Learning Resources

Abstract: “Integrated strategic planning” is a much more collaborative process in its development and execution than the practice of the executive team and/or a consultant simply drafting a plan with the expectation that it will be implemented by others. In this article, the author recounts her unique experience in going through the strategic planning process twice in the same stressful environment of an educational institution beset by financial, cultural, and accreditation challenges. The first plan was unsuccessful because it did little to engage institutional stakeholders as the board and administration did what they separately believed was best. It was drafted by the author in her capacity as an outside consultant and according to the instructions of the then executive team. On the second occasion, the prior president had been replaced by the author. As the new leader of the institution, the author used an integrated planning process. The result was a more meaningful plan as the stakeholders worked together and held each other accountable in its development and execution, leading to a turnaround that saved the school and surprised the community.

Abstract: This article combats traditional notions of higher education planning by emphasizing a “planning as playmaking” approach that stresses authentic, active, integrative, and ongoing planning that drives change. The results of a recent survey reveal the value of integrated planning across higher education—building relationships across boundaries, aligning planning practices, creating a sustainable culture of change—but sputtering attempts at implementing these concepts durably. Five essential strategies help institutions fill the gap: balancing creativity and discipline, connecting choices to underlying values, developing planners across the institution, celebrating the “expert-generalist,” and bridging pragmatism and ambition to foster sound implementation.

Abstract: While college and university administrators tend to be conscious of the need to integrate financial and budgetary considerations into institutional plans, there are other equally important concerns to weave into planning. Real integrated plans proclaim not only what the organization will invest in and improve on but also what it will cease doing. Priority setting, done properly, includes decisions about shutting down non-priority activities, yet most institutional plans in higher education shy away from such considerations. Mindful of the hard choices that must be made in genuinely integrated plans, college and university leaders must be careful to compose planning teams with diverse sets of participants whose ownership of the plan lends overall legitimacy to the process and the plan itself.

Abstract: This article lays the groundwork for “the connected university” as the most desirable, most robust operational platform for both achieving institutionally coherent integrated planning and delivering on the mandate to grow, challenge, and inspire creative young minds. Beginning with Bateson’s prescription that we “learn to think as Nature thinks” and appreciating not only the connectivity and related mental processes embedded in large-scale natural systems but also the inherent connectivity and associated mental processes underlying our disparate branches of knowledge, the author argues for a more experimental and deliberate approach to manifesting this connectivity and the corresponding critically important mental processes across the structures, departments, pedagogical forms, and policies of our universities. Our universities too, he says, need to learn to think as Nature thinks. He points to the “connectivity imperative” voiced over the years by thought leaders in multiple fields, including Thomas Homer-Dixon, Franz Johansson, Albert Einstein, Vartan Gregorian, and Buckminster Fuller while at the same time acknowledging the obstacles to connectivity so deeply embedded in our university cultures, practices, politics, and reward systems. Turning to his own story, the author recounts how as a youngster, prompted by a unique gift of Chopin’s music and Einstein’s writings, he first began to think about the exciting hidden connections to be discovered by combining and savoring experiences from different disciplines. He underscores the tricky interplay of belief and perception as we endeavor to figure out how the world works—how what we believe informs perception and how new perceptions, mediated by learning and experience, can inform what we believe—charging our educational systems, and higher education in particular, with the responsibility of helping students form their world-defining “inner Eye,” that “eye” through which they perceive the world around them and conceive their worlds of the future. He concludes with a list of prototypes and “winning solutions” that have enhanced connectivity within several universities with which he has had personal involvement. His vision for the transformation of universities is ultimately pragmatic as well as idealistic, moving institutions toward greater connectivity through the proliferation of modestly scaled “pocket” connectivity programs as well as university-wide integrated planning initiatives where larger scale and more radical visions might be debated and strategized with unfettered imagination and a sense of urgency.

Abstract: This report was produced by the researcher awarded the M. Perry Chapman Prize for 2014–2015.

While face-to-face collaboration has been theorized to be a key element in intellectual development and cognition, no formal method of quantitative measurement has been applied to understand collective face-to-face learning in academic institutions or how patterns of interaction and individual reflection may reveal information exchange among students within educational institutions. To address this gap, this study introduces a novel tool and framework to promote the systematic study of peer collaboration for general use in education.

Results of this applied research will be useful to architects, interior designers, librarians, educators, and researchers interested in obtaining empirical evidence and applying it to the design of learning environments and the assessment of how well spaces intentionally relate to learning. This research project introduces a common means for researchers in space design, education, and information science to develop principles and best practices to improve return on investment in the design of informal learning environments.

Abstract: Recently, education researchers have emphasized the redesign of learning spaces to better accommodate pedagogical change. In particular, studies have found evidence of the relationship between the built environment and learning outcomes—however, no current studies have deliberately focused on the “minority majority” feature of America’s future student composition.

This pilot study was conducted to evaluate how space contributes to the learning outcomes of a demographically diverse class of students at Morgan State University, a Historically Black Institution. Based on the neurobiological literature on environmental enrichment, the authors hypothesized that an enriched learning environment will correlate with increased student activity (directed movement) and engagement (with other students, with room features) and result in significantly improved learning outcomes for an ethnically diverse student group.