Learning Resources

Abstract: Optimizing Academic Balance (OAB) analysis provides your institution with effective tools to use in making the strategic academic decisions needed to stay competitive in the context of your institutional mission, quality, market potential, cost, and revenue. Optimizing Academic Balance utilizes market potential data (inquiries, applicants, admitted students, enrolled students, juniors, and graduates) to measure demand for each of your majors using student credit hours (SCH) generated by program as a proxy for revenues and direct (faculty and departmental) costs for teaching each program. It may be applied to all academic program offerings—undergraduate, graduate, and non-traditional.

Abstract: The technical education system in Tennessee has received significant accolades for its students’ high completion and job placement rates. Key to this success is an integrated approach to planning that links academic programs to strong employment sectors in the region each campus serves. The 2014 Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology Statewide Master Plan combines regional job market analysis with input from faculty and administrators to generate recommendations for capital investments that respond to real needs in the local economy and ensure student success on campus and after graduation.

Abstract: More comprehensive than most master planning processes, Vision Integrated Planning (VIP) results in the broad and detailed development of a campus master plan framed by the realities of the institution’s internal and external environment. Beginning with and embracing the college’s vision, VIP sets out to understand the forces and issues that affect a college’s program offerings and the facilities used to serve the learning experiences of those programs. It then uses that understanding to develop a well-supported, integrated, and informed campus master plan. This article lays out the VIP process, citing examples where VIP has been employed and demonstrating the logic that frames the planning effort.

Abstract: Instructors have a responsibility to maximize student learning. Thus, to the extent that the characteristics of a classroom’s space facilitate or promote learning, instructors should be actively involved in the design and use of the space. This is especially the case as active learning activities are becoming more common. Principles are discussed in relation to functional seating arrangements; focal points and sight lines; acoustics; movement around, into, and out of the classroom; lighting; and windows. A list of principles for good classroom design from the instructor’s point of view is given at the end, and readers are invited to modify this list in a wiki.

Abstract: Public higher education in the United States has become more privatized over the last half-century. One way it has adapted to this privatized environment is through the use of a new funding model, the public-private venture (PPV). PPVs are increasing rapidly in Georgia’s higher education system, and yet little is known about the implications of their use. This issue is significant because billions of dollars are invested in Georgia alone. Leaders must be able to utilize privatized financial tools and understand the best conditions for their use.
With the goal of contributing to the literature about how PPVs are used, there were four research questions that guided this study: (1) how has the PPV model been used in an urban public university? (2) what are the internal and external forces that cause a public university to use the PPV model? (3) what is gained and lost by using this model? and (4) what strengths and challenges have resulted from the implementation of PPVs? A qualitative case study was conducted on the Georgia Institute of Technology and specifically three of its housing facilities, two that are PPVs and one that is not.
Six themes regarding the breadth and extent of PPV use at this institution were identified: (1) determination of control, responsibility, oversight, and autonomy; (2) the need to balance risk and debt; (3) how closely to follow the market model; (4) the effects of decreased state support; (5) the connection between strategic planning and the use of PPVs; and (6) the creation of new, even more privatized, financial models.
The seventh and most significant finding was the identification of three distinct pressures present in the PPV model—control, responsibility, and oversight—or a “triangle of pressure.” This newly introduced concept emphasizes the three pressures that must be carefully balanced when engaging in partnerships that involve both public and private entities in public higher education.
The trend of privatization in the academy is here for the foreseeable future, and leaders should carefully consider the implications for their institutions, their state systems, and their students and plan accordingly.

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: 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.

Abstract: Collaborative partnerships can yield enormous benefits for campus projects involving complex uses and implementation strategies. When visions are aligned, public-private partnerships can leverage initial assumptions into more ambitious programs to meet placemaking, sustainability, and other goals. The story of the successful UC Davis West Village partnership between the University of California and its developer partner, West Village Community Partnership, LLC (WVCP), serves to illustrate the unanticipated directions made possible by diverse talents, resources, and points of view.