Learning Resources

Abstract: This article examines the leadership decisions and processes implemented by the Memphis College of Art (MCA), following the 2017 decision to close due to financial debt and declining enrollment. Rather than ceasing operations immediately, MCA leaders executed a three-year teach-out plan while liquidating assets, repaying debts, and laying off employees, all while ensuring a legally compliant dissolution. As many colleges face longevity pressures, this case offers a rare look at how closure can be managed transparently, strategically, and with commitment to student success through an integrated planning approach that aligns academic, financial, and facilities decisions during the institution’s final years.

Abstract: Times of rapid change can interrupt operations and implementation efforts. Preventing this requires an ability to quickly adapt our programs and offerings to the changing landscape. Unfortunately, operational complexity and the disorienting nature of uncertainty become a hurdle to rapid response. Either we get overwhelmed trying to identify all that needs to change, or we respond haphazardly, missing crucial details. Contingency planning can help. It is a method for preparing for potential changes that identifies how operations and action plans need to shift in response. It can also be used to respond to changes after they happen. The Campus Contingency Planner is a template for lightweight, rapid contingency planning. It guides you through a process that identifies the impacts of change, how decisions during contingency planning will be made, and the operational components of programs and offerings that will need to be adapted in response. Whether you manage student-facing programs (like academic programs or student affairs activities), or direct services that are internally supportive (like space management or IT), the Campus Contingency Planner can help you respond to change with flexibility, minimizing disruption and moving your institution forward.

Abstract: As the role of arts and culture in our cities evolves, institutions are responding by growing their performing arts programs to enhance connection and build community. This session will explore how the planning, programming, and design of performing arts facilities at two institutions plays a vital role in reinvigorating and energizing the urban condition. Come learn how institutions can use the performing arts to enhance in-person eduction and advance arts and culture within an evolving technological paradigm.

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: Part 1 of this series described a major contraction in the pool of college-going 18-year-olds that will reverse decades of growth and stability for higher education. Part 2 explored how we can shape a planning context that supports success in the coming 10 or 20 years. Part 3 suggests how our approach to planning must shift to prepare for abrupt change.

Abstract: American industries, professional organizations, individual companies, and higher education institutions continue to struggle to attract employees from underrepresented populations. Future-forward thinking is required to ensure a multicultural workforce. The authors, a design educator at a predominantly white, Midwestern university, and a high school principal at a multicultural urban school district, developed an intentional collaboration—partnerships between secondary and postsecondary institutions—to bridge the gap. In this article, they share strategies they developed for recruiting and retaining underrepresented students through intentional planning and design of competency-based, personalized learning models.

Abstract: Part 1 of this series described a major contraction in the pool of college-going 18-year-olds that will reverse decades of growth and stability for higher education. Drawing on the path-breaking analysis of Carleton College economist Nathan Grawe, it outlined how widespread but variable the change will be, and discussed some of the effects—on enrollment, revenue, facilities, staffing, and more—for which colleges and universities should be preparing. This Part 2 explores these implications: How can we shape a planning context that supports success in the coming 10 or 20 years? What attitudes and skillsets will remain useful, and what may need to change?

Abstract: A long-term decline in birth rates raises fundamental planning questions for higher education as the pool of 18-year-olds contracts after 2025. This Planning for Higher Education series explores how planners and leaders can use the time we have to prepare for some of the most wrenching changes in a generation. This article, Part 1, surveys the planning horizon as we emerge from COVID-19 and describes the challenges ahead. Part 2 considers specific planning strategies institutions can adopt to meet the challenge. Part 3 tackles perhaps the most daunting challenge: how to mobilize institutions to actually do what needs to be done, however inconvenient (or worse) that may be.

Abstract: With the cost of education skyrocketing, institutions must address the demographic cliff for future generations of learners. Community colleges offer important lessons regarding educational offerings across a diverse background and recognize how workforce development can inform campus planning and design. In this session, we'll share how community colleges can use metrics to understand long-term projections around regional enrollment needs and use human purpose integrated design to build for the future.

Abstract: Institutions of higher learning and professional firms report concerns about lack of diversity in the workplace. Intentional partnerships can help bridge this gap. This webinar will focus on how to develop a secondary-postsecondary partnership to intentionally promote diversity, inclusion, and recognition of under-represented populations through collaboration and integrated planning strategies.