Learning Resources

Abstract: Succeeding at integrated planning at colleges and universities is a challenge. Many planning models do not work in higher education because they are not designed for higher education. Planning processes designed for corporations or non-profits do not account for the complex environment of higher education nor its unique challenges.

Many institutions struggle to leverage planning into lasting change because they create plans in a vacuum. They do not grasp the institution’s strategic issues or create a sound value proposition. They are not prepared for good planning.

To provide guidance on where to prioritize efforts, SCUP partnered with the Baker Strategy Group in 2015 to conduct a study with more than 2,200 leaders who plan at colleges and universities, and ran quantitative analysis on their responses. Several themes emerged around planning challenges and how to respond, which are explored in this report.

Abstract: There are good reasons—educational, economic, sociological—for educational institutions to coexist on the same site or even in the same building with governmental, residential, or commercial functions. At the same time there are roadblocks to such joint-occupancy arrangements, particularly for public institutions, in the laws governing the financing of public buildings and in bureaucratic inertia. This article is a profile of one institution—the new Inner Harbor campus of the Community College of Baltimore—that tried to share its facilities with commercial interests—and failed.