The Case for Architectural-Design Competitions
Colleges Moving Away From Pure “Cafeteria-Style” General Education Requirements
The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) surveyed "among 433 Chief Academic Officers or designated representatives at AAC&U member institutions to measure the prevalence of specified learning outcomes in higher education institutions today and to document recent trends in curricular change, specifically in the areas of general education and assessment." The survey results, as well as two reports on its findings - "Learning and Assessment: Trends in Undergraduate Education" and "Trends and Emerging Practices in General Education" - are available as downloadable PDFs. Find them here: http://www.aacu.org/membership/membersurvey.cfm
The Mystery of Faculty Priorities
From an Inside Higher Ed article:
"Remler, associate professor ofpublic affairs at Baruch College of the City University of New York, and Pema, an assistant professor of economics at the Naval Postgraduate School, decided to review the literature and economic theories that might explain the reasons more colleges and departments are encouraging their faculty members to focus on research, at the expense of teaching time. And they found an abundance of theories, some of which may overlap and some of which may conflict with one another. The authors suggest that higher education would benefit from figuring out just why this phenomenon has taken place, given its expense in money and faculty time."
Read the article: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/28/nberWe also have a link to the full report: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14974.pdfLabels: academic planning, Inside Higher Ed, Pema, Remler, research, University of New York
Public Institution and University System Financial Conditions Survey
From the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities (AGB), Cristin Toutsi and Rich Novak report on an overview of public higher education's financial situation.
"Using such metrics as funding levels, budget cuts, strategies for cost reductions, creative board actions, tuition and financial aid levels, enrollment projections, private support, and current board practices, we have tried to capture the essence of the challenges college and university boards are facing and how they are responding."
Full it here: http://www.agb.org/user-assets/Documents/center/BudgetReportonPublicsApril2009.pdfLabels: AGB, budget and resource planning, Cristin Toutsi, financial crisis, governing boards, Rich Nowak
The Shipping and Transport College, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Riding Out the Storm: More on How HR is Coping With Economic Realities
Mandatory furloughs, voluntary furloughs, voluntary reduction in time from full- to part-time, phased retirements, pulling in-house what had previously been outsourced, new efficiencies in administrative services, hiring freezes, salary freezes, cross-training . . . HR is getting creative, and no one wants to lay people off. "As of this writing, The University of Washington plans to cut at least 600 jobs. Up to 50 people may lose jobs at Colorado State University. Utah State University is laying off 20 workers. The jobs of eight workers at Riverland Community College (Minn.) are in jeopardy. Nearly 100 workers at Harvard—supposedly the richest university in the world—have lost their jobs over the past year."
"As the nation’s unemployment rate continues to climb, many higher ed leaders aren’t sitting back, waiting for the inevitable to happen. HR professionals are being proactive, taking advantage of the recession to either streamline or create practices that save money, stabilize expenses, and, ultimately, prevent layoffs."
Read the full article here: http://www.universitybusiness.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=1286Labels: budget and resource planning, financial crisis, human resources
Ohio College Brings Project Management Under Control
Owens Community College replaced the former melange of "shareware, Excel spreadsheets, and Microsoft Project" with a subscription centralized project management system. "'The opportunity to apply the cost as an operating expense, and not as a capital expense, is appealing,' said Low. 'The fact that a school can be up and running with the solution in less than 30 days also resonates, particularly with those organizations that run with lean IT departments.'" Read about it here: http://campustechnology.com/articles/2009/05/21/ohio-college-brings-project-management-under-control.aspxLabels: ERP, it, Owens Community College, project management, software
Gained in Translation: Do CFOs and CAOs Speak the Same Language?
This is a report by Susan Jurow and Marlene Ross on a recent ACE and NACUBO special program which brought together CFOs and CAOs. It is categorized into several sections: "Cultural Context"; "Learning a Second Language"; "Two Voices, One To-Do List"; "Tutoring the Talent Team"; and "Advce for New Partnerships." "Although both are employed by the same institution and work to improve the educational experience of students, CAOs and CFOs often view the world through different lenses and therefore may have varying approaches to the problems that confront their college or university. They can have different goals and frequently use different language to describe a situation that they face in common" Read it here: http://www.nacubo.org:80/Business_Officer_Magazine/Current_Issue/May_2009/Gained_in_Translation.htmlLabels: ACE, CAOs, CFOs, collaboration, Marlene Ross, NACUBO, strategic planning, Susan Jurow
The Department Chair: Leading the Charge to Build Student Character and Leaders
Building Information Modeling (BIM)
 The May/June issue of Facilities Manager magazine from APPA focuses on Building Information Modeling (BIM). The lead article, "Getting Started and Working with Building Information Modeling" is available to the public in PDF format. It begins: "This article will assume that you have heard of Building Information Modeling or BIM but have not developed a strategy as to how to get the most out of it. The National BIM Standard (NBIMS) has defined BIM as a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. As such, it serves as a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility, forming a reliable basis for decisions during its life cycle from inception onward. A basic premise of BIM is collaboration by different stakeholders at different phases of the life cycle of a facility to insert, extract, update, or modify information to support and reflect the roles of that stakeholder. The BIM is a shared digital representation founded on open standards for interoperability. Read the full article and issue here: http://www.appa.org/FacilitiesManager/index.cfmLabels: APPA. Facilities Manager, BIM, building information modeling, facilities planning, NBIMS
Slide Show: Top 10 Earth- and People-Friendly Buildings
Where is the Distance Education 'Tipping Point'?
When do the realities of having a lot of students doing distance education change your institution, and how? Cerro Coso Community College administrators (That school is past the 50 percent mark) led a discussion recently at the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) meeting. Among the important impacts: Faculty Hiring and Training, Local Ties, and Technology Infrastrucuture. "What do we change -- if we change anything?" said Dylan D. Mattina, director of information technology, in introducing the session. "This is something that many institutions will have to deal with at some point."Mattina and others from his college discussed several of the choices colleges need to make as they reach either 50 percent or some other critical mass where the institution is changed by the success of its distance offerings." Read the full article here: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/26/distanceLabels: academic planning, Cerro Coso Community College, faculty, Inside Higher Ed, it, NISOD, online learning, Scott Jaschik
Practice and Pedagogy of Architecture Must Change?
Minoca Ponce de Leon, dean of the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, writes about how the pedagogy and practice of architecture must be transformed: "Our teaching methodologies and the predominant model of studio instruction has remained virtually unchanged for more than 100 years. More importantly, in the last 20 years architecture has stagnated in the midst of architectural research that focused too closely on topics that proved to have little consequence." "Today, with accelerated advances in digital fabrication technologies and their widespread application, I believe that we find ourselves in the midst of a second digital revolution. Not unlike the 1980s, as we argue over the significance of these “tools,” digital fabrication is fundamentally changing construction methods and transforming the building industry. This second time around, however, we have a remarkable opportunity to take a more critical stance toward technology and articulate its potential for social engagement, or else we risk perpetuating the divides that threaten to limit the relevance of architecture to the actual circumstances of the building industry—as the current economic downturn has demonstrated. Other fields are wrestling with these very same issues. Not only will architecture be best served by entering into a conversation with these disciplines, but architecture will best serve and participate in the construction of culture. Much of what lies at the core of our discipline is already playing a central role in the redefinition of other fields. It is telling that design is now an integral part of the curriculum at top business schools across the country. Engineering departments have developed coursework around notions of creative practices, while schools of social work and public policy have aligned social activism with entrepreneurship and design thinking. The value of design has increased in all aspects of society, at the same time that the pertinence of architecture has decreased. By remaining hermetic and, dare I say, self-absorbed, we run the risk of relegating to other fields the cultural power of design as an agent for social change."
Read more here: http://www.archpaper.com/e-board_rev.asp?News_ID=3464Labels: Alfred Taubman, architecture, design, learning, Leon, technology, university of michigan
World Expo Shanghai 2010 - Country Pavilion Designs
Peace in Accreditation Land
Writing in Inside Higher Ed, Doug Lederman summarizes recent happenings in "accreditation land" this way: "In stark contrast to 2007, federal negotiations over accreditation rules end in accord, overcoming dispute over student learning outcomes that might have derailed the proceeding[s]." "Those issues were on the agenda again as another panel of negotiators completed several months of work on accreditation at an Education Department office building Tuesday, but with a dramatically different result (and dramatically less drama). The college administrators, higher education lobbyists, accreditors, state officials and others around the conference table -- including Education Department staff members -- reached "consensus" on a package of 16 regulatory proposals to carry out changes Congress made in legislation to renew the Higher Education Act last summer. (When such negotiating sessions end with "consensus" among the parties on a package of regulatory changes, a federal agency is bound to propose them as is; when no consensus is reached, the agency can essentially do whatever it wants.)" Read the full article here: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/20/accreditLabels: 2007, accountability, accreditation, assessment, DOug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, policy, quality
Higher Education Community Engagement and Accreditation: Activating Engagement through Innovative Accreditation Strategies
Lorilee R. Sandmann, Julie E. Williams, and Eleanor D. Abrams, studied two very different public institutions and, in Planning for Higher Education, share the benefits they see in linking accreditation with an institutional commitment to student engagement.
"Convergence is occurring between external demands placed on U.S. higher education institutions, such as those from state and federal governments for greater accountability, and calls for higher education’s recommitment to public purposes. One important example of this convergence is the redesign of accreditation processes and standards. Because of this redesign, accreditation—traditionally an academic and administrative activity—now has the potential to elevate and advance an institution’s commitment to greater community engagement, a more contemporary, innovative institutional priority. "
Link to Planning for Higher Education: http://ams.scup.org/i4a/ams/amsstore/category.cfm?product_id=8601Labels: assessment, engagement, in Planning for Higher Education. accreditation, quality
How (Not to) Defend Liberal Arts Colleges
Hint: The author, Robert Shoenberg in Liberal Education, suggests that we not equate a liberal education either with (a) the study of liberal arts or (b) with study at colleges traditionally associated with the liberal arts and liberal education - too confining. "Thus an education in the liberal arts and sciences disciplines is not, by definition, a liberal education. Study exclusively in the liberal arts disciplines does not guarantee a liberal education. Indeed, many liberal arts majors are as narrowly specialized as any professional program. Conversely, many career-specific programs are insistent on liberal learning." "I am in total agreement that a liberal education in the liberal arts, an education that is purposefully designed to develop critical and communicative powers and a sense of the complexity and diversity of the world, is the best preparation for work, for citizenship, and for a satisfying life. The article in that liberal arts college alumni magazine that got me thinking about all of this cites the director of an aerospace company who claims that, in hiring, “I’ll always go for the philosophy major. They know nothing about aerospace, but they know all about complexity—and that’s what I need.” I applaud such insight and only wish that the people this executive sends out to do his recruiting had the same understanding of the utility of a liberal education, wherever its locus in the curriculum." Read the article here: http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-wi09/le-wi09_MyView.cfmLabels: college, humanities, learning, liberal arts, liberal education, Robert Shoenberg
The iCampus Technology-Enabled Active Learning Project at MIT
Want to learn about some of MIT's leading-edge learning and technology pilots? In Innovate: Journal of Online Education, James Morrison interviews Phillip Long about MIT's "iCampus," a leading-edge collaboration with Microsoft which began in 1999. Long says that the most important results came from uses of technology to facilitate team-oriented active learning projects. MIT is now moving iLabs to a number of locations with a funding consortium to extend its life. "Okay. That sounds reasonable. People have been putting experiments on the Internet since the Internet came into being; there's nothing novel about that. The problem has been that in the past, they chose idiosyncratic strategies for doing so. It was a cottage industry in that regard; we had not yet thought carefully about how to create an architecture, design, and tools that were easily replicable and sustainable. Every faculty member chose what to do based on what he/she knew—for example, a certain programming language or a particular design approach—and that instructor put something up and it was great; it worked as long as the graduate student who was there when it was built stayed. MIT went down that same path. We built a bunch of experiments and then put them online using these same idiosyncratic methods. And sure enough after a short period of time, they all started to bit rot in one fashion or another. Each time we put one up, we gained very little in terms of benefit for implementing the next one. We thought, "There's got to be a better way." iCampus gave us the funding to explore that through a project called iLab. Then Hal Abelson, a colleague, made the point that we should be thinking about this from an architectural point of view; that is, we should be thinking about how to use standardized services that all experiments can use to meet common needs."
Read the full article here: http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=666&action=articleLabels: academic planning, icampus, Innovate, it, James Morrison, learning, MIT, technology
Defending Collegiality
In Change magazine, Michael Fischer addresses collegiality - where it exists, where it doesn't, and specifically with regard to faculty, how it can be saved/re-established. He ends with a discussion of the value (or not) of codes of conduct. Got anyone like this on your campus?
"Their weapons include personal insults, threats and intimidation, hostile e-mails, public ridicule, and scornful interruptions. They hurt organizational performance as well as the people they target. In the environments that they poison, enthusiasm for work gives way to anxiety, resentment, and a longing to get out."
"The reluctance to adopt a code of conduct for faculty members stems in part from a belief also expressed in corporate workplaces: that geniuses must be jerks and that some belligerence, indifference to others, and rudeness are inseparable from the achievements of a Steve Jobs or Bobby Knight. Sutton counters this view by observing that not all successful people are jerks and that jerks succeed despite their cruelty to others, not because of it. I would add that the odds are slim that the professor yelling at the departmental secretary spends the rest of his day bringing about a Copernican revolution in his discipline. Much more frequently, no paradigm-shifting accomplishments offset his poor behavior." You can read the full article here: http://www.changemag.org/May-June%202009/full-defending-collegiality.htmlLabels: academic planning, Change magazine, collegiality, faculty, human relations, Michael Fisher
Horns of the Dilemma for Faculty: Legacy Demands and Technology Expectations
Every knowledge-based profession is struggling with legacy demands and new technology expectations, and including higher education faculty. In Campus Technology magazine, Trent Batson writes about the dilemmas posed particularly by Web 2.0 technologies. The comments section is lively and entertaining. "Amidst the Web 2.0 tsunami, life on campus goes on as normal. Faculty members are still expected to publish in traditional journals, still expected to meet their classes in rooms equipped with chalkboards and designed for lectures, and still expected by their students to tell them what they should know so they can write it on paper during a test. Where's the tsunami?"
"Granted, dorms have high-speed wireless, labs have StarTrek technologies, and the business side of the campus is run with software. But, then, oh yes, there are the classrooms that look the same and support the same activities as 100 years ago. The business side of campus had to be quick to change to stay competitive and to run the enterprise more efficiently and up to standards. But the actual main business of the campus, the educational culture and its various instantiations, is surprisingly atavistic."
The full article and commentary can be read here: http://campustechnology.com/articles/2009/05/06/horns-of-the-dilemma-for-faculty.aspxLabels: academic planning, change, faculty, it, technology, transformation, Trent Batson, Web 2.0
A Merger, and the Case for Decentralized Financial Management
Faced with a challenging situation at the University of Toledo, Scott Scarborough reports, in Business Officer, what he learned as he explored the pros and cons of responsibility-based budgeting- and the still-to-be-answered questions that help that institution's leaders make the decision. "When I joined the university in early 2008 as its new chief business officer, the deans of business and education asked, "What's the next step toward implementing RBB?" It was obvious that these deans were eager for more control of the financial resources generated by their colleges and schools. At that point, I set out to review responsibility-based budgeting—its strengths and weaknesses—and how it might work at the University of Toledo."
"Over the past few months, the deans and I have studied and discussed RBB; we have weighed its pros and cons. In addition, we invited Jon Strauss to the University of Toledo campus for one day to join and inform our conversations; he was very helpful. I have briefed the president and his cabinet on the strengths and weaknesses of RBB and solicited their input. Our president is very supportive of taking the next steps down the RBB path. The deans and their financial staffs voted unanimously to pursue changes to the university's centralized model of financial management. Roughly half of the deans and their financial staffs, however, thought it best merely to modify the centralized model by adding more funding incentives and increasing transparency. The other half in attendance thought it best to pursue RBB fully and abandon the university's centralized financial model. Everyone, however, agreed to continue the conversation before making a final recommendation to the president." Read the full article here: http://www.nacubo.org:80/Business_Officer_Magazine/Current_Issue/April_2009/The_Case_for_Decentralized_Financial__Management.htmlLabels: budget, Business Officer, merger, RBB, resource and budget planning, responsibility-based budgeting, Scott Scarborough, University of Toledo
A Master Plan for Facilities at the University of Southern Maine's Lewiston-Auburn College
By 2004, the University of Maine's Lewiston-Auburn College had grown from 273 students to 1,227 and its original building, at 89,300 square feet, was completely filled by academic programming. This article in Business Officer by Pamela Roy, Jan Phillips, and Robert C. Klinedinst Jr., describes how the campus created a 15-year plan for growth with 10 construction and renovation phases. 'A combination of space needs, funding limitations, and a unique expansion opportunity led college leaders to create an overarching planning framework that eventually outlined 10 manageable construction and renovation phases anticipated to take place over a 15-year period. Each phase included new construction as well as retrofits.'
You can view the article here: http://www.nacubo.org:80/Business_Officer_Magazine/Business_Officer_Plus/A_Master_Plan_for_Facilities.htmlLabels: facilities planning, facility, Jan Phillips, Lewiston-Auburn, master plan, master planning, Pamela Roy, Robert C. Klinedinst, University of Southern Maine
Budget Realities and Adjunct Hiring
Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education's " On Hiring" blog, David Evans notes that at his institution, to replace adjuncts with full-time faculty would require a net increase in related expenses of $747,000, in an environment where the campus already faces $2.4M in cuts. You can read his entry here: http://chronicle.com/jobs/blogs/onhiring/1059"I’ve done a little math on my own budget that I want to share to show the dilemmas facing my small university with regard to adjunct employment. For context, we have about 1,000 students on the campus and another 2,000 in professional and online programs in 14 locations around the state. For now, I am only discussing our operations on our home campus."
"Numerous critics of practices surrounding adjunct employment accuse hiring institutions of “administrative bloat” which, if eliminated, could enable a solution to the overall problem. I’m probably not very credible on that matter since I am part of the administration, but at least at my institution, we run quite lean already. If we are to maintain operations and compliance with various regulations, accreditation requirements, and other external compulsions, even the most ruthless cutting of administrative costs wouldn’t get us more than perhaps $300,000 in budget relief. So it’s not likely that we can fix our adjunct situation merely by deflating a bloated management structure." Labels: adjuncts, budget cuts, faculty, financial crisis, resource and budget planning, tenure
What Do You Mean by 'What Does a College Degree Cost?'
If you want to know how much needs to be spent by "someone" to get a degree, $40,000 may be the answer. A recent Delta Study report says that answer also depends on how you perceive the role of colleges. This link is to an Inside Higher Ed report by Doug Lederman: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/19/degree"The paper shows that it is distinctly possible to come up with such a figure, but the wide variation in the numbers -- based on institution type, program, degree level, and other factors -- suggests that the answer will depend in large part on how the question is framed. And that decision is a surprisingly value-laden one, says Johnson. "You frame the question one way if you are only interested in students who graduate, and another way if you want to know the cost for people who go to college and don't complete," he says. "The point is, this is not just a data question. It's a question of what it is that we want from our colleges and universities." This link is to the Delta Study report on degree costs (PDF): http://www.deltacostproject.org/resources/pdf/johnson3-09_WP.pdfLabels: accessibility, affordability, college degree, cost, Delta, DOug Lederman, policy, project, resource and budget planning
"As the Auto Industry Shrinks, a Community College Retools"
"Community colleges across the country are being asked to educate more students with less money, but the sudden collapse of the carmaking sector has compounded the stresses of the current economic slump on Macomb [Community College]." Some say, however, that community colleges can "turn on a dime." How is Macomb making the most of this financial crisis? In this article, Karin Fischer analyzes the recent developments of Macomb Community College in response to the troubles facing the auto industry; " As the Auto Industry Shrinks, a Community College Retools" http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i35/35a00102.htmEconomic-development experts say community colleges can be a pivotal partner in efforts to "recast" a local economy when a once-dominant employer falters. "They have the ability to help move a region in a different direction," says James F. McKenney, vice president for economic development at the American Association of Community Colleges. "But that doesn't mean it isn't painful."
"The beauty of community colleges is that we can turn on a dime," says H. Martin Lancaster, who recently retired as president of the North Carolina Community College system. "By the time a university gets a building built, we can train a work force." Macomb officials also are trying to reach out to the roughly 70,000 working adults in the county who have some college experience. And they are building stronger partnerships with nearby four-year institutions, like Wayne State and Oakland Universities, to better align degree programs and to allow students to concurrently enroll. Such efforts, Mr. Jacobs says, will be important to the region's long-term economic vitality. "The purpose of a community college is not just to get people jobs," he says, "but to get people careers." Labels: auto industry, carmakers, community colleges, financial crisis, Karin Fischer, Macomb, Macomb Community College, Michigan, reinvention, transformation
Re: Work the Forgotten Resource
" Work: The Forgotten Resource to Maximize Student Opportunities" http://www.universitybusiness.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=1284"Handled thoughtfully and creatively, these jobs can provide benefits that go far beyond the dollars earned. For example, they offer students a chance to connect with people on campus. Retention research conducted at many schools finds the influence of $1,000 of on-campus employment on retention is much larger than an equivalent amount of grant support. In addition, work opportunities can be educationally purposeful or career related, giving students chances to build skills and “marketability” that can help them gain full-time employment after graduation."
"Some institutions are sweetening merit scholarship offers by tying them to research opportunities or other paid internships. Opportunities to work with a faculty member on a research project as an undergraduate—and perhaps even jointly publish findings—can be very attractive to students thinking about graduate or professional school after they complete their undergraduate degree." The article includes a variety of information and suggestions for program elements. Labels: employment, financial aid, internships, Jim Scannell, Kathy Kurz, students, work programs, work study
Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?
Word cloud map of this article:  The usual litany about competition from non-traditional sources, difficulty in getting student loans, fewer parents able to leverage on their home equity, and the coming demographic peak lead Joseph Marr Cronin and Howard E. Horton, writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, to use this critical moment in economic history to warn of bubbles and suggest that the day of reckoning for higher education could be drawing near. The public has become all too aware of the term "bubble" to describe an asset that is irrationally and artificially overvalued and cannot be sustained. The dot-com bubble burst by 2000. More recently the overextended housing market collapsed, helping to trigger a credit meltdown. The stock market has declined more than 30 percent in the past year, as companies once considered flagship investments have withered in value.
Is it possible that higher education might be the next bubble to burst? Some early warnings suggest that it could be. Labels: competition, Cronin, financial crisis, higher education bubble, Horton, resource and budget planning, The Chronicle of Higher Education
Towards a European Higher Education Area
This post quotes a message received by SCUP. We attended this event and it was very comprehensive and enlightening. We hope you will enjoy it via iTunes. The iTunes album is well organized.
The European Union Center of Excellence at the University of Michigan announces new content on iTunesU at U-M: Album "Towards a European Higher Education Area.” The international workshop "Towards a European Higher Education Area: Bologna Process and Beyond," took place in March 2009 at the University of Michigan's School of Education and explored how the Bologna Process relates to broader processes of globalization, internationalization, and diversification. Conveners were Janet Lawrence and Michael Bastedo, University of Michigan. Panelists included: Patrick Clancy, University College, Dublin; Anne Corbett, London School of Economics; Judith Eaton, Council for Higher Education Accreditation; Heather Eggins, Staffordshire University; Ase Gornitzka, University of Oslo; D. Bruce Johnstone, State University of New York at Buffalo; Barbara Kehm, University of Kassel; Marek Kwiek, Poznan University; Peter Maassen, University of Oslo; Christopher Morphew, University of Georgia; Christine Musselin, Sciences Po; and Bjorn Stensaker, Norwegian Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education. Links: Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education http://www.soe.umich.edu/cshpe/ Center for European Studies-European Union Center http://www.ii.umich.edu/ces-euc or http://www.ii.umich.edu/ces-euc/academics/projects/bologna Album "Towards a European Higher Education Area” http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/umich-public.2086929890
Labels: assessment, Bologna, Europe, quality
Accountability Measures
Subtitled, " States rely on new "data systems" to track institutional success and student outcomes," this author concludes that it does not require "new ways of doing things" for states to do a better job of collecting data about institutional performance—models that work exist right now, they're just not widely distributed. More institutions are using what some call information analytics: What state accountability systems don't tend to do is the one and only thing that accountability systems are ultimately for: improve colleges and universities on behalf of students and the public at large. This we know because affordability is declining, graduation rates are stagnant, and the few indicators of college student learning we can find, such as the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, are so terrifying (most college graduates aren't proficient on a test of prose literacy) that we all but pretend they don't exist.
Fortunately, there are reasons to be optimistic. While most states are not gathering useful information about teaching and learning in higher education, some are. While most states do not use the information they gather to create real incentives for institutional change, some do. If every state did nothing but adopt the best practices that already exist elsewhere, higher education accountability in America would be greatly improved. This possibility is further enhanced by the single biggest difference between 1986 and the present: the explosion in availability of inexpensive, timely and reliable information. Labels: assessment, data, information analytics, quality
National Trends in Sustainability Performance: Lessons from Facilities Leaders
This article from Facilities Manager (PDF) describes some of the findings of a 2008 study (with which SCUP assisted) by the Campus Ecology Project revealed campus operations as leading the effort to green college and university campuses. The study compared 2008 trends with those of 2001 and identified some missed opportunities. Facilities and other operations staff do have a ways to go,
however, in fully seizing the potential to reduce waste and curb
costs. One of the missed opportunities to curb waste and costs is
to monitor energy consumption on a building-by-building basis
through the use of utility sub-meters—only 29 percent report
monitoring energy use in more than 50
percent of the buildings on campus.
Investing in generating clean, renewable
energy on-site is another largely
missed opportunity to curb costs
long-term. Fewer than one-fifth of
schools report using either on-campus
clean sources for heating and cooling
(14 percent of schools) or on-campus
cogenerated heat and electricity (9
percent of schools), and the percentage
generating clean electricity on-site (as
noted above) is even lower. Labels: climate change, sustainability
More Hearts and Minds at the Table
The author of this article for Business Officer, is also the author of a new NACUBO book titled, Collaborative Strategic Planning in Higher Education: One of the main reasons that strategic planning often fails to live up to its promise is the way it is conducted on campuses. It is the process that is the problem. Often, campus stakeholders don't feel connected to the planning activities and, therefore, aren't committed to implementation of the designated priorities. People feel that the plan is something done to them or for them but not with them. They do not believe that their ideas have been heard, because no real attempt was made to authentically solicit their ideas, concerns, or hopes. They were never given strategic information to review and think about or an opportunity to learn about the financial realities and the real implications of key decisions. Labels: engagement, leadership, stakeholders, strategic plannng
Technology Tip: More Real Estate in Your Browser Window
As we go back in time to smaller and smaller computers, sometimes it seems as though the layers of controls at the top of browser windows take up too much room. We just added Littlefox (only works with Firefox) to one of our browsers. It slims down those controls and gives you more browser window to use. Works great. Labels: browser, Firefox, technology tip, Web
Art Institute of Chicago Addition - Renzo Piano Embraces Chicago
Related: NEW BOOK, Planning Successful Museum Building Projects, published by formed SCUP President, L. Carole Wharton.
Former SCUP president Cal Audrain, now retired from the Art Institute of Chicago, was deeply involved in this project. Here is a New York Times article on the architect, Renzo Piano, and what the institute called "the Modern Wing."  The new $294 million Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, which opens on Saturday, is the closest Mr. Piano has come in at least a decade to achieving this near-classical ideal. Its delicate structural frame is a sparkling counterpart to the museum’s 1893 Beaux Arts building. The light-filled galleries show the Art Institute’s marvelous collections of postwar and contemporary art in their full glory, including many works that have been buried in storage for decades. Most of all, the addition manages to weave the various strands of Chicago’s rich architectural history into a cohesive vision, one that is made more beautiful by its remarkable fragility.
The 264,000-square-foot wing is the largest expansion in the museum’s 130-year history. The addition stands behind the original building, across a set of commuter railroad tracks. The two structures are joined by a small gallery building from 1916 that bridges the tracks. Millennium Park, its far end punctuated by the swirling steel forms of Frank Gehry’s band shell, extends to the north.
Labels: addition, architecture, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, design, facilities planning, renovation, Renzo Piano
Towards a European Higher Education Area
This post quotes a message received by SCUP. We attended this event and it was very comprehensive and enlightening. We hope you will enjoy it via iTunes. The iTunes album is well organized.
The European Union Center of Excellence at the University of Michigan announces new content on iTunesU at U-M: Album "Towards a European Higher Education Area.” The international workshop "Towards a European Higher Education Area: Bologna Process and Beyond," took place in March 2009 at the University of Michigan's School of Education and explored how the Bologna Process relates to broader processes of globalization, internationalization, and diversification. Conveners were Janet Lawrence and Michael Bastedo, University of Michigan. Panelists included: Patrick Clancy, University College, Dublin; Anne Corbett, London School of Economics; Judith Eaton, Council for Higher Education Accreditation; Heather Eggins, Staffordshire University; Ase Gornitzka, University of Oslo; D. Bruce Johnstone, State University of New York at Buffalo; Barbara Kehm, University of Kassel; Marek Kwiek, Poznan University; Peter Maassen, University of Oslo; Christopher Morphew, University of Georgia; Christine Musselin, Sciences Po; and Bjorn Stensaker, Norwegian Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education. Links: Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education http://www.soe.umich.edu/cshpe/ Center for European Studies-European Union Center http://www.ii.umich.edu/ces-euc or http://www.ii.umich.edu/ces-euc/academics/projects/bologna Album "Towards a European Higher Education Area” http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/umich-public.2086929890
Labels: assessment, Bologna, Europe, quality
Leveraging Crisis for Competitive Advantage
This essay gets filed under the heading of "Never waste a crisis," this author examines whether institutions are just "weathering the storm" or engaged in significant realignment. He finds that private universities have a competitive advantage in circumstances like the one we are in now. University competition is a game played on the leading edge of institutional behavior, not at the center. The optimal strategy is to move money from the less productive trailing edge to the more productive leading edge. Executed consistently over time, this strategy delivers an ever-increasing leading edge of highly competitive quality that pulls the center of the university’s operations relentlessly forward towards higher standards of performance. The financial crisis cycle provides periodic opportunities to move more money from the trailing edge for investment in the leading edge. Those institutions that take advantage of these crises benefit greatly. Labels: change, financial crisis, governance, Inside Higher Ed, John V. Lombardi, Lombardi, resource and budget planning, universities
Historic Buildings/US General Services Administration
Frugal Portland!
Wow. This is an incredibly useful New York Times in-depth article about visiting Portland and doing it without spending a bundle. It could have been subtitled, "Where Even the Restaurants Have Wheels." Eventually, though, I would break away and go off — by bike, by foot or by bus (a weeklong TriMet pass is $22.50) — in search of sustenance, whether in sometimes stately, sometimes shabby downtown or over the Willamette River into the lazily gentrifying neighborhoods of the east side.
This was no easy task, because Portland is overflowing with great, affordable restaurants. In dozens of meals, I don’t think I was ever truly disappointed with a single bite, nor did I ever leave hungry, nor did my friends and I ever spend more than $25 a person. In fact, if I had any regrets, it was that I felt duty-bound not to repeat a restaurant visit no matter how much I liked a place and wanted to return. Labels: Portland, SCUP-44, travel
Embracing the Right Questions: Planning Spaces for Science
Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) offers a wealth of useful resources and events. In its online publication, Volume V: Then, Now & In the Next Decade, the latest issue is titled Embracing the Right Questions: Planning Spaces for Science. This entry also references parts of PKAL Volume IV: What Works, What Matters, What Lasts: Anticipating Renovating: This seminar, in conjunction with the National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance (NCIAA) and co-sponsored by Herman Miller, was part of a series of PKAL activities focusing on the relationship of space and learning. These questions and insights are being incorporated into planning for upcoming PKAL activities relating to planning facilities for undergraduate learners.
Asking the Right Questions: Toward Building Communities: Community is the spirited enactment of the conviction that ideas are important, and that they gain life when people bring different perspectives to their consideration. Communities embrace a common vision, yet allow— even promote— difficult dialogues. This is the challenge to leaders, within the faculty and the administration, as your planning proceeds.
Collecting Questions From the Field: Burning Questions from the 2006 Facilities Workshop: Meredith College
Understanding Key Questions: After more than a decade of significant activity in imagining, planning, constructing, and using new spaces for natural science communities on our nation’s campuses, it seemed prudent to step back, to ask if old questions are still relevant and what new questions are emerging. It seemed equally important to begin to gather thoughts of architects and other reflective practitioners from the design professional world about questions for the future. Labels: facilities, facilities planning, learning space design, PKAL, research, STEM
Business and the Relevance of Liberal Arts
Ever wonder what Peter Drucker thinks about higher education? This review+ of his 1984 novel, The Temptation to Do Good, shares that and more. But the university he presented in his 1984 novel, The Temptation to Do Good, confronted some key questions that face higher education institutions in today’s unprecedented financial downturn: Are current practices sustainable? Have we strayed from our core mission? Will the liberal arts survive increasing budget pressures?
Labels: liberal education, management, Peter Drucker
No Way Out of Ocean of Debt for US Colleges
A financial magazine's look at the credit and debt burden crisis for US institutions, with an eye toward enrollments, and using specific examples from Simmons' College' School of Management, which is characterized as "all but deserted." Simmons followed suit as US colleges jacked up tuition by an average of 3 percent above inflation every year. It counted on a rising endowment, parents' bull market-fed wealth and burgeoning private loans that more than doubled student debt from 1998 to last year.
It raised annual tuition and living expenses to $41 500 last year, 22 percent above the $34 132 average for private colleges. Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, the costliest US school, charged $53 166 last year.
Then credit markets collapsed. Simmons - and even better-known schools such as nearby Boston University - felt the aftershocks.
Like many now-struggling companies and municipalities, Simmons had sold variable rate bonds and hedged against rising interest rates through swap agreements, which fixed interest costs for the school.
When rates fell, Simmons owed more than $10m on the swaps. When it refinanced the bonds, it had to accept more than triple the interest rate it had been paying before the credit crisis. Labels: bonds, credit, debt, financial crisis, resource and budget planning, Simmons College
Positioned to Thrive: Higher Ed in the Recession
The Power of Place on Campus
What are the "sacred" spaces on campus, the spaces "that have great power and importance to the campus community?" Earl Broussard argues that many already exist, they just need to be recognized and supported. So how do we create sacred spaces?
In fact they already exist all over campus — but they must be recognized, maintained, and supported. Commuter campuses can also identify and create their own transformational spaces, but administrators must first envision their campus constituencies as "thought communities" — academic villages and places of enculturation. Otherwise their campuses will convey no more special meaning than a collection of office buildings.
First, university officials must identify spaces that have great power and importance to the campus community. A place's character is often recalled with affection, and a strong sense of place supports our sense of personal identity. For that reason, familiar features are often fiercely defended. In-depth surveys of existing students and alumni, interviews, and mapping can help define existing on-campus sacred spaces. Do people feel at home? Is there a sense of place? Are they transformed? Survey work should be coordinated with facilities and fund-raising officials at the university to identify, analyze, and protect special places on the campus.
Once these places have been identified, it is essential to reinforce their function and develop their storylines. Labels: campus design, campus heriitage, campus heritage, facilities planning, place, power of place, sense of place
Budget Cuts & Cannibalization
Titled, "The Mote in Thy Brother's Eye," this Inside Higher Ed blog post examines some of the wasteful ways in which wasteful things (eye of the beholder) are cannibalized, or not when institutions do drastic budget cutting. The possibly wasteful use of tax dollars to support too many institutions is a popular theme, yet the definition of waste is often relative to the self-interest of the observer. It is a waste to spend money on a community college or a small liberal arts college from the perspective of the research-intensive university because flagship institutions may see their mission as more important to the state than the missions of other institutions. However, from the perspective of the students and communities where these other institutions operate, flagship universities are a wasteful luxury that exist to support major entertainment industries like football and coddle research professors who teach very little and whose discoveries end up nurturing the industries of the Northeast, the West Coast, or boom states of the Southwest.
These charges and counter charges often occur in whispers because the political sensitivity of targeting any particular institution is great. If the HBCU's are untouchable for a host of historical and equity reasons, or if small rural institutions are protected by political influence, then an assault on other institutions elsewhere in the state will not be seen as fair. In addition, the issue of cost is more complicated that it might appear. If the state closes a relatively small institution in a semi-rural area and fires the faculty and staff, we can indeed save money. Labels: costs, financial crisis, resource and budget planning
New Richard Florida Blog
SCUPers enjoy the visioning and environmental scanning of Richard Florida. He's got a new blog/column, Creative Class Exchange, on The Atlantic website, which you will find interesting. His first couple of posts are about Mega-regions and high-speed rail, and changing consumer consumption patterns revealed by a new Pew report. Labels: change, environmental scanning, futuring, Richard Florida
Climate Action Planning Wiki from AASHE
We've been waiting for this to be launched, as it offers experienced SCUPers the opportunity to contribute integrated planning knowledge in a way that can be easily accessed by the [mostly] young people who are trying to catalyze sustainability-related change on their campuses by climate action planning. Maybe it's the perfect time for you to learn how to contribute to a Wiki (essentially an online, shared editable access, collaborative document). The core of the wiki was written by Walter Simpson, a sustainability expert who has presented during SCUP webcasts and has previously written for Planning for Higher Education. Labels: ACUPCC, climate action planning, climate change, sustainability
New Book: Historic Preservation: An Introduction to Its History, Principles, and Practice
As part of our community building for SCUP's Getty-funded Campus Heritage Preservation Initiative, we recently met with two of the editors of this book, Ilene and Norm Tyler, which is how we learned of it: "A primer that covers the gamut of preservation issues, from underlying philosophy to rehabilitation economics. Historic Preservation provides a thorough overview of the theory, technique, and procedure for preserving our architectural heritage. The perfect introduction for both architecture students and the interested layperson, it covers preservation philosophy, the history of the movement, the role of government, the designation and documentation of historic structures, establishing a historic district, sensitive architectural design and planning, and the economics of building rehabilitation." Labels: campus heritage preservation, heritage preservation, master planning
Community Colleges Challenge Hierarchy With 4-Year Degrees
Some think community clleges offering 4-year degrees is the "Cat's Meow," others think it is a "solution looking for a problem." What do you think of this?“It’s cooking in several states, in many work-force-related fields, but there’s a lot of debate and politics, and differing views on whether they’re still community colleges if they give baccalaureates,” said Beth Hagan, executive director of the Community College Baccalaureate Association, a nonprofit group that promotes the trend.
In Michigan, community colleges are seeking to offer baccalaureates in culinary arts, cement technology and nursing. Their efforts have stalled, said Mike Hansen, president of the Michigan Community College Association.
“We need legislation to do it, and the legislation’s been introduced, but that’s as far as it’s gotten,” Mr. Hansen said. “The four-year universities in the state are very much opposed to the idea.”
Mike Boulus, the executive director of the group that represents the four-year universities, called the plan to expand community colleges “a solution in search of a problem.”
“It’s clearly unnecessary,” Mr. Boulus said. “Community colleges should stick with the important work they do extremely well, offering two-year degrees and preparing students for transfer to four-year schools.” Labels: access, baccalaureates, community colleges, competition, degrees
Climate Action Planning Wiki
AASHE and ACUPCC have recently begun a Climate Action Planning Wiki, wwith initial textual content from Walter Simpson, formerly of the University of Buffalo and UB Green. This Wiki enables anyone to enter changes to the current content. It would be very helpful to the sustainability movement and to climate action planning, if SCUPers with deep experience in institution-wide planning were to go over there and check it out. If you've always wondered how it would be like to use a Wiki, this is a good chance to find out. We haven't had a chance to read through it yet. Labels: aashe, ACUPCC, climate action planning, sustainability
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