Dead Programs Walking
Jack Stripling's done a nice job in Inside Higher Ed of covering many of the issues people on campus are grappling with regarding program prioritizing, "weeding," and so forth: As colleges grapple with a veritable menu of Sophie’s choices, essential questions are being raised: What kind of institution are we? What do we truly value, and what are mere luxuries accumulated in headier days? And, in at least one instance of interstate sniping in the South, do we really want to be like Arkansas?
As might be expected, there’s no single answer to these difficult questions. Perhaps more importantly, there’s no agreed-upon strategy for finding the answers. Recent program reviews at Radford University and across the state of Louisiana, for instance, have sparked controversy largely over the process and metrics used for evaluation. Those concerns are heightened in the current economic climate, where pressure to get lean fast is mounting. Labels: academic planning, academic programs, budget and resource planning, financial crisis, program prioritization
Needed: Design in the Public Interest
Thomas Fisher, dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education about "public interest design," the need for it and whether it fits best as a concept within current design education or ought to be its own profession: At a time of declining employment in architectural offices and fading prospects for architectural graduates, an enormous amount of work remains largely overlooked by the profession: the provision of design services for the billions of people on the planet who need what architects can provide but who lack the ability to pay. Most architects have long sought more-lucrative work among clients who do have the means to pay. But with the financial crisis putting a severe crimp on traditional commissions, the time has come for designers to rethink our reason for being. Do we really want to continue to be servants of the superrich, or does our responsibility — and our overlooked opportunities for new types of services — also lie with the health, safety, and welfare of all? Labels: architecture, design, public interest, sustainability
It’s Easy Being Green: St. Louis Community College-Wildwood’s Green Campus Becomes a Sustainability Learning Lab
This relatively new community college campus is designed, and not just in its physical parts, to be sustainable through and through. This is an excellent, even must-read article: Being a green campus is about more than the physical features of LEED construction; it is a mindset that faculty and staff members are asked to carry into their planning and practice on a daily basis. Campus president Pam McIntyre stresses this in her work with campus administrators, faculty, and staff. “Our campus commitment to sustainability is important to every department. Campus planning efforts focus on finding unique ways to use the campus as a sustainability learning lab,” said McIntyre. Every area, from physical facilities and campus life to academic affairs, is asked to integrate sustainability into its daily practices. Strategic partnerships in the community are cultivated to advance this focus and carry it beyond the campus. Labels: community college, sustainability
Some Swine Flu News
Due to the fast-moving pace of this potential Swine Flu (H1N1 influenza) crisis, and its temporary nature, we will for a while maintain a list of pertinent resources which we discover in this blog post. Please bookmark it and come back to see what's new. Our more generic page of resources on disaster and crisis planning is here. New: Use this this easy-to-remember URL to get back here - http://tinyurl.com/SCUP-H1N1ResourcesNewest (Monday, May 4):Inside Higher Ed, When To Call a Flu Day
Friday, April May 1 Federal Government Guidance on Facility Closure: School Dismissal and ChildcareAPPA's (Leadership in Educational Facilities) Swine Flu ResourceAs SCUP has done before—for 9/11 and Katrina—we've started up a simple (free to all) Lyris email discussion list [SCUP-H1N1] for those interested in staying on top of the potential Swine Flue epidemic/pandemic, the preparations on campus for it, communications about it, and the effects on campus, should it come to that. We hope it doesn't. This is a Google map with "pins" at locations where the H1N1 Influenza virus has been reported in students, faculty, or staff on higher education campuses in the United States and Canada. The American College Health Association (ACHA): The University Risk Management and Insurance Association: Resources and Information Regarding Current 2009 H1N1 Influenza OutbreakFrom University Business magazine: Flu Pandemic Prep. The Greentree Gazette previously published an excellent series on pandemics, with a focus on Avian Flu, but the content is still very relevant. Scientific American's Guide to Swine Flu. Flu WikiCDC's H1N1 Flu Resource PagePandemicFlu.govNews ItemsFrom Inside Higher Ed: From U.S. News.com: Colleges Prepare for Swine FluFrom The Chronicle of Higher Education (access may require subscription or day pass): Labels: 2009, disaster, emergency, pandemic, swine flu
Renaming the 'English Department' the "Department of Word Science"
Well, that comment was actually not in this article, it was in the . . . comments to the article. A business coalition, known as the Service Research & Innovation Initiative is campaigning to get Customer Service taught as a science. The comments are fun: "We’ve just decided to rename our English Department the Department of Word Science. The donations are already pouring in!" Labels: academic programs, customer service, innovation
Let's Go Green by (Re)Commissioning
I nside Higher Ed's anonymous "Getting to Green" blogger, G. Rendell, describes "commissioning" and "recommissioning" and talks about how the recommissioning can have high sustainability value: Recommissioning, by comparison, is going through a building which has been in operation for a number of years, and bringing it back "into spec". Whether or not it performed on its first day of duty as it was originally intended to, take steps to fix whatever problems now exist. And problems will, in fact, exist . . . Recomissioning isn't particularly cheap. But it usually pays for itself in 1 - 3 years, based on simple energy savings calculations. Think of it as "deferred maintenance" in the most positive possible sense. Really, it's just intelligent building operation -- the buildling, itself, doesn't have to be intelligent, but the operator clearly does. Labels: Association for the Advancement of Sustainability In Higher Education, commissioning, facilities planning, recommissioning
Graduate Education is the 'Detroit' of Higher Learning?
 This op-ed in The New York Times by Mark C. Taylor struck an immediate nerve, jumping to first place on the Times "most emailed" list within hours of its posting, which was under the title, "End the University as We Know It": If American higher education is to thrive in the 21st century, colleges and universities, like Wall Street and Detroit, must be rigorously regulated and completely restructured. The long process to make higher learning more agile, adaptive and imaginative can begin with six major steps: The suggested steps are, quoting only lead-in snippets: - "Restructure the curriculum, beginning with graduate programs and proceeding as quickly as possible to undergraduate programs";
- "Abolish permanent departments, even for undergraduate education, and create problem-focused programs";
- "Increase collaboration among institutions";
- "Transform the traditional dissertation";
- "Expand the range of professional options for graduate students"; and
- "Impose mandatory retirement and abolish tenure."
Labels: financial crisis, graduate studies, transformation
Planning Successful Museum Building Projects
Tying Pell Grants to Inflation to Maintain Purchasing Power?
Give Me Liquidity! "Maybe being Harvard isn’t so great after all."
Related, A concurrent session at SCUP–44, July 18–22: Sustaining Small Colleges: Using Models in an Integrated Planning Process
A very nice article in Inside Higher Ed by Jack Stripling about consequences of past endowment investment practices and current changes: If there’s any trend emerging, it’s that institutions with endowments of varied sizes are moving toward more liquid investments that allow for speedier access to cash. Met with significant demands on resources at a time when resources are dwindling, colleges simply need money now – like right now. The urgent need for cash on hand, or liquidity, has some finance chiefs looking to disentangle themselves from the complex, long-term investment vehicles that came into vogue across higher education in the last decade.
“It is definitely back to the future in terms of investing,” Nelson said. “You’ll probably see small and medium endowments looking more like they did 10 years ago.” Labels: endowments, financial crisis, investments, resource and budget planning
Economic Downturn Resources from EDUCAUSE
University of California-Irvine, Anteater Recreation Center (ARC) Expansion
American School & University Magazine's current issue has a useful project report on the new University of California-Irvine, Anteater Recreation Center (ARC) Expansion. The ARC expansion provides 20,000 more assignable square feet for a weightroom, and classrooms for dance and martial arts. It also includes a contemporary fitness/wellness center, physical-therapy rooms, a body-composition system to measure body fat, and cutting-edge technology for cardiovascular and metabolic analysis. . . . Redefining agrarian for the 21st century, the design team created a modern “farm” building with steel trusses, pitched roofs, and split-face concrete block and glass. Classrooms have sprung floors and mirrored walls. Labels: design, facilities, projects, recreation center
Sustainable Facilities: Strategies for Today’s Economy
Trustee Survey Paints Grim Budget Picture for Public Universities
Paul Fain reports on a new survey from the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB). All 23 pages of the survey report can be downloaded here (PDF). Even before the recession, shrinking state coffers were causing budget woes for 42 percent of the boards surveyed, with trustees reporting an average reduction in state contributions of 6.4 percent in the fiscal year that ended last June. And trustees were grim in their assessment of the future, with 73 percent predicting state budget cuts next year. Almost a third said they would face state reductions of 10 percent or more.
The recession has harmed private giving, the survey found, with 18 percent of boards reporting a delayed fund-raising campaign, and 22 percent saying they were extending a current campaign.
Trustees were mixed in their views of whether federal stimulus money would help avert the budget problems on campuses. Labels: AGB, financial crisis, governing boards, trustees
Accreditation: "Would You Still Need Me, Would You Still Feed Me, Without Title IV?"
Related, A concurrent session at SCUP–44, July 18–22: Promoting Institutional Progress: Integrating Priorities and Processes Through Strategic Planning
This is a top-notch story by Doug Lederman reporting from the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Schools and Colleges annual conference: Sylvia Manning has heard all the complaints about accreditation before -- heck, she thought a lot of them herself during her nearly 40 years as a college administrator. Colleges find the process to be a mere obligation because it focuses on minimum standards and too often produces little of value to help the institutions improve. Critics who want more higher education accountability question whether accreditation is rigorous and transparent enough. Potential educational innovators say the process is inflexible and discourages creative approaches.
The critiques flow largely from the fact that higher education accreditation seeks to do two totally different things: ensure a minimum level of quality (with the accreditors in effect playing a compliance role on behalf of the federal government) and encourage individual colleges to improve themselves.
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Manning, who nine months ago became president of the country's largest regional accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, almost immediately appointed a committee to rethink the commission's approval process with those and other critiques in mind. This week, at the commission's annual meeting here, she unveiled a proposal to overhaul the accrediting agency's process for renewing its approval for already accredited colleges. Labels: accreditation, assessment, Higher Learning Commission, North Central Association, quality
How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write
Related, A concurrent session at SCUP–44, July 18–22: Building a New Campus... In Second Life!
This is the most interesting and comprehensive thing we've recently read about online digital resources. Its focus is on books, and the concept of books as the Internet's "Dark Matter" is very thought-provoking, but it's a good overall sense of the publishing world's current possible vectors: In our always-connected, everything-linked world, we sometimes forget that books are the dark matter of the information universe. While we now possess terabytes of data at our fingertips, we have nonetheless drifted further and further away from mankind's most valuable archive of knowledge: the tens of millions of books that have been published since Gutenberg's day.
That's because the modern infosphere is both organized and navigated through hyperlinked pages of digital text, with the most-linked pages rising to the top of Google Inc.'s all-powerful search-results page. This has led us toward some traditional forms of information, such as newspapers and magazines, as well as toward new forms, such as blogs and Wikipedia. But because books have largely been excluded from Google's index -- distant planets of unlinked analog text -- that vast trove of knowledge can't compete with its hyperlinked rivals.
But there is good reason to believe that this strange imbalance will prove to be a momentary blip, and that the blip's moment may be just about over. Labels: books, e-books, information, publishing, trends
Helping Community-College Students Succeed: a Moral Imperative
Kay McClenney, director of the Center for Community College Student Engagement, part of the Community College Leadership Program at the University of Texas at Austin, is keenly aware of how much better community colleges need to be: As is typical in a recession, many community colleges are experiencing a surge in enrollment, at precisely the same time that they must — like many enterprises, both public and private — contend with choking constraints on resources.
But the challenges are more than fiscal. They are also educational. They are challenges of vision, leadership, and chosen priorities. Many would say that the challenges are even moral.
The reality for community colleges is this: No matter how good our colleges are today — and they do contribute mightily to educational access, work-force development, and economic prosperity — they simply are not yet good enough. Our results, particularly when stated in terms of student achievement, are not adequate to serve the pressing needs of individual students, communities, states, and the nation. Labels: community colleges, financial crisis
New Realities in Higher Education - Reporting on the Current Budget Crisis
The Impact of College and University Budget Cuts - Solicited Comments
Related, A concurrent session at SCUP–44, July 18–22: Sustaining Small Colleges: Using Models in an Integrated Planning Process
Some of you may, like us, enjoy Rick Reis' Tomorrow's Professor mailing list (and now blog). It's one of the more thoughtful email newsletters we receive. Recently he asked his readers to share their stress about the budget cuts on their campuses. The responses reveal, among other things, some of the stress and angst within academic departments - from real live faculty. He's worked to make those responses available on his blog, here. It's a valuable read. Some excerpts: The good news is that anything related to direct instruction will likely be funded, but not optimally funded (i.e., a thousand small cuts). Everything else gets a big cut.
Sometimes I felt like a beheaded chicken because in spite of these, I still have to do research and service. Guess what, we have not have any increase for 2 years now and we are supposed to be getting this term, but I guess, I can forget that also. Bummer!
At Cal State X, the students are not allowed to print out schedules for fall registration. This paper-saving initiative creates more problems for advisors because few students come in with their classes planned.
In my own department and college, I've been impressed with efforts by our leadership to maintain transparency - information, as it comes in, has been passed down, discussed in open meetings, and on the whole we've kept our sense of humor about it (although our Dean and Chair tend to look at times like they're bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders); in fact our department meetings have been more amusing and more united than they've been in ages over the past semester. I deal with grad student funding, which is precarious at the best of times, and right now we are having to be very, very cautious in making funding decisions and in deciding how many to admit.
Labels: academic planning, budget cuts, financial crisis, resource and budget planning
The Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Related, A preconference workshop at SCUP–44, July 18–22: Coffee Cart or Cafe? Campus Center Decisions for Every Institution
 We don't share enough from Building Design & Construction magazine, and we're planning to fix that. First, an article titled BIM+IPD: Three Success Stories, one of which is at Renssalear Polytech: As design and construction budgets shrink and client demands for quicker, more efficient design and delivery escalate, AEC firms are embracing integrated project delivery, an approach that integrates people, systems, business structures, and practices into a process that collaboratively harnesses the talents and insights of all participants to reduce waste and optimize efficiency. Check out BD+C’s April cover story showcasing three IPD success stories including the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Renssalaer Polytech in Troy, New York. Labels: arts, new building, performing arts, performing arts center, Renssalaer
Performance-Based College Financing Systems Often Die Young, Researchers Say
Related, A concurrent session at SCUP–44, July 18–22: The Measurable Impact of Vision Statements.
"Why are we bothering with this," is one thought leader's question in this article: Of 26 states that have adopted performance-based college financing systems since 1979, 12 have scrapped them, according to one of the papers presented here. Of the remaining 14 states, two others—Colorado and New Mexico—still technically have such systems in place but no longer use them to allocate funds. Two other states—Virginia and Washington—have created and then ditched performance-based financing systems, only to establish new ones down the road, according to the paper, by Kevin J. Dougherty, an associate professor of higher education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and Rebecca S. Natow, a doctoral student at Columbia. The panel discussion’s moderator, Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, said performance-based financing has such a troubled history that one might ask, “Why are we bothering with this?” Labels: performance-based, resource and budget planning
Few Boards Do Sophisticated Financial Planning, Experts Say
Related, A concurrent session at SCUP–44, July 18–22: From Operating Revenues to Capital Funding and Beyond–New Tools for Financial Planning and Policy
Paul Fain reports, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, on an AGB presentation by SCUPer Tom Longin, executive editor of Planning for Higher Education. We thank the Chronicle for providing us a nonprotected link to the article. [T]he yearly budget exercise can give trustees a misperception of their institutions' fiscal health, said Thomas C. Longin, one of the presenters and a longtime consultant for colleges and the association. That's because many colleges have become adept at just surviving year to year, without conducting longer-term strategic financial planning. "If we get fixated on balancing the budget, we will never have any control of costs," and that will lead to higher tuition and deteriorating academic quality, Mr. Longin told trustees. "If you simply focus on getting out of the hole you're in, you'll just get in deeper." The solution, said Mr. Longin and his co-presenter, Richard Staisloff, vice president for finance and administration at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, is for boards to shift their financial attention to strategic monitoring of how their institutions invest "time, talent, and treasure" over the next three to five years. Labels: boards, resource and budget planning, trustees
Graphic Intensive Slide Show to Illustrate Budget
An interesting new University of Michigan Web site uses graphics "to provide a concise online tutorial for people seeking information about the basic workings of the university’s budget, focusing in particular on the General Fund, which is the source of support for U-M’s educational enterprise. The tutorial, University of Michigan Funding: A Snapshot, was created in response to questions from students and others about how the university is funded. It also has information about state support for higher education, financial aid, donor support and links to more in-depth resources." Labels: budget, reporting, resource and budget planning
(Support) Staffing Up, Productivity Down?
Doug Lederman reports, in Inside Higher Ed, on a new report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. Click here to read his brief report. Click here (PDF) to read the entire report, which is titled "Trends in the Higher Education Labor Force: Identifying Changes in Worker Composition and Productivity." A longer report from The Chronicle of Higher Education is available here, but is likely password protected. Colleges' enrollments have risen dramatically in the past 20 years, so it's not surprising -- and arguably is even appropriate -- that the size of their staffs has grown, too. But the rate of growth has come among support staff employees rather than instructors and has outstripped the enrollment growth, resulting in a decline in productivity over that time, a new report asserts.
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The center's report acknowledges what critics are likely to cite as a bias in its report -- the fact that many support stuff employees do play important roles in the educational experience for students, in many student service areas. But the report's overall finding, writes Daniel Bennett, its author and administrative director at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, is that the way that the higher ed work force has grown has "increasingly resulted in unproductive use of labor resources." Labels: Center for College Affordability and Productivity, cost, productivity, support staff
Access Matters
Related: A concurrent session at SCUP–44: The College Funding Crisis: Five Ways Planning Can Help.
As we keep reminding ourselves in the SCUP office, "Never waste a crisis." Colleges and universities must begin to forge a new alliance with government at both the state and federal levels. Higher education can plant the seed for such an alliance by investing in efforts to educate the public and government officials about the nature and breadth of the financial aid problem and its potential impact on America’s fortunes. . . . Equally important, all constituencies in higher education must make a genuine attempt to reduce operating costs without sacrificing educational quality. Reducing costs is an essential good-faith effort to win the support of political officials and the American public. Labels: access, enrollment planning, partnerships
Learning Spaces—in EDUCAUSE Quarterly
Related: A preconference workshop at SCUP–44, July 18–22: The Evolving Library: Supporting New Pedagogies, Learning Preferences, and Technologies. Related: A preconference workshop at SCUP–44, July 18–22: Linking Theory and Practice: Shaping Spaces for 21st Century Learners.
Following a "learning spaces" theme in EDUCAUSE Review which we already shared with you in a previous set of SCUP Links, EDUCAUSE has assembled yet another great set of articles about learning spaces in its current (and first online-only) issue. SCUP staffer Phyllis T.H. Grummon, contributed an article titled Best Practices in Learning Space Design: Engaging Users." Her Key Takeaways: Engaging those who will use a learning space in its planning yields the greatest benefits, yet the people who manage a space usually determine its design"; "[f]ormal and informal surveys of space use provide data that inform design according to the location and intended purpose of a specific space"; and "[s]urvey results from the Society for College and University Planning and Herman Miller showed that respondents believe users should be key drivers in learning space design. Labels: learning space design
The Saudi King's Modern University
Related: A concurrent session at SCUP–44: Creating a New Future—For a Country (Saudi Arabia).
Many top-notch institutions are involved in partnerships with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST): The first president, Choon Fong Shih, former president of the National University of Singapore, assumed his post in December. Thousands of workers arrive at the construction site each day to complete the campus by September. Yet another development, a high-tech industrial city, is being built nearby. KAUST officials say there has been no slowdown as a result of the worldwide economic crisis or collapse of oil prices. . . . [R]ecruiting, both American and KAUST officials say it has gone better than expected. Fawwaz Ulaby, former vice president for research at the University of Michigan, who is KAUST's new provost, says that about 50 of the 100 faculty positions have been filled, with six of the new spots being taken by women. . . . 'We think the quality of the faculty is very high,' Ulaby said in a telephone interview. 'People will ask why, in Saudi Arabia, we can attract people of this caliber, and I tell them it's simple. Anywhere else, researchers must spend 50 percent to 70 percent of their time chasing money to sustain their research. And many are tired of it. At KAUST they will be provided stable funding from the beginning, they will have access to more funding on a competitive basis, and they will have the best-equipped campus in the world to conduct their research. It's a huge incentive.' Labels: global, International, KAUST, Saudi Arabia
US Higher Education and the Current Recession
Related: You can come to Portland this summer and find a financial crisis-related session in every single time block of SCUP–44. SCUP staff have taken the time to bring out information about some of the most on-point sessions, which you can view on the conference's front page. Now is the time to get permission and find the budget. Otherwise, you'll spend all summer hunkered down and never get to join our conversations!
By David W. Breneman in International Higher Education: While no definitive evidence has yet been revealed, early warning signs abound. Most state governments are experiencing a sharp drop in tax receipts. Thus, as states must operate with balanced budgets, expenditure cuts are being reported daily. In recent days, for example, the states of Washington, Nevada, Texas, Oregon, Idaho, and South Carolina have announced cuts in state appropriations to public colleges and universities ranging from 10 to 36 percent, and few states, if any, will avoid such cuts. While state support for public higher education has been declining as a share of institutional revenues for more than two decades, the severity of the current cuts may push public institution leaders to reduce enrollments, which they are normally reluctant to do. For example, California State University and the University of California system have recently announced plans to reduce entering undergraduates by several thousands of students. The new round of state cuts will prompt yet higher public tuitions, further dampening demand. . . . In past recessions, enrollment rates have actually jumped, as the opportunity cost of forgone earnings for the newly unemployed declines. While not yet definite, such an enrollment surge may not be happening this time around—in part because institutions are reluctant to keep expanding when revenues drop but also because of the rising student charges and uncertainty about the economy. Labels: financial crisis
Let the Conversation Begin: How Do We Deal With a Rogue Trustee?
This Leadership Abstract from the League for Innovation by Terry O'Banion, is a prelude to his forthcoming new book, The Rogue Trustee: The Elephant In the Room. We're looking forward to reviewing it for SCUP's journal, Planning for Higher Education. Rogue trustees run roughshod over the norms and standards of behavior expected of public officials appointed or elected to office. They tend to trample over the ideas and cautions of the CEO, the trustee chair, and member trustees. They place their own interests over the interests of the college. They violate written and unwritten codes of conduct. They often make inappropriate alliances with faculty, staff, and other trustees. They recommend and support policies that are not in the best interests of the institution. They consume an inordinate amount of staff and meeting time. They know how to get attention, to appeal to the base elements in others, and to manipulate individuals and situations to their advantage. Most rogue trustees are quite bright and articulate; some are mentally unbalanced. They are sometimes loners, exiled from the herd, but they also create alliances with others to carry out their agenda. They are high maintenance. They tend to poison the culture of the college instead of helping to create a sense of community, collaboration, innovation, and common values. They become the catalyst for increased defensiveness, paranoia, subterfuge, and fear. In short, they cause enormous damage. The rogue trustee is the elephant in the room, creating an ever-widening circle of frustration and destruction for anything in its path. Labels: decision making, leadership, trustees
Can't We All Just Get Along?
Related: Related: A concurrent session at SCUP–44: Building the Plane in the Air: Changing a Campus Culture While Integrating Vision, Budget and Program Review.
We completely agree with the initial premiss of this article by Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed: You know the stereotypes—perhaps even believe them. College administrators these days care only for the bottom line. Professors can't decide anything or ever endorse change. When professors become department chairs or deans, they cross over to the 'dark side,' and forget their old values and friends. . . . In various forms, these views of the 'other side' are hardly new. But several researchers [recently argued at the 2009 AERA conference] that the economic crisis facing higher education makes it particularly important for the various players to work well together . . . . The idea . . . is not to presume that the differences will vanish. There are bound to still be professors more deliberative than administrators might want—especially those administrators facing deadlines to cut budgets. . . . a more nuanced approach might yield strategies that move beyond the false dichotomy of, for example, making every budget cut today or waiting two years to come up with a plan. Labels: AERA, department chairs, integrated planning, leadership
"Academics Will Fight Over Money and Kill Over Space"
Scott Carlson has provided SCUP with a non-protected link to his recent article on space management. He leads in by writing about SCUPer Deborah L. Blythe, of Pennsylvania State University: She manages, assesses, and helps to distribute some 23 million square feet of classroom space, offices, meeting rooms, and laboratories on Penn State's 19 campuses. Now and then she grabs her digital camera, her keys to any room here on the flagship campus, and goes on a 'walkabout' to look at a space that might be underutilized or outdated. Department heads, protective of every closet and cranny, sometimes tremble to see her coming. Once, she says, a department took a room that had been stacked with chairs and garbage and arranged it to look lived-in, complete with nameplates of nonexistent people. The ruse didn't work. Labels: space management
Managing Campus Space
Colleges will need to carefully assess how they are using existing space, and also to question the procedures and policies they have for space use. (Colleges that don’t have such policies and procedures will need to create them.) In these times of economic uncertainly, it is critical for institutions to make sure they are utilizing their space efficiently while still supporting their education, research, and service missions and goals. - SCUPer Ann K. Newman, guest blogger for the month of April 2009 in the Buildings & Grounds blog of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Her posts can be found here. Labels: space, space management
Best Practices in Learning Space Design: Engaging Users
SCUP staffer Phyllis Grummon contributed this article to the most recent issue of EDUCAUSE Quarterly, which issue is entirely devoted to "Learning Spaces." Key takeways from Grummons article: - Engaging those who will use a learning space in its planning yields the greatest benefits, yet the people who manage a space usually determine its design.
- Formal and informal surveys of space use provide data that inform design according to the location and intended purpose of a specific space.
- Survey results from the Society for College and University Planning and Herman Miller showed that respondents believe users should be key drivers in learning space design.
This is a must-read issue of EQ, with 15 quality articles about learning spaces and learning space design. Labels: EDUCAUSE Quarterly, EQ, Grummon, learning space design
Can Campuses Change Before Obsolescence?
Trent Batson urges a closer look at portfolios to really change how higher education does business: Colleges and universities provide the cultural venue for young people to launch into life professionally and personally; they are spa where young people "get in shape" for adulthood. . . . This spa aspect of college means that colleges and universities will probably remain in business for a long time to come. Despite efforts over the past several decades to move from "I tell you, your remember what I tell you, you write down what I tell you," to "Here is a task that I'll help you organize to accomplish," the "I tell you" model remains overwhelmingly dominant. When I visit campuses, I walk up and down the halls of classroom buildings and from classroom to classroom I hear one voice "telling" knowledge. . . . Neither teacher nor student nor those looking at the bottom line really want this delusional process to cease. Teaching in an open education way introduces too many variables and requires more energy. . . . For those faculty members, instructional designers, faculty development folks, program directors, deans, and provosts already inclined toward fundamental change in how teaching and learning transactions occur, the portfolio approach offers a pathway. The spa will make money as it is, but the spa committed and reorganized around "visible knowledge" (CNDLS at Georgetown) and formative assessment through evidence-based learning will produce better graduates.
Labels: A Guide to Planning for Change, academic planning, assessing student learning, portfolios
Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and the Economic Downturn
Nikki Krawitz interviews Janice Abraham, of the University of Missouri System, for Business Officer magazine: In some ways doesn’t this resemble the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis that many institutions go through as part of their strategic planning process?
That’s really what ERM is—identifying opportunities and threats in relation to your strengths and weaknesses, but with an added focus on deciding how you will respond. Most of the institutional SWOT analysis I see is focused heavily on assessing strengths. When it comes to weaknesses, the thought or planning is not always as rigorous. And, because SWOT analysis is usually done in conjunction with strategic planning, which may only take place every three to five years, it may not remain as relevant.
So, what is the best way to make ERM part of your institutional mind-set?
ERM is really intended to be part of routine planning processes rather than a separate initiative. The ideal place to start is with buy-in and commitment from the board and senior leadership. I think a good time to start is when we regularly ask people to think about the next year, or the next 5 or 10 years. The annual budget process is [the time] when we make requests to initiate programs or services or begin laying the groundwork for new capital projects, for instance. This is when we should also ask staff and faculty to think about potential risks. Of course, ERM also requires asking how external events or circumstances might impede our ability to meet goals or maintain operations. For example, if fuel prices go up significantly, what maintenance programs will we need to delay? Where will we shift resources to make up the difference? Would we need to consider layoffs? This is essentially about turning your entire campus staff into risk managers in the “big R” sense. I think some try to make ERM too complicated, but this doesn’t have to be a term paper. It can be a one-pager. Labels: ERM, risk management, strategic planning
Evolution of Office Spaces Reflects Changing Attitudes Toward Work
From Frederick Taylor, one of the first people to actually design an office space, in 1904, through the invention and wild breeding of the office cubicle, to more recent spaces which encourage sociability while trying to maintain at least a perception of privacy, this Wired magazine one-pager is interesting and informative: "Since the dawn of the white-collar age, office designs have cycled through competing demands: openness versus privacy, interaction versus autonomy. Here's a brief history of how seating arrangements have reflected our changing attitudes toward work." Labels: campus design, campus space, interior design, office space
SHEEO's 'SHEF': State Higher Education Finance Report
What might have been the beginning of a financial recovery in 2008 for public higher education ended prematurely with the growing awareness, late in the year, of the depths of the current financial crisis. The State Higher Education Executive Officers organization (SHEO) has been publishing this annual "state of finance for public higher ed" for quite some time now. The most recent report - PDF of report here, PDF of press release here - is not optimistic: [T]he current recession is likely to renew and intensify a long term trend of declining state support and higher tuition and fees for students in public colleges and universities. “Despite progress over the past three years, per student state and local support for public higher education has only recovered about half of the funding lost during the sharp downturn from 2002 to 2005,” noted Paul Lingenfelter, president of SHEEO. “All the signs in the current recession point toward further decline, renewing and accelerating the long term trend for public higher education to become more expensive for students and their families.”
Recessions tend to be particularly harsh on public higher education and on its students. The data for the past 20 years clearly outline the pattern and its consequences. Constant dollar state support per student fell by 13 percent from 1988 to 1993, two recessions ago. (All financial comparisons are in 2008 dollars.) During that period, tuition jumped from 25 percent to 30 percent of total revenues. In the late 1990s, state support recovered and the rate of annual tuition increases slowed down, but tuition remained near 30 percent of total revenues. Labels: financial crisis, funding, public, resource and budget planning, state
Community College Budgets Were Weak Even Before Financial Crisis Slammed Everyone
Scott Jaschik reports on the presentation at the AACC conference (SCUP staff member Betty Cobb represented SCUP in the AACC exhibit hall.) of the 2008 survey of the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges. That full report is not yet available on the AACC website, but it will be. The bottom line is that community college funding was in trouble even before last September: “It is very clear that the high tuition/ high aid model of student financial aid does not work well, if at all, for low-income students attending community colleges,” the report says. It notes that state directors report that their lawmakers are not aligning policies to promote such policies, but are simply raising tuition.
State directors were “nearly unanimous” in finding that their students will be unable to attend without incurring debt, which discourages many from enrolling. If higher education continues to receive “what’s left on the table” in state budgets -- as has been the case -- the report project serious loss of access for low-income students. Labels: AACC, community colleges, financial crisis, NCSDCC, resource and budget planning
Is Europe Now Doing a Better Job of Assessment?
The Bologna Process for U.S. Eyes: Re-learning Higher Education in the Age of Convergence (PDF) is a new report by Clifford Adelman for the Institute for Higher Education Policy. The associated press release has some nice summary statements and choice quotations from the 258-page report itself, which is available online for free download. While the United States remains concerned about its standing in terms of participation in global higher education and completion of degrees, 46 countries in Europe have been working for a decade on a completely different set of issues: bringing their higher education systems closer together in terms of standards for degrees, credit systems, more flexible pathways into and through higher education (hence, access), and accountability criteria. They call their undertaking “The Bologna Process,” and it is still a work in progress.
The Institute for Higher Education Policy’s (IHEP) new study, The Bologna Process for U.S. Eyes: Re-learning Higher Education in the Age of Convergence, contends the nation has misplaced its focus with pointing out that the countries involved in the Bologna Process are producing more and better degrees whose reference points in student learning outcomes is transparent—something that cannot be said for American awarded degrees. Countries outside of Europe have already recognized the profound revolution rolling from Cork to Vladivostok with parts of the Bologna Process having been imitated in Latin America, North Africa, and Australia, resulting in a global shift in higher education leadership.
For a long time, U.S. higher education did not pay much attention to the Bologna Process, but since IHEP published a long essay in May 2008, titled The Bologna Club: What U.S. Higher Education Can Learn from a Decade of European Reconstruction, the U.S. higher education has started listening seriously. Our nation is now starting to act, most notably, on learning outcomes in the context of the disciplines.
In fact, three state higher education systems—Indiana, Minnesota, and Utah—have begun their work examining and testing the Bologna “Tuning” process in six disciplines to determine the forms and extent of its potential in the United States contexts. Scarcely a year ago, such an effort, called “Tuning USA,” would have been unthinkable. Labels: accreditation, assessment, Bologna, Europe, quality
The Education Stimulus: Insights into the ARRA for Educators
From the Carnegie Foundation, an archived (a month old, but free) webcast on the "stimulus package" as it relates to education: "Carnegie President Anthony S. Bryk and Teachscape President Mark Atkinson recently interviewed Joseph Conaty, acting assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education of the U.S. Department of Education. During the informative web conference, Conaty reviewed elements of the new federal stimulus package and discussed how to maximize its instructional impact." Labels: ARRA, financial crisis, stimulus
Things They Don't Teach You in Grad School
As I was speaking at a faculty meeting the other day, I had a thought that comes to me with some regularity these days: Right now, almost nothing I do in my job as dean of the faculty is directly related to what I learned in graduate school, or to my original plans when set out to earn my Ph.D. Does that surprise you? Read more from The Chronicle of Higher Education: I certainly never thought that I would become an administrator, at least beyond the department chair level. Even as a visiting instructor, though, I quickly developed an intense interest in how my college worked. The analytical thinking and institutional skepticism inculcated by scholarly training in my discipline (English) most definitely contributed to that interest. I think they also made me a pain to our administration in ways that I now understand quite thoroughly.
But budgeting, student recruitment and retention, strategic planning, facilities, personnel, and other issues that I now deal with almost daily were definitely not on my agenda back then. Even as a young professor, a lot of the issues I encountered were simply not part of my graduate training. Life as a new faculty member was full of surprises, not all of them pleasant. The relative purity of graduate school’s scholarly agenda does not fit that cleanly with the life the vast majority of college and university faculty members end up leading. Labels: administration, careers
Hard Times from the Economic Downturn
Subtitled, "Tuitions rise, services cut, as university officials try to ride out a severe economic downturn," this essay by Jon Marcus takes a look at financial decision making in presidents' offices: Inevitably, however, changes that are more dramatic than hiring freezes and journal cancellations will eventually become necessary, said Golding. "We are doing those things first because we have to deal with the immediate problem that's facing us, and then we can step back and look to see where there are opportunities for such things as programs we want to get out of because they don't define the institutions. And that takes time." Besides, he said, just cutting a program may not save much money: "If you have a tenured professor, you still have to deal with that obligation." And some programs generate revenue. Breneman, in his role as an administrator during the 2001 recession, proposed eliminating a master's program in his department in order to cut costs, only to find out that it had more full-tuition-paying students enrolled in it and was making money for the university. Labels: financial crisis, resource and budget planning
Recessions Past and Present
This essay in national CrossTalk by David W. Breneman examines previous recessions and higher education, in an attempt to distinguish them determine the significance of the current one for the future of our institutions: A review of the past four recessions prior to the current one reveals that, on balance, higher education in the United States weathered each of these economic storms reasonably well (the Chronicle of Higher Education, October 10, 2008). But most observers agree that the current recession, officially announced as having begun in December 2007, is a different breed of recession, with disconcerting similarities to the Great Depression of the 1930s, as noted above. After years of neglect, Keynesian economic policy is being reintroduced in the form of aggressive fiscal actions designed to increase aggregate demand in the economy. While it seems unlikely that the world will slump into prolonged depression, the economic outlook is cloudy at best, with conditions likely to be more severe, and depressed longer, than in other post World War II recessions. What might this situation mean for higher education in the United States?
We have no definitive evidence yet, but early warning signs abound. Most state governments are experiencing a sharp drop in tax receipts, and because states have to operate with balanced budgets, expenditure cuts are being reported daily. In recent days, for example, the states of Washington, Nevada, Texas, Oregon, Idaho, California and South Carolina have announced cuts in state appropriations to public colleges and universities, ranging from ten to 36 percent. And few states, if any, will avoid such cuts. Labels: financial crisis, resource and budget planning
Energy Utilities and Sustainability
APPA's Facilities Manager magazine does one of the best jobs in higher education at consistent, regular theme issues on important topics. Its current March/April 2009 issue is an exemplar, with the theme of "Energy Utilities and Sustainability." Articles include: " Campus Climate Neutrality - Yes We Can! It's a Big Challenge, But Here's How to Do It" (PDF) by Walter Simpson; " Carbon Emissions Trading and Combined Heat and Power Strategies: Unintended Consequences" (not yet available on line) by John C. Tysseling, Mary Vosevich, Benjamin R. Boersma, and Jeffery A. Zumwalt; " National Trends in Sustainability Performance: Lessons from Facilities Leaders" (PDF) by Kristy M. Jones and L. Julian Keniry; and " LEDs: DOE Programs Add Credibility to a Developing Technology" by Susan Conbrere (not yet available on line). Labels: climate change, energy, facilities, sustainability, utilities
Transformational Trajectory: Three Current Case Studies
NACUBO's Business Officer often comes up with great content. In the current issue, there is a series of three case studies worth looking at. They include: " Rising to the Top," by Lee. T. Todd, Jr., about the University of Kentucky, Lexington's plan to become a "Top 20" public research university by 2020; " Transformation to the Third Power," by Bill Duncan, about High Point University's challenge to tackle its physical appearance, academic environment, and overall student experience, all at once; and " Online and On Our Way," by Patrcia Charlton, about the College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas' implementation of online learning to handle massive growth demand: The College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas, is a two-year public institution providing educational opportunities to this fast-paced, growing metropolis. CSN is one of the largest community colleges in the country and the largest institution of higher education in Nevada. In fall 2008, enrollment topped 41,000 students, or 21,000 full-time equivalents. Like so many other higher educational institutions, our college has felt the pressures of increased enrollment, continual student demand, strained fiscal operating resources, and limited funding to support capital projects. Further, we faced budget constraints that limited our ability to increase faculty, construct new facilities, and expand student service operations. Despite these challenges, the college was determined to meet the current and future needs of its students.
Based on the unique nature of our student population, the 24-hour demand, and limited ability to obtain new physical facilities, implementing online programs was a natural solution that would enable the institution to meet the needs of our students. In the past three years, we’ve gone from having only a few selected courses online to offering more than 22 programs and 300 courses to students in a structured “online campus,” with academic and student services online and more than 19,000 duplicated enrollments annually (with each online course a student takes counting as one enrollment). The online presence is our fastest-growing campus community, and demand is still outpacing the institution’s ability to keep up. Labels: strategic planning, transformation
Google Searching Tip
Here in the SCUP office, we often get calls from members trying to find something. Sometimes they have a paragraph or two from an original manuscript or article, but either don't know where it was published or how to access it. We've discovered a great secret: Take a fairly distinct sentence from the document, put it into Google search with quotation marks around it, and you'll often find a link directly to the original, or a copy someone else has made available on line. For example, you might have a paragraph from an article that includes this sentence: " Investment managers faced several unexpected jolts, including the credit freeze, subprime mortgage meltdown, and slowing U.S. and world economies." A Google search for those terms, in that order, kept together by quotation marks yields a strike on the very first listed link. It's a recent Business Officer article about the current trajectory of institutional endowments. Seriously, this searching trick is not to be underestimated. Labels: endowments, search, technology, technology tip, trick
The Burnham Plan Centennial
We know many SCUPers are already following this with great interest. "Make no small plans," you know: When Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett collaborated with the Commercial Club of Chicago in 1909 to create a dramatic vision for the greater Chicago Region they took on the task with vigor and sustained commitment. The Burnham Plan Centennial group is made up of organizations that include the Adler Planetarium, the American Planning Association, and the University of Chicago. Visitors can get a sense of their work by clicking on the "About the Centennial" section. Here they can learn about upcoming events and lectures sponsored by member organizations, their staff members, and their press releases. Moving on, the "Our History, Our Future" area includes links to the complete original 1909 Plan, along with links to the "Virtual Burnham" project at Lake Forest College and information about current exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago. Finally, the "Learning Resources" area is a gem, and visitors can view classroom resources, a bibliography of books and web publications on the Plan of Chicago, and a kid's portal. [KMG] copyright Labels: architecture, Burnham, campus design, Chicago, planning
300% Over Budget?
Ouch. It's not hard to imagine the angst of being involved with the planning of this project: For starters, what was supposed to be a $40-million project — with a $26-million contribution from the philanthropist Eli Broad, an alumnus — was at one point estimated at a whopping $160-million, according to the university’s president, Lou Anna K. Simon. The university’s associate provost for academic services, Linda Stanford, told the News that the design was being changed and that it would indeed end up “close to $40-million.” Labels: architecture, campus design, facilities, Michigan State, museum, starchitects
Community Colleges and the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act
Job training money available through the federal government will double in the next two years, and many of the new law's provisions benefit community college growth and change: While the intention of the provision is primarily to bolster training, it will undoubtedly strengthen the hand of community colleges in the workforce system; the No. 1 recommendation of the aforementioned Lumina study was, "relax constraints on contract training."
"We're very excited about the opportunity," says Michael Bankey, vice president of workforce and community services at Owens. Because of its close relationship, physically and otherwise, with the Toledo one-stop center, the community college is already the center's biggest provider of training. But right now, Bankey notes, the center refers students one by one to its various programs -- between 10 and 20 a month in truck driving, for instance. But the ability to enter into group contracts with the one-stop center, in the way that Owens now does to create specialized programs for local businesses or other organizations, opens up lots of possibilities for customized setups that directly respond to local, regional or state needs, Bankey says. Labels: community college, financial crisis, stimulus, workforce development, workforce training
Budget Cuts, Courtesy of Donor X
An anonymous donor has given the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill the funds to pay for a private consulting firm to recommend budget trimming cuts. Not everyone's happy with that. Among the more controversial provisions of the consulting contract: Faculty and staff may only mention the consulting company's name in ways consistent with agreed-upon talking points: In addition to concerns about the anonymous donor, some faculty are unsure whether Bain brings the appropriate expertise to a project that amounts to suggesting university priorities. The company lists non-profit groups among its clients on its Web site, but the very fact that it approaches problems differently than does academe has been touted by Holden as a selling point.
Cat Warren, past president of the AAUP’s state conference, says it doesn’t make sense to use a company with such limited background in the realm of higher education.
“It’s like bringing in someone to operate on patient,and having someone say ‘Don’t worry, he’s not actually a surgeon, but he’ll bring a fresh perspective to the surgery,' " said Warren, an associate professor of English at North Carolina State University. Labels: financial crisis, resource and budget planning
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