Access Matters

Related: A concurrent session at SCUP–44: The College Funding Crisis: Five Ways Planning Can Help.

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As we keep reminding ourselves in the SCUP office, "Never waste a crisis."

Colleges and universities must begin to forge a new alliance with government at both the state and federal levels. Higher education can plant the seed for such an alliance by investing in efforts to educate the public and government officials about the nature and breadth of the financial aid problem and its potential impact on America’s fortunes. . . . Equally important, all constituencies in higher education must make a genuine attempt to reduce operating costs without sacrificing educational quality. Reducing costs is an essential good-faith effort to win the support of political officials and the American public.

Share and Share Alike: Shared Services Partnerships

Article here, it includes several useful case studies:

Some higher ed institutions partner with other schools, but a number of shared services partnerships are in place that connect several campuses of the same university or college system. Either way, the benefits can be significant, especially when it comes to containing costs, and it’s likely that more IHEs will be doing this kind of sharing in the future as a way to keep budgets in check.

The strategy has some challenges as well as advantages. Experts in the field have noted that intracampus partnerships in particular can be fraught with cultural and political issues. Sometimes the amount of governance and oversight required isn’t worth the money saved or the relationships fostered.

Despite the potential glitches, administrators have found that—depending on the project—it can be worth the effort. For administrators looking to undertake a shared services partnership or streamline one that’s already in place, the following rules can help in making the most of the arrangement.

Building and Sustaining a Multiuniversity and Multicampus Program or School of Public Health

This quite academic paper contains useful thoughts and lessons:

Drawing from New Jersey's successful efforts and from other less successful efforts, we offer lessons learned for those who will consider a multiuniversity and multicampus program or school of public health. These lessons include building a faculty collaboration, senior administrative support, and external constituencies and developing a set of documents that institutionalize processes, logistics, and other operations. In our experience, building and sustaining faculty support is the greatest challenge, followed by protecting existing resources and securing additional resources when administrators in the host universities change. (Am J Public Health. 2008;98:1556-1558. doi:10.2105/ AJPH.2008. 136705)

After briefly describing the development of the former New Jersey graduate program that evolved into a graduate school of public health, we describe the lessons that we learned for building and sustaining a school of public health through a multiuniversity partnership. We provide examples of some efforts that failed- without giving the names of the institutions, however, and with the caveat that we participated as outsiders in these efforts and therefore cannot be entirely certain that our expressed reasons for why they failed are accurate.

Land-Rich Universities Weigh New Options for Real-Estate Development

A new report from Moody's Investment is described in this article by Paul Fain. May require subscription or day pass for access. The report describes a number of ways in which campuses with substantive real estate can maintain control and ownership of the real estate which engaging in partnerships that can create revenue streams from the use of the land. The report is titled "Public-Private Partnerships in U.S. Higher Education: Real-Estate Rich Organizations May Benefit, but Credit Impact Always Assessed on Case-by-Case Basis," and can be obtained by request at higher.education@moodys.com.

Community-College Partnerships That Work

"Education stakeholders, including community colleges, are coming together to improve links with the workforce in order to better prepare students. The fruits of these labors are streamlined systems, more clear career paths, and solid cost savings. 'The strength of these public institutions, when they collaborate, is very powerful,' says Dana Mohler-Faria, president of Bridgewater State College (Mass.) and special advisor for education to Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick. 'What we're seeing now is a far better understanding on the part of the institutions about the necessity of [creating collaboration], and about the fact that it's not only in the long-term interest of the Commonwealth, but it's in their own interest.'"

Research Universities Doing Good with International Partnerships

Thinking Locally, Acting Globally is from The Chronicle of Higher Education by Sara Hebel and addresses an area of sustainability that is often not at the forefront when higher education and sustainability are being discussed together.

American universities have long been involved in research and service work abroad. But as Indiana-Purdue's Kenya venture illustrates, they are now taking a more deliberate and comprehensive approach to where and how they invest their time, money, and talent. Many hire senior-level administrators to coordinate international projects across disciplines. They are rewarding faculty members who lead these ambitious projects and are providing institutional grants to get them off the ground. They are also searching for ways to involve students — all while looking to bring the benefits of this work back to their home states.