Learning Resources

Abstract: This article explores a methodology for assessing and managing the financial viability of private, tuition-dependent institutions as well as institutional tactics and strategies used to improve their financial strength. The resulting model will help institutions understand the trends and predictive value of key financial metrics directly impacting their liquidity and operations and how senior leadership can drive change. Institutional examples illustrate how to engage senior leadership in strategic decision-making that includes assessment of revenue growth and/or expense management.

Abstract: Higher Education Business Models Under Stress: Achieving Graceful Transitions in the Academy
by Melody Rose and Larry D. Large
AGP: Washington, DC: 2021
140 Pages
ISBN: 978-1-951635-12-1

Abstract: Retention matters for practical (keeping the doors open), ethical (successfully educating students), and cultural reasons (improving campus climate, which in turn improves retention and persistence.) In this session, we'll focus on the effective and budget-conscious retention efforts for a northeastern regional public institution. While administrative staff played an essential role, educating and coordinating faculty made a key difference in the success of these efforts. Come learn how you can plan and coordinate campus-wide retention efforts and promote faculty participation at your institution.

Abstract: Universities and colleges across the country are faced with growth in the campus population and the loss of surface parking lots for new buildings. The response of many institutions is to build new garages with the assumption that parking demand ratios will remain the same. Such an approach, however, can be extremely expensive—upwards of $2,000 per net new space annually. In many cases, a mix of parking and demand reduction programs—such as shuttles, bicycle and pedestrian improvements, and financial incentives not to drive—can accommodate growth at a lower cost per trip. A balanced approach will also tend to support other goals, from improving town-gown relations to maintaining debt capacity. Demand management strategies have been employed by institutions for many years. However, it is less common for a cost-benefit analysis to be undertaken comparing them with new parking construction. Using examples from universities in California and Colorado, this article demonstrates a methodology to inform basic decisions on the amount of parking required to cater to campus growth, which can be incorporated into campus master planning.

Abstract: Global society has “overshot” the long-term human carrying capacity of Earth. This unsustainable state is an emergent property of the systemic interaction of techno-industrial society as presently configured and the ecosphere. It cannot be corrected without fundamental changes to critical socio-cultural variables that determine the interaction. To the extent that higher education (re)produces the dominant cultural paradigm, it is a source of the problem. Universities must strive to reduce the ecological footprints of both their own operations and, more importantly, of the growth-oriented materialistic worldview they promote. Indeed, the real challenge for higher education is to help articulate an alternative life-sustaining worldview.

Abstract: Campus leaders frequently feel restricted by the limited menu of options at their disposal when attempting to secure input or participation from constituencies across the campus. This article explores one innovative technique, open space technology, which has shown to produce both meaningful involvement and results across a number of campuses, whether in strategic planning, curriculum reform, teaching, or cross-unit problem solving.

Abstract: First, I will explain what I consider to a brand to be. This will give me a framework to look forward to the possible futures of the college or university brand. I will summarize some key trends facing your target consumers: future students and the employers of those students and come to some obervations about the realtionship between our brands and these "consumers". I will then illustrate some of this thinking with a real example where I have, in recent months, been able to work with a small collee in Portland to try to out some of this thinking and help create a University Brand.

Abstract: Consortia, their impact on cooperating institutions, and critical factors in inter-institutional planning were the subject of a recent study for the United States Office of Education, directed by Harold L. Hodgkinson of the Center for Research and Development in Higher Education at the University of California at Berkeley. The critical issues, according to the study findings, are problems of reciprocity and autonomy, coordination of programs among diverse institutions, and strategies for campus involvement and leadership. The following article, by three staff members of the New Hampshire College and University Council—one of the consortia in the Hodgkinson study—is devoted to a discussion of the process of consortium decision-making, touching on the three key issues. The authors are: Lynn G. Johnson, the Council's associate director in charge of academic programs; Dr. William W. Barnard, consultant and coordinator of a two-year Cooperative Curriculum Project, and Douglas W. Lyon, coordinator of January Term Programs and communications coordinator.