Transforming America's Community Colleges: A Federal Policy Proposal to Expand Opportunity and Promote Economic Prosperity

This May 2009 policy brief from the Brookings Institution's Blueprint for American Prosperity series offers a few policy suggestions on how the federal government might reinvest in community colleges across the nation. Including the recommendation that the federal government should establish national post-secondary goals and also devote a significant portion of existing funding to improve and evaluate teaching practices in these institutions. (Paraphrased from the Internet Scout Report)

Read the full document here:
http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2009/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2009/0507_community_college_goldrick_rab/0507_community_college_brief.pdf

7 Lessons From 3 Decades: The Emotional Dimension of Leadership

A perspective piece from a 26th-year president:

"A multitude of decisions are made throughout the university—mostly outside the offices of the president and provost. By default the framework for most of those decisions is based on authority. The question too often asked is “who should make this decision,” rather than 'how should this decision be made."

"From my perspective the most important leadership task is to identify and retain men and women of talent, temperament and commitment. This task overshadows all others. In the words of a former colleague, Dero Downing, “Get good people and good things will happen.”

Read the full article here
http://www.aascu.org/media/public_purpose/2009/09_0405leadershiplessons.htm

Book Review: How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything in Business

From the January–February–March 2009 issue of Planning for Higher Education, this "SCUP Links Blog" post provides an opportunity for you to share comments or additional resources/links about the review by John C. Adams of the book, Book Review: How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything in Business. You can read the entire article here [LINK TO COME], in Planning for Higher Education.

Strategy in a 'Structural Break'

This excellent article, found by SCUP staffer Phyllis Grummon, is blurbed, "During hard times a structural break in the economy is an opportunity in disguise. To survive—and eventually, to flourish—companies must learn to exploit it." To read the full article requires site registration:

There is nothing like a crisis to clarify the mind. In suddenly volatile and different times, you must have a strategy. I don't mean most of the things people call strategy—mission statements, audacious goals, three- to five-year budget plans. I mean a real strategy. . . . For many managers, the word has become a verbal tic. Business lingo has transformed marketing into marketing strategy, data processing into IT strategy, acquisitions into growth strategy. Cut prices and you have a low-price strategy. Equating strategy with success, audacity, or ambition creates still more confusion. A lot of people label anything that bears the CEO's signature as strategic—a definition based on the decider's pay grade, not the decision. . . . By strategy, I mean a cohesive response to a challenge. A real strategy is neither a document nor a forecast but rather an overall approach based on a diagnosis of a challenge. The most important element of a strategy is a coherent viewpoint about the forces at work, not a plan.