What We Found This Morning

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What happens when "creative clutter" meets transparency in a new, elegant building? Robert Campbell reviews the new MIT Media Lab building at MIT.

Frank Moss, the Media Lab’s director, puts it this way: “It will take time to regain the sense of mess and to repopulate with junk.’’

It’s the classic marriage of form and content. The new building is Snow White and the Media Lab is Mad Max. Time will reveal how well the marriage works.

That said, viewed simply and purely as a work of architecture, this is a wonderful building. You can think of it as an exercise in transparency. The Media Lab has long been famous for hiding itself in a building by I.M. Pei that was a nearly windowless box. The new building, which joins the Pei at one edge, is exactly the opposite. From outside, you can look all the way through it from one end to the other. It’s sheathed in shimmering glass and metal screens that allow about half the sunlight through to the interior. You feel that the building is temptingly veiled, not blanketed.

NEW! Let us know what you think of this type of resource. Mini-poll below.

A quick look at our early morning sweep through the higher ed media on Monday, November 30, 2009. Our guess is that you'll especially like Today's Campus' new Campus Photos section and University Business' 35 Smart Building Ideas.

@ Inside Higher Ed

• Sweetbriar College (VA) Enrollment Decline and Resulting Budget Shortfall
• Nevada System Chancellor Suggests Community Colleges Might Limit Enrollments
• How Do You Change a Culture Without Blaming the People Who Led Before?
• India/USA, Different Higher Ed Challenges
• New Programs: Sustainable Building, Library Science, Architecture

@ The Chronicle of Higher Education

• The Buildings & Grounds Blog: $1.5B in Projects at Stanford; Architecture Firm Sues Ohio State; Reactions to Demise of Berkeley Museum Plan; New Buildings and Projects at New England Conservatory, UCF, Lasell College, and NCSU; Boston College Plans 160,000 sf Academic Building; Roosevelt U; Roosevelt U's Planned 32-Story Building, Classrooms & Housing
• Harsh Economy Drives New Brand of Communication from Top
• Legislation to Allow Foreign Universities Into India May Face New Delay
• Education Secretary Warns Colleges of Limits to Help From Federal Budget
• Crisis Fatigue in a Difficult Economy
• Dos and Don'ts of Task Forces

@ Today's Campus

• Management Roundup: Best paid faculty. Underpaid women. Innovative risk management. An interview with a think tank prez who thinks differently. Celebrity MBA program. New Organizational Design for colleges. And more.
• Global Times Reward Global Study
• Q&S w/Kimberly CLine, President of Mercy College
• Campus Photos of Special Appeal

@ University Business

• 35 Smart Building Ideas
• Pushing ADA Beyond the Limits
• The Role of Colleges in Disaster Relief
• The People's Colleges: No Frills, No Debt, Good Deals

Your thoughts?

Embracing the Right Questions: Planning Spaces for Science.

Our colleagues at the National Clearinghouse for Education Facilities describe this resource from Project Kaleidoscope: "Discusses planning of new higher education science spaces in a collection of seminar documents. These discuss revisiting institutional priorities, considering the allocation or reallocation of resources so that those priorities can be funded over the long term, and asking key questions about all aspects of the planning process. The documents consider whether or not old questions are still relevant and what new questions are emerging, along with the thoughts of architects and other reflective practitioners from the design world."

Scott Carlson writes, in the Chronicle's Buildings & Grounds Blog, about the Guardian's reporting of controversies about adding modern amenities to "grand old college buildings."

At the University of Cambridge's Old Schools, people noticed a hole in the floor of the Regent House Combination Room and wondered if maintenance people were fixing the pipes or somesuch. When they found out the university was putting in an elevator, they were appalled. "It is historically the most important room in the universities of the English-speaking world. It is the cradle of Cambridge's democracy, our Westminster Hall

The article in the Guardian can be read here.

Teacherless Classrooms: Can We?

"Today the dream has returned, [we have] systems through which chunks of teaching can be 'scaled up' and beamed to hundreds of thousands worldwide.” in Campus Technology magazine, Trant Batson calls this "the FedEx or UPS view of learning; knowledge disconnected from the knower; knowledge with no social or cultural context; knowledge ripped from the conversation, its conversational threads torn and dangling; knowledge as a commodity. How far adrift have we gone that the idea of beaming 'chunks of teaching' to hundreds of thousands worldwide could be called a 'dream? I thought we tried that with television, didn’t we?" Then he makes this twist: A large lecture hall is not the answer, nor is sending lectures out through iTunes, or other media channels. Knowledge is not a commodity. And learning is not performance. Learning is conversation. So, then, the question becomes: How do we extend the conversation to more people and how can that conversation be authentic and lead to active and experiential learning?"

Florida's Statewide Career University Is All Over the Map

An interesting, very brief interview with Belinda Keiser, Vice Chancellor of Keiser University, by Jeff Wendt of Today's Campus:

Surprise our readers with your four most recent locations.
We have 100 bachelors students in Shanghai co-located with the Hong Kong Institute of Business and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. We have 50 students in the European Republic of Moldova, some of whom are pursuing MBAs. We also have 30 business degree students in Singapore. And, in Port St. Lucie, Florida we've just opened the Keiser University College of Golf.

Surviving a Wild Financial Ride

Business Office "blurbs" this article as "Riding out a bucking financial market, institutions are re-evaluating endowment spending rates and carefully scrutinizing budgets." The author, Kenneth E. Reed, director of research and policy analysis for NACUBO, concludes: "While the Great Recession shows signs of abating, it is likely that the stock market and the broader economy will continue to buck college and university endowment managers in an uneven, unpredictable series of ups and downs. The message for all is to hold the reins firm to keep from being thrown from the saddle."

Academe and the Decline of News Media

We're watching the traditional business of "news" crash and burn. What effect will the decline of news media have on higher education? This series of thoughtful essays in The Chronicle Review could provide you some deep thinking over the American Thanksgiving holiday coming up: After noting that he would prefer newspapers without a government to government without newspapers, Thomas Jefferson added, 'But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them' . . . I talk to my students about the news every chance I get. They're so smart; they're so curious. I'm fascinated by how they get their news. What shocks me is that so many of them so rarely follow a story to its bottom. They can talk about anything, brilliantly, for five minutes."

Academic Libraries: 'Nothing More than Computer Labs with SOfas and Coffee?

Johann Neem posits that "across the country deans of libraries are giving up the fight and changing their mission rather than fighting to save an important academic institution. Rather than make clear why we need academic libraries, the library’s leaders are seeking instead to become vague learning environments which, when boiled down to their essence, are nothing more than computer labs with sofas and coffee." He sees a dual threat to academic libraries and other support areas: Declining funding and the campus professionals more tied to their "fields" - such as library science - than to the core purposes of the library. (He sees similar problems in student affairs and higher education administration in general.)

Science & Engineering Precinct at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL

This campus project received a SCUP 2009 Merit Award for Planning for a District of Campus Component. The jury said “ . . . they are very clear in articulating their goals . . . stands above others . . . pretty clever phasing . . . very well thought out . . .” "Many project requirements were considered and five options were prepared. The boldest and most transformative one was chosen to integrate classrooms and labs, promote interdisciplinary thought, and encourage a collaborative, engaging culture . . . The plan transforms the area from a suburban, car-oriented environment to a pedestrian and transit-oriented area by incorporating passive open spaces into a cohesive new landscape and pathway system." Project Team: University of Alabama, and HOK, with Earl Walls Associates now Xnth. The University of Alabama Campus Master Plan is available on line here.

Intellectual Entrepreneurship: An Authentic Foundation for Higher Education Reform

The "blurb" we wrote for this Planning for Higher Education article says "Our relationship with the traditions and purpose of a humanistic education, it appears, are at odds with the career environment most students inhabit after graduation." The authors, Gary D. Beckman and Richard A. Chewitz, provide case studies of innovative entrepreneurship initiatives at the University of Texas, Austin, as well as background and discussion of the concept of "entrepreneurship education" in academic programming. "From our perspective, entrepreneurship—broadly conceived—is an intrinsic human right to change the status quo, and intellectual entrepreneurship is a philosophy and pedagogy to exercise this act by educating citizen-scholars—agents of change who own, are accountable for, and put their knowledge to work for the betterment of themselves and society. As we collaborate in the development of campuswide efforts to bring entrepreneurial thinking to the arts and sciences, we have the opportunity to envision entrepreneurship education in an authentic manner that is sustainable across campus, relevant to communities, and, most importantly, empowering to stakeholders."

[Big] Universities Turn to [Big] Consultants to Trim Budgets

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It is now determined: Integrated Leadership for a New Reality is higher education's premier planning conference for 2010. Join expert colleagues at SCUP–45, July 10–14, 2010 in Minneapolis. It's not too early to register now!

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The New York Times' Tamar Lewin examines how some large institutions are spending big bucks for analyses, by large consulting firms of, campus administrative processes and organization structures.

Why should universities hire a consultant and not just start streamlining procurement and information technology?

“Folks who look at the reports will know that procurement is a major area, I.T. is a major area, and reducing the number of organizational layers is a major area, but just because you know procurement’s a problem doesn’t give you the expertise of having handled 930 procurement problems in the last decade,” Mr. Mankins said. “Most doctors don’t do self-diagnosis, and the same reasoning applies in higher education.”

The Community College Problem of 'Part-Time': Faculty & Students

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SCUP Ad: Join a related SCUP Virtual Conversation (audiocast) on Wednesday, December 9 at 1 pm Eastern time. (Free to SCUP members, only $49 to others.) It's based on a recent article from Planning for Higher Education with the same title, Intellectual Entrepreneurship: An Authentic Foundation for Higher Education Reform by Gary D. Beckman and Richard A. Cherwitz, which is a call to engage both faculty and students and empower them to become change agents. More about the audiocast here.

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Each year, the information coming from CCSSE (Community College Survey of Student Engagement) brings more understanding about student engagement and the related efforts of college and university leadership. This year, the focus is on, among other things, the influence of "part-time": Meaning part-time faculty and part-time students. Data brings up the question expressed here, as shared in an Inside Higher Ed article:

'We should be acknowledging the elephant in the room,'McClenney said. 'Disengaged faculty doesn’t change students. We hire part-time faculty almost exclusively under the understanding that we’re just paying them to show up for three hours in a classroom. Why is that? Is it possible to hire adjunct faculty with a different set of expectations, including that they participate in professional development and other services? What I don’t have are glib, easy answers, but the survey does raise these questions.'

Here's the entire 2009 report, Making Connections: Dimensions of Student Engagement (PDF).

Program Selection Meeting for SCUP-45, Minneapolis, July 2010: TBD . . . Integrated Leadership for a New Reality

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Program Selection Meeting for SCUP-45, Minneapolis, July 2010: TBD . . . Integrated Leadership for a New Reality

In this photograph, from left to right, are Marie Zeglen, Assistant Provost & Director, Institutional Planning & Research, University of Florida; Mary Doyle, Vice Chancellor, Information Technology, University of California-Santa Cruz Chancellor's Office; Thomas K. Anderes, Senior Vice President, Adminstration & Fiscal Affairs, University of Wisconsin System; Krisan Osterby, Senior Consultant, Planning + Strategies, Perkins+Will; and David W. Cox, Executive Assistant to the President, University of Memphis.

Every November, a team of SCUP leaders meet in Ann Arbor to review the many concurrent session and workshop proposals, as well as invited session suggestions, and select the sessions best suited to provide a comprehensive set of learning experiences for SCUP members at the following year's conference. Prior to this meeting, every proposal was reviewed by several SCUP members who were part of a team of 70-80 members of one of the SCUP academies. The selection weekend is heavily informed by the numerical ratings of the reviewers.

There are many more proposals, up to 5x as many, as can be accepted. Many very highly rated sessions are not accepted due to the need to present a balanced, integrated program. The photo above was taken Saturday morning, after the team had already made a pass through all the proposals. The task that morning was to review the whole and see which proposals not yet accepted would best complete the program.

Below, Jake Julia, Associate Vice President, Change Management, Associate Provost for Academic Initiatives, Northwestern University watches as SCUP staffer Kathy Benton (right) and SCUP president John Ruffo, of WRNS Studio (kneeling) work on charting potential session content. In the far background, SCUP staffer Kate Hanson manages the data projection and proposals spreadsheets and database.

Don't Divert Money from Academics to Pay for Sports

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USA Today serves up diverging opinions: (a) USA Today, Souring Pay for Coaches Throws Academics for a Loss: "These types of numbers, along with enormous sums universities are pumping into sports facilities, certainly look bad at a time of economic distress and academic cutbacks. A recent survey of college presidents, by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, found them overwhelmingly of the opinion that spending on college sports is unsustainable. Some 85% specially cited coaches salaries as too high." (b) Jim Isch, Spending Isn't Out of Control: Prevailing conventional wisdom tells us that colleges and universities in the USA are overspending in their intercollegiate athletics programs — especially among the top programs and especially for head and assistance coaches. In some instances, maybe even many, that is likely true. But some context for the spending would be helpful.

New Book: Small College Guide to Financial Health: Weathering Turbulent Times

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NACUBO calls this new book "A book to counter choppy economic waters": "In NACUBO’s new book, Small College Guide to Financial Health: Weathering Turbulent Times, author Michael K. Townsley offers advice on remaining alert to the financial and strategic resources institutions need to withstand economic volatility. This excerpt explains the natural resilience of the basic business model for private institutions, while suggesting other options that may add value—including multinational initiatives and their benefits and risks . . . Leaders need to think through exactly what the college expects to do, how it will be done, what obstacles will be encountered, what the benefits and costs are, and what information is needed to prepare a due diligence report effectively. Some private institutions conceive that establishing a foreign campus is similar to finding the lost city of gold sought by the Spanish conquistadors."

Reflections of a Failed Dean

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It's not working out. Is it the structure of the institution? Is it the faculty? Is it the president? Is it you? From The Chronicle of Higher Education:

"They say they can't work with you." With those words from the president, my life as chief academic officer ceased. Oh, I stayed on the job for a long time after that, but my value as a dean was effectively derailed. My career at, let's call it Hogwarts College, had ended . . . I'm a failed dean. There are a lot of us out here, but since many of us want to continue working for a living, we don't reveal ourselves, and we don't say much . . . There's a great deal of advice given to chief academic officers, and ever since my failure, I've read it assiduously to get a sense of what I did wrong.

Group Purchasing and Collaborations Solve Budget Woes

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We were glad to see this latest report by Tom Robinson of Today's Campus. Taking as a mantra, "Manage Spend, Rather Than Cut Cost," he examines ways to maximize purchasing power without cutting. About procurement he says "Not the old kind. The new kind. That’s procurement guided by strategic rather than tactical thinking. That’s procurement supported from the highest echelons and facilitated by technological advances." This article is a very useful resource and review, covering state laws, buying co-ops, pricing contracts, eliminating "exceptions," and shared services and other collaborations, finishing with: "Purposeful collaboration with business goals is now essential across every campus. And it will outlive the current economic crisis. It’s a 21st century reality." We think this is at least a "must-scan" item.

Ask the Administrator: The Etiquette of Postmortems

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How useful is a critical look at a former CAO's successes and failures?

It's a tricky situation. When someone leaves campus, it's easy to make her the scapegoat after the fact for all manner of things. But since she'll still be around, that won't be as easy. And that's probably just as well . . . A study a few years ago found that the average length of service for a chief academic officer at an American college is three years. That's astonishingly short, but it makes sense when you consider the multiple and conflicting demands of the position. For someone to last as long as yours did, she must have been good at something.

Cutting Academic Programs: The 'Road Too Little Traveled'?

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In a "View" on Inside Higher Ed, Tim Mann notes that for many reasons, a "rigorous, objective review" of academic programs may be the hardest thin on campus to do. He provides an anonymous "case illustration" and then promotes the potential value of a "portfolio review process."

Even in the face of unprecedented financial challenge, are the traditions, political forces, mission arguments and ideological posturing within the academy trumping the ability to restructure the academic portfolio, and the decision making and resource allocation structures that currently exist? Or, alternatively, is the eye of the storm of such magnitude that this level of macro change will be deferred until stimulus funding evaporates and there is a public moratorium on tuition and fee increases?

Perhaps for some regions, major restructuring will occur only when the reality of large declines in the high school pipeline make their way into annual operating budgets, and community colleges begin cannibalizing enrollments from neighboring four-year institutions.

The President's Role in Positive Town and Gown Relations

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These SCUP Virtual Conversations are free to SCUP members and available to nonmembers for a fee, both live and archived. So that you can hear how great these conversations are, we're making this particular event - only - available as streaming audio for anyone to listen to, click here to go to where you can listen.

How to Get $15M From Students in Your City

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You don't have to work, study, or live in Pittsburgh to be aware of that city's mayor's proposal to institute a 1 percent fee on college and university tuition paid to institutions with campuses in Pittsburgh. This link should take you to the latest related news stories.

"There isn't an institution in this city in the last five years that hasn't raised tuition, and in each and every case, the tuition hike has been far greater than 1 percent," Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said. The city's proposed addition to the school bill "falls right in line with orientation fees, with transportation and security fees, with lab fees" and more nebulous charges that colleges could reconsider.".

Cal State Schools Planning Quick Downsizing

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Two years ago, San Jose State University was working hard to increase enrollments. Last spring no transfers were allowed. Next year's incoming freshman class will be reduced by 2,500 students, even though applications were up this year by 48 percent. Systemwide, 40,000 student seats will be gone in 2010-11. Chancellor Charles Reed says "we cannot educate more students with $546M less money." SCUP conferences for the next few years will be loaded with planners sharing how they made all of the program changes needed to effectively handle a shrinking student body.

SJSU says it will handle the surge in demand by becoming more selective, raising admission standards for entry into high-demand, or "impacted," majors. This is a more nuanced approach than last year, when any qualified California student who applied before Nov. 20 was accepted, but those who applied between Nov. 20 and 30 were accepted or wait-listed, based on where they lived. That policy triggered a barrage of angry phone calls to the SJSU admission office.

Two-thirds of Public Universities Undertaking Strategic Review of Core Activities Following 2009 Budget Cuts, APLU Survey Reveals

The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (now known as APLU) has released the results of its survey of member institutions, which are large, public institutions. Its report on the survey is titled Coping Strategics of Public Universities During the Economic Recession of 2009. (Since it officially began in 2007, we think it should be titled The Economic Recession of 2007-2010, but . . . what the heck.) The APLU says:

Strategic reviews of core activities are underway or planned by two-thirds of the nation’s public research universities according to a survey of chief academic officers by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (A۰P۰L۰U). The survey focused on depth of budget cuts, strategies to close deficits, and impact on institutions and students at the nation’s 188 public research universities.

The full report on the survey is here.

Here's a report in the APLU's online newsletter, Public Voice, here's a direct link to the entire survey. Here's a summary of the survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education's Eric Kelderman and here's a summary by Inside Higher Ed's Jack Stripling. Jack wrote:

While the survey suggests that some hard choices have already been made by public universities, the long-term solutions indicate universities are still more apt to conduct further reviews than announce permanent changes at this point. Indeed, 67 percent of respondents said they plan a strategic review of administrative structures, compared with just 22 percent that said they plan to permanently change staffing levels for tenured and tenure-track faculty.

Today's GI Bill: Connecting America's Veterans to Higher Education

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Tomorrow, Wednesday, November 11, is Veterans Day. Take a moment to let someone you know who has served that you appreciate their service.

The American Council in Education (ACE) has just launched a new website to assist veterans in navigating their choices and making the most of their opportunities: "Service members and veterans deserve access to high-quality, postsecondary education. It eases the transition into civilian life and ensures lifelong economic and social benefits. Today’s GI Bill is designed to help you make the most of your education benefits by providing clear yet comprehensive guidance."

What If the Numbers 'Add Up' But Don't Make Sense?

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This Wednesday, November 11: Join senior SCUP leaders and Lawrence V. Weill, president of Gordon College in an audiocast that is free for SCUP members (thanks to support from WRNS Studio), titled "The President's Role in Cultivating Positive Town-Gown Relations." Register now!

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It sure looked like good news, so we shared with you in SCUP Email News" that the California State University system had saved 26,000 jobs with federal stimulus funds. Now it seems that it was too good to be true, but no one noticed. Federal reporting guidelines were followed, but they had not been developed in a way that made sense of CSU's employment circumstances: "California State University officials may have followed federal guidelines in reporting that stimulus money saved an inordinate number of campus jobs, but someone in the university system should have objected to reporting the numbers because 'they don't make sense.'" More, from the Sacramento Bee.

Free Audiocast (for SCUP members): "The President’s Role in Cultivating Positive Town-Gown Relations"

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SCUP's Fall 2009 Virtual Conversation series is supported by WRNS Studio.
Find out more: http://www.scupconversations.org/.

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Join a great (virtual) conversation on Wednesday, November 11 at 1 pm Eastern. It's free for SCUP members and only $49 for others.

President Lawrence V. Weill of Gordon College will discuss his recent Planning for Higher Education article, The President's Role in Cultivating Positive Town-Gown Relations, with several senior SCUP leaders, including Planning for Higher Education executive editor Tom Longin, former SCUP presidents L. Carole Wharton, consultant, and Sal D. Rinella, STRATUS/Heering International, as well as 2010-11 SCUP president Joan Racki, Iowa State Board of Regents.

Enjoy listening it at a late or early lunch with colleagues. You can ask questions via a Live Chat.

Find out more: http://www.scupconversations.org/. (You can download the article at that link to read in preparation.) Register now to ensure availability.

P.S. If you haven't enjoyed a SCUP Virtual Conversation yet, you're missing a lot. Typical audience reactions:

"A terrific way to be informed by the experts and network with a family of educators sharing common concerns and questions." - Stan Plewe, Vice President, Dixie State College of Utah

"Winning combination of critical topics, industry experts and audience Q&A—all from the ease of my office!" - Kristie Hester, Marketing Services Manager, Charter Builders, LTD

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Welcome to registration for The President’s Role in Cultivating Positive Town-Gown Relations – a SCUP Virtual Conversation scheduled for 1 pm Eastern time on Wednesday, November 11. For SCUP members, the registration fee is $0. For nonmembers it is $49. If you are here to register for some other SCUP event, please select it from the list of active event registrations along the left-hand side of the page. To continue with your registration for “The President’s Role in Cultivating Positive Town-Gown Relations” use the blue and white “Next” buttons at the top and bottom of this and subsequent pages. You must complete this registration no later than Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at Noon Eastern time. You will receive a confirmation of registration email soon after you register. Registrants will be emailed information about how to connect to the event by separate message, which will arrive no later than Tuesday, November 10. Unless you register after that time, in which case we will send you the pertinent information as soon as we can.

Recent Additions to SCUP's College and University Plans Database

We're closing in on having links and comparative data on nearly 1,000 college and university plans in SCUP's College and University Plans Database. SCUP members can access this information online, including institution name, Carnegie Class, Enrollment, Highest Offering, as well as FICE and Unit IDs. A link is provided to where you can download the data in .CSV or other useful formats.

Recently, in light of SCUP-45 being in Minnesota in 2010, we have started adding plans from institutions within the State of Minnesota, such as Adler Graduate School and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. At the latter institution, we have a plethora of plans, including the Academic Health Center Strategic Plan, the Campus Master Plan, and the College of Veterinary Medicine Strategic Plan.

Life-Cycle Costing of Facilities

This article examines life-cycle costing issues, challenges, and opportunities, using mostly information from Harvard University and Mt. Vernon High School (IN) and concludes with reference to BIM (Building information modeling) as a technology to support life-cycle costing.

One of the keys to calculating the life-cycle costs of an education facility is gathering accurate data. The more data, the more confident planners are that their projections of long-term costs are reliable.

But assessing the effects of all the elements involved in a school project can be a headache as planners try to account for the consequences of each design choice. For instance, choosing a certain type of window glazing or altering the amount of glazing will affect how large a facility's heating and cooling system should be. A roof that includes solar panels will carry an additional cost, but it also will ease the energy an HVAC system will have to produce.

A planner trying to account for the effects of all the building characteristics soon can become entangled in a web of confusion as each slight change can alter countless other calculations. To provide education institutions with precise and accurate projections, design firms have turned to technology.

Building information modeling (BIM) technology enables designers to use computer programs to create a three-dimensional model of a planned facility. With a BIM program, a designer can ask “What if?” and see almost immediately how a design change — moving a wall, or re-orienting the building footprint — will affect the performance and costs of other aspects of the facility.

College Planning & Management Magazine - October 2009

Rather than focus on a specific item, we're going to share this issue's Table of Contents with you, so you can click through the specific articles you might be interested in: Designing the Healthy Residence Hall by Nadia Zihri; Sustainability and Managing Student Expectations by John Southard, Jennifer Baldridge, and Chris Heinz; Green: The Preferred Color Choice at St. Norbert College (mechanical systems department initiative) by Janet Wiens; Caller I.D. (anonymous tip lines and security) by one of our favorite higher education writers, Julie Sturgeon; The Bottom Line of Outsourced Facilities Services by Randy Ledbetter; Towson University Notifies the Masses (emergency alert system) by Jason Kneen; and Technology: The Netbook Phenomenon by David Dodd.

How Many Higher-Education Jobs Stimulus Saved Remains Unclear

Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Eric Kelderman analyzes the recent White House OMB report on jobs saved by the federal stimulus package. Kelderman also spoke with a number of higher education officials in various states. The Nevada System of Higher Education, for example, counts approximately 2,100 jobs supported by the stimulus.

Daniel J. Hurley, director of state relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said the public should definitely scrutinize how states and institutions are spending the stimulus money.

At the same time, however, he has little doubt that the increased federal support has largely done its job of preventing job losses.

"The recovery act certainly has done what was intended, by helping the institutions bridge the gap," Mr. Hurley said. "I don't think the money was actually a jobs stimulus, but it definitely has been a jobs-retention bill."

ACE's 'The Presidency" Magazine

To read complete articles from The Presidency magazine, from the American Council on Education, you must be a subscriber. However, ACE publishes a complete Table of Contents for each issue with lengthy excerpts from the articles.

From the Fall 2009 issue - Volume 12, Number 3 - the following excerpts are available: A New Morrill Act: Higher Education Anchors the 'Remaking of America' by Nancy Cantor, Syracuse University; Connecting with Today's Students by Graham B. Spanier, The Pennsylvania State University; The Enterprise of the Future by Dennis J. Murray, Marist College; How Boards Go Wrong - And Right: Observations on the Search and Selection of College Presidents by Rebecca A. Denton and John E. Moore, Jr., Drury University; and Career Paths: Presidential Hiring by Harry L. Peterson, Western State College of Colorado.

Oxford University's Ashmolean Museum - Open Once Again, Transformed

Everyone seems happy with the upgrade/renovation/extension of the Ashmolean, Oxford's university library. Here is a review in The Guardian by Stephen Bayley and here is a review in The Telegraph by Richard Dorment.

Dorment: The architect Rick Mather has left the wonderful Cockerell building intact, but audaciously replaced the undistinguished late Victorian galleries at the rear with a six-storey building that adds 34 new galleries and four new spaces for temporary exhibitions — effectively doubling the size of the old museum. In addition to what the public sees, the Ashmolean has a new conservation studio, and an education centre which, considering it’s function as a teaching museum in the heart of Oxford, amazes me didn’t exist before.

Bayley: while it was not official policy to discourage visitors, the grim Ashmolean certainly intimidated them. To enter was to breach the protocols of a club privée. A visit for pleasure was as gross an intrusion as taking a whoopee cushion to high table in Magdalen. That has now changed, and rather radically so. The magnificent facade and portico remain intact, but an entire new museum of 39 galleries and about 100,000 sq ft has been built, almost surreptitiously, behind.

SCUP's 2009 Distinguished Service & Founders (Casey) Awards

Left to right: David E. Hollowell of the University of Delaware; Thomas C. Flaherty of Rickes Associates, Inc.; and Sal D. Rinella of STRATUS, a division of Heery International. Sal, the current SCUP president in July 2009 at SCUP-44, was about to honor Dave and Tom with SCUP's Founders (Casey) Award (Hollowell) and Distinguished Service Award (Flaherty). (That's Tom's wife, Helene, over Tom's and Dave's shoulders, wearing a yellow dress.)

Learn more about why Dave was awarded the Founders (Casey) Award and why Tom was awarded the Distinguished Service Award

The Stimulus (for Campuses) Isn't a Bridge: It's a Short Pier

The New York Times' Education Life issue recently covered a broad range of topics, but a primary focus was on an exploration of the big public universities - the flagships. (This article was authored by Chronicle editor Paul Fain.) It's a must-read. Many worry that they are beginning to resemble elite privates more than is appropriate:

At the same time, applications are pouring in from students shut out by the stratospheric cost of private colleges. That’s generally a good thing. Flagships are attracting more wealthy and better-prepared students. Yet as the counterargument goes, a flagship’s traditional mission is to educate its own, especially a state’s low- and middle-income students. The evolution under way is putting some flagships out of reach for the students who were typically enrolled even a decade ago. Each year, the quality of students as well as the budget model skews closer to that of elite private universities.

Economic Hits + Stimilus Funds, State by State: How Do They Add Up?

This graphic from The New York Times could hold your attention for hours.

Higher Education Spaces an Places: For Learning, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange

The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development) is probably the most influential international higher education organization, with a broad range of activities and interests, often focusing on Europe. It is holding a conference in Riga, Latvia on December 6-8, 2009, on a SCUP-like theme: Higher Education Spaces and Places: For Learning, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange. SCUP author Pablo Campos, of Spain, and former SCUP president Alan C. Freeman are on the program.

> Keynote address: “Universities in their Cities: collaborations and
> conflicts”
>
> Creating Sustainable learning and knowledge exchange environments: “Higher
> education: Cities and Regional Development”
>
> Innovative approaches to the design of learning environments – now and the
> future: “Learning from the Design Factory at the University”
>
> Developing new places for higher education: “Development of the University
> of Latvia Campus in Riga city environment”
>
> Managing higher education places to meet current and future needs: “Managing
> higher education facilities through Public Private Partnerships”

Obama Community College Proposal May Not Be Enough

Will $12B in federal funds work to cause an additional five million students to graduate from community colleges by 2020? Experts say that increased state and local funding is also needed:

''It's great that people are coming back to community colleges to get trained, but a student only brings about a third of the cost of their tuition.''

Ivy Tech Community College President Thomas Snyder says his school can handle more growth in part by finding savings internally and relying on philanthropic and community donations. The school will not expand too much and find itself with empty classrooms if an economic turnaround slows future enrollment.

''We're cautious in making sure that we don't make expenditures on staffing, for example, or other critical areas that we can't sustain,'' Snyder says.