Book Reviews
Dealing with the Future: Principles for Creating a Vital Campus
in a Climate of Restricted Resources
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Noting that "a major irony of the present higher education landscape is
that just as we are developing some of the most promising models for teaching,
learning, student engagement, and the use of technology, we are simultaneously
facing dire budget circumstances," Alan Guskin, president emeritus of Antioch
University, and Mary Marcy, co-director of the Project on the Future of Higher
Education, provide three organizing principles and seven transformative actions
for organizing campuses.
As the cost of higher education rises faster than the rate of inflation,
tax revenues shrink, and fund raising declines, institutions "have reacted
by making incremental changes in the hope that they will ride out a cyclical
downturn."
Excerpts below give a hint of Guskin and Marcy's more detailed description
of two approaches institutions take:
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Muddling Through
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Transforming the Institution
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Assumptions about the fiscal reality
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Problems are short-term, cyclical, no permanent consequences
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Long-term problems require long-term solutions
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Assumptions about needed change
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Present education delivery system is unchangeable
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Reorganization is necessary to assure quality of learning and faculty
work life
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Actions to be taken
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Incremental changes, selective cuts and layoffs
Hire inexpensive faculty; increase workload
Increase tuition
Increase enrollment
Refinance debt
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Create a clear and coherent vision of the future (focus on student
learning, quality of faculty work life, and reducing cost per student)
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Instead of muddling through, three principles can help institutions reorganize
for long term viability:
I. Create a clear and coherent vision of the future focused on student
learning, quality of faculty work life, and reducing cost per student;
II. Transform the education delivery system consistent with the vision of
the future;
III. Transform the organizational systems consistent with the vision of
the future.
The seven transformative actions are:
1. Establish and assess institution-wide common
student learning outcomes as a basis for the undergraduate degree
2. Restructure the role of faculty to include
faculty members and other campus professionals a as partners in student learning
while integrating technology
3. Recognize and integrate student learning
from all sources
4. Audit and restructure curricula to focus
on essential academic programs and curricular offerings
5. Utilize zero-based budgeting to audit and
redesign the budget allocation process, involving faculty and staff as responsible
partners
6. Audit and restructure administrative and
student services systems, using technology and integrating staffing to reduce
costs
7. Audit and redesign technological and staff
infrastructures to support transformational change
"The problem today," the authors point out, "is not that people in professional
staff roles of colleges and universities are failing to do their jobs. It
is instead that the assumptions around which their work is structured are
crumbling in the face of shortfalls in available funding, powerful changes
in the academic area and its needs for support, changing student-body profiles
and the ever-increasing sophistication of computer technology."
A lucid synopsis of perennial and now more pressing challenges met with
effective responses, Dealing with the Future deserves close attention,
wide circulation, and thoughtful implementation.
Alan E. Guskin and Mary B. Marcy. Dealing with the Future: Principles
for Creating a Vital Campus in a Climate of Restricted Resources. The
Project on the Future of Higher Education. Change: July/August 2003. www.pfhe.org/docs/ChangeFinal.pdf
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