Learning Resources

Abstract: Postsecondary institutions are increasingly becoming more diverse. To ensure that the campus culture is appreciative of such diversity, many institutions are including language in their policies and implementing programs that demonstrate their commitment to diversity. One such means for communicating institutional commitment to diversity is through the strategic plan. As the basis for establishing institutional priorities and determining which initiatives get funded, the strategic plan can reflect the institution’s true commitment to diversity by purposefully incorporating plans for diversity throughout the document. This research sought to understand what was already being done in regard to diversity and strategic planning at both the system and individual institution level so that information can be relayed about what works and has the greatest impact and therefore should be considered when developing a strategic plan that pays attention to and appreciates diversity. Findings suggest that although institutions are including diversity initiatives in their strategic plans, there needs to be greater attention paid to diversity within the strategic plan.

Abstract: Higher education is undergoing many sector-level changes while under growing pressure as a whole to demonstrate or improve institutional performance. Increasingly, private-sector industry organizations are applying portfolio management to their organizational resources as a strategy to improve performance. Although not formally recognized in practice or in the literature as portfolio management, the activity of prioritizing academic and administrative programs in higher education applies the principles of economic portfolio theory and private-industry portfolio management to the higher education sector. A small number of higher education institutions have undertaken academic program prioritization. Little empirical research exists to understand the use of portfolio management in higher education or its effectiveness in improving institutional performance. This study examines the characteristics of 62 institutions that have identified a need to intentionally manage and prioritize their portfolio of academic and administrative programs to improve institutional performance. The purpose of this study is to identify any relationship between the identified need to manage the organizational portfolio and certain institutional characteristics that have been found through empirical research to be predictors of institutional performance challenges. A wealth of research opportunities exists in the organizational portfolio management domain; recognizing the characteristics of institutions that identify a need to manage their portfolio of academic and administrative programs is a step toward filling the gap in the research and informing resource decision making.

Abstract: Academic programs should be the centrifugal force informing and driving the accomplishment of all other institutional plans. While financial, capital, and enrollment management plans are critical to institutional success, each is secondary to academic programs as a driving force. Institutions should simultaneously move toward “integrated planning” while developing a hierarchy of plans, with the academic program portfolio as primary. Undertaking more effective planning will require attention to several elements: operationalizing the mission, confronting the real issues, integrating resources into the plan, staying within institutional scope, quitting some programs and services, focusing on implementation and assessment, and maintaining a planning database for management purposes. The primacy of academic programs in the development of higher education plans will presage their success.

Abstract: This article outlines the conception and creation of the Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships at Philadelphia’s Drexel University. It details the university’s goal of becoming an academic leader in civic engagement through the transformation of an off-campus site of existing historic structures into a center for outreach services.
The discussion of the center’s implementation is divided into four sections to present a comprehensive description of its planning process, funding, and design:
- Planning for community engagement
- The idea: developing an extension center at a private urban university
- Creating a physical hub for neighborhood engagement
- Planning the facility
The article closes with a report on early outcomes that have been identified: the introduction of community dinners, the creation of a stakeholder advisory council, and the establishment of volunteer committees that are planning to host a visioning event that will feature a creative building process along with an opportunity for participants to review and revise the vision and goals outlined during the original planning process.

Abstract: This article uses the planning process for the International Living-Learning Center (ILLC) at Oregon State University (OSU) to describe how the needs of international students are being served through residential living-learning communities. The number of international students enrolled in the United States has increased 43 percent over the past decade to a record high of over 800,000 students. Colleges and universities across the country are recruiting international students, but for these efforts to be successful, postsecondary institutions must support the students as they navigate a new cultural landscape. OSU and INTO University Partnerships (IUP), a private company from the United Kingdom that partners with higher education institutions, decided to plan for the students’ success by creating specialized housing facilities, both physically and with specialized residential programming. By examining the integrated planning process for the unique services this facility offers, this article will help postsecondary institutions plan for facilities and programs catering to international students on their own campuses.

Abstract: Until very recently, the idea of higher education as an economic catalyst has focused almost exclusively on land-grant colleges and research universities. In little more than a decade, the perceived economic development role of higher education has expanded from a narrow field of large elite research institutions to include small liberal arts colleges, many of which traditionally saw their role as a refuge from economic forces rather than as an active creator of them. Liberal arts colleges, and, in particular, public liberal arts colleges, now confront an entirely new set of expectations from the regions in which they are located.
Almost every college has some kind of catalytic role to play in its regional economy. However, in order to be accepted as an effective partner, a college’s economic development responses must be perceived as credible by the larger community, and in order to sustain campus support, they must be seen to add real value to the institution itself. This article provides an overview of the key issues that a liberal arts campus must address as it prepares to enter the economic development arena.