Learning Resources

Abstract: Post-occupancy evaluation (POE) of learning space is now an essential tool for institutions to align capital decisions with student performance. We will explore exemplary active-learning environments and the evaluation methodology we used to measure how these environments have elicited learning behaviors that foster student engagement. You will learn which aspects of the learning environment are important to measure, how to measure them, and how the collected data connects to metrics that matter to institutions.

Abstract: Public-Private Partnership (“P3”) procurement models for built infrastructure serving higher learning institutions started to gain attention in North America in the late 1990s—mostly as an alternative approach to adding student housing at select universities and colleges. More recently, P3 models have been applied to a diverse range of higher learning projects, with some serving core academic and research functions.

Although many institutions are considering P3 approaches among their options to address emerging pressures to expand or update their facilities, their implementation is not yet common. The researcher’s intention was to better understand P3 models and learn how they have performed, possibly generating some useful lessons for how P3 models can be applied with desired outcomes.

Abstract: Learn the things you need to do to get ready and stay ready! Numerous recent campus disruptions, outages, and disasters have highlighted the importance of investing in the proactive risk management solution known as academic continuity planning. Go beyond theory and concepts to the actual integrated mechanics and step-by-step methodology for developing and maintaining operational-level continuity plans. Cultivate integration with a service designed specifically to support the need for higher education institutions to be prepared. Is your campus ready?

Abstract: Camden, New Jersey, a city of 80,000 located directly across the Delaware River from center-city Philadelphia, is, by any index of urban decay, one of the nation's most distressed urban centers. While severely ineffective, the city houses the essential building blocks of future recovery: branches of four colleges and universities and two major hospitals. A failure to recover during one of the strongest economic upturns in the nation's history, coupled with an unfortunate history of corruption and mismanagement, caused the state legislature to take two extraordinary actions to stabilize and revitalize the city: installing a state-appointed chief operating officer for the city, whose powers supercede those of the mayor and council, and putting forth an investment plan for the city that built upon its remaining institutional strengths in higher education and health care. A working group, the Camden Higher Education and Healthcare Task Force, was formed by the city's higher education and health care institutions at the behest of key legislators to coordinate their development efforts in order to advance the recovery of the city.

Abstract: Born out of a belief that higher education must improve its delivery of service, the School of Education and Human Services at Oakland University initiated and implemented a quality system. To better respond to market need, this initiative focused on current behavior and the future needs of the students, faculty, and school-at-large. This article reports the steps taken, lessons learned, and recommendations developed for implementing a quality initiative process successfully within a university culture. The outcome of this process was the creation of a template that can be used by other units in higher education.

Abstract: Today, the amount of space devoted to research at research universities exceeds that of classrooms and class laboratories. This research space portfolio presents important policy and management challenges. As stewards of this portfolio, universities must address issues of funding the construction of research facilities, equipping and maintaining them, allocating and accounting for space used for research, and managing, in broadest terms, the physical and administrative infrastructure in which research is conducted. As this article illustrates, managing the balance between the growing demand for and the supply of research space is complicated. To address the issues of research space, universities have developed a variety of space management methods to fit their unique research missions, priorities, and operational culture. This article provides important insights into this little studied aspect of higher education space planning. The article is an overview of research space management across the U. S. on general campuses and in health science centers. It is based on interviews with senior administrators in selected research universities conducted specifically for this study, information about research space management available on university documents on the Internet, and on the work of Ira Fink and Associates, Inc. in programming research facilities on a multitude of campuses nationwide.

Abstract: Recruiting and retaining women and minority faculty members is a particularly challenging workforce development issue facing many universities. This article summarizes current literature and the results of a survey of selected institutions to gauge responses to this challenge. All the survey respondents indicated that recruitment of women and minority candidates has been problematic, that retention problems vary, and that job placement is difficult and can negatively influence the recruitment and retention of women and minority faculty members. Job placement for partners has been most difficult for those universities located in small- to mid-sized cities. A variety of programs have been attempted to alleviate problems of recruitment and retention.

Abstract: Effective benchmarking demands continuous change with equal emphasis on identifying the goal and understanding why the goal is important. In this article, the authors suggest analytic frameworks that might be useful in moving benchmarking from a tracking and monitoring exercise to an organizational process that informs the strategic decision making of university administration.

Abstract: Book review of Truth and Consequences: Colleges and Universitites Meet Public Crises, by Jerrold Footlick. ACE/Oryx Press, 1997. 192 pages. ISBN 0-89774-970-7. Pull quotes: "The press is not likely to change how it operates, so universities need to learn how to deal with the media more skillfully."