennsylvania and that a drop in building costs is letting the University of Georgia move from a wood to a steel frame in a new residence hall.

It's behind password protection, but a related article from The Chronicle of Higher Education offers a negative view by Robert E. Ritwchel regarding the""mission leap" of two-year institutions building residence halls.

The Liveable Streets Initiative

From The Scout report, a useful site for SCUPers:

Planners, engineers, and designers have been interested in creating healthy and livable urban environments for decades, and the general public's penchant for such matters has grown exponentially as of late. The Livable Streets Initiative is one such measure designed to assist citizens who might be thinking about how to put these ideas into practice. The Initiative is produced by The Open Planning Project, which is a non-profit technology incubator designed to enhance civic participation. First-time visitors to the site will find the following sections: "Streetsblog", "Streetfilms", "Streetswiki", "Community", and "Education". In the "Streetsblog" section, visitors can read recent posts about designing pedestrian friendly streetscapes and also view short films about different planning projects related to such modifications. Moving on, the "Streetswiki" area is a community-created online encyclopedia for transportation, urban environmental, and public space issues. Visitors can read recently edited articles, sign up to help edit, and also just wander around to pieces on "Sidewalks", "Light Rail", and "Bus Rapid Transit". Finally, visitors should also check out the "Community" area to learn about different local community groups that are working on these issues. [KMG]

Tech Tip: PDF to Word Converter!

Seriously, and it does a great job of it. Who among us has not wished that we could convert a PDF document into text or a Word document, is only to cut and paste a large quote. Now you can, at this free Beta (which means eventually they will try to charge for it, but for now it is free) service.

It's really very easy to use. You browse to a PDF on your computer, select it, then decide if you wish the output to be a Word doc or an RTF file, then provide your email address, and click a "Convert" button. A few minutes later, you get an email with the converted file attached to it.

Why Johnny Can't Jump-Start

One of our favorite blogs is "Getting to Green" at Inside Higher Ed, written by an anonymous person who we believe is a SCUP member and who goes by the pseudonym "G. Rendell." He has assured us, BTW, that he will be joining us at SCUP–44 in Portland, July 18–22 this summer. In this post, he finds an engineering grad he wouldn't trust to jump-start his car and writes about the relationship between that and how higher education helped us get into the sustainability mess we're in, in the first place:

He’ll be graduating with a BS in engineering from a respected school, and he was confused when a household light bulb (120 volts, 60 watts) didn’t seem to be lighting up from a flow of 12-volt current. In a nutshell, this guy might be an engineer with (soon) an honors diploma, but I wouldn’t trust him to jump-start my car.

This student might be an extreme case, but in some ways I think his story exemplifies why college and university graduates have created a world (society, economy) with a sustainability crisis, and why colleges and (especially) universities are having a hard time making the cultural change necessary to make that crisis go away. We don’t do a good job of connecting subject matter to real world problems/applications. We don’t even do a good job of connecting it to closely related subject matter (like other engineering specialties).

Incubators for Economic Development

Blurbed "The role of regional state colleges and universities in driving new, high-impact ventures," this University Business article from Janine Janosky, Renee Babcock, and Robert Brenton explores the myriad economic development benefits of university-based research and potential for town and gown collaboration:

Because of their strong connection to local economies, regional IHEs are capable of providing licenses or seed funding and office space, with all parties aiming to contribute to the economic development of the state and region. Universities benefit from technology transfer and commercialization activities by attracting and retaining top academicians as well as gaining from license income.

Communities and states that provide the entrepreneurial infrastructure in which university technology transfer and commercialization can flourish benefit from the resulting start-ups and business expansions, including radically new technologies for growth sectors. Also, the possibilities for stimulating economic growth can potentially be even more far-reaching if universities form alliances.

Community Colleges and the Economic Downturn

This looks like a must-read. Brief info page here and complete PDF of results here:

The current economic downturn has consequences for both college students and for colleges and universities. For students of all ages, the loss of a job or the fear of losing a current job - their own employment or that of a parent or spouse – clearly affects enrollment decisions: should I go or return to college, and if so, where, and at what cost. For institutions, the budget problems affecting the states have a clear and direct impact on the resources allocated to public colleges and universities.

Community colleges are the largest segment of American higher education: as of fall 2007, the nation’s public two-year institutions enrolled more than a third (34.6 percent or 6.3 million) of the 18.2 million students enrolled in public, private, and for-profit degree-granting colleges and universities (NCES, 2009, Table 9). It is with good reason that community college leaders proclaim that their institutions are always on the front line of the economy, during good times and bad.

To assess the impact of the current economic downturn on community colleges, the League for Innovation in the Community College and The Campus Computing Project, in partnership with the education business of Pearson, surveyed community college presidents during late February and early March 2009, just after Congress passed the economic stimulus package. The survey, completed by 120 community college presidents and district chancellors, focused on changes in enrollments, campus employment, and budgets between winter 2008 and winter 2009. The survey provides new and timely data about the ways that the economic downturn affects community colleges and community college students, and how the nation’s community colleges are coping with the downturn.

Half a Dozen Good Articles on Learning Spaces

The current issue of EDUCAUSE Review is titled "Learning Spaces" and it serves up some very nice knowledge from a number of writers and practitioners, including a number of SCUPers. Betcha can't not read at least one of these:

PAIR-Up - "To create sustainable learning spaces, we must Partner with others for Pedagogy-rich designs, Assess learning in the new spaces, Integrate ideas for Innovation, and Revisit design methodologies." By Linda Jorn, Aimee Whiteside, and Ann Hill Duin

Learning Spaces: Involving Faculty to Improve Pedagogy - "The interplay between focused analysis of the curriculum and pedagogical style, and the implications for the way classrooms are set up and equipped, can have major dividends for both students and faculty." By Joan K. Lippincott

Assessment: The Key to Creating Spaces That Promote Learning - "Without assessment of learning spaces, institutions may miss the important connections between context, institutional culture, students' specific needs, and pedagogical practices that yield optimal learning." By Sawyer Hunley and Molly Schaller

Signposts of the Revolution? What We Talk about When We Talk about Learning Spaces - "Innovative efforts to design new learning environments point to a path for the future; following this path requires using a common language to describe learning environments and their aspirations." By Phillip D. Long and Richard Holeton

Space Strategies for the New Learning Landscape - "Revisiting design methodologies and applying the Learning Landscape approach leads to campuses that are "networks" of places for learning, discovery, and discourse between students, faculty, staff, and the wider community." By Shirley Dugdale

Inversions - "On the basis of constructivist learning theory, networked information technology, and a new kind of student and faculty, the traditional educational layers are inverting—a process nowhere more evident than in learning spaces." By Malcolm Brown

Integrated Planning Bibliography from SCUP Planning Institutes Steps II and III Shared (PDF)

In the same spirit as many senior SCUP leaders are joining in providing a series of inexpensive Virtual Conversations (starting March 20) about the budget crises we all face, those who manage SCUP's excellent planning institute are sharing some of the bibliographic and glossary materials that are ordinarily only distributed to those who attend Steps I and II. That PDF can be downloaded here.

Both of those steps of the institute are being offered in New Orleans on May 15-16. The growing number of SCUP Planning Institute graduates are quite vocal about the fact that the institute has enhanced their professional performance on campus. More information about the May Step II can be found here and more about the May Step III here.

"Finishing all three steps of the institute and receiving the certificate means a lot to me…attending all three [steps of the institute] was among the most rewarding activities in which I have participated [during] my career. All of the instructors did superb jobs, the materials distributed were first class, and the discussions with the other attendees were invaluable." - Neal E. Armstrong, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, The University of Texas at Austin

The Challenge to States: Preserving College Access and Affordability in a Time of Crisis

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This quick-fire SCUP–44 session, The College Funding Crisis: Five Ways Planning Can Help, will present five areas where financial, academic, and physical planning can make a major difference, and will highlight opportunities for leadership, middle management, and faculty to turn the economic downturn to advantage. Be sure to be there in Portland, July 18–22 for Values and Vision Create the Future.

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This statement (PDF) was developed with the guidance of a distinguished group of higher education leaders whose names you will realize. It's a dense, 2-page document that you should definitely read and have available as a reference. Under "Productivity,"the bullet points begin thus:

Develop measurable expectations for productivity increases by all institutions, and strategies for reinvesting the resulting savings in efforts to maintain and expand undergraduate access and affordability, particularly for low- and middle-income students. Institutions can meet productivity expectations by such measures as: Increasing teaching loads for full-time faculty; Freezing or reducing graduate and professional enrollments; Streamlining administrative functions; Incorporating technology into instruction; and Closing low-demand, high-cost programs that are not distinguished and cannot be justified by economic or labor market needs. Require institutions and systems to begin or continue reporting data on the performance of all undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs (costs, enrollments, degree attainment levels, and completion and attrition rates), and develop plans to increase the productivity of or suspend support for low-performing programs that are not strategically required for the future. Reduce student demands on the system by expanding dual enrollment and other accelerated learning options, assuring course availability for on-time completion, and by limiting credit requirements for degree programs and accumulation of excess credits. Review state policies and regulations in areas such as procurement, human resources, and information technology, revamping or eliminating policies and procedures when cost exceeds benefit.

Students in My Backyard: Housing at the Campus Edge and Other Emerging Trends in Residential Development

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This article was published in January 2009 in the second of two themed issues of Planning for Higher Education. SCUP members most likely have print copies, and can also access the articles from SCUP's website. In order to bring it out and make it available to everyone, we have assembled all of the articles into this digital (PDF) SCUP Portfolio.

When it comes to building student housing, the stakes for universities and colleges have never been higher. From competing for prospective students and environmental bragging rights to contesting for space on the typical campus, institutions face a fundamentally different landscape than they did when housing previous generations of students. A national sampling of student residential projects and housing data provide some indication of emerging trends. Universities and colleges will increasingly look to the campus edge (even in difficult environments), will challenge themselves to build sustainably (even where budgets are tight), and will partner or compete with private developers in a variety of contexts. These emerging trends are set against the already-established trend that finds students enjoying—and expecting—more luxurious accommodations than were once typical.

Citation
John Martin and Mark Allen. 2009. Students in My Backyard: Housing at the Campus Edge and Other Emerging Trends in Residential Development. Planning for Higher Education. 37(2): 34–43.

CLICK HERE for the full text of Students in My Backyard: Housing at the Campus Edge and Other Emerging Trends in Residential Development

From TQM to Blue Ocean Strategy and Beyond: Employee Development as a Contributor to Organizational Growth and Effectiveness

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May 1—Can Faculty Development and Curricular Innovation Help You With Your Budget Crisis?, featuring Nicholas Santilli and Lauren L. Bowen, both of John Carroll University. They are presenting a concurrent session at SCUP–44. Santilli is also a SCUP Institute faculty member. Discussants will include former SCUP presidents Michael F. Middaugh, Laura Saunders, and Planning for Higher Education executive editor Tom Longin. Learn more or register now.

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Rio Salado College is considered by many to be an innovative leader.

Here's how it uses staff development as a TQM tool: Staff development programs have allowed Rio to introduce strategic initiatives through training to define the college’s expectations for employees and to support and advance such concepts. TQM, customer service, collegewide meetings, and The Rio Way are staff development programs used by Rio Salado between 1991 and 2006, and they provide an opportunity for the college’s leadership to create the college’s culture through learning opportunities for its employees. Rio Salado continues to use collegewide meetings, specifically, as a primary component of staff development. Each year at one of these annual meetings, the college president recognizes employees for years of service, celebrates educational programs and their successes, and communicates current strategic initiatives with all the employee participants.

Rio tends to evolve and incorporate business practices through staff development offerings. It is common for the college to use aspects of different business models that can be applied to workplace practices. Laura Helminski, chair of the communications department, explains, “It [the full scope of business models] becomes too rigid for us if we do every piece of a concept. We have found that some of the mechanical and statistical aspects slow us down, so we focus on the softer, people-oriented aspects.” She further states, “It’s not a pure approach, but we think it’s working. People tell us they believe we’re on to something! It feels right for us.”

The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning at Columbia University

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On Saturday, July 18, at SCUP–44, you have the opportunity to learn in this workshop titled The Evolving Library: Supporting New Pedagogies, Learning Preferences and Technologies. "How can technology and the physical environment complement teaching and learning? How can libraries weave together the academic and social components of learning? How is electronic media reshaping what physically defines a library? And how will the scope, vision, and implementation of a library project be shaped by our current economic realities?"

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This is a good bookmark:

Educators who are interested in incorporating new technologies into their classroom experience often wonder where to start. They may want to start by visiting the Enhancing Education site, which is maintained by staff members at the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning at Columbia University. The site is organized a bit like a weblog, as there are different posts organized into subjects that include "Noted", "Solutions", and "Primers". The "Noted" postings highlight interesting technologies that may be of interest to educators, and the "Solutions" entries are composed of a quick "how-to" that addresses a broad range of technologies and approaches to classroom learning. Finally, the "Primers" posts cover the basic elements of a compelling new technology or idea, including incorporating a weblog into the class or peer editing. Visitors can also view the top ten tags on the site, or take a look at the most recent posts. [KMG]

Copyright 2009 Internet Scout Project - http://scout.wisc.edu

Mayors Climate Protection Center: Big Cities and 'Going Green'

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SCUP–44's opening plenary speaker, Susan Anderson, was formerly the director of Portland's Office of Sustainable Development. Her new role combines responsibility for both sustainability and planning for the city. How interesting. Be sure to be there in Portland, July 18–22 for Values and Vision Create the Future.

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The Mayors Climate Protection Center was launched in early 2007 to

provide mayors with the guidance and assistance they need to lead their cities’ efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are linked to climate change. Throughout the nation there is clear evidence that mayoral leadership is producing business and community support for policies that reduce emissions. While progress is already being made in many cities, our goal must be to increase the number of cities involved in the effort, and to equip all cities with the knowledge and tools that ultimately will have the greatest impact on undo the causes of global warming.

The website includes what you would normally expect, but also has sections titled "Reports and Surveys" as well as "Best Practices." We took a look in detail at one of the PDFs shared in "Best Practices" titled Climate Protection: Featuring 2008 Mayors' CLimate Protection Award Winning Enties, (PDF), which is a 27-page document with brief case studies of some city-initiated projects, nearly all of which could have been done by a campus or in collaboration with one.

'Flowing Data': Strength in Numbers

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SCUP's newest book is A Guide to Planning for Change by Donald M. Norris and Nick L. Poulton. In it they address data analysis and reporting in support of decision making, and speak of what they call "analytics for the masses," meaning "A new generation of tools supporting analytics and alignment enables planners and strategists to rigorously measure, assess, and refine their strategies throughout cascading cycles of expeditionary execution. These analytics are not just for so-called 'power users,' but for all administrators, faculty, and staff." (p. 32)

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Many kinds of SCUPers are interested in data: collecting it, analyzing it, displaying it, using it for decision making. Flowing Data is a website devoted to cool ways of reporting and using data - data visualization. Browsing in here you can get glimpses of what a future life with more and more information analytics will be like. Many people post here. The owner describes it to newbies this was:

The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see. If you're new here, welcome to FlowingData. A good place to start is the archives where you'll find FlowingData's most popular posts or take a look at the FlowingData beginner's guide. If you like what you see, subscribe to the feed. It'll only cost $1 million to do so. Yes, I'm totally serious. Really - which makes me a trillionaire.

Doctoral Candidates Anticipate Hard Times: 'This Is a Year of No Jobs'

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March 20—Can Strategically Aligning (or Re-Aligning) Academic Programs Help You With Your Budget Crisis?, featuring SCUPers Mary Doyle of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Karen Schmid of Purdue University. Discussants include former SCUP presidents Marv Peterson, Joan Racki, and Laura Saunders. Learn more or register now.

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Not that the academic job market has been great lately, but now it's looking so much worse. Fewer and fewer openings, and more and more of the ones there are have jumped off the tenure track:

Fulltime faculty jobs have not been easy to come by in recent decades, but this year the new crop of Ph.D. candidates is finding the prospects worse than ever. Public universities are bracing for severe cuts as state legislatures grapple with yawning deficits. At the same time, even the wealthiest private colleges have seen their endowments sink and donations slacken since the financial crisis. So a chill has set in at many higher education institutions, where partial or full-fledge hiring freezes have been imposed.

A survey by the American Historical Association, for example, found that the number of history departments recruiting new professors this year is down 15 percent, while the American Mathematical Society’s largest list of job postings has dropped more than 25 percent from last year.

“This is a year of no jobs,” said Catherine Stimpson, the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New York University. Ph.D.s are stacked up, she said, “like planes hovering over La Guardia.”

Top 10 Myths About Sustainability

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April 3—Can Sustainability Help You With Your Budget Crisis?, featuring SCUPer Kelly Cain of the University of Wisconsin, River Falls, and possibly another guest. Cain, along with his colleague Dale Braun, are faculty for a SCUP-developed sustainability workshop at SCUP–44. Discussants will include former SCUP president Nancy Tierney, senior Chronicle of Higher Education writer Scott Carlson, and Peter Bardaglio, senior fellow with Second Nature. Learn more or register now.

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At first, we thought this item from Scientific American might be too conceptually shallow, but we read it through and it's really a good walk through some definitional and conceptual understandings - and misunderstandings. Especially if you sometimes think you may not quite know enough about "sustainability," this is a good and brief review, which begins:

When a word becomes so popular you begin hearing it everywhere, in all sorts of marginally related or even unrelated contexts, it means one of two things. Either the word has devolved into a meaningless cliché, or it has real conceptual heft. “Green” (or, even worse, “going green”) falls squarely into the first category. But “sustainable,” which at first conjures up a similarly vague sense of environmental virtue, actually belongs in the second. True, you hear it applied to everything from cars to agriculture to economics. But that’s because the concept of sustainability is at its heart so simple that it legitimately applies to all these areas and more.

Despite its simplicity, however, sustainability is a concept people have a hard time wrapping their minds around.

New Tool: Web-Based Teleprompter

No, wait, seriously. You might find this useful. Say you're giving a presentation, you write your text all up and paste it into this browser window. Then click a button, and your laptop screen fills with your narrative in very large (adjustable) type, which you can scroll through in various automated and semi-automated ways. We could see this being a useful tool.

How to Build a Residential College

This page presents a summary of my recommendations for the establishment of residential colleges in large universities. The main links on the page will take you to more extended discussions of each of the major topics covered: (1) membership and administrative structure, (2) buildings and grounds, (3) college life and the annual cycle, (4) pastoral care, and (5) academic life. [The last two pages are not yet available. If you would like to be notified when new sections are added please join the Collegiate Way mailing list.] A supplementary page presents (6) a brief “generative sequence” in the style of the architect Christopher Alexander—an order in which the various collegiate components can be assembled and a new residential college opened in existing buildings with only one year of advance planning.

I have written this summary as a set of telegraphic instructions: do this, don’t do that, establish this, eliminate that. Every institution is different, of course, and the reader will determine when and how these recommendations will need to be adjusted to fit local conditions. All of these recommendations are, however, based on my direct experience or on the established practices of other residential colleges, and are known to be effective. For more general information about residential colleges please visit the main Collegiate Way page.

29 Reports About the Future of Academic Libraries

Thanks to SCUP executive director Jolene L. Knapp, who spotted this excellent blog post with links to hours of reading.

Stimulus Law Offers Breaks for Public-College Bond Issues

A lesser-known part of the stimulus package:

Tucked into the economic-stimulus package signed into law last month by President Obama is a new financial tool, Build America Bonds, that could help public colleges and public academic medical centers save money when borrowing for capital projects.

The bonds, which are available to government issuers but not private colleges, would be taxable securities subsidized by the federal government.

The subsidy would come in one of two ways. In some instances, buyers of the bonds would receive a tax credit equal to 35 percent on the interest payments they received; in other cases, the issuers of the bonds would receive a subsidy from the federal government equal to 35 percent of the interest they are paying.

ACE's 'Economic Stimulus Resource Center'

This new resource from the American Council on Education collects a few valuable resource links in one spot. Probably the most timely-pertinent resource is the archived webinar of an event sponsored by ACE and NACUBO on February 23 on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: A Partnership for Economic Renewal. You can watch it, streaming, as a guest with the password "stimulus." It featured a top-level Department of Education spokesperson. There are also links to documents such as the Inititial Implementing Guidance for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 from the Office of Management and Budget, as well as to an Education Department set of resources.

Who Really Pays for Assessment?

This is an opinion piece in Inside Higher Ed by 'Unfunded Mandate'.

Many essays in these pages have debated the pros and cons of assessment, but I have not yet seen a discussion about what from my perspective is a crucial question for anyone involved in the assessment process: Who pays?

For the purpose of this essay I want bracket the question of the value of assessment. In fact I want to imagine, as proponents of assessment claim, that the kinds of assessment now being required or proposed are distinct from the kinds of assessment academic departments have traditionally performed, and that these new kinds of assessment improve instruction.

But if these assessments add value, who creates that value? There is no such thing as a free lunch. And it is faculty who are very often being asked to cook up this assessment meal. The new work is not trivial. Of course, faculty members carry out assessment as part of their regular employment. This ordinary assessment includes evaluating student assignments, both individually and at the end of a course, and broader evaluation of the direction and effectiveness of academic programs.

Recent calls for assessment add new layers to this traditional work of the faculty.

CP&M's 2009 College Construction Report

College Planning and Management's annual College Construction Report is something that many SCUPers eagerly await. This year's is here (PDF). It starts by noticing some frozen projects, then author Paul Abramson, who has been doing this report since 1995, looks over the history of the annual college and university capital construction budget:

I have been tracking college construction for College Planning & Management magazine since 1995, when $6.1B worth of construction was put in place (see Table 1). Construction stayed close to $6B a year from 1995 through 1999, when it reached $6.8B. . . . Starting in 2000, college construction began to shift into a higher gear. In 2000 it broke the $7B barrier for the first time ever, then jumped to $9.8B and then $11B the next two years, largely in response to a growing demand for seats in college classrooms and beds in residence halls. . . . By 2005, annual construction was up above $13B. In 2006, it topped $15B before falling back slightly to $14.5B in 2007, as reported a year ago. . . . At that time, I suggested that the drop to $14.5B in completed construction probably was not significant. But the projections we were showing for major cuts in construction spending in 2008 could be a sign of significant belt-tightening and even cutbacks. . . . As the United States and world economies have continued to deteriorate in the last year, those projected cuts have now occurred. College construction fell to just under $13.3B in 2008, a drop of $1.2B from the year before, and it is projected to fall even further in 2009. And that is construction funding. It says nothing about the funding necessary to furnish and staff the new buildings.

Life-Cycle Funding for Capital Assets

This Business Officer article by Douglas Christensen of BYU, is subtitled "Brigham Young University’s long-term view for monitoring and funding capital assets achieves significant savings, keeps things in good repair, and attracts other institutions to the model."

Little did we know the future impact of a capital assets study requested of the board of trustees of Brigham Young University Provo’s facilities division back in 1981. In fact, the study results would spur a transition to a comprehensive capital needs management system for not only the university but the entire worldwide Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, including all of the LDS Educational System of which BYU in Provo, Utah, is a part.

The advantage of the resulting capital needs analysis (CNA) approach is that it is part of a holistic, data-driven system that allows us to make effective decisions about resource allocation. On a micro level, it establishes a comprehensive, life-cycle inventory of current assets and incorporates them into a listing of all retrofits, repairs, or additional projects that need to be completed. The integrated approach creates a complete capital plan that can project the total cost of asset ownership for the institution. In dollars and cents, this life-cycle approach to asset monitoring has saved millions of dollars each year by maximizing length of asset use and managing the decisions needed to optimize return on investment. Another major benefit is that, after the cost of an initial inventory, the only additional cost is for keeping the inventory database valid. This initial investment has paid for itself many times.

One of the most important aspects of CNA has been the ability to leverage the concept. All institutions use the same program to deal with annual and projected capital needs. However, since the software program is based on general principles, it allows each institution to adapt CNA to its culture and management style. Detailed documentation of revenues and auxiliary support divisions’ assets also allows each institution to view all its capital needs as well as those of the entire system.

Assessment Is More Than Keeping Score: Moving From Inquiry, Through Interpretation, To Action

A nice case study of one institution's successful planning:

STLCC’s mission-based assessment approach has proven successful because it is grounded in the following six key components:

• The model focuses assessment on what the college claims to do.
• Within each mission area, faculty and staff identify the most important aspects for assessment.
• Faculty and staff are provided with consistent, user-friendly, self-service access to data/information through decision support tools.
• The model establishes assessment as a shared enterprise and creates a nonpunitive environment for thoughtful interpretation of data/information by the faculty and staff who work with students.
• The model is linked to the college’s strategic planning process and creates an environment for action.
• The model assesses how we assess as well as what we assess.

It’s Also About Action. During 2007-2008, faculty and staff from across the college worked collaboratively to identify, explore, and develop actions steps to improve student engagement and learning outcomes associated with assessment issues. Among these were the following projects:

The SCUP Campus Heritage Network

The Society has recently begun work on a $300,000+ grant from the Getty Grant Foundation to analyze and publish lessons learned from the reports back to the Getty from the 85 campuses that, during 2001-2007 received grants for campus heritage planning work. As the initial part of that work, we've launched the Campus Heritage Network, intended to be an online community which will, over time, gather together all those interested in preserving the heritage buildings, landscapes, and sites on our college and university campuses. You can find more information by visiting www.campusheritage.org. If you wish to stay in touch with the project as it develops, please take the time to register with the network and become a member of it. Former SCUP president L. Carole Wharton is the lead researcher and project head. She will attend the 2009 meeting of the Association of University Architects in June, to bring that group up to date on the project, and will also present a related concurrent session at SCUP–44 in Portland.

Well-Regarded Public Colleges Get a Surge of Bargain Hunters

As things get tough, our student body realigns itself to the realities:

“The country is in the process of reconsidering the easy accumulation of debt for consumer things, and it may well be that that will be a factor that tilts people toward public institutions because of the cheaper sticker price,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization.

A poll by the center in December showed that “people’s anxiety about paying for college is almost at an unprecedented high,” Mr. Callan said.

“We’re not sure how they will respond, but we’re pretty sure they won’t respond by deciding not to go,” he added. “Middle class families understand that you’re going to be consigned to the minimum-wage economy if you don’t get some higher education or training.”

George Mason University, Among First With an Emirates Branch, Is Pulling Out

One wonders whether there will be a domino effect:

George Mason has struggled since it opened its branch in Ras al Khaymah, an emirate with neither the dazzle of Dubai nor the oil wealth of Abu Dhabi.

It never attracted many students, with about 120 in degree programs and 60 in its English-language program. None of the faculty members came from the home campus, there was constant turnover in the leadership, and the branch had not completed the lengthy process of gaining local accreditation.

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But the George Mason experience highlights some of the difficulties overseas branches face.

To maintain their credibility, they must admit students by the same standards overseas as at their home campus. But finding students with excellent English skills, SAT scores comparable to their American counterparts and college-ready academic preparation is not easy.

There is also the question of academic control. The vice president running the branch campus reported to Dr. Stearns, as United States accreditation requires. But the job has recently been held by an interim leader, and the local backers did not want to pay to hire a new vice president, seeking instead a leader who would report to them.

Did You Miss it on NPR?

Since we're among those who've experienced the "driveway moment" where you sit in the car until a good story it done, we know how it hurts to miss a good NPR story that's about higher ed. So here are some you may have missed. Through the magic of streaming audio, you can listen to them on the Web: Undergraduate Economics Sees a Popularity Surge; College Budget Cuts Felt on Playing Field; Education Officials Buoyed by Obama Plan; Paper-Cut: Missouri College Embraces eTextbooks; and In Search of Answers, Teachers Turn to Clickers.

Special Report: Higher Ed and the Economy

That's a good title for a good article from University Business magazine. Current SCUP president Sal Rinella is quoted extensively in it, from the Virtual Conversation we transmitted on February 4 about the federal stimulus package. [More Virtual Conversations are coming soon.

Rinella is among a dozen SCUP presidents who will be lending their presence to one or more of a new series starting March 20 and focusing on campus budget crises.] “We’ve been through recessions before, but I think this one is deeper and probably has more consequences than any one prior to this, and universities are feeling the brunt of it. It’s almost a ‘perfect storm,’ with state appropriations being cut back while people are losing their jobs and investment portfolios are dwindling,” says Sal Rinella, vice president of the STRATUS division of Atlanta-based Heery International. STRATUS, comprised of former senior university officers, helps institutions create competitive advantages by leveraging assets. Rinella, previously president of Austin Peay State University (Tenn.), also is president of the Society for College and University Planning. But he and others who work in or with the higher ed community see actions colleges and universities can take—and many are taking them—to mitigate the problems they’re experiencing while waiting for the economy to improve.

As Job Market Shrinks, so do College Grads’ Grand Plans

Pretty good for a mainstream media report:

For Alesandra LaPointe, who has prepared for life after college by doing two internships and frequenting the career center as though it were Starbucks, it is the best of times. She has a job lined up.

For Chris Moberg, who started his job search in earnest only three months ago, it is the worst of times. He doesn’t have a single job interview scheduled.

After years of plenty, the job market is shrinking. Hiring of new college graduates is expected to drop 22 percent this spring, according to one survey. The most prepared graduates are finding jobs, but others are rethinking plans dreamed up during the good times – considering bunking with Mom and Dad or an internship instead of a job.

“There are opportunities out there, but they’re going to go to the young people who are focused,… [who] know what they bring to the table … and use their connections wisely,” says Philip Gardner, director of Michigan State University’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute.

Struggling College Students are Having an Even More Difficult Time

Are they "doing more with less" or "doing less with less"? This USA Today article examines the longer walks (free, the bus costs money), the changes in diet (less soda, more canned tuna), and other ways students are changing behaviors - and briefly mentioned programs at a number of schools to allow students with unpaid tuition to stay enrolled, and to freeze or limit increases to tuition:

The Community College of Denver has offered a food bank to students for more than 10 years, but in the past year there been a significant increase in its use, says Jerry Mason, director of student life: "We are actually having trouble keeping up." The student government has doubled its annual funding from $3,000 to $6,000 to help with the increased demand, he says.

Federal financial aid applications filed nationwide for this fiscal year increased by 9% compared with last year, a projected 1.2 million more applicants, according to Department of Education data.

Is There an 'Education Bubble'? And Not Just at Harvard?

On The Deal Professor blog, Steven M. Davidoff looks closely at Harvard's financial situation and draws potential conclusions about an 'education bubble' potentially being burst by illiquid assets:

So, my numbers are rough, very rough estimates — but the problem is apparent. In the short term, unless it boosts its liquid returns, Harvard is going to have to raise a lot in donations or eat up its liquid assets to fund university obligations and its private equity commitments. This results in a spiraling decline in Harvard’s liquid assets as each year they go lower to meet these needs and more and more assets become tied up in private equity. This assumes the markets stay where they are in the next three years — there are scenarios where liquid assets do worse (like yesterday), or better, of course.

This is likely why Harvard recently sold $1.5 billion in debt, and unsuccessfully tried to sell $1.5 billion of its private equity portfolio. It needs to cover short-term funding obligations rather than liquidate illiquid assets at fire-sale prices. In essence, Harvard is more like a hedge fund than ever — trading for short-term gain with the same risks involved.

Other universities may be in worse positions. Duke, for example, sold $500 million in bonds, and Princeton $1.5 billion. Again, the reason appears to be to fund liquidity.