SCUP-45 Plenary Speaker: Jerome Ringo
I am more of a conservationist, myself. And people have come to me and said, "Wow, you're an African-American conservationist!" And my response is, "No, I'm a conservationist who happens to be black."
I believe that all of us in the conservation movement – even many of the people that work in the petrochemical industry who love to hunt and fish – we love the environment. Unfortunately there are folks in corporate headquarters who are driven solely by profit do not give full consideration to environmental impacts. That does not apply to every company but there are those that are discharging, know they are discharging, know the impact that they are having, yet they don't act on that. The National Wildlife Federation is on a mission to educate people at all levels and to come up with more reasonable and innovative approaches for energy production and consumption.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: conservation, environment, sustainability
How Effective are the NSSE Benchmarks in Predicting Important Educational Outcomes?
The Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education attempted to measure non-self reported learning outcomes to with regard to the effectiveness of NSSE. As reported in Change magazine by Ernest T. Pascarella, Tricia A. Seifert, and Charles Blaich their research found that on several measures, the NSSE benchmarks do appear to be valid as a measure of education quality: The NSSE benchmark scales were designed specifically to provide another gauge of academic quality—students' participation in academic and non-academic experiences that lead to learning—and there is little evidence that such experiences are substantially linked to the academic selectivity of the college one attends (Pascarella et al., 2006). Since our findings suggest the dimensions of the undergraduate experience measured by NSSE benchmarks are correlated with important educational outcomes, they arguably constitute a more valid conception of quality in undergraduate education than U.S. News's.
Furthermore, the NSSE results point to academic and non-academic experiences that may be amenable to improvement through changes in institutional policies and practices. On the other hand, resources and academic selectivity are much harder to change and therefore may form a much more deterministic institutional identity. To the extent that an institution is actually concerned with the quality and effectiveness of the undergraduate education it provides, our findings suggest that it probably makes more sense to focus on implementing practices and experiences measured by the NSSE benchmarks than on those factors measured by U.S. News.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:
As Higher Education Joins the Consumer Economy, Plaintiffs Abound
In what is a quite lengthy, for Today's Campus, feature, Jim Castagna describes the possibly changing world in which "consumers" may be more likely to sue colleges and universities, and some of the changing reasons why. He goes into a bit of detail about suits at Penn, Michigan, and at Franklin & Marshall, and also provides an annotated list of other recent cases.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: law suits, legal liability, risk management
Strategic Plan to Take Cornell to 2015 and Beyond: Reimagining Cornell
Q: What themes are emerging from the planning process? A: They include how to promote faculty and staff excellence given intense competition and limited resources; diversity and inclusion; a distinctive education; collaboration across disciplines and colleges; and effective assessments of teaching, research and outreach. We're looking at the university as a whole, and thinking of Cornell as a singular unit, while recognizing and affirming the importance of strong and distinctive colleges and other academic units.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: Cornell University, strategic planning
Facilities Funding Thaws? Really?
"Frozen capital markets had a chilling effect on new construction in 2009. But, some resources are still flowing, with developer-financed housing projects, bundled mixed-use facilities, and other creative deals on the rise" is how Business Officer describes this new article by Roger Bruszewski, Sam Jung, and Jeffrey Turner. It's a good resource with lots of brief vignettes, and includes some nice photographs as well as informative side bars. Due to the changes in the financial market, funding options that worked only a few years ago are simply not possible in today's environment. But, the freeze in some funding areas has created new, unique development structures that allow for freer flow of dollars that make such projects attractive and beneficial to institutions. Despite these changes, it is clear that institutions will continue to rely on the private sector to meet some of their important capital project needs. While private partners have also been affected by the downturn in the economy, they remain committed to working with institutions that must move their mission-critical projects forward both effectively and efficiently. The ingenuity of the private sector will continue to help colleges grow and adapt to changes in the higher education marketplace for years to come.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: capital planning, facilities planning, public-private partnerships
The 6 Principles of Facilities Stewardship
 This downloadable PDF is of an article from Facilities Manager by Karvey H. Kaiser and Eva Klein, which is in turn an excerpt from a forthcoming new APPA book, Strategic Capital Development: The New Model for Campus Development. [I]n the words of Teddy Roosevelt, the buildings and grounds of an in- stitution must be treated “as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased; and not impaired in value.”The notion of value can, and should, mean financial value. But, value has a broader implication, which includes the value an institution ascribes to its tradi- tions, to the protection of its symbolic features, and to the continued utility of its structural components. Ideally, a statement proclaiming stewardship principles should form the grounding for a comprehensive facilities plan or master plan. Also ideally, facilities stewardship should reflect a broad responsibility of govern- ing board members and senior leaders—in addition to the president or chancellor. Today, as the average tenure of a president/chancellor is less than seven years, their decisions must be part of a lengthy, continuous stewardship process—pro- tected because it is an indispensable, shared responsibility.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: appa, capital development, facilities planning
Transforming Brutalist Architecture With Student and Local Artwok
A new Innovation Showcase report from the League for Innovation in the Community College is about using student and local art to soften and transform Lane Community College's college's otherwise bland architecture from the 1960s: Lane’s learning environment, like many college campuses built in the late 1960s, is classic Brutalist architecture: bare exposed concrete. In a recent survey, students overwhelmingly commented that they experience the Brutalism as austere, cold, drab, and gloomy, especially during the gray drizzly days of a Eugene, Oregon winter. Some likened it to learning in a parking garage!
To help mitigate this experience, a series of efforts have been initiated by the Art on Campus Committee. Prior to the creation of the print collection, a painting collection and a commercial art collection were pulled out of storage and mounted throughout the main campus. An invitational sculpture exhibit was held and a number of pieces were purchased and put on permanent display. Two sculpture faculty members, also members of the Art on Campus Committee, offered several classes that created public artwork. Traditional Japanese carvers were invited to mentor students for a wood sculpture course that resulted in a large joint outdoor sculpture. A metal sculpture class created a multipiece work for the bus stop that garnered partial funding from the bus company. A stunning stone piece now stands in front of the administration building, the outcome of a two-term sculpture course.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: arts, community colleges, facilities planning, learning space design, visual arts
States Collect Information on Students, Report Says, but Don't Use It Enough
The DQC's website is useful, including a set of resources on ARRA funding resources that can be used for data-related activities. "Since 2005, the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) has supported state development of longitudinal data systems that provide policymakers with information to create and adjust policies and practices to improve student achievement." The DQC conducts an annual survey about what student data states are collecting, and how they are using it, then matches the states' actions to its own 10 Essential Elements. The results of that survey are available on its website. Here is a brief item in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Eric Kelderman titled "States Collect Information on Students, Report Says, but Don't Use It Enough."
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: assessment, data, Data Quality Campaign, DQC, institutional research, states
What Happened to the Computer Lab?
This free webcast on Wednesday, February 3, 2010, should be of interest to many SCUPers. EDUCAUSE describes it this way: Your host, Steve Worona, will be joined by Beth Schaefer, and the topic will be "What Happened to the Computer Lab?" Over 80 percent of respondents to the annual ECAR study of undergraduate students report owning laptops, yet usage of expensive public computer labs remains high. Although computer labs might still be necessary, one can’t help but feel that traditional labs are anachronistic in a world of wireless connectivity, iPods, and smart phones. Labs are expensive to equip, staff, and maintain, and often the layout maximizes the amount of equipment that can be put into a given space rather than the creation of a comfortable or stimulating learning environment. Rather than predicting an entirely new model, this presentation will focus on low-cost changes that can be made to the design, layout, and operation of existing computer labs to meet both the changing needs of students and the necessities of the economic recession.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: computer labs, information technology, IT planning, learning space design
Initial List of SCUP-45 Concurrent Sessions!
Preliminary titles, presenters, abstracts, and learning outcomes are available now on SCUP's website for SCUP–45 concurrent sessions. Higher education's premier planning conference has a set of concurrent sessions of value to every planner on campus. The current list includes: - "Free" Property - Look That Gift Horse in the Mouth
- "Rapid Conceptualization" Path to Scientific Funding...
- A New Vision for the Core Campus at Clemson University
- A Sustainable Campus? - Yeah, Right! More Hype and No Substance ?
- Academic Resource Management System: Introducing Centralized Strategic Resource Planning to Independent-Minded Faculties
- Access Mis-Management: "We've Met the Enemy and He is Us"
- Achieving Strategic Alignment
- Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
- An Incremental Approach to Creating Technology-Enhanced Learning Spaces
- Assessing the Internal and External Variables that Contribute to Institutional Risk in Support of a "Risk Scorecard."
- Benchmarking Benefits for Energy/Water Use - 54 College Campuses in Minnesota
- BIM's Value in Pre-Design: Use of Information from Programming Through Occupation
- Bodies in Motion - Brains in Motion
- Campus Heritage Builders
- Carbon, Energy, and Water: Sustainable Planning Strategies for Indiana University
- Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
- Connecting Alumni to Campus through Innovative Planning and Design
- Creating a 180-degree Turnaround In User Satisfaction With Home-grown Software
- Creating a Community College for the District of Columbia
- Creating New Collaborative Learning Environments
- Creative Project Funding When Your State is Strapped for Cash
- Cultural Competency for Educational Leaders
- Culture Shock: Managing Change in the Land of Academia
- Delivering on a Big Vision: Implementing a 75-acre Campus Expansion
- Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
- Does Net Zero Design LEED to Zero Cost?
- Embracing Continuity and Change: Penn State Brandywine's Planning Approach
- Following Through on Strategic Plans: From Words to Deeds
- Friending Gr8 Ldrz: Leveraging Social Media on Campus
- Funding Higher Education Facility Preservation: A Streamlined Comparative Condition Framework for All State Facilities
- Funding the Future: Taking Advantage of Federal Grants
- Future Ready: How to Integrate Strategic Direction and Campus Planning
- Hardwiring Flexibility into a Strategic Plan’s Implementation: Strategies, Risks, and Rewards
- Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
- HEASC Fellows Project Report
- Help! My Building Doesn't Have a Cavity: Re-cladding Solutions for Energy Inefficient Existing Buildings
- Hey! Where do you learn best? (Student Video Contest Winners Share their Stories!)
- Home, Classroom, Community: Creating a Comprehensive College House Residential Program
- How Do Smart Meters Make a University More Intelligent
- Implementing Academic Analytics: Promise and Performance
- Integrated Planning in Community Colleges: Current Realities and Future Possibilities
- Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
- Integrated Project Delivery—A Catalyst for Collaboration/Planning
- Integrating Academic, Facilities and Community Needs at BCTC's New Campus
- Integration of Healthcare Education Across Disciplines and Departments
- Interaction Between A Community's Healthcare Needs and Coppin University's Academic Program as a Catalyst for Campus Transformation
- Inventing the Next Century of Living-Learning Environments
- Legacy System to Integrated Information System in Record Time!
- Lifecycle Cost Analysis of Campus Solar and LEED/Sustainable Projects
- Location Location Location: An Unlikely Approach to Sustainable Growth
- Making Your Strategic Plan a Bestseller on Campus
- Managing Space as a Campus Resource
- Master Planning for a Sustainable Marine Science Campus at UCSC
- Maximizing Land Utilization Through Creative Campus Planning and Development
- Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
- Measuring the Impact of Enterprise Asset Management Programs
- Multi-faith Religious Space: The Solution to Diverse Campus Religious Pressures
- Multidisciplinary Learning, Sustainable Environments and Architectural Design = Positive Educational Experience
- New School Fogelman Library - Urban Case Study of the New Library Experience
- Notre Dame's Investment in the Future of Engineering
- Places for Collaboration: Art Buildings as Models for Collaborative Spaces
- Planning a Balanced Scorecard Approach at a NJ State College
- Planning for an Uncertain Future
- Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
- Planning for Athletics and Recreation - Making Every Yard Count
- Planning for the Experienced Planner I (Session offered twice)
- Planning the Next Generation Library: User-driven, Technology-rich, and Resource-savvy
- Poly Canyon Village: Integrated Project Delivery Brings Sustainability Home
- Positioning for the Future During Uncertain Times'
- Presentation by the 2010 Excellence in Institutional Innovation and Integration Award Recipient
- Presentation by the 2010 SCUP Founders (Casey) Award Recipient
- Putting the Strategic Plan into Action: The Operational Plan
- Realizing The Impossible Dream: Developer-Led; Client Satisfaction; Architectural Excellence
- Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
- Redefining Campus Boundaries: Strategies for Successful Student Growth
- Repurposing a Building - Morrill Hall, Sustainable in 1890
- Res Life Must Go On
- Revolutionizing Learning in the STEM Disciplines
- SCUP Excellence in Planning, SCUP Excellence in Landscape Architecture, and SCUP/AIA-CAE Excellence in Architecture Awards
- Simulation Centers - A New Model for Integrated Learning
- Smart Change: Tools for Strategic Planning and Adaptive Change
- Stalled, Squeezed, Shelved: Finding Project Momentum in a Wobbly World
- Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
- Successful Public/Private Partnerships - A Case Study for Capital Funding & Development
- Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
- Sustainable Campus as Pedagogy: Opportunities For Enhancing the Curriculum
- Sustainable Residence Life "Flexible Living Unit" Design
- The Power of Community and Place - Medical Education in West Michigan
- The Young and the Agile
- Tools to Assess the Marketability of Your Academic Programs
- Utilizing Technology and Data in Strategic Planning
- Vision, Beauty and Fun: The Success of Embracing Collaborative Planning
- Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:
Labels: academic planning, campus planning, facilities planning, resource and budget planning, SCUP-45, strategic planning
The College President as Urban Planner
Subtitled "Franklin & Marshall's John A. Fry helps reclaim industrial site," this Chronicle of Higher Education article by Scott Carlson dives deep into the details of a major effort by Franklin & Marshall College to work with other Lancaster, PA entities in developing a large piece of industrial property (200 buildings on 47 acres + another railway yard of 30 acres). The Northwest Gateway Project and the rail yard project will end up costing $75M. An attorney working for a group of rail yard neighbors calls President Fry's planning efforts on this project "a marvelous example of how to manipulate the public-funding system." The article includes nice photography. Mr. Fry—a charismatic fast talker whose business background has rubbed some in academe wrong—seems to have a thing for sweeping urban-redevelopment programs. A decade ago, as executive vice president at Penn, he oversaw the multimillion-dollar revitalization of its West Philadelphia neighborhood. He says that endeavor, which marshaled money from the university, local businesses, and the city, was "child's play" compared with the Armstrong project.
"Small institutions don't have to act in small ways," he says in his office one morning, as he shuffles through boards of architectural renderings. "With the right kinds of partnerships and the right kind of thinking, you can really attract big players."
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:
Labels: campus planning, collaboration, economic development, facilities planning, town and gown, urban planning
New Book: 'The Marketplace of Ideas'
If most new problems were once solutions to old problems, then it would be helpful to look at the old problem and how it was solved. In The Marketplace of Ideas, Luis Menand sees what he considers academic professionalism as a problem. So he takes a look at the problem that the current Academy solved. Quite interesting. Buy the book here and SCUP gets a small percentage. You can also read this review by Gideon Lewis Kraus, in Slate.
In reviewing the book, Lewis-Kraus, notes: Eliot's most "original and revolutionary idea" was to require a college degree to enter professional school. This established the educational model that still obtains: liberalization first, then specialization. Universities assumed the role of credentializing professionals, and the professoriate was on the way to becoming a guild.
This transformation gave the professoriate a new autonomy, but at a price: If professors wanted academic freedom, insulation from the demands of the commercial marketplace, they had to start thinking of what they did in nonvocational terms—as the pursuit of specialized knowledge for its own sake.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: academia, academy, faculty, higher education, liberal education, policy
Buildings & Grounds Roundup
You might not regularly take the time to visit The Chronicle of Higher Education's Buildings & Grounds blog, but you probably should. It's the best place to get a continuous stream of news about capital projects on campuses, and related topics.
As of January 22 (the last Palindrome Day of 2010), some of the most recent items included: - Wiser Education Center and Greenhouse at Swarthmore College;
- University of Pennsylvania's Skirkanich Hall gets an AIA honor award;
- Lassiter Rotunda at Palm Beach Atlantic University;
- Western University opens 180,000 sf Health Education Center;
- $3M gift will fund track and field complex at St. John Fisher College;
- $27.2M addition to college of Charleston Building is a 'work of art'; and
- A professor at Clarkson University has developed a durable concrete block from recycled local industrial projects, which is being used in Clarkson's new student center.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:
Labels: architecture, buildings and grounds, campus planning, facilities planning
States and Schools and Sustainability
We're finding that the voice of the anonymous Getting to Green blogger at Inside Higher Ed, is a source of many SCUPer-like perspectives about integrated planning and campus sustainability. G. Rendell (a pseudonym) is in fact both a SCUP member and responsible for his (or her) institution's sustainability initiatives. Samples from the latest column: The most typical state government response to fiscal crisis these days is a flat percentage spending cut across the board. The advantage of this is that it doesn't require explanation and it doesn't require thought. You're 15% short on cash, you cut expenditures at all agencies by 15%, everything's back in balance, right?
Of course, the balance achieved is only financial, and only on paper. If you cut expenditures on programs which are saving you money in other areas (like arbitration which reduces court costs or prenatal services which reduces health costs), the savings are more illusory than real. And if you cut social welfare expenditures, crime rates may go up, policing costs may go up, incarceration costs may go up, up, up. The politically simple tends to be the pragmatically stupid.
and What resonated with me was the fact that "leaders" of so many state governments were spending so much time, so much effort, so much political capital and never once asking the question of how the existing structure and operation of their organizations was resulting in problematic expenditure levels. They never managed to get to the question of what existing expenditures were unnecessary, or of low priority. They never asked what sorts of efforts more than paid their own way on a net-net basis, or which ones were basically pouring money down a hole.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: getting to green, integrated planning, sustainability
The Future of Learning: 12 Views on Emerging Trends in Higher Education
Writing in SCUP's journal, Planning for Higher Education, William J. Flynn and Jeff Vredevoogd examine emerging trends SCUPers need to be alert to. The descriptive blurb for this article reads: "On behalf of our campuses, we need to seek out change; to be more flexible, more thoughtful, and more open to student decision making; and to build outcomes measurement feedback into integrated planning."
Read the article online here.
Citation: William J. Flynn and Jeff Vredevoogd. 2010. The Future of Learning: 12 Views on Emerging Trends in Higher Education. Planning for Higher Education. 38(2): 5–10.
Abstract: In 2009, Herman Miller, Inc., a Zeeland, Michigan-based furniture manufacturer, convened a leadership roundtable intended to identify trends that would affect higher education in the year 2015. Representatives from research universities, state colleges, community colleges, private institutions, and architectural and design firms participated in the roundtable discussion and, from a series of exercises, determined a list of 12 future trends. Among those trends, the roundtable concluded that globalization will influence and shape all aspects of teaching and learning. Plus, advancements in technology will drive ongoing changes throughout college and university life and offer new opportunities to enhance and broaden learning experiences. Students will take greater control of their own learning as proactive producers and managers of their own learning solutions, materials, and portfolios. Roundtable participants also concluded that the competition for students and resources will force colleges and universities to sharpen their brands and identities and to distinguish themselves in new ways. Lastly, accountability and assessment tools will continue to become common in defining institutional effectiveness. In conclusion, it is important for colleges and universities to be aware of future trends in higher education so that they can provide students and faculty with a strong, resilient, and vibrant academy for generations to come.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: environmental scanning, futuring, trends
ACUHO-I's 'Talking Stick' Magazine
The Association of College and University Housing Officers International ( ACUHO-I) is one of SCUP's sister associations in the Council of Higher Education Management Associations ( CHEMA). It's one of those associations which have a dual role on campus, each half of which needs to be integrated with the other, but often presents different issues: Housing facilities and the programming for student life that relates to student housing.
It's magazine is called Talking Stick, and past issues are available for review through a clickable online PDF file. The November-December 2009 issue is here. Among the articles in this issue is They're Back by Neil Howe and Reena Nadler. It's about Millennials, and how more senior staff on campus can best help them adapt (and adapt to them) as work colleagues, now that they've graduated and are no longer students. If you're finding yourself working with Millenials, this is a good read. If your interests or responsibilities relate to student housing, it's worth browsing through T alking Stick's back issues.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: ACUHO-I, Millennials, student housing, student services planning
'Real Learning' Is Goal of AAC&U's 'Quality Imperative'
The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is sharing data and analysis from its recent survey of employers, asking them what they want in their college grads. Along with the survey, AAC&U has released a statement, The Quality Imperative. In the USA Today story there is a hint, at the end, of the tension pervading concerns about what learning outcomes should be sought after by federal policy. The AAC&U is concerned about "programs that provide narrow training or short-term credentials ," which a spokesperson for the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) says that students often come to school asking "for just the beef" because it relates to a new job.
We have the following links for SCUPers: From the latter: The quality of individuals’ actual learning is the most important resource we have as a society. To build a global future, the United States must erase the educational dividing lines that were designed long ago for a far more parochial and socially stratified world.
It is not just wrong but risky to provide a 360-degree education to some Americans and a much more blinkered form of training to others. A great nation needs and deserves more.
In today’s far more competitive global environment, we must work together toward standards that, once and for all, make excellence truly inclusive, not just in the schools, but in postsecondary education as well. Quality must drive our commitment to college completion, both for the economy and for our future as a great democracy.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: learning outcomes, policy, workforce development
Endowments 2010: Risk Management, Liquidity, Stewardship
The title says it all: Endowments 2010: Risk Management, Liquidity, Stewardship. Opening year-end statements this year isn't quite as scary as it was last year, but endowment managers still face the need to recover from this recession. And they're going to do it without a return to the former "normal." Commonfund and NACUBO are now also tracking endowment performance. Preliminary data for the fiscal year ending June 2009, with 504 institutions out of a base of 800 having responded to a survey, shows that the results in aggregate are not as dire as they were for some marquee institutions. The average endowment was down 19 percent for the year ending in June; Harvard reported losses of 27.3 percent that year, while Yale lost 24.6 percent. Most institutions surveyed lost 22.5 percent from July 1, 2008 to November 30, 2008, which means that most participated in the market’s nascent recovery. Spending rates remained constant at an average of 4.3 percent of assets. The full study will be released on January 27.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: endowments, financial crisis, recession, resource and budget planning
Planning and Managing Change at the College of Southern Maryland
"A Framework for Leading Change Through the Lens of Student Success" is the title of this League for Innovation Learning Abstract. In it, Irvin Clark III, Jody Simpson, Charlene Newkirk, and Debra Wyvill describe how the College of Southern Maryland used Kotter's eight stage process in the planning for and creation of its Learning Communities Program. Achieving a fall-to-spring retention rate of over 81 percent for learning community participants was just one of several successful outcomes that provided an impetus to our efforts. This retention rate was instrumental in allowing SEMC to establish itself and champion the success of the LPC. The subcommittee sought to illustrate to the college community the positive impact of the program in such areas as student retention, collaboration between academic and student affairs, curriculum development, outcomes assessment, and budget development. This was accomplished, in part, through presentations, reports, and marketing literature. In particular, we presented at two conferences and several collegewide committee meetings. We also worked with institutional research to develop a comprehensive report, and created marketing literature highlighting the success of the LPC. Furthermore, our focus on promoting a culture of communication, transparency, and assessment allowed us to successfully articulate the effectiveness of the program within the organizational culture of CSM.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: College of Southern Maryland, community colleges, Learning Abstracts, learning communities, managing change
Top Tech Trends from the American Library Association
The 'Top Tech Trends' session at a mid-Winter ALA meeting convened five experts to share the latest trends and observations about what they call issues "affecting patron access and services." Joshe Hadro reports on it in Library Journal. Almost anyone would find this report interesting, but it is especially useful for those who do variations on learning space design. The categories discussed included: - Discovery Systems;
- User Experience Across the Breadth of Library-Based Interactions;
- The Need to Embrace 'Mobile';
- Augmented Reality;
- End of Apps: "2010 is the year that the app dies."; and
- The Reinvention of the Book.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: academic planning, ebooks, learning space design, libraries, mobile, technology
The Imagined Space of The Web 2.0 Classroom
Accommodating technology, that is, making it usable in a room, does require many changes: Rooms should be square or rounded instead of rectangular since sight-lines and visual display of information is now as important as the sound of voices; moving furniture for different ways to work with technology should not cause a sudden roar of noise, chair and table legs scraping on tile, but instead the soft rolling of table and chair on a soft surface. In other words, new classroom design is not based on unquestioned tradition but is based on new practices developed within the field of media architecture. Note that SCUP has a Lyris-based email Knowledge Community [smartc] with this topical focus. There are more than 500 practitioners who are members of that often quiescent discussion list.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: academic planning, facilities planning, integrated planning, learning space design, online learning, Web 2.0
Grapevine 2010: A Critical Juncture for Higher Education in the US
If you're trying to look deep into the crystal ball at the future of support for higher education from the state, the latest Grapevine* report will help clarify the situation, but it isn't pretty. And it seems like nearly everyone is expecting further cuts, not only in the current fiscal year but in the next one.
* Grapevine has compiled data on state tax support for higher education sinde 1960. This year, the Illinois State University's Center for the Study of Higher Education Policy (CSHEP), which manages Grapevine, has joined forces with SHEEO and folded in that organization's State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) project. The collected data is served up in a number of useful ways on the Welcome to Grapevine, Fiscal Year 2009-10 website.
Links Quoted from Lingenfelter: In summary, the dimensions of the current financial and enrollment crisis are: - More than 5% of FY 2010 appropriations are underwritten with federal stabilization funds that in many states are exhausted, or nearly so;
- State revenues have fallen at an unprecedented rate and a recovery will, at best, take many years according to the National Association of State Budget Officers; and
- Even with recent dramatic enrollment growth, current enrollments almost surely understate student demand, with many students who would otherwise enroll deterred by tuition increases and budget‐ driven enrollment caps and course cancellations.
But money and enrollment demand are not the only issues.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: financial crisis, policy, publics, recession, resource and budget planning, state support
An Arts Program's Move to Troubled Vancouver Neighborhood
Architects get LUs for the AIA at SCUP–45.
Simon Fraser University (SFU) is moving its School for Contemporary Arts into Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, which is apparently not considered a particularly good or safe neighborhood. Here's a link to a Globe and Mail article by Marsha Lederman.
From Lederman: SFU Woodward's is part of a revolutionary mixed-use experiment on the site of a once-iconic department store in the Downtown Eastside. The new Woodward's encompasses luxury condominiums, social housing, retail and office space (among the future tenants: the National Film Board and the city's cultural-affairs offices) as well as Simon Fraser University's School for the Contemporary Arts and the exhibition and creation spaces that will be part of that.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: architecture, economic development, facilities planning, public-private partnerships, Simon Fraser University, urban, Vancouver
What Can Any Higher Education Administrator Do to Help Haiti Right Now?
A question that each of us has been asking ourselves. After we texted "HAITI" to "90999" and sent $10 via our cell phone bill to the Red Cross, of course.
Tracy Fitzimmons, president of Shenandoah University, has put together a thoughtful piece in Inside Higher Ed. It deserves a few minutes of your time to read and reflect. Really, this is a SCUP-like, integrated, even strategic approach to the current crisis that looks at what campuses are, do, and can do in what one might say is a very sustainable way.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: crisis, crisis and disaster planning, emergency, Haiti
|
