Learning Resources

Abstract: The Agile College: How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Changes
by Nathan D. Grawe
Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore: 2021
298 pages
ISBN: 978-1421440231

Does hope motivate action or complacency? Does crisis induce change or despair? Nathan D. Grawe readily acknowledges this tension in The Agile College, his follow-up book to his 2018 Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education. The latter propelled the inescapable discussion throughout higher education of the looming “demographic cliff.” The Agile College suggests how agile institutions might prevent demography from becoming destiny.

Abstract: The death of George Floyd in 2020 and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement have renewed the focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), particularly in higher education planning. As a result of this attention, higher education has reexamined its commitment to DEI. A student voice survey found that college students were underwhelmed by actions taken by their institutions to address DEI on campus (Inside Higher Education 2021). Institutional units across higher education require coordinated, integrated planning to meet student expectations. This article highlights the results of a study that examined professional development strategies for higher education professionals in the context of the post-George Floyd–era.

Abstract: Edited by Eugene L. Zdziarski, Norbert W. Dunkel, and J. Michael Rollo
Routledge: Oxfordshire, England: 2021
388 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-0367333720

Abstract: Entrepreneuring the Future of Higher Education: Radical Transformation in Times of Profound Change
by Mary Landon Darden
Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham, MD: 2021
202 pages
ISBN: 978-1-4758-5494-7

Abstract: The education sector is excluded from the 16 official “Critical Infrastructure Sectors” managed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency. As the world grapples with a pandemic, this omission lays bare a disconnection between critical infrastructures serving daily life and the ground plane of learning and knowledge creation on which they are built; such a severing between ground plane and structure does not bode well for the entire assembly. For us to flourish as a society, higher education institutions—already grounded in a landscape of learning and knowledge creation—need to be a foundational support to essential infrastructures sustaining daily life in communities small and large.

Abstract: “Smart change” requires an understanding of when and how to employ routine, strategic, and transformative change. Amid COVID-19, we face an existential threat that demands institutions reimagine higher education as more inclusive, affordable, relevant, and successful. To do so, planners/leaders must emphasize the well-being and success of student/faculty/staff; develop scenarios for sustainable business models; design, develop, deliver, and train instructors to teach across and with all modalities; build collaborative networks within and across institutions; and connect with local, state, and regional businesses and industry.