Learning Resources

Abstract: This is a revised version of the article originally published in Planning for Higher Education 43 (4), Summer 2015.
We are seeing an emergent campus type driven by a desire around the world for economically accessible, community-focused—and community-grown—learning and knowledge creation in a networked digital age. While questions about the future of the traditional campus have been a central focus of higher education discussions, off to the side there is a groundswell of learning activities that is all about the “there” there while also being everywhere. Grounded in physical communities, these activities strive to connect home, school, and work in a continuous lifelong learning path nourished by open digital resources. This is the Networked Community (College) for the growing legions of Citizen Learners. While seemingly peripheral to traditional higher education, this new model represents an approach that increasingly will be central to learning and knowledge creation in the 21st century not only beyond a traditional institution’s boundaries but also at its very core.

Abstract: Integrated planning is a key concept for higher education planners. But it is difficult to define and even harder to express through individual competencies. Questions remain: what are the key constructs of integrated planning, what skill sets compose integrated planning, and how can it be measured? We suggest that integrated planning cannot be fully examined at the level of the individual planner, but rather that integrated planning is an institutional manifestation—understood only through organizational observation. This article explores this concept and makes a case for integrated planning as an organizational competency. We explain why orienting from this perspective is critical to success.

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 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: “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: Higher education institutions are under pressure to make transformative changes aimed at improving key areas of performance: access, affordability, price, and productivity to name a few. Institutions have responded with budget cuts and efficiency gains with incremental success. Yet paradoxically the very success they have achieved has also impeded the transformative change their stakeholders seek.

Many theories exist to support adaptive change in higher education. A single foundational theory of organizational change in industrial enterprises explains the paradox and illustrates how incremental success slows transformative change. Structural contingency theory, introduced by Alfred Chandler in 1962, encapsulates a number of higher education change theories, further grounding practitioners as they assist institutions in adapting to changing conditions and informing their planning efforts.

To achieve transformative change requires a model of integrated planning to synthesize unit improvements into institutional change greater than the sum of its parts. This article presents structural contingency theory to explicate the change process and introduces institutional portfolio management as an operational model of integrated planning. It speaks to an audience of practitioners seeking pragmatic solutions to very real and present problems.

Abstract: The impact of climate-related events poses a major threat to campuses nationwide, a trend expected to only worsen as the climate continues to change. However, a recent study by Haley & Aldrich found that 94 percent of organizations across many sectors—including higher education—are facing significant challenges that are delaying resilience planning and deterring progress. Instead of undertaking measures to address longer-term changes such as increasing temperature extremes, these organizations typically focus on short-term events such as weather-related emergencies. Despite these issues, the study found colleges and universities to be among the most proactive groups in addressing climate change. This is encouraging, as the impact of increasingly severe climate-related events on the aging or otherwise vulnerable infrastructure of many campuses makes planning for climate change a priority. The welfare of students, the continuity of service, and the long-term soundness of the buildings that house some of the world’s finest centers of higher education depend on it.