The University of Oregon is engaging in a big-stakes transformation that challenges assumptions about what is a public and what is a private institution.From this page, you can download an executive summary, or the entire white paper, "Preserving Our Public Mission Through a New Partnership With the State." Selected paragraphs:

Many states across America, including Oregon, are struggling with the current higher education paradox—a broad consensus, fueled by the lessons of our own history, that postsecondary opportunity is critical to our collective prosperity, but challenged to sustain the investments needed in public higher education to support such prosperity. As a result of this paradox, state policies have been adopted across the United States that have fundamentally restructured public higher education systems as states and their public institutions negotiate a new balance of autonomy and accountability ... .

In Oregon, there is growing consensus that the state must move aggressively to enact real reform that supports our collective goal to help more Oregonians earn college degrees—reform that fundamentally changes the state’s role so that each institution is better able to fulfill its public mission through increased autonomy and greater accountability to meet the state’s needs ... .

At the University of Oregon, discussions about how we can better serve the state, and enhance our capacity to meet our public responsibility are well under way and include faculty members, students, staff members, alumni, and other stakeholders. We hold a collective view, joined by the University of Oregon Foundation and the University of Oregon Alumni Association Board of Directors, that the University of Oregon must continue to meet its responsibilities as a public university despite the funding environment that makes it difficult to do so. However, to accomplish this goal we need fundamental change to the governance and funding structure of our public university system. The university’s future is fundamentally predicated on our ability to enhance our capacity to provide greater educational opportunities through increased flexibility, autonomy, and stable funding support from the state ... .

An education panel in Utah, sets a goal for 66 percent of Utah residents to hold at least a postsecondary certificate by 2020 - that's the percentage of jobs in that state that are expected to require such credentialing by that time. Here's a Salt Lake Tribune article about that, and here is another - from two days later - that take a look a enrollments and retention in Utah.

The commission, which includes education leaders, lawmakers and members of Utah’s business community, approved that goal Tuesday after months of work. State Superintendent Larry Shumway said about 35 percent of Utah adults now have postsecondary degrees and about 10 to 15 percent have certificates, earned through training in areas such as diesel mechanics or medical assistance.

“We believe it’s an attainable goal without a huge investment,” said William Sederburg, Utah’s commissioner of higher education and a commission member. “We, frankly, don’t have a choice not to do it. If we don’t try to meet these needs, Utah is going to slide down. The economy is going to demand we step up and do this … .”

and

It’s a watershed moment for the institution and our role within the state system,” said a statement from UVU President Matthew Holland. “These numbers bear out what we’ve been feeling for a long time. UVU offers a uniquely attractive educational option for students from Utah Valley and from around the state. The big story is that they are staying. Our biggest jumps come in our junior and senior class.”

In this excerpt from an upcoming League publication, The Sustainable Community College: Holistic Approaches to Sustainability, one community college district shares its goal to educate and inspire students to make the world more sustainable, and the collaborative effort of faculty in many disciplines who come together under this common goal.

Prior to the governing board’s adoption of the Sustainability Resolution, MCCCD began its journey to infuse sustainability principles and concepts in its curriculum, recognizing that the initial step was to engage faculty in sustainability conversations and to increase their awareness of the need to enhance the curriculum with these concepts. In 2006, to engage faculty and staff interested in this topic, the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction (MCLI), a unit within the division of Academic and Student Affairs, spearheaded the work surrounding sustainability. The sustainability initiative was designed to be cross-disciplinary, recognizing that students studying in any discipline need to be better informed on the social, environmental, and economic issues facing our world. To lead the initiative, a faculty member was compensated to serve in a leadership role to assist in planning and facilitating the initial faculty development events and activities.

If you find this item to be of interest, then you need to be checking out SCUP's Pacific Region's annual conference next spring: Inspiring Community, March 21–23, 2011 at Seattle University.

Consider the case of Lowell, Mass., located on the banks of the Merrimack and Concord rivers and once coined mill city. Named as one of five “innovative cities” by the Innovative Cities consortium, the City of Lowell’s dramatic reversal of fortune was driven by lean manufacturing and, significantly, a robust appetite for commercial and retail development, cultural diversity, and community engagement. The key ingredient in Lowell was that business and civic leaders united behind a co-development strategy, attracted investment from outside the community and leveraged capital financing for building out town/gown infrastructure, like sports stadiums, residential commons, and state-of-the-art student fitness and recreation centers.

A recent USA Today feature reported on two types of recession-proof economies: the first, state capitals and the second, collegetowns. In these latter cities, higher education institutions created transportation linkages, river walks, bike paths and pedestrian pathways to guide, inform, and enhance the urban life experience. Increasingly, Americans are seeking out these river mill collegetowns as powerful options for retail, hospitality, and ecotourism investment and as wise choices to live, learn, start a business and raise a family. This new wave of urban homesteaders has learned that collegetowns are now lifelong destinations and more than temporary undergraduate residences.

Let us say first that SCUP is proud to note that the new president of the Arizona Board of Regents is Thomas K. Anderes, a long time SCUP member and leader who is currently the convener of SCUP's Resource and Budget Planning Academy.

The Lumina Foundation's Focus magazine for July 2010 (PDF) is focused on "The Productivity Push: System-Wide Reform Allows Arizona to Serve More Students." An excerpt:

Arizona is among a growing number of states that are expanding their capacity to graduate more students (see map, Pages 8 and 9). They’re doing this by spending money differently and by delivering education in new ways and in new places.

The plan Burnand shared with Cecilia that day — a joint initiative of the Maricopa Community College District and Arizona State University that jump-starts productivity even before a student sets foot in a college classroom — is but one piece of the statewide reform effort.

Once competitors for student minds — and public dollars — the schools in the state community college system and Arizona’s three four-year universities are now full-fledged partners. They’re working together to streamline transfer policies, expand student opportunity at “no-frills” regional educational centers, and keep costs down for both institutions and students — all in an effort to improve the system’s productivity and cre- ate new paths to learning.

The driving force behind this change is the 12-member Arizona Board of Regents, the panel that governs the state’s three research universities from its headquarters just a few miles from Alhambra High School. In a blunt comprehensive strategic plan released in 2008, the board called out Arizona for failing to keep pace with other states in the effort to recruit and retain low- income, first-generation and other 21st century students.