Leading America's Branch Campuses

Leading , America s Branch Campuses EDITED BY

SAMUEL SCHUMAN

Leading America’s Branch Campuses

Part of the American Council on Education Series on Higher Education Susan Slesinger, Executive Editor Other titles in the series: Community Colleges on the Horizon: Challenge, Choice, or Abundance edited by Richard Alfred, Christopher Shults, Ozan Jaquette, and Shelley Strickland Out in Front: The College President as the Face of the Institution edited by Lawrence V. Weill Beyond 2020: Envisioning the Future of Universities in America by Mary Landon Darden Minding the Dream: The Process and Practice of the American Community College by Gail O. Mellow and Cynthia Heelan Higher Education in the Internet Age: Libraries Creating a Strategic Edge by Patricia Senn Breivik and E. Gordon Gee American Places: In Search of the Twenty-first Century Campus by M. Perry Chapman New Game Plan for College Sport edited by Richard E. Lapchick What’s Happening to Public Higher Education? edited by Ronald G. Ehrenberg Lessons from the Edge: For-Profit and Nontraditional Higher Education in America by Gary A. Berg Mission and Place: Strengthening Learning and Community through Campus Design by Daniel R. Kenney, Ricardo Dumont, and Ginger S. Kenney Portraits in Leadership: Six Extraordinary University Presidents by Arthur Padilla College Student Retention: Formula for Student Success edited by Alan Seidman

Leading America’s Branch Campuses Edited by Samuel Schuman

Published in partnership with the

Rowman & Littlefield Education Lanham • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Published in partnership with the American Council on Education Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Education A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowmaneducation.com Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright © 2009 by Samuel Schuman All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Leading America’s branch campuses / edited by Samuel Schuman. p. cm. — (American Council on Education series on higher education) “Published in partnership with the American Council on Education.” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60709-178-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-60709-180-6 (electronic) 1. Universities and colleges—United States—Administration. 2. College campuses—United States. I. Schuman, Samuel. II. American Council on Education. III. Series. LB2341.L2685 2009 378.1'01—dc22 2009000766

⬁ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Manufactured in the United States of America.

For Nancy, still, and our kids, and their kids

Contents

Introduction: The University of Minnesota’s Main(e) Campus Samuel Schuman

Part I.

1

Organizational Issues

1

Successful Organization of Complex Universities Harold A. Dengerink

15

2

Strategic Planning for Branch Campuses Anne Ponder

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3

Beginning a New Program on a Branch Campus of a State University Angela M. Salas

4

A Unique Identity for the Branch Campus John F. Schwaller

Part II. 5

43

55

Internal Issues

The Pressure on Faculty Prestige and Its Multiphrenic Implications Mark W. Padilla vii

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viii

6

7

8

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Contents

Attracting and Retaining Students at a Campus of a Multicampus System: Engagement and Athletics Gary McGrath Branch Campus Growth through Student and Faculty Engagement in a Community College Setting Sharon G. Hornsby Nothing More Simple, Nothing More Complex: Outcomes Assessment at Branch Campuses Emily Lardner and Gillies Malnarich, with Carlos Huerta, Susan Wolff Murphy, Gary Kochhar-Lindgren, and Sally Murphy

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System Relations

Executive Strategies for Negotiating the Relationship between a Branch Campus and a Multicampus System Administrative Structure Theodora J. Kalikow Managing Campus/System Communications: The Model at Kent State Shirley J. Barton, Patricia A. Book, and Leslie Heaphy

Part IV. 12

127

Anomaly of Mission: The Challenge of Being a Liberal Arts College in the Public Sector 157 Allen H. Berger

Part III. 10

97

181

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External Relations

Sez Who . . . ? External Communications on Branch Campuses Merianne Epstein and Samuel Schuman

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Contents

ix

13

Student Localism: Building Connections between the Branch Campus and Its Neighboring Community 215 Sandra K. Olson-Loy

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“Put Money in Thy Purse”: Fund-Raising at Public Branch Campuses Samuel Schuman

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Index

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About the Contributors

275

Introduction: The University of Minnesota’s Main(e) Campus Samuel Schuman

GROWING BRANCHES

Each year during orientation for first-year students at the Morris campus of the University of Minnesota, former chancellor David Johnson told students and families the following story: Over the past few weeks, many of you may have found yourselves in conversation in your hometowns with a parent who was sending a student off to the huge Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota. When you revealed your choice was the Morris campus, you may have been told, “Oh, our Johnny (or Jill) is going to the main campus of the U.”

Johnson would then extol the many and convincing advantages of the small (c. 1,800 students) Morris coordinate campus over the huge (c. 55,000 students) Twin Cities land-grant research main campus and conclude: So you can be proud you are coming to Morris, and the next time you hear that Jill or Johnny is going to the “main” campus, you just say, “Gee, I didn’t know the University of Minnesota had a campus all the way up there in New England!”

With remarkable humor and admirable brevity, Chancellor Johnson presents the text of which the pages that follow might be considered an 1

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exegesis. Branch campuses are conscious of their varied and distinctive missions; they are proud of their uniquenesses and simultaneously see the larger systems of which they are a part as an important aspect of their identity. Even as the Morris campus defines itself as part of the University of Minnesota system, it is eternally ambivalent about its relationship with the main campus of which it is inevitably a satellite, in administration and in public image. The leaders of these institutions, especially their chancellors or presidents, but also vice presidents, provosts, and deans, occupy distinctive positions in American higher education and find themselves with unique and idiosyncratic job descriptions. So, for example, they will be widely perceived on their campuses and in their communities as the chief executive when, in point of fact, most will report to a system-wide CEO often with sweeping powers (e.g., budget creation) which shape the life of the branch campus. Many of these leaders will work with a campus board of control (trustees, regents, etc.) but also with a system-wide board, which may know their campus only casually, but which will make major decisions that shape it. In short, heading a branch campus is an academic leadership assignment that shares some characteristics with similar positions at freestanding institutions, but is, finally, at least as much different as similar. To understand America’s branch campuses, and the challenges of leading them, it is important to know something of their origins and development. For about a century after the Morrill Act of 1862 universalized public higher education in America, most states supported a single campus state university. There was The University of Illinois in ChampaignUrbana. In some cases (e.g., North Carolina, Michigan, Ohio, New Mexico) two institutions, one an agricultural college and one a research arts and sciences facility, developed early: thus, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, and so on. But beginning around the mid-twentieth century, in many states other institutions were created or became concatenated with the central campus or campuses, and “the state university” became “the state university system.” Simultaneously, some private colleges and universities that had largely been singlecampus enterprises for three hundred years since the founding of Harvard in 1636 also began to consider, create, or consume affiliated institutions at different locales. Simultaneously two types of institutions created to fill quite specific niches in higher education—teacher training schools and historically African American colleges and universities—also began to

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expand their missions, broaden their student population base, and become concatenated into university systems. In a fascinating, if tedious, exploit, I read through the entire 1956–1957 edition of Lovejoy’s College Guide seeking branch campuses and campuses belonging to a recognizable system of higher education. Then I did the same with the College Board College Handbook for 2009, a half century later. The Lovejoy book is 266 pages in length; the College Board production is 2,183. The former includes 2,189 institutions; two-year, baccalaureate, and beyond, public and private; the latter includes 2,100 senior institutions and 1,700 community and technical colleges. Looking just at the baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral universities in Lovejoy, there were about 270 institutions, excluding land-grant and/or flagship institutions, that could be described as part of some sort of system. The largest number of these were public teachers’ colleges under some sort of state sponsorship and control (e.g., Danbury State Teachers College, in Danbury, CT, a “state institution for teacher training”). The next largest number were the public historically black colleges and universities (HCBUs) in the south, also (at least nominally) overseen within a statewide system (e.g., Florida A & M University, formerly Florida State Normal and Industrial School for Negro Youth in Tallahassee, a coed “state supported institution”). In both cases, degrees of autonomy versus central control vary significantly from state to state. Interestingly, there are very few public two-year institutions noted in the Lovejoy, and most of those that are noted are not part of a system: they are most commonly controlled by cities or counties, and are free-standing, one-of-a-kind schools (e.g., Broome County Technical Institute in Binghamton, NY, sponsored by Broome County, or the Moline [IL] Community College, sponsored by the Moline Public School system, for students planning to transfer to baccalaureate institutions, with some terminal vocational programs as well). A half-century later, there were about 640 branch/system institutions at the senior level, and over 1,000 two-year institutions which were part of some system. (Both guides included for-profit institutions, which I have counted where accredited by nonproprietary agencies.) In many cases, the evolution of the institutions found in both works is fascinating. My own college was listed in the 1950s guide as Asheville-Biltmore College, a co-ed two-year, unaccredited public institution sponsored by the city of Asheville and Buncombe County. It offered some general education courses, but also had a range of vocational programs in areas such as secretarial science, business, medical technology, and nursing. It had about 160

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traditional day students, and an equal number of evening pupils. Today, the University of North Carolina at Asheville is cited as a fully accredited public liberal arts college, part of the University of North Carolina system, with 3,251 degree-seeking students and 56 percent of our entering women and men in the top quarter of their high school classes. I did not count Asheville-Biltmore College in my Lovejoy tabulation; it was included in the College Board list. My prior university, the University of Minnesota, Morris, also appears in the College Board compilation as a fine public liberal arts campus of the University of Minnesota: in 1957 it was a boarding agricultural high school and, as such, not in the Lovejoy guide at all. It is worth noticing that a number of four-year institutions which are, to some degree or another, part of a statewide system of higher learning have, themselves, two-year branch campuses: for example, both Wright State University and Kent State University in Ohio have such “twigs.” Another way of noting the explosive growth of branch/system campuses is to look at terminal degrees offered. Of course, some branch campuses offer only the B.A., some offer master’s degrees, and some the Ph.D. But of those three levels of senior colleges and universities, the largest number are those in the middle: there are 635 schools in contemporary American higher education which offer the M.A. as their highest degree. By way of contrast, there are only about 257 doctoral universities, and 629 that stop after the B.A. A prodigious number of the M.A.-level institutions (about 400) are nonflagship state colleges and universities that are today part of public systems. Branch campuses, or those which are housed within a university system, may not be the most visible segment of our higher education community today, but in terms of the speed with which their segment of the postsecondary world has grown, the sheer number of institutions which fall into that classification, and the number of students attending them, they are of enormous, even dominant, weight.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME . . . A note on nomenclature: a major theme in the chapters which follow will be the profoundly ambiguous and complex relationships between main campuses and their branches. This ambivalent union first appears in the

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seemingly innocuous area of institutional titles. What such institutions name themselves and call each other turns out to be a subject of virtually infinite discussion and seemingly unresolvable discord. I have been using the term branch to refer to the objects of this study. This is probably the most common descriptor used by the public and perhaps by system administrators and inhabitants of main campuses. Because it implies a kind of dependency and subsidiary role, it tends to be a term that is viewed unfavorably by those it describes. Thus, citizens of Wisconsin will refer to LaCross as a branch campus of the U of W. But the students, faculty, and staff there tend to call themselves a campus of the U of W system. In fact, in many cases, technically and legally, all the units of a state system are campuses of the consolidated university. Thus, UNC–Chapel Hill is the Chapel Hill campus of the (consolidated) University of North Carolina, UNC–Greensboro is its Greensboro campus, and so on. Unsurprisingly, this form of designation has little currency in Chapel Hill. Some institutions speak of themselves (and are spoken of) as affiliate units. This has the attraction of presenting the relationship as more of a partnership between institutions of comparable value, albeit perhaps not size, age, or prestige. A term somewhere between branch and affiliate is coordinate campus. This is the language used within the University of Minnesota, for example, for its campuses in Duluth, Morris, and Crookston. A coordinate campus suggests a major/minor standing, but seems to imply less dependency than branch. A locution similar to branch in implications, but less frequently employed, and perhaps even more worrisome for some is satellite, as in “LSU has a satellite campus in Shreveport.” This, too, is not a name often used by those it describes. What about the other side of the relationship? Main campus is certainly a common self-designator for, say, Madison or Albuquerque. Sometimes the central unit is actually the university: the campus in Orono is The University of Maine, that in Portland, the University of Southern Maine, and the one in the State Capitol is the University of Maine at Augusta. In states where one campus is the land-grant and primary research unit of the university, the term land-grant is frequently used. Flagship campus is similarly employed for such dominant research institutions as Indiana University (Bloomington) or LSU. In states that include in one system a land-grant campus and another that is the primary research unit, plus other schools that are neither (e.g., Michigan, with the University of Michigan,

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Michigan State University, and the U of MI Flint and Dearborn), both the nomenclature and definition are even more vexed! And an additional complexity is added in those Southern states which evolved separate African American higher education systems, most of which have now been, to some degree at least, merged with the formerly all-white systems. A related nomenclatural issue, also with historical origins, is the evolution of the titles of the campus chief executives of branch campuses. In many cases, the initial leaders of such campuses had a title such as dean or provost. Such a title seems to imply that the campus is the equivalent of a college of the larger university, but one that just happens to be geographically removed. Commonly, however, the title evolved into one more generally used for chief executives: usually chancellor or president. Much to the (understandable) confusion of many, some systems have a system chancellor who supervises campus presidents, while others are exactly the opposite. The University of Texas system, for example, is headed by a chancellor; the University of California by a president. In the pages that follow, I try to honor what particular campuses and systems tend to call themselves and their officers. Where the generic locution is needed, I opt for main campus and branch campus, recognizing fully that these designations are not universally acceptable. Of the various choices sketched above, these terms seem most clear and most universally accepted. Finally, several of the authors of the following chapters (e.g., Dengerink and Schwaller) deal with the taxonomy of branch campuses. Clearly, several different types of institutions and systems can be included under this umbrella: • Campuses (often without separate accreditation) that offer some of the programs of a central campus, but are understood to be off-site operations of the central enterprise. Generally, such campuses do not have a board of control or any unique programs. These are like branch offices of a central bank: geographically convenient venues to offer some of the same services as the main office. • Campuses (usually with separate accreditation) that have, either from their creation, or having evolved over time, distinct identities, often with independent or semi-independent boards of control, a fairly full senior administration, idiosyncratic offerings, and so forth.

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• Campuses that are part of a system in which there is no central or main institution. Just as some plants have numerous branches without a core trunk, some collegiate systems have numerous branches, and no dominant campus. This is true of most public state community college systems; it characterizes a growing number of for-profit enterprises; and it is true of some public senior systems (e.g., there is no central campus of the California State University system). Sometimes such systems are very, very loose, and hardly visible, perhaps held together only by some agency like a state board of higher education (e.g., the six public baccalaureate institutions in Washington and the state Higher Education Coordinating Board); sometimes they are highly centralized. In this volume, we deal with all three types of branch campuses, including both two-year and baccalaureate-and-beyond institutions, both public and private. For-profit schools are not included.

THE PLACE OF BRANCH CAMPUSES A good freshman writing course drilled into me the necessity of a clear and explicit thesis statement at the beginning of any written work, short or long: the thesis of this book is that America’s branch campuses, while they have often been ignored, have become a very large, important, varied, and valuable segment of our nation’s postsecondary system. Leading those campuses requires specific skills, knowledge, and understandings unique to branch institutions. Today, in many states (e.g., Wisconsin), the cumulative student population of affiliated campuses exceeds dramatically that of the central unit. The same is true of some private institutions with satellite campuses (e.g., The College of New Rochelle or George Fox University). In some cases, the branch campus is more selective than the main campus of its system; in some it is the case that prospective students who apply to, and are accepted by, both will more often choose to attend the affiliated unit than the central school. And yet, despite this important position and role, the branch campuses are in many respects lesser institutions. They receive less attention both within and outside the world of higher learning. When

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one reads that “Illinois made the NCAA final four,” one understands that to mean Champaign-Urbana, not the Chicago campus. “Cal” is Berkeley, “Indiana” is in Bloomington, and “Oregon” is in Eugene, not Ashland. Certainly, within the unwritten, largely unacknowledged and quite important hierarchy of American academe, the central campuses dominate their affiliates. Every professor knows, realistically, that the articles she submits for publication will be taken more seriously if the author is identified with Ohio State University than with Ohio State University at Lima. More subtly, there is a widespread misperception that while flagship universities and small liberal arts colleges are highly individualized, branch campuses are all the same: the chapters in this volume should certainly lay that perception to rest. Indeed, one entire chapter of this book focuses on the efforts of branch campuses to forge unique identities. Similarly, it seems to be commonly assumed, at least as reflected in position descriptions and advertisements, that the chief executives and senior administrators of branch campuses are mini versions of the chief executives of freestanding institutions or university systems. Such individuals, we usually discover, should be academically and administratively experienced, good fund-raisers, articulate speakers, gifted at constituent relations, and have a good sense of humor and excellent stamina. Never will one see in the Chronicle of Higher Education an advertisement that seeks a chancellor for a branch campus who is skilled at being an effective subordinate to a system chief executive and a genial colleague to peer campus leaders! Branch campuses are an important, large, and diverse segment of our higher education universe, but they are poorly understood and often undervalued. Administering such campuses is a demanding task, which requires an idiosyncratic skill set. In this collection, the authors seek to increase and leave more nuanced an understanding of these institutions and their leadership. And we try to make the case for the importance and high value of such schools. I do so, overtly, from the perspective of a participant/observer. I have served as campus CEO of two branch campuses, in Asheville, North Carolina, and Morris, Minnesota. I came to appreciate the distinctive cultures and contributions of those two communities and the category of institutions of which they are a part. And, I was charged with communicating those virtues to a wide range of constituencies—students, parents, donors, legislators, central administrators, foun-

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dation executives, prospective faculty, journalists, citizens—all of whom were inclined to classify us as subsidiary and secondary. In one sense, the pages which follow are an expansion of that proof, the five-minute sound bite that every president or chancellor of a coordinate campus within a system delivers on a daily basis. I rely largely on the perceptions and experiences of other senior leaders of branch campuses throughout, and slightly on my own. It is not our thesis that branch campuses are the coequals of the main university sites or even merit the same prestige, attention, and resources as the flagships, although such a case could be made (few would claim that California is less important a state than Delaware, for example, just because it was not one of the original thirteen colonies!). It is my belief and contention that the coordinates play a necessary and vital role, and need to be cherished and sustained for that contribution. And, leading such places is an important task for skilled and thoughtful academic administrators. A tree’s branches are not the same as its main trunk, and depend upon it for survival. But once fully grown, that trunk, without its branches, would be a malnourished and deformed entity. A solar system needs a central sun, but without its planets, it is a lone star, no system at all. And, for many of us, academic life is more pleasant on the human-scaled surface of a small planet than on the incandescent surface of the more visible orb.

OVERVIEW This collection of diverse chapters begins with four chapters dealing with organizational and classificational issues on branch campuses. First is a kind of taxonomy of branch campuses by Harold A. Dengerink, who holds the chief executive position at the University of Washington at Vancouver and is a founder of the National Association of Branch Campus Administrators. He outlines the principles that govern the management, organization, and classification of branch institutions. He sheds helpful and important light on the distinctions between various types of public university systems, ranging from the strongly centralized model to those that are composed of largely autonomous campuses. Overall institutional strategic planning, and one chancellor’s model for creating a living and

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guiding plan, is the subject of the chapter by Anne Ponder of the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Chancellor Ponder details, step by step, the launching of a comprehensive planning effort, engaging communitywide participation in that effort, and the administrative management and implementation of the resultant strategic plan, following its creation. Angela Salas gives an example of the implementation of an institutional strategy in her account of the creation and daily operation of a new honors program at a branch campus, Indiana University Southeast. Her very personal chapter details the delights and tribulations of the multitasking so common in management roles at smaller public institutions. The final chapter in this first section returns to an overarching perspective, as John F. Schwaller considers, from his perspective as president at SUNY Potsdam, the pursuit and the fact of unique identities for the branch campus. The second section of this book deals with a series of internal issues at branch campuses. Mark Padilla, provost and professor of classics at Christopher Newport University, offers a thoughtful perspective on the increasing complexity of the faculty role, especially at undergraduate-oriented, nonflagship public campuses. He concludes that at such schools, faculty members have retained their teaching and research roles, while adding a range of other responsibilities that challenge their time management and endurance skills. Gary McGrath, writing from his perspective as dean of students at Arizona State University, the Polytechnic Campus, reflects on the issues involved in recruiting, serving, and retaining students. He focuses especially upon two branch campuses where he has personal experience in the earliest days of college foundation and development. Dean McGrath’s chapter also features a substantial section on the role of athletics, especially NCAA Division II and Division III intercollegiate sports, at branch institutions. Susan Hornsby serves as the campus dean of two branches of the statewide community college system in Louisiana. She examines a range of strategies designed to foster engagement and student success at such schools. Those characteristics, in turn, will enhance institutional prestige and appreciation, and stimulate the continued growth often desired by those overseeing these institutions. Assessment tactics at three branch campuses are surveyed by Emily Lardner and Gillies Malnarich, from the Evergreen State University. Their case studies illustrate the importance of outcomes assessment as institutions seek to create, and then measure the effectiveness of, academic programs tailored to their

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specific missions and particular student populations. One of their cases, in which a branch campus’s efforts to assess a first-year program are derailed by a well-intentioned system mandate for an alternative measurement mode, is particularly revealing . . . and sobering. Writing from his perspective as the chief academic officer at a public liberal arts college, Alan Berger considers the specific challenges to maintaining a liberal arts mission within a state system of higher education. His analysis of those challenges is acute and far from wholly encouraging; but his articulation of the virtues of public liberal learning offers ample motivation to wrestle with and overcome such issues. The next section of the book turns to the complex relationship between branch campuses and main campuses/university systems. The section begins with a short, witty, idiosyncratic, and wise piece by Theodora Kalikow, chancellor of the University of Maine, Farmington. Chancellor Kalikow takes as her subject the relationship between a branch campus and its system administration—a topic that has pervaded the entire book and, indeed, the consciousness of virtually every occupant of any branch campus. The occasional irreverence of her contribution is exceeded only by its persistent relevance. The next chapter examines the range of communications options and uses within the Kent State University system. It is authored by three individuals working within that system in quite different capacities: cabinet-level executive officer Patricia A. Book, regional campus academic administrator Shirley J. Barton, and Leslie Heaphy, regional campus faculty member. From internal and system matters, we move to the concluding section, on external relations for branch campuses, with three chapters on localism, fund-raising, and external communications. The first chapter in this last section, authored by an experienced newspaper reporter now working as a college information officer, Merianne Epstein, focuses on the challenges of external communications at branch campuses. Sandra Olson-Loy, vice chancellor for student affairs at the Morris campus of the University of Minnesota, contributes a chapter which looks at how community engagement of students can help bind branch campus students to their towns, cities, and regions, and, in turn, enable those locations to see the nearby branch campus as theirs. Moving from the sublime to the specific, my chapter deals with fund-raising at branch campuses, from my perspective as a chancellor at two such institutions, in Minnesota and North Carolina.

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Development is an increasingly crucial aspect of the branch campuses’ chief executive’s portfolio. There are several specific aspects to fundraising at such colleges, and particular tactics designed to enhance success for those charged with this task. Overall, the emphasis of these chapters is pragmatic, but the authors never lose touch with the more abstract principles that justify that pragmaticism. Academic administration, at its best, is like attentive mountain hiking: one should notice both the overarching peaks ahead and the beauties of the tiny wildflowers at one’s feet. These contributors all concentrate on the wildflowers of academic administration, but they all periodically lift up their eyes to the mountains.

WORKS CITED The College Board. 2008. The College Board College Handbook. New York: The College Board. Lovejoy, Clarence E. 1956. Lovejoy’s College Guide. New York: Simon & Schuster.

I ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES

1 Successful Organization of Complex Universities Harold A. Dengerink

What follows are some thoughts about the effective internal organization of complex universities (those that carry out their mission in multiple locations under the governance of a single board and central staff). Complex institutions continue to proliferate and, by several accounts, the majority of public higher education in the United States now occurs in such universities (e.g., Lee and Bowen 1999). These thoughts stem in large part from studying the works of those who pioneered the successful development of such universities and others who researched these historic events. They are colored by twenty years of attempting to oversee the establishment and growth of a campus and attempting to contribute to the internal organization an increasingly complex university. Branch campuses of complex universities differ markedly from each other. For virtually any dimension, examples can be found at both extremes and essentially at all points in between. That is true whether one considers their size, age, administrative structure, budget structure, academic program, mission, student characteristics, faculty characteristics, and so forth. There are, however, some common features. One is a seemingly constant challenge of change. The number of new campuses continues to grow constantly. As a result, many of these campuses are at the beginning stages of their development, with all the ambiguity and uncertainty (for both the branch and the originating campus) that accompanies a new installation. But even for those that have been established for some time, the transitions appear to continue. Many are growing at rapid rates. With 15

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the increase in numbers come increases in programs and services that the campuses provide. This growth permits greater differentiation among the campuses of the university and can in turn lead to structural and administrative changes. Some campuses are becoming more autonomous and in some cases have transitioned into separate institutions (e.g., California State University at Channel Islands). In other cases campuses are merging for academic or administrative reasons, the merger of the University of Colorado Denver with the medical school campus, for instance. In other examples campuses are expanding in ways that make them less different from the others in the university. Upper-division and graduate campuses often expand to assume lower division responsibilities and thus take on a role that is more similar to that of the main campus. Arizona State University’s West Campus and Washington State University Vancouver are examples. In part because of the growth and change of branch campuses, the most pervasive of the conversations among branch campus administrators concern the relationship among the campuses and especially the relationship with the main campus. Branch campuses are, by definition, more recently established than the originating campus of the university. The growth and development of the branch campuses alone may force changes in the relationships among the various campuses of the university. To the extent that the branches differ from the main campus they cause disruption in an organization that has a long-established culture. These discussions about the relationship among campuses beg the question of what the parameters are which dictate the nature of these relationships. Perhaps the best place to start is to examine the ways in which complex universities have organized themselves to address the relationship among the campuses.

COMPLEX UNIVERSITIES McGuinness has provided the most comprehensive taxonomy of complex universities. He and subsequent authors have classified the administrative structures of complex universities into three major categories: multisite universities, multicampus universities, and university systems.

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Multisite universities are characterized by strong central control over the academic programs typically exerted by the originating or main campus. “All academic policies and programs are those of the main campus and faculty members are linked to the academic departments of that campus” (McGuinness 1991, 2). Such universities are ones that replicate their various functions, especially academic programs or instruction, at more than one site. In this category the term branch connotes something like a tree branch: an entity that is part of or an extension of a larger group located in a different part of a geographic area from the parent organization, somewhat like a bank branch. Multicampus universities such as the University of California are characterized by McGuinness as having no single university faculty and a chief administrator who is not simultaneously the chief administrative officer of one of the campuses but who is recognized as the senior academic leader of the entire multicampus university. Such complex universities are typically comprised of one large flagship research university with one or more additional four-year campuses that are clearly differentiated from the main campus. In this classification the term branch appears to connote a subdivision of a large organization, usually with a specialized mission in the same way that the military has different branches. This differentiation may be in form (residential vs. commuter), content (portfolio of academic programs offered), or function (graduate, undergraduate, lower division, research). Each campus in these universities is an independent academic entity but there is some consistency in mission and values. University systems, such as the University of North Carolina, are differentiated from multicampus universities by three characteristics: One, the system head is not recognized as the senior academic leader for all institutions within the system. Rather this role is shared with the chief administrative officers of the individual campuses. Two, a greater “degree of diversity in missions and parity in terms of prestige . . . than in a multicampus university.” Three, “Many of these systems resulted from consolidations of single institutions rather than from evolution of branches from the base of a major university” (McGuinness 1991, 4–5). It must be recognized that within these classifications individual institutions differ considerably in their functional organizations and administrative relationships. Further, with the proliferation and continued

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development of complex universities, some have characteristics of both multisite and multicampus universities. Others have characteristics of both multicampus universities and university systems. Using the administrative structure as the currency by which we categorize institutions may function as a convenient shorthand. But doing so may obscure more important and more useful differentiations. The extant variation in administrative structure even for complex universities that purport to be in the same category suggests that some elements other than the administrative structure may be important in understanding the differences among the various university categories. Furthermore, the differences in administrative structure which McGuinness and others use to categorize universities do not necessarily provide answers to the question of how one should organize a university administrative structure. There appear to be three major sets of issues that lead institutions to their eventual administrative structure and to the optimal relationship among campuses. The first of these are issues related to the efficient and consistent functioning of the complex universities. Second, there may be differences in missions that dictate differences in appropriate administrative structure. Finally, external influence of the individual campuses may lead to different appropriate structures of the overall university.

EFFICIENCY The categories of complex universities identified by McGuiness are described primarily in terms of the degree to which administration of the academic functions of the university are shared with or delegated to the individual campuses. There are, however, several other functions of universities that may or may not be distributed along with the academic functions. Many of these, particularly business functions, may be centralized for overall efficiency, consistency, and cost savings even when the academic functions are assigned to the individual campuses. Centralization of purchasing, payroll, human resources, and capital development may relieve the branch campuses of responsibilities that are difficult for a

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small campus to execute because of the special knowledge required. Depending upon the purpose of the individual campuses, some universities may choose to centralize marketing, recruitment, and even admissions to achieve economies. It is important (in a volume that focuses on managing branch campuses) to emphasize that there is value in centralization of some functions for reasons in addition to economies of scale. A complex university can function only if policy formation is centralized albeit with broad input. It is difficult for individual campuses to evaluate themselves, particularly with respect to system-wide objectives. Public accountability is increasingly focused by external entities on central administration. Consequently, performance measures should be monitored, evaluated, and reported by central offices according to consistent and agreed-upon measures. A system works, and individual campuses benefit from the system, only if internal communications are reliable and consistent across all elements of the system. Thus responsibility for communication vehicles (forums, councils, information technology, etc.) rests with central administration. As Burke states, “Reluctantly and reverently, it is time to bury once and for all, the myth of total campus autonomy” (1994, 7). At the same time, most complex universities state a strong proclivity for decentralized implementation of policy. For example, Gade writes that “There is a presumptive preference for decentralization within the University of California, a belief that those closest to an issue can make the best decisions” (1993, 50). Or as Burke put it, the “system should do for all its campuses only those functions that no single campus could do, should do or would do” (1994, 7). In addition, functions such as faculty evaluation and development and student services may be more effectively and efficiently delivered if they are administered in proximity to the recipient of such services. This may be most important when considering the relationship between the university’s academic role and the needs of the constituent community. J. Kaufman has asserted that “The only way to restore the ability of our institutions to be vital and responsive to people’s changing needs is to give them more autonomy and hold them accountable for their actions” (1980, 72).

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MISSION To some extent the administrative structure must be a response to mission, role, and purpose of the university and its associated campuses. Perhaps understanding these characteristics (mission, role, and purpose) can provide clues to the appropriate administrative structure for a given complex university. In fact, Kaufman suggests that “In order to restore a proper balance between autonomy and control, each multicampus system of institutions must revisit its essential purpose as a system” (1980, 72). McGuinness’s description of the multisite university suggests that the campuses beyond the original one really exist as vehicles for the originating campus to execute its role and mission. That is, the additional campuses do not have roles or missions beyond those of the original campus. This singleness of purpose may dictate the more centralized structure for academic administration that appears to characterize multisite universities. Centralization of administrative structure may help to assure that the programs delivered are identical regardless of the site at which they are delivered. Central Washington University has established several offcampus centers on community college campuses west of the cascades. These sites provide opportunities for CWU to offer academic programs for students who find relocation to Ellensburg (the original and main site of CWU) inconvenient. When the purpose of the originating campus is the reason for the existence of the branch campuses, the needs of the local community and the campus relationship to that community are relatively less important. In such cases these sites do not become integrated into or articulated with the local community other than by the degree programs or courses for which students may register. In fact the sites may be transient—moving as the demand for degree programs change. When the sites are permanent they tend to be selected because they serve the purposes of the home institution, access to employees of a given industry for example. In multicampus universities mission appears to play a more complex role. The shared common mission supports the ultimate centralization of academic leadership. The common core mission also allows replication of that mission across the various campuses of the system. The University of California may be a prime example. Unlike some multicampus universities, the University of California was largely permitted to be the architect

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of its own proliferation. As a consequence all the campuses share the common commitment to undergraduate and doctoral education as well as to research, and all of the UC campuses share the land grant mission of the original one at Berkley. All of the campuses are united by a system-wide faculty senate, common admission standards, and a basic core curriculum. Beyond that the individual campuses have developed a specific character and focus that complements the overall University of California culture and the role of the other individual campuses (e.g., the agricultural and vet medicine roles for UC Davis). Not all multicampus universities are as coherent as the University of California. Some share a common core mission but evidence more differentiation among the individual campuses. The University of Illinois, for example, shares a common mission among all three of its campuses but the traditional flagship campus in Urbana-Champaign is very different from the professional urban campus in Chicago and both of those are quite different from the undergraduate campus in Springfield. At the opposite extreme, McGuinness describes university systems by saying the “diversity of missions and parity in terms of prestige among the constituent units are greater than in a multicampus university” (1991, 4). It is conceivable that the “diversity of missions” leads to the administrative structure in university systems in which the system head is not recognized as the senior academic leader for the system. Many university systems include campuses with exclusive major research missions and professional schools, as well as campuses that have open door admissions and still others that are community or technical colleges (e.g., the University of Maine). That diversity of missions would seem to preclude a single individual from being recognized as the academic leader for the entire group of university campuses. While McGuinness focuses on the diversity in missions of the individual campuses in his description of university systems, he does not appear to raise the issue of an overarching or common mission for the system as a whole. The mission of the University of California system is very different from that of the California State University system and from the California Community College system. It is conceivable that the particular overarching mission may also impact the structure of the organization. For example an overarching mission that focuses on teaching and on access to degree programs may result in a more centralized and

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streamlined organization (such as a multisite university) than a mission that incorporates high-level research. Curriculum is devised and controlled by the university itself and thus more easily replicated across campuses than is the content of research, which tends to be shaped by the particular line of inquiry. Incorporating some campuses that pursue active community engagement into a complex university may require a more complex organizational structure. This may be particularly true when the university includes some campuses that are isolated and disengaged with other campuses that are actively engaged with their local communities. But even if all share the same commitment to community engagement, the individual communities and their needs may differ markedly, requiring freedom for each campus to engage with those local community agendas. While a complex university may have an overarching mission, not all campuses necessarily serve all elements of that mission. The degree to which individual units of a complex university participate in the common mission may provide some clues to the kind of organizational structure that should be installed to operate the university. In some cases the individual units may share all or the majority of the common mission. Some may, however, do so in a different fashion. A rural, residential campus, that serves primarily traditional students, could have the same overall mission of an engaged, urban, commuter campus that serves nontraditional and place-bound students, but very different strategies for fulfilling that mission. In such cases a distributed authority model of administration (such as a multicampus university model) would permit the individual institutions to pursue the overall mission within their individual contexts. In other cases individual units may share only a part of the overall mission. For example, two campuses could share a commitment to excellence in teaching but not share a commitment to leading edge research. In such cases the administrative organization will be pressed to allow the differences to flourish while maintaining a focus on the shared elements of the mission. In this vein, Albert and Whetten’s work on institutional identity highlights a potentially important consideration. That consideration focuses on the degree to which the elements of the mission are core elements as opposed to less central ones. If all units share a common commitment to the core mission and differ only in strategies or tactics then the administrative structure may not need to be so severely defined, for example two campuses devoted to applied research, one in agriculture and one in medi-

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cine. Differences among units that are closer to the core mission (e.g., one campus that is an extensive doctoral and research campus and one that is an open admission undergraduate teaching campus) may require an administrative structure that addresses such critical differences. That is, differences in the academic disciplines or where students are housed may be less disruptive to a coherent organization than the differences between a commitment to basic research on one hand and to primarily teaching on the other (see Dengerink 2001).

INFLUENCE In addition to identifying diversity of mission as an important dimension in classifying universities, McGuinness also cites “parity in terms of prestige” (1991, 4). This is a curious citation. It is curious because diversity of mission and parity in prestige, at first blush, seem to contradict each other. It is also curious because McGuinness does not clarify how he intended to define prestige or why he cited parity rather than prestige itself as the operative element. Whatever McGuinness intended by this phrase, it brings into play external factors since prestige is something bestowed upon an institution (whether by academic societies or by the lay public) rather than self-determined. In a more general sense it may be that the operative concept is influence (legislative, fundraising) rather than prestige as such. Many authors (e.g., Gade 1993) have discussed the importance of managing external relations within complex universities. Indeed, many public university systems were created because state legislators saw such a system as a way of constraining unbridled and competitive negotiations with numerous individual campuses. External relationships, however, are difficult to manage. First, external relations covers a wide territory from a community concert series to active lobbying. Second, universities are not well equipped to constrain the behavior of those external parties with whom the campuses may interact, whether the general public, individual trustees, donors, athletic boosters, or legislators. The halls of academe are replete with stories of individual legislators who want a new university building or even a campus constructed in their own district. Third, concentrations of external influence

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are not necessarily isomorphic with internal influence. Legislative influence may be more concentrated in the geographic area surrounding new smaller campuses than around larger, well-established flagship campuses. In fact, many communities see themselves as responsible for having established their local campuses. This local “ownership” may create or fuel conflict among campuses to the detriment of the overall university. Fourth, prestige and influence can change over time as some campuses grow faster than others, as legislators rotate out of office or change committee assignments, as fundraising possibilities and business partnerships arise within some communities and decline in others, and so on. Fifth, complete centralization of external relations diminishes the benefit of local relationships that the individual campuses can generate to the benefit of the entire university. It is not immediately clear where this leads us in understanding the administrative structure of complex universities with respect to external relations. In part the answer may depend on the kind of complex university one is contemplating—multisite, multicampus, or system. In part it may depend on the particular mission of the university and the degree to which the campuses within it are differentiated from each other. And it may depend on the particular element of external relations one is contemplating. Most authors (e.g., Gade) suggest that fundraising be a responsibility distributed to the individual campuses since donors are more likely to identify with a campus or individuals within it rather than a system. Most, however, (including Gade) suggest that relationships related to governance (boards and legislature) be highly centralized. While governance, especially legislative relationships, needs to be driven centrally, the content of those relationships (e.g., budget requests) can be developed jointly and they may be most effective if executed cooperatively by administrators of the individual campuses.

ROLE OF THE CHIEF CAMPUS ADMINISTRATOR The role of the chief administrative officer for individual campuses of multisite universities remains relatively narrow. In some instances they have titles such as director of off-campus centers or campus dean. Their

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role in academic planning may be limited to logistics since other elements of academic planning may be the purview of centralized academic administrators. Similarly they may have a minor role in faculty evaluation and faculty development. It follows that selection of such individuals would follow a process closely held by the overall university administration with relatively little if any community or campus input. Often the persons selected are individuals who have a prior history with the institution and who are already quite familiar with the individuals and policies of the overall university. In university systems and multicampus universities the role of the chief administrative officer of the individual campuses is more complex than that for the multisite universities. The unique or selective mission of the individual campuses means that the person who leads these campuses must manage to that mission. At the same time, since the individual campuses are part of the larger university, the leaders of the individual campuses must manage to that larger mission as well. The extent to which the overall and individual campus missions differ multiplies the complexity of the role. Individual campuses usually have a constituency (geographic, professional, discipline, legislative, etc.) with which the chief campus administrative officer must interact. Sometimes the chief campus administrative officer in these systems is also the chief academic officer for that campus either under the overall leadership of the university-wide chief academic officer (multicampus universities) or independently (university systems). And sometimes the chief campus administrator is also the chief financial officer since the budgets of the individual campuses are separated from each other either by the system administration or by the legislature. Because of the different responsibilities, selection of the individuals who lead these campuses of multicampus universities or university systems is also more complicated than for multisite universities. While the ultimate decision remains that of the chief administrative officer for the overall university, selection of the individual campus leader must include input from the campus itself and campus constituencies. Therefore, the selection process and committees are typically dominated by the campus and local constituents.

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ADMINISTRATIVE PRINCIPLES The challenge then is to devise a university governance and administrative system that maximizes the benefits of both centralized and decentralized activities and provides coordination when appropriate. The structure of the complex university and the relationship among the various campuses will vary from institution to institution depending on the institution’s needs. But several basic principles appear to be important in devising such a system. 1. Administrative structure and administrative policies must be responsive to the mission of the university as a whole and of the individual campuses within the university. 2. This will be best accomplished if the primary emphasis is on responsibilities, roles, functions, or processes rather than structure and reporting lines (see Blustain 1998). That is, the structure should support the purpose of the institution and the individual campuses and their constituencies, not the other way around. 3. Each campus of the university has responsibility for and obligations to all other campuses as well as to the university as a whole. In turn, each campus and the university as a whole benefit from all others. The policies and procedures of the university should be developed to maximize these benefits. 4. To accomplish this, all campuses of the university must have input into the decisions made by and for the university as a whole. 5. Individual campuses must have the autonomy and freedom to execute those activities that are better distributed (e.g., campus life) and to implement university policy within the context of the individual campus. 6. Communication and coordination become essential in ensuring that centralized functions remain centralized and that distributed activities do not conflict from campus to campus. 7. University structure and processes must be evaluated in light of both effectiveness and stewardship of fiscal, physical, and human resources.

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Finally, while many of the conversations among administrators of complex universities, and much of the relevant literature, center around autonomy versus control, these may be self-defeating conversations. The forces that feed these competing vectors will continue but ultimately lead to a state of entropy. As Langenberg reminds us, elements of a system ultimately depend on each other and “In these times, the key concepts are . . . ‘partnerships,’ ‘collaboration,’ [and] ‘cooperation’” (1999, 226). We often use these terms when referring to our relationships with our local community but they are just as important in considering our relationships with elements of our larger university. No matter how much I might like to be in control of my campus’s future, I recognize that my campus benefits in numerous ways from being part of the larger university and my community benefits from any ability I have to deliver the resources of the whole university, not just those of my campus. At the same time the other campuses of my university offer additional faculty expertise, fundraising opportunities, legislative connections, resources for instructional programs, and partnerships for research.

WORKS CITED Albert, S., and D. A. Whetten. 1985. “Organizational Identity.” In Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 7, ed. B. M. Staw and L. L. Cummings. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 263–95. Blustain, H. 1998. “Navigating the Process Labyrinth.” Business Officer 31 (8): 39–48. Burke, J. C. 1994. “Unity and Diversity: SUNY’s Challenge Not Its Choice.” In New Perspectives on System and Campus Roles in a Public Multi-Campus System, ed. J. C. Burke et al. Albany: SUNY Press, 3–14. Dengerink, H. A. 2001. “Institutional Identity and Organizational Structure in Multi-Campus Universities.” Metropolitan Universities 12 (2): 20–29. Gade, M. L. 1993. Four Multicampus Systems: Some Policies and Practices That Work. Washington, DC: Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. Kaufman, J. 1980. At the Pleasure of the Board: The Service of the College and University President. Washington, DC: American Council on Education.

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Langenberg, D. N. 1999. “On the Horizon: The Learning System.” In The Multicampus System: Perspectives on Practice and Prospects, ed. G. H. Gaither. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 215–30. Lee, C. L., and F. Bowen. 1971. The Multicampus University: A Study of Academic Governance. Berkley: The Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. ———. 1999. Introduction to The Multicampus System: Perspectives on Practice and Prospects, ed. G. H. Gaither. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, ix–vii. McGuinness, A. C. 1991. Perspectives on Current Status and Emerging Policy Issues for Higher Education Systems. Washington, DC: Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

2 Strategic Planning for Branch Campuses Anne Ponder

Few enterprises are more vital to the viability and vitality of a college campus than the development of a strategic plan. A good plan will identify the campus’s foundational tenets as well as its loftiest dreams. It communicates to the world who we are as well as who we aspire to be and how we plan to get there. These statements provide critical information that prospective students and faculty will want to know before deciding whether a college or university is right for them. To fall short on either developing or communicating these identity markers is to risk losing the students and faculty who are most likely to thrive on our campuses. In this highly competitive market, we can’t afford to get this one wrong.

WHY PLAN? An effective, current strategic plan and the concurrent commitment to implement it is a key element for relations with governing boards, system executives, legislators, benefactors, and the public, as well as students and faculty. Each primary constituency can be better aligned and more helpful in realizing the optimal potential of a plan if their own understanding is cultivated as a part of planning and implementation. This chapter describes a particular leadership style, and a model of campus strategic planning that has grown out of that style. Having led both a small private college and a branch campus of one of the best, large public 29

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universities through this strategic planning process, I have become aware of the components of this model that work well in different settings. The most successful strategic planning models, in my experience, have as their foundation extensive conversation with and advice from every corner of the campus—a series of intimate and structured meetings that invite the substantive participation of every member of the campus community. Such a strategy is both more possible and more valuable in a branch campus than in a state flagship because branch campuses often are small to midsize university communities affording the advantage of scale; flagship campuses also tend to have their identities—their missions— framed by the combination of prominence and legislative history. A branch campus can take advantage of a scalable process, explicitly using a campus-wide strategic planning process to discover, give voice to, and claim a distinctive mission within a larger system. Also, since branch campuses are almost always younger institutions than system flagships, successful planning can give a branch campus a nimble clarity in claiming its place within the system. In North Carolina, the university system in which I work and in which I was educated offers an extraordinary level of state commitment to the education of its citizenry. Complemented by a robust community college system, North Carolina can boast a university included in the state constitution, with the creation of my alma mater, the Chapel Hill campus, in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The branch campus where I serve as chancellor, the University of North Carolina at Asheville, is more than a century younger. UNC Asheville is not only a younger sibling, but also a fraction of the size of the founding campus in the university. In 2007– 2008 there were over 209,000 students enrolled in all of the University of North Carolina campuses combined; approximately 3,500 were enrolled at UNC Asheville. Strategic planning can enable a branch campus to choose its identity, to understand itself, and to negotiate its role within the larger aims of the university system. The system as a whole could not conceivably engage in a planning process that was anything other than representative, while UNC Asheville and similar branch campuses in other states can undertake planning as a community enterprise, and to great advantage. Our comparatively small size allows us to update and recommit to our distinctive mission as the state’s designated public liberal arts university. This remains

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true even when the growth of the state—from eleventh most populous to the seventh most populous state in the decade ahead—and the sheer magnetic size of the university could potentially swallow branch campuses into homogenized, local versions of the same offerings. Indeed, the ongoing balance each branch campus must maintain requires a dynamic tension between the overarching plans of the state’s university system and the distinctive purpose of a branch campus, both of which must serve the needs of the state. Planning on a branch campus calls forth—into view for everyone—the true and unique potential of that campus. Planning on a branch campus can be a crucible for distilling just what matters most to us as a campus community. The way we chose to achieve this on the campuses I have led required developing a process designed to invite and engage everyone’s imagination—imagination, that is, in the way that Coleridge and others understand it, as “essentially vital,” and an ability “to shape into one.” Imagination, called forward from everyone, has the power to assemble the elements of our daily work and experience into a coherent, lively whole. To do it this way, a campus president or chancellor will need to lead a very intentional and intimate process. For example, she or he may choose, as I did in 2006–2007, to lead several dozen two-hour discussions at all hours of the day and night, on and off campus, to be sure to include everyone on campus and beyond. This is a crucial and valuable experience for the campus and for those individuals who invest their energies on behalf of our students. An authentic environmental scan of all campus constituents is vital to the health and future of a strategic plan that will have value, weight, and credibility. The capacity to connect the university community in this common enterprise can only be accomplished at a campus small enough for everyone to be consulted.

THE CONSULTATIVE PROCESS Consulting with everyone not only requires a significant investment of time and energy by the president or chancellor, but also requires multiple “listeners.” Before convening the small groups for discussion and consultation, it is important to gather a group of colleagues who serve in a variety of roles (faculty, staff, and students, in both leadership and nonleadership roles), and who are responsible for helping the president

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invite participation and listen to the discussions. These listeners then become important collaborators in the distilling process that occurs later on. At UNC Asheville, a group of about twenty-five individuals, called the Conveners, was assembled to assist with the process. At least two of them were present for each of the consultation groups, listening and recording the valuable feedback from the sessions. When we later moved to the process of compiling and distilling the vast amount of advice they had gathered, they could provide firsthand guidance as we pulled forward the most important ideas and incorporated the most crucial advice. A subset of the Convener group—a faculty and staff think tank—worked with me over an entire summer to review and critique several early drafts of the plan. Having served as inviters, listeners, participants, and scribes through our early discussion sessions lent additional credibility to the think tank members and avoided suspicion that the plan was being developed by anonymous people in a room somewhere far removed from the campus culture. Planning in this way enables a campus to engage with conflicting ideas productively, but will not result in unanimity. There will be, at each stage in planning, skeptics and doubters. Even those who persist in expressing their disagreement come to respect the collective effort of the plan and to recognize many elements of the plan as an accurate description of the university we steward in common. Nonetheless, skeptics and doubters should not hold up the process or the implementation of an unfolding plan. Their critiques are useful warnings and can help the university’s plan include the widest possible—and consequently, most powerful—agreement for a given time. It is unrealistic to expect 100 percent accord for even the best process or plan. This model belongs to a particular style of leadership that is more concerned with authenticity than hierarchy, and with building community rather than consensus. As I have undertaken various planning processes, it has proven to be essential for me to be fully present to every member of the campus community who chooses to participate in the strategic planning discussions. This has meant finding ways to make certain that everyone has an opportunity to contribute their ideas and observations. My preferred method is to introduce, in advance and again at the beginning of each meeting, a series of structured questions, so that participants know what to expect. I then ask each participant to share with the group some version of an answer or observation related to the question. I then

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go around the room to give every person an opportunity to participate. Although we certainly have more than our share of shy persons and introverts in higher education, it was rare that anyone chose the available option to pass and not contribute to the conversation. Inviting, honoring, recording, and feeding back to participants the ideas and insights, criticisms and complaints, suggestions and stories of hundreds of their colleagues is a practice that builds and strengthens a sense of community for all who experience it. The structured questions should relate to the needs of the particular campus. Most strategic planning processes include some version of an environmental scan. A popular and effective method is a SWOT analysis— assessing Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Both the consensus and the divergence of opinions gathered through these questions are instructive to all who participate in the conversation. Another set of questions should address some version of “who are we?” On the campus I serve, we had drafted a set of campus values in an earlier series of meetings, and I used this setting to test these draft values. I find this a good exercise to help people think aspirationally, as the question invariably turns into “who do we want to be?” A third type of question should address some version of the “what now?” question. Because our campus had adopted a bunker mentality that grew out of years of chronic underfunding, I asked participants what we would do if we had a billion dollars. The hope was to gather some really spectacular and creative ideas that I was certain were being held back by a deeply ingrained financial restraint. Although not everyone was able to leap into imaginative mode on demand, we gathered some truly wonderful ideas—and had a great time dreaming together. For many, it was the first time they had been invited to do so. Of course, these sessions have often brought forth directly contradictory observations and statements of fact. “We are clear about our mission” and “We have lost sight of our mission” are two comments that have been offered in the same session. Similarly, “We need to offer more graduate programs” and “We shouldn’t offer any graduate programs” have both been offered with equally compelling arguments to accompany the passion. Although participants often looked to me to resolve these contradictions, it seemed wiser to honor the richness and complexity of experience that brought these conflicts about, and to learn more about them. As I

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trusted the process to show us where we needed to go, I honored—rather than shying away from—the conflict, as well as the individual who brought the conflict forward for discussion. Through this process, the community began to trust itself, and even the most discouraged among us began to believe they were capable of resolving long-standing unanswered questions. Rather than avoiding the deep disagreements, then, we used these planning sessions to determine where the real substantive conflicts lay, and made certain to arrange full and robust discussions on these important topics before making any determination about them. Had we been more concerned with mere agreement than community-building, we would not have uncovered, examined, and ultimately resolved some of the unanswered questions that had long divided and confounded our campus community.

FINDING A CAMPUS VISION Another hallmark of this leadership style is actually an extension of trusting the process as described above. It has to do with developing a campus vision. It is not uncommon for a very fine college or university to set about looking for a new leader who will bring a new vision and direction for the campus with him or her. I found this expectation to be almost palpable, most especially in times of turmoil or unresolved conflict. But I actually don’t believe this to be a credible, long-term solution for a campus. The vision and direction for a campus that will be the most enduring is the one that emerges organically from the campus community itself. A leader who can invite, listen to, and respect all members of the campus community, embrace conflict and trust the community to resolve it, may find herself in a position to uncover and articulate the vision and direction of the campus, and ultimately give it back to the campus to which it belongs. This model of planning also includes multiple cycles of feedback loops: presenting drafts to the campus, receiving feedback, assessing the feedback, and adjusting the draft to incorporate the feedback as appropriate. This makes for a process that is not in any way swift, and often not orderly, if attention to the feedback is genuinely considered. Truly listening to a campus takes time, needing regular and reliable communication, multiple invitations to participate, multiple feedback loops, and a willingness

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on the part of campus constituencies, especially campus leaders, to keep an open mind throughout the entire process. Like democracy, it can be a bit messy. This process can be pretty daunting. The investment of time for the campus and the relative commitment of individuals within it can be tiring, occasionally exasperating, but entirely worth it. Even as a shared vision and plan emerge, one should predict questions about process. Who will make this decision and at what point will it be made? Campus governance customs and the patience and flexibility to allow the emergence and implementation of a strategic plan allow individuals and groups to “join up,” to start to use drafts of the plan in a department, in a campus planning group, and so on. Also, this style of strategic planning is hard to put into a sound byte, and can appear disorganized and unnecessarily slow to the community, especially in the consultation stage.

THE ADVANTAGES OF A CONSULTATIVE, LISTENING PROCESS So why have I have chosen this format of strategic planning over the many other credible models available in higher education and beyond? The primary reason has to do with ownership. It is my experience that those who work in higher education do so because they are committed to the work they do and to the mission of their universities. On the whole, they feel passionately about the direction in which their universities should go, and it is vital for campus leaders to understand both the substance and the tenor of that passion. When so many members of the campus community are aligned with their university in this visceral way, successful strategic planning will need to be symbolically and functionally connected to the campus community’s image of their university. A university which chooses its future collectively in this way almost assuredly makes better decisions about what to do. Leaders who trust an engaged group to make a better decision than any individual, however gifted or skillful she may be, allow the future of the university to come from the inside—from the insides of all of the insiders. Therefore, the engagement and commitment to move forward are more likely to be effective. Some practitioners refer to this as adaptive change. Individuals need to be able to see themselves in the plan, or they will—consciously or otherwise—separate themselves from it. If widespread

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ownership of the ultimate strategic plan is absent or weak, there is a greater likelihood that the plan will sit in a file somewhere and have little influence on the work that is done on a daily basis. When individuals feel ownership of the strategic plan—when they have participated in discussion groups, provided feedback on a draft or two, asked the hard questions of the campus leadership during the process, and recognized at least some of their advice reflected in the final plan—they begin to see themselves in the new plan. Ownership of the plan develops in tandem with the development of the plan, and commitment to implementation follows as a natural evolution. It is instructive to point out that a branch campus can, more credibly and effectively than a flagship campus could aspire to, create a shared sense of the future imagined by the campus as a whole using a model that is very similar to, and has proved very effective in, small private colleges. At Colby-Sawyer College, where we used this model, final publication of the four-page plan was evident all over campus, posted in offices and classrooms and meeting rooms. This was not something that was required or even suggested; it just flowed naturally from the evolution of the plan. The campus community understood it to be a planning and a decisionmaking tool, and individuals quite naturally provided it with the prominence that this would suggest. Similarly, at UNC Asheville, when the faculty met to discuss the controversial issue of whether or not the university should consider proposals for additional graduate programs—a question that had hung in the balance, unresolved, for years—the ultimate decision of the faculty arose out of a discussion that included regular referencing of the many related discussions we had held throughout the strategic planning process on this topic. Even though the strategic plan was still, at that time, in a mature draft stage, campus leaders (including faculty leaders) carried a deep and rich understanding of where this controversial issue mapped in terms of priority within our collectively developed strategic plan. One faculty member waved the one-page plan as he spoke, but he didn’t need to refer to it to know what it said. Other early commitments that were possible, in light of our strategic planning, included an articulated decision about the ultimate enrollment size of the university. This achievement required a communitarian understanding of an optimal trajectory for building capacity and access while acknowledging that our mission would not accommodate unlimited

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growth. Another early commitment was to staff and faculty compensation, with particular investment in those at the lowest end of our compensation scale. Because this topic was so prevalent in our many strategic planning sessions, our early efforts to address compensation among the lowest paid staff were celebrated by everyone, avoiding entirely any of the usual retreat to jealousy or envy of progress made by others. Similarly, we heard so consistently, early in our planning process, that increasing diversity and inclusion were key to our campus’s future, that when we chose to invest in that priority immediately, before the plan was completed, there was full campus support behind this decision.

ISSUES IN STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR BRANCH CAMPUSES However, it is precisely this issue of ownership that complicates a strategic planning process on a branch campus. Branch campuses everywhere struggle with some measure of identity confusion: are we a university campus with a distinct identity, mission, and goals, or are we a branch of the central university that responds primarily to the needs and requirements of the university system? Nowhere in university governance is this question more pertinent than in the strategic planning process of a branch campus. If a primary role of a strategic plan is to focus the energy of the campus on specific identified goals, then a strategic plan for a branch campus has an additional responsibility to clearly connect those identified campus goals to the goals of the university system. A campus-focused environmental scan is not sufficient for a branch campus within a university system. For example, if one goal of the university system is to improve the quality and quantity of teachers being produced by the campuses in the system, as is the case within the North Carolina system, it would be both politically and fiscally unwise for any campus within that system to set a goal to eliminate an education department in order to improve the premed program, regardless of how intrinsically helpful it might appear to increase the number of graduating seniors entering medical schools. An essential part of a strategic plan for a branch campus is a convincing articulation with the plans for the university system as a whole—one that is both firm and malleable. The best plans for the finest public university

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systems frame the aims and challenges of the university system and the aims and challenges of the state—the former submitting its purpose to the long-term benefit of the latter. A public university must always keep its independent perspective, intellectual integrity, and purposeful freedom to provoke, improve, and address issues that face our states, our country, and our larger world. A branch campus responds to this impetus required by a global economy by identifying what the state and local needs are. Public universities have—because they are public—an unassailable and undeniable obligation to serve the long-term “public good,” sometimes at the expense of short-term public satisfaction. And branch campuses must, in order to articulate and implement plans in response to the state, country, and world in which students of the future will lead, develop a keen sense of what the university system is committing to do for the state and to incorporate that commitment into branch campus plans. Recent planning efforts in North Carolina have turned away from a biennial planning cycle with priorities gathered at the general administration of the university in favor of a statewide plan which asked explicitly, “What do the people of North Carolina need from their university?” This inspiring, model effort for the University of North Carolina is called “UNC Tomorrow.” The development of UNC Asheville’s strategic plan paralleled this overarching plan for the University of North Carolina. A branch campus must include in its response to the system specific ways it will—better than other branch campuses, better than larger campuses, better than a system’s flagship—best serve the long-term needs of the public for generations to come. Clearly establishing a sense of identity (who we are and what we do best) for a branch campus serves both a campus need (as discussed above) and a university system need: If it is clearly established and in a communitarian way, then the arguments for who a branch campus should serve or what it should offer or create or expand and why can be persuasively constructed in terms readily articulated with the university system’s priorities. Finding out what matters to the system and the state in the near and long term is crucial, because no branch campus can do everything. Just as in any small business, there is a significantly smaller margin for error. The full complexity of the university system and the assorted requirements for compliance are identical for all campuses, but shouldered by fewer people

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and supported by proportionally fewer resources on the smaller branch campuses. There is a greater need for clarity because resources must be aligned more strategically.

IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES Once the articulation of a branch campus’s identity within the university system’s requirements is clear, emphasis will turn to implementing the plan. Working with a campus-based consultation group (in our case, the Conveners and think tank) and checking, in mature draft form, with key external stakeholders and influential leaders beyond the university (board of trustees, foundation board, alumni council, parent council, etc.), a set of benchmarks and declarations of what will be different will emerge. Once there is agreement about what will be different, the logical next step will be, “how will we get there?” As implementation begins, it is important to engage a larger circle of campus leaders, both leaders who have identified titles and responsibilities and those who have undertaken informal roles of leadership. Although the previous stages of strategic planning have been led by the campus chancellor or president, implementation will require the involvement and investment of additional campus leaders. This might occur through a series of retreat-style engagement opportunities that will provide opportunities for these leaders to give valuable guidance on implementation while they begin to envision their own roles in leading the campus through the exciting opportunities presented by the plan. Further, this is a time to engage campus communication experts and/or marketing/public relations assistance, so that the plan can be launched to the internal and external public in a way which is consistent, powerful, bold, and focused. Similar to a living organism, an organization functions best if it can rely on a nervous system that will deliver information and guidance to the parts that need it instantaneously. Even years into the implementation of a strategic plan, efforts should be invested in lively and regular communication, so easily facilitated with current technology, to continually update the campus community on progress (or the lack of progress) toward the plan’s stated goals. These could include all-campus meetings, faculty meetings, briefings to students, in publications, on the

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web, in community gatherings, with governing boards, successes cited in local news venues or articles in specific publications, and in annual or periodic updates to the campus. Excitement and confidence, especially as early wins can be achieved, will build and add to the enthusiasm for the plan, even prior to an official launch of a plan. At UNC Asheville, support for scholarships for underrepresented groups, endowed chairs for faculty, historic progress in increasing diversity, small gains in compensation for the lowest paid staff members, and significant program support for a signature program from a prestigious foundation become victories for everyone, not just the scholarship recipient, the faculty member who is selected for an endowed chair, the support staff who realized an unexpected salary increase, or the development officer who obtained the gift. Achievements and significant steps that make progress on the plan are celebrated by the university community as a whole, because such achievements serve the priorities we have all chosen.

BUILDING AN ONGOING CYCLE OF PLANNING In order for a strategic plan to remain a lively partner in our work together, the strategic plan for a branch campus must be updated. Planning must be aligned with the legislative budget cycle, so a period of four or five years as a planning horizon may address two biennial budgets. Planning for a branch campus must also admit and maintain sufficient flexibility to address emerging issues facing the system or the state, so a longer period than four or five years before reviewing the plan in a significant way would be imprudent. A similar length of time in planning and implementing can get a campus ready for a capital campaign, since the aims and aspirations of a branch campus—when those aims and aspirations are held in accord—is the basis for the most compelling case statements with which funding and fundraising are achieved. Whether the trigger or purpose for refreshing the plan is a legislative cycle or a capital campaign, a renewed round of consultation and commitment should be institutionalized every four or five years, with regular updates on implementation in between, at least annually. Planning updates should be an effective, frequent centerpiece in

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board retreats, campus communications, and further community-building elements with on-campus constituencies. The community building that was so valuable in the first cycle builds the confidence of a branch campus in what it can achieve in a second planning cycle. This is especially true since there will be credible, tangible advances for the branch campus to point to from their previous plan. Though all campuses, public or private, need to develop a strategic plan, the institutional effectiveness of a branch campus can be substantially enhanced. Flagship campuses, with their deep history and deep reservoirs of resources, can aim in a more general way and succeed. A private college or university can benefit from a clearly communicated plan, changing its emphasis when necessary. Even more than these sectors of higher education, a branch campus can truly flourish when a strategic planning process allows the university to build a plan out of the community of scholars and colleagues—the university community itself. The specificity and informative clarity of our shared aims make a public university community to which all of us may be proud to belong.

3 Beginning a New Program on a Branch Campus of a State University Angela M. Salas

I enjoy my job. Or, more precisely, I enjoy my jobs. I am the founding director of the new honors program at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany, Indiana, as well as an associate professor of English. My work in honors is meant to be 50 percent full-time employee (FTE), and my work in English the same. As should be no surprise, there’s no such thing as a forty-hour week when one is trying to serve two masters and serve them well. This may well be a problem as the program grows, since it requires about thirty hours a week, fifty weeks a year, just to keep track of forty-nine students; recruit more students; retain those we have; assess each class, as well as the program; administer scholarships; advise students; coordinate with various constituencies; watch the budget; and pilot projects such as e-portfolios. Because I’m directing a new program on a branch campus, Indiana University Southeast has to hedge its bets by splitting my position. After all, there’s no history of success with a schoolwide honors program here, and no way for the program to pay for itself in the short term. I suspect, though I’m not certain, that a fair number of new directors will find themselves in my position. In fact, the master of liberal studies committee here wants to do precisely the same thing with any new director hired to revamp our MLS program. Here are the some of the terms of my contract, which I offer because I suspect that my situation is not unlike that of other directors, particularly founding directors, on a small branch campus of a large university system: 43

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Title: Director of the honors program and associate professor of English Academic Unit: Academic Affairs/School of Arts & Letters (We have multiple “schools” here, including the Schools of Social Science, Natural Science, Education, Nursing, and Business. The School of Arts & Letters houses the English, fine arts, languages, philosophy, communication studies, and art history departments. As the director of the honors program, I report to the vice chancellor for academic affairs; as a member of the English department, I report to the dean of arts and letters.) Position Responsibilities: primary responsibilities as honors director (50 percent FTE) include implementing the new honors program, curriculum development, mentoring and advising honors students, honors recruitment, retention and enrollment management, organization of campus-wide scholarly events, recruitment of faculty, staff supervision and evaluation, assistance to campus advancement in raising scholarship support for the program, and oversight of the program’s budget. Faculty responsibilities (50 percent FTE) include teaching two courses a semester and engaging in scholarly work. What follows is a brief summary of some of the ways I have been meeting these responsibilities in implementing the new honors program. Curriculum development: I designed the 100-level Common Intellectual Experience (CIE) and interdisciplinary seminars and worked with the Academic Policy Committee, General Education Committee, and faculty senate to have them adopted. In order to assure that participating in the honors program will not slow any student’s progress toward their degrees, CIE courses have been designed to meet two general education outcomes each, and one section of the CIE each fall is also a first-year seminar. In addition, these courses must be assessed, so I’ve been working with the Institution for Learning and Teaching Excellence (ILTE), studying Alverno College’s model of ability-based undergraduate education, and piloting, with the support of ILTE and the good humor of honors students, an electronic portfolio for students to archive papers, metacognitive letters, research projects, and speeches. In this way, we’re hoping that students will be able to “see” and reflect upon their intellectual development over time. Because I’m responsible for curriculum development, imple-

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mentation, and assessment, and because I’ll have taught almost half of our entering students this year, I take my responsibilities to honors students far more personally than I would have anticipated. Mentoring and advising honors students: As the honors program director I meet with current and potential students, coordinate with academic advisors, see students through the proposal phases of their various academic and applied projects, and help connect them with faculty mentors. In addition to academic matters, I consult with students about their work hours and things that might hinder their academic progress. The NoelLevitz entry survey we offer to enrolled students at the beginning of each semester revealed that 64 percent of my students were working eleven hours per week or more; 28 percent worked in excess of twenty hours each week. The money honors students earn at these jobs helps pay for their tuition, college expenses, car insurance, and sometimes their housing and food. Thus, while I first looked at my ability to provide scholarship money as I recruit highly motivated students, I quickly learned about the retention issues attached to financial need. When I realized that my scholarship budget ($45,000, compared to Indiana University Bloomington’s Hutton Honors College’s $500,000 in scholarships) allowed me to make some nonrenewable scholarship offers, I was able to “buy” some of our students out of their excessive working hours by offering them $1,000 or $2,000 in aid for the spring semester in return for a pledge to reduce their work hours by as many hours as it would take them to earn that dollar amount. Additionally, the Noel-Levitz survey has told me which students would like career counseling or major advising, which desire social enrichment or are at risk for early departure, and perceive themselves to have low levels of financial and emotional support from their families. Armed with this data, I’m able to try to connect students to the appropriate offices on campus, or to have some insight into why a student might suddenly become withdrawn during class. In addition, because I know that 40 percent of our honors program students have mothers who earned a bachelor’s degree, and 12 percent have fathers who did so, I’m careful to try to acclimatize honors students to campus mores and realities they might not expect, since many are engaged in an endeavor out of their parents’ experience. Honors recruitment: Working with admissions, institutional research, and PSAT, SAT, and ACT data, my assistant and I send students letters

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tailored to match their academic level and interests. In addition, we attend open houses, and I work as a liaison between two local high schools and the Advance College Project, from Bloomington, which administers a dual credit program. I visit these schools, meet the students taking college English classes in the high school, and assess the quality of the instruction they’re receiving. In so doing, I’m hoping to build bridges between highly motivated local students and Indiana University Southeast. Honors students and I hold recruitment Q&A events twice each January. Additionally, I’m working in conjunction with the marketing department to professionalize our communications with students, and to begin to develop a unified image for the program, in the hope that this will help attract potential honors program students to Indiana University Southeast. Retention and enrollment management: In consultation with the assistant vice chancellor of enrollment management, I’ve written and revised a retention plan, which my assistant and I implement as a matter of course. For example, we write to students who are missing deadlines, or who seem unduly anxious. I contact a few students each week to see how they’re doing, and how they’re benefiting from the program. We survey students anonymously to find out how their honors courses are going, what concerns they have about their coursework, the program, or their overall progress through the university. Our year started with a three-hour honors program retreat, and will end with a recognition event for our students, faculty members, and council and scholarship committee members. In order to keep students in the program, and enrolled in school, I try to keep the students connected to the program and to at least a few other students within it, as well as to me, or to my assistant, who has an enviably easy-going relationship with most students. Organization of campus-wide scholarly events: In this first year, we’ve had a few brown bag lunches at which students and faculty members have discussed such things as their research, the honors program, and study abroad. Students have helped with the student research conference, and are busily working on their own research projects on such topics as alternative fuels, homeopathic medicine, the treatment of Iraq-war casualties at Veterans Administration hospitals, the destruction of coral reefs, and the ethical perils of postmodern philosophy. Some students will present their findings at the regional honors conference, and some will do so at our campus’s student conference in April.

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Recruitment of faculty; staff supervision and evaluation: The honors program calls for faculty members to self-select and apply to teach in the program. I’ve also recruited faculty members directly, upon the recommendation of students and their colleagues. All potential faculty members, and potential upper-level seminars, are brought to the honors council for their discussion and approval. Honors faculty members have a retreat at the end of the spring semester, to make sure that we all share the same goals for our students, and to discuss the ways we plan to design and run our courses. Student feedback on the anonymous survey we administer, as well as their course evaluations, help us determine if the courses are fulfilling their academic functions, and if the faculty members are working effectively with our students. In addition, I solicit faculty members’ perceptions and concerns over the course of the semester, and stand willing to negotiate between teachers and students should the need arise. Assistance to campus advancement in raising scholarship support for the program: The honors program is able to offer both renewable and nonrenewable scholarships of between $500 and $2,000 to outstanding recruits and students who have proven themselves to be assets to the university and the honors program. Campus advancement has been busy with a great many other projects during my time at Indiana University Southeast, so they’ve not required much of me along those lines; however, as the administrator of this program, I’m expected to help raise money to help sustain the honors program. Oversight of the program’s budget: Absolutely. It’s a fair budget, and all I have to do is stay within it, which sometimes means asking my assistant to figure out whether it’s better to charter two sixteen-person vans, or one forty-person bus for the honors program’s trip to the regional conference in Indianapolis. Actually, I tell my assistant the upper limit on what I intend for the honors program to spend, and she spends hours figuring out how to make that happen, which is perhaps not the best use of her time and the money in the program budget. (As it happens, a bus and driver cost less than two vans and drivers.) My new program has about 50 current students and a total budget of about $154,000, while the established Hutton Honors College on the flagship campus has a total of 3,400 students and a budget of over $1.2 million. Thirty-four hundred students is about half of our total enrollment

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at Indiana University Southeast, which is enough to make me shake my head in jealousy. Faculty responsibilities (50 percent FTE) include: Teaching, participating in department and division meetings, decision-making, committees, and subcommittees. I’m a member of the faculty senate, a mentor through our Lumina foundation-funded mentoring program, working on the School of Arts & Letters mission and vision committee and salary recommendation subcommittee, am on a working group helping to prepare for the university’s 2010 accreditation visit, as well as doing English assessment work, course preparation, reading in my field, writing articles, working on my book, and so on. It’s chaotic, messy, and sometimes absurd. On the other hand, I might lose sight of myself as a faculty member, were I permitted to devote myself entirely to the honors program and its students. Furthermore, one of the worries that my faculty colleagues had when this program was first proposed was that it would be elitist and function as a “shadow university.” I suspect that the fact that I teach in the English department, as well as the honors program, and do my share of department and school chores, has helped counter charges of elitism and separatism. In short, while a split position, rather than a dedicated one, presents a great many logistical and time issues, it’s probably a fine idea. While some of my faculty colleagues were less than enthusiastic about having a new honors program and director joining the Indiana University Southeast community, what the new honors program did have as I arrived on campus (in the absence of a phone, computer password, and fully assembled desk and bookcase; all problems briskly attended to by IT, Physical Plant, and the office of the VC of academic affairs) was the chancellor’s commitment to the program, a sensible budget, and strong allies in key places on campus. With those things working for the honors program, I was able to steer courses through the faculty senate and the general education committee, with the help of faculty senators and members of the general education committee, who gave me a crash course in practice and politics on our campus. The staff of the vice chancellor for academic affairs helped me figure out how to hire an assistant, and others gave me advice and insights on how to begin recruiting students and faculty members, create an application and recruiting database, and procure scholarship money for our most outstanding applicants. Then, in pretty short order, the honors program

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was also given responsibility for administering the Herbert Presidential Scholarship competition on this campus, which is perhaps the most generous and prestigious scholarship for undergraduates at Indiana University. Between the honors council approving students, policy, and course content, the scholarship committee discussing every likely candidate’s merits, the program assistant keeping track of student registration, invoices, and a myriad of other important practical matters, and the student advisory board giving and taking advice, questions, and suggestions, I sometimes think that my job title might more correctly be “director of creating lots of work for others.” Still, when you’re a half-time director with a fifteen-hour-a-week assistant, you have to rely upon the goodwill, kindness, and expertise of people from all over campus. This isn’t an uncommon phenomenon on campuses like ours, I know; however, I sometimes catch my breath, thinking that much of the health of this program is dependant upon the combined efforts of many people who don’t really have to help me. Fifteen months after my arrival, my office, which I’ll be losing to a construction project that should benefit the honors program, now has five bookcases, a locking file cabinet, a scanner, two monitors for the desktop computer, and room for two visitors to sit. Our seminar room is meant to seat fifteen, but we actually have sixteen in our largest class, so we all have to push back away from the table to sit together. I tell the students they’ll laugh about it once the remodeling is complete, the seminar room is larger, and my office is smaller. Meanwhile, we’re all careful not to wear strong colognes. The students are surprisingly gracious understanding about small classrooms, my inept filming of their speeches, technical difficulties with course software, and my determination to avoid giving them easy answers to any of their questions. They come to my office asking if they should do a research project or an applied project, and I make them talk through what they hope to accomplish, and what their time frame might be, and what they think might be best for their education. After a half hour, they leave my office, promising to let me know what they decide. For my part, I look forward to finding out what they’ve chosen. I feel as if I’m still teaching at a liberal arts college, with small classes and intensely focused working relationships with students, rather than administering a program, and suspect that, were I the dean of a 3,400-student honors college, as opposed to the director of an under-seventy-student

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honors program, I might not be able to have such close working relationships with our students. Away from the administration building, but still administering a program, one gets used to autonomy. I like being able to make judgment calls, and to sit in my office and have a long conversation with an applicant and her family. I like being able to make strategic use of scholarship money and “buy” students out of excessive work hours, troubleshoot for smart students who lack the savvy to negotiate the university system, and try to configure an effective and defensible assessment plan for the program. This level of autonomy and responsibility far exceeds what I experienced at the two liberal arts colleges for which I’ve worked, and I suspect, although I cannot know, that I have a lot more freedom than I might at a larger, more established campus, such as IU-Bloomington. I’m able to use this autonomy for the benefit of my students and for the honors program. Furthermore, I appreciate that it’s been decided that the honors program matters at Indiana University Southeast. In addition to enriching the academic experience of our honors students, the program is meant to help raise the academic profile of the institution, to make it more competitive relative to places like the University of Louisville, local community colleges, and Hanover College, which is only forty-five minutes away. We’re a commuting campus, although residence halls meant to house a few more than 400 students are under construction, and it’s hoped that a successful honors program will help the school recruit students from outside of our traditional commuting area. In some sense, the honors program and residence halls have a similar mandate. They’re both investments, and have to return dividends to the school. Because I’m given a fairly long lead as the honors program director, I’m able to control for many things, and am therefore able to start finding ways to have the honors program generate those dividends. For instance, in November honors program students led a common experience discussion group about Barack Obama’s memoir. Four first-year students led nearly fifty students, administrators, and faculty members through a conversation about the text. I stood in the back of the room like a proud and anxious parent, watching young people who had been shy and quiet in August behave as confident and gracious discussion leaders to a room full of strangers. Honors students have also

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volunteered at admissions open houses, and at other recruiting events. Recently, four students each participated in one of the four Steps to Success recruiting events hosted by our admission office. The chancellor greeted potential students and their families, and then our honors students spoke with high school seniors about their experiences as firstyear students, while the prospective students’ parents were in another part of the building learning about the application process. The reports I’ve had are that they did a fine job. In addition, honors students have organized brown bag discussions that are open to the campus community as a whole, and have been pretty brave about making sure that I know about their concerns, and how they think I can address them. These students, who range in age from eighteen to their late forties, have already become an interesting breed of campus leader, serving on the honors council, the advisory board, and other campus committees. They’re funny, respectful if irreverent, resourceful, and pleasant to work with. And, one day when I was hit with a case of vertigo, and was unsure of my ability to hold an HP recruiting event, a few honors students took over in my absence, showing the Power Point, answering questions, and giving their unvarnished assessment of the program. I had three notes in my email inbox that afternoon from potential honors students wishing me good health and assuring me that the students had done a great job in my absence. That’s the sort of courtesy that cynics and disillusioned Romantics say has left the academy, and I get to experience it every day. And, while I had to strong-arm and sweet talk the first HP faculty members onto our faculty rosters, colleagues are now asking me when the first opportunity for them to teach will arise. The honors council had to turn back a few seminar proposals last fall, suggesting that their authors try again this fall. In our first year, we ran upper-level seminars on arts and ethics, evolutionary psychology, and globalization. Next year, our chancellor is teaching a great books–type seminar on the hero, another colleague is addressing social justice, and a third will be undertaking digital storytelling, while yet another faculty member will spend sixteen weeks taking students through discussions of Jane Austen’s flawed heroes and heroines. The honors students are establishing themselves as solid students, engaging people, and well worth changing one’s course rotation for—at least at the 300 level. The 100 level is a slightly different matter.

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It’s a different matter because courses at the 100 level, what we call the common intellectual experience, are a harder sell, for a few reasons. First, while a great many faculty members (and parents and legislators) yearn for a return to the day when students had an intellectual common ground, few faculty members wish to be hamstrung by the need to use the same readings, and have the same educational outcomes, as their colleagues teaching different sections of the same course. In addition, because we designed the 100-level courses to meet multiple general education requirements, and we then need to assess each section of every course to make sure that course objectives are being met, some faculty members see little benefit, and a great deal of anxiety, for themselves. Luckily, though, those colleagues who have accepted my personal invitation to teach Honors 103 and 104 have been remarkably engaging, inventive, and gracious to our students. These are qualities that have helped us retain first-year students from the first semester to the second. My small but reasonable budget is another benefit I enjoy on this campus. Were I working at the sort of struggling liberal arts colleges for which I used to work, I’d be printing off our applications on the photocopy machine, and quietly charging the copies to the English department, my home department. Letters to potential students? I’d bill those to academic affairs, on the premise that academic affairs wanted an honors program and honors students, but hadn’t actually given me a budget for letterhead, envelopes, or stamps. Here at Indiana University Southeast we have a web page with downloadable PDFs of applications and reference forms. I have a budget for brochures, mailings, mailing lists, long-distance phone calls, and everything else a real academic program needs to function, including our own letterhead. And, most importantly, the program has the budget to pay for my colleagues’ adjunct replacements in their home departments, which means that those departments need not be understaffed because one of their own decided to teach for the honors program. Were I at a larger university, I suspect I wouldn’t be as familiar with the practical matters attendant to directing a program. That’s not to suggest that the administrators of the Hutton Honors College in Bloomington are disconnected from their students, because I know they are not; rather, the complexity and size of their program is such that the connection these administrators have to their program and its students is quite different than the one I have. The Hutton Honors College has a dean, and, indeed,

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a recent honors dean is the new provost of Indiana University. I hope to become a dean, and then a provost, so I will need to learn how to deal with large and complex academic organisms; however, I’m happy that our program is small enough right now that I can phone a current student about his credit hours, convene an honors council meeting, sign letters of admission to five students, tie up loose ends about a scholarship competition, teach a class, talk to an admission representative, and promise a reference for a student, all between the hours of 7:30 and 10:45 a.m. Working at this mid-sized branch campus of Indiana University affords me the opportunity to manage a new program from the ground up, while also teaching classes and keeping up with my academic field. I administer, meet students, troubleshoot, go to meetings, and teach between Monday and Friday, then prep for my classes, read and respond to email, input grades, and do various committee-related tasks on the weekend. I lunch, and sometimes breakfast, at my desk, and, during the work week, only leave my office for classes or meetings. In addition, I do a lot of professional reading, about honors, English, assessment, recruitment, and retention, between dinner and bedtime. And yet I know myself to be more blessed than overwhelmed. Other than raising my children, I’ve never had a better opportunity to make a difference, for both my students and my employer. If I do my work properly, the Indiana University Southeast Honors Program may some day become a venerable old program, with alumni who come back to campus, admire the recently built honors building, and reminisce fondly about that first year they spent, elbow to elbow in a too-small seminar room, arguing about doubt, certainty, and responsibility, and having their presentations videotaped by a professor with shaky hands. To reiterate, some key factors for success in starting a new program at a branch campus of a larger university system include the following: a decent budget; support from senior administrative officials; some program autonomy; a director who can multitask and doesn’t require direction from a supervisor; cooperative colleagues and students. We have all these things, so I’m hopeful that our new honors program will endure and flourish.

4 A Unique Identity for the Branch Campus John F. Schwaller

The branch campus has emerged in the years since the Second World War as a unique entity in higher education. Prior to the middle of the twentieth century most regional state-supported campuses served very limited geographical areas and usually offered a limited number of academic programs, generally emphasizing teacher preparation. Most of the regional state colleges had begun within the previous hundred years as normal schools or state teachers colleges. With the rapid growth of public higher education following the war, the regional and branch campuses began to broaden their degree offerings to include the liberal arts and sciences, business, and other curricula (Billitteri 1997, 925; Labaree 2006, 1–8). With this growth came the need to create a unique identity for the campus, to distinguish it from its peers and from other similar institutions in nearby states. This chapter will look at the process of creating a unique identity for a branch or regional campus. It will also analyze the process of new academic program development in the state, the building of a faculty, the recruitment of students, and the creation of a unique reputation.1

ACADEMIC PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT AT BRANCH CAMPUSES Branch campuses, by definition, exist as members of a larger system or university. As such there is a constant tension between the identity and strengths of the system versus the identity and strengths of the branch 55

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campus. The larger governing body generally supervises and controls some aspects of the branch campus. Traditionally these have been budget development, planning, program review and approval, and the appointment of the campus president or chancellor (Berdahl 1971, 73–172). As a central function of the governing body since the 1960s and 1970s there has been an increasing public interest in insuring quality and in maintaining costs. In the academic arena these concerns have focused on program development and program review. As these concepts developed, they represented the two phases whereby a central governing entity could intervene in academic programs. At the outset, and continuing to this day, there was a significant opposition to system intervention in the academic program, holding that this area was a purely campus matter and largely vested in the faculty. Those who opposed system intervention held that academic program development was a responsibility vested in the campus faculty. Intervention by campus administrators or system administrators was regarded with suspicion, and scrutiny from a system board was viewed with outright contempt. On the other hand, system administrators and politicians have insisted that this level of oversight is necessary to ensure that campuses address the education needs of the community, avoid costly duplication of programs, and eliminate programs which are no longer viable. The role of the system authority in the realm of curriculum is central to the creation of the identity of a branch campus. This is because, traditionally, campus identity derives in large part from curricular offerings. Liberal arts colleges focus on the broad range of curricula in the liberal arts and sciences, and generally avoid professional programs, with the general exception of education and business administration programs. Land grant colleges and universities focus on programs in agriculture, engineering, and related fields. As noted, regional universities and branch colleges tend to be associated with teacher education programs. Since the curriculum tends to define the campus, the approval process for curricula and programs is central to the identity of the campus. Within the last three decades, the increasing importance of regional accreditation agencies has added yet another wrinkle to this issue. Over this period the six major regional accrediting agencies have increasingly adopted criteria that base institutional evaluation on the mission of the college under scrutiny. As a result, campus identity rests on the mission

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statement. Curricula need to flow logically from that mission statement. Consequently, the keystone of campus identity lies within the curricular offerings. But why is a unique identity essential for a branch campus? By definition the college is a member of a larger system. In most instances this system will contain at least one if not more campuses that will compete directly with the branch campus for students. In order to recruit students, then, it is crucial to have a unique campus identity to answer the basic question, “Why should I come to your campus?” More often than not, students seem to focus on the larger campuses because of NCAA Division I sports, such as football and basketball, or some other programs of distinction. In the end, however, curricular offerings provide the basis for the creation of the campus identity.

CURRICULUM, MISSION, UNIQUENESS Within the universe of branch campuses nearly every curricular specialty serves as a key to campus identity. Among the most unique are campuses with highly specialized curricula. Examples of these unique campuses include places like the SUNY Maritime College and Montana Tech of the University of Montana. The Maritime College, as its name indicates, focuses on preparing students for service in maritime fields. It describes itself as “an undergraduate and graduate institution focused on engineering, business, science, and maritime transportation” (www.sunymaritime .edu). A significant percentage of its graduates go on either into the navy or the merchant marines, with a degree in engineering. Its campus is located at Fort Schuyler in Throgg’s Neck, a part of the Bronx facing Queens. Montana Tech of the University of Montana is also a specialized campus focusing on engineering, principally mining engineering. While its focus on engineering might make it similar to the Maritime College, they have little else in common. Founded in 1900 as the Montana State School of Mines in Butte, Montana, the college has continued to focus on mining and associated fields of engineering, while broadening to offer additional courses of instruction, and changing its name twice. In 1994 it was incorporated into the University of Montana, and its name changed to Montana Tech of the University of Montana (www.mech.edu/about/

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history). Montana Tech is located near the continental divide in a place as different from the Bronx as one can imagine. Yet both schools have undoubted strengths in their programs and attract bright and talented students because of their unique features. At the other extreme are branch campuses that focus uniquely on the liberal arts and sciences. Many of these campuses are members of the Council on Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC). COPLAC was founded in 1987 to provide greater visibility for publicly funded liberal arts colleges and mutual support to the member institutions. The association has developed the following four goals: 1. To promote nationally the values of superior undergraduate liberal education in a public college setting in order to enhance understanding among the general public of the value of moderately sized public liberal arts colleges. 2. To communicate to state and federal policy makers the vital importance and benefits of providing students with comprehensive public higher education in the liberal arts and sciences. 3. To work actively with member institutions to improve the quality of liberal arts and sciences education on our own campuses and achieve the goals of the organization. 4. To support the efforts of the other institutions to achieve distinction in the liberal education of students. (www.coplac.org) Not all public institutions whose primary focus is the liberal arts are members of COPLAC, since the organization tends to limit its membership to one institution from each state. What the COPLAC members and others have in common is that they provide the benefits of the private liberal arts college education in a publicly funded institution. Even within COPLAC there is a wide range of institutions, all dedicated to the liberal arts in varying degrees. Some of the smaller institutions, such as New College of Florida and the University of Minnesota, Morris, offer only baccalaureate degrees in the arts and sciences: that is, they offer no graduate degrees and have no undergraduate programs in the professions, other than education. Others, such as St. Mary’s College of Maryland, have limited graduate programs. As noted, many campuses other than the members of

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COPLAC also have the same profile. While SUNY Geneseo is a member of COPLAC, most of the other SUNY comprehensive campuses reflect this same commitment to undergraduate liberal arts and sciences education. Similarly, while Ramapo State College in New Jersey is a member of COPLAC, the College of New Jersey also has a historic emphasis in the liberal arts and sciences, while offering programs in engineering and nursing, as well as a fairly long list of graduate degrees. What all of these examples indicate is that curricular offerings provide an institution with an essential part of its unique identity.

OTHER FACTORS THAT CAN HELP CREATE A UNIQUE BRANCH CAMPUS IDENTITY Curriculum is by no means the only manner in which campuses create a unique identity. Some benefit from a long and proud history. Some enjoy a location in a truly unique setting. Others have exhibited prowess in athletics or other co- and extracurricular activities. SUNY Potsdam is the oldest member of the SUNY system, having been chartered as a public institution in 1816. It began as an academy to train teachers for the northernmost regions of New York, a role it continues today. Further it also has one of the oldest schools of music education in the nation, another point of identity and history. Those regional campuses benefiting from a unique location might include Montana Tech, already seen, along with schools like California State University Monterey Bay. Located on a former military base, it overlooks Monterey Bay, providing it with a lovely locale, and a point of distinction in the development of programs. It has particular strengths in the biological sciences, especially marine biology, along with international studies. Lastly, co- or extracurricular activities, including athletics, can provide an important identity to a college. The University of Northern Iowa has enjoyed a successful program of athletics, giving them a greater-thanexpected visibility among prospective students. Most recently, Appalachian State University broke into the national consciousness when its football team defeated the much better known team of the University of Michigan in a spectacular upset.

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FACULTY RECRUITING AND UNIQUE IDENTITY Whatever the unique identity enjoyed by any particular campus, it must have the faculty and staff to go along. The recruiting of faculty can be an extremely difficult matter for regional and branch campuses. Although the campus may boast of unique programs or interests, matching these to available faculty is not easy. Several conditions make this process even more difficult. First of all, the branch or regional campus frequently is located in a more rural setting. Many teacher-scholars, having been trained at major research universities, which are located in towns and cities of sufficient size to support such an educational infrastructure, find it unattractive to move to the more rural areas of the nation. Secondly, the regional or branch campus usually exists in the shadow of a larger sister or partner. It is, after all, a branch campus. The relationship between the branch and the central campus can variously attract or repel potential faculty. In some instances the faculty members of the branch campus qualify for benefits offered to faculty members on the central campus, ranging from medical and other benefits, to leaves, sabbaticals, and funding for research. In other instances, they exist alone and do not enjoy the same level of support as on the larger campus. Both scenarios carry benefits and liabilities. Some faculty members do not wish to be compared to their colleagues on the larger campus. On the other hand, if they do not receive the benefits offered to the others, there is sure to be envy and frustration. Third, because the branch campus is normally smaller, and located in a rural area, it is far more difficult to deal with two-career couples. While major research universities frequently can absorb a trailing partner or spouse, a smaller college in a rural area has fewer resources with which to attract the trailing partner, and there are fewer other opportunities in the region to be brought to bear. Lastly, all colleges strive to have a faculty that reflects the diversity of the nation, at best, or at least of their particular region. Given that many such colleges are located in rural areas where whites far outnumber persons of color, creating a welcoming environment for a diverse faculty is a continual challenge.2 It would be unfortunate, however, to paint the picture of faculty recruitment and retention in bleak tones. The branch campus has many features to attract faculty. Since many branch campuses are located in smaller cities and towns, they offer a safe and secure environment for faculty

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members with school-aged children. The faculty member in such a setting can make a real contribution to the life of the town or village. They are still highly respected professionals, and although the level of compensation at many public-supported branch campuses lags behind that of large research-oriented or private universities, in smaller towns and villages these salaries are still significantly higher than the median income, in many instances. Similarly, in smaller communities, faculty members usually have better opportunities for affordable housing. Many faculty members, while deeply rooted in their scholarship, seek out colleges where there is a greater emphasis on teaching, as is common between branch and regional campuses. Consequently, taken as a whole, the benefits and liabilities of teaching at a branch campus probably cancel out one another. What is important is the creation of the campus environment that supports and rewards faculty members for their unique contributions to the life of the community and finding the right match between person and place.

STUDENT RECRUITMENT ISSUES In recent years no topic has attracted as much attention as the recruitment of students. Competition for highly academically qualified students has increased precipitously over the last decade. Colleges actively seek top students for two main reasons. First of all, brighter students are more enjoyable to teach, from a faculty perspective. They are also more demanding. Another important factor is that data demonstrate that they persist to graduation in greater numbers than do the less academically prepared students.3 In an age where retention and graduation rates form the basis for much accountability, the larger the percentage of highly qualified students, the better the persistence and graduation rates will tend to be. Branch campuses have difficulty in recruiting students for many of the same reasons as arise in the recruitment of faculty. Branch campuses frequently lack the cachet of the large research university. Many students from urban areas are loath to attend a regional or branch campus, located as they tend to be in rural areas. And very bright and talented students are heavily recruited by private liberal arts colleges, for all the same reasons as they are sought by public branch and regional campuses. Only rarely can the public institution win a bidding war with a private college. In this

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area one might think that the cost differential would fall in favor of the public institution. Unfortunately, among many families there is the mistaken belief that cost is a factor of quality, thus favoring the private institution. As well, the total package offered by the private institution might well be greater than the total cost of attending the public institutions, but still only a fraction of the cost of the private. Nevertheless, some families merely look at the total granted, so if private college X offers a package worth $15,000, representing a third of the cost of attendance, and public college Y offers $8,000, representing three-quarters of the total cost of attendance, many families will accept the larger package, even when it means much larger out-of-pocket expenditure. Program mix also figures as a problem in recruiting students. Some students decide in advance what their career goals and expectations are. If a given college does not offer those courses of study, they simply are not interested. This particularly affects liberal arts colleges. The general public does not adequately understand the benefits of the liberal arts education, and thus assumes that professional education should occur at the college level. Obviously those branch campuses with clearly defined strengths in the professions benefit from this, and can market themselves heavily to students seeking those discrete programs. Most campuses strive to attract a diverse student body. In recent years the gender ratio at liberal arts campuses has shifted to such a degree that some alarms are sounding. While traditionally higher education was male dominated, since the 1980s there has been a steady rise in the number of female students to such a degree that at liberal arts colleges significant effort must be exerted to keep at least one-third of the student body male. Public colleges are not immune to this trend. Again, some of the specialized campuses, especially those focusing on engineering, have the opposite problem of needing to attract more female students. All campuses hope to attract more students of color, in order to create a student body that is reflective of the diversity of the country. The specific history and qualities of each campus can have a powerful effect on the recruitment of students of color. In general, as with students from an urban environment, attracting students of color can be quite difficult, especially because in moving to a branch college the student might lose the support network for family and friends that has aided him to that point. Many students must keep a job to help parents or siblings. This is simply

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not always possible at a branch campus located away from the student’s home. The student might feel isolated on the campus if there are too few peers with whom to relate. The notion of critical mass is extremely important in recruiting both students and faculty members of color. Being the only person of one’s group on a campus can be a highly negative factor. Cohorts of students, and cohorts of faculty, can help to provide mutual support for one another. All of the features outlined here are subject to negotiation between the branch campus and the central campus or system authority. None of these issues can be taken for granted. Certainly in the recruiting of faculty and students there is normally significant competition among all of the campuses. Likewise, the development of unique programs is also not without its difficulty. In the best of cases, the unique program is truly that, one that does not compete with the larger sister institutions. In most instances, however, there will be competition. Again the role of the governing body is crucial in either mediating or preventing conflict.

REVEALING A UNIQUE CAMPUS MISSION All campuses are unique. The elements outlined to this point are the main features that help to make a campus unique, but there are others. Perhaps most important, for any campus administration, is the process by which one goes about discovering the unique features of the campus. In marketing, this is called “branding” (Lauer 2002, 64–76). This is a somewhat complicated process and should be part of any strategic planning exercise. Four main constituencies must be consulted in order to discover the unique features of a campus. Three of these are obvious: they consist of current students, faculty and staff, and the alumni and friends of the college. These groups represent the key stakeholders in the image of the campus. The fourth group to be consulted is the public at large. It is absolutely essential that the image of the college be reflected consistently among all constituencies. The process of arriving at a campus image is two-fold. The first stage consists of one person, or a small committee, conducting focused interviews with a wide range of students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the college, and members of the public at large to identify the perceived

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main features of the campus identity and to also discover what those groups believe its unique strengths to be. The second phase is to then test the results of the data collection against what an objective reality might say about them. The goal is to determine the core identity of the college (Porras and Collins 1997, 220–28; Lauer 2002). The data collection optimally will include a cross section of the campus community, without resulting in too large of a committee. The committee should attempt to develop a large enough sample size to assure that the observations are valid. Interviews with both on-campus and off-campus groups help to determine the alignment of perceptions. Frequently people on campus will feel that the campus culture is one thing, while external constituencies may perceive it quite differently. For instance, the campus culture might hold that the college is quite open and welcoming to the surrounding community. Yet conversations with townspeople and neighbors to the college could describe it as insular and antagonistic to the community. Similarly responses from current students and alumni help to determine those features that are consistent over time versus those features that are more transitory. Taken as a whole, a fairly accurate picture of the unique features of the campus will emerge. Once the unique features of the campus have been identified, it is then necessary to see how these compare with the other schools against which the branch campus normally competes for students (Keller 1983, 153–54). Unfortunately, frequently things like “a caring faculty and staff” might emerge as the most unique feature. While this is a wonderful attribute, most colleges either report this or aspire to it. As a result simply being “caring and sensitive” is unlikely to make much of an impact. The defining features of a branch campus are also subject to continuing negotiation with the central campus or governing body. In larger systems, many campuses might share the same critical attributes, and so using one of these might unfairly impact a sister institution. In the end, it is the distinctive and unique features that will help to set the school apart from its peers. As noted there is a dialogue between these unique features and the curriculum, faculty and student recruitment, and other aspects of the mission of the college. Each informs and reinforces the other.

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THE ROLE OF THE CENTRAL GOVERNING BOARD The relationship of the branch or regional campus with the central campus and/or governing board, then, is central to all of the discussions about uniqueness. The role of central boards has evolved over the last forty years in response to the rapid growth of public higher education in the post–World War II environment, and to the waves of budget crises and reductions from the late 1970s. In 1960 nationwide there were only nineteen central governing boards that supervised program approval at multiple institutions. By 1991 that number had increased to forty-five, and has stabilized since then. The boards most frequently report that they look at the quality of the program, and the need or demand for the program, as the leading purposes of their review. One of the areas frequently mentioned but most difficult to accomplish was the avoidance of duplication of programs. Coordinating boards also usually supervise more formal program review for existing programs. This authority has developed rapidly since World War II, so that now forty-one of the governing boards exercise that authority, although it was nearly unknown in the 1950s. While program quality and cost are the major factors of interest, “unnecessary duplication” ranks high in the review process. These are important considerations as campuses seek to develop a unique identity within their state or region. Program duplication by nearby or competing campuses can tend to erode the distinctiveness of a campus, and while governing boards are charged with being vigilant over duplication, their record is not a strong one.

TWO EXAMPLES There are several examples in the United States of regional and branch campuses achieving a unique or distinct identity. Below are just two specific campuses that I know personally. These examples are necessarily subjective and based upon the author’s experiences and do not pretend to be either exhaustive or comprehensive. The examples here are merely that—examples—to help demonstrate some of the issues outlined above. St. Mary’s College of Maryland was one of the first regional colleges to embrace the identity of being a public liberal arts college. Having first

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been a two-year college for women, it became its state’s first coeducational junior college, and in 1964 it added upper-division programs and took on its current name. Part of its identity problem was that although St. Mary’s is a public institution, it carries a name usually associated with faith-based schools. In 1991 the college began an important series of changes. Because of changes in state funding, the college requested a special status. While it remains a state-supported institution, it was granted a more independent status in exchange for accepting certain important accountabilities. At the same time it was named Maryland’s public honors college. Although a state-supported college, it falls outside of the supervision of the University System of Maryland. It has its own independent governing board and receives funds from the state in a series of block grants that grow at a rate tied to inflation (Schmidt 1998, A27) This unique situation has assisted the college in pursuing a highly selective admissions policy. It has also enjoyed higher-than-expected levels of charitable giving. This success also created a model that other publicly funded colleges wished to emulate and led the leaders of St. Mary’s to participate in the founding of COPLAC. Other campuses have achieved uniqueness through academic programs. The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, offers a truly unique program of study for students.4 Rather than traditional majors, students pursue different programs of study each quarter, something like what has become more widely known as “learning communities.” These programs of study are consciously developed by the participating faculty members to be interdisciplinary. Each program of study explores a particular topic from a variety of different perspectives. Students only take one program each quarter, although many programs last as long as three quarters. By linking these programs together over the course of their education, they receive both the breadth and depth expected from a liberal arts education. Students can also develop their own programs of study in collaboration with faculty members. The students do not receive letter grades for participation but rather the faculty members provide written narratives on the student’s participation. This unique curriculum has attracted national attention. As a result The Evergreen State College is also a highly selective publicly funded college with a truly unique program and

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identity. One might also note that Evergreen State had a large focus on environmental issues many years before these studies became fashionable on other campuses.

THE EVOLVING IDENTITY OF BRANCH CAMPUSES The history of higher education since the Second World War has seen a great many changes in higher education in general and in public higher education in particular. One of the greatest has been the changing identity of regional colleges, branch campuses, and state teacher’s colleges. In the immediate postwar period these were seen as filling a very specific local need, closely aligned with their immediate service area. In the ensuing fifty years many of these have changed their names, converted from colleges to universities, and attempted to a greater or lesser degree to gain a certain independence from their larger sister campuses, the flagship campuses. As a result the public higher education landscape is now far more complex than it was previously. These new regional and branch campuses are generally striving for a broader statewide or even national recognition. They have developed competitive programs, and seek to provide students with unique opportunities not readily believed to be available at other campuses. For the public and for state governments, most of this is good. Competition generally provides better programs. For students certainly it has increased dramatically the number of options available to them for higher education.5 Campuses seeking to develop a unique identity must focus upon those features of the educational experience they offer and of their own history that distinguish the campus from its peers. While frequently this distinction lies in the curriculum, it might also be apparent in extracurricular or cocurricular activities, or simply in the nature of the place. Whatever the feature, not only must it resonate with the current students, faculty, and staff, but it must also resonate with the objective observer as true. Once identified, then, the campus can build other programs and activities around that core feature, continually negotiating with the central campus and/or the system authority.

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NOTES 1. For the purposes of this chapter, a branch campus will be considered to be one of three somewhat different entities. The classic branch campus consists of an institution that offers the degrees of the central campus, merely in a distinct geographical location. It is not independently accredited and the faculty members coordinate their programs with their colleagues on the central campus (see Mary Crystal Cage, “Universities in South and West Use Branch Campuses to Absorb New Students,” Chronicle of Higher Education, December 6, 1989, chronicle .com/che-data/articles.dir/articles-36.dir/issue-14.dir/14a01703.htm). For instance, in the late 1980s, Arizona State established branch campuses to offer its degree outside of the Tempe campus. At about the same time, Western Kentucky also offered degree programs at its campus in Glasgow, KY. Another type of branch campus is an institution that shares the name of the central campus, has the same central administration, exists in a different location, and may or may not offer independent degrees. Examples of this type of branch campus would include the various locations of Penn State or of the University of Minnesota. Some of the campuses of Penn State would also fit under the classical definition. The system has a principal campus and regional or branch campuses: State College for Penn State with the regional or branch campuses at Altoona, Harrisburg, and York, among others, and the Twin Cities for the University of Minnesota, with coordinate campuses at Duluth, Morris, Crookston, and Rochester. One should also include the regional campuses in large university systems. Examples of this type are the comprehensive campuses of the State University of New York (SUNY) such as SUNY–Cortland or SUNY–Plattsburgh. Although they all share a common name, there is no central State University of New York campus, no main campus. There are, however, four university centers: Stony Brook, Albany, Binghamton, and Buffalo. Lastly, one should consider the regional campus of a state university system. While they are part of a university system, there is generally no level of administration between them and the state coordinating committee, or state board of regents, depending on what the statewide governance entity might be called. These would include the regional campuses within the Minnesota State colleges and universities, such as St. Cloud State, Winona State, and Minnesota State University Moorhead, or the regional campuses of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, such as Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, or West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Other examples would include the campuses of the California State University System and the regional state universities of Florida, such as the University of West Florida, the University of North Florida, Florida Gulf Coast University, and Florida Atlantic University, to name a few.

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2. For several years the University of Minnesota has run a “Keeping Our Faculties” conference where ideas on the recruitment and retention of faculty of color are explored. It has been a very successful opportunity to learn and share information. Many of the lessons learned are equally applicable to all faculty members. 3. The classic study is: Alexander W. Astin, Predicting Academic Performance in College; Selectivity Data for 2300 American Colleges (New York: Free Press, 1971). C. Adelman, Answers in the Tool Box: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns, and Bachelor’s Degree Attainment (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1999). Alexander W. Astin, “How ‘Good’ Is Your Institution’s Retention Rate?” Research in Higher Education 38, no. 6 (1997): 647–58. One of the most recent summaries of the research is: “The Role of Student Characteristics,” ASHE Higher Education Report 31, no. 1 (2005): 21–24. 4. Strictly speaking Evergreen State falls a bit outside of the definition for regional or branch campus offered earlier. It is an independently chartered and accredited university, enjoying its own independent board. It is, however, one of several publically funded institutions of higher education in Washington, and it is quite dissimilar from the larger research universities, the University of Washington and Washington State University. Consequently, it does have some important similarities to others colleges studied here. 5. One of the negatives, however, can be in the proliferation of a few popular curricula. In this instance, there is always the potential for unnecessary duplication of programs. State agencies need to be vigilant in approving competing programs at public institutions, especially when they draw students largely from the same populations.

WORKS CITED Barak, Robert J. 2007. Thirty Years of Academic Review and Approval by State Postsecondary Coordinating and Governing Boards. SHEEO. Berdahl, R. O. 1971. Statewide Coordination of Higher Education. Washington, DC: American Council on Higher Education. Billitteri, Thomas J. 1997. “Teacher Education.” CQ Researcher 7 (39). Keller, George. 1983. Academic Strategy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Labaree, David A. 2006. “Mutual Subversion: A Short History of the Liberal and the Professional in American Higher Education.” History of Education Quarterly 46 (1).

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Lauer, Larry D. 2002. Competing for Students, Money, and Reputation: Marketing the Academy in the 21st Century. Washington, DC: CASE. Porras, Jerry, and Jim Collins. 1997. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. New York: Harper Collins. Schmidt, Peter. 1998. “Unusual Autonomy and Unique Budget Law Help St. Mary’s College to Stand Apart.” Chronicle of Higher Education 45 (13).

II INTERNAL ISSUES

5 The Pressure on Faculty Prestige and Its Multiphrenic Implications Mark W. Padilla

RISING EXPECTATIONS

The faculty serving at undergraduate-focused public universities—and these campuses may be branch, constituent, or semi-independent members of their respective state systems—are working in a period of rapid environmental and demographic change. Professors currently face pressures to perform in multiple arenas of responsibility and in a manner that is highly scrutinized and often defined by competing pressures that can claim, however paradoxically, to be of critical institutional value. These pressures are particularly acute at branch campuses, which often combine the scholarly expectations of research universities, the teaching load of small private institutions, and the community service duties of regional, public, schools. Branch campuses are, thus, a kind of nexus of professional expectations for the faculty. This situation is not restricted to faculty: professional and classified staff at all levels of the academy—from the president on down—are experiencing similar problems of core duty expansion. However, it is the thesis of this chapter that the repercussions of an unchecked growth of faculty assignments could have uniquely negative consequences on the ability of public colleges to protect their highest value asset, the promise of undergraduate student access to terminal-degree-holding faculty, and hence to maintain student market share. Specifically, the connection between faculty member and disciplinary expertise is the foundation for effective 73

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classroom dynamics. If this “elemental fusion” were to suffer nuclear split, the implications could pose a significant problem for many mission strategies. The status of faculty, moreover, is already in play from a host of external forces. Universities for whom the public perception of faculty is especially critical, and hence where the lion’s share of the state budget is allocated, are most vulnerable to the impact (to switch metaphors) of a “depressed faculty stock.”

WORKING WITH THE FACULTY Earlier in my career I chose to work primarily with faculty, a choice that has had, as might be expected, its shares of ups and downs. But largely it has been the right choice for my professional interests. I was trained in the humanities and earned tenure at a private liberal arts university. My shift into administration started with department chair and evolved into the offices of associate dean and interim dean of arts and sciences. I then moved on to a constituent campus of an integrated, centripetal-directed state system, serving the offices of vice chancellor for academic affairs and then provost. Now I serve as provost at a second public liberal arts university in my third East Coast state; however, its university system has a tradition of semi-independent campuses, a centrifugal bias that is in fact increasing in force (a characteristic, however untypical for our state systems, that informs my approach here to faculty issues). I relay this biographical information to provide background for my perspectives, as this chapter is largely informed by “the voice of experience.” (The data I do draw from is conveniently presented in a recent book [Schuster and Finkelstein 2006] that has influenced my thinking throughout this chapter, a monumental and immediately important overview of the professoriate.) During these administrative travails, I found myself winding my way through contemporary labyrinths that may be familiar to readers: the decisions required when budget cut cycles threaten academic quality; the integration of information technology and library functions; the union of academic and student affairs under the provost and push for greater student retention; political pressure for economic development initiatives; introduction of four-year liberal-leaning programs; organizational restructuring to adapt to a larger and bimodal (both younger and older) faculty body; and other

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shocks to the institutional system. Throughout, however, the patterns of faculty work have continued, a career that has been called the longest profession in America, given that faculty can stay in essentially one job for over thirty years even during a time when other employee groups can experience job and career shifts at a seemingly kinetic pace. The size of the faculty body where I have served has numbered from two hundred to two hundred and fifty FTEs (full-time equivalents).

A PRECARIOUS FISCAL ENVIRONMENT What an initial transition it was six years ago to move into the public sphere from the well-endowed realm of private liberal arts universities, especially during a beginning cycle of state budget cuts! It is appropriate to consider initially this aspect of faculty issues at branch campuses, specifically four-year, undergraduate-focused universities, as these kinds of budget cycles can create a faculty experience that differs in nature from the private financial downturns (which focus on pricing) or the fiscal fortunes of flagship research campuses. The mentality, to the degree one can speak of this without empirical data, is one of tenuousness. Faculty follow the newspaper reports on the state economy and legislative process and connect this engagement with academic planning—with equipment purchases for example: lower tax returns after April 15 can lead to a frenzy of purchases that look to short-term needs. “Rainy day” funds are ripe for stealing or reallocation. Thus PCs and Macs are quickly ordered through suddenly overloaded purchase departments (mass computer sellers, such as Dell, have molded their agreements to make sure that state purchasing protocols can easily be met in such circumstances). However, more rare equipment, such as an individualized—and perhaps more institutionally important—machine for a science lab, might involve more purchasing red tape, and is bypassed. Computers are refreshed but the lab falls further behind in currency; indeed, the two state schools with which I am most familiar are replete with refreshed computers and in possession of much outdated and broken lab equipment. By contrast, private schools can “carry over” balances from year to year so as to save up for expensive equipment (or provide a lucrative grant match for that replacement scanning electron microscope).

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To pull back to the larger picture, states increasingly use university systems as quasi ATM machines to balance budgets experiencing deficits from earlier (and often overoptimistic) fiscal projections. As has been much discussed, the umbilical cord of public support for the “social compact” that places a premium on an educated citizenry is fraying, at least in respect to other identified needs and state obligations. From a pro–liberal arts perspective, this development is in part due to the emergence of so many professional programs where the benefit is more squarely provided to an individual family, making subsidized higher education an entitlement program rather than a reflex of a democracy investing in the renewal of its fundamental principles. There may be public perception that universities have layers of fat that can be cut out before the muscle is impacted. But many state-system campuses, such as the two undergraduate-focused system campuses with which I am most familiar, have emerged as major regional educators only in the last thirty or forty years, perhaps filling a niche left open by the advancement of the research and comprehensive public institutions that left the undergraduate arena competitively open in their drive to build graduate programs. Thus, younger public campuses do not have access to cushioning endowments; they are less likely to be bolstered by loyal alumni (especially in the legislative hallways, which are often populated by flagship-campus graduates); and their status in the hierarchy of state schools tends to be low. The lack of resources and political clout means that a 5 percent cut can be experienced as an earthquake as opposed to a tremor. This precarious fiscal environment leads to a more cautious and guarded mentality about the future, a profound sense of being ill-at-ease much of the time in settings where other topics may be the actual focus of discussion. There is a nervousness present that is unlike that felt at other kinds of campuses. The flip side of this sense of anxiety about the future is the amazing resilience, or survivalist, capacity of faculty in such colleges. Faculty are very able, I have found, to find ways to offer high quality educational experiences to their students with scarce, even scant, resources when it becomes necessary to do so. Four-year, undergraduatefocused publics can exude a sense of pioneer frugality that endures successfully the crosswinds of state economic and legislative storms. A sense of satisfaction can be experienced that is not available to faculty at more protected public campuses in a system or at wealthier privates, in that we

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can see how much difference our schools are making in the lives of our students and their families, even as we sometimes wonder about how the future will organize itself for the future of the institution.

TEACHING AND RESEARCH Another profound and deeply felt challenge for faculty at branch campuses with an arts-and-sciences focus is found in the problem of bringing into alignment perceptions and traditions of the faculty career with the actual roles and responsibilities. Rapid change in higher education, amid the realities of fiscal uncertainty, has led to at least two fundamental, and interconnected, changes worth commenting upon here. First, faculty are being asked to expand their service responsibilities to embrace a wider variety of institutional issues. Secondly, faculty are yielding governance privileges and institutional status as decision-makers. So the picture is one in which broader institutional roles are being combined with less authority over direction setting. This development can of course be viewed in political terms, as part of the ebb-and-flow of power relations between the faculty and the administration. And as an administrator, I am probably complicit in a biased viewpoint of this struggle, but I think the causes of this shift transcend the push-and-pull relationship. I am not the first to observe, indeed, that the work of administration has grown exponentially in complexity and simply is not available to individuals whose other time-intensive duties would presume authority without responsibility. Consultation on a broad number of matters is certainly possible, and certainly preferable for best practices. But the concept of faculty governance is being challenged by the intensity of a system of education whose costs are rapidly escalating and which is undergoing major public scrutiny. An important dynamic limiting effective governance is also the role a state-system plays in determining mission emphases and shaping resource allocations; the provost can be caught between the interests of a localized faculty guided by shared internal values defined historically and the expression of priorities expressed through state entities that are dependent upon politically influenced agenda. The professionalization of higher administration in academic affairs and the presidency is nearly complete, even if the track to initiate such a “second career” more often than not begins in the classroom.

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On the surface of things, the academy might appear to be in a stasis versus a rapid-change mode. Many faculty job ads for tenure-track positions at four-year publics tend to look very similar to one another and to those of the recent past. However, their simplicity conceals a landmine of potential obstacles for a successful career. Such ads, for example, emphasize a strong commitment to teaching. However, the importance of teaching is more pronounced than in the past, as, since the 1990s, U.S. higher education, as reflected by faculty interests, has taken a turn toward a greater valuing of undergraduate study (Schuster and Finkelstein 2006, 127–29). Teaching excellence is thus a much more complex proposition than effective course management, for which training is likely to have been developed as a graduate student teaching assistant. Secondly, the job is also likely to list the need to maintain a productive research agenda, an expectation that a transitioning graduate student is likely to relate to, fresh from the completion of the Ph.D. Indeed, faculty hiring at the assistant professor level (the dominant preference) continues its growing dependence upon Ph.D.-granting research universities. The Ph.D. or its terminal degree equivalent is essentially a kind of certification that a graduate has been rigorously trained in scholarship methods appropriate to the discipline. The institutional need for the Ph.D. at the branch campus, however, typically relates to a strategic goal of enhancing reputation as opposed to privileging research work over teaching. So, faculty are chosen primarily for their research training, which they have shown they can do while teaching one or two courses as TAs under the mentoring of a dissertation advisor, but then being placed into intensive instructional roles with a department chair (typically chosen on a rotating versus demonstrated leadership basis) replacing the advisor as the principle guide. Many four-year publics demand a relatively high teaching load (four/four or four/three per academic year), and are only planning the long, expensive process of readjusting this assignment to factor in scholarly expectations (which a three/three load or less can better accommodate). The emphasis on research in U.S. higher education reached its peak in the 1980s decade—when the phrase “publish or perish” was coined (Schuster and Finkelstein 2006, 99–104). But despite the intense focus on undergraduate education, the emphasis on research has not fully receded back to pre1980 expectations for professional advancement purposes. State-system branch campuses are integrating research expectations, whether because

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they are moving toward the teacher-scholar model developed initially by the elite liberal arts colleges (Astin 1999, 90–91) or because they are generally influenced by the priorities of research universities (Schuster and Finkelstein 2006, 102); this trend is picking up speed especially as faculty retire and are replaced with younger faculty seemingly readied for such a career from their graduate training. Evidence suggests that faculty currently can meet both expectations—exceptional teaching and a record of scholarly productivity. Such a feat is made possible by the acceptance of a longer work week to the degree of close to ten more hours per week than required in the recent past (Schuster and Finkelstein 2006, 79–85). Thus more honest job ads might emphasize the desirability of candidates who have proven time-management skills and the capacity for long workdays. For I have learned that the most successful faculty can shift quickly from one role to another and can approach their workday and work week with clear plans about how to organize them to be optimally successful. The life of the mind is surely important, but not far behind are the habits of self-discipline and self-direction.

“BRANDING” The linking of teaching and research, however complex in its emphasis and unwieldy in its application, is further contextualized by expectations to shape the faculty member’s future CV to the particular mission of the university. Undergraduate-focused publics are seeking regional and national distinction in the higher education market. Strategic plans for this promotion typically involve a communication tactic—branding—to shape the public perception of institutional uniqueness and importance. However, because what is being marketed is the undergraduate experience itself, a relatively “bounded product,” some inherent challenges present themselves. A psychology major, for example, currently among the most popular arts and sciences degrees, can only be organized in so many novel ways and remain essential. Courses begin at a lower level of difficulty, advance toward greater complexity, and introduce majors to some of the major branches of the discipline (cognitive, personality, developmental, abnormal, clinical, etc.). But each ambitious campus must ask their faculty to approach their curriculum as if it were uniquely advantaged over other

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(largely similar) psychology programs, and must do so within an increasingly common set of embellishments (undergraduate research, service learning, liberal learning curricular connectors, international experience, etc.). The faculty member is asked thus to teach and conduct research and to do so in a way that is infused with the mission emphases in an increasingly competitive curricular arena. Faculty rewards for such an approach are significant in promise: better students that the branded campus now attracts, salaries pegged to higher tuition, and greater name recognition that can lead to more successful grant applications and research venues. As a consequence of the fact that our niche of universities now promise so much to their students and their families—and thereby reap higher consumer expectations than lower-funded branch campuses have ever before experienced in regard to services and conveniences—the complexity of the medium-sized (ca. 1,500–6,000 student FTE) campus has evolved to resemble more a small town than an agency of state government. The infrastructure requirements include police crews sensitive to the particular habits of a resident student body, high-quality dining venues, stately residence halls, career development services, NCAA and club athletic teams, counseling and advising services, parking decks, convenience stores, work-out facilities, and advance technology networking, software, and hardware. Consumer-driven conveniences, in essence, are offered as complements to tailored learning experiences and high-quality academic programs, a combination that is effective as recruitment but sometimes confusing in organizing the expectations of the students for their academic obligations. Universities brand their offered experiences in an intertwined fashion, mixing the curricular, the cocurricular, and extracurricular. (So we now see the emergence of student life and promotional features in the curricular catalog.) Academic quality continues to be the most important component for school selection, based upon freshmen survey data, but students and their parents can now look beyond this expectation, and form their list of potential schools by comparing programs that are supplemental to the academic experience. Faculty may not have primary responsibilities in student-life programs, but they do work with a student body that has implicit permission or an expectation to be heavily involved in supplemental activities, activities that continue to be touted as “what was most remembered” (with the questionable implication of that bestrecalled experience as being the most important achievement in one’s

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college success). The focus here is not to critique the value of campus programs that are not classroom based, but rather to highlight their emergence among, and competition with, traditional academic experiences. Students can become institutionally confused in this environment as to what is in fact supplementary to what, a question that faculty, particularly new entrants, must also resolve as they negotiate their interactions with students. What is the basis for faculty authority and what is the basis for faculty compliance?

STUDENT-CENTERED CAMPUSES Higher education’s turn to emphasize undergraduate education has involved the shift of the student to the learner and hence the instructor to the facilitator. The faculty member is now directed less toward “inputs,” such as the presentation of material in a lecture format, and more toward “outputs,” or the gaining of competencies in “assessable” formats. This is a profound (if pedagogically valid) shift that further recasts the faculty member’s status. Undergraduate-focused universities often celebrate such values as “students first,” but this can also become a consumer-oriented tag that dangerously glosses over the realities of educational delivery and its necessary hierarchy of relationships. One might better claim that putting “faculty first” would more likely result in value-added educational outcomes, in that such an approach would help to short-circuit some of the consumer-convenience attitudes with which students enter their college. A faculty-centered campus may well be the safest way to establish and hold on to academic purpose, even if the mission of the university remains steadfastly student-oriented. Such an approach is presently not likely to find current favor in the state-system branch campuses, but is an approach that may have its time in the near future as such schools become increasingly aware of their primary asset, namely, the instructional salary budget. The shift in emphasis to undergraduate instructional practices has largely been a positive development for liberal arts and sciences curricula. Despite any crisis of faith in institutions of higher education (due to concerns about cost and effectiveness), universities that pride themselves on facilitating successful learning can participate in shared experiments

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across the United States to develop best practices, programs that can be examined at higher education conferences and workshops, by involvement in foundation-funded initiatives, and through site visits. This fullscale reevaluation of how students learn and what is important in college curricula, however, has required substantive change in the allocation of faculty duties and time commitments. Furthermore, as indicated already, curricular advancements have gone hand-in-hand with expanded extracurricular opportunities. The newer curricular programs for students involve small freshmen seminars, undergraduate research opportunities, service learning and volunteerism, and the availability of scholarships for study abroad; cocurricular opportunities can mean learning communities and programs established to provide greater living-and-learning integration and cohesion; extracurricular opportunities can mean subsidized spectatorship privileges for performing arts events and athletic contests. The provisions for such enriching opportunities—inside and outside the classroom—may be rooted in careful institutional reasoning, focused on articulated learning goals, and aimed at important advancement strategies. But the broadening of the campus experience has also substantially raised the cost of doing business, and it thus places great pressure on the campus to find additional revenue streams so as to increase personnel resources and operating budgets. Furthermore, though a provost should say so delicately, the efficacy of campus leadership is typically measured on a competitive basis against the institutional enhancement success of rival colleges. Thus institutional change and advancement must sometimes be pursued independently of budgeting realities and as the forward cost of successful branding. Presidents do, indeed, need to have optimism that their work will bear later fruits, an approach that can be a positive morale booster for the campus. Universities have, of course, significantly increased tuition and fee charges to help offset this programming creep, but inflation spikes in higher education, combined with budget cuts for public colleges, can offset the net gain of these price increases. It has been critical for higher education to break out of the pre-twentieth-century subsidy of higher education by a professorate willing to view their professional work as a quasiministerial “calling” (Schuster and Finkelstein 2006, 240). Faculty have required massive tuition increases to catch up, even partially, with salary-level advances of their peer professions (e.g., law

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and medicine) that similarly require advance degrees and delayed career starts. While certain salaries in the professional educational areas are better compensated (try hiring an accounting professor for under $100,000!), faculty in most arts and sciences disciplines continue to struggle with adequate salary remuneration, especially at the “younger” state-system campuses. Student-loan debt, the need to begin families at a reasonable age, and the burden to move great distances in order to fill successive jobs until a permanent one is secured can inaugurate a faculty career with financial strain.

NEW ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES Faculty roles at branch campuses are in a dynamic state and constantly open to repurposing in the expectations to serve larger university needs. For example, faculty are now asked to increase their acceptance of responsibility for retention and graduation rates; to maintain relationships with alumni; and to participate in an array of committees ranging from the stalwart governance functions to traditionally administrative deliberations. Turnover at the dean, provost, and president positions can lead to substantial search committee time with consultants and stakeholders in addition to time spent with the candidates. New senior administrators, in turn, can also mean new institutional priorities and the start of a new set of campus expectations. Parents have introduced themselves as hovering helicopters, wanting help with their students’ needs to maintain medication schedules and to receive timely prodding and reminders about assignment completion. Even faculty can be contacted, as broadly available technology has allowed such parents to work the borders of FERPA. It is possible that the average amount of time faculty are committing to service roles may be declining somewhat (Schuster and Finkelstein 2006, 92), especially given the emphases on teaching and scholarship. But what has increased is the number of individuals beyond the student and the department chair with whom a faculty member will need to work on a regular or semi-regular basis. Faculty today at branch campuses do not live in anything like an ivory tower. They are front and center for so many purposes that one can think here of Kenneth Gergen’s (2000, 68–74) psychological

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notion of “the social population of the self” that informs the dilemma of post-modernist identity, a state of continuous “multiphrenia”: one detects amid the hurly-burly of contemporary life a new constellation of feelings or sensibilities, a new pattern of self-consciousness. This syndrome may be termed multiphrenia, generally referring to the splitting of the individual into a multiplicity of self-investments. (2000, 73–74)

Faculty lives are fully “saturated” with voices from technology (e.g., email, voice mail, and text messaging), with a wide cast of students from all periods of their career, with potential donors or friends of the department, legislative and trustee figures in some instances, and of course the vastly increased number of university professional staff (writing center director, IT liaison, career counselor, premed advisor, admissions counselor, associate provost, president’s special assistant, etc.)—a university employee group whose ranks have grown faster than any other, and whose work often directly involves faculty in newer roles of expectation.

INCREASED SCRUTINY AND ACCOUNTABILITY Faculty performance is also evaluated to a much greater degree than required in years past. Annual reviews, reappointment reviews, tenure reviews, and post-tenure reviews take place aside the promotion reviews for associate and full professor consideration. Candidates for these reviews invest considerable time and energy building their review dossiers, as well as reviewing the dossiers of their peers. Some of this emphasis on performance monitoring arises from the public concern that emerged in the 1980s about the low productivity of faculty—the idea that tenure is a kind of scam. Images of faculty leaving the office at two o’clock to end their day and treating teaching as a repetition exercise then gained cultural currency. In reality, as noted already above, this was the period of heightened scholarly emphasis, and so faculty were in large part retreating to research spaces: for humanists, for example, this typically meant the home office, the site of one’s collection of core texts, scholarly articles, and drafts of started-and-stopped essays. Universities became accountable to see their faculty engage in research, and not just to make sure it was produced,

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and to render them accessible to students and peers throughout the week. (In my view, the shift to bring faculty back to campus was a positive development and perhaps functioned as part of the reconsideration of the value of high scholarly productivity at the expense of engaging in the life of the university.) The increased scrutiny of faculty work, however, can become a drag against the very productivity it is intended to stimulate. For example, at my current institution (at least until we introduced change measures in this arena), a starting tenure-track faculty position would undergo, including the annual review, some thirteen reviews in a six-year period to move from starting probationary to promotion to associate with tenure! Such scrutiny can, as I have learned, be a welcome process for probationary faculty who seek regular feedback; but it also can create a kind of overdependency relationship that hinders a sense of independent professionalism and career maturity. Administrations and faculty bodies both need to become much more self-conscious and purposeful regarding the intent of such reviews, an aspect rendered difficult by the inherent pressures and behaviors controlling both groups. Generally, the stakes of an individual performance review can be relatively mild, given that significant salary adjustments are not a likely outcome at most universities. By contrast, the tenure review, with its “upor-out” result, creates an overwhelming sense of anxiety for many candidates as well as their academic departments. If tenure decisions at branch state-system, undergraduate-focused universities once rested largely on instructional patterns and service commitments, as noted already, the expectations for tenure have now broadened to include a research program that has “products” available for consideration at the sixth-year mark. This means that such institutions are still building a culture for coping with negative decisions regarding stalwart colleagues; they are also still building effective peer review processes that can best influence administrative prerogatives in these decisions. Negative decisions can sometimes appear to be malicious and capricious when read against the grain of assumed privilege versus major institutional investment, especially when campus leadership has determined on a course to reposition the university in the academy. The value of tenure is doubtlessly an area of the profession that will be looked at for its continued relevance, if only because contingent appointments are becoming so prevalent and the threats to academic freedom seem less paramount in an undergraduate-focused

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mission. The tenure decision, however, continues to function as a defining maker in the faculty career—one is always aware of where one is on the tenure clock—with radical implications from the institutional decision that outstrip most other appointment differences (rank, salary, department locus, etc.). The probationary process thus has its own psychology, as it were, and is transformative whether one is successful or unsuccessful in attaining the goal of essentially permanent employment. Almost bizarrely, but to some degree true, tenure has been described as the end of one’s status as a student—one is finally “free.” This is a remarkable notion, given that the average age of the tenure recipient (as of 1992: Schuster and Finkelstein 2006, 184) rose to the late thirties for men and the early forties for women! The trend for greater accountability is also focused on university performance as a whole. The American college is under tremendous national scrutiny to demonstrate, through effective measurement practices, how learning is facilitated through both formative and value-added pedagogies. There exists a wish, perhaps even an expectation, for universities to publish and index the results of quantifiable measures of student learning, as well as to segregate out the “intervention” of the institution in a learning experience so as to isolate the exact contribution of a program (what the “customer” is paying for). The problems with fulfilling this expectation, however, are legion. First, college instruction has hitherto constituted a kind of historical amalgam, a composite of older and newer practices that have emerged from many sectors, educational philosophies, and purposes, and empowered “great ideas” that are nevertheless lacking empirically validating data to support their implementation, continuation, or discontinuation. Secondly, we are just beginning in our understanding of how the human brain actually works, and the evolving research story of the cognitive, neurological, and behavioral nature of the brain will surely be one of the most exciting chapters of twenty-first-century science. However, despite the emerging discipline of assessment research on college learning, we are still at a primitive stage of institutionalizing this self-critique in sustained and meaningful fashion. For example, a program of indirect learning outcome measures, as facilitated by National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), is still considered a groundbreaking initiative, even though its surveys reflect only student self-perceptions as a proxy for direct measures of institutional interventions. As these measures

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become more embedded in the curriculum, where indeed they need to be located to be effective, faculty (again) need to play a central role in adapting their programs to facilitate assessment strategies. Thus they need to be trained and retrained to approach their classroom activities in this fashion. Such practices provide clearer indications of teaching effectiveness, but, in order to be tolerable, the performance review process (which is aimed in part to assess teaching ability) continues to be divorced from such assessment work. This renders the work of assessment more acceptable, but it is also raising questions about the basis of the performance review systems, with their heavy reliance on student “evals,” another form of proxy information on learning.

THE BRANCH CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT A university’s attention to creating closed-loop, quality-enhancement assessment measures, however, can also be displaced by the introduction of external pressures for branch campus commitments, such as the expectation of having a greater impact on the economic development and renewal efforts in its city, town, or region. The American economy is undergoing a major transition to replace some manufacturing sectors with knowledgeand service-based industries, and the rewards of this adaptation to globalism are, of course, not evenly distributed in the United States or abroad. (I just read that the state of California has an economy that would make it the fifth largest in the world, now passing Japan’s; other U.S. states approximate third-world countries by comparison.) Proximity to a university thus now is switching from the increasingly quaint (even Norman Rockwell–esque) town-gown set of relationship issues to the vital roles that the campus can play in creating value to regional development efforts, the enhancement of real estate centers to attract businesses, and the “tech transfer” capacities of applied research programs. The lure for faculty inclined and able to participate in such an arena is that of a more entrepreneurial career, one that has weaker links to the university but also more opportunities for remunerated consultation, research collaboration, product development, and even company-creation possibilities. For most faculty, however, particularly those in the undergraduate-focused public campus, this emphasis constitutes, in reality, an add-on responsibility.

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As opposed to the possibility of an equity interest in a new biotech firm, the reward of investing time is likely to rest on one’s satisfaction with strengthening the local community through outreach programs and board service. The promise of “the scholarship of application” that was advanced by Ernest Boyer as a way to expand the vista of research expectations does not seem to have created, at least yet, a ground swell of change in this direction. Hence performance reviews continue in large part to treat such community involvement as a form of “service.” A branch campus can now become the focus of a regional dialogue about how to become a global leader in manufacturing and research in such areas as biotechnology and nanotechnology—even though the areas that have in fact become such leaders have vast advantages, such as the collocation of top research universities (e.g., Boston)—putting the real value of faculty work and student learning into sudden irrelevance. Decisions for schools to expand their mission and sphere of influence can lead to some modest results in community-enhancement and economic-stimulus programs; but they are likely to have a defined niche as opposed to serving as a transformational catalyst. What educators in four-year publics are calling for is more basic operating funds to improve core arts-and-sciences programs to better prepare college graduates for a changing economy—the idea is to lift all economic boats on a rising tide of critical thinking skills development—rather than the dedication of funds to single purpose initiatives that shift attention away from primary responsibilities. In summary, while learning assessment tends to drive the branch campus toward the curriculum, economic development drives it toward research and the ability of faculty to respond to industry patterns and social services needs in the region. The two impulses are not inherently incompatible, but it is worth stressing that, for both, faculty are the necessary component for success; the redefining of their roles and responsibilities without recasting their job descriptions (and hence performance review emphases) means merely adding to their condition of “multiphrenia.”

GENDER SHIFTS IN FACULTY DEMOGRAPHICS The realm of higher education as the site of the nation’s “culture wars” was once a dominant arena of public comment. Perhaps the sharpness of

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the debate has begun to die down in the last decade from the attacks upon the “liberal bias” of the faculty, even if the accusations of irresponsible faculty expression can still flare up with cries of liberal bias. Faculty, as a whole, do tend to be more liberal than the American mainstream, but the picture is not a consistent one by any means. For example, new-entry male faculty have become more conservative on average than their female new-entry colleagues; so it is in part because females have increased their relative numbers in the last decade that faculty retain this political tilt (Schuster and Finkelstein 2006, 145). Nevertheless, faculty with whom I have worked do feel the public scrutiny and are sensitive to accusations that suggest a lack of objectivity, especially in regard to the application of their discipline. I connect the topic of the campus as a site for the culture wars with demographic information because—while the public may still view the academy as a bastion of largely white males either teaching their “dead white male” legacies in great books courses or using their protected tenure status to criticize, as liberals or worse, American ideals and idealism—the reality of what the faculty is becoming is in fact different. As Schuster and Finkelstein have demonstrated, and to use my own hyperbolic metaphor, the faculty is undergoing a kind of sex-change operation. Women have recently entered the faculty ranks in much higher numbers than they did traditionally; the two authors extend their argument to the point of commenting on the fields of English and education as becoming virtual “women’s careers.” The feminization of the academy is by no means even across the disciplines, but it will likely have a significant impact, and one that is worth studying by academic affairs in addition to the more celebrated story of the dominant college student in liberal arts– type colleges becoming the female. (I have seen, in the current searches of my own university, a diminishing number of male candidates in the short-lists of some disciplines.) To observe this shift is not to raise the specter of misogyny in the sense that the academy would be underserved or under any kind of threat by this shift (other than the gender-neutral issue of wanting male and female role models in the classroom of course). To some degree, this switch from college teaching as an appropriate male career to an appropriate female career may be connected to the trend to offer term rather than probationary contracts as an administrative means to hold on to fiscal flexibility given the ever-returning cycle of budget cuts in the public sphere. Term

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contracts do not offer the same high status as a tenurable position, but they do offer greater time-management discretion, a fact that may be relevant to the fact that the new female professor is likely to be married and, hence, in possession of significant family responsibilities. Such a faculty will thus not likely be in a position to express strong liberal statements in public venues, though female faculty do remain, more than male faculty, committed to the project of character formation in their students. (Indeed, female faculty also tend to value teaching over research, inverting the male faculty preference: Schuster and Finkelstein 2006, 86–87.) As the theme of this chapter is the state of change in the faculty, the changing demographic of the new-entry faculty member (becoming a modal of a middle- or upper-middle-class liberal female accepting a contingent appointment1 [Schuster and Fikelstein 2006, 325]) is significant: feminization is doubtlessly already changing the nature of academic workplace dynamics. Departments can be composed of older white males and younger white women as well as nonwhite men. The implications of this evolution will be interesting to study. Perhaps the role of tenure (or at least its position as dominating one’s thirties) will be reevaluated in terms of its comparative value. The six-year clock can be unfriendly to the biological clock (the demands of family planning), and personnel policies must successfully adapt to the realities of the more common female instructor.

CHARACTER FORMATION Another traditional element of the college faculty life, as just alluded to, is the ability to help students with character formation—to develop a greater sense of awareness, or metacognition, about one’s attitudes and the social impact of these attitudes. Contemporary students are more spiritually awake than in generations past, however the need for in loco parentis guidance may well be shrinking in importance for the student, and not just because of a concern for a liberal bias that seeks to convert a more conservative student. Part of the students’ ability increasingly to treat the college experience as consumers of knowledge skills, as opposed to serving as quasi-initiands on a journey of intellectual and moral development, may be due to the increasing role of parents in their lives as compared to their peers of yesteryear. Recent survey data of freshmen, for example,

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suggest that students appear not to be unduly uncomfortable with their parents maintaining a strong role in their college career, and the nature of the relationship is pointing to a positive correlate for persistence to graduation. While one can consider this continuation of the parental role in developmental terms (the extending of the childhood, etc.), its impact on the faculty, particularly a teaching faculty such as is found at public branch campuses, is that the faculty’s traditional roles in moral formation would not only be less welcome, but simply less necessary. Traditionalage students continue to have moral guidance from their parental figures, and the need for new mentors would presumably not begin until the post-college career begins, typically in the early workplace stage. In this context, faculty who retain traditional interests in developing a student’s higher cognitive skills for values formation may become less satisfied with their careers than faculty who were able to serve as strong mentors to past students.

GOVERNANCE ISSUES AND FACULTY TIME The increasing need for administrations to manage campus affairs in a more complex environment has, as noted, functioned to shrink the traditional areas of faculty authority and autonomy. Higher education, if once capable of slowing down in the summer months and adhering roughly to the general pattern of the academic calendar, is now a twelve-month, around-the-clock enterprise. By contrast, faculty are most available for committee consultation essentially during a six-month availability period— September through November and February through April. Of course, many faculty leaders are available beyond these calendar periods, including in the summer, and welcome the opportunity to address with an administrator “something that has come up.” My experience with faculty senates in public campuses is that senators by and large treat their roles seriously, do not easily descend into pettiness, and welcome the large picture even as the process of governance can require careful examination of issues and their representation in written proposals. So, assuming good will by administrators (to be consultative) and assuming effective governance bodies, there is an issue that still exists which increasingly renders the two groups as passing ships in the night. Specifically, the personnel

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work of administration has grown immensely—taking up indeed most of this provost’s time—and much of this is not really available for review by governance representatives. But the personnel decisions do have implications that drive policies, as they establish precedents and impact morale. Personnel work can be a major driver and push to the side the importance of policy-driven deliberation. Faculty thus can feel less engaged with the direction setting of the university, even in the constrained arena of academic affairs, because of this situation. Administrators, therefore, need to be aware of how arrangements with individual faculty have morale repercussions, just as faculty can develop greater understanding of the strong pressures upon senior administrators to address problems on a personnel basis. Administrative initiatives can cost money to win converts, and thus are not easily launched. But individual faculty members can effect positive change when they are motivated to do so. So, in part due to the shrinking state-percentage of operating budgets but a relatively stable instructional salary budget, there may be a tendency to increase reliance on faculty leaders, as opposed to programs, to impact change. Faculty, and professional staff for that matter, present themselves often to administrators as having issues that need to be resolved (the desire to come up for full professor, the desire to begin a family, the wish to start a new research direction, conflicts with department colleagues, etc.). I don’t know if this is a topic that has been treated with any full discussion in the literature, but it is an observation of this administrator who has attempted to become more aware of how his time is organized for him on the schedule.

CONCLUSIONS While one could go on to list other major factors conditioning the roles of the faculty in undergraduate-focused public universities, it is time to close this discussion off and end with an attempt at meaningful conclusion. What this paper has tried to explore are the many competing factors for faculty time and attention, pressures that are also presenting themselves at a time of differing kinds of structural change in higher education and amid demographic shifts.2 “Branch campus faculty job creep” may be one way to label it, but it is more than heightened business that is being

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suggested. Faculty at four-year public universities may be contextualized by a tremendous need for the institution to overload the faculty member as an institutional “signifier.” Moreover, faculty find themselves in a technologically rich environment that leads to the equally post-modern danger of multiphrenia, or the breaking up of the professional self into multiple roles (“social population of the self ”) whose coherence posits a challenge and a form of stress. The gender status of new-entry faculty is reshaping the historical proportions of males and females in the classroom, and the impact of this could entail differing priorities toward some of the defining hallmarks of a successful career as defined in male terms. The faculty’s status in the university as strategic planners has shifted into many assorted, if still important, service roles where their expertise from their discipline (e.g., in a budget committee) may play a more important role than their status as a representative of the faculty. The complexity and centrality of the faculty, with its attendant fixed instructional salary budget, is influencing the work patterns in turn of senior administrators. Administrative work is increasingly defined by specialized personnel skills, a factor whose impact still requires further study. Faculty at branch campuses are products, not atypically, of essentially new university missions and do not always have the security of strong legislative loyalty and commitment, especially in relation to the flagships, nor the cushioning impact of the private school endowment; budget-cut cycles create a sensibility of shared anxiety. Branch campus faculty are asked to teach effectively inside and outside the major and to maintain research programs. There is pressure to provide more accountability in the classroom and to show more demonstrable concern for regional development problems. Students are more consumerist-oriented and require and rely on their parents for continued guidance and support; their decisions to enroll may be made from a mix of academic and nonacademic reasons. And, at the same time, the faculty remains the best asset a campus has for legitimizing itself as a competitor for student market share—in some important part due to the access students are promised to terminal-degree-holding instructors both inside and outside the classroom. The fundamental threat facing the four-year publics in this context, I argue, is the culmination of increased roles to the point where the primary public conceptualization of the professor will suffer meaningful erosion. As faculty, for example, become less central for primary deliberation

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about the future of an institution, yet become critical to fulfill service obligations in the administrative realm, the area of service becomes further incorporated into a faculty member’s primary sense of purpose. When this service becomes the dominant public image—perhaps due to the fragmentation of the teacher-scholar image, whether internalized in professional identity terms (the faculty self) or imposed from the outside as a central means to effect change by institutional decision-makers—the overloading of signification of “the faculty member” amid a period of massive environmental change can deteriorate the value of this primary asset. In short, it may be a backfiring strategy. This primary conceptualization, as I advance it, is organized around the metaphor of “the mantle of truth” worn by the objective scientist, humanist, creative artist, or other practitioner who is in possession of an advanced or terminal degree. There is a unique and critical “aura” that the faculty member requires in order for his university to maintain credibility about its primary function of providing students access to important ways of organizing and thus understanding the world. The faculty member’s knowledge domain is specialized, as it is achieved through an established epistemology, an epistemology defined as such by an academic history of similarly trained scholars pursuing related problems and questions, which are agreed to be important, through methods of analysis open to peer review and critique. Further components in the process by which faculty earn the distinction of having a special relationship with truth are the availability and use of dedicated facilities, such as the equipped laboratory, specialized archives, and the university library. To fund these research activities, faculty also have special access to programs of major grant agencies and to specialized institutional support, such as sabbaticals and summer stipends. Scholarly products, regardless of how widely or narrowly used after their publication, are preserved in research libraries and create a permanent scholarly record. While the broader public may not be closely familiar with the exact process and methods of knowledge construction, it is familiar enough with it to accept the scholar’s status as an expert in his or her field of study. The historian, for example, is viewed as having attained a special access to historical events, while the natural scientist possesses an objective understanding of the physical world. The scholar’s status empowers the faculty member to hold student attention in the college classroom;

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his or her training in a graduate program where scholarly methods are taught establishes the basis for external credentialing of this instructional role. Faculty members earn a kind of mystique from their graduate “war days” and honed dedication to advancing academic truth. They are seen in their offices surrounded by books and other scholarly materials and in their labs in the midst of complex scientific equipment. They know what books to order and how to put together a syllabus that moves the student toward greater mastery and confidence, with graded work that establishes not only a sense of accomplishment but also a way to test one’s intellectual interests and mettle, a valuable form of self-knowledge that points to future directions. Most importantly, students see faculty demonstrate a passion about their material, a sense of deep personal value that suggests that such respect for learning is a possibility for them, too. It is, here, in these instances that students can undergo their “conversion experience,” the sudden flash of insight and commitment that causes a student to find his or her major, a sacred way forward through the culturally dense forest of symbols. This description is idealistic, and intentionally so, but it is an important ideal for strategic purposes. The dedicated professor seen primarily in the integrated arena of teaching and research may be the most important image a university can project. Its status thus helps to maintain the value of face-to-face education as a vital, if costly, means to secure a superior education. The academically engaged faculty member garners public support. A downward shift of respect for the faculty member consequently leads to a downward shift in respect for a university education, a problem that would especially impact branch campuses. Many such campuses are finding their means to success in serving as places a student can directly encounter faculty: the direct access of students to faculty is, however, only as valuable as the relationship is perceived to be, a value that depends upon the status of the faculty member in the student’s mind. So, as we push our faculty into greater roles of campus service even for the most legitimate strategic purposes, I hope that we retain sight of this value of public confidence in the university teacher-scholar. As a senior administrator of now two undergraduate-focused public campuses, I believe our access to this distinction is fundamental to our success in establishing our competitive excellence. The presence and demonstration of this core faculty work inside and outside of our classrooms are what

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guarantees our relevance in the face of competition from cheaper distance education programs, massive flagship campuses, and private schools in possession of significant endowments. While we ask our faculty to take on broadened, if not identity-splintering, roles, therefore, we must be very careful to preserve their scholarly honor and academic standing, and continue to recognize their limited resource of time and energy, so that they are available for their most important function in state-system branch campuses: the embodiment of academic purpose.

NOTES 1. Schuster and Finkelstein: “Among other [nonresearch and nonelite liberal arts] four-year institutions and in the two-year sector (together constituting the vast majority of American higher education) . . . contingent full-time and parttime staffing are now the chief modes of institutional operation” (2006, 324). Also: “The profusion of women into most precincts of postsecondary teaching . . . is substantially accounted for by these temporary . . . positions” (2006, 324). 2. Schuster and Finkelstein, in their thorough study of the “arguably unprecedented rate of change” in the academic profession note the emergence of IT to reshape faculty work. I did not have sufficient space to consider this factor from a four-year public perspective. The bottom line is that the faculty in such schools probably have fewer IT resources, due to budget constraints, and will be “settlers” rather than “pioneers” in this area of change.

WORKS CITED Astin, Alexander W. 1999. “How the Liberal Arts College Affects Students.” Daedalus 128 (1): 77–100. Boyer, Ernest L. 1997. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Gergen, Kenneth J. 2000. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York: Basic Books. (Originally published 1991.) Schuster, Jack H., and Martin J. Finkelstein. 2006. The American Faculty. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

6 Attracting and Retaining Students at a Campus of a Multicampus System: Engagement and Athletics Gary McGrath

YOUNG BRANCH CAMPUSES

It has been my good fortune to have earned an undergraduate degree in 1968 from the then-new Morris campus of the University of Minnesota (UMM). Like so many other first-generation college students in the 1960s, the opportunity to attend college was a wonderful, transforming experience. As UMM students we were proud of our new campus and being affiliated with the University of Minnesota. I later returned as the vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Minnesota, Morris, in the fall of 1986 until I left to become the senior student affairs officer at Arizona State University East in the fall of 1999, where I am presently employed. ASU East (now Arizona State University Polytechnic campus or ASU Poly) was beginning its fourth academic year in the fall of 1999. I also have the perspective of having been an administrator at two flagship campuses, Indiana University and the University of Minnesota, and have some understanding of how branch campuses are perceived by the main campus. While I understand the attraction of working on a flagship campus, I have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to be engaged in a wide variety of activities and the sense of involvement a smaller campus provides. When I accepted the offer to return to the University of Minnesota, Morris, and the decision was announced, a long-time academic administrator at the Twin Cities campus of University of Minnesota pulled me 97

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aside and asked me why I would waste my talent by going to Morris. I was taken aback by the comment, as the opportunity to be the senior student affairs officer at my alma mater was, for me, a dream come true, and I felt fortunate to have been offered the position. The comment illustrates the belief of many who may have spent their entire career at a flagship campus and have difficulty imagining a satisfying career at any other place. During the interview process at Morris, there were some questions about my willingness to leave the large campus and my family’s willingness to move from a metropolitan area to a small town. One senior Morris administrator reminded me that vice chancellors at Morris had little in the way of support staff compared to the staffing levels I may have experienced in Minneapolis. Actually, in my student affairs administrative role at one of the colleges on the Minneapolis campus, the staffing levels were quite modest as we often relied on a few full-time professionals supplemented with many part-time graduate students. Both perspectives of what life was like on the flagship campus and the nonflagship campuses were inaccurate. Using primarily the University of Minnesota, Morris, and Arizona State University Polytechnic campus as examples, this chapter will highlight some of the advantages and disadvantages, opportunities, and challenges in attracting and retaining students at a campus of a multicampus university that is not the flagship or main or what some colleagues refer to as the “mother ship” campus. As Lee and Bowen commented, multicampus universities were the “the creation of new campuses or the absorption old ones” (1971, 68). For example, Duluth State Teachers College became a campus of the University of Minnesota in 1947. The University of Minnesota, Morris, was established in 1960 and became a bachelor degree– granting liberal arts college over the next four years. The University of Minnesota, Crookston, and University of Minnesota, Waseca, were established as two-year technical colleges in 1966 and 1971, respectively. The University of Minnesota, Waseca, was closed in 1992. The University of Minnesota, Crookston, became a polytechnic baccalaureate institution in the early 1990s. Morris, Crookston, and Waseca had all been residential agricultural high schools prior to becoming college campuses. Recently, the University of Minnesota announced they were going to establish a campus at Rochester. At Arizona State University, after years of effort by local citizen groups, a bill was enacted in l984 to establish the west

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campus. The east campus, later to be called Polytechnic, was officially opened on the former Williams Air Force Base in 1996 and the Phoenix Downtown campus opened in 2006. What all of these campuses have in common is they were the result of local citizens lobbying university officials and legislators.

BRANCH AND FLAGSHIP CAMPUSES There is a predictable tension between the campuses that are not part of the usually larger and original campus of the university as they compete/ vie for recognition and resources. The flagship campus with the emphasis on research and as the home of graduate and professionals schools along with big-time intercollegiate athletics usually attracts a great deal of media attention and public recognition. This is not a new phenomenon: in l970 Lee and Bowen commented, “The relations of the flagship campus with other campuses are sometimes strained. It is not clear how much of the tension, if any, should be attributed to the transitional factors of size and extent of activity at the flagship campus, or how much to the less tangible factors of historical prestige and political strength” (1971, 109). Certainly there were concerns at the University of Minnesota and Arizona State University that establishing new campuses would be a financial drain on the university’s limited resources and hinder the development of the flagship campus. From the perspective of the new campuses there is the worry that the flagship campus is not fully supportive of their development. At the same time these new campuses, somewhat grudgingly, recognize their establishment, continuing existence, and ability to attract faculty, staff, and students is tied to being a part of the university. From the perspective of the faculty, staff, and students at these new campuses, referring to the original campus as the main campus and the other campuses as branch campuses is offensive. The implication is that main is synonymous with the primary or leading or foremost or preeminent of the campuses and the branch campuses are thought of as an extension or offshoot of the main campus. That kind of labeling has all kinds of possible negative implications for the other campuses in their ability to attract students, faculty, and staff. As Lee and Bowen point out, “The glamour of the name ‘university’ and the research orientation that it

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implies are not the only spurs to ambition. Differences in salary scales, sabbatical privileges, office space, and miscellaneous support such as secretarial help also lead the ‘second class citizens’ at large colleges to resent the segmental pattern of higher education” (1971, 41). The concern is if you are not associated with the flagship campus, you will not be perceived as of the same quality or prestige as those at the original campus. To avoid the stigma of being called a branch campus, the University of Minnesota, for example, refers to the out state campuses at Duluth, Morris, Crookston, and Rochester as coordinate campuses. At Arizona State University the large and original campus in Tempe is referred to as “ASU the Tempe campus” and the other campuses are referred to as the West, Downtown Phoenix, and Polytechnic. There is an admitted awkwardness to this lack of consistency in naming of the campuses that is currently being addressed. In an earlier chapter of this book Sam Schuman recalled when David Johnson was the chancellor at the University of Minnesota, Morris, his welcome address to the new students and their parents included the suggestion that when the UMM parents returned home and encountered neighbors who proudly announced that their son or daughter was attending the main campus of the University of Minnesota, the parents of the UMM student should reply they were not aware the University of Minnesota had a campus in the state of Maine, but their son or daughter was attending the University of Minnesota, Morris, an outstanding public liberal arts college. I have shamelessly adapted that story in my annual fall welcome to new Arizona State University Polytechnic students and their parents every year.

IDENTITY AND LOCATION Recruiting students to a campus is easier when the institution has a clear sense of its identity and offers a desirable array of academic programs and attractive campus facilities. Of course, being geographically located in a growing population area also helps. With many campuses not located in or near major metropolitan areas and having limited resources, it is important clearly to identify the students they can best serve. The University of Minnesota, Morris, located in the rural western part of the

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state, 160 miles west of Minneapolis, is a good example of a campus that defined its mission as a small, public, residential, liberal arts college that would serve bright, talented, primarily traditional-age students, usually of modest means, throughout the state. With such a mission, they were not competing with the flagship campus or the other university campuses or the (then) state colleges. Morris, Minnesota, is located in a rural area of declining population: therefore, the university there has increasingly needed to establish a presence and recruit students in the larger Twin Cities metropolitan region of the state. Another successful model is Arizona State University at the Polytechnic campus. Offering bachelor’s, master’s, and two doctoral degrees, the campus provides some very distinctive academic programs not offered on the other three campuses of Arizona State University. For example, the curriculum at the Polytechnic campus includes professional flight training, air transportation management, professional golf management, exercise and wellness, nutrition, agribusiness, and a variety of engineering technology programs along with more common programs such as business and teacher education. The recent addition of social science, humanities, and general science courses has proven popular with Polytechnic students and students from the Tempe campus who wish to fulfill their general education requirements. Plans are underway to develop majors in these areas. Family and single student housing is available on campus although the majority of students are commuters and many are nontraditional students. While UMM and ASU Poly are very different institutions, they both have been successful by being clear in whom they are trying to serve. UMM is a small, 1,700-student, traditional-age, residential liberal arts college, and ASU Poly is a rapidly growing campus of 9,400 students, offering applied degree programs, with some residential housing but mostly commuter and nontraditional students. Both campuses realized that to be successful in attracting and retaining students they had to offer a broad array of academic programs. In the case of UMM, in addition to the traditional liberal arts majors they also offer elementary education and secondary certification, along with a business/management major. ASU Poly’s enrollment grew significantly when they added courses in the humanities and social sciences that met general education requirements for the ASU Poly and Tempe campuses.

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PROGRAMS OF STUDY Campuses interested in attracting recent high school graduates should note the proposed majors of high school students who take the SAT or ACT examinations. In addition to serving as one measure of academic preparedness for college, both the ACT and SAT collect information as to proposed college majors of high school students. If a college or university does not offer the major(s) the student is considering it will likely result in the student and their parents eliminating that institution from further consideration. For example, 19 percent of the college-bound seniors who took the SAT intended to major in health professions and related clinical services; 15 percent in business management, marketing, and related support services; 9 percent in the visual and performing arts; 8 percent in engineering; 6 percent in biological and biomedical sciences; 4 percent in communication, journalism, and related programs and psychology; and 3 percent architecture and related services, social sciences and undecided (“College Plans” 2008, table 2.6). On the ACT report of the plans of 1.3 million 2007 high school seniors who plan on four or more years of college, 18 percent indicated an interest in health sciences and allied health fields, 15 percent undecided, 13 percent no response, 9 percent business and management, 7 percent social sciences, 5 percent sciences (biological and physical), and 4 percent engineering and education (“Distribution” 2008). Note how important it is for branch campuses interested in attracting recent high school graduates to offer majors that relate to the health professions, or at least prepare students for graduate or professional school in those fields, as well as in business. Recognizing also that many students will likely change their majors in college or are undecided as to their academic and career interests, the importance of offering programs and services that help students address those issues is also a critical consideration of prospective students and their parents.

SIZE In addition to offering a curriculum attractive to students, the actual location, size, and place is important to prospective undergraduate students. Students interested in pursuing graduate school and who are not bound

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to a geographical area, are often willing to attend any campus that has an academically strong reputation in their particular chosen field and offers an attractive financial aid package. For traditional-age prospective students, who are not bound geographically, place is still important. For example, at one time, campuses marketed themselves as small and rural, because those were attractive characteristics to many prospective students and parents. There are some indications that this may no longer be the case. A few years ago I attended a session at a national conference for senior student affairs officers from campuses with fewer than 5,000 students. Most of those attending the session were from small private liberal arts colleges. Many of the representatives from those institutions thought the large state universities offering honors programs and other special academic opportunities that provided small classes and special college-themed housing accommodations were successful in attracting the students who small colleges had previously been successful in recruiting. The big state universities were offering many of the attractive aspects of a small school experience at a large university. Hendrix College, a private liberal arts college in central Arkansas, along with a number of other institutions, came to the conclusion that marketing themselves to prospective students as bucolic was not effective. With more students coming from the suburbs and urban areas high school seniors seem to “crave the kind of vitality you have in an urban space” according to the president of Hendrix College, J. Timothy Cloyd (Finder 2007). Hendrix is converting 130 acres of its property to create an “urban-style village” with stores, restaurants, offices, town houses, apartments, condominiums, and a charter school as a means to attract additional students along with working adults and retirees. “Similar projects are underway at about a dozen other institutions nationwide,” according to Finder.

FACILITIES The look of the campus is also an important factor in deciding where students attend. When ASU Poly first opened they were very creative in converting the former air force base facilities for student use. The officer’s club became a student union, barracks and base houses were used for student housing. However, the absence of modern academic

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facilities and attractive landscaping did not convey to prospective students and their parents this was a real college campus. A study by the Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers noted 73.6 percent of the students who responded to their survey identified the facilities related to their major as “extremely important” or “very important” followed by the library, 53.6 percent; sophisticated technology, 50.9 percent; classrooms, 49.8 percent; residence halls, 42.2 percent; and exercise facilities, 35.5 percent (June 2006, A26). Facilities deemed ”inadequate” or “poorly maintained” were also cited as reasons for rejecting a college or university (A26). For many prospective students and their parents the visit to the campus is a critical factor in choosing a college. The opportunity to speak with someone knowledgeable about the prospective student’s academic interests and the chance to tour the campus strongly influence the student’s and parent’s perception of the campus. In the early years of the ASU Polytechnic campus we talked about “envisioning” what the campus would look like in the near future rather than how the campus actually looked. Thanks to faculty, staff and students who were enthusiastic about being part of a new campus, we were able to attract new students who also bought into this concept. The University of Minnesota, Morris, during its early years in the 1960s also had little to offer in the way of facilities. Opened on the site of a residential agricultural high school that was being phased out, plans were soon made to add additional student housing, modern classroom facilities, along with a library and physical education center. The campus did look like a college campus with a central mall and the surrounding buildings had an attractive look (today, the campus is a National Historic District). The fact that most of the students attending UMM in those early years came from small, rural, often old high schools, likely made the lack of facilities at Morris less of a factor in where to attend college.

CAMPUS STUDENT LIFE AND LIVING CONDITIONS It’s important for the branch campuses of multicampus universities to offer an attractive campus environment to prospective traditional-age students who want an active social life in addition to pursuing a college degree. Parents who may or may not have attended college recognize the

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value of their son or daughter being involved in campus life. Arizona State University Tempe campus, with over 50,000 students and multiple social and recreational opportunities on or near the campus, is attractive to many students. Residence halls, student unions, and recreation centers are important facilities for students to connect with other students. It is for that reason the first new building on the ASU Polytechnic campus was a student union. The campus desperately needed a place for students to eat, relax, and interact with other students, faculty, and staff. The banquet/ ballroom became an important place for a wide range of campus events. At UMM, building a student center was also recognized as an important place to facilitate the kind of interaction one would expect of a small liberal arts college that prides itself on student/faculty interaction. The building of a community recreation center on the Morris campus that serves both the campus and surrounding community was also a critical facility to help attract and retain students in a part of the country with severe winter weather. Offering quality housing and dining facilities on campus is another important factor in attracting students, particularly if the campus wishes to attract out-of-state students. Parents want assurance their son or daughter will be living in a safe place with easy access to the food service. The ASU Poly campus contracted with a private entity to renovate the former base housing that consists of six hundred houses and eight former barracks converted into residence halls. The campus housing serves single and married students, both traditional and nontraditional in age. Most of what is written about student recruitment focuses on the recruitment of recent high school graduates, and yet for most public institutions a significant percentage of their new students are transfer students. For example, in the fall of 2007 at ASU Polytechnic campus, the majority of the new students were transfer students, primarily from area community colleges. At UMM, 20 percent of the new students are transfer students.

RECRUITING TRANSFER STUDENTS Stephen Handel, while doing research on how to help students transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions, found it “odd” that there was so little information on the Internet or in print for these students

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when nearly half of all undergraduates were enrolled in community colleges and 71 percent identified transferring to a four-year institution as their first or second academic priority (Handel 2007, B20, B22). For many campuses of multicampus universities there are, in addition to community college transfers, students transferring from other four-year colleges and universities and within the multicampus university. For states like Arizona with an extensive and respected community college system, only three state universities, and few private colleges, the community college is a popular choice for students and serves a large percentage of students in the state. For example, in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa (where ASU Poly is located), the ten Maricopa community colleges enroll over 250,000 students. Any four-year campus would be foolish not to recognize the importance of transfer students in their new student enrollment mix. Of course, one of the challenges of attracting transfer students is that the college where the student is initially enrolled is not eager to see students leave before completing their degree. Community colleges that pride themselves on preparing students to earn four-year degrees would also like their students to complete an associate degree before transferring. Transfer students are also labor intensive thanks to transcript evaluation. It is perfectly reasonable for students seeking to transfer to want to know if their courses will count toward degree requirements at the new institution they are considering. In Minnesota years ago, state legislators became frustrated hearing from constituents that when public community college students in their district attempted to transfer to a Minnesota public four-year institution, many of the credits were not accepted as meeting degree requirements. Soon there was a statewide agreement among all four-year public institutions clarifying for the community colleges which credits they offered would count toward a bachelor’s degree. At ASU Poly, when the campus first began offering courses in the fall of l996, students could be admitted to ASU Poly and take both ASU courses and courses at Chandler Gilbert Community College, also located on the former Williams Air Force base. With limited funds, this arrangement allowed the ASU campus to concentrate its funding on upper-division courses and CGCC could provide the lower-division general education courses. Students paid the lesser tuition rate for the community college credits and there was no question about the courses counting toward their

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degree. As ASU Poly has evolved and now can offer a full complement of lower-division general education courses the agreement is about to end. The ASU Poly faculty continues to work closely with the community college faculty at CGCC and other Arizona community colleges to keep their colleagues informed as to degree requirements and what community college courses fulfill various degree requirements. The ASU Poly academic administrators and faculty have also developed a bachelor of applied studies degree. The BAS degree program accepts nontraditional-age students with previous applied associate degrees and provides a broader rounding off of their technical skills in their last sixty credit hours to prepare them for management positions usually requiring a bachelor’s degree.

COLLABORATION WITHIN A SYSTEM Ironically, it is sometimes more difficult for students to change academic programs within the multicampus university than if they had transferred from a community college. It’s obviously in the best interests for colleges and schools within the university to offer lower-division courses that students can apply to other majors in the early stages of their education. Multicampus college academic officers need to communicate and collaborate with their colleagues at other university colleges to help facilitate students who want to change their majors, particularly during the first sixty credits of course work. Recently the three business colleges at ASU Tempe, West, and Polytechnic, each with a different focus, have reached an agreement to have a common core of general education courses that can be transferred to any of the three ASU business programs. Certain basic academic requirements, such as a calculus course, should be applicable to a wide assortment of majors. At Arizona State University, students who initially start at one college and change to another college even on another campus are credited as part of the college’s retention goals.

RECRUITING AND THE ADMISSIONS OFFICE Many of today’s students attend two or more colleges. Attending multiple colleges to earn a bachelor’s degree is referred to as “swirling.” “At ASU,

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about 56 percent of the students who transfer in each fall have already attended two or more institutions” (Ryman 2007, A1). Trying to earn a college degree by attending several colleges is admittedly not recommended, as students are likely to accumulate at least some courses that may not count toward their degree requirements and delay graduation. However, college officials are likely to see more and more students of this kind who will require a great deal of academic advising time in sorting out what courses fulfill various degree requirements. Many years ago Jencks and Reisman made the perceptive comment that “even in colleges where systematic recruitment and selection now exist, the character of the student body is still in good part determined by who wants the college, not by whom the college wants” (1968, 7). While recruiting students has become a very competitive and systematic process this statement continues to be accurate. Times have changed from when public universities and branch campuses did not think they had to compete for students. A long-time administrator at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus once commented that if a prospective student visited the Twin Cities campus, and managed to find a place to park and later enrolled, it was through no conscious effort on the part of anyone associated with the university. During the 1960s as the baby boom generation came of college age, college enrollments increased dramatically. With no shortage of applicants, there was little need to pay much attention to student recruitment. Lee and Bowen commented in their study of multicampus universities published in 1971 that with perhaps one exception, not one of the universities they studied had a senior-level manager solely responsible for admissions (1971, 325–26). They go on to comment “In direct contrast, therefore, to other campus administrators concerned with physical or academic planning, the budget, or other management areas, campus admissions officers, in common with other campus administrators of student affairs, rarely have a system counterpart who is both prestigious within the central staff and primarily interested in their particular problem” (Lee and Bowen 1971, 326). The role of the college or university admissions officer changed dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s. “After years of rampaging growth, colleges were gripped by declining enrollments, increased competition, inflating costs, diminishing government support, and shifting priorities among those increasingly regarded as higher education’s ‘consumers’”

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(McClay 2007, B12). With the number of college graduates entering the workforce nearly doubling to eight million between 1969 to 1976 from four million from 1962 to 1969, college graduates experienced a “higher rate of unemployment and underemployment than their predecessors” (Hecker 1978, 37). Prospective students and their parents began to ask tougher questions about the job prospects of graduates at the colleges they were considering. State legislatures became more concerned about the retention and graduation rates of public colleges and universities. The director of admissions became a much more important administrator as colleges and universities were now competing for students. With the visibility also came the pressure to meet enrollment goals related to the number of new students enrolled, their cultural diversity, and qualifications for admission. The primary focus was on the freshmen class. By the 1990s directors of admission at many campuses were no longer reporting to student affairs and were now reporting to the senior academic officer or president (Penn 1999, 25). With the pressure to “bring in an appropriate number and quality freshmen class” the directors of admissions often wanted more control over financial aid and the registration/orientation of new students. Prospective students and parents wanted to know what kind of financial aid package they would receive before committing to a college. Admission directors also realized that once students were admitted and had received their financial aid it did not make sense to wait until a few days prior to the start of the fall term to invite students to register for classes. By offering spring and summer registration programs for new students the campus had a better idea of who was planning to attend in the fall, and to also make adjustments in offering the appropriate number of introductory course sections. Administrators began to recognize the need for other offices, like financial aid and the registrar to cooperate with admissions in getting admitted students enrolled. With the additional importance placed on the admissions office at branch campuses, the title of the person in charge of attracting new students was often elevated to a vice president of enrollment management, reporting to the campus chief executive officer or associate vice president reporting to the vice president for student affairs or academic affairs. Just as one example, in a recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, there was an advertisement seeking applications and nominations for a vice president of enrollment management at the University of New

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Mexico (UNM). This new position “reports to the Provost/Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and develops, coordinates, and executes enrollment management strategies to attract, recruit, and retain students at UNM’s main and four branch campuses” (University of New Mexico 2007, C58). At UMM, the person who is now responsible for enrollment and retention is an associate vice chancellor reporting to the campus chancellor. At ASU Poly, the dean of student affairs, reporting to a universitywide vice president of undergraduate initiatives, works closely with the Poly campus academic deans to coordinate recruitment with the universitywide associate vice president for enrollment.

RETENTION AND STUDENT SUCCESS College officials realized, to the relief of those responsible for recruiting new students, that it made economic sense to make a conscious effort for institutions to study and systematically make a more coordinated effort in helping students succeed in college. At Arizona State University the cost of recruiting each new freshman was estimated at $500 per student. The loss of “non-persisting freshmen” in 2006 and 2007 cost ASU $1.8 million in lost recruiting costs and almost $21 million in lost tuition revenue (Capaldi 2007). In addition to the economic impact of students dropping out of college, retention and graduation rates became more public as colleges and universities participated in “best college” surveys featured in publications such as U.S. News and World Reports. While these surveys have been criticized by many higher education officials, rare is the campus that refuses to participate and even rarer is the campus that does not proclaim being recognized as one of the “best.” The national publicity these surveys generate has been a great help to a number of institutions that have limited public relations resources. Certainly that was the case for UMM, which received favorable mention in the Kiplinger Newsletter and Money Magazine in the l980s and that recognition generated additional mention in other publications over the next several years (Lehmberg and Pflaum 2001, 183). No longer would college officials at the opening fall meeting of new students suggest they “look to your left, look to your right. Someone you

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just looked at won’t be here at the end of the year.” Campuses now understood that if a student was qualified for admission, the institution should make every effort to help the student succeed.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIES Enrollment management has evolved from a focus on recruiting new students to include a campus-wide coordinated effort to retain and graduate students. “The common thread through all definitions of enrollment management is that it is a coordinated, institution wide effort” (Penn 1999, 16). As noted earlier, the University of Minnesota and Arizona State University, while both multicampus research universities with a flagship campus, have two very different approaches to enrollment management. The University of Minnesota’s approach to enrollment management can be roughly described as decentralized and the Arizona State University approach is more centrally coordinated. At the University of Minnesota each campus is responsible for funding their recruitment operation, including publications, travel costs, and staffing. Admissions representatives are primarily responsible for representing the campus that hired them and, when called upon, asked to respond to basic questions regarding all campuses and programs of the University of Minnesota. Consistent with the theme of “one university in many places” Arizona State University now centrally hires admissions representatives who are expected to represent all campuses and the 250-plus academic programs. The advantage of the UMM approach is that the recruiters are very familiar with the campus where they have been hired. Responsible for only one campus, they can be much more knowledgeable about the academic programs and campus life. However, with a small number of recruiters, they are limited in the number of high schools and student recruitment fairs they can attend. The advantage of the ASU approach is there are many more recruiters who can attend more events and cast a “wider net” for prospective students. There are some travel cost savings as there is no need to send a recruiter from every campus or college to events throughout the state and out of state. The ASU recruiters can provide information about applying for admission, key deadline dates, and basic information

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about the various academic programs. As part of their training, the ASU recruiters visit each of the four campuses at least once a year to learn more about the academic programs and services. The disadvantage is the recruiters can’t be expected to know a great deal about the four campuses and over 250 academic programs. Another potential advantage of the ASU approach is high schools and community colleges do not have to schedule as many different ASU representatives, as they sometimes find multiple visits by recruiters from the same university annoying and disruptive of their schedule. At the University of Minnesota, each campus is responsible for its own recruitment publications as long as they follow university guidelines. At ASU the publications are all done centrally. The advantage of the Minnesota approach is the publications convey the distinctive nature of the particular campus. The disadvantage is they are expensive and may not get as broad a distribution as publications that represent all campuses of the university. The advantage of the publications done centrally is there is a consistency in the message and look of the publications. The potential disadvantage is the flagship campus may dominate the content of the publications and the other campuses may not get the exposure they are seeking. The actual processing of applications at the University of Minnesota and Arizona State University is also done differently. Students applying to any of the University of Minnesota campuses send their applications directly to the campus where the decision to admit or deny is made at the campus level. At Arizona State University the application form is sent to the Tempe campus and the decision to admit is made centrally for all campuses. There are some positives and negatives to both approaches. Having students submit their applications to the campus in which they are interested minimizes confusion about where the student is applying and allows each campus to provide a personal response. However, if students are confused about where they are applying or after applying change their minds as to what campus they want to attend, there might be delays in routing the application to the appropriate campus. There is a cost to each campus having personnel to process applications. The advantage of the ASU approach is all applications are in one location and students who want to find out the status of their application or have changed their minds regarding the college they want to attend can call and make the

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change without delaying the admission decision. A disadvantage of the centralized approach is there might be delays when processing thousands of applications at certain peak times. The large volume also increases the chance of applications, transcripts, and test scores getting misplaced.

FINANCIAL AID For many students and their parents, financial aid is an important factor in deciding where to attend college. Campuses of multicampus universities can have an advantage in this area if the flagship campus is willing to view students at all campuses as being eligible for their prestigious scholarship awards. Often this comes down to the source of the scholarship funds. What was the donor’s intent? Allowing all students, regardless of the campus, to be eligible for all university scholarships and participation in related recognition and special events is one important way to convey to students and their parents they are part of the university. Arizona State University prints a guide to scholarships for all entering freshmen and makes it clear which merit-based scholarships are available at all locations. No separate application is required. There are, of course, campus, school, and departmental scholarships also available for students in those respective academic programs, colleges, or campuses. For some donors it is important that they recognize a particular campus and it would be unwise to discourage this kind of generosity. One established scholarship program and one evolving scholarship program illustrate how a multicampus university can coordinate their efforts across campuses to recruit and retain underrepresented students. The ASU Maroon and Gold Scholarship program is a competitive program for students who have historically been underrepresented in higher education. The criteria used for selection are financial assistance eligibility, academic achievement, involvement in activities, and a personal statement. The Maroon Scholarship is awarded to entering students and the Gold Scholarship is awarded to Maroon Scholars who are eligible for renewal based on their academic achievement and participation in a series of mentoring, workshop, and networking events during their first year. While initially a Tempe campus program, ASU Poly students became eligible to participate in the fall of 2005. Over 200 students are selected each year

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and the retention and graduation rate of the recipients is higher than the student population as a whole. One of the many positive attributes of this program is that students who change their majors and move among the campuses can continue receiving the scholarship as long as they continue to attend and participate in the support program activities. Because Arizona State University is located in an area of the state where the population is increasing rapidly, ASU president Michael Crow made a commitment that ASU would be accessible. The ASU Advantage program, established in 2004, covers tuition, fees, room, board, and books for eight full-time, consecutive semesters to students whose family income is $25,000 or less. This program also will adopt many of the successful approaches used over the years by the Maroon and Gold recipients to provide the necessary support system for these recipients to succeed academically. The Advantage scholarship program is also available to students at all campuses and transportable to other campuses should the student transfer to another ASU campus. Financial aid is, of course, critical in attracting and retaining underrepresented students, as are appropriate support programs. Multicampus universities have some advantages by virtue of their visibility in the state where they are located and the human and financial resources they can harness in this effort. Campuses that expect to be successful in efforts to attract and retain underrepresented students need to make an institutional commitment that is pervasive and persistent. They must recognize that success in attracting and graduating underrepresented students requires a persistent and coordinated effort over a period of many years with likely setbacks along the way.

RETENTION, ENGAGEMENT, AND STUDENT SUCCESS There has been a great deal written about how colleges and universities can be more effective in retaining and graduating students. William E. Cross, Alexander Astin, Vincent Tinto, Ernest J. Pascarella, Patrick J. Terenzini, and George Kuh have all made important contributions as to the impact of college on student learning. The annual National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), directed by George Kuh, surveys 260,000 students at over 500 four-year colleges and universities and seeks to mea-

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sure “engagement,” the degree of student involvement in both classroom and out-of-classroom activities (Wasley 2006, A39). One of the most significant findings from the NSSE survey is that “Students who participate in collaborative learning and educational activities outside the classroom and who interact more with faculty members get better grades, are more satisfied with their education, and are more likely to remain in college” (Wasley 2006, A39). What is particularly encouraging is “the gains from those practices are even greater for students from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds, or who come to college less prepared than their peers” (Wasley 2006, A39). Colleges and universities face many challenges in helping students succeed. “Socioeconomic background, financial means, college readiness and support from home substantially influence whether a person will earn a credential or college degree” (Kuh 2007, B12). Far too many students put themselves at a disadvantage by trying to go to school full time and work thirty or forty hours per week. Many students do not seem academically well prepared for college. While these students are represented across all of higher education, for campuses of multicampus universities these kinds of students are numerous and provide an opportunity to meet the twin goals of providing both an accessible and high-quality college education. Attendance at registration and orientation programs along with living on campus provides opportunities to help students become aware of the various college resources. However, they can’t be totally relied on, particularly for first-generation students who “don’t know what to expect from college life” (Kuh 2007, B12). Here’s where academic advisers are particularly helpful in ensuring that students are placed in the appropriate courses, given their ability and preparation. Unfortunately, on many campuses, academic advisers have far more students assigned to them than they can possibly be expected to assist. Still, academic advisers are a valuable resource for students and can help new students during that critical first semester adjustment. First-semester freshmen seminars provide students a structured and systematic opportunity to learn more about campus resources rather than trying to learn about all the various offices and services on campus over a few hours of the orientation or fall welcome program, when the new students have so many other things on their mind. For those students living on campus, resident advisers can check on their residents to see if they are going to class or experiencing problems.

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Faculty are, of course, the most critical resource in helping students to succeed academically. It is faculty who see students on a regular basis in their classes. This regular contact allows faculty to get to know their students and for students to become comfortable discussing academic and nonacademic issues and concerns. Lee Noel and Randi Levitz cite caring faculty and staff as the number one reason why students remain in college (Penn 1999, 52). “Along with subject matter, they (faculty) teach institutional values and academic norms; they inform students about campus events and such nontrivial matters as course registration deadlines and when and how to apply for financial aid” (Kuh 2007, B13). With faculty cooperation an early warning system can help alert academic advisers, and appropriate student affairs staff, to intervene in a timely manner before problems become more difficult to resolve. Kuh also stresses the value of getting students involved on campus. “When students are responsible for tasks that require daily decisions over an extended period, they become invested in the activity that deepens their commitment to the college and their studies” (Kuh 2007, B13). According to the NSSE survey, students who participate in athletic teams, choirs, bands, fraternities, and sororities tend to graduate at a higher rate. This regular interaction with peers who have similar interests and are working together to achieve common goals helps students persist in their studies. Two examples of how campuses might engage their students are intercollegiate athletics and student employment on campus.

ATHLETICS AT THE BRANCH CAMPUS Intercollegiate athletics can be a positive factor in recruiting and retaining students at campuses of multicampus universities. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, during the 2006– 2007 academic year, 54 percent, 7.3 million high school students, were members of an athletic team (Sander 2008). While the flagship campus will likely participate in intercollegiate athletics at the Division I level, offering the most athletic scholarships, the other campuses can offer students the opportunity to participate in athletics with limited scholarships, Division II, or no athletic scholarships, Division III. The chances of a high school athlete receiving an athletic scholarship are not good. Of the

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399,000 athletes at the NCAA Division I, II, and III levels, only 123,000 received scholarships (Sander 2008). If the campus attracts recent high school graduates, offering nonscholarship intercollegiate athletic teams or club sports teams that are similar to the high school sports popular in the area can help attract students. Many high school athletes welcome the opportunity to continue playing a sport or sports they enjoyed in high school but do not have the talent, physical characteristics, or the interest in making the commitment to play at the Division I level. Some student athletes may want to continue to play more than one sport in college and find they are more welcome to do that at the Division III level. Other athletes may find it more appealing to be able to be a college athlete and involved in other campus activities they enjoyed in high school such as band, choir, theater, or student government. Good high school athletes often have been captains of their respective high school teams and held other leadership positions. These involved high school athletes are the very kind of student leaders any college would welcome to their campus. Attracting student athletes of this type also can be a positive influence on other students from that high school to attend your campus. Of course, it is important to hire coaches who understand and are committed to a philosophy of recruiting athletes without being able to offer athletic scholarships. Many high school athletes and their parents assume all college athletes receive athletic scholarships. After the parents have invested so much time and money supporting their son or daughter to attend summer athletic camps and to play on club teams, in addition to playing on their high school teams, there is a sense that all this time and effort should result in being offered an athletic scholarship. Division III coaches can explain to the high school student and parents that good students from families of modest economic means can receive a financial aid package comparable to an athletic scholarship. Coaches at the Division III institutions will sometimes have to wait for recruits until they and their parents realize that an athletic scholarship is not going to be offered from other schools. Division III coaches often are frustrated to lose a prized prospect because a Division II school offered the student a $300 athletic scholarship even though the nonathletic financial aid package was very comparable. For the student and the parents, the prestige of being offered an athletic scholarship, no matter how small, sometimes makes the difference. For Division III coaches to be successful, they have to convince

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prospective student athletes and their parents of the value of participating in college athletics while also providing a high-quality educational experience that will lead to a degree. The coaches need to understand they are expected to recruit and help retain students who can be academically successful at their institutions. For a small campus that attracts 500 freshmen each year and offers a range of men’s and women’s athletic teams, it is not unreasonable to expect 20 percent of the new students to be athletes. In addition, at least another 5 percent of the new students can be students interested in playing in the pep band or serving as cheerleaders, team managers, trainers, scorekeepers, statisticians, ticket takers, and assisting with sports information. Working in cooperation with the admissions office, coaches should understand that they are expected to contribute to the freshmen class an agreed-upon number of student athletes who meet the admission requirements of the college. Once an athlete enrolls it is also the responsibility of the coaches to support their players in being successful students. This should mean following the academic progress of their students toward earning a degree, and not just keeping them eligible to play. Successful coaches understand the importance of working with the faculty and academic support services to help their students be academically successful. Many coaches at branch campuses have some teaching responsibilities and they should see themselves as educators working in cooperation with their faculty colleagues. While it is useful for an individual campus to articulate what it wants to accomplish by offering an intercollegiate athletic program, it will not be successful if the campus cannot find other colleges within reasonable travel distance who also are committed to this philosophy. Finding an athletic conference compatible with the institution’s goals is critical. Most branch campuses cannot afford regularly to fly their athletic teams to contests, and traveling long distances by bus or vans becomes a matter of missing too many classes and also poses a safety issue. Finding other institutions who agree to abide by NCAA and sometimes even stricter conference rules will help all members of the conference to have a reasonable chance of being competitive. It is not fair to the athletes or coaches to put them in a position where they do not have a reasonable chance to win. Colleges that are not competitive usually experience high turnover of coaches and athletes. A coach who leaves after one or two years makes it difficult to retain athletes, and there is little continuity in recruiting. In

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some sports like football, colleges that are not competitive often see players quit after a year or two and they then find themselves having to play eighteen-year-old, physically immature freshmen against teams with the majority of starters who are twenty or twenty-one years of age and are much more physically mature. Disheartening lopsided losses and the potential for serious injuries create a very unhealthy situation for the student athletes. They deserve a better experience. Healthy athletic conferences do not have one or two conference members consistently win conference championships nor have colleges who perennially finish in last place. A reasonable objective for weaker members of the athletic conference might be that, over the course of an athlete’s four-year career, in at least one of those years they experience at least one season where they win as many games as they lose. Of course, the ideal would be that the athlete experiences winning a conference championship sometime over the course of his or her athletic career. If you can’t win a conference championship, at least beat your conference rival once before graduating. The rivalries that develop between conference opponents at this level can evoke just as strong of an interest among the athletes, campus community, and alumni as what happens at the Division I level. But for the rivalry to have any meaning, each college must occasionally win the big game. The wonderful thing about sports is “that there is always the potential for great drama, no matter what stage it is played on” (Ballard 2006). An athletic program also requires adequate facilities. Another attractive feature of offering a nonscholarship intercollegiate athletic program is that athletic teams can share facilities with other students. Any investment in weight rooms, ball fields, basketball courts, indoor track facilities, and so forth, can all be built with the commitment that the facilities are accessible to all students. At UMM the intercollegiate athletic program had a very successful history during its first thirty years of existence but found itself in a conference with the larger state universities who wanted to offer the full allotment of scholarships in at least some sports as NCAA Division II members. Philosophically opposed to athletic scholarships and not having a large enough community to make the financial commitment required of a Division II institution, the athletic program fell into disarray. It was difficult to hire coaches and recruit athletes willing to play when they

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were at such a distinct disadvantage. Eventually UMM found a group of small private colleges in the Midwest who shared a similar philosophy of athletics. The athletes and coaches now have an excellent opportunity to win against teams of comparable abilities in Division III. Offering student athletes a reasonable chance to be competitive is an important factor in creating a healthy environment for the athletic program. At ASU Poly, there are no intercollegiate athletic teams. However, through the recreation program, a number of club sports have been established, such as lacrosse and soccer, in addition to campus intramural competition. Recently the first all-university flag football championship open to teams from all campuses was held. The intramural competition across all campuses of ASU was a way for students to feel pride in their campus while being a part of one university.

CAMPUS EMPLOYMENT Another way to get students involved at the branch campus is through student employment. With so many students having worked while attending high school, they often make the erroneous assumption when they see the few hours they are actually attending their college classes that they will have a great deal of free time to work. Working off-campus can be very seductive. Employers offer good pay and often benefits. Students who work off-campus while going to school full-time often find it difficult to devote the time and energy needed to be good students and to participate in group projects or other out-of-class projects. On the other hand, working on campus is convenient for students and they get to know other students, faculty, and staff. The campus employer is more likely than the off-campus employer to recognize that students must make their studies a priority. Student employees often develop a sense of pride in contributing to the day-to-day operation of their campus. As Astin recommended years ago, “policymakers and administrators can reduce student dropout rates by providing greater opportunities for part-time employment, especially on campus” (1975, 80). To encourage student employment at the ASU Poly campus, students are offered a series of professional development seminars, such as time management, ethics in the work place, basic emergency procedures, and identifying skills learned from working on campus. Students who par-

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ticipate in the seminars are recognized in the spring at the annual student leadership banquet. A student employee of the year is also named. At UMM, there is a long tradition of using bright, talented junior and senior students in a variety of academic roles that are usually only available to graduate students. UMM students serve as lab assistants, lead class discussion groups, and help faculty, for pay, in a variety of ways. The student employees gain valuable experience, the students to whom they provide assistance benefit by having an additional resource they can tap with questions, and faculty have more time to concentrate on teaching.

WORKING COLLABORATIVELY The nonflagship campuses of the multi-university offer many opportunities for student affairs officers on branch campuses to work with faculty and academic support services there. The senior student affairs administrator at a smaller campus can meet with the college deans, associate deans, academic program chairs, and academic advisers to collaborate on a wide range of programs to attract students and improve retention. I have consistently found the academic administrators and faculty very interested in working together to design, for example, new student registration and fall welcome programs. College associate deans, academic advisers, and representatives from student affairs at the Poly campus of ASU have formed a retention committee, chaired by the dean of student affairs, to identify ways to improve student retention. Faculty regularly contact the student affairs office and student counseling at the Poly campus to discuss how to address a wide range of student issues effectively. The smaller campus of a multicampus university provides the opportunity to respond quickly to individual student problems and address broader campus and system-wide issues.

ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDENT AFFAIRS DIVISION WITHIN AND ACROSS CAMPUSES It is difficult to generalize about how student affairs is organized at multicampus universities. During my time at the University of Minnesota,

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Morris, the vice chancellor for student affairs reported to the campus chancellor and was responsible for enrollment management, along with various student affairs services and intercollegiate athletics. The vice president for student affairs at the Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses reported to the president of the University of Minnesota and was responsible for enrollment management and student affairs on the Twin Cities campus. Since I left UMM the campus has separated the enrollment management function from the vice chancellor for student affairs. There is now an associate vice chancellor for enrollment and retention. The Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses now have an assistant provost for student affairs reporting to the university senior academic officer and vice provost for undergraduate education. At Arizona State University the administrative structure has also changed. Previously the ASU Poly dean of student affairs reported directly to a campus chief executive officer. Now he reports to the vice president for undergraduate initiatives, who is both the senior student affairs officer and responsible for enrollment management for the university. There is the expectation that each of the campus deans of student affairs will work closely with the vice president in regard to student affairs and enrollment management issues university-wide. The deans of student affairs are also expected to work with their college academic deans on each campus to assist them in their student recruitment and retention efforts. How well campuses can share resources is somewhat limited by their geographical distance from the flagship campus. The campuses at the University of Minnesota were all a considerable distance away from the Twin Cities campus, making it difficult to share the specialized expertise available on the flagship campus. The flagship campus at Arizona State University at Tempe is less than an hour away from each of the other three campuses. The geographical proximity allows the possibility to share programs and services. As previously mentioned, all ASU student recruiters, while assigned to different campuses, are expected to be knowledgeable about all 250-plus academic programs offered at ASU. The processing of student applications for all twenty-three colleges located at the four campuses is done at one location. Registration, financial aid, and orientation have staff who are physically located at each of the campuses but are centrally coordinated in Tempe. University police provide each campus with a commander and officers who report to the ASU police chief. ASU

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has one food service provider with four campus managers. With all four campuses providing residential housing, there are advantages to cooperating in advertising the availability of housing and making it easier for students who want to change their residence to another campus. Each campus has its own student health service operation with the understanding that the more comprehensive health services are available to all students at Tempe. Working with the Tempe campus disabilities office, there is at least one staff person at each campus responsible for providing the appropriate services and accommodations. Particularly for smaller campuses with limited staff, access to specialists who are knowledgeable about a wide range of learning, psychological, and physical disabilities is an asset to the students and for the faculty and staff who are trying to be of assistance. There are definite advantages for campuses of multicampus universities and their international students to work with one central office that is knowledgeable about services needed and rules and regulations for these students. The close physical proximity of the ASU campuses allows career offices on each campus to collaborate on career fairs. Student activities programming can be enhanced by campus union boards and other student groups cooperating and booking speakers and performers at the various campuses. Speakers and performers who would be not affordable for a small campus can now perform at multiple locations over a short period of time. The performer receives more in compensation and the smaller campuses have the opportunity to offer events they would normally not be able to afford. For the last couple of years there has been an academic quiz bowl with student teams from each of the ASU colleges across the four campuses. The previously mentioned, all-university flag football championship is another example of conscious efforts to help students from all campuses feel they are part of “one university in many places.” There are other advantages for campuses of a multicampus university that are not related to geographical proximity. Policies and procedures related to student organizations and student conduct are already in place and can save staff and students time and frustration in addressing a variety of issues. The flagship campus, with its legal department and student conduct specialists, can offer their expertise in dealing with student behavior issues. Student affairs at campuses of multicampus universities can be a model for working collaboratively with faculty to create a supportive learning

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environment for students. At ASU Poly the faculty, recognizing they are a smaller campus and less well known to the community, have been wonderful colleagues through their participation in prospective student events and orientation/registration sessions. The willingness of faculty to speak to prospective students and their parents has been a great help in recruitment. Many times parents have commented after orientation/registration sessions that they were initially concerned about sending their son or daughter to this relatively new campus. After meeting the faculty and staff they said that they were now comfortable with their son’s or daughter’s decision.

CONCLUSION There is a predictable tension between campuses of a multicampus university as they perceive each other as competitors for limited resources and recognition. The nonflagship campuses need to acknowledge that their very existence is heavily dependent on the support of the flagship campus. In turn, the flagship campus needs to recognize that the campuses can help the university reach its objective of serving more students by providing an accessible, high-quality education at multiple locations. For campuses to flourish in attracting and retaining students they need the support of the flagship campus in developing a curriculum that is attractive to prospective students to meet enrollment goals and cooperate in recruiting appropriate students to each campus. To help in recruitment and retention efforts, the flagship campus should make available as many of their scholarships as possible to students from all campuses. The campuses also need the support of the flagship campus in providing adequate staff and facilities if they are to be successful in recruiting and retaining students. The goal of the university should be to provide comparable services and facilities at all campuses. Those services do not need to be as extensive as offered at the flagship campus, but should meet the basic needs of students at each location. Enrollment management has evolved in response to colleges and universities needing to be more effective in recruiting and retaining students. There is a body of research, most recently led by George Kuh, which identifies the most promising practices to improve students’ success.

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Campuses of multicampus universities, with their commitment to being accessible and providing a high-quality undergraduate education, can serve as a model for these important efforts.

WORKS CITED Astin, Alexander W. 1975. Preventing Students From Dropping Out. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ballard, Chris. 2006. “The Game of the Year.” Sports Illustrated, December 25, 106–12, 114, 117. Capaldi, Elizabeth. Presentation. 2007. “The Retention and Graduation Challenge.” December 12. Arizona State University, Tempe. “College Plans: Intended Major, Degree-Level Goal.” 2008. 2007 College-Bound Seniors Total Group Profile Report. Table 2.6. www.collegeboard.com. “Distribution of Planned Educational Majors for All Students and by College Plans.” 2008. Act News 2007 ACT National Profile Report. Table 4.1. www .act.org/news/data/07/pdf/four.pdf. Finder, Alan. 2007. “Rural Colleges Seek New Edge and Urbanize.” New York Times, February 7. www.nytimes.com/ (accessed July 5, 2007). Handel, Stephen J. 2007. “Transfer Students Apply to College, too. How Come We Don’t Help Them?” Chronicle of Higher Education, October 26, B20–22. Hecker, D. E. 1978. “The Jam at the Bottom of the Funnel: The Outlook for College Graduates.” Occupational Outlook Quarterly 22 (1). Jencks, Christopher, and David Reisman. 1968. The Academic Revolution. New York: Doubleday. June, Audrey Williams. 2006. “Facilities Play a Key Role in Students’ Enrollment Decisions, Study Finds.” Chronicle of Higher Education, June 9, A26–27. Kuh, George D. 2007. “How to Help Students Achieve.” Chronicle of Higher Education, June 15, B12–13. Lee, Eugene C., and Frank M. Bowen. 1971. The Multicampus University. New York: McGraw-Hill. Lehmberg, Stanford, and Ann M. Pflaum. 2001. The University of Minnesota 1945–2000. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. McClay, Wilfred M. 2007. “George Keller: Intellectual Whirlwind.” Chronicle of Higher Education, November 23, B12–13. Penn, Garlene. 1999. Enrollment Management for the 21st Century: Institutional Goals, Accountability, and Fiscal Responsibility. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report 26 (7). Washington, DC: George Washington University.

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Ryman, Anne. 2007. “Students Pass through Multiple Schools on Road to Graduation.” Arizona Republic, November 16, A1, A18. Sander, Libby. 2008. “For Coaches, a Race with No Finish Line.” Chronicle of Higher Education, May 9, A1, A18–19, A21. University of New Mexico. 2007. Advertisement. Chronicle of Higher Education, November 16, C58. Wasley, Paula. 2006. “Underrepresented Students Benefit Most from ‘Engagement.’” Chronicle of Higher Education, November 17, A39–40.

7 Branch Campus Growth through Student and Faculty Engagement in a Community College Setting Sharon G. Hornsby

As branch campus administrators, we are often strongly encouraged to “grow our campuses.” However, this goal can be a real challenge with a limited budget, less staff than a main campus, lack of faculty and staff support for change, and the day-to-day challenges for administrations of branch campuses. This chapter will provide examples of how a small branch campus and a medium-sized branch campus of a public community college system have increased their enrollment and expanded their programs through student and faculty engagement. I will provide strategies along with tools and techniques that have resulted in campus growth for these two branch campuses. I sincerely hope that the readers may be able to use these strategies, tools, and techniques to assist in the growth of other branch campuses. The two branch campuses described throughout this chapter are the Louisiana Technical College–Florida Parishes Branch Campus and Louisiana Technical College–Hammond Area Branch Campus. These two branch campuses are part of Louisiana Technical College Region 9. The LTC–Sullivan Main Campus, along with the LTC–Florida Parishes Campus, Hammond Area Campus, and Ascension Campus, make up Region 9. In addition, LTC Region 9 supports an extension campus in partnership with a local correctional facility and an instructional service center in partnership with local union members. As background information before discussing “Campus Growth through Student and Faculty Engagement,” 127

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I have provided the LTC Region 9 mission statement, history of the Louisiana Technical College, history of LTC Region 9, and a brief history of each of the two branch campuses.

MISSION STATEMENT The mission of Louisiana Technical College Region 9 is to provide relevant technical and academic education needed by individuals to make informed and meaningful occupational choices, to train and retrain individuals to qualify for employment in existing or potential occupational fields, and to mesh in a system of articulation with secondary and postsecondary technical colleges/higher education institutions to continue and to upgrade skills and education credentials of the workforce. (region9.lt.edu)

HISTORY OF LOUISIANA TECHNICAL COLLEGE Louisiana’s postsecondary technical education system is constitutionally governed by the Louisiana Community and Technical College System Board of Supervisors (LCTCS). A seventeen-member board of supervisors is appointed by the governor, and members are composed of business and industry leaders, educators, and two current student members. This board was established in 1999 by a constitutional amendment. Since the 1930s, vocational education has been afforded to the citizens of Louisiana through a system of postsecondary technical education that also provides technical training to secondary high school students (www .ltc.edu/technical_education.asp). Acts 208 and 209 of 1973 expanded the existing postsecondary technical education system and provided for a coordinated and comprehensive statewide system of career education. An initial $100 million in capital outlay investments in Louisiana’s technical training opportunities established Louisiana as a national leader in workforce preparation through postsecondary technical education in upto-date facilities. Louisiana’s vocational technical education system originally began as trade schools in the 1930s and has evolved to vocational schools, vocational technical schools, vocational technical institutes, and at present, technical colleges. This evolution is the result of a redesigned

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curriculum that blends technical education and applied academics, ultimately leading to a short-course certificate, diploma, and/or the associate of applied science degree, the credential of preference for many business, industry, and labor interests. In 1995 the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education established a technical college system comprised of one technical college with forty-two campuses that offers sixty-six full-time training programs to approximately 50,000 students. The name change to Louisiana Technical College is reflective of the blending of technical and applied academic education. The system is presently providing a standardized curriculum for careers ranging from automotive technology to biomedical technology, and affords students the ability of full transfer of credits from one campus to another. Act 506 of the 2005 Regular Legislative Session proposed a reorganization of the Louisiana Technical College. LCTCS adopted the 21st Century Model for the Delivery of Technical Education effective July 1, 2006. The reorganization consists of eight Regional Technical Education Centers. As a result of the reorganization of the Louisiana Technical System, Region 9 was recreated as the “newest Region.” The other regions were created from prior districts.

HISTORY OF LOUISIANA TECHNICAL COLLEGE REGION 9 During fiscal year 2005–2006, the Louisiana Legislature mandated the restructuring of Louisiana Technical College, creating regional technical education centers comprised of a cluster of technical college campuses in a single area. Effective June 1, 2006, Dean William S. Wainwright became the regional director for newly formed Region 9: Hammond Area Campus, Florida Parishes Campus (Greensburg), Sullivan Campus (Bogalusa), and Ascension Campus (Sorrento).

HISTORY OF FLORIDA PARISHES CAMPUS Louisiana Technical College–Florida Parishes Campus was established in 1952 by the state legislature to offer vocational training to students in

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the North Shore Region of Louisiana. In 1990, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education renamed all vocational schools to describe their function more accurately. This school became Florida Parishes Technical Institute. In the early 1990s, Quick Start funds were used to train employees for furniture manufacturing and the institute engaged in tech prep and articulation activities with area high schools and the local university. In 1995 all institutes were renamed Louisiana Technical College with this college designated as Florida Parishes Campus. The colleges began offering associate of applied technology degrees in the office occupations program with other programs to follow as curriculum was developed.

HISTORY OF HAMMOND AREA CAMPUS The Hammond Association of Commerce initiated the inception of a vocational school in the City of Hammond in April 1962. Money was allocated for a building, and a director, William D. Allen, and staff were employed to prepare for the first classes to open in October 1965. A regional concept of career education was established with this school being assigned to Region 2. In 1976 William D. Allen retired, and Thomas C. Spangler was appointed director by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. In 1978 a new facility was completed. In the 1980s, as a result of dwindling oil/gas revenues, Louisiana suffered massive financial shortfalls. As a result, all vocational schools experienced severe budget cuts in operating expenses. Several programs were closed, and several positions were cut. The school went to a four-day week in order to save on utilities and to allow students to work an extra day during the weekends. In 1990 the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education renamed all vocational schools to describe their function more accurately. This school became Hammond Area Technical Institute. In the early 1990s, Quick Start funds were used to train employees for general dynamics and two other new industries, and the institute engaged in tech prep and articulation activities with area high schools and the local university. In 1995 the campus became known as the LTC–Hammond Area Campus and began offering the associate degree of applied technology in office occupations.

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Effective July 1, 1999, the governance of all Louisiana Technical College campuses was transferred by constitutional amendment to the Board of Supervisors, Louisiana Community and Technical College System, a new board created to govern all state community colleges and the fortytwo campuses of Louisiana Technical College. I currently serve as the campus dean (chief administrator) for both the LTC–Hammond Area Branch Campus and the LTC–Florida Parishes Branch Campus.

STRATEGIES, TOOLS, AND TECHNIQUES FOR FACULTY ENGAGEMENT Research has consistently shown, not surprisingly, that the more time students engage in learning activities, the more the students learn. Students who are fully engaged and actively participating in applied learning activities generally remain in school (e.g., Mastropieri and Scruggs 2000; Polloway and Patton 1997). Most faculty members plan learning activities for their students. Some faculty go into great detail to prepare lesson plans, syllabi, and other documents. But few faculty members ensure their students engage or actively respond to those educational activities. Therefore, many students exit the institution early as a result of a lack of student engagement with the learning activities. Branch campus administrators in the Louisiana Community and Technical College System are mandated to continue to increase student enrollment as well as increase student retention. As administrators, we are aware that faculty and student engagement will increase student enrollment and retention, which results in campus growth. However, many administrators are at a loss as to how to increase faculty and student engagement. We deans desire engaged faculty who actually like their students and are excited about their program discipline. It is especially important to hire well, provide sufficient resources for the faculty members, and allow them freedom to provide instructional services with minimum supervision. But not all faculty can engage their students to respond to the learning activities presented during their classes. Also, faculty members who

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have been teaching for many, many years are sometimes reluctant to make changes to engage their students. I observed that several faculty members of these two branch campuses were not fully engaging their students. In fact, some faculty members stated that they provide the information the same way they were taught and if the student fails to understand the information, it is the student’s problem. They said that they had done this for many years and there was no reason to change their instructional methods. They thought that students had the choice to engage or exit their class. They insisted that it was not their responsibility to engage their students. It is true that some students will persist in learning and will learn in spite of their instructors. It was not that these instructors were not providing instruction at the branch campuses; but their methods of instruction did not encourage student engagement. The LTC Region faculty is composed of a number of individuals who became instructors after working for fifteen or more years in industry. Their pedagogy is often a result of their industry experience. They feel they are preparing their students for surviving in the real world of work. Realizing that these and other instructors were not always engaging their students as actively as they could, I determined that action was necessary to increase both faculty and student engagement. A plan was designed and developed to assist faculty members to increase their degree of student engagement. Otherwise, some faculty members would persist in watching the clock and other faculty members may not reach their full potential for student engagement. Engagement of faculty and students must begin with the campus leadership. I provided a role model for faculty and students to see my commitment to student engagement. I believe that it is fine to say the words, but it is far better to live them. My first goal was to establish a campus environment that was conducive to learning and was student friendly. I wrote grants that provided state-of-the-art equipment and program enhancements for faculty and students that could not be provided by the campus budgets; made sure the campuses were clean and attractive; and encouraged active student government organizations. Along with student affairs staff and key faculty, I attended a national enrollment conference. Utilizing ideas from this workshop, both branch campuses developed an enrollment management planning process. Faculty were trained to be-

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come aware of early warning signs related to students who may be at risk to exit early. Faculty provided input and had ownership in this enrollment management planning process. The process resulted in an increase in enrollment and student retention. Support from the community, especially the business community, is crucial to foster a successful campus. Business leaders are frequent visitors to both campuses. Campus advisory committee meetings are held regularly and have good attendance. The Louisiana Technical College is accredited by the Council on Occupational Education (COE). All occupational programs are required to have an occupational advisory council composed by at least four external members from business and industry. These committee meetings must be held twice a year. During the meetings, program objectives, program lengths, program competencies, curriculum, equipment, job opportunities, and instructors’ credentials are reviewed and rated. The mission statement of the branch campus and the program mission statement are also reviewed at least once a year. Many of the committee members make donations of equipment, supplies, and monetary gifts that allow programs to have state-of-the-art equipment that is used by industry. The occupational advisory committees are mission critical for campus growth. Committee members make presentations to the classes and partner with the campus to create opportunities for internships. Input from these business and industry representatives is utilized to ensure that the training programs meet business and industry standards. Both branch campuses host community events ranging from a “Mega Fest” to town meetings. Faculty and students are proud of their campuses and enjoy showcasing their programs at these community events. Maintaining a campus environment that is student friendly and open for business results in campus growth. For example, a major business partner was interested in partnering with the Hammond Branch Campus for a grant. The CEO visited the campus pretending to be a prospective student. Because the CEO was treated exceptionally well at the Student Affairs Office, he made a decision to partner with the campus for a 1.5 million dollar grant. The CEO was a plant manager for Shell Oil. The grant was deemed very successful and a second Shell grant is being developed. To further increase faculty engagement, planning sessions are conducted with each faculty member to determine individual faculty career

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goals. These sessions are scheduled in June of each year. Each faculty member completes a form listing his or her career goals for the coming year. It may be taking a computer course, gaining an industry-based certification, developing a new class, or other goal. It must be measurable and it generally requires the faculty member to step out of his or her comfort zone. I determined ways to reinforce positive behavior for faculty with professional development opportunities, flex scheduling, team building, and leadership opportunities that are correlated to individual career plans. A time for celebrating faculty accomplishments was placed on the agenda during each faculty meeting to mark a milestone when a faculty career goal has been met. The faculty member shares a positive accomplishment or a student success story that is directly related to his or her career planning goals. I prepare newspaper articles with faculty/staff pictures and send them to local newspapers to further celebrate the faculty accomplishment. Once these articles are published, they are distributed to faculty/staff and placed in the campus scrapbook. Once a goal has been met and celebrated, the faculty members are encouraged to set even higher goals the next year. The following is an outstanding example of a highly engaged faculty member. The automotive technology instructor had a fine automotive program and was doing a good job. Toyota Motor Company visited the campus and chose the campus and instructor to establish a Gulf States Toyota T-Ten Training Center. The instructor’s student enrollment grew from twenty-plus to forty-plus students. I worked closely with Toyota to provide the administrative support to grow the program, hired a second instructor, and committed the necessary fiscal resources to support the program. After learning that the instructor had a strong desire to showcase this successful partnership collaboration, we arranged opportunities and committed fiscal resources to allow the instructor to present the partnership at more than ten national conferences. The regional director and Toyota representatives, along with myself, also presented with the instructor on those occasions to further show support of the program. As a result, Toyota has provided more than 1.2 million dollars to the branch campus. Students are completing the T-Ten program with skills and knowledge that is worth more than $20,000 per student to Toyota dealerships. This branch campus has a state-of-the-art training program that supports other branch campuses in addition to the main campus. Plans are underway for Toyota to commit funds to expand the training at the branch campus.

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Dual enrollment opportunities for secondary students are available. The program is being recognized throughout the Louisiana Technical College as an exemplary automotive technology program. The automotive program is an outstanding example of how the instructor is totally engaged with his students. The students are joining the workforce with well-paying jobs. Additional automotive manufacturers, including American Honda and Chrysler, have contacted me to expand training opportunities at the campus. Local secondary school systems are visiting the program and are very interested in increasing their enrollment activities. During the planning session, I try to work with each faculty member individually to encourage them to love their job and become lifelong learners. Faculty members are encouraged to look for exciting projects and let their students know that they like their jobs. Faculty must follow all job requirements, but they were encouraged to center on creativity, relevancy and a hands-on approach to learning. Faculty members were encouraged to make learning come alive. Many faculty have embraced these changes and are engaging their students. Student enrollment and retention have increased at both branch campuses. Regional accreditation has brought branch campus faculty closer and allowed them engagement opportunities with other branch campuses as well as the main campus. Professional days have been set by the regional director to allow positive opportunities to foster faculty engagement. Although other programs have not obtained the magnitude of the automotive technology program, each program can reach its growth potential once the faculty members become fully engaged and the students perceive the faculty member’s engagement. If the instructor is not fully engaged, it will be difficult for the students to fully engage. Other instructors at the branch campuses are developing strong partnerships with business and industry partners. They have witnessed the example of the automotive instructor and his successful endeavor with Toyota.

FACULTY ENCOURAGEMENT Branch campus faculty across the nation are increasingly faced with classrooms, labs, and shops full of students who have more differences than similarities. Many faculty members are overwhelmed with the issues that

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arise from this situation (Mastropieri and Scruggs 2000; Polloway and Patton 1997). One of the most important strategies for faculty engagement is that instructors need to develop a healthy self-esteem. I encouraged all faculty members to just do their best—no more and no less than their best. If faculty will do their best, they will not judge themselves. If they don’t judge themselves, they will not suffer from guilt, blame, or self-punishment. Motivating the faculty to do their best because they want to do it and not because they expect something in return is the desired outcome of faculty engagement. When faculty members begin teaching to the best of their abilities they enjoy their teaching. They will actually enjoy their job and not just work for a paycheck. I work with each faculty member to encourage him or her to reach his or her potential. Faculty members are also encouraged to work to have a balance between work and personal life. Of course, several faculty members could not or would not commit to making changes during the beginning planning stages. As time passed, these instructors have either made changes or left their employment with the branch campuses. When faculty complain and become stuck on an issue, I request that the faculty members write out the complaint along with one or more solutions. The faculty member must take action once an agreement on a solution has been reached. The faculty member must list action items along with outcomes and goals. When faculty are not engaging their students, students usually complain or exit early from the program. I take positive steps to assist the faculty member to reach his or her outcomes and goals. Many faculty members have told me that “they love their jobs” and they are the best jobs they have ever had. Visitors to the campuses consistently remark as to how much faculty are committed to engaging their students. Last week a program reviewer remarked that this is a “class act campus.” Administrators need to continue to seek ways to encourage their faculty members to engage their students. It will always be a work in progress. The following charts show the progress of the two branch campuses. Table 7.1. Enrollment Trends: Hammond Area Campus

Overall Enrollment

Fall 2005

Spring 2006

Fall 2006

Spring 2007

Fall 2007

Spring 2008

320

258

257

256

346

323

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Branch Campus Growth Table 7.2. Enrollment Trends: Florida Parishes Campus

Overall Enrollment

Fall 2005

Spring 2006

Fall 2006

Spring 2007

Fall 2007

Spring 2008

640

598

430

349

660

439

The Hammond Area Campus enrollment was affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The relocation of business and industry to the area has resulted in the securing of a Pathways to Construction training grant directly tied to campus enrollment. The campus supports an automotive training “Center of Excellence” that has demonstrated continued enrollment growth. The campus is also a customer service training site for the National Retail Federation and a Work Keys center. The Florida Parishes Campus has historically supported strong dual enrollment opportunities for Tangipahoa, Livingston, and St. Helena Parish secondary school systems. Existing relationships continue to strengthen. The campus suffered a decrease in enrollment in the fall of 2006 due to the loss of apprenticeship training as a result of the reorganization of the LTC. Expanded program opportunities as a result of board of regents dual enrollment funding, partnerships with secondary systems, and training programs as a result of the Pathways to Construction training initiative support enrollment projections (Student Course Enrollment Acess System Database—Board of Regents).

SUCCESSFUL STUDENT ENGAGEMENT A good instructor makes learning look effortless. Faculty members at the branch campuses are very aware that campus practices and classroom expectations have a strong effect on students’ level of motivation. Students who are not motivated to engage in learning are unlikely to succeed. Once faculty members embrace this idea and realize that they can and do affect their students’ level of engagement, they can begin to increase student engagement. Once the branch campus faculty developed their healthy self-esteem as a foundation for successful engagement, they were empowered to assist their students to become more engaged in learning activities.

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Some of the following actions taken by faculty may be duplicated by the readers. These actions were developed by faculty as they worked on their individual plans. The faculty has become aware that it is very important to provide expectations clearly to the students at the beginning of the class or semester. Penalties or consequences for not reaching expectations are being provided to students. Instructors report that students become uninterested when expectations are confusing. The faculty members are providing consistent classroom management techniques. This is especially important for students with disabilities. Faculty are keeping excitement “high” in the classroom, labs, and shops by demonstrating how content is related to the workforce. Business partners are frequently visiting the branch campuses as guest lecturers and potential employers. Faculty members are inviting their business partners to come to campus and meet their students. If out-of-class assignments are made, these assignments should have a clear purpose and not be perceived as “busy work.” More faculty members are attending professional development activities and sharing new techniques with faculty and staff. Faculty members who successfully engage their students are taking the time to explain instructions and giving opportunities for students to ask questions. They are also adding variety to their lectures and lab projects. Program and student evaluations are being completed at the end of each semester. The administrative office prepares summaries and gives these to the faculty. Faculty are reviewing these comments and making necessary changes when needed. They are making efforts not to be “boring or monotonous.” When students receive evaluation (feedback from their instructor), they receive meaningful comments. Should students receive only a “check off,” they may perceive that the assignment had no real value and become uninterested. The learning activity should be worthy of their effort (www.nwrel.org/request/oct00/strategy.html). Faculty members are aware that for student engagement, students’ basic psychological and intellectual needs must be kept in mind when designing class assignments. If students are to increase their

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competencies, the content of the assignment must be relevant to their desired learning goals and objectives. Student engagement allows students opportunities to learn individually as well as in a group setting. Students need to have some degree of control in their learning activities. For example, the student may have the choice to complete a project individually or with a group. The faculty member must continually be aware that an environment for learning is being maintained. I have encouraged the faculty to teach the way they want to learn. The faculty is not teaching material because someone said it was the best way. Instead, they are utilizing their individual skills and making learning fun in a real way. When the faculty is engaged, they will enjoy teaching. When the students enjoy learning, they will become engaged in their learning activities. As stated earlier it is and will continue to be a work in progress. I sincerely hope that the information provided will enable the readers to encourage both faculty and students to engage in the learning process. Without engagement, learning will not occur.

WORKS CITED Louisiana Technical College website. www.ltc.edu/technical_education.asp. Mastropieri, M., and T. Scruggs. 2000. The Inclusive Classroom: Strategies for Effective Instruction. Columbus, OH: Merrill. Polloway, E. A., and J. R. Patton. 1997. Strategies for Teaching Learners with Special Needs. 6th ed. Columbus, OH: Merrill.

8 Nothing More Simple, Nothing More Complex: Outcomes Assessment at Branch Campuses Emily Lardner and Gillies Malnarich, with Carlos Huerta, Susan Wolff Murphy, Gary Kochhar-Lindgren, and Sally Murphy Had we been assessing outcomes all along in the normal course of our work, I doubt that the legislators and privatizers could have rushed to fill the vacuum we created. —Gerald Graff, “Assessment Changes Everything”

Few things are so simple and simultaneously complex as outcomes assessment. Love, perhaps. Justice. For branch campuses, the questions are even more complicated, reflecting the negotiated identity of an individual campus that is part of a larger system. On any campus, the first essential step in developing an assessment plan is determining the purpose of the educational program. This work has become easier thanks to the publication of College Learning for the New Global Century (2007) by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Based on several years of dialogue with hundreds of colleges and universities about what college students need to know and be able to do when they graduate, the report provides a broad set of essential learning outcomes that can help guide all students’ progress over time. The authors of this report are clear, however, that although these essential learning outcomes offer a generative framework that applies to all students’ learning, each campus has to determine for itself its particular mission in terms of student learning, and how precisely they intend to help students develop those capacities.

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The broad set of outcomes described in College Learning are these: • Knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world • Intellectual and practical skills, including • Inquiry and analysis, critical and creative thinking, written and oral communication, quantitative literacy, information literacy, and teamwork and problem-solving • Personal and social responsibility, including • • • •

Civic knowledge and engagement—local and global Intercultural knowledge and competence Ethical reasoning and action Foundations and skills for lifelong learning

• Integrative learning, including • Synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and specialized study Many campuses are using these essential learning outcomes to reflect on their own campus-specific outcomes. Others will recognize that the AAC&U report builds on work they had already articulated. The publication of these learning outcomes marks a watershed moment in higher education, coming as they do from an extensive inter-institutional collaborative process, because we finally have a common text, a common reference point. The three mini-cases that follow describe branch campus work with outcomes assessment of relatively new integrative first-year courses/ experiences. In each case, readers will notice similarities between the campus-based outcomes and the ones named in College Learning. Where campuses differ, however, are in the ways they choose to assess students’ learning given their particular sets of outcomes. The mini-cases from University of Washington–Bothell and Texas A&M Corpus Christi illustrate two different approaches to assessment methods. And on branch campuses, as is illustrated in the mini-case from California State University– East Bay, strong local assessment projects can be derailed by system-wide

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initiatives. Branch campus leaders, these cases suggest, have to be clear about the goals of their educational programs and skillful negotiators within larger systems.

THE FIRST-YEAR EXPERIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON–BOTHELL: LOCAL LEARNING AND THE NETWORK OF SYSTEM-WIDE RELATIONS Gary Kochhar-Lindgren

The University of Washington–Bothell is a public commuter campus serving primarily the North Puget Sound and the Eastside region of Seattle. Begun in 1990 in order to offer bachelor’s degrees to transfer students, we are one of three University of Washington campuses—along with Seattle and Tacoma—and share the complexities of a governance structure that is in some ways based on our respective campuses and in other ways engages with the larger and more established campus in Seattle. For some of the larger policy and budgetary issues, our chancellor works with the president and provost at the Seattle campus, who have final authority over all three sites. Our admissions systems are linked but distinct, as are the libraries and a number of other services. Although there are some clear hierarchies at work in the relations between the main campus and the branch campuses, for the most part the model of a network—with different nodes of density representing different intensities of power—seems a better fit than a vertical ladder. At UW Bothell, there are approximately 1,800 students enrolled, earning degrees in business, computing and software systems, education, interdisciplinary arts and sciences, and nursing. Responding to a legislative mandate, in 2006 we began for the first time accepting first-year students into an innovative academic program administered by the Center for University Studies and Programs (CUSP). The CUSP curriculum was designed and implemented by UW Bothell faculty, but the idea as a whole and the individual courses required final approval from the curriculum committee in Seattle. The First Year Experience at Bothell emphasizes integrative learning across several axes—disciplines, academic skills, curricular and cocurricular

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interactions, and on- and off-campus learning—and is organized around a required yearlong sequence called the Discovery Core. This approach has no equivalent on the UW Seattle campus. The fall Discovery Core course is a team-taught seminar that integrates multiple pedagogical styles, distribution requirements, and a variety of learning sites including the classroom, library, quantitative skills center, writing center, computer labs, local wetlands, and various art and community sites. Course titles include Dreaming the Earth, Origins, Table Talk, Growing Things, and Art and Politics in Latin America and Video Documentation. In addition to the course content, we introduce students to university expectations, as well as to academic services, career services, and student life. In the winter quarter, students take a second Discovery Core taught by a single faculty member that continues to stress integrative learning and the practice of higher-level academic skills such as analysis, creativity, writing, collaboration, and information literacy. Again, these courses range across various areas of knowledge and include such titles as Walking the City, Class in America, Cooperation and Competition, Coffee Science and Economics, and Arts and Healthcare. In the spring quarter Discovery Core course—Portfolio Construction and Experiential Learning—students create a portfolio that reflects on the first year and projects ahead to their majors. We also continue to work with a number of departments and individuals on interdisciplinarity, portfolios, writing, the common book, and study abroad resources. Much of our program planning went into developing our shared student learning outcomes which are outlined here: • Inclusive Practices focus on how best to deepen the richness of human experience—with its differences of race, gender, ability, religion, age, language, sexual orientation, and class. • Critical and Creative Inquiry joins reason and imagination to make, investigate, critique, and pursue meaning in the arts, humanities, and the social and natural sciences. • Ethics and Social Responsibility explores our connections with each other across cultures, languages, natural resources, and values. • Quantitative and Qualitative Literacies are complementary ways to understand problems, issues, and questions.

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• Communication is the process of written, oral, performative, and multimedia interaction that enables us to share ideas and practices. Since we started our First Year Experience, we have tried to put a variety of assessment tools into place that help us get quick, thorough, and useable feedback from students, faculty, and staff. Except for the in-class evaluation forms that are automatically scored at the testing center, none of these are linked to the assessment protocols of the UW Seattle campus. We now have an array of surveys and forms of assessment in place, but continue to work to focus those assessments in more useful ways. For instance, before students even attend summer orientation where they register for their fall classes, we require them to take our self-designed math assessment, which is hand-marked by professors and trained graders and which we use to place students into algebra, pre-calculus, or calculus. At our first-year orientation, we offer an incoming survey for the students and their families that is complemented in the spring quarter by an endof-the year questionnaire. All the individual classes use standard evaluation forms and more extensive written remarks by the students. The entire UW Bothell student community participates in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). Also, we collect qualitative data from both students and faculty about their experience of the Discovery Core and other aspects of the First Year Experience. This is particularly important as we attempt to judge the quality of the team-taught course in the fall; gauge how the linking course of winter quarter builds on the strengths of the fall experience; and see whether the spring Discover Core course is producing both a synthesis of first-year learning as well as a reflective projection toward the second year and the declaration of a major. The design of the portfolio course itself, usually linked with an experiential component, is key to this kind of selfand programmatic assessment, and we also use it for faculty purposes over the summer. In addition to these instruments, our faculty meet regularly during the academic year to discuss issues of teaching, first-year development, cocurricular activities, and portfolio construction (among many other topics). We have a rich three-day retreat for past and future faculty in early June away from campus, at which we ask those who have taught the first-year

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students to talk about what they’ve learned and what they would do differently as we begin planning for the next year. These efforts are coordinated by the director of CUSP and the director of the Teaching and Learning Center, in very close consultation with FOCUS (the Faculty Oversight Committee on University Studies) and FYI (the First Year Initiative), and supported by faculty, staff, and all levels of the administration. These are all campus-based efforts. We have learned a great deal from conferences hosted by the American Association for Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and the National Resource Center for First Year Experience and Students in Transition, based at the University of South Carolina. We also meet with our peers from UW Tacoma several times a year to share notes and to determine where we can improve our work. In sum, then, we share a number of resources and programs with the Seattle campus (including limited cross-campus enrollment). However, in all other ways, our First Year Experience at UW Bothell is designed, implemented, and assessed entirely in-house. As our programs have developed, we continue to consult with colleagues at the larger campus, but it is increasingly a discussion of how each of the three institutions, with our very significant differences, can help support the development of educational programs and pedagogies for students who spend all their time on one or the other campus, as well as those who move between campuses to complete their degrees. In many ways, we at UW Bothell see ourselves as benefiting from the fortunate accident of being able to build the first-year programs from scratch, since we could immediately put into place an array of best practices without the necessity of dismantling prior structures. Although we are limited by the lack of facilities to pursue large-scale programs in the arts or the sciences, we are also much better positioned, given our small size, to move relatively quickly in new directions. The network of relationships that links and distinguishes the three campuses in our system—like expressways and telecommunications cables—is not symmetrical or free-flowing, but it does provide opportunities to create points of contact, new crossover relationships, and unexpected events that can serve members of all three communities.

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DESIGNING LEARNING OUTCOMES: NEGOTIATING WITHIN A LARGER SYSTEM—TEXAS A&M–CORPUS CHRISTI Carlos Huerta

Our campus exists within a strong statewide system, and our assessment work reflects this high degree of system-level coordination. The learning outcomes that all core curriculums in Texas public institutes of higher education are expected to address come from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). These fourteen learning outcomes, which describe what the forty-five-hour core curriculum at A&M–Corpus Christi must address, include the following: • Develop the following academic skills: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

reading writing speaking listening mathematical competency critical thinking

Develop multiple perspectives Make connections between disciplines Recognize the importance of health and wellness Understand how technology and science affect their lives Develop personal values for ethical behavior Develop the ability to make aesthetic judgments Use logical reasoning in problem solving

The faculty who designed the First Year Learning Communities Program (FYLCP) at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi decided that it should enact at least some of the goals of the state-mandated Core Curriculum (general education) Program. They reasoned that nesting the learning community program within the forty-five-hour Core Curriculum Program would provide a significant measure of protection for this innovative program. Moreover, the First Year Learning Communities Program and

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the Core Curriculum Program comprise the University Core Curriculum Programs (UCCP) at Corpus Christi, and so the assessment of the First Year Learning Communities Program is conducted as part of the assessment of the UCCP. The founders of the Learning Communities Program were inspired by research presented in support of learning communities, most particularly the study by Alexander Astin (1991) (Faculty Core 1992). Because A&M–Corpus Christi had previously only offered upper-division courses, there was a great deal of freedom in designing the new program. Even so, evidence of the difficulty of agreeing on program design and learning outcomes is apparent in the Report and Recommendations of the Faculty Core Curriculum Committee to the Faculty of Corpus Christi State University, Summer 1992. The report states: The challenge presented to the (faculty core curriculum committee) involved maintaining the integrity of the visionary hopes created by Task Group II in a pragmatic arena defined by the needs and demands of various bureaucracies, agencies, academic disciplines, and other interest groups. . . . During the development of this proposal, every member of the (faculty core curriculum committee) was required to compromise. . . . [However, the final proposal] represents the most advantageous set of compromises possible. . . . After several months of oft-passionate discussion, this proposal represents a genuine consensus of the 12 members of the (faculty core curriculum committee), and is forwarded with their unanimous and enthusiastic support. (Faculty Core 1992, 1)

While planning was difficult, the promising vision of building both a core curriculum and a First Year Learning Communities Program to benefit all students motivated this committee to work through the complex system requirements in making recommendations to the university that led to the creation of this program. The courses in the First Year Learning Communities Program, with the exception of the first-year seminar, all satisfy core curriculum requirements, and the program overall addresses four of the fourteen statemandated outcomes, including the following: • Develop writing skills • Develop critical thinking skills

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• Approach and understand issues from different perspectives • Make connections between disciplines Each summer, as teaching teams get organized for the fall semester, we hold a retreat to ask them to consider how these outcomes align with the goals they envision for their learning communities. A special emphasis is placed on the making connections and recognizing multiple perspectives outcomes because those are defining characteristics of learning communities. As retreat facilitators, we direct the teams to identify how these outcomes are being accomplished through their planned curriculum. Thus, the LC teams are directed to develop activities and assignments that allow students to demonstrate whether or not they are meeting the learning goals of making connections and recognizing multiple perspectives. We remind them that these learning goals are dictated by the state (THECB), supported by scholarship on learning communities nationally, and endorsed by the founding faculty. We provide examples of how these goals have been interpreted in a variety of disciplinary contexts and give complete control over the means of enactment to the teams. In these ways, we provide a rationale that appeals to faculty and give them academic freedom in their teaching, both factors vital to successful participation. The most recent cycles of the assessment of the four learning outcomes use indirect measures drawn from end-of-semester surveys. The FYLCP has begun a pilot program, developing direct measures of learning to be used for assessing the goals of making connections and recognizing multiple perspectives. Since LC teams are asked to design activities or assignments in their LCs that specifically assess whether or not a student is demonstrating they have met the learning goals, presumably a portion of the grade for the activity or assignment can be used as the direct measure for student learning. For example, an LC first needs to determine criteria for evaluating whether or not within an assignment a student has demonstrated they can recognize multiple perspectives. The LC team may decide that a grade of ninety or above, based on their criteria, demonstrates that student met the goal. Then, the LC aggregates the individual results and determines what percentage of their students met the criteria; this figure can be used to indicate the degree to which students in that LC achieved the learning

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goal. If the pilot proves successful, then the results across LCs will be aggregated and used as LC program assessment evidence. Over successive years, the FYLCP will likely decide to assess different core curriculum learning goals. The rationale is that assessing all fourteen in any one year is unrealistic. However, the expectation is that the connections and perspectives goals will be assessed each year. Since the FYLCP is part of the core curriculum the assessment is directed by the codirectors of the UCCP. The UCCP is not administratively nested in a college. Instead the UCCP reports to the office of the associate vice president for academic affairs. The administration of the UCCP, including assessment of the FYLCP, is advised by the Core Curriculum Committee. In addition, the professors teaching in the FYLCP are also included in discussions about assessing the FYLCP. In these ways, the Faculty Core Curriculum Committee and faculty who built the learning communities and UCCP continue to oversee them. One of the lessons we’ve learned over time is that the original vision changes, and there is constant pressure to rethink founding concepts, such as the “common experience” goal in the original vision of the UCCP. The Faculty Core Curriculum Committee can function to air those discussions, but faculty with institutional memory are required to avoid constant revision and renegotiation of program goals and vision. The office of Planning and Institutional Effectiveness collaborates with the UCCP on assessment of the FYLCP. This office assists with data collection, assessment design, and with a web-based tool for submitting the assessment plans and evidence.

WHEN ASSESSMENT GETS MORE COMPLICATED: CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, EAST BAY Sally Murphy

In the fall of 1998, California State University, Hayward (now California State University, East Bay) began freshman learning communities, a major part of the university’s general education (GE) reform. Our learning communities are organized into clusters: yearlong, thematically integrated sets of courses, each of which meets a graduation or general education

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requirement and one of which is required of all full-time freshmen. Each cluster includes developmental and baccalaureate composition, public speaking, information literacy, freshman seminar, and three courses in science, humanities, and/or social science. The promise to assess student learning and measure the impact of this learning community program on our students was essential to Academic Senate approval on our campus. CSUEB Clusters and Assessment

Coinciding with the launch of the freshman cluster program was the creation of an assessment program to provide meaningful data about student learning and program impacts: surveys of freshmen at the start and end of their first year, student and faculty evaluations, focus group data, and freshman grades, retention, and persistence. When we began we had one direct measure of student learning as well. In the California State University system, not only must all students pass composition I and II but they must also demonstrate college-level writing competency measured in the two years before graduation. The reasons for this system-wide requirement were many; one important one was to see if the California State University (CSU) did a better job of helping students achieve writing competence than the community colleges. This was especially important at campuses like California State Univesity, East Bay, (CSUEB) where, in 1998, almost 80 percent of the students were adult transfer students. One of our long-term goals for the program was to institute more direct measures of student learning, reaching for the highest standard in program assessment. The Academic Senate receives an annual report on GE assessment and every five years the curriculum committee reviews the program. The first post-cluster review occurred in 2002–2003; the early data were, for the most part, impressively positive. On a survey of student backgrounds and expectations for college (the Entering Student Survey) CSUEB students’ reports showed them to be much like students from other urban, state universities in our national cohort. On a survey of their experiences during their first year (the College Student Experiences Questionnaire), CSUEB’s freshmen looked very different. They wrote more papers and more drafts than their national cohort. They interacted more with and learned more from their very diverse peers. They returned second year

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in greater numbers than previous freshmen. They complained about too much structure and their grades improved. They documented strong social connections for a commuter campus. When cluster students took the junior-rising writing skills test, they out performed all other test takers at statistically significant levels, including transfer students and pre-cluster “native” CSUEB students. These data are particularly impressive in context: 55–65 percent of all freshmen entering CSUEB require some level of developmental writing; 45–55 percent need developmental math. After the curriculum review, the Senate mandated development of learning outcomes for all GE subjects. Once approved, faculty learning communities pilot tested rubrics to measure student learning in each of five general education areas: science, social science, humanities, diversity, and social justice. Rubrics were refined and data from 58 faculty and 150 courses were collected during the 2005–2006 academic year. In 2007–2008, the general education program underwent academic program review, and the value of longitudinal data was clear. Patterns in the data highlighted freshman learning communities’ long-term positive effects. Those patterns and positive data from the direct measures of learning in individual classes resulted in the program’s strong endorsement. Every bit as important a source of assessment has been CSUEB’s participation in “The Pathways to College Success” long-term research project. Vincent Tinto and Catherine Engstrom studied learning community programs to assess the effects of the learning community model on students entering college with developmental needs in math and composition. Their reports provided support for and enriched our understanding of the positive effects of the freshman learning community program for CSUEB freshmen. The GE director expected the Academic Senate action to institutionalize direct assessment of student learning as the next step in the evolution of the program. However, at the time of this writing, formalizing direct assessment of student learning appears unlikely. System-level actions have intervened. The Voluntary System of Accountability

In 2007 California State University’s chancellor announced the system’s participation in the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA).

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VSA members are affiliates of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and/or the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC). Founded in response to the Spellings Commission’s concern that the public lacks information to make sound educational decisions, the VSA formed to “improve public understanding of how public colleges and universities operate” (voluntarysystem.org/). VSA campuses will produce a “College Portrait” providing “consistent, comparable and transparent information on the characteristics of institutions and students . . . student engagement with the learning process, and core educational outcomes.” To compile its “portrait,” the CSU system initially committed each of its twenty-three campuses to administer the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) every three years to measure student engagement in learning, and the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) for two years to measure core educational outcomes. Individual campuses expressed concerns with using a single instrument for measuring student engagement. In November 2007, the campuses were provided with a wider selection of instruments. Each campus will use the CLA for two years to investigate its utility for campuses with large transfer student populations. CSUEB and NSSE

The move from the College Student Experience Questionnaire (CSEQ) to the NSSE required only minor adjustments. The CSU system currently allows use of the CSEQ (and a corresponding College Senior Survey); the interruption in longitudinal data collection will be short and NSSE’s data will be informative. The major problems with NSSE are distribution and data collection difficulties. The CSEQ is offered in paper format; we distribute the inventory at the end of the first year in every freshman seminar. The survey is framed as an exercise in developing skills in self-reflection, agency, and community responsibility, and faculty can (and do) point to changes in clusters fueled by student feedback. Students complete the survey in class. While faculty framed the NSSE in the same way as the invitation to complete NSSE began to arrive in e-mail boxes, freshman students have not responded at acceptable rates. Nor have seniors who have no history of completing engagement inventories and limited motivation to complete the NSSE. Consequently, we are concerned that the

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information previously gathered for our campus through the CSEQ will not be adequately replaced by NSSE, although the two surveys have some strong similarities. CSUEB and the Collegiate Learning Assessment

The promise of the Collegiate Learning Assessment to provide a valueadded measure of students’ core competencies in critical and analytical thinking and composition is exciting. It is unclear, however, how useful this assessment will be on campuses where the student body is primarily transfer, which is the case in almost all CSUs. At CSUEB the ratio of freshmen to transfer students is approximately one to seven; on average, the freshmen are eighteen years old and the transfers twenty-eight years old. Given ten years’ difference in average age and corresponding differences in life experiences and motives for education, our transfer students begin their studies with us in quite a different place than do our first-year students; and most of our upper-division students are not with us as first years. Consequently, we are reluctant to claim that measured improvement of core competencies from the first year to the fourth year is due to CSUEB’s education. Of greater concern is the effect of these system-required changes on our campus-based efforts to include direct measures of learning in our general education assessment. It appears that our initiative has been shortcircuited by the adoption of the CLA. Further implementation of direct measures of student learning will take time and effort, and the CLA promises to provide valid assessments of critical and analytical thinking. With faculty feeling overworked and undersupported, it is extremely doubtful the faculty will approve a program that seems no longer necessary. Indeed, the Academic Senate committee that initiates assessment policy does not intend to place such a proposal on their agenda. The Future of Assessment at CSUEB

If the VSA and cooperatives like it end efforts by the federal government to standardize college learning assessment, it will have done real good. However, national good does not necessarily result in local utility. The required use of the CLA, at least at CSUEB, dissipated the energy to develop a local system of assessment. Regenerating the energy will be difficult. If the experiment with the CLA ends in two years, we may be

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able to leverage our program review requirements to achieve a university commitment to assess general education student learning outcomes. Until then, the GE program will continue to measure students’ writing competencies, the only direct measure of student learning currently in place.

CONCLUSION The cases in this chapter illustrate how far many campuses have come in making our educational aspirations clear, and holding ourselves responsible for the quality of our programs. The work of naming and explaining what we are for, as Graff argues, is critical: If we do not try to find that public language but argue instead that we are not accountable to those parents and legislators, we will only confirm what our cynical detractors say about us, that our real aim is to keep the secrets of our intellectual club to ourselves. By asking us to spell out those secrets and measuring our success in opening them to all, outcomes assessment helps make democratic education a reality. (Graff 2008, n.p.)

Once we take that first step, however, in explaining what our “secrets” are, we are faced with the challenging work described in this chapter. As the University of Washington–Bothell case about their new firstyear program suggests, lots of time goes into necessary faculty conversations about what programs are for, and typically those conversations about assessment also become conversations about teaching and learning and curriculum planning. These are important conversations, but time is always short and sometimes it is hard to figure out ways to focus that energy. Focus emerges again in another context with this new program. Everyone agrees that a mix of methods makes for better assessment, but as Kochhar-Lindgren suggests, with a range of measures in place, determining how to focus those assessments so as to maximize their utility can be challenging. The experience at Texas A&M Corpus Christi also illustrates the important role faculty played in developing an innovative program, and the wisdom of their strategic choice to align program outcomes with system and state-level outcomes. The new work they are doing to create a stronger link between students’ experiences of learning and overall program

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assessment is very promising; this approach to quantifying classroombased assessments is of interest to others who want to enrich their own assessment programs. California State University, East Bay’s experience is sobering. In a way, it illustrates the collision between two well-intended groups, as Murphy suggests. The promise of the Collegiate Learning Assessment is that it is more like an authentic assessment of students’ learning than other available measures, and it promises to measure the value-added by campus experiences to students’ abilities over time. However, as Murphy points out, faculty energy is finite, and the decision to implement the CLA is also a decision not to develop an assessment based on actual course assignments. The connection between assessment and teaching and learning cannot be as close under these circumstances. Those responsible for assessment on branch campuses now have many resources to draw upon—the Global Learning document, as a summation of many campuses’ conversations about what kind of learning we should be for, plus the focused work of colleagues across the county. Assessing the educational outcomes of our work with students will never be as sweet as love nor as important as justice. But as branch campuses seek to build distinctive programs to serve their specific missions and particular student populations, it is, in all its simplicity and all its complexity, one of our most valuable academic enterprises.

REFERENCES Association of American Colleges and Universities. 2007. College Learning for the New Global Century: A Report from the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America’s Promise. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities. Faculty Core Curriculum Committee. 1992. Report and Recommendations of the Faculty Core Curriculum Committee to the Faculty of Corpus Christi State University, Summer 1992. Corpus Christi, TX: Corpus Christi State University. Graff, Gerald. 2008. “Assessment Changes Everything.” Inside Higher Education, February 21. www.insidehighered.com. Tinto, Vincent, and Catherine Engstrom. 2008. “Access without Support Is Not Opportunity.” Change, January/February, 46–50.

9 Anomaly of Mission: The Challenge of Being a Liberal Arts College in the Public Sector Allen H. Berger

Nationally there are twenty-five colleges and universities that belong to the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC). They include a mix of former teachers colleges and normal schools, regional campuses, branch campuses, honors colleges, and nontraditional institutions founded as experimental colleges. All share a mission to provide undergraduate students a high-quality liberal arts education in a residential setting that is characterized by close relationships between students, faculty, and staff, small class sizes, and high academic standards. They collectively represent a multistate effort to create in the public sector educational opportunities similar to those found at selective private liberal arts colleges. Typically they serve a much higher proportion of first-generation college students and financially needy students than their private counterparts, thereby enhancing access to a particularly valuable type of educational experience. Unlike private liberal arts colleges, COPLAC institutions are generally part of larger university systems. While the specifics of campus-level and system-level governance differ from state to state, the need to coordinate operations with a larger, multicampus entity differentiates these institutions from private colleges as much as their dependency on state appropriations rather than private endowments. This relationship is in many ways problematic, and it inevitably creates special challenges for campus leadership. Some of those challenges are explored in this chapter. The issue overall is this: how can public liberal arts colleges remain true 157

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to their mission in the context of economic, political, organizational, and cultural forces within states and their public university systems that typically result in a disconnect between funding and institutional mission, that push institutions toward commonality, ease of transfer, and homogenized conceptions of accountability, and that often reflect impoverished notions of education as serving merely economic ends? The argument presented in this paper reflects my own lived experience. For many years I was a professor and a chief academic officer at private liberal arts colleges. For the last eight years, I have been provost at a public liberal arts college, the University of Maine at Farmington (UMF), a branch campus of the University of Maine system. The commonality of mission across all the institutions where I have worked has given my career a consistent sense of purpose. But the shift from private college to public system has also exposed me to new tensions and obstacles. While the specific challenges that UMF has faced in the first decade of the twenty-first century have shaped my point of view, these issues are not peculiar to the University of Maine System or the state of Maine. In varying degrees, they characterize the relationship between most public liberal arts institutions and their larger systems or statewide governing boards and legislatures.

FUNDING AND MISSION Over the past quarter century, funding for public higher education in many states has declined, whether measured as a percentage of overall state expenditures, as a share of personal income, or as a proportion of institutions’ educational and general budgets.1 Whether this is due to increased competition from other sectors for scarce state resources or to a neoliberal political milieu that tends to see education more and more as a private investment rather than a public good, the net effect has been frequent double-digit tuition increases and a cost shift toward students and their families. In order to preserve access, which is of course a fundamental value in the public sector, institutions have relied largely on two strategies: fundraising to support scholarships, and redistributive approaches that link higher tuition to increased investments in need-based aid. These strategies have been only partly successful, in part because of competi-

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tive pressures that have also led private and other public institutions to commit more and more scholarship dollars to merit-based aid. In Maine as elsewhere, we are finding that the debt burdens of most students are increasing, more are working longer hours at part-time jobs, and many are attempting to control their costs by starting at community colleges. These trends make it very difficult to realize our goals as a liberal arts college. When students at UMF reduce their course load to accommodate a need to work increased hours, or they structure more and more of their class schedule around increased work obligations, they may not only miss out on academic opportunities. Of equal significance, they may trade away their chances to participate in the rich array of cocurricular and extracurricular activities that advocates of liberal arts colleges believe are so important to students’ growth and development, not just for jobs or placement into graduate school, but for citizenship and personal enrichment. Further, when students elect to begin their studies with us after a year of community college study, or more often two years and an associate degree, they enter our carefully planned degree programs midstream. In reviewing their transcripts, we try to assure that their transfer credits will permit them to stay on track toward a timely graduation, but I fear often at a price of reductions in overall curricular coherence. The emphasis with prospective transfer students inevitably becomes counting credits, figuring out equivalencies, checking off requirements, and finding the easiest pathway to graduation (not surprisingly, transfer students from community colleges who are seeking a baccalaureate degree are likely to select the four-year institution where the timeline to graduation is the shortest and perceived obstacles the fewest). These pressures unfortunately push us toward a mode of interaction with prospective transfers that is fundamentally different from the developmental, holistic approach to college planning and advising that we promote as a selling point to prospective first-year students and attempt to deliver upon their matriculation. As a result of these two choices—cutting back on commitments at school in order to work many hours at paid jobs and electing to start at a community college and then transfer to a four-year college—the student experience at our public liberal arts college more and more risks resembling what has been more common at small regional campuses or urban comprehensive institutions. Nonacademic commitments are not worked around college (classes, extracurricular activities, participation in

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student organizations, attendance at campus events, etc.); college instead is squeezed around work and other commitments. At UMF, institutional leaders are attempting to address these challenges and preserve our mission and our conception of quality residential education in multiple ways. This has meant, for example, investing in on-campus job opportunities that are directly connected to students’ majors and career interests. By creating resume-enhancing positions for students, we not only are helping them avoid low-paid jobs at supermarkets, big box stores, or fast food outlets; we are keeping them on campus where they can be guided by faculty mentors and exposed to the full array of UMF’s cocurricular and residential programs. A second strategy has been to invest in and reshape admissions and marketing with the goal of repositioning UMF to compete more successfully with private liberal arts colleges. The conundrum here is that UMF must draw more out-of-state students (who will be charged higher out-of-state tuition rates) and more in-state students from middle- and upper-income families (who in the past have been willing to pay private tuitions at outof-state colleges), thereby reducing spaces in the entering class for rural and working-class Maine kids, in order to generate increased revenues to invest in need-based scholarship aid and on-campus jobs for those rural and working-class Maine kids. We have convinced ourselves that this approach is defensible because: (1) it counterbalances increasing income inequality and regressive tax policies in America; (2) it adds students who have high aspirations and come from homes with college-educated parents who value a small-college residential experience, thereby enhancing the peer effect that is so important to all students’ success; and (3) it may allow us to survive the overall demographic decline in the number of high school graduates that is beginning to affect all of New England and the Middle Atlantic states. The bottom line is that UMF is pretty much on its own as it attempts to secure the resources necessary to maintain access and deliver on a liberal arts college mission. Our situation in Maine unfortunately is not a special case. Many COPLAC institutions are saddled with the same problem: while their public liberal arts mission is acknowledged, and perhaps even is valued in public statements by state and university system-level leaders, it is not supported by approaches to funding that directly take mission into account. In Maine, the methodology for allocating resources to the

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state’s seven public universities has pretty much been to freeze in place the proportional shares established when the university system was first founded in 1968. Whatever financial compromises and deals were struck at that time, today they have little relationship to the contemporary missions of each institution, and they of course could not anticipate the ebbs and flows in relative enrollments over the last forty years. In 1990, UMF finally implemented an enrollment cap, which was designed to stabilize student numbers at an optimal size (roughly the same as private liberal arts colleges), but which also allowed the university to avoid declines in per capita state support and a resultant deterioration in academic quality. In fact, the cap contributed to a growing institutional reputation for excellence. Clearly a liberal arts college is not an inexpensive proposition, whether in the private or the public sector. It is a labor-intensive, twenty-four/seven enterprise. It requires relatively low student-faculty ratios, substantial investments in professional staff from coaches to counselors to adults-inresidence, and commitments to extensive cocurricular and extracurricular programming. The mission also discourages the adoption of cost-cutting strategies common to institutions in other sectors of higher education, such as shifting instruction toward an increasing reliance on adjunct faculty, graduate students, distance education, and large lecture classes. Perhaps residential liberal arts colleges will eventually prove to be unaffordable in the public sector, particularly in poor states such as Maine. Sadly the disconnect between mission and funding increases the likelihood of that outcome. The disconnect is not likely to be corrected when public investments in higher education overall are shrinking or, if growing, lagging far behind unavoidable increases in cost. In addition, as later sections make clear, political and cultural factors, along with the zero-sum nature of system-level and state-level budget allocations, tend to favor the flagship land-grant university and the community college sector.

COMMONALITY Public college and university systems vary tremendously from relatively loose confederations of institutions to relatively centralized main campus and branch campus arrangements. In some instances, as in Maine, small

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colleges and large universities are part of a single system. In other cases, undergraduate colleges and the state’s flagship campus are governed separately. But in almost all instances, public liberal arts colleges find themselves grouped with institutions whose missions are quite different from their own. Significant pressures in these systems toward standardization or commonality in policies, in administrative structures, and in curriculum often tend to favor arrangements that are inconsistent with or even antithetical to best practice at liberal arts colleges. In Maine the pressures for commonality are due to several factors. First, all seven universities in the system are dependent upon an array of shared administrative services, including human resources and labor relations, legal affairs, substantial portions of information technology, government relations, and so forth. Second, all collective bargaining is handled at a system level, which has the advantage of displacing labor tension away from the individual university but the disadvantage of largely one-sizefits-all contracts for campuses of radically different size and with different missions. Third, there are many multicampus students who through distance learning or, less often, physical commuting elect to register simultaneously at two or more institutions, thereby taking advantage of a broad array of course offerings not necessarily available in any one locale. This approach to accessing higher education is particularly common among nonresidential adult students from small towns and rural areas. Perhaps the best example of a system-wide policy that is inconsistent with a liberal arts college mission is the way the University of Maine System calculates tuition. All students, whether part-time or full-time, are charged by the credit hour. This arrangement inevitably communicates, even if it’s not our intent to do so, that the economic transaction between students and the university, what students and their families are purchasing, is largely about seat time in the classroom, since typically credit hour values are directly proportional to class length. While this policy may be appropriate for institutions with high numbers of adult students, commuter students, distance education students, or part-time students, it is incongruent with UMF’s mission as a residential liberal arts college. It encourages the notion that college is simply about attending class, showing up perhaps on Tuesdays and Thursdays or maybe just on Wednesday evenings, earning grades, accumulating credits on a transcript, gradually ticking off

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requirements, and eventually qualifying for a credential when the credit hours in each category and overall add up to the required totals. At admissions and orientation events, when I speak to students and their families, I offer a completely different description of the college experience. Like my counterparts at private liberal arts colleges (where there is a flat tuition to be a full-time student), I emphasize that classes are only a small portion of what a liberal arts college education is about. I tell stories about my own advisees, mostly in fact stories that they have told me, for example, about getting into a spirited discussion of Plato’s allegory of the cave at 1 a.m. in a residence hall lounge, about developing a passion for theater after being convinced by a friend to serve on the tech crew for a campus production of A Doll’s House, about being invited to serve on a campus building committee and being asked by the president to report on personal research into green construction technologies, or about participating in a summer research project to study the genetics of milfoil and monitor its spread in local lakes and ponds. These were transformative experiences for my students, and my fondest hope for prospective students is that they will have similar transformative opportunities in college. I emphasize to students and their parents that to matriculate at UMF is to join a vibrant community where the value of what they receive will be proportional to the commitments they make. After four years, their diploma will have value in the job market as a credential, but the measure of their education and their professional potential will be as much in the experiences they report on a resume and the stories they tell in an interview as in the courses and grades they have listed on a transcript. Ultimately, I insist, a UMF education will require their active engagement. So why, given our mission and core messages, does UMF have an à la carte pricing policy that risks communicating that college is merely about courses, and students can purchase from each semester’s menu whatever number they’re able to fit into otherwise busy lives? Why not a prix fixe for the rich smorgasbord of activities and opportunities whose value we’re touting during admissions and orientation events? The answer, of course, has to do with system-wide policies and implicit system-level assumptions that a shared commitment to access requires making education available in whatever increment and at whatever pace students as consumers find most convenient. Our uniformity is also a byproduct of system-wide

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software systems and a standardized approach to reporting and tracking institutional data.2 Fortunately change may finally be possible, or at least technologically feasible. The University of Maine System has invested in a new enterprise software system, which fortuitously can accommodate multiple ways of charging tuition—by the semester or by the credit hour. Our challenge in the years ahead, should we choose to take advantage of this newfound flexibility, will be to help understaffed and over-taxed managers in admissions, financial aid, and student accounts adjust to new ways of doing business. More importantly, we will need to convince the system’s chancellor and board of trustees that institutional differences in mission mean that Maine’s seven public universities not only have different goals and meet different needs; they offer students qualitatively different experiences, and we need to assure that there is an alignment between what we offer, how we promote it, and how we charge for it. Tragically, however, it may be too late or too risky to undertake this mission-appropriate change. In order to recruit students, both in-state and out-of-state, who are considering small private colleges, in other words the very students who are critical to our financial health and to redistributive investments in need-based aid, it makes sense that UMF needs to send consistent messages and needs to appear similar to its private competition. However, our main clientele—working-class and first-generation Maine students—will likely not see flat or plateau tuition as attuned to their economic circumstances or educational priorities. Our challenges are twofold: (1) to convince these students and parents that full-time study is indeed affordable, and (2) to make the case that there is substantial practical value to a residential liberal arts college experience. We somehow must accomplish the first without substantial new investments in financial aid from the state or federal government and without new revenue streams from successful repositioning yet in place. And we somehow must accomplish the second in the face of contrary messages that suggest it is narrowly the baccalaureate credential itself, not a student’s campus-based experiences along the way, that guarantee employability and upward mobility. Of course we could also try to make a case for the unique value of liberal arts colleges in creating well-informed, enlightened, and committed citizens, but that argument introduces a yardstick that has little traction in a prevailing culture where monetary investments in higher education

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are justified based on a likely in-kind return (for individuals, better-paying jobs; for the state, economic development). State systems also tend to foster commonalities in administrative structures that may not always be favorable to the specific missions of residential liberal arts colleges. In fact, my first impression upon arriving at UMF was that the institution was saddled with an organizational pattern more befitting a research university than a liberal arts college. The locus of most academic activity was the department, and university-wide faculty governance was relatively weak. Faculty typically were active participants in the affairs of their departments but were relatively disengaged from the affairs of the university, delegating the responsibility for oversight of the curriculum and academic policies to a small faculty senate, which consisted of one delegate from each academic department. Important committees of the faculty senate—for example, the Curriculum Committee and the General Education Committee—were similarly constituted. The net results were that most faculty members, especially senior professors, did not participate actively in university governance and a significant portion of decision-making was based on departmental self-interest. The implicit modus operandi at the senate and in committees was for members to defer to proposals from departments if they did not negatively affect one’s own department. Only issues that directly affected all academic departments—for example, the academic calendar—were hotly debated. This pattern of governance is anomalous when compared to that found at most private liberal arts colleges, where faculty governance is the responsibility of the full faculty, who typically meet in plenary sessions on a monthly (or sometimes weekly or biweekly) basis. These meetings, I have found, are occasions for lively discussion and debate. They are a place where junior faculty members are acculturated into the mores and values of the academy and where serious dialogue among faculty and between faculty and administrators (typically the president and chief academic officer) about institutional policies and priorities often takes place. Usually the meetings include key staff members who do not have an affiliation with an academic department, for example, librarians, coaches, and student affairs professionals, some of whom may even be accorded faculty status. This mode of organization at liberal arts colleges exists for a reason: it is attuned to their mission. Given these institutions’ aspirations to provide

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a holistic education and a rich, integrated experience for students, all faculty must assume joint responsibility for the quality of the overall operation. This does not mean there are not other levels and loci of decisionmaking. But it does mean that there are institutionalized centripetal forces that counterbalance the centrifugal, discipline-based Balkanization that is characteristic of so many large universities. The fact that UMF historically has not been organized like a liberal arts college is due to system-wide custom, including numerous policies that reference campus-based faculty senates, and to a system-wide collective bargaining agreement that defines the “department, division, or other appropriate unit” as the primary locus of faculty evaluation, including the development of standards and criteria for promotion and tenure and the design of forms and procedures for student course evaluations. This decentralization of faculty evaluation and allowance for department-specific approaches, without any countervailing forces such as might be provided by a university-wide promotion and tenure committee, has meant that academic departments are the critical affiliative grouping for junior faculty, since faculty from other departments may be colleagues but are not “peers,” at least for the purpose of peer review. During my tenure at UMF I have struggled to change these organizational patterns in order to enhance faculty engagement with issues that span academic departments and strengthen faculty commitments to shared governance (i.e., governance that is shared not only with administration but across departments). Fortunately, I was able to muster an ally— UMF’s regional accrediting agency, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)—which challenged the faculty to eliminate widely diverse standards and criteria for promotion and tenure and procedures for evaluation and to replace them with common approaches attuned to UMF’s liberal arts college mission. Success required levels of diplomacy and skills of negotiation thoroughly befitting the metaphorical descriptor of our decentralized state—Balkanization. But we got it done, largely because of external pressure, and because I was willing to drop the most controversial provision—a campus-wide promotion and tenure committee to review personnel recommendations from departments. This organizational feature can only evolve at UMF after faculty governance is strengthened and shared identities and trust are fostered through meaningful cross-departmental collaboration.

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Over the last eight years we have begun this journey. I confess that many faculty members questioned the sincerity or sanity of a chief academic officer who, shortly after his arrival, began preaching the importance of strengthening faculty governance. But an emergent generation of new faculty leaders, typically recently tenured, often idealistic associate professors who came to UMF specifically because of its vision to provide students in the public sector a quality liberal arts college option, understood the argument and assumed the responsibility. They began a new tradition of periodic faculty meetings (albeit not yet always well attended), reorganized faculty committees and implemented campus-wide elections for committee membership (thereby eliminating the custom of departmental representation), gave responsibility to the faculty at large rather than the faculty senate to elect the senate chair, and created new bodies to tackle shared, cross-departmental challenges such as assessment and the development of a learning culture where evidence of student outcomes is utilized for continuous quality improvement. These changes in governance both allowed and were encouraged by growing interest in substantial curriculum change within the new cohort of emerging faculty leaders. With administrative support, these faculty tackled two enormous challenges—general education reform and reorganization of the curriculum to reduce the fragmentation that faculty and students both typically experienced in their daily lives. In general education, UMF organized for the first time curricular requirements that were shared and staffed by multiple departments and governed by crossdepartmental collegial agreements. Across the entire curriculum, longstanding but regularly shelved discussions about changing from a threecredit standard for most courses to a four-credit standard for all courses took on a new life. The argument here was aided by results from the National Survey of Engagement (NSSE), which suggested that UMF students were highly engaged in activities and experiences conducive to exciting levels of learning, but were not being overly challenged by a rigorous curriculum and high expectations.3 Recognizing that UMF students deserved the same curricular rigor found at selective, private liberal arts colleges, the faculty chose to refashion the curriculum to resemble what was typical at peer institutions with a similar mission rather than sister institutions within our state system. Faculty teaching loads were reduced from 4:4 to 3:3, the course load for full-time students was reduced from

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5:5 to 4:4, class meeting times were increased, learning goals and pedagogy were adjusted, every course and every major was redesigned, new emphases were placed on undergraduate research, and desired program outcomes were redefined. The scale of this curricular change was enormous; furthermore, the increase in faculty workload to accomplish it was substantial. The fact that a proposal of this magnitude was even considered, moreover the fact that the change was supported by a majority of the faculty in 90 percent of the academic departments and by 83 percent of the faculty overall, demonstrates that UMF has overcome much of the organizational fragmentation that system-level forces and practices helped create. But implementation of this new curriculum also required system-level approval by the board of trustees. It was here that competing values and interests became apparent. On the one hand, longstanding rhetoric and an emerging system strategic plan favored distinctive and complementary missions for Maine’s seven public universities. On the other hand, expectations for consistency in curriculum characterized for many what it meant to be a university system. That the former vision in the end triumphed was largely due to fortunate timing, UMF’s ability to trade on its public reputation for excellence, and executive leadership in the chancellor’s office. Unease was most apparent due to concerns about course equivalencies across campuses and the need to accommodate transfer students. Given this context, UMF leaders needed to assure the trustees that a four-credit standard would not create undue barriers.

EASE OF TRANSFER Nationwide the percentage of students who start at a four-year college or university and eventually graduate from the same institution has been on a steady decline. According to one national study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, the proportion of bachelor’s degree recipients in 2000 who had attended more than one institution was 59 percent (and 47 percent among students who had started at a four-year institution), an increase of over 20 percent from two decades earlier (Peter, Cataldi, and Carroll 2005, iii). Nationally our vocabulary has changed to account for this phenomenon. Stop-in, stop-out attendees at multiple institutions

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are said to be “swirling.” In Maine, as elsewhere, trustees, legislators, and other public officials have exerted significant pressure on institutions to create a seamless system to accommodate movement from community colleges to four-year institutions, transfer from one public university to another, and simultaneous study at multiple institutions. To complicate matters, student movements often are not unidirectional. Students may start at a four-year institution, seek to take summer courses or transfer to a more convenient community college, and eventually return to their original or a different university. These patterns, as argued earlier, make it difficult to deliver the kind of four-year experience that liberal arts colleges traditionally have valued. Perhaps it is simply old-fashioned or unrealistic to believe that students, at least those who are recent high school graduates, benefit from continuous study in a four-year program on a residential campus. But I believe that swirling not only adds significant time to degree; it results in a loss of educational coherence and a narrowing of purpose to the accumulation of needed credit hours. Most importantly, the pressure on public liberal arts colleges to assure ease of transfer interferes with our ability to structure general education in creative and mission-appropriate ways. Nationally the need to seek coherence in general education and simultaneously accommodate student transfer has begun to garner substantial attention. Martin Finkelstein, in an edited collection on this topic published by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) writes: In the new era of massive state systems, the majority of students now enroll at two or more colleges (both two-year and four-year) before receiving their baccalaureate degrees. The majority no longer complete their general education programs at a single institution. Under these circumstances, to what extent is there sufficient sharing of intentions across campuses to allow for a coherent student experience at multiple institutions in a single state system? Who is responsible for assuring such coherence and what are appropriate strategies for doing so? (2005, 55)

Although Finkelstein suggests that the answers to these questions are, first, that sharing is insufficient and, second, no one has assumed responsibility, several states, including Georgia, Maryland, and Utah, have specifically tackled the challenge to develop cross-institutional intentionality and

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coherence in general education programs. In Maine, somewhat less ambitious but still useful efforts have been started related to the articulation of a common definition of college readiness and common expectations for the development of writing skills and quantitative reasoning skills in first-year courses. Nonetheless, I fear that pressures to ease transfer by standardizing general education risk moving the control of curriculum from faculty to state bureaucrats and, more importantly, risk reducing the richness of the general education experience. As Robert Shoenberg of AAC&U charges, “General education programs in particular are notorious for their lack of clearly stated and understood purpose and the vague relationship, in practice if not in theory, of individual courses to the purported goals of the program” (2005, 4). It is no wonder that students typically see their college’s general education requirements as an evil they must endure and the component courses as obligations “to be gotten out of the way.” UMF is not an exemplary exception, given its traditional “shopping mall” curriculum composed of various distribution requirements. However, our faculty have begun to devote themselves to meaningful and ambitious general education reform. This reform has been guided by our mission and by who our students are. The more the work progresses, the more the focus of our faculty shifts from individual course requirements to sequences of courses and clusters of courses. In addition, general education increasingly is perceived less as an endeavor to assure breadth of learning through a great variety of introductory courses and more as a four-year interdisciplinary venture parallel to the major, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and ample scaffolding to bridge the two pursuits. Effective delivery of a curriculum this ambitious will require extensive faculty conversation and collaboration. It will also require to some extent individualizing the general education experience for each student. The role of the academic advisor will be critical. Unfortunately, this kind of integrated, longitudinal general education experience is almost impossible to construct for students who want to complete their general education requirements at multiple institutions. It also is made virtually impossible by pressures to assure that transfer students who have completed an associate degree in a community college will have fulfilled all general education requirements. In Maine, a relatively new program, AdvantageU, guarantees Maine Community College

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students admission with junior standing to any of the state’s public universities upon completion of an associate degree in liberal studies. While it is not spelled out in the agreement, I have discovered that the expectation of most students and advisors is that transfers in this program will only have to complete courses in their major and possibly their minor during the last two years of study leading to a bachelor’s degree. Shoenberg reports that all but ten states already have “arrangements [in place] for the transfer of general education packages among all public institutions,” and the minimum size of those packages has been specified in thirty-six states, “with one large group clustering around thirty-two [credits] and another around forty” (2005, 9). Given that UMF’s general education requirement, which corresponds to an expectation set by our regional accrediting agency, is forty credits (ten courses out of a required thirty-two), there is little or no room for us to require more of transfer students. Our dilemma is this: on the one hand, as a public institution and member of a state system we are expected to make sure that general education is not an obstacle to transfer; on the other hand, as a liberal arts college that values its distinctive mission within the public sector in Maine we aspire to develop a four-year sequential and integrated general education curriculum that puts a unique stamp on our graduates. In fact, many of us at UMF wish for this to be the defining element of the “Farmington experience.” State expectations aside, we also need transfer students to reach our own enrollment targets. In addition, we recognize that our commitment to provide access to higher education needs to extend beyond graduating high school seniors. So our general education dilemma cannot be solved simply by retargeting the university’s admissions priorities.

HOMOGENIZED NOTIONS OF ACCOUNTABILITY In addition to pressures to standardize curriculum to ease student entry to UMF, like all public institutions we face increasing expectations to measure and publicly account for student learning outcomes at the time of graduation. The recent work of the Spellings Commission, congressional debates about reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, and challenges from multiple quarters to our systems of peer-based accreditation have led the national higher education associations representing the public

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sector, namely the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC), to endorse a new voluntary system of accountability (VSA). This national initiative has been designed for the specific purpose of blunting public criticism, staving off federal intrusions into assessments of institutional quality, and providing standardized measures to give students, parents, and guidance counselors information they might use to compare institutions. Of course, there is ample information already available in college guidebooks and national magazines. But the criticisms are twofold: this information tends to focus on inputs rather than outputs and it tells the public little about institutional effectiveness. The VSA effort involves having all participating colleges and universities post on their websites a common data set in a uniform format, the College Portrait. Much of the information, for example enrollment data, retention and graduation rates, cost of attendance and financial aid statistics, distribution of degrees awarded, average scores of first-year students on standardized tests, student to faculty ratio, faculty credentials, and postgraduate plans of degree recipients, is already available elsewhere, albeit not in a standardized format. What the VSA adds are two items: (1) data about student engagement from one of three national surveys, and (2) data about “core learning outcomes” from one of three standardized tests. The test that appears to be getting the most attention, perhaps because its creators are actively marketing it as a valid measure of students’ critical thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving, and written communication competencies, is the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA). It allegedly is superior because it is not a multiple choice test, but instead involves essay writing and “realistic work-sample performance tasks,” with students asked to craft the kinds of written materials that are common “to the domain of real world jobs [and] activities found in education, work, policy, and everyday practice” (Klein et al. 2007, 4). Nonetheless, students’ responses are machine scored.4 It is especially ironic that surveys of student engagement, such as NSSE, are being combined within the VSA with standardized tests of student learning outcomes. The developers of NSSE, after all, zeroed in on engagement because they regarded it as a needed proxy for measuring student learning, given the difficulty of developing valid measures of student outcomes that could be gathered through a single test and the

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challenge of comparing learning results across institutions with radically diverse academic missions. That this fact was missed demonstrates either the naiveté of VSA’s planners or the extreme political pressures that the public sector in higher education has been under, or (more likely) perhaps both. Those pressures are also made clear by the large number of public colleges and universities and, most alarmingly, several state university systems that quickly signed up to participate in the VSA. In Maine, highranking officials in the university system office have told me privately that they regard the VSA as “inevitable.” This rush toward standardized tests of generic intellectual skills and homogenized approaches to accountability is particularly inappropriate for liberal arts colleges, which are publicly committed to learning outcomes and patterns of cognitive and moral development that are far more complex than anything that can be reduced to scores on a single test. It therefore is not at all surprising that the national association that represents the finest private liberal arts colleges in the United States, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, has soundly rejected the VSA. There are numerous additional reasons for being suspicious of tests like the CLA. Trudy Banta, who has enumerated many of these reasons, concludes that “standardized tests of generic intellectual skills do not provide valid evidence of institutional differences in the quality of education provided to students” (2007, 2). Faculty at institutions like UMF, where students are regularly given complex writing assignments, argue that tests like the CLA are based on a fundamentally flawed understanding of writing. The CLA focuses on skills that allegedly can be measured across all academic disciplines and compared across institutional types (Collegiate Learning Assessment 2007, 3, 4, 6). UMF’s director of composition points out that the CLA “is grounded in an outmoded autonomous version of writing that holds all writing to be the same in any context, for any purpose, treating any subject.” Conversely, we know from experience, writing is always context specific and embedded in disciplinary needs and knowledge. Knowledge of subject matter and the ability to write effectively about it are closely intertwined. Furthermore, numerous studies have shown that timed responses (a mere thirty minutes on the CLA) to surprise writing prompts have low reliability. These tests also bear no resemblance whatsoever to the kinds of writing we assign at liberal arts

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colleges, not to mention their total failure to recognize the importance of rewriting and editing to the composition process. The greatest danger of tests like the CLA has to do with loss of faculty and institutional control over the curriculum. Standardized measures, especially if they are high stakes, will inevitably breed standardized curricula. Their potential impact is of even greater concern than other pressures toward commonality discussed earlier. For if an institution’s public standing and national ranking are at stake, faculty may be hard pressed to avoid narrowing the curriculum to focus on test content. Furthermore, longitudinal measures of “value added” like the CLA (it is administered to both first-year students and seniors) ignore the fact that motivation is key to performance. While experience teaches me that it is not at all difficult to motivate beginning college students (at least for a few weeks), it is particularly problematic to get seniors to care about their academic performance when there are no stakes. Systematic research and anecdotes from many institutions demonstrate that external incentives (bookstore certificates, pizza, etc.) do not ensure conscientiousness. To create reasonably high stakes would require that a minimum score on the CLA be required for graduation or that the outcome be tied to a final grade in an important capstone course. Once these outcomes occur, the faculty will have ceded responsibility for defining what it means to be a college graduate. Even if they manage to sustain their commitments to larger institutional objectives, those will become increasingly insignificant in the minds of a public attuned to easy comparisons of quantitative scores on standardized tests.

IMPOVERISHED NOTIONS OF EDUCATION Perhaps the greatest challenge facing liberal arts colleges within public systems of higher education is that they are based on values and priorities that run counter to the social and political mainstream. As a result, they are not particularly popular. Nationally, residential liberal arts colleges attract only about 4 percent of the country’s undergraduates. In the public sector, less than one-half of America’s state systems of higher education even have within them an institution that aspires to offer an alternative to private liberal arts colleges.

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Within the private sector, there is little doubt that selective, wellendowed liberal arts colleges will survive. Money and prestige assure that. Genuine quality, for example as measured by alumni outcomes (e.g., the high percentage of liberal arts college graduates placed into graduate and professional school), helps. So too does the chase for status among upper-middle-class parents and their progeny. Many of these institutions’ tuition-dependent counterparts, however, have struggled. Almost all are discounting tuition at alarming rates, hopeful that the cachet of meritbased scholarships along with lower cost will help draw students who may have other options. Meanwhile within the public sector, residential liberal arts colleges increasingly seem not only a luxury but a form of education that is mismatched to the values and interests of the people we serve and the legislators, governors, trustees, and regents who fund us. Over the last half century, education has become increasingly important for job entry in the United States. We have witnessed an inflation of expectations (first a high school diploma as the needed credential for a middle-class lifestyle, then a baccalaureate degree, and now increasingly a graduate degree). As a result, college has come to be regarded as a necessary investment to maximize future earnings (from the buyer’s perspective) or to maximize economic growth (from the state’s perspective). Public colleges and universities, even more than their private counterparts, are expected to provide job skills and to be responsive to market demands. Their contributions to upward mobility and to economic growth are singled out as the critical factors that justify their claim on tax receipts. In this environment, the historic role of the liberal arts—to foster and strengthen individual autonomy, to graduate students who have the capacity to think and act for themselves, to educate for citizenship and for leadership, and to prepare young people for personally meaningful lives—appears to be an expensive anachronism. Whereas the liberal arts originally were intended to be liberating in a political sense, today college more often is intended to be enriching in an economic sense. As a result of this value hierarchy, scarce state resources tend to flow toward those institutions and those programs most directly attuned to obvious economic needs. In Maine this has meant the community colleges, which are preparing entry-level workers for many current or targeted growth sectors, and the land-grant university, whose commitment to research and development helps bring matching dollars into the state and

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generates new industries and new jobs. Those of us in that small outpost of higher education called the public liberal arts college have ended up relatively invisible and undervalued. That is the greatest challenge facing our institutions’ leadership. We have tended to meet it by arguing for the practical value of the residential liberal arts college experience, for example by citing statistics that show that liberal arts college graduates rise to higher levels in the corporate sector and have higher lifetime earnings than other college graduates. That, of course, may largely be due to the socioeconomic status of students who attend private liberal arts colleges. Whether or not the argument is bogus, it is a form of surrender, and I fear it merely reinforces the very economic calculus that risks narrowing our purpose and circumscribing our role. It contributes to the fact that our core mission remains anomalous and poorly understood. If we wish to survive as public liberal arts colleges and broaden public understanding of our unique value, I believe we need to cultivate alliances with those legislators, trustees, and opinion makers in our states who are as committed to building social capital and civil society as they are economic capital and the business sector. Such leaders may be a minority, but they do exist—indeed many of them are our graduates.

NOTES 1. As a percentage of overall state expenditures, spending on higher education in Maine has decreased from over 8 percent in 1985 (Duchesneau and Wihry 1996, 11) to 4 percent in 2006 (Cervone 2007, 11). Nationally state appropriations to higher education fell over the twenty-five-year period from 1977 to 2002 from an average of roughly $8.50 per $1,000 in personal income to an average of about $7.00 per $1,000 in personal income (Orszag and Kane 2003, 2). At UMF, appropriations from the State of Maine in 1991 accounted for 76 percent of the cost of a student’s education; today the proportion covered by the state is 41 percent; it is likely to dip below 40 percent in 2008–2009. 2. A number of COPLAC schools, for example the University of Minnesota, Morris; Keene State College; and Truman State University, already have a missionappropriate approach to tuition characterized by a full-time tuition “band,” wherein students are charged by the credit hour only if they are part time. 3. The National Survey of Student Engagement organizes student responses to questions about their college experiences into five indices: Student-Faculty In-

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teraction, Enriching Educational Experiences, Supportive Campus Environment, Active and Collaborative Learning, and Level of Academic Challenge. UMF’s comparatively high scores on the first four of these indices merited our inclusion as one of twenty featured institutions in a national monograph, Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter, by George D. Kuh et al. Our scores on the fifth index indicated that there was substantial room for improvement. 4. For short writing tests, particularly when machine scored, it often is the case that students are rewarded for the quantity of writing rather than the quality—that is, overall cogency, the ideas considered, the appropriateness and accuracy of the facts that are utilized. Good writing, as T. S. Eliot noted (“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter”), is concise, not wordy, and it requires time.

WORKS CITED Banta, Trudy W. 2007. “A Warning on Measuring Learning Outcomes.” Inside Higher Ed., June 26. insidehighered.com/views/2007/01/26/banta. Cervone, Edmund. 2007. Maine Revenue and Spending Primer 2007. Augusta: Maine Center for Economic Policy. Collegiate Learning Assessment. 2007. New York: Council for Aid to Education. Duchesneau, Thomas D., and David F. Wihry. 1996. “Financing Public Higher Education in Maine: Patterns and Trends.” In Maine Choices 1997: A Preview of State Budget Issues. Augusta: Maine Center for Economic Policy. Finkelstein, Martin. 2005. “Intentionality and Coherence in Undergraduate Education: What Have We Learned?” In General Education and Student Transfer: Fostering Intentionality and Coherence in State Systems, ed. Robert Shoenberg. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges and Universities, 55–67. Klein, Stephen, Roger Benjamin, Richard Shavelson, and Roger Bolus. 2007. The Collegiate Learning Assessment: Facts and Fantasies. New York: Council for Aid to Education. Kuh, George D., Jillian Kinzie, John H. Schuh, and Elizabeth J. Whitt. 2005. Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter. New York: Jossey-Bass. Orszag, Peter R., and Thomas J. Kane. 2003. Funding Restrictions at Public Universities: Effects and Policy Implications. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Peter, Katharin, Emily Forrest Cataldi, and C. Dennis Carroll. 2005. The Road Less Traveled? Students Who Enroll in Multiple Institutions. Washington, DC: U.S. Deptartment of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

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Shoenberg, Robert. 2005. “Greater Expectations for Student Transfer: Seeking Intentionality and the Coherent Curriculum.” In General Education and Student Transfer: Fostering Intentionality and Coherence in State Systems, ed. Robert Shoenberg. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges and Universities, 1–23.

III SYSTEM RELATIONS

10 Executive Strategies for Negotiating the Relationship between a Branch Campus and a Multicampus System Administrative Structure Theodora J. Kalikow Dedicated to Donald E. Walker, who taught me my first lessons about academic administration, and put me on the path to learn many more. We want freedom from above and obedience from below. —Donald E. Walker

Gentle reader, I have spent my entire career as an academic administrator in state institutions of higher education that had some sort of central office, university system, or other form of more or less effective bureaucracy. Massachusetts, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Maine—each taught valuable lessons. Here are a few of the ones you most need to know.

THE SYSTEM IS NOT YOUR FRIEND It is not your enemy, either. However, the interests of your campus and that of the system are not necessarily always congruent. This awareness should affect all aspects of your dealings with each other. You need to be able to recognize when congruencies do exist and should, when they don’t and should, when they do and shouldn’t, and when they don’t and shouldn’t. You can actually make a little four-celled matrix and craft strategies from there. For example, suppose the system has successfully worked with the governor and the legislature to craft a bond issue proposal that, if approved by 181

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the voters, would provide money for campus infrastructure. Even if some campuses would get more money than yours, it is still in your campus’s interest to campaign hard for the bond’s passage. Issues where campus and system interests coincide are the easiest to manage. The three other combinations will present various forms of leadership problems to you as campus CEO. Either you will be trying to lead your reluctant campus to accept some useful system proposal, or going against a consensus of campus and system folks, or resisting a system initiative that you think is misguided. For example, suppose the system board and system head are hot to embark on a huge top-down centralized planning effort that you know will suck up endless time and resources from your campus and all the others and produce bad results. Here interests are not congruent, and should not be. Almost all your options are bad. Try to manage this one so that when the inevitable failure occurs, the system head goes, not you.

KNOW WHAT KIND OF SYSTEM YOU ARE IN If yours is one where every institution is supposed to be the same as every other one, you will have a much harder job. However, “supposed to be” is not “is.” You should strategize about ways to stand out. Even better, try to encourage the system head to be open to differentiation among institutions. Offering an array of cost-effective educational and access choices to state policy makers may be a winning strategy. For you as campus CEO, a system where every institution has or could have its own niche will be much more open for you to craft a unique mission and achieve individual campus excellence. Your campus may not be the flagship, but it can be the destroyer, the minesweeper, or the guided missile cruiser. PT boats are good, too. You probably don’t want to be the submarine.

WHEN THE FLAGSHIP GETS SICK, YOU WILL TAKE THE MEDICINE In a system, especially one that includes a heterogeneous collection of campuses, rules and regulations may not be made for your case. For

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example, the budget rules crafted for a larger campus with many more functions may be needlessly complicated for a smaller place. In a situation like this, it pays to have a campus CFO who can make cost-benefit proposals to the system financial folks, if there is any possibility at all of modifications. Sometimes, of course, there isn’t. Watch out especially for new system rules proposed to deal with a scandal or problem at one campus (somebody else’s, never yours). Watch out for system overkill, more complexity for areas that have never been a problem on your campus, and the policing mentality. Many times, proposed new rules could add staff time and expense that you would have to accommodate by cuts elsewhere. Be vigilant and vociferous. Make sure the proposers of the rules know how they would actually affect your campus.

SYSTEM STAFF OPERATE ON A DIFFERENT CALENDAR (MAYBE FROM ANOTHER PLANET) The rhythms of the academic year make it possible for you and your campus to do certain things only at certain times. Even if system staff came from a campus, how soon they forget! For example, there is no use asking for immediate action on a new academic policy or program in the middle of the summer, when typically the faculty who should be consulted (or who must actually do the work) are not even on contract. Keep reminding the system staff who should know, and keep teaching the ones who have never been on a campus—including the system board. Related to this problem is the one where the system folks forget how thinly staffed your campus is, and assume that you can turn your staff loose on a request and have it done tomorrow. This is toughest when your staff is you.

THE SYSTEM HEAD REPORTS TO THE SYSTEM BOARD, NOT TO YOU AND THE OTHER CAMPUS CEOS This is sad, but true. In fact, the system head may have the insane idea that she is actually your boss. Humor her. She is less dangerous that way.

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Seriously, the system head is usually the one who will be evaluating you, deciding your salary, and signing your contract. Nonetheless, this does not make her a dictator. Mutual respect for each other’s roles is key. Here are some pointers about how to act with each other: The system head should consult, inform, and ask advice from the campus CEOs. His role is to hear and negotiate among all the campus interests to get to a united position, if possible. The system head is also responsible for communicating the system board’s policies, concerns, and desires to the campuses. If the system head is on the job, the system board will not have any policies, concerns, or desires that have not been discussed and strategized by the campus CEOs and the system head first. If the system head does not know the role, perhaps you can provide subtle and sympathetic guidance. The system head is often also responsible for being the main speaker for the system to the state legislature. Be grateful that this is not your job. The campus CEO’s responsibility is to make the system head proud of your institution. He or she should know and embrace your campus’s mission and be committed to helping achieve your goals. You also need to make sure the system head knows your campus’s positions on all major issues. And if you have any kind of campus problem, budget woes, criminal act, disaster, or whatever, be sure that the system head hears it from you, in all its ugly truth, not from a reporter. Further, the campus CEO should offer support and help to the system head on all reasonable occasions. You are both between the dog and the tree. Just different dogs and different trees. “No secrets, no surprises” is a good motto.

MAKE THE SYSTEM BOARD LOVE YOU BUT STAY OUT OF BED WITH THEM Respect the system head’s rules for communicating with the system board, the legislature and the governor. End runs are not appreciated. The system board will love you as long as you don’t cause them problems or black eyes, or neglect to balance your budget. They will really love you if you make them proud. Be sure to inform them why they should be proud! Since you will see them mostly at committee meetings or full system

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board meetings, assume they are stressed and incompletely informed (and worried about it), and do your best to be upbeat and informative. Project an air of competence. Be happy. When they visit your campus, feed them well and keep the evening program short.

YOU ARE IN A SYSTEM, NOT A STRAITJACKET As the campus CEO you need a certain independent spirit. You need to negotiate your relationship with the system head and the other campus CEOs so your opinions will be listened to with respect and so your institution can be well served. You can be ornery (as long as you have good reasoning) but not crazy or uncooperative. Express yourself! That way they will not get you confused with any other campus CEO. That old saying, “It is easier to get forgiveness than permission,” also applies, up to a point. Try this only if your budget is in the black.

LEARN TO SING LOUDLY BUT IN HARMONY You became the campus CEO after many years of successful administrative experience. Combined with the other campus CEOs, you can be formidable. Therefore, cultivate your colleagues and find all the issues upon which you can agree, collaborate, or at least understand each other’s points of view. A nice balance of teamwork and independence is what you want. A good system head will encourage this. The system head who exploits divisions and ignores advice from the campus CEOs is usually stupid, inexperienced (because from outside academe), or a coward. Sometimes all three.

ON YOUR OWN CAMPUS YOU MAY BE GOD, BUT AT THE SYSTEM OFFICE YOU ARE AN EXALTED FORM OF CHOPPED LIVER Save the tantrums and the wisecracks for your fellow CEOs and the very senior system staff. Be nice and helpful to the system staff at all times,

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especially the administrative assistants. Never presume to give an order. You are not their boss. They can save you, should you occasionally need to be saved, but they won’t do it if they don’t like you.

MAKE SURE YOUR SENIOR CAMPUS STAFF MEMBERS PLAY NICELY WITH THE SYSTEM, TOO Often systems will have periodic meetings of campus CAOs, CFOs, CSAOs, and so forth, to make policy proposals, solve problems, or implement new programs. Make sure your folks take part and assume leadership roles when appropriate. This will add to your campus’s effectiveness by expanding the relationship network within which the system’s business actually gets done.

WHEN THE SYSTEM LOBBYIST CALLS, YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO Come on, do I have to explain this one?

WHAT’S NEXT? If you are in a system, you are in an institution that used to be statesupported. Then it was state-assisted, then state-located, and now it is state-bothered. Soon all that may be left is the geographical designator(s) that make up part of your institution’s name! The feds are getting into this act, too. The world as we knew it is gone. Systems are going to have to become ever more efficient, and some pieces of them may go away or be transformed, probably beyond what we can imagine today. What will be constant is that people (maybe fewer of them) are going to be running these institutions. As long as that is the case, some of these strategies may help.

11 Managing Campus/System Communications: The Model at Kent State Shirley J. Barton, Patricia A. Book, and Leslie Heaphy

Managing communications in a complex and diverse multicampus system poses unique challenges. Examining these challenges from various points of view—cabinet-level executive officer, regional campus academic administrator, and regional campus faculty member—sheds light on communication methods that are used to achieve various purposes within such a system with multiple constituents’ needs to consider. The case of Kent State University, the largest regional campus system in Ohio, provides an opportunity to describe communication systems in place, their purpose and their effectiveness, with attention to how they relate to leadership effectiveness and management in a system with regional branch campuses. This case illustrates the kinds of systems in place, what works, and how these systems have evolved. We can also derive lessons learned from this case example that would be helpful to other multicampus institutions.

THE KENT STATE CASE As a university, Kent State operates within a shared governance model with an all-campus faculty senate. In Kent State’s particular case, we also have a collectively organized faculty with labor and management dimensions underlying our communication systems. The institutional culture, however, shares a common desire to implement consultative practices in governing the university academically and administratively. This is done 187

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in a collegial manner with the needs of all campuses in mind. For these ideals to be realized, however, considerable attention must be placed on communication processes (Bensimon et al. 1989, 55–56). Access to information is central to effective communication, but so are consultative practices that entail more active engagement in the operation of the university among various constituents and stakeholders. To better understand the context in which Kent State University and its regional campuses have evolved and operate, it is helpful to understand that the university arose historically with a regional mission. Northeast Ohio, where all Kent State campuses are located, encompasses the metropolitan areas of Cleveland, Akron, Canton, and Youngstown, and all the surrounding suburban and rural areas. The region is the state’s largest population center, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all the people living in Ohio, with just over 4 million people. The region consists of approximately twenty-two counties, with Kent State having campuses in seven of them, several serving multiple counties. Kent State’s reach goes beyond the urban centers into Appalachia and other rural areas. The counties that Kent State serves range from some of the poorest and least educated to some of the wealthiest and most educated in the state. Kent State was founded as a normal school, offering classes at extension sites throughout the region to meet the demand for teachers in the Western Reserve long before courses were offered at what is now the residential campus in Kent. Founded in 1910, Kent State was established with regional service as a founding mission. It is one of the four corner universities in Ohio, along with Bowling Green, Miami, and Ohio University. The early focus on serving the entire region gave rise to what is now a large multicampus system with full-service regional campuses and satellite centers. Based on enrollment, Kent State is now the third largest university in Ohio. Kent State also has the largest regional campus system in the state, with over 184,000 alumni, 35,837 students, 4,615 faculty and staff, and 271 academic programs. The Kent campus of Kent State University is one of seventy-seven public research universities that the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching classifies as maintaining “high research activity.” On the other hand, the seven regional campuses have emphasized their teaching mission and two-year degrees. While there is an overall university mission, and each regional campus has an open access mission in com-

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mon, the diversity of the region gives rise to unique local circumstances affecting what each campus provides to meet the educational needs of its community. There has also been substantial economic change in the region with the decline of legacy industries in steel and automobile manufacturing, affecting program demand. Kent State University is also one of a select group of national universities in which collaboration, outreach, and public service are ingrained in the institution’s core values and mission. This is not surprising, given the history of the institution. The Carnegie Foundation’s new Community Engagement Classification is divided into three categories—curricular engagement, outreach and partnerships, and a comprehensive community engaged institution that encompasses all categories. The Foundation affirmed Kent State as one of the first institutions in the nation with the classification of both community engagement and outreach and partnerships.

MANAGING COMMUNICATION Communicating within a large and complex multicampus system like Kent State University requires a system as diverse and complex as the institution itself. Within this structure, there can be no single model of communication used because there are so many different channels needed to reach the various constituencies, including students, staff, administrators, faculty, alumni, trustees, and community leaders. In general, communication system descriptions need to consider both internal and external modes of discussion in assessing their effectiveness. In addition, in a multicampus system, there is also the need to examine the intercampus communication methods as well as the intracampus approaches. Traditionally, the forms of communication between campuses have relied heavily on an intercampus mail system that runs every day between campuses. For example, departments that are located on the Kent campus need to communicate with their faculty on all eight campuses in order to include everyone in the decision-making process when making changes to their department handbooks. But parking services on the Kent campus uses mainly intracampus communication since the other campuses are not affected on a daily basis by their decisions. Today, multiple modalities

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are available; many are technology-based, including websites, e-mail, text messages, and blogs, so how we communicate has become more diverse and complex as well. To determine what type of system is needed for effective communication in such a complex system, one first has to ask what is being communicated and who needs to hear the message. Once that is determined, then the proper format can be decided. Looking for a working communication model to describe what happens at Kent State is difficult. One has to recognize the difference between informational discourse and the discourse of engagement, or, put another way, communication that is passive in nature or that which requires an active response. Understanding the type of communication desired can help determine the methods most effective for delivering the message. In addition, it is necessary to determine who the audience is for all communiqués. For example, if a message has to go to all students at the eight campuses, is it best to send just an e-mail or a letter or both? Part of the answer depends on the nature of the message itself but also on the access students have to technology across such a geographically and socioeconomically diverse region. The communication methods used range from the daily student newspaper called the Daily Kent Stater, to regular e-mail messages from the president, to a weekly newsletter called e-Inside that highlights events past and present for the campuses. Then there are publications such as Uhuru that go to select audiences, as well as face-to-face, on-campus listening posts that are used for Human Resource issues (see table 11.1). Sometimes overlooked in assessing communication models and styles is classroom instruction, a vital part of university life. Inside the classroom there are a multitude of approaches used by faculty, depending on their discipline, the assessments they are using, the nature of their students, and even the personality of the faculty. Effective communication in the classroom is now extended outside the traditional classroom walls with blogs, online discussions, podcasts, internships, student teaching, service learning, and much more. Kent State uses a communication approach that incorporates a series of systems within systems, a model that recognizes communicators in different roles at any given time. Leadership is not something that occurs from the top down but includes a system of relationships that involves superiors

Table 11.1. Communication Processes Regional Campuses

Type Written Hardcopy Artemis The Burr College—and campus— specific publications Connecting 2U Newsletter Daily Kent Stater Fusion Kaleidoscope Kent State Magazine Luna Negra Memos and flyers President’s report University bulletins, catalogs, and brochures RC Regionals Report Newsletter Uhuru Online Blogs E-Inside E-mail messages (listserves) Flash alerts Flashline www.kentnewsnet.com Human resources newsletter Management updates President’s weekly e-mail update University website Text messaging In-Person Communication/ Meetings AAUP Unions Ad hoc committees Board of trustees meeting Campus faculty meetings Department and college meetings Diversity advisory committee meetings Educational policies council Faculty senate Faculty councils (colleges, depts., campuses) Listening posts Orientation programs Retreats Strategic planning sessions University priorities and budget advisory committee Other Verbal Channels Classroom instruction Phone calls/teleconferences President’s State of the University Report Video conferences

Faculty

Admin. Staff

Alumni/ External Students Constituents X X

X X X X

X X X

X

X X

X X X

X

X X

X X

X X X

X

X

X

X

X

X X X X X

X X X X X X

X X X X

X X X X X

X X X X

X X

X X X

X X X

X

X X X X

X X

X X X

X X X X

X X X X

X

X

X X

X

X X

X X

X X

X X

X

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and peers as well as subordinates. As a result of this network, leaders must have a variety of skills and characteristics to be able to effectively communicate in such a complex system.

THE COMPETING VALUES FRAMEWORK The framework that comes closest to describing how Kent State manages communication within an environment of competing needs for central control and local flexibility, and internal and external dimensions, is called a competing values framework. As described by one group of researchers, “Today’s message givers and message receivers operate in a diverse, complex, information-rich, rapidly changing, and often chaotic world. Consequently, theories of communication and tools for analyzing written and spoken presentations must be adaptable to a variety of contexts and must help communicators understand the complexities of their tasks and the multiplicity of their choices” (Quinn et al. 1991, 215). This model was cocreated in 1983 by Quinn and Rohrbaugh in their effort to determine the effectiveness of an organization. There are four quadrants within this framework that allow for an organization to be both “stable and controlled” and “adaptable and flexible” simultaneously. These are critical elements for effective functioning across distance, differing contexts, and differentiated missions in university systems with regional campuses. The first quadrant of this framework is an internal process model (see figure 11.1) that examines concerns about measuring effectiveness in relation to control. This part of the model allows for greater measures of control and stability. For Kent State, this means a top-down communication style for specific, measurable tasks that document and manage what the university does on a regular basis. Communicating policy articulated by the board of trustees would be one example; another would be strategic planning and goal setting that require different levels of communication to convey the results and actions expected. A second piece of this framework is the rational goal model. The creation of Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP) goals at different levels of the university would be a good example of this model.

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Figure 11.1. The Competing Values Framework of Organizational Effectiveness

Each goal had built into its creation ways to measure its success and reevaluate its progress. This requires specific, controlled communication with internal and external audiences since the goals are tied to continued accreditation. “With AQIP, an institution demonstrates it meets accreditation standards and expectations through sequences of events that align with those ongoing activities that characterize organizations striving to improve their performance” (www.aqip.org/). On the flexibility side of the model, there are two quadrants called open systems and human relations. An open systems model allows for the greatest creativity. A good example of this is the communication that takes place within departments as they evaluate their curricular offerings and create new courses to meet changing needs. Part of the decisionmaking process involves communication with the departments, college, and the broader faculty senate. Communication in this case occurs between peers as well as with subordinates and those higher up in the chain of command.

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In the human relations quadrant, the emphasis is placed on the people that make up the system. At Kent State, this means forms of communication that can work with all kinds of people in an effort to get everyone to understand and embrace a common mission and purpose. At the same time, each individual campus of Kent State has its own distinctive mission that reflects the community it more directly serves. In this area, Kent State uses a variety of methods of communication, including newsletters designed to reach specific audiences. At the other end of the spectrum from flexibility is control. An effective system of communication reaches a balance between flexibility and control. Competing values means that when you move forward on one end of the continuum, the other end is affected as well.

CREATING AN EFFECTIVE MANAGERIAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM Kent State has some unique challenges in its effort to create an effective system of communication, so the system is by necessity dynamic—constantly changing and evolving. Changes in technology have also been incorporated into discussions of communication. Much of what used to be done with paper copies can now be done electronically. For example, e-Inside used to be only hardcopy but now is a weekly e-mail. After the events at Virginia Tech in 2007, Kent State added a Flash Alerts system to help facilitate emergency communiqués. To reach the various audiences at different campuses, often the most effective communication takes place in person, but how do you accomplish that when some of your campuses are over two hours away? This requires some creative methods and a great deal of flexibility in the system. In addition to e-mail and mail, Kent State has made use of various technologies. Videoconferencing and teleconferences can be effective if used properly, but communication through these channels also loses some spontaneity and personal warmth. Kent State has managed to create a communication system that covers the full dimensions of the competing values framework, a system that recognizes the complexity of a multicampus institution. The communication

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system is an ever-evolving and changing creature that does some things extremely well but continues to struggle in other areas. Intercampus communication is difficult to maintain at a high level, which is what most institutions of higher learning are contending with on a daily basis. Kent State, because of its seven regional campuses, has to use intercampus communication every day. As a consequence, a competing values framework is an effective way of incorporating all the modalities available as well as audience needs. This enables the university to create reliable and credible communications that build trust among its people, provide facts, stimulate change to respond to dynamic environments, and direct action when necessary. The competing values model can be seen at work within the various structures of Kent State University. This communication network sustains itself with an appropriate degree of control and stability along with creativity, innovation, flexibility, and empowerment. As a result, the network accommodates growth, efficiency, and effectiveness over time. This relates to academic curriculum, faculty and staff, and other broader constituencies, especially from the external audiences the university engages with. Kent State’s use of a competing values communication structure can be seen by examining various programs and entities within the university.

ACADEMIC PROGRAMS The academic programs at each location reflect the demands and needs of that particular community. Consequently, not all degrees are available at every regional campus. All of Kent State’s regional campuses, however, do offer a generous menu of general education courses; and many offer the same associate degrees (transfer and technical/career), baccalaureate degrees, adult continuing education, and developmental education. As a system, the goal is to have each course taught with the same content and rigor across all campuses. The expectation is that no matter the location of the classroom or the faculty member teaching the course, each student should have a sufficiently common experience with the same course. To reach and maintain this goal requires ongoing effective communication of many dimensions across the eight-campus system. Regional campus

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faculty members’ active involvement with their departmental, system, and campus colleagues of the same discipline is a key factor in attaining academic integrity for every course. There is also a fair amount of flexibility that is necessary, since the human factor has to be taken into consideration when looking at teaching and the best modes of delivery. Good teaching cannot be replicated simply because it is mandated that curriculum must be the same. Faculty members are expected to stay in touch with both their academic deans on their respective campuses, as well as the chairs of their departments and colleagues in their departments. This can mean anything from serving on department committees, to taking part in curricular decisions, or serving on the faculty senate, which is the decision-making body for all faculty, regardless of their home campus. One of the major communication challenges we face in academic administration is to maintain the appropriate balance in blending the university’s “family brand” and serving the needs and constituents of diverse regional campus communities. It is important that printed brochures for associate degree programs be identified with the Kent State brand. Each must be distinctive for its program, but also must be understood by and be effective with students across a wide age range who are located in different cultural communities. Written advising materials, printed and online, are program specific but must be generic enough to assure that all students successfully progress and ultimately meet graduation requirements. This requires a degree of control being exercised by the central campus and administration to make sure that certain standards are maintained in advertising and that the message sent out is consistent with Kent State’s overall image.

STUDENTS Kent State students have many of the same issues, for example, of first generation students, regardless of which campus they attend. There are some unique challenges on many of the regional campuses, however, with more commuter students, no dormitories, and a less traditional student age population, so audience does have to be considered in all communication efforts. Communication with all students is greatly enhanced

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by our continuous assessment of their profiles. We must understand who our students are, their preferences and their priorities. For example, with regional campus students, their local regional campus is Kent State. They will tell you that their “main” campus is the local campus they attend, not the Kent campus. Most regional campus students are time- and place-bound, trying to manage a heavy academic load with a job, whether full time or part time. Many have the added complexity of family responsibilities. As a result, less than a thousand of the almost 12,000 students enrolled transition annually to the Kent campus to complete a baccalaureate degree. Knowing this, regional campuses offer students the options of regular classroom instruction, online courses, and blended forms of distance education, as well as evening/weekend courses and courses within compressed time frames. These choices improve the chances of student success and are just as important for persistence rates as they are for recruitment success. Kent State institutional researchers confirm this “local or nothing” concept, indicating that most of the students who do not persist at regional campuses do not attend other institutions; they simply drop out. Thus, effective recruitment and retention of regional campus students, most of whom are first-generation college-goers, relies heavily on institutional and systemic abilities to maximize and capitalize on communication methods, styles, and analyses. In developing recruitment brochures, for example, while the Kent State name and brand is always apparent, each regional campus is given a certain amount of flexibility to reach its target audience. It is the same idea as having different approaches for recruiting nursing students as opposed to engineering students. Web pages for the university are another good example of this competing values framework, as the home page for each of the eight campuses has a similar look, but the information one can find beyond that home page is flexible and shows the distinctiveness of each campus.

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF With the complex administrative structure in place at Kent State, some services are centralized, but most are decentralized to the regional

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campus. Over time, Kent State has sought increasingly to decentralize decision-making to the local campus level, with overall operating parameters defined for the university as a whole. Communication among professional staff in the same functional area at regional campuses is generally facilitated with central support, even when the units do operate fairly independently at each campus. For example, student services professionals at the regional campuses report directly to their campus dean, not to a central enrollment management and student services function. To successfully carry out their responsibilities, these staff do need to be part of a university-wide functional communication matrix. In general, regularly scheduled meetings with their peers throughout the university and ongoing electronic written communications keep regional campus staff members up to date on policies, procedures, and planning initiatives important to their function across the eight campuses. Communication also allows formative input from the regional campuses as policies are formulated. This more active engagement of regional campus staff is critical to ensure that the design of support areas such as information services (technology), financial systems, and student service systems meets the needs of diverse campus students. Meetings may occur in person or may connect staff at eight locations via videoconference. The great distance between campuses, inclement weather, and time constraints prompt frequent use of videoconferencing. To achieve a more unified student recruitment effort despite our decentralized system, the university launched its first professional staff learning community for the enrollment management professionals across all eight campuses. Enrollment managers meet monthly as a learning community to share individual campus goals, learn best practices, find common solutions to problems, and develop plans for the future. Other functional groups who convene regularly are registrars, assistant/ associate deans, library directors, and academic program managers, to name a few. Likewise, regional campus deans meet monthly as a group, as well as with the college deans; the provost and his staff are also involved in these meetings, which focus on the academic mission of the university. These meetings, along with printed communications in hard copy and online, are the glue of effective communication within Kent State and result in a system that blends all four aspects of the competing values framework described previously. This kind of systemic communication requires plan-

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ning, commitment, and resources, but is essential for effective administrative communication within an institution the size and complexity of Kent State. This internal processes framework holds our system together and counters the tendency toward separation.

FACULTY Communication of the policies, procedures, and process for reappointment, tenure, and promotion is a good place to focus on the effectiveness of Kent State’s communication network. Conveying this information to regional campus faculty is a Herculean task. Like Kent campus faculty, faculty at the regional campuses, whether tenure-track or nontenure-track, hold academic rank in an academic department or professional school in one of the university’s seven colleges. Department/school handbooks, developed by the faculty in each unit, determine the criteria for reappointment, tenure, and promotion of faculty in that unit. Unlike the research focus of the Kent campus, the mission of the regional campuses is primarily teaching, with the result that all regional campus faculty are hired to teach a full load each semester (generally four classes). The evaluative criteria cited in most unit handbooks recognize the differentiated assignment of the regional campuses’ faculty. Competitive awards in research and teaching development, as well as campus-based release time programs during the academic year, provide regional campus faculty with opportunities and funding for research, professional development, and publication goals. Although regional campus faculty are hired by a regional campus and report to a regional campus dean, tenure for regional campus faculty is not campus specific, but is awarded in the regional campus system, not at the Kent campus. Thus, regional campus tenure-track faculty are reviewed by faculty peers and administrators at both the campus and regional campuses system level, two more levels of review than their Kent campus counterparts. Complex though it is, department/school chairs and directors, college deans, regional campus deans, faculty mentors, and faculty review committees at several levels perform this task effectively year after year. They can do so because of all the internal communication channels that are in place and that are used repeatedly around the calendar year. For example, a faculty file at a regional campus must be turned in to

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both their home campus and an identical file to their department. Faculty receive letters and feedback from both units. The files are also reviewed by the regional campus system, as well as the college unit in which the faculty member’s department resides. This two-tier track takes all files to the final destination of the provost’s office. Although the process is not perfect, it does work and accomplishes its objective. Regional campus faculty candidates have a high rate of successful reappointment, tenure, and promotion. However, as a university administration in the spirit of continuous improvement, we recognize the need to review and analyze our communication patterns, methods, and the effectiveness of this process. As our faculty grows and electronic alternatives increase, so does the need to simplify the process. One thing that also becomes increasingly clear is that one model does not fit all situations and yet there has to be consistency across the university.

ACHIEVING BALANCE The competing values organizational framework provides a tool to create a better understanding of the need for regional branch campuses to have a degree of autonomy that allows them to adapt and be flexible as they respond to changing local needs. At the same time, it provides for a better understanding of the need for stability over time and a degree of central control to ensure that all units operate within the context of a larger system and act for the good of the university as a whole. Multicampus systems by their very nature exist within systems of bureaucratic control and hierarchies that tend to emphasize measurement, documentation, and information management in support of the system and its goals. Central communications reinforce stability and control for the university as a whole. At Kent State, the philosophy most recently articulated has been “one university—many access points.” At the same time, as each campus serves its own unique geographic region and constituency, there has to be an openness to diverse needs and a competing sense that more open organizational communication will allow for a more organic system of communication to develop that reflects the resources and support available to that campus. In serving differing constituencies, the need for innovation and creativity in understanding

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and responding to community needs also emphasizes adaptability. That, in turn, enables growth in services and facilities to be more responsive in serving community needs for education and training. Each regional campus operates financially as a “tub on its own bottom” in a stand-alone income/expense budget environment. Each campus and the regional campus system as whole, as separate from the Kent campus, also exercises stability and control mechanisms within and across regional campuses to set and communicate goals that lead to productivity and efficiency to ensure financial stability. In fact, the regional campuses as a whole, through individual campus assessments, contribute nearly 18 percent of their expense budgets to support central services provided by the Kent campus. This occurs through a service fee and other financial contributions. Ensuring that each campus and the regional campus system as a whole operate in the black in a university environment with limited resources is an important aspect of collectively managing and communicating financial information to serve the good of the university as a whole. In the end, given the diverse demands on each campus, its relative enrollment and financial performance, and resources, it is the human resources that ultimately provide the flexibility needed to serve students’ and the campus’s needs. The importance of communication systems that foster cohesion and high morale, for example telling success stories, providing listening posts on issues of importance to staff, and emphasizing professional development and training of personnel so they can provide the kind of flexibility desired, all contribute to building trust and facilitating positive change. For Kent State, that consistency and flexibility seems to be best achieved by using the full range of the competing values organizational framework. Kent State’s various methods of communication (see table 11.1) take into consideration the need for stability and control as well as creativity and flexibility in order to maximize the overall mission of an institution that is classified as both “high research” and “community engaged.”

LESSONS LEARNED The competing values framework formulated by Quinn and his colleagues has been validated over time as a useful tool with which to examine

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organizational and managerial effectiveness. It has been applied to a wide range of organizational issues, including managerial communications. Our recommendations fit within the four quadrants of this framework and allow us to think continually about maintaining that fine balance between autonomy and central control. Ensuring flexibility yet promulgating common standards, engaging constituents effectively in creating those standards so they achieve the goal, while providing room for adaptation, ultimately reflects the university’s goals and aspirations. As we think about organizational communications, we know that communication builds trust. Communication can also stimulate desired change. Managing communications well is probably the single most important leadership task faced by regional campus leaders who must function effectively not only as leaders within their own campuses, but among their regional campus peers, institutional academic peers, and the university’s executive officers. The better regional campus managers are at understanding the importance of communicating well up, down, and across their organization, the more they will be seen as effective system team players. We suggest doing your homework, preparing communications after due diligence, and spending time on the tone of the communication. Being seen as a team player will build supportive institutional relationships because others know what you are trying to accomplish, trust you, and want to be part of your success. Working effectively within a system allows regional campus leaders to get the most important things done. They may not occur within the time frame desired from a more entrepreneurial perspective, but balancing this need through effective communication will more likely produce a positive outcome. The importance of good informational and instructional communications also cannot be underestimated. Providing facts that are focused and clear, and instructions that are informational, realistic, and decisive, will all contribute to organizational effectiveness. Trust is built when information is communicated openly and perceived to be credible and technically correct (Quinn et al. 1991, 225). There is no one best organizational model to manage communications within a complex and diverse university system (Smart and Hamm 1993, 498). Multicampus systems must find the appropriate balance between flexibility and control. Finding this balance requires continuous effort and

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a proactive openness to feedback from multiple constituents, using a variety of communication tools and feedback loops to assess effectiveness. It is also essential that regional campuses engage actively in institutional change. Any changes considered should be evaluated on the accommodation of the needs of multiple campuses. Regional campuses and multicampus systems, by their very distributed nature, must take full advantage of new and emerging technologies when possible to improve access, flexibility, and broad dissemination of information. We have found that being committed to providing the right amount of information is also of value. Too much or too little information results in confusion and frustration. Regional campuses need to set priorities so everyone knows what is most important to their missions. This is predominantly a leadership task. Coupled with a comprehensive communication system, regional campuses can be a very healthy component of the university, providing answers to issues of access and affordability as well as community and economic development.

WORKS CITED Bensimon, Estela, Anna Neumann, and Robert Birnbaum. 1989. “Making Sense of Administrative Leadership: The L Word in Higher Education.” ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1. Washington, DC: George Washington University. Campbell, Kim Sydow, Charles White, and Diane E. Johnson. 2003. “LeaderMember Relations as a Function of Rapport Management.” The Journal of Business Communication 40 (3): 170–94. Donnellon, Anne, Barbara Grey, and Michel G. Bougon. 1986. “Communication, Meaning and Organized Action.” Administrative Science Quarterly 31 (1): 43–55. Hooijberg, Robert. 1996. “A Multidirectional Approach toward Leadership: An Extension of the Concept of Behavioral Complexity.” Human Relations 49 (7): 917–46. Kang, Seok, and Hanna E. Norton. 2006. “Colleges and Universities’ Use of the World Wide Web.” Public Relations Review 32 (4): 426–28. O’Neill, Regina M., and Robert E. Quinn, eds. 1993. “Editor’s Note: Applications of the Competing Values Framework.” Human Resource Management 32 (1): 1–7.

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Quinn, Robert E. 1988. Beyond Rational Management: Mastering the Paradoxes and Competing Demands of High Performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Quinn, Robert E., Herbert Hildebrand, Priscilla S. Rogers, and Michael P. Thompson. 1991. “A Competing Values Framework for Analyzing Presentational Communication in Management Contexts.” The Journal of Business Communication 28 (3): 214–32. Quinn, Robert E., and John Rohrbaugh. 1993. “A Spatial Model of Effectiveness Criteria: Towards a Competing Values Approach to Organizational Analysis.” Management Science 29 (3): 363–77. Smart, John C., and Russell Hamm. 1993. “Organizational Effectiveness and Mission Orientations of Two-Year Colleges.” Research in Higher Education 34 (4): 489–502. Stevens, Betsy. 1996. “Using the Competing Values Framework to Assess Corporate Ethical Codes.” The Journal of Business Communication 33 (1): 71–84.

IV EXTERNAL RELATIONS

12 Sez Who . . . ? External Communications on Branch Campuses Merianne Epstein and Samuel Schuman

It is a crisp, sunny late fall Saturday afternoon on a small branch college campus in the Midwest. This day is memorable not just because it happens to be homecoming, and not even just because it happens to be the occasion of a football game which will decide the conference championship, but also because it is the very last contest ever on an old football field, which will be replaced, by the beginning of the next academic year, with a new, state-of-the-art stadium. The game is every bit as exciting as the occasion merits, and the home team is down by two points, with the ball on the opponents’ twenty-five yard line, and just a few seconds left for one last desperation play. The center snaps the ball; the quarterback falls back; the ends fly down the field; there’s a long pass into the end zone; and, archetypically, a player from the home team leaps heroically into the deep blue autumn sky, snares the ball, and the game and championship are won. Naturally, the crowd goes wild. Since this is the final game on the field, a group of students (mostly players on the school’s other sports teams) have agreed in advance to a traditional celebration. Fueled perhaps by a few drinks during the halftime break, at the moment the game ends, they leap onto the field, rush to the end zone, and begin to pull down the goalpost. One particularly energetic young man leaps up and hangs on the crossbar. The goalpost comes down, suddenly and tragically the student is caught under the collapsing bar, and his skull is crushed. The crowd is hushed, shocked. After a few minutes, which seem an eternity, in which emergency medical personnel attempt in vain to revive him, the body of 207

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the student is taken to the small town hospital, where he is formally pronounced dead. This instantly turns into a news story of local, statewide, and even some national interest. A stringer from the big city newspaper is on campus before the day is done; phones are ringing all across campus; ESPN shows up with camera and microphone the next day. Who says what to whom? This scenario is, perhaps, more dramatic than the usual challenges facing external communicators on branch campuses, but it points clearly to the particular lessons and issues we face. (It is, as it happens, sadly a true story.) On the one hand, it would be desirable and reassuring if a strategic communications plan were in place to deal with every potential contingency that might arise at a branch campus. However, there are so many permutations of communications needs that such a plan is a practical impossibility. However, guidelines to cover the range of possibilities are essential: crises push all involved to their limits, so knowing who is responsible for what, beforehand, can make a huge difference. Another way of describing this kind of preparation is that everyone who might be involved in the public response to institutional news knows, understands, and agrees about the division of duties in such situations. There is good news (great first-year class, huge legislative appropriation, students winning national awards) and there is bad news (students, faculty, or staff arrested, roof blown off in spring storm, budget rescission). There is local news (Thursday afternoon is community appreciation day for the women’s soccer team), and there is system news (legislature approves bonding package). There are routine communications (hometown releases of student achievements, announcements of forthcoming campus dates and events, stories about athletic results), and there are extraordinary, wholly unpredicted and unpredictable events, like the death of the student at the goalpost. In all these situations, news should be released in a timely fashion; it should be honest and credible. An idiosyncratic set of challenges arises from the idiosyncratic relationships between branch campuses and the systems of which they are a part. If, for example, a new system president or chancellor is appointed, who notifies the local media in a town housing a branch campus? Who communicates with the local and system board or boards? How is information put on to the institutional website, and (perhaps even more impor-

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tantly) how is it refreshed? How are parents, local elected officials, and other relevant constituents contacted? If the branch campus has selected a new chief executive, or provost, or department chair, who creates and promulgates that news? Recognizing the impracticality of devising specific plans for each and every possible event that calls for external communications, there are some general principles that can and should guide those communications, with special attention to the needs of branch campuses.

THE COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER Obviously, there should be a single individual, on the branch campus, who is clearly and unequivocally designated as the chief external information and communications officer. This seems such a simple matter, but it can be astonishingly difficult to implement. Academic culture does not, as a rule, discourage anyone from speaking to anyone else about anything. Faculty members and students have, and zealously defend, first amendment rights of free speech. On a small campus, this communications officer might even be someone with other responsibilities (e.g., the editor of the weekly internal electronic newsletter, an associate public affairs or development person, etc.). On a larger campus, this may be the director of a multiperson information office, and a senior administrator. In any event, this should be an individual who is knowledgeable about public relations and the media, who has perhaps worked with TV or radio or newspapers, ideally with media in the region of the college or university, and thus with a preexisting network of connections. But this communications officer also needs to understand and be able to interpret the academic culture of the institution. It is best to place in this position someone with knowledge and experience in both worlds. But often this is not possible. In such cases, is it better to find a media person who can learn about academic issues, or an academic who can learn about the media? Either can work well, and we have seen both models pursued successfully. It is probably the case that most media people have had more experience at college than college people have had in the media. If the individual moving into this position does not have experience in both these worlds, a thoughtful plan needs to be created, at once, to bring her or

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him up to speed in the area of relative weakness (e.g., a series of informal meetings with academic affairs staff, and with department chairs, to learn of the educational vision of the school). Regardless of the career path of the chief external communications person, that individual must be someone who is trusted by the campus chief executive, and who, in turn, trusts the president or chancellor. The middle of a campus crisis is not the time to wonder if the person who is at your side is on your side! It is also important that this communicator be an individual who can say to the chancellor or president “Are you sure you want to do or say that?” Sometimes senior administrators need another perspective to help them think as fully and as carefully as they might about how some action or comment will “play” in the world beyond campus. Of course, the chief external communications officer should be a person of unquestioned integrity, with a reputation for telling both happy and unpleasant truths. Finally, it is obviously important that the campus external communications chief be an excellent (clear, concise, compelling) writer and speaker. News releases, press conferences, interviews, and web copy are certainly not the optimal sites for a florid prose style, but they should also not ever become tedious and dull.

BRANCH AND SYSTEM COMMUNICATIONS ISSUES The individual in charge of external communications for the branch campus, whether that is a director of public relations, an associate vice chancellor for external affairs, or whatever, must have a close, open working relationship with a clearly designated individual at the system or main campus level. Hopefully, this will be the person with the equivalent leadership position there. But sometimes, it might be an associate of that person, charged with branch campus relations, or system communications, or some such. What is of crucial importance is that that relationship is perfectly clear before it is needed. Again, it is essential, in a crisis communications situation, for the branch campus officer not to have to figure out to whom she should be talking at the system office, or to have to explain who she is to someone at that office with whom she has no prior relationship. Similarly, if the system administration needs to coordinate with the

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branch campus on an external communications issue, they need to be able to depend upon a preexisting relationship of familiarity and trust. There are, of course, plenty of communications opportunities involving good news, not emergencies. Here, too, a close branch/system relationship is crucial. The system office should know that when the branch campus has some important piece of positive news which it wishes to share broadly, that news is really valid, of some public interest, and significant: the branch campus should not be calling the system external relations office daily with trivial “feel-good” stories they would like to see receiving statewide publicity. Similarly, when the branch campus really does have something important to disseminate widely, the system should and usually can be very effective in helping get the word out across the region. Too, and unsurprisingly, it needs to be clear to both the central external communications office and officer, and to the equivalent folks on the branch campus, that the first rule of external communications should be never to harm each other. The branch campus cannot seek to make its case to the public by positioning itself in opposition to its system: the main campus, equally, should not make its case by denigrating its coordinate units. A central rule of this branch/system communications relationship is that there should be no surprises. Neither the branch campus nor the system office should be surprised to discover something of importance and relevance that is happening at either place. If a crisis is brewing at the branch campus, or unfolding, or if something uncommonly good is about to happen there, the background of that developing story needs to be communicated very rapidly to the system office, to the local board of control, and to the system board of governance.

PICKING THE SPOKESPERSON In the area of collegiate external communications, it is always important to be clear and firm about who is going to do the talking (or writing). This is particularly important in a branch campus situation. Whether the news is good or bad, the first question to be answered is whether the key spokesperson will be from the branch campus or from the main campus or system office. So, for example, if campus A receives a large allocation

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from the state legislature to build a major, needed new campus facility, and that is part of the overall appropriation for system X, should the chief executive of A or of X or both make the announcement? Usually, such an announcement will carry more weight if it comes from X; it will have more local flavor if it is delivered by A. Frequently, the most effective external communications will occur when both the branch campus and main campus or system office share the task, but in a coordinated and coherent way: X communicates the complete legislative actions to statewide media; A communicates the more local particularities of those actions to the more local media. It is important that it be communicated clearly, perhaps even forcefully, and often to the rest of the campus community that the chief external information officer is always, by default, going to be the spokesperson for the campus, unless someone else is designated by the chief executive officer in any particular situation. Once a semester is not too often to remind the internal community of this arrangement. This notice need not be confrontational, just a friendly reminder. It should almost certainly come from the campus chief executive, directly. This process of immediately picking a spokesperson (or persons) is especially important if the news isn’t good. If, for example, there is bad news concerning a student, should the CEO or the chief student affairs officer be the primary campus source? The very worst public relations disasters occur when multiple individuals or offices on campus take it upon themselves to tell the story to the media . . . and different stories emerge. Of course, there are sometimes (perhaps even often) different sides to some public issue and responsible media will seek out and publish those contending viewpoints. But in most cases, such as the illustration that began this chapter, there will be an “official” institutional position, and there should be a single institutional official who presents it. In the case of the football game tragedy, should the spokesperson for the college be the football coach, the athletics director, the vice president for student affairs, the campus president, or the system CEO? On the one hand, it is unwise to be seen as minimizing the importance of a story by referring it to an individual lower in the academic hierarchy. On the other, sometimes it makes no sense to have the campus chief executive speaking to the press on an issue such as a student arrest on a DUI charge. Since the public and the media tend to want to hear from the “top” of the administrative pecking

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order, usually when there is some choice in such matters, it makes sense to opt for the more senior appropriate official over her junior colleague.

HOMETOWN RELATIONS An important part of the work of the branch campus external information officer is creating and maintaining close, trustworthy, and positive relations with the local media. The small town, or regional city newspaper, radio, or TV station, or local magazines may not always have a major impact on statewide issues, but they are enormously important to the wellbeing of the branch campus. There should be a listing of public campus events published weekly in the newspaper; the campus CEO should be a frequent guest on radio interview shows; periodic background meetings with editorial boards and news staffs can be very helpful. The branch campus is often very dependent upon the good will of its local region, and even the smallest of small town newspapers, for example, are crucial in building and sustaining that positive relationship. It is at this level of external communications that the regular, noncrisis, update, and good news stories play best. The local community is probably interested in what is going on at the nearby campus, even if it is not a crisis or a major event. Reporting achievements such as significant new funding acquisition, or success in athletics, or an excellent year recruiting new students, is of genuine interest in towns and cities where branch campuses are a major driver of regional economic health and development.

PUBLICATIONS The external communicator should have a significant role in working with campus publications about any piece with an external audience. Obviously, some offices (e.g., admissions) need to have the primary role in creating publications. But all campus external communications pieces need to convey congruent messages, and should do so through consistent visual and verbal presentation. Should there be a campus holiday card? Should it be a “holiday” or a “Christmas” card (in either case, someone will be offended). Should it feature a picture of the campus chancellor’s

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family and dog in a sleigh? What do invitations to campus events look like, and what, exactly do they say? A good job with such publications might not always be noticed, but a serious blunder surely will be. On branch campuses, an especially delicate issue in this regard is the relationship between campus publications and system/main campus ones. In some cases, for example, the alumni magazine of the main campus or system is sent to all graduates of all campuses, but does not include news of branch campuses or their alumni. (We know of one case, at a major state university system, where this is an explicit and formal policy.) Similarly, development publications may be sent to all-university mailing lists, but focus primarily or exclusively on the philanthropic needs (and programmatic successes) of only the flagship campus. In this complex negotiation, the information officer may need to enlist the help of the campus CEO, and perhaps the system information officer as well. But experience teaches us that, unless pointed out, this is often seen as an insignificant issue centrally, and, in contrast, it can be a steady and serious irritant at the branch.

ADVANCE PLANNING As noted earlier, it is probably not realistic to have a carefully worked-out plan for every possible external communications exigency. What is possible, and highly desirable, though, is to have a plan for how to formulate a plan! How will the relevant university officials be brought together to work out a reaction plan to an emergency? If a predictable event is about to occur (e.g., the successful completion of a capital campaign or the opening of a new facility on campus or a new major appointment), it is useful and wise to know beforehand how that information will be communicated when the moment arrives. Predicted or unpredictable, there is always something happening on campuses, and usually something that will or should interest the public. The communicating of such events is a rich opportunity for any campus, and it is a particular challenge in diplomacy and strategy for branch campuses. The key, it seems to us, is a network of open, smoothly functioning, and clearly understood relationships and processes within the branch campus, and between it and the system of which it is a part.

13 Student Localism: Building Connections between the Branch Campus and Its Neighboring Community Sandra K. Olson-Loy

Colleges and universities functioning as part of a multicampus system find benefit in shared resources, infrastructure, and identity. They also face the challenge of making their educational experience distinguishable from those of their sister campuses. When your campus is a small one in a rural area and its big sister is the state’s flagship research and landgrant university (as mine is), the challenge of bringing the campus fully to life for prospective students and their families, state leaders, and other constituencies can be significant. Anchoring student life in the local community and region is one way a college, particularly a small college in a small community, can create a unique transformational learning environment that distinguishes the campus from its siblings large and small. One large flagship university, the University of Minnesota, has four niche campuses in greater Minnesota in addition to the highly regarded Research 1 campus in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The coordinate campuses hold distinct, focused missions which honor and bring to life the University of Minnesota mission of rigorous education, leading research, and engaged outreach and service: Crookston—a polytechnic campus in the northwest corner of the state; Duluth—a midsize comprehensive university in the northeast; Morris—a public liberal arts college in west central Minnesota; and the newest in Rochester, focusing on health sciences and biotechnology, in the southeast. With distinctive missions and deep roots in their diverse regions of Minnesota, each University of Minnesota campus has a unique character, educational experience, and identity. While 215

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the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, has a vital statewide, national, and international presence, the coordinate campuses are strong and distinguishable rather than regional offices of the university. Publicly supported colleges and universities have a particular obligation to create place-based student learning and outreach programs as they uphold the public trust invested in them. Vital creative and economic drivers in their regions, most of these institutions were strategically sited to educate the area’s citizenry and support the public good. Private colleges and universities with mission-driven commitments to service have the autonomy to define their communities broadly if they so choose, with greater or lesser connection to their local city and region. Public institutions, however, are beholden to communities filled with taxpayers who take pride in their university and expect the university to be a good community resource. This blend of pride, ownership, and expectation makes the local community particularly ready for good partnerships with public campuses that collaborate in ways that enrich the community and advance the student experience. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching provides universities with a definition of true community engagement: “the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity” (Driscoll 2008, 39). In what follows, I focus primarily on the first level of these engagements—the local. This chapter presents three stories of place-based learning and student action from my rural public liberal arts college, the University of Minnesota, Morris (UMM). The stories feature a local foods initiative, a service-learning program, and civic engagement work that is more a movement than a program. The University of Minnesota, Morris’s strong ties to the surrounding community date back to 1960 when local citizens actively and effectively lobbied for the college’s formation. During the past decade, students, faculty, staff, and community partners have built on this legacy with creative vision, deepened connections, and intentional planning. As the college approaches its fiftieth year, an expanding web of campus-community partnerships enriches virtually every aspect of campus life. UMM students, faculty, and staff embrace these partnerships in engaged learning “prairie style” (O’Loughlin, Olson-Loy, and Trepp 2002). Community-centered,

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active learning experiences are valued and recognized by prospective students, parents, and friends as a key components of the University of Minnesota, Morris, experience. This model of mission and place-based learning and engagement could be replicated in unique, locally rooted ways on branch campuses seeking to sharpen their campus identity and enhance student learning.

A BIT ABOUT MISSION AND PLACE Authentic, sustainable community-based learning and civic engagement are specific to the institution and its particular mission, culture, and place. Here is a bit about UMM to anchor the stories to follow. The University of Minnesota, Morris’s, mission as a public liberal arts college is distinctive. Of the nearly three hundred institutions sharing the Carnegie Classification Baccalaureate Colleges–Arts and Sciences, just over one in ten is in the public sector. The campus blends the character of a student-focused private liberal arts education with a public spirit and sensibility, articulated in the following mission statement: The University of Minnesota Morris provides an undergraduate liberal arts education of uncompromising rigor for a diverse student body. The University is a center for education, culture, and research for the region, nation, and world. As a public liberal arts college, UMM is committed to outstanding teaching and dynamic learning. We emphasize faculty and student scholarship, innovative creative activity, and rich diversity. Our residential academic setting fosters intensive collaboration and a deep sense of community. A personalized educational experience promotes in-depth learning and sharpens critical thinking skills. UMM prepares its graduates to be global citizens who are civically engaged, inter-culturally competent, and effective stewards of their environments. (Campus Assembly 2008)

The Morris campus was first, from 1887 to 1909, an American Indian boarding school established by the Sisters of Mercy, with the blend of opportunity, acculturation, and tragedy afforded by this educational model. A tuition waiver for American Indian students was mandated when the campus transferred to the United States and state governments. It continues today. From 1910 to 1963 the campus served as an agricultural

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boarding high school where rural students lived and learned from late fall to early spring, returning home to help on the farm in the growing season. Threads of these legacies intertwine in today’s campus life. Today, UMM’s student population of 1,700 is largely from rural Minnesota and one of the most racially and ethnically diverse in the state (American Indian students comprise 11 percent of the student population versus 1 percent in Minnesota and nationally; U.S. students of color total 17 percent; and international students 2 percent). Nearly one in three students is PELL eligible and 30–40 percent will be the first in their families to graduate from college. More than 90 percent of first-year students live on campus, most are of traditional college age, and virtually all are actively involved in UMM’s campus life. Morris is known for its talented students, engaged faculty and staff, egalitarian campus community, and tradition of shared governance. Our place is the eastern edge of the tall grass prairie—rural west central Minnesota—in Morris (population 5,000—including UMM’s students). The community is three hours west of Minneapolis/St. Paul; the nearest Target or Wal-Mart store is a forty-five-minute drive. Morris is a place where students, faculty, staff, and their neighbors can seek to live interconnected, focused lives under the blue prairie sky.

PRIDE OF THE PRAIRIE: LOCAL FOODS GO TO COLLEGE As a founding partner in the Pride of the Prairie local foods initiative, the University of Minnesota, Morris, campus is reconnecting with, celebrating, and supporting community farms. For nearly a decade, campus and community leaders, including passionate students, have been rebuilding a sustainable local food system. Morris students, faculty, and staff are eating great food grown by people we know as we spend an increasing portion of our food dollars locally—investing in family farms and our prairie home. The Pride of the Prairie partnership appeals not just to students’ passion for good food but also to their heads and hearts. Students explore food and farm issues from multiple perspectives, ranging from nutrition, health, and food security to economics and the environment. They do so in courses, as volunteers and interns, in directed studies, through student organizations, at campus events, on area farms, and at dinner. This mul-

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tifaceted liberal arts experience fosters engaged and integrative student learning. When UMM rebid the campus dining management contract in 2001, the time was right for a new campus-community partnership in local foods. A rural sociology course had conducted a survey that showed students were interested in local and organic foods on campus. Staff expressed frustration with hard, pale, flavorless industrial tomatoes in campus salads and sandwiches in months when across Minnesota people were enjoying the best of summer: homegrown tomatoes. And new partnerships were in the air. A joint recreation/fitness facility built by the university, K–12 school district, city, and county opened in 1999, taking community collaboration to new heights. Contractors building campus facilities were encouraged to buy their vehicles and equipment locally. The creation of UMM’s Center for Small Towns focused more university resources and attention on rural communities. And a recent study showed the university’s significant regional economic impact. A new understanding of campus-community interdependence intersected with a desire for good fresh food. UMM could enhance campus life and student learning and at the same time, use its purchasing power directly to support the challenged farm community. Local foods systems work to increase the shrinking portion of our food dollars that goes to the farmers who raise our fruits, vegetables, grains, meats, and dairy. In the 1950s a farmer earned 41 cents from the average consumer food dollar. Fifty years later, in 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that farmers earned 19 cents for each dollar consumers spend on food. The number of people farming is decreasing and their average age has been climbing (to age fifty-four), with farmers now making up less than 1 percent of the U.S. population (Hellen and Keoleian 2003). Local foods enthusiasts are working to move the statistics in a new direction, motivated by a love of good food; a commitment to land and animal stewardship; concerns about health, nutrition, and food security; and vision of community vitality and economic justice. European dining with its focus on exceptional local and regional cuisine offers a model embraced by a growing group of U.S. diners and chefs. Recent books by Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, and others provide an in-depth look at the food, farm, and life issues surrounding our food choices. As UMM administrators requested campus dining proposals in 2000, we asked the next management company to serve local foods: “The

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Contractor shall give first preference to products purchased from community based family farmers (to include organic produce) when the product meets menu requirements and price expectations.” Sodexo Campus Services, the nation’s largest provider of campus dining services, responded that they were “eager to work with the University to identify ways to support local suppliers, and especially, local family owned farms” (OlsonLoy 2008). Fortunately the timing was right in the community as well. The Morris Prairie Renaissance Project, a multiyear community visioning process funded by the Blandin Foundation, identified a local foods initiative as an asset-building priority. In addition a new citizen-driven, legislatively funded all University of Minnesota Regional Sustainable Development Partnership made a local foods initiative one of its first priorities in our region. They funded a local nonprofit, the Land Stewardship Project, to lead the work and convene interested community members. A dedicated group of collaborators gathered: farmers; college students, faculty, staff, and administrators; nonprofit and civic leaders; Sodexo managers; and interested citizens. The Pride of the Prairie began, with capacity building and systems change work, creating a sustainable, economically just local foods model (see figure 13.1). Today new partners add their talents to this work, projects mine the complexities of food systems and farm policies, collaborators look for the next right steps, and locally sourced meals are celebrations of community. The Pride of the Prairie is a valued part of Morris life. On campus each fall the Pride of the Prairie Fall Feast celebrates the harvest bounty. Homegrown foods, most raised within seventy miles of campus, are featured in a seasonal menu. Farms providing the evening’s foods are highlighted with many farmers in attendance sharing in the fabulous meal. With great food, live local music, photography, poetry, and food facts, the dinners highlight the prairie’s abundance and showcase locally grown food’s many benefits—particularly taste, freshness, and community. The festive dinners serve 500 to 700 campus and community diners, earning rave reviews: “WOW—deeleeshus!” “I (heart) local foods.” “Thanx farmers.” “Excellent—Hooray for supporting local foods.” “Everything was amazing!” “You guys make me so happy.” “I love yummy food!” “Delicious—can’t wait until spring version!” “It’s so good it’s . . . euphoric.” The meal is part of the board plan for students liv-

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Figure 13.1. Buy Fresh, Buy Local

ing on campus, including virtually all Morris first-year students. Upperclass students quickly fill volunteer roles marketing and staffing the event and earn their reward: a complimentary dinner ticket. The event is replicated in spring semester, with UMM’s campus chef creating a popular breakfast at dinner menu. Excepting one grower with a sustainable low-input greenhouse, fresh fruits and vegetables are not a local option for much of spring semester. (In Minnesota snow covers the ground for the bulk of the term.) The menu capitalizes on local foods available year-round: grains grown and milled locally, Native harvested wild rice and maple syrup, honey, dried beans, lentils, meats, cheeses and dairy, the last of stored fall root crops, and berries frozen the previous summer. Local and regional foods are also featured regularly at campus gatherings and in the daily dining options at UMM’s two dining venues. During the summer and fall, nearly all vegetables and fruits served on the campus are grown within Minnesota. The percent of Morris campus food dollars spent locally and regionally is increasing each year. More of our meals are

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sourced within 150 miles of the campus rather than the 1,500–2,500 miles food travels to reach the average U.S. dinner plate (Halweil 2002, 6). In addition, more students, faculty, and staff are spending their personal food dollars locally. Early Pride of the Prairie research showed that most area residents would prefer to buy local, sustainably grown foods; however, barriers existed (i.e., uncertainty about where to find locally raised foods, convenience, etc.). Local foods partners work to bridge these gaps. A Rural Sociology class hosted UMM’s first farmers market in 1998. Today markets are held in the student center on the afternoons of Pride of the Prairie dinners. Students, faculty, and staff talk with farmers and purchase local foods for study snacks and full meals—apples, meats, cheeses, vegetables, flours, lentils, honey, homemade jams, flowers, and more. The Pomme de Terre Food Coop, founded on campus in the 1970s, participates in the markets showcasing the large selection of local and fair-trade foods available regularly in downtown Morris. Complimentary cloth shopping bags provided by the University of Minnesota wellness program, preorders, and longer hours have boosted interest and sales. Additional market days will be added. The campus also helps fund and distribute printed and online Pride of the Prairie Buy Fresh, Buy Local ® food guides highlighting more than fifty area farms marketing foods directly to people. These experiences enrich UMM’s learning environment for students exploring food and farm issues through a variety of liberal arts disciplines. A first-year seminar section studying “Why We Eat What We Eat” read Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, and discussed their experiences with the Fall Feast. An anthropology/sociology class exploring culture, food, and agriculture toured local farms, learning from farmers and experiencing varied farm practices. Faculty teaching in the service-learning program’s sustainable living initiative engaged students in computer science, economics, the arts, and humanities in projects that met course goals and supported community food system needs. Photography students traveled with college writing and sociology students to area farms where they interviewed and photographed farmers and their families. Photos and stories were given to farmers for their use, showcased at receptions in area coffeehouses, and displayed at UMM’s local foods dinner. They remain on permanent display in the community.

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One student who participated in the service-learning project said, “By meeting with Carol, the farmer I interviewed, many of the assumptions and stereotypes that I held concerning farmers and the farm community were proven wrong. I am better educated and have learned not to rely on my assumptions” (Service-Learning 2008). Her story is replicated many times over as U.S. college students have few real experiences with and limited information about farming in an increasingly urban-oriented culture. UMM students exposed to local food issues have found out additional study and work opportunities such as internships with partner agencies, participation in sustainable farming conferences, summer work on community-supported agriculture farms, directed studies on local foods topics, volunteering at the food coop, and funded research projects examining local food distribution issues. A studio art major completed her senior capstone by telling the story of the wild rice harvest by the White Earth Band of Ojibwe (from northern Minnesota) in photographs and narration. The powerful multipanel work was featured in a solo show in the local art center. Pride of the Prairie work is one of a handful of early and sustained college local foods initiatives with regional and national impact. Inspired by their work at UMM, Sodexo Campus Services is providing leadership in bringing local foods to other university campuses, as well as their health care and corporate clients, in Minnesota, the Midwest, and nationally. They are collaborating with groups like Food Alliance Midwest, an independent organization that works to expand local foods markets and provides farm certification for sustainable practices. In 2005 Food Alliance Midwest recognized Sodexo Campus Services with their Keeper of the Vision for a Sustainable Future award. UMM’s Pride of the Prairie work honors our campus roots. It brings to life values held by indigenous people—living in harmony with plant and animal communities and the land. It lifts up the people who have farmed this land, providing our food for generations, and supports the new farmers called back to the land. And it brings Morris students into a deeper understanding of place and personal responsibility as they experience the joys and challenges of rural farm life, consider the sources of our good food, and examine the complex intersecting issues and values inherent in our food choices. Pride of the Prairie brings UMM’s distinctive public liberal arts mission and identity vividly to life.

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Thanks to the Pride of the Prairie local foods initiative, farmers, community members, faculty, staff, and students who were strangers or, at best, acquaintances have become good neighbors. As local agricultural producers come to see UMM as a major consumer of their prairie products, Morris becomes their University of Minnesota campus. They tell our shared story within their networks, in public meetings, and to legislators. When prospective students and their parents visit UMM and enjoy great locally sourced meals, our rural community becomes an asset and a point of pride rather than a long drive from the mega-mall in Minneapolis. UMM has gained recognition as a state and national “farm to college” leader, giving one small campus within a great public university a point of distinction, pride, and celebration. Creative “branch campus” citizens who support local partnerships closely aligned with the institution’s mission, character, and place do a great service that benefits their communities, their students, and their campus; and along the way they clarify their identity as a unique educational enterprise within a university system.

SERVICE-LEARNING The whole goal is to get us involved in the community and relate what we learned in class to the real world [Intro. to sociology student, spring 2006]. (Service-Learning 2008)

“College Learning for the New Global Century” identifies “personal and social responsibility, including civic knowledge and engagement—local and global” as an essential student learning outcome. This American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) report highlights service-learning as one of ten “effective educational practices,” a way for student learning to be “anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges.” The University of Minnesota, Morris, embraces this work, participating in the Campus Action Network for AAC&U’s ten-year initiative—“Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP): Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes to College.” Connecting students’ academic work and the area community provides mutual benefits. The programs enrich student life and leverage a university’s people power to serve the public good. As university systems

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partner with the particular communities that are home to their campuses, service-learning programs can become unique marks of distinction for each branch campus. UMM’s academic course-based service-learning program speaks to both the University of Minnesota’s land-grant mission of community service and the Morris campus liberal arts mission of engaged student learning. UMM defines service-learning as follows, “Service-learning is a pedagogy that utilizes community service, community-based research, or other civic engagement activities along with regular reflective activities and assignments to meet both course goals and identified community needs and to teach students the skills they need to grow as thoughtful citizens and leaders” (“Service-Learning Faculty Fellows Manual” 2005, 1). In 2006, half of Morris seniors had completed at least one servicelearning course (NSSE 2006). This is just above the 46 percent of seniors nationally reporting that they have “participated in a community-based project (e.g., service learning) as part of a regular course in 2007” (NSSE 2007). UMM’s strategic plan celebrates the program’s success and calls for enhancing the curriculum by encouraging every academic discipline to promote service-learning. The campus envisions a program where all Morris students can benefit from these significant academic experiences “regardless of their academic priorities and financial abilities” (“Transforming the University” 2006). UMM students see value in hands-on community-based experience with the concepts they are studying. For instance, in a psychology course, “Adulthood, Aging, and Death,” students interviewed an elder partner and participated in town meetings addressing elder needs in Morris. They then worked collaboratively with partnering agencies to host fundraising and community building events to meet identified needs. A student’s postproject survey stated, “I could actually apply the knowledge I gained in class and could see it as I worked with people from the community . . . we could see the actual life situations in comparison to what the book talked about” (Manolis 2004). Pioneering faculty and staff brought service-learning to UMM in 1995. Three faculty received Campus Compact SEAMS grants to infuse servicelearning into math courses. In Dr. Peh Ng’s combinatorial mathematics course, students examined and reworked more cost-effective snow plowing routes for the city of Morris. Ng noted, “This project assignment is to

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give Math 3370 students the opportunity to work on real world applications of the modeling and analysis approaches we study in the course. In particular, we will see how some of the ideas that we used could actually be applied to the development and infrastructure of the communities surrounding Morris, MN” (Winchester 1996). The city continues to use their plowing routes. The significance of this early work is summarized on the project website: This is the first occasion, nationally, in which service learning has been integrated successfully in Mathematics courses at a community level, and the faculty in the math discipline have done much to perpetuate the servicelearning methods used in their courses. Montana Campus Compact filmed their Mathematics courses in action, and also interviewed many of the personnel involved. The video they produced using this footage is called, “Service Learning for Scientific Literacy.” It was produced in 1997. Drs. [Engin] Sungur and [Jon] Anderson published an article together in the journal, The American Statistician (May, 1999), entitled “Community Service Statistics Projects.” The national office of Campus Compact awarded Dr. Engin Sungur with a National Learn and Serve faculty Scholar Award for his scholarly creativity related to service learning. (Winchester 1996)

Morris secured a three-year federal Learn and Serve America grant to deepen the practice of service-learning in 2000. The Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning administered mini-grants supporting twenty faculty members as they added service-learning pedagogy to their courses. One particularly meaningful project paired students in Argie Manolis’s writing courses with elderly people living with Alzheimer’s disease at a local care facility where they met each week. [The students] planned and conducted activities designed to help residents reminisce about the distant past, stimulate residents’ senses and language use, and validate residents’ stories. Students in composition courses read and wrote about social issues related to aging and dementia and completed a series of [reflective assignments] about the experience. Students in creative writing wrote “found poetry” using the residents’ words. These “found poems” reflect family stories, stories of rural Minnesota from the last century, and the difficulties (and joys) of growing older. The books of poetry and final student reflections, titled “Shake Your Foot: A Celebration of Rural Life,” were given to the residents and their caretakers and family members. (Riley 2001).

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Manolis reported students’ engagement with course material increased and they developed a sense of their value to the community through the project. The activities director at the care facility found their work to be so meaningful that she nominated the fifty-plus students for a Minnesota Student Services Award. The Minnesota Office of Citizenship and Volunteer Service honored them with the award at a reception at the governor’s mansion and the Minnesota State Fair. Program review prior to seeking and receiving a second Learn and Serve America grant in 2003 identified clear priorities for the future. Service-learning needed to strengthen UMM—who we are and what we do as a rigorous public liberal arts college—rather than create add-ons. It needed to be thoroughly integrated into the academic program and supported by coordinated leadership and involvement from the vice chancellors for academic affairs and student affairs. It was time for a sustainable program structure moving beyond good but scattered onetime projects. Projects should be focused, meeting high-priority needs identified in recent community visioning processes. Fundamentally, the program needed to advance the mission, vision, and core work of the college during a time of state budget reductions. (Bernstein, Manolis, and Olson-Loy 2006) Core program components now meet these goals, including: (a) faculty fellows with a multiyear commitment for course development, implementation, and mentoring (vs. course mini-grants); (b) multidisciplinary, multiclass projects addressing compelling community needs and aligning with campus initiatives, focused in five areas: arts and cultural opportunities, elder partnerships, youth partnerships, sustainable living (including the course projects on local foods highlighted earlier), and social responsibility; (c) in-depth, ongoing partnerships with community agencies, with a lead agency supporting each service-learning initiative; and (d) effective service-learning practice defined and shared. Ongoing support structures include student service-learning ambassadors/ research assistants; faculty, student, and community partner advisory boards; training manuals; and planning and reflection tools. Capable program leaders and strong partnerships advance this work.

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UMM students across multiple areas of study engage in each initiative. An example of projects follows from one of the five initiatives, “arts and cultural opportunities.” Through the arts, UMM students connect with elementary school children, high school students, adults with developmental disabilities, elders, and civic leaders. College students in advanced individual performance study in voice work with community singers of varied ages, leading an informal singing group at the senior center and providing private voice lessons for high school students with financial barriers to individualized instruction. The high school students perform in the community for a culminating activity. The work is significant for all involved, as summarized from these closing reflections captured in a Learn and Serve America project report. From the founding professor Hope Koehler’s perspective: “The best way to learn to sing well is to teach others to sing. I was surprised and delighted by the connections students made between what they were doing in their own studio and what they were teaching their students. I noted an improvement in technique among my students and a broader awareness of the ways music can build community.” UMM students’ learning was enhanced: “teaching singing provided them with a better understanding of how their own voices worked and a new understanding of the challenges they would face as teachers of music.” The high school also benefited: “The director was impressed by the students’ performances and noted that he saw changes in his students’ confidence and desire to do well in school as a result of their involvement with the college students” (Manolis 2005, 7). Studio art students are particularly engaged in the arts and culture initiative, including the photography collaboration with area farmers highlighted earlier. In a related interdisciplinary course on art and disability, UMM students shared their love of photography, presenting photography workshops for people with developmental disabilities. Residents living in a local group home took photos documenting their lives. They shared their work at a reflection conversation and reception hosted by the public library. Art installations created by students in sculpture and public murals courses using collaborative service-learning processes enrich our campus and local community, while deepening student learning. Professor Therese Buchmiller’s sculpture project coordinated with the local library,

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historical society, arts alliance, businesses, and churches. A Learn and Serve America project report summarizes their work as follows: Students created a public sculpture reflecting a broad range of community members’ ideas about the community’s assets and challenges. To design the piece, students toured several community agencies and interviewed staff. . . . They then conducted interviews at several businesses in town, gathering feedback from a wide range of community members that have not always been affected by service learning projects. Finally, in collaboration with several interviewees, the class members planned and created a public sculpture now housed in the Morris Public Library. The sculpture’s unveiling attracted a large crowd of people of all ages. In addition, the students created individual sculptures reflecting their changing views of the Morris community that resulted from the project; these sculptures were shown in the Prairie Renaissance [Cultural Alliance] Art Gallery. (Manolis 2005, 6)

A community member reflected, “I was incredibly impressed by the outcome of the project. People will enjoy it for years to come, and it is the kind of piece that sparks dialogue about what it means to be a citizen of Morris” (Manolis 2005). The project required art students to work and think in new ways, as described by the faculty member: I faced a lot of resistance from students at first who had never been exposed to any kind of arts education besides working alone in a studio and critiquing other students’ work. At the end, though, the students learned how to work collaboratively and how to think about the work art can do in the world, as well as how art reflects our world. (Manolis 2006, 6)

A student from the class shared, “the process taught me to think about myself as an artist in new ways and to think about how my work could serve the community.” Her sentiments were echoed by most students in the course (Manolis 2005, 6). Many of the service-learning projects continue annually with the same partners. Students in creative writing continue to write found poetry based on the words of elders from the community through the project highlighted earlier, producing poetry books for each elder and family. Theatre Arts students plan and lead creative dramatics lessons in area elementary school classrooms. Ceramics students create unique cups and bowls for a

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community meal, raising funds for local organizations that fight hunger and support families in crisis. The breadth of service projects captured in these stories is found across each service-learning initiative. Some projects span multiple initiatives: the ceramics project connects arts and culture with social responsibility; voice projects blend arts and culture with both youth and elder partnerships. Students integrate learning from across the curriculum and their life experience in particularly exciting and unexpected ways in these courses, deepening their development. UMM students see the link between course goals and their service project, with 93 percent clearly articulating the connection in a recent semester (Manolis 2007). Many students extend their community-based learning experiences beyond the confines of a semester-length course. College writing students who worked with elders later enroll in the creative writing section offering elder partnerships with the same agency or become active in the adopt-a-grandparent volunteer program. Students leading the art and disability photography project presented research on this work at UMM’s Undergraduate Research Symposium. Students probe more deeply at issues raised through service-learning in directed studies and senior capstone experiences. Students, faculty, and community partners affirm service learning’s impact on student learning, detailed below (box 13.1). “Service-learning was a definite confidence booster as I saw I could work with the children and be successful,” commented a student in Theater Arts: Creative Dramatics with Children, Spring 2006 (Service-Learning 2008). Community partners report high satisfaction with service-learning projects, citing specific community benefits and outcomes aligned with project goals. For example, the elder partnership initiative successfully engaged Morris senior citizens in regular activities with UMM students, significantly exceeding the program goal of reaching a majority of the seniors who live in long-term care or assisted living facilities, plus at least fifty senior citizens living independently. Local partnering agencies increased their capacity to provide activities for their elder clients by over 40 percent over a three-year period. At a celebration event, the lead partner stated, “There is no doubt that West Wind has been fundamentally changed because of this ongoing project. Lives have been changed

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UMM SERVICE-LEARNING GOALS FOR STUDENTS Increased commitment to civic engagement and improved skills and knowledge relevant to effecting social change. Increased understanding of human diversity and comfort interacting with people of diverse backgrounds. Improved leadership skills, including communicating effectively in different settings. Improved critical thinking and problem solving skills. Increased understanding of the connection between academic work and community needs. Box 13.1

and our agency has been changed” (Manolis 2005, 1, 6). All partners are interested in future projects. The Morris community understands the promise of service-learning and new groups are seeking assistance. Six new partners participated in a recent semester’s projects, including local Humane Society, American Cancer Society, and Habitat for Humanity affiliates. Looking ahead, a civic organization is interested in addressing poverty and environmental issues, a new grocery store serving recent immigrants would like to collaborate with language students, and the new owner’s cooperative for the historic movie theater needs research assistance for business plan development. With strong community, faculty, and student interest, Morris is creating a service-learning program that can benefit all students and meet real needs across our prairie community (box 13.2). Many colleges and universities created strong service-learning programs over the past decade. As noted earlier, nearly half of graduating seniors report engaging in a community-based project through their course work (NSSE 2007, 46). Focused, intentional service-learning programs within mission-driven universities can transform students’ educational experiences in ways that are uniquely rooted in local issues and civic life. Service-learning’s community partnership model offers a distinctive approach to preparing graduates for leadership in the twenty-first century.

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SPRING 2008 MORRIS SERVICE-LEARNING COURSES Art 1050 and 2050: Beginning and Advanced Ceramics Partners: Prairie Renaissance Cultural Center, Someplace Safe, Stevens County Food Shelf Project: Students will create cups and bowls for the Empty Bowls Project, for a fund-raising soup dinner with the proceeds going to Someplace Safe and the Food Shelf. CSCI 4453 Systems: Database Systems Partner: TBD Project: Students will construct databases for local nonprofits and/or businesses. Economics 3501: Introduction to Econometrics Partners: Various local agencies Project: Students will create a survey regarding the current conservation measures being utilized by Morris residents. Ed 1020: English in the American University Partner: Morris Area Elementary School Projects: Students will participate in an intercultural exchange with Morris Area Elementary School fifth graders. English 1002: Fundamentals of Writing II Partner: West Wind Village Project: Students will plan and implement weekly activities for elders living in a long-term care facility and write a series of reflective and analytic essays about the experience. English 2993: Directed Study: Found Poetry and ServiceLearning Partner: West Wind Village Box 13.2

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Project: Students will facilitate groups of first-year students, assisting in planning and implementing weekly activities for elders at a long-term care facility. They will write found poems from the elders’ words and create books of poetry and reflections for each elder and family. IS 1993: Service-Learning Practicum Partner: Morris Area School District After-School Program/ Tutoring-Reading-Enabling Children Project: This is a one-credit class that is offered in conjunction with Introduction to Sociology. Students act as tutors in the TREC program, plan activities, and reflect on their involvement in the program and the connections to sociology. IS 4894 Global Issues Honors Consortium: Research and Writing Tutorial Partners: Native Harvest, Stevens Community Medical Center, Morris Area Elementary School, UMM Admissions Project: Students in this course will complete primary and secondary research and write a final report for community agencies that requested community-based research projects. These projects are continuations of projects begun in IS 3213H: The Theory and Practice of Community-Based Learning. MGMT 3201: Marketing Principles and Strategies Partner: Families considering opening local businesses Project: Students will work with potential area businesses on a marketing plan Theater 2111: Creative Drama with Children Partners: Area elementary schools Project: Students plan and implement a Read-a-Thon during Dr. Seuss week involving area school children.

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Students build meaningful connections with the community, meeting community leaders and connecting with citizens of all ages. When Morris creative writing students capture the sometimes limited words of community elders whose life has been impacted by Alzheimer’s disease, their families treasure the poems and their glimpses of life. Many families have also received heart-felt letters from UMM students describing the meaningful connections they made and all that they learned and treasure from their time together. These relationships built through service-learning add meaning to students’ work and help a community connect with our transient student population in real ways. From voice lessons, to tutoring, to research projects and public art, service-learning makes academic work real for a community and helps community members tell the campus story with enthusiasm and great detail. And, for our students, service-learning makes the local community a place for deep learning and a place that feels more like home.

THE MORRIS CIVIC ENGAGEMENT MOVEMENT Civic engagement is at the core of engaged student learning “prairie style” at the University of Minnesota, Morris. Local foods and service learning partnerships are part of a broad web of community involvement opportunities. Community service and volunteerism programs, a new civic engagement theme floor in residential life, and the Center for Small Towns provide additional entry points for community-based learning. Programs overlap, reinforce each other, and spawn new initiatives, as individuals and groups support campus and community goals, working together to make a difference. Community Service and Volunteerism

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and the levees broke in New Orleans in August 2005, Morris community members were among those watching the shocking television images. The UMM campus has connections to the area, with family members and alumni in the region; our campus jazz musicians performing in New Orleans on regular tours; and then–Louisiana governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, who has a fam-

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ily connection with our campus and community, scheduled to present UMM’s first-year seminar opening convocation the following week (the convocation was postponed a year). As we looked for ways to help, a local business-person contacted UMM’s Community Service and Volunteerism program to suggest a collaborative response. A coalition of the Stevens County business, civic, K–12 and higher education, faith and service community organized and planned the Stevens County Community Fundraiser in friendship and support for our neighbors in the Gulf Coast. Student volunteers played key roles in coordinating and staffing the event. Held in the new Morris Area Elementary School, the evening featured free food, music, dancing, a raffle, and a silent auction. With over 1,000 people attending, the event was a celebration of community and raised $20,000 for the Salvation Army and American Red Cross Katrina relief efforts. In addition, a jazz ensemble performance raised funds for an alumnae musician in New Orleans and Lutheran Campus Ministries coordinated a spring break trip to help with clean up. This collaborative community action was built on a strong history of volunteer service. UMM’s Community Service and Volunteerism program helps students, faculty, and staff connect with and provide service to our community through individual action, student organization efforts, residential life traditions, athletics partnerships, and all-campus programs. One of our first service projects included new students in their orientation groups planting tulips and trees throughout the city at residents’ homes and in community gardens. Annual projects include a new student orientation/ welcome weekend service project (currently a winter coat collection project), a volunteer fair where local community groups share program information and recruit new volunteers, the Halloween “Trick-or-Can” Food Drive with campus residence halls collecting nonperishable foods for the local food shelf, and holiday Toys for Tots and Adopt-a-Family programs supporting families in need. Throughout the year, when individuals in the community need help, Community Service and Volunteerism coordinators take the call and find the right people to lend a helping hand. Residential Life Civic Engagement Theme Floor

Students were eager to see civic engagement identified as one of the first Morris theme floors where students with a common interest would live

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together in a residential community. The civic engagement floor, initiated in the 2007–2008 academic year in David C. Johnson Independence Hall, unites students who share a passion for volunteerism, community service, and outreach. The tremendously successful floor honors and continues the work of UMM’s third chancellor, Dr. David C. Johnson. While leading the campus from 1990–1998, Chancellor Johnson established many of the Morris signature community partnership programs including servicelearning, community service and volunteerism, and the Center for Small Towns. Civic engagement floor residents reinforce each other’s commitment to active citizenship, through formal and informal programs. The pilot floor’s resident adviser Jared Walhowe notes, “Requiring students to volunteer to live in an engaged community their first year ensures that the community will consist of those with initiative. The civic engagement floor breeds leaders.” Students from the floor connect with the community individually and collectively, in ongoing initiatives and one-time projects. They serve as “big friends” to children, provide after-school tutoring in the TutoringReading-Enabling Children program, serve as Santa’s helpers, and work with the art club to bring “art-o-rama” to the elementary school where art programs were cut in budget reductions. They meet community elders, adopting grandparents and washing windows. They help build Habitat for Humanity homes, gather food for the county food shelf in the Halloween “Trick-or-Can” program, and collect Toys for Tots and necessity box supplies for shelters working with families in crisis. They brighten the environment, tending a downtown community garden during welcome weekend, harvesting native seeds at the wetlands preserve, winterizing newly planted trees in a green entrance to the city, and picking up litter along the student radio station’s adopted highway. They offer English language assistance. They vote and participate in caucuses. In addition, these active students provide civic leadership for Johnson Independence Hall (serving as liaisons to the community council) and the campus. Their resident advisor stated, “Collectively we are a part of almost every single organization on campus. Because of this, we also act as a link between the residents and the activism/social justice organizations in the Morris community.” The floor coordinates the hall’s “Community Conversations,” hosting visitors from the area and beyond who

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talk with students about their lives and work over pizza, a program funded by former chancellor Johnson and friends. Members of the floor provide leadership for campus-wide engagement programs as well, with UMM’s community service and volunteerism student coordinator and adopt-agrandparent program co-coordinators living on the floor. Through their individual action and shared leadership, the students living and learning on the civic engagement theme floor make a huge difference on campus and in our community. Center for Small Towns

A 2006 Carter Partnership Award for Campus-Community Collaboration celebrates the more than ten-year sustained partnership between the University of Minnesota, Morris, and the city of Morris, facilitated by the Center for Small Towns. This national award, created by former president Jimmy Carter and Rosalyn Carter to recognize efforts to support healthy, caring communities, selects one vital campus/community partnership in each state where there is a program. UMM’s Center for Small Towns (CST) “focuses the University’s attention and marshals its resources toward assisting Minnesota’s small towns with locally identified issues by creating applied learning opportunities for faculty and students.” Through its work, CST partners with “local units of government, K–12 schools, non-profit organizations, and other University units to address rural issues and support rural society” (CST website). While CST’s work spans the state of Minnesota, the partnership with our home community has been particularly significant. The collaboration is rooted in grassroots community visioning, asset building, action planning, and creative partnerships. CST’s early work with the Blandin Foundation provided funding and a community visioning model for the Morris Prairie Renaissance Project. The project brought hundreds of area citizens together to envision a healthy, vibrant rural community. Participants were engaged and filled with hope. UMM students, faculty, and staff shared their resources and expertise with local government, civic, business, and community leaders, implementing surveys and feasibility studies, and designing planning tools. Students were engaged through classes, directed studies, CST student projects, and as research assistants. The fruits of the multiyear collaboration include the creation of a community cultural

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center and art gallery—the Prairie Renaissance Cultural Alliance (PRCA), a new vision for area parks, construction of a skate park, and early support for the local foods initiative. CST next partnered with the local school district and the city of Morris to complete strategic planning processes, utilizing faculty and student expertise. Another step in the collaboration centered on a multiyear federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Outreach Partnership Centers (COPC) project bringing the traditional urban work of housing, neighborhood revitalization, and community development to a small rural city environment. The smallest community to receive COPC support to date, the Morris program addressed seven project areas including a comprehensive housing study and plan, creation of a rental housing commission, the development of an adopt-a-grandparent program, and expanding UMM’s long-standing “Take Back the Night” program into the area community. As Morris teams of community leaders, faculty, staff, and students addressed these issues with locally rooted, smaller-scaled solutions, the project created a planning template for other similar-sized rural communities. Work on related projects continues through an Otto Bremer Foundation–funded “Faculty and Student Fellows” program. This sustained partnership between UMM and the City of Morris has “resulted in a clearly changed community sense of its ability to effect change and seize opportunity” (Riley 2006). As the Carter Partnership award highlights: Today, the Center for Small Towns/City of Morris partnership has become a process with which to affect change in Morris, through shared decisionmaking and continual examination of opportunities. University faculty, staff, and students work mutually with hired and elected city and county officials, staff from non-profit organizations and grassroots initiatives to co-investigate issues and plan activities. (Riley 2006)

The partnership supports strong action for a bright future in our small community. Morris and UMM also benefit from CST’s broader programs. The annual Symposium on Small Towns brings city, county, state, and civic leaders to campus each June with regional and national experts on collaborative solutions to small-town challenges. A recent symposium addressed The Power of Small: Building Solutions for Energy Self-Reliance,

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highlighting UMM’s leadership in community-based renewable energy systems and describing opportunities for other communities. The campus is moving toward energy self-sufficiency by 2010, all from on-site renewable generation (including a 1.65 megawatt wind turbine, planned second turbine, and biomass gasification plant) and conservation initiatives. The symposium provides a forum for sharing this research and demonstration platform for sustainable community-based energy solutions, advancing the University of Minnesota’s research and public outreach mission. Students assist with symposium planning and implementation. Presented in partnership with the University of Minnesota Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships and Minnesota Public Radio, the Symposium on Small Towns helps leaders find community-based strategies to foster social, economic, environmental health. In doing so, the symposium supports and celebrates the Morris model of collaboration. While the Student Activities’ Community Service and Volunteerism program, residential life civic engagement theme floor, the Center for Small Towns, and service-learning are distinct programs coordinated by offices in four corners of the campus, their work is intentionally interconnected and linked to ongoing campus initiatives. These efforts are building a strong, multifaceted network of support to meet community needs and a reinforcing web of student engagement.

CLOSING THOUGHTS Local partnerships and engaged learning are now a key part of the University of Minnesota, Morris, identity, celebrating rigorous academic work rooted in authenticity, integrity, passion, and community. Student engagement—spanning in-class and out-of-class academic opportunities, cocurricular experiences, volunteerism, and service—is woven into the fabric of UMM student life. Pascarella and Terenzini’s student learning research supports UMM’s integrated web of engagement organized around key learning areas like arts and culture, sustainable living, and intercultural competence. They note: In some areas of intellectual development (including critical thinking), the breadth of student involvement in the intellectual and social experiences

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of college, rather than any particular type of involvement matters most. The greatest impact appears to stem from students’ total level of campus engagement, particularly when academic, interpersonal, and extracurricular involvements are mutually reinforcing, and relevant to a particular educational outcome. (Pascarella and Terenzini 2005, 647)

These interconnected engagement initiatives benefit the campus and the community, and heartily support the university’s core mission: rigorous undergraduate education. With the expansion of UMM’s locally rooted, engaged learning experiences in the past decade, more students benefit from these transformational learning opportunities. Student participation in core initiatives has grown significantly. In 2002, half of Morris graduating seniors participated in a community service project during their undergraduate experience. Five years later, in 2007, over three-fourths of all seniors had engaged in community service. The portion of graduating seniors who had collaborated with a faculty member on a shared research or artistic project increased from nearly 40 percent to nearly 60 percent during this same period, with many new projects connected to local issues. Seniors voting in a federal or state election increased to 94 percent (University of Minnesota Student Experience Survey 2007). While these engagement rates lead the University of Minnesota system and public liberal arts peers, Morris faculty, staff, and students have articulated a vision for more universal participation as part of the core UMM experience. Recognized as best practice in undergraduate education, these experiences foster transformational learning and student success, directly supporting the Morris mission to prepare interculturally competent graduates equipped for lives of leadership and services in a diverse, global society (Olson-Loy 2007). Community service, volunteerism, and service-learning are now imbedded in the framework of U.S. higher education, with laudable levels of student engagement reported across many institution types. Nationally 59 percent of seniors participated in community service and volunteerism; and 46 percent engaged in community-based projects through their coursework. Localized learning has grown more rapidly than other transformational learning strategies; only 19 percent of seniors completed research with faculty outside of their course requirements and 14 percent

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studied abroad (NSSE 2007, 46, 48). The high levels of participation in locally rooted learning can be celebrated and extended as campuses ground student learning in their community. While some of the program details described in this chapter are specific to a rural prairie community’s needs and their intersection with the University of Minnesota, Morris, mission of liberal learning, diverse campuses across the United States tell their own stories of success. Meaningful locally rooted civic engagement occurs in communities large and small, at technical institutes, colleges of art and design, and research universities. Branch campuses have the opportunity to expand and link existing programs to form a multifaceted civic engagement initiative that benefits the community, enhances student learning, and distinguishes the institution from its siblings. Anchoring campus life in the local community provides rewards on multiple levels. As campuses become authentically rooted in the particular place they call home, they make student learning real. When this work is grounded in true partnership and collaboration, the whole community benefits. A branch campus offers a unique learning environment that stands out from its siblings in a multicampus system through missiondriven initiatives, strong community partnerships, local action, and engaged student learning.

WORKS CITED American Association of Colleges and Universities. 2007. “College Learning for the New Global Century.” Bernstein, Corina, Argie Manolis, and Sandra Olson-Loy. 2006. “Motivating Students for Better Learning: A Service-Learning Partnership.” Collaboration for the Advancement of College Teaching and Learning Conference. Campus Assembly Agenda. 2008. “UMM Mission Statement Revision.” University of Minnesota, Morris, Campus Resources and Planning Committee, April 22. Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. 2007. “Basic Classification Tables.” The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/index.asp?key=805 (accessed June 15, 2008).

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Center for Small Towns website. University of Minnesota, Morris. www.morris. umn.edu/services/cst (accessed January 10, 2008). Driscoll, Amy. 2008. “Carnegie’s Community Engagement Classification: Intentions and Insights.” Change, January/February, 38–41. Halweil, Brian. 2002. Home Grown: The Case for Local Food in a Global Market. Worldwatch Paper 163 (November). Hellen, Martin C., and Gregory A. Keoleian. 2003. “Assessing the Sustainability of the U.S. Food System: A Life Cycle Perspective.” Agricultural Systems 76:1007–41. Manolis, Argie. 2004. “Learn and Serve America Progress Report.” University of Minnesota, Morris (December). ———. 2005. “Learn and Serve America Progress Report.” University of Minnesota, Morris (December). ———. 2007. “Learn and Serve America Progress Report.” University of Minnesota, Morris (July). National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). 2006. “University of Minnesota Morris Institutional Data Report.” ———. 2007. “Annual Report.” O’Loughlin, Paula, Sandra Olson-Loy, and Phoebe Trepp. 2002. “It All Starts with Your Mission: Best Practices in Civic Engagement.” The Collaboration for the Advancement of College Teaching and Learning Conference. Olson-Loy, Sandra. 2007. “The University of Minnesota Morris Student Experience: Exceptional Students, Engaged Learning.” University of Minnesota Board of Regents Faculty, Staff, and Student Affairs Committee, October 11. ———. 2008. “Local Foods Go to College.” Green Campus Initiatives. University of Minnesota, Morris, www.morris.umn.edu/greencampus (accessed January 15, 2008). Pascarella, Ernest T., and Patrick T. Terenzini. 2005. How College Affects Students: A Third Decade of Research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Pride of the Prairie. 2007. “Locally Grown Foods Guide.” www.prideofthe prairie.org (accessed January 15, 2008). ———. 2008. “Food from the Farms of the Upper Minnesota River Valley.” www.prideoftheprairie.org (accessed June 24, 2008). Riley, Judy. 2001. “Students in UMM Writing Course Receive One of Only Ten Statewide Minnesota Student Service Awards.” University of Minnesota, Morris. ———. 2006. “Center for Small Towns and City of Morris Win Carter Award.” University of Minnesota, Morris. Service-Learning. 2008. Welcome to Service Learning at UMM! 2008. University of Minnesota, Morris. www.morris.umn.edu/academic/sl/ (accessed January 10, 2008).

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“Service-Learning Faculty Fellows Manual.” 2005. 2nd ed. University of Minnesota, Morris. “Transforming the University of Minnesota: Final Recommendations of the System Task Force—Coordinate Campus, University of Minnesota Morris.” November 1, 2006. University of Minnesota Student Experience Survey Report. 2007. USDA Briefing Room. 2008. “Food Marketing System in the U.S.: Price Spreads from Farm to Consumer.” www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodMarketingSystem/ pricespreads.htm (accessed July 13, 2008). Walhowe, Jared. 2008. Email correspondence. February 29. Winchester, Ben. 1996. “Service Learning Coursebook in Mathematics.” SEAMS Projects, Science, Engineering, Architecture, Mathematics, and Computer Science. University of Minnesota, Morris. soultwist.com/ben/seams/index.html (accessed January 22, 2008).

14 “Put Money in Thy Purse”: Fund-Raising at Public Branch Campuses Samuel Schuman

Once upon a time public branch campuses in state university systems were funded simply, if usually inadequately. In those simpler days, public institutions were funded . . . by the public. Such funding might have taken the form of a formula-driven legislative appropriation; some provision for retaining a percentage of tuition (the level of which, in turn, would often be established off-campus); a state allocation to the university system which was then dispensed to the campuses; or some similar mechanism(s). In most states, somewhat idiosyncratic funding mechanisms evolved, but there was a universal assumption that at least basic fiscal support of public campuses would be handled on some regular basis through the states’ political systems. The campus president might need to make an occasional appearance before a higher education or budget committee at the state capitol, and probably needed to stay in close and friendly touch with the local legislative delegation. Funding for the “main” campus might be the subject of some visible controversy, especially if major sports teams had been spectacularly successful or spectacularly unsuccessful in the recent past. But the branch campuses would just be taken care of. There was never quite enough money, but there was always some money, and it was dependable and, relatively speaking, easy enough to acquire. That past is dead and cremated, and in the ashes of the antique system of funding will be found a major portion of the job descriptions of most branch campus chief executives and development directors in the contemporary academic world. Thanks, in part, to the ever-increasing costs of 245

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health care, infrastructure construction and maintenance, the criminal justice system, and other public burdens, “state funding for higher education is at its lowest level in 25 years” (Jackson 2005). And, the same doleful speaker notes, “knowing they can only squeeze so much more cash out of the wallets of families, college administrators worry about depending increasingly on private donations.” Surely, another part of this sorry equation is the overall sad lowering of the level of respect and prestige enjoyed by institutions of higher learning over the past several years. Repeated attacks on our colleges and universities as havens of irrational left-wing liberalism (political correctness, feminism, Marxism, etc.) such as Naomi Schaefer Riley’s God on the Quad have provided ample ammunition for legislators and citizens who are not eager to spend public money on higher education (Riley 2005). The NEA has noted the declining percentage of the states’ budget dollars allocated to higher education, documenting a loss of about 3 percent from 1980 to 2000 (www2.nea.org/he/fiscal crisis/index.html).1 In short, today, college administrators, especially at branch campuses, have to struggle energetically to secure continuing public appropriations of a reasonable magnitude, while simultaneously (and sometimes reluctantly) entering the field of private fund-raising, previously occupied, in the realm of higher education, by private institutions (and independent or quasi-independent major school athletic foundations and alumni associations). And, since fund-raising on branch campuses tends to be a relatively recent enterprise (and, as noted below, the alumni of such institutions are often young), development offices tend to be very small. At one point in my career, I moved from a private liberal arts college of about 1,000 students with 12 full-time professionals plus support staff in the alumni and development office, to a public liberal arts branch campus of about 2,000 students, with one full-time fund-raiser, a part-time alumni officer, and one clerical assistant.2 Fund-raising on most branch campuses today involves working with the following external constituencies: system administration; governmental officials at the federal, state, regional, and local levels; corporations and foundations; and philanthropic individuals or families. It is only at some peril to institutional health and individual careers that any of these potential sources of funding can be neglected. Although this can be a challenging, even daunting task, it can also be rewarding and (truth be told)

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fun. And, it is one that can be approached with strategic thoughtfulness or with casual and ad hoc improvisation. While a certain “seize the moment” flexibility is always an asset, generally it is the first of these approaches which is going to be more successful and dependable. Fund-raising is, first, about raising funds, of course. But it turns out that what makes it both rewarding and enjoyable is that it can be about other, nonmonetary things as well. In the process of raising funds, institutions have an opportunity, indeed, a necessity, to define themselves and, hence, their needs, strengths, and weaknesses. And in asking for or giving money, individuals and groups have a chance to articulate, and to pursue in a concrete, practical way, their values. Philanthropy, public and private, individual and collective, is about dollars and cents, but it is also about visions, aspirations, hopes, and making real our dreams: it is, to cite Shakespeare, to “give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.”

HOMEWORK Before approaching any potential funding source, public or private, there is some on-campus homework to be done. Most importantly, it needs to be decided what to seek funding for. More than one college president has been the victim of his or her success when the campus community has discovered that time and energy were spent raising money for some project(s) that lacked internal enthusiasm or support. And, sometimes potential funders will seek to support a project of their devising, and the fund-raiser will have to decide, diplomatically and often quickly, how to respond to an initiative in an unexpected direction. On occasion colleges and universities have turned down rather spectacular gifts, usually for good reasons. I know of one institution, for example, that was avidly seeking support to build an athletic facility. A potential donor proposed a very major gift, but it turned out that gift came with so many strings attached, and the attachment was so strong, the institution ultimately said no. (In some other instances, such perhaps as the rather famous athletic arena at North Dakota State University, the institution said yes, then wished for years it had not.3) What is the best way to establish institutional funding priorities? Obviously different institutions, with different cultures, have evolved different

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methods. In most cases, strong and clear administrative leadership is vitally important. If the faculty of a branch campus decides that the top funding priority for the next decade must be building a new humanities building, and the campus administration has been told in no uncertain terms by the central administration that such is not to be the case, that faculty priority is going to need to be addressed in some other way. If, on the other hand, the chancellor decides it is important to launch a fundraising effort to replace recently installed artificial turf on the football field, because the athletics department has changed the school’s sports logo, and the faculty are likely to be incensed at such an expense and effort, that, too, probably is not a wise development goal. Inviting regular and thoughtful input from faculty, students, staff, trustees, and the external community is inevitably helpful. It makes the on-campus community feel heeded, it provides a good sense of institutional wants and needs, and it builds a broad base of support from which an assertive campaign for money can be mounted. Some campuses have used strategic planning committees, or subcommittees to mull funding priorities. Others have created special facilities priority committees to weigh physical needs. Of course, nobody can guarantee that the priority fiscal needs of any campus will be met in the exact order or way projected. Therefore, the wise fund-raiser will always have at her disposal a range of options. That range will include capital projects, human needs, major funding initiatives and more modest ones, and so on. The more arrows in the fund-raising quiver, the better the chance of hitting some targets.

THE FUND-RAISING ENVIRONMENT In addition to developing a shared, realistic, and diverse sense of campus funding needs, it is important, especially on branch campuses, to assess some of the climate issues that will influence the directions in which to seek money. For example, if a branch campus is part of a university system that has made a very public commitment to improving undergraduate education, or to campus safety, it is prudent to consider projects that fall under these umbrellas. If the state government is concerned about serving historically underserved students, or advancing teacher training, those will be fruitful areas. If a major foundation has announced a new program aimed at creating

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responsible citizens or linking spirituality to liberal learning, or if an individual donor is known to be particularly interested in some subject matter or some region of the world, then it is wise to look for support in those areas. These acts of alignment seem so obvious as to need no mention, but it is surprising how often this simple, preliminary step is missed. Conversely, negative impacts on fund-raising can come from the culture in which the college or university finds itself. If, for example, there is considerable public concern about genetic engineering, it is not likely to be productive to seek donors for a laboratory dedicated to that enterprise. Much more than flagship universities or private institutions, branch campuses are always constrained by the systems, educational and political, of which they are a branch. Fund-raising that swims against the system’s stream is going to be frustrating; that which finds a way to go with the flow, while staying true to the college or university’s mission and character, will find smooth sailing.

TACTICS AND STRATEGIES Let us now look a bit more specifically at fund-raising tactics strategically targeted at specific branch campus constituencies. I begin with university systems. Every university system I have encountered works a little differently, and each one also seems to evolve slightly different styles of operation over time as leadership and circumstances change. Whether funding comes directly through a university system to a branch campus, or through a more indirect route, the central administrative structure of a system office is likely to be crucial to any branch campus’s fiscal success. In most university systems, the key to branch campus success is finding the exact balance between institutional distinctiveness and shared system goals and characteristics. Whether there are four or twenty-four campuses within a system, it is valuable and important to establish what is unique and special about your campus. Perhaps yours is the public liberal arts campus of your state’s university system. Or your ocean-side location makes you the campus with a strong marine sciences program. Or you are the campus that has historically served your region’s Native American community. Or you have a nationally recognized poet on the faculty.

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Or you have a powerful campus record of environmental sustainability. There is no such thing as a generic college: all of us develop distinctive programs and characteristics. It is important to university systems to have such a range of distinguishable institutions; if nothing else, they justify having a multicampus system! Having a clear institutional identity, with some unique, signature programs of pride for the entire system, will help ensure sympathy, generosity, and assistance from key system administrators in the funding process. At the same time, it is very important for branch campus senior officers to be, and to be perceived as being, team players. University system presidents/ chancellors love campuses with unique and interesting strengths; they are less fond of prima donnas or of institutions that make a point of demonstrating that they think their single institution is more important than the system of which it is a part. And, of course, they are downright hostile—and should be—to campuses that are willing to advance their own interests in ways that do actual damage to other units within the system, or to the system itself. Branch campus CEOs and others in positions of public visibility and managerial accountability should avoid suggesting to legislators, for example, that system priorities should be rearranged in favor of their own campus. They should not push a facility project on their campus as being more important than one on another campus within the system. They should be very careful to avoid claiming that their faculty or staff merit higher pay, or better working conditions, than colleagues at sister campuses (even if that happens to be true). On the other hand, it never hurts to be seen as working for the good of the entire university system: helping lobby for the unified university bonding package; giving an interview for a local paper which lauds the system CEO; showing up at all-university events, even if they are a couple hours drive away: these are all good investments when it comes to raising money from, through, and with the larger university system. Branch campus fundraisers need to be enthusiastic and clear-spoken about their campus, without seeming to downplay the value of sister campuses, and the university system as a whole. Achieving this happy balance is sometimes rendered more problematic for branch campuses by shifting university system priorities. Just as campus chief executives and boards of control can change and evolve, system leadership is constantly developing in new directions. If a branch campus

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has as its distinctive feature a commitment to undergraduate liberal arts education, for instance, and the system of which it is a part decides to make the training of nurses and engineers its highest priority, the liberal arts branch may be stressed. Conversely, if the branch campus has made a signature program the training of future professionals in some area that the system administration decides is already over-peopled, problems may ensue. In some systems, a central office, almost always at or proximate to the flagship campus, exercises control over access to potential donors. For example, at the University of Minnesota, the University of Minnesota Foundation, located on the Twin Cities campus, determines if a branch campus can approach a potential donor. Not surprisingly, the branch campuses have been known to suspect that the Twin Cities campus is usually given the prime opportunity to converse first with possible new major donors. In sum, good relations between a branch campus and its system central development office can aid fund-raising at the branch, and conversely, poor relations can hurt. The strategically clever branch campus will recognize that helping is better than hindering.

SEEKING PUBLIC FUNDING There are multiple venues in which branch campuses can seek funding from public sources. Probably the two most common are state legislative appropriations and special federal and/or state programs. In terms of the latter, two strategies will be helpful. First, it is important to know what special governmental programs are available, especially what new ones have recently been initiated. So, for example, an alert college with a strong sustainability emphasis might seek funding from the federal CREB (Clean Renewable Energy Bonds) program to build infrastructure such as wind power turbines or biomass heating plants. CREB bonds are not philanthropic gifts, but they are large, interest-free bonds, which can often be repaid with savings from the facilities they help build. Agencies such as the NEH, NEA, and NSF are continually creating new programs, or modifying old ones, and the smaller institution that makes an effort to stay abreast of these developments should be able to exploit them nimbly. This is not the most exciting or glamorous work, but it can

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produce substantial funds. It is also hard for the smaller development offices of smaller campuses. One important aid in the effort to keep up with state and federal programs leads to our second strategy in this area: using the resources of “main” campuses or central administrations. Most branch campuses will have the opportunity to exploit somehow the more extensive resources of the systems of which they are a part. If there is a system officer in charge of federal relations, for example, it is valuable to the branch campus to build a relationship with that individual or office. Usually, such an office will be inclined to focus on the flagship or landgrant campus. But if an awareness of the branch campus is cultivated, special opportunities that are relevant to it may be seen and communicated through the system office. This is especially true of opportunities which might have no application to the larger central campus(es). Thus, for example, if a flagship campus is located in the heart of a major city, and a branch campus in a rural venue, those CREB funds for wind power generation will be of little interest to the former, and could be a great help to the latter. Not only can a system or “main” campus office of state or federal relations point the way to attractive fiscal opportunities; it can help bring them to fulfillment. Individuals in such positions or offices have a web of relations with key political figures, or their staffs. They can arrange and often accompany a visit to, say, a senator’s office, to meet with the senator herself or her senior aides. Especially in the baffling, complex, and often distant world of Washington, DC, the wise branch campus administrator seeks to take full advantage of resources of the larger system. This tends to be less true, although still certainly possible, when it comes to relations with state government. Most branch campus administrators will not spend much time in the nation’s capitol, but they will quickly become intimately familiar with Raleigh, Minneapolis, Sacramento, or Salem! It is a rare branch campus that is not located in or very close to a community that is not visited regularly by the local member of the state’s House of Representatives. Branch campus executives should cultivate good relations with their local and regional senators and representatives, if humanly possible. Occasionally such politicians will adopt a strong anti-university position, but such intransigence is rare.

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The wise branch campus president (or chancellor or provost or development director) will usually avoid engaging local politicians on national or international issues, at least in an official capacity. College administrators should not be expected to give up their beliefs nor their free speech rights, but should probably cultivate the virtue of diplomacy, at least in their professional lives. If a local politician can be a great help or a major hindrance in securing state funding to build a new science building or fine arts center, it probably does not make much sense for the chancellor of the local branch campus to vigorously and visibly oppose that individual on some national hot-button issue (e.g., the war in Iraq or the ERA) on which that politician will probably have a public opinion, but virtually no public power. During my years as the chief executive of two public branch campuses, I had strong opinions, which I did not seek to hide, on issues such as national military adventures, gay rights, and civil liberties, but I also did not make a point of flaunting those beliefs in ways which would invite opposition from influential local political figures, whose value systems were sometimes quite different from mine. My spouse made political campaign contributions; I did not. I never posted a political lawn sign in my front yard, nor drove a car with a partisan bumper sticker. It was my goal to work comfortably for the welfare of my college with whatever elected officials I could. It is probably especially important to establish such cordial working political relationships for the branch campus located in a region of relatively slight demographic, economic, and political power. And many branch campuses are, in fact, so located. If the school’s region of the state is relatively sparsely populated, and lacks major clout within state government, it will be especially important to work closely with local elected officials, lest the branch campus simply be lost in the movements of larger forces. And, a clear case can be made that the campus can help the legislative delegation achieve visibility and effectiveness, just as the legislators can help the campus. One potential impediment to good branch campus/state legislature relations: in most states I know, a significant proportion of the legislators are graduates of the state’s flagship campus, and not infrequently from its law school. So, while a local legislator may understand the importance of a branch campus to her or his region, that legislator’s personal loyalty may lie with the system’s central campus.

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INSTITUTIONAL PHILANTHROPY Corporations and foundations are an important potential source of branch campus funding. Here, again, it is important to make sure that there is a good match between campus strengths and the interests of potential donating organizations. Relatively few corporations or foundations make general grants, and some are quite restricted in their interests. Some, for example, will not look at public institutions or those outside their region. Finding the right program to market to the right organization is key to success in this sector. A public branch campus seeking to explore spirituality issues might think about contacting the John Templeton Foundation, which has a focus that includes religion in education. It hardly needs be said that a branch campus looking for a grant to advance their studies in nutrition would be wiser to look at food companies than highway construction firms. As a general rule, branch campuses seem to fare better with regional enterprises than major national ones. Thus, for example, smaller institutions in rural Minnesota have won substantial support from the Blandin Foundation, which is dedicated to serve exactly that region; similarly, the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation focuses on North Carolina. On the other hand, the major national foundations tend to make big donations, to big schools. So, for example, the Ford Foundation, with assets of around $14 billion, has as its purposes: strengthening democratic values, reducing poverty and injustice, promoting international cooperation, and advancing human achievement. In 2007, it received 40,000 proposals, and funded 2,000. While smaller campuses, and individuals who work there, have certainly benefited from grants from the Ford Foundation (and certainly share its core values), the sorts of “promotion of international cooperation” which can be undertaken by, say, a 30,000-student, land-grant campus will tend to dwarf those of a 1,200-student branch college within the same system.4 Similarly, smaller, more localized industries are likely to pay greater attention to the philanthropic needs of branch campuses than are national or international corporate giants. So, for example, several upper Midwestern branch campuses have benefited from fiscal support from the Otto Bremmer banks.

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Corporate and foundation relations for branch campuses can be aided by central system offices and individuals, or by those folks at the “main” campus of a system, but to a somewhat restricted degree. A large system advancement office can certainly point a branch campus in the direction of larger funding agencies whose goals and priorities match that of the branch campus. And, they can help establish productive personal relations with the officers of such agencies. On the other hand, central offices at, or serving, large, central campuses are not very likely to know well smaller, local foundations and businesses which might be keenly interested in the programs of a branch. Here, as elsewhere, it will be smart for the branch campus to seek whatever assistance can be offered by central offices, but also to realize that it must finally depend upon its own entrepreneurship and resources, no matter how relatively limited. In sum, when branch campuses seek corporate and foundation giving, it is smart to look for congruence of interest and contiguity of location.

PRIVATE PHILANTHROPY When most academics think about fund-raising, we imagine seeking personal gifts from individuals of substantial means. This work is now an important part of the job description for campus chief executives and development professionals, at institutions ranging from the smallest of colleges to the largest of universities. In all cases, it is as much an art as a science, one dependent upon the nuanced interplay of personalities and the clarity and persuasiveness of communications. Volumes have been written on effective techniques for development work, and the field is amply supplied with consultants, publications, seminars, and the like. There are, however, some special aspects of donor cultivation applicable especially to branch campuses which merit attention. Perhaps the first such aspect is that of realism. It should be obvious that individuals and families of spectacular wealth, with no particular connection to a branch campus, are unlikely to be persuaded to give substantial gifts to a college or university about which they know little. It would certainly be a boon for a branch campus in Iowa or New Mexico to receive a multimillion-dollar gift from a computer software magnate in

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California or a New York hotelier, but unless those potential donors have some personal connection to that branch campus, the odds are not good. That said, it never hurts the branch campus administrator to keep an eye open for such a connection: perhaps the computer magnate has a nephew who attends the branch campus; perhaps the campus was the first to contract with a now expansive food service company; perhaps the founding campus president was the grandfather of woman who owns all those east coast hotels. . . . If there does seem to be an exploitable connection, it is probably worth an exploratory try; if not, forget it. Alumni are, of course, a major source of potential funds, and branch campuses need to create and maintain effective alumni organizations. A good alumni-and-friends publication and communication strategy is a worthwhile investment. Recognizing, conspicuously, the fiscal success of outstanding alumni is always smart. A particular frustration to branch campuses, in both the admission and development offices, is the graduate who goes on to great success, which she or he is quite willing to attribute in some part to the fine education received at the branch campus, but who then sends her or his daughters and sons to prestigious private institutions or to the flagship campus of the system. This discouraging phenomenon is, unfortunately, not as rare as it should be. The branch campus fundraiser confronting it should do so with good humor, and make sure that the graduate’s financial beneficence does not all follow her children to the more elite college or university. Indeed, although there are certainly many exceptions to this rule, as a general practice, parents of exceptional wealth tend not to send their children to branch campuses of public or private systems. Consider the information presented in table 14.1 about the University of Wisconsin System (Institute for College Access and Success). Every single branch campus of the UW system has a higher percentage of students receiving Pell grants, and a higher percentage of students coming from families with incomes below $60,000 per year than the “main” Madison campus. This is important, and somewhat discouraging, information for the alumni fund-raising operation at, say, UW River Falls or UW La Crosse. (It would also be discouraging to note that the average family income in Madison in 2006 was $67,713 and in La Crosse in the same year it was $47,603 [Money Magazine].) Alumni fund-raising at branch campuses faces another challenge, in that many of those institutions are relatively young, or have changed

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“Put Money in Thy Purse” Table 14.1. University of Wisconsin System Statistics Campus Madison Eau Claire Greenbay La Crosse Milwaukee Oshkosh Parkside Platteville River Falls Stevens Point Stout Superior Whitewater

% Receiving Pell Grants

% with Income below $60,000

10 17 18 18 19 22 25 20 23 23 21 32 17

14 21 25 25 22 24 23 26 30 26 26 30 22

dramatically from their earlier incarnations (often as teacher-training colleges or two-year institutions). Generally, major philanthropic activity occurs when alumni have seen their own children graduate from colleges, and launch successfully their own families and careers: that is, perhaps thirty-five to forty years after graduation. If an institution is only thirty years old, it is not going to have alumni in that productive demographic group. Moreover, younger branch campuses often do not have very effective alumni offices and organizations for exactly this reason: when all the alumni are young alumni, there does not seem much reason to develop an effective program to solicit their contributions. This can lead to a debilitating circular process: Since the branch college is fairly new, its alumni do not have much potential for giving, so a weak alumni program evolves, which does little to encourage alumni donations a decade or two down the road. The lesson here is obvious: attentive, effective alumni relations are an investment, and a good one. If young alumni are not cultivated, their generosity and loyalty will be weakened when they are older, wealthier alumni. It is also important to remember that if young alumni of relatively modest means begin to make small contributions soon after graduation, their loyalty to their alma mater will be strengthened: they will feel that they personally have a stake in the future success of their branch campus. When those young alumni mature into positions of responsibility and greater affluence, they will be eager to help their institution in multiple ways, including politically and financially. Graduates in their twenties,

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thirties, and forties, who maintain an affectionate and grateful relationship with their alma mater, will be those who are generous in their fifties, sixties, and seventies! And, in the meantime, they can be very helpful as political lobbyists, career counselors, and mentors for students about to enter the workforce, scouts for recruitment prospects, and so on. Another challenge the public branch campus faces, which it shares with all other public institutions, is the widespread conviction that individuals who pay taxes to the state that is home to the public college or university are making their contribution to that institution in that way. This conviction is, of course, partially true, and branch campuses should never neglect to acknowledge their gratitude to the taxpayers of their regions. On the other hand, a careful and effective fund-raiser can be prepared to demonstrate that there is a growing gap between the cost of educating students and the income from state support (and tuition). And the private donor, in helping to bridge that gap, can make the difference between an educational experience that is adequate, and one that is excellent. Moreover, of course, tax-supported state funding can pay for some collegiate costs, but not for all. In many states, for example, legislatures look askance at using public funds for merit scholarships. It is important to know those programmatic gaps, and to be prepared to make a case for filling them, when meeting with prospective donors. Sometime donors, even those in the backyard of a branch campus, feel some yearning to make their gifts to the “main” campus, even if it is hundreds of miles away, and they have no particular personal connection to it. Not infrequently, such an impulse is nourished by the highly visible major sports programs of the large campus, and the feeling that flagship campus teams somehow represent their entire state. So, for example, a prospective donor living in northern Wisconsin who did not attend college, and lives and works in close proximity to the Superior branch campus of the University of Wisconsin, might feel that the UW–Madison Badgers are somehow “his” team, not the UW–Superior Yellowjackets. In athletics, and in most else, the state’s flagship campus will tend to dominate the statewide media, so a gift to that campus will likely garner more publicity for the donor. There is, of course, a good counterargument to be made at the branch campus: a gift which will just be a decent-sized drop in the huge bucket of a flagship or land-grant campus can be a really big deal at the smaller

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branch. At some branch campuses, buildings or programs can be named for gifts that would merit a form letter and a plaque on the “main” campus! If donors want to be noticed, and most do (and should), they are far more likely to be gratified by a gift to the branch campus. Branch campuses in the public sphere are increasingly being driven to seek funding beyond the traditional sources of public support for higher education. Such support can come from university systems, from state and federal government sources, from corporation and foundation support and from individual philanthropy. Branch campus fund raisers find both impediments and incentives to seek fiscal backing from all these sources. The successful campuses will be those that are energetic, imaginative, entrepreneurial, and systematic in their efforts to find the money that will enable them to achieve their educational missions.

NOTES 1. That percentage has gone from just under 10 percent to under 7 percent. 2. These figures are now over a decade old; both enterprises have subsequently grown. 3. In this case, the gift came with the proviso that the school’s teams retain their Native American nickname and mascot. 4. Early in my career, while at a small private liberal arts college, I was the happy recipient of some modest funding by the Ford Foundation, which made possible my first travel abroad. My gratitude for that support is unwavering.

WORKS CITED Institute for College Access and Success. www.economicdiversity.org/profiles. php?. Jackson, Derrick. 2005. “The Squeeze on College Funding.” The Boston Globe, October 18. Money Magazine. money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/pblive. Riley, Naomi Schaefer. 2005. God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Index

AAC&U. See American Association for Colleges and Universities AASCU. See American Association of State Colleges and Universities academic programs: branch campuses developing, 55–57; broad array of, 101; campus uniqueness through, 66–67; communities reflected in, 195–96; school selection/quality of, 80–81; student work obligations influencing, 159–61 Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP), 192 Academic Senate, 151–52 academic year timing, 183 accountability, for learning outcomes, 171–74 adaptive change, 34–35 administrative structure, 92; in complex universities, 26–27; issues influencing, 18; of Kent State University, 197–99; state-system campuses commonalities in, 165; university mission and, 20–23

admissions: of branch campuses, 109– 10; director of, 109; officer, 108–9 Advantage scholarship program, 114 AdvantageU, 170–71 Albert, S., 22 Allen, William D., 130 alumni fund-raising, 256–57 alumni organizations, 256 American Association for Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), 146, 153, 169, 224 American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), 172 American Indian boarding school, 217 application processing, 112–13 applied learning opportunities, 237–39 AQIP. See Academic Quality Improvement Program Arizona State University: Advantage scholarship program of, 114; centrally coordinated enrollment of, 111; recreation program of, 120 Arizona State University East, 97

261

262

Index

Arizona State University Polytechnic: credit transfers from, 106–7; housing/dining facilities added to, 105; successful model of, 101 Arizona State University Tempe, 105 Arizona State University West Campus, 16 Ashville-Biltmore College, 3–4 Ashville campus, 4, 36, 38–39 assessment plan, of educational programs, 141 Astin, Alexander W., 69n3, 120, 148 athletics: at branch campuses, 116–20; facilities for, 119; scholarships for, 117–18. See also intercollegiate athletics autonomy, central control versus, 202 bachelor’s degrees, 58, 168–69 Banta, Trudy, 173 Blanco, Kathleen Babineaux, 234–35 Blandin Foundation, 237, 254 Bowen, Frank M., 98–99, 108 Boyer, Ernest, 88 branch campuses: academic program development at, 55–57; admissions office of, 109–10; athletics at, 116–20; attracting faculty to, 60–61; branding/unique feature of, 63–64; chief executives of, 6, 8; community economic development and, 87–88; competing values framework and, 200–201; of complex universities, 15; consists of, 68n1; corporations/foundations funding, 254–55; curriculum of, 62; development of, 2–3; external communications officer for, 209–10; external communications on, 208–9; faculty roles at,

83–84; fiscal environment of, 75–77; fruitful fund-raising areas for, 248–49; fund-raising by, 246–47; fund-raising strategies of, 249–51; gifts to, 258; growth of, 3–4; institutions/system types of, 6–7; liberal arts/sciences in, 58–59; local media relations with, 213; of LTC, 127–28; main campuses versus, 7–9; main campus negotiating with, 64; main campus’ relationship with, 5–6, 16, 65; mission statements of, 133; new programs in, 53; political relationships of, 252–53; private source funding of, 255–59; professional expectations of, 73– 74; public appropriations for, 246; public funding sources for, 251–53; senators/representative relations with, 252; senior officers/team players of, 250; smaller budgets of, 52; strategic plan/identity of, 30–31; strategic planning issues of, 37–40; student employment on, 120–21; student recruitment of, 61–63; student’s active social life on, 104–5; students of color in, 62–63; unique identity of, 57–59, 65–67 branding: strategic planning using, 63–64; universities uniqueness shaped by, 79–81 brown bag discussions, 51 Buchmiller, Therese, 228 budgets: of branch campuses, 52; cycles, 40, 75; honors program, 47–48; regional campus/standalone, 201; vocational schools cutting, 130

Index

Burke, J. C., 19 business community, 133 California State University: state-wide requirements of, 151; VSA in, 152–53 California State University–East Bay (CSUEB), 142, 156; CLA and, 154; freshman learning communities of, 150–51; future assessment of, 154–55; NSSE and, 153–54 campus CEO: system head’s relationship with, 184–85; system staff’s relationship with, 185–86 Campus Compact SEAMS, 225 campuses: developing vision for, 34–35; facilities look important to, 103–4; local community involvement with, 241. See also branch campuses; main campuses; specific campuses campus identity: curricular offering of, 56; student recruitment assisted by, 100–101 campus image: developing, 63–64; strategic plan connected to, 35–36 campus publications, 213–14 campus-wide scholarly events, 46 career fairs, 123 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 216 Carter, Jimmy, 237 Carter, Rosalyn, 237 Carter Partnership Award for Campus-Community Collaboration, 237–38 Center for Small Towns (CST), 234; applied learning opportunities from, 237–39; UMM benefiting from, 238–39

263

Center for University Studies and Programs (CUSP), 143, 146 central control, autonomy versus, 202 centralization/decentralization, 19, 197–98 centrally coordinated enrollment, 111 Central Washington University, 20 Chandler Gilbert Community College, 106 character formation, student, 90–91 chief campus administrator, 24–25 chief executives, 6, 8 Chronicle of Higher Education, 8, 109 CIE. See Common Intellectual Experience civic engagement: UMM movement for, 234–40; UMM theme floors of, 235–37; UMM with, 239–40 CLA. See Collegiate Learning Assessment classroom engagement, 114–16 Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREB), 251 Cloyd, J. Timothy, 103 coaches, 117–18 COE. See Council on Occupational Education Colby-Sawyer College, 36 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 31 College Board College Handbook, 3 college experience indices, 176n3 College Learning for the New Global Century, 141–42, 224 college major, 102 colleges. See liberal arts colleges; public colleges; specific schools; universities College Student Experience Questionnaire (CSEQ), 151, 153–54

264

Index

Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), 153, 172; CSUEB and, 154; curriculum control and, 174; flawed understandings by, 173 committee members, donations of, 133 common experience discussion group, 50–51 Common Intellectual Experience (CIE), 44, 52 communications, 145; in competing values framework, 195, 198–99; decision-making process involved in, 193; determining system of, 190; external spokesperson in, 211–13; feedback loops in, 34–35; intercampus, 195; Kent State University’s approach to, 190–92, 194–95; managerial system of, 194–95, 202; in multicampus universities, 189, 200–201; regional campuses policies of, 199; regional campuses process of, 191, 195–96; students and, 196–97; topdown, 192 communities: academic programs reflecting, 195–96; branch campuses/economic development and, 87–88; business, 133; campus involvement with, 241; leadership building, 32–33; public colleges obligations to, 216; strategic planning building, 40–41; students connections with, 234; UMM ties with, 216–17 community-based learning experience, 225, 230 community colleges: credit transfers from, 106–7; resources flowing to, 175–76

community engagement, 22 Community Outreach Partnership Centers (COPC), 238 community partners: service-learning program satisfying, 230–31; of UMM, 237–40 community service, 234–35, 240–41 competencies, 81 competing values framework, 192–94; branch campuses balance through, 200–201; communications in, 198– 99; communications network and, 195; flexibility side of, 193; human relations in, 194; internal process model in, 192; organizational effectiveness of, 193, 201–2; rational goal model in, 192–93 complaints, 33, 136 complex universities, 16–18; administrative principles of, 26–27; branch campuses of, 15; efficiency of, 18–19; external relationships of, 23–24; growing number of, 15–16; organizational structure of, 22 composition process, 173–74 computers, 75 conference championships, 119 consultative process, 31–34; advantages, 35–37; conflicting ideas in, 32; participation in, 32– 33; structured questions in, 33 contradictory observations, 33–34 control/flexibility balance, 202–3 COPC. See Community Outreach Partnership Centers COPLAC. See Council on Public Liberal Arts Colleges core curriculum learning goals, 150 core program components, 227 corporations, funding from, 254–55

Index

cost-effective educational programs, 182–83 Council on Occupational Education (COE), 133 Council on Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC): greater visibility from, 58–59; tuition approach of, 176n2; universities belonging to, 157 courses: lower division, 107; university, 52 CREB. See Clean Renewable Energy Bonds credit transfers, 106–7 critical/creative inquiry, 144 Crow, Michael, 114 CSEQ. See College Student Experience Questionnaire CST. See Center for Small Towns CSUEB. See California State University–East Bay curriculum: of branch campuses, 62; campus identity and, 56; change in, 167–68; CLA control and, 174; development, 44–45; for students, 82 CUSP. See Center for University Studies and Programs Daily Kent Stater, 190 data collection, 64; NSSE difficulties with, 153–54; uniform format for, 172 debt burden, of students, 159 decentralization/centralization, 19, 197–98 decision-making process, 193 demographics, 89–90 dining/housing facilities, 105 director, of admissions, 109

265

disciplinary expertise, 73–74 Discovery Core course, 144 diversity: of mission, 21–22; of students, 218 donors, 256 economic development, 87–88 education: face-to-face, 95; faculty meetings on, 145–46; UMF reforming, 170; University of Minnesota’s experience in, 215–16. See also higher education educational programs: assessment plan of, 141; cost-effective, 182– 83; outcomes for, 142 education system: campuses and, 181–82; understanding, 182 efficiency, of complex universities, 18–19 e-Inside, 190, 194 engagement: active community, 22; campus leadership beginning, 132–33; student/faculty, 114–16, 131, 132–35. See also civic engagement; student engagement Engstrom, Catherine, 152 enrollment: capacity, 36–37; centrally coordinated, 111; of LTC Florida Parish campus, 137; of LTC Hammond Area campus, 136; transfer students and, 171 enrollment management, 124–25; in honors program, 46; students and, 131; of universities, 111–13; of University of Minnesota, 111–12 enterprise software systems, 164 entitlement programs, 76 ethics/social responsibility, 144 Evergreen State College, 66–67, 69n4

266

Index

external communications: on branch campuses, 208–9; branch campus officer of, 209–10; campus publications/congruent message of, 213–14; complex universities relationships using, 23–24; formulating plan for, 209, 214; spokesperson of, 211–13; system administrator coordinating, 210–11 extracurricular activities, 67 face-to-face education, 95 facilities: ASU Polytechnic adding, 105; athletic, 119; campus, 103–4; UMM adding, 104 faculty-centered campuses, 81 faculty members: branch campuses attracting, 60–61; branch campuses roles of, 83–84; demographic changing of, 89–90; disciplinary expertise and, 73–74; educational meetings of, 145–46; encouraging, 135–37; engagement, 132–35; gender shifts of, 88–90; governance, 77; instructional methods of, 132; IT resources available to, 96n2; liberal arts colleges governance of, 165–68; performance scrutiny/accountability of, 84–87; recruitment of, 47; regional campus, 199–200; research activities of, 94; responsibilities of, 48–49; self-esteem development of, 137; service roles of, 93; student character formation assisted by, 90–91; student engagement actions of, 138–39; student engagement and, 132–35; student issues dealt with by, 121; teaching/research

of, 79–80; tenure-track, 199–200; tuition increases required because of, 82–83 farm community, 223 federal government, 186 feedback loops, 34–35 financial aid, 113–14 Finkelstein, Martin J., 89, 169 first-semester freshman seminars, 115 First Year Learning Community Program (FYLCP), 143–45, 147–50 fiscal environment, 75–77 flagship campuses, 41, 98–99; resources shared by, 122–23; strained relations in, 99 flexibility/control balance, 193, 202–3 Florida Parish campus, LTC, 129–30, 137; enrollment trends of, 137 food: local/organic, 219–21; students dollars buying local, 222 Ford Foundation, 254 foundations, 254–55 four-year public universities, 93–94, 96n1 freshman learning communities, 150– 51; positive influence of, 152 fund-raising: alumni, 256–57; by branch campuses, 246–47; branch campuses fruitful, 248–49; gifts in, 258; homework needed for, 247– 48; institutional, 247–48; negative impacts on, 249; public sources of, 251–53; strategies for, 249–51; beyond traditional sources for, 259 FYLCP. See First Year Learning Community Program gender: faculty shifts in, 88–90; liberal arts colleges ratios and, 62

Index

general education packages, 171 Gergen, Kenneth, 83 gifts, fund raising, 258 God on the Quad (Riley), 246 Gold Scholarship, 113 governance issues, higher education, 91–92 governing board, 66 graduation rates, 83 Graff, Gerald, 155 Hammond Area campus, LTC, 130– 31; enrollment trends of, 136 Hammond Association of Commerce, 130 Handel, Steven, 105 Hendrix College, 103 Herbert Presidential Scholarship, 49 higher education, 2–3; funding public, 158–59; governance issues in, 91–92; liberal arts colleges challenges in, 174–76; liberal bias and, 88–89; rapid change in, 77; research emphasized in, 78–79; state expenditures on, 176n1; state funding for, 246; subsidizing, 76; undergraduate study valued in, 78 high school students, 102 honors program: budget of, 47–48; enrollment management of, 46; faculty responsibilities in, 48–49; Indiana University Southeast with, 43–44, 50; recruiting for, 45–46; scholarship support and, 47 honor students: common experience discussion group of, 50–51; mentoring/advising, 45 Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 238 housing/dining facilities, 105

267

HUD. See Housing and Urban Development human relations, 194 human resources, 201 Hurricane Katrina, 137, 234 Hurricane Rita, 137 Hutton Honors College, 52–53 identity, unique: of branch campuses, 57–59, 65–67; of University of Minnesota, 215–16 ILTE. See Institution for Learning and Teaching Excellence imagination, 31 implementation, 39–40 inclusive practices, 144 independence, teamwork versus, 185 Indiana University, 5, 97 Indiana University Southeast, 43–44, 50 indirect learning outcome measures, 86 individual performance study, 228 institutional change, 203 institutional fund-raising, 247–48 Institution for Learning and Teaching Excellence (ILTE), 44 institutions, branch campuses, 6–7 instructional methods, 132 intercampus communications, 195 intercampus mail, 189 intercollegiate athletics: coaches hired in, 117–18; multicampus universities with, 116–20; students recruited/retained with, 116–17; University of Minnesota program of, 119–20 internal process model, 192 investment, 175 IT resources, 96n2

268

Index

Jencks, Christopher, 108 job opportunities, 160 Johnson, David, 1, 100, 236–37 Johnson Independence Hall, 236–37 John Templeton Foundation, 254 Kaufman, J., 19 “Keeping Our Faculties,” 69n2 Kent State University, 4; administrative structure of, 197–99; communications approach of, 190– 92, 194–95; core values/mission of, 189; regional mission of, 188; research activity of, 188–89; shared governance model of, 187–89; student issues at, 196–97 Kingsolver, Barbara, 219 knowledge construction, 94–95 Koehler, Hope, 228 Kuh, George, 114, 116, 124 Land Stewardship Project, 220 Langenberg, D. N., 27 LC. See learning communities LCTCS. See Louisiana Community and Technical College System Board of Supervisors leadership: building community/ authenticity in, 32–33; of campuses, 132–33; efficacy of, 82–83; engagement starting with, 132–33; mission priorities set by, 203; strategic plan and, 29–31; students providing, 236–37; of university system, 24–25 LEAP. See Liberal Education and America’s Promise Learn and Serve America grant, 226–27 learning communities (LC), 149

learning environment: integrative, 143–44; student affairs supporting, 123–24; UMM enriching, 222 learning opportunities, 237–39 learning outcomes, 149; accountability for, 171–74; indirect measures of, 86; liberal arts colleges commitment to, 173; measuring, 172–73; shared student, 144–45; at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, 147–50 Lee, Eugene C., 98–99, 108 legislators, 253 Levitz, Randi, 116 liberal arts colleges, 157, 217; autonomy of, 50; faculty governance in, 165–68; gender ratios at, 62; higher education challenges of, 174–76; learning outcomes commitment of, 173; nonacademic commitments of, 159–60; policy commonality pressures on, 162; public, 162; social/political values of, 174– 75; transferring ease of, 169; transformative experiences in, 163 liberal arts/sciences, 58–59 liberal bias, 88–89 Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP), 224 lifelong learners, 135 literacies, 144 local ownership, 24 Louisiana Community and Technical College System Board of Supervisors (LCTCS), 128 Louisiana Technical College (LTC): branch campuses of, 127–28; enrollment of, 136, 137; Florida Parish campus history, 129–30,

Index

137, 137; Hammond Area campus history, 130–31; history of, 128–29 Louisiana Technical College Region 9: history of, 129; mission statement of, 128 Lovejoy’s College Guide, 3–4 lower division courses, 107 LTC. See Louisiana Technical College mail, intercampus, 189 main campuses: branch campuses versus, 7–9; branch campus negotiating with, 64; branch campus relationship with, 5–6, 16, 65; media dominated by, 258; using resources of, 252. See also flagship campuses Maine, 162–63, 175–76; AdvantageU in, 170–71; higher education expenditures of, 176n1 Maine kids, working class, 160 managerial system, 194–95, 202 Manolis, Argie, 226 maritime fields, 57–58 Maroon Scholarship, 113 McGuinness, A. C., 16, 23 media: branch campus relations with, 213; main campuses dominating, 258; public relations and, 209 mentoring, honor students, 45 Minnesota Office of Citizenship and Volunteer Service, 227 Minnesota State colleges, regional campuses, 68n1 mission: core elements of, 22–23; of Kent State University, 189; leadership setting priorities of, 203; of multicampus universities, 20–21; regional, 188; UMM’s distinctive, 217–18; of university,

269

20–23; university system’s diversity of, 21–22 mission statements: of branch campuses, 133; of Louisiana Technical College Region 9, 128 Montana Tech of the University of Montana, 57–58 Morrill Act of 1862, 2 Morris Prairie Renaissance Project, 220, 237 multicampus universities, 17; campus differentiation of, 21; central communications in, 200–201; communications in, 189; financial aid in, 113–14; flexibility/control in, 202–3; intercollegiate athletics of, 116–20; leadership of, 24–25; mission’s role in, 20–21; students attracted/retained by, 98; tensions of, 124; University of California as, 20–21; University of Illinois as, 21 multiphrenia, 84, 88, 93 multisite universities, 17, 20; leadership of, 24–25 Murphy, Sally, 156 NASULGC. See National Association of State Universities and LandGrant Colleges national association, 173 National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC), 153, 172 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE): college experience indices of, 176n3; data collection difficulties with, 153–54; indirect learning outcome measured by, 86; student

270

Index

engagement measured by, 114–16; UMF students surveyed with, 167; UW-Bothel participating in, 145 NEASC. See New England Association of Schools and Colleges New College of Florida, 58 New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), 166 newspaper, of students, 190 news stories, 208 Ng, Peh, 225 Noel, Lee, 116 Noel-Levitz entry survey, 45 nonacademic commitments, 159–60 North Carolina, university system of, 30 NSSE. See National Survey of Student Engagement The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (Pollan), 222 organic local foods, 219–21 organizational structure: of complex universities, 22; effectiveness of, 193, 201–2 Otto Bremer Foundation, 238 parity in prestige, 23 Pascarella, Ernst T., 239 Penn State, 68n1 performance review, 85–86 policy commonality pressures, 162 political relationships, 252–53 Pollan, Michael, 219, 222 post-cluster review, 151–52 The Power of Small: Building Solutions for Energy Self-Reliance, 238–39

pricing policy, 163–64 Pride of the Prairie food initiative, 218–24; fall celebration of, 220–21 private colleges, 61–62 private source funding, 255–59 probationary process, 86 professional development, 120, 134 professional expectations, 73–74 public appropriations, 246 public colleges, 92–93; community obligations of, 216; general education packages transfer among, 171; private college recruiting versus, 61–62; university systems differing from, 161–62 public confidence, 95–96 public funding sources, 251–53 public higher education, 158–59 public liberal arts colleges, 162 public relations, 209 Quinn, Robert E., 192 Ramapo State College, 59 rational goal model, 192–93 recreation program, 120 recruitment: of faculty, 47; honors program with, 45–46 regional accreditation agencies, 56–57 regional campuses, 68n1; communications policies of, 199; communications process of, 191, 195–96; faculty members of, 199– 200; institutional change essential in, 203; leadership setting priorities of, 203; stand-alone budget environment of, 201 regional mission, 188 Reisman, David, 108 renewable energy, 239

Index

research, 79–80; faculty activities in, 94; higher education emphasis on, 78–79; Kent State University activity in, 188–89 resources: allocation of, 160–61; community colleges getting, 175–76; flagship campuses sharing, 122–23; main campus, 252 retention, 46, 83; of students, 110–11, 131 retreat facilitators, 149 Riley, Naomi Schaefer, 246 Rohrbaugh, John, 192 Schoenberg, Robert, 170 scholarly events, 46 scholarships: for athletics, 117–18; Maroon/Gold programs for, 113; support for, 47 school selection, 80–81 Schuman, Samuel, 100 Schuster, Jack H., 89 sculptures, 229 self-esteem, 136; of faculty, 137 senators, 252 senior officers, 250 service-learning program, 225, 240– 41; annual partnerships of, 229–30; community partners satisfaction with, 230–31; UMM courses of, 232–33; UMM goals of, 231 service roles, 93 shared governance model, 187–89 shared student learning outcomes, 144–45 social life, of students, 104–5 social responsibility/ethics, 144 Spangler, Thomas C., 130 spokesperson, external communications, 211–13

271

sports programs, 119 staff supervision, 47 standardized curriculum/measures, 174 state funding, for higher education, 176n1, 246 state-system campuses, 76, 78–79; administrative structure commonalities in, 165 State University of New York (SUNY), 68n1 St. Mary’s College of Maryland, 58–59, 65–66 strategic planning: branch campuses identity and, 30–31; branch campuses issues in, 37–40; branding in, 63–64; campus enrollment capacity in, 36–37; campuses implementation of, 39– 40; campus image connected with, 35–36; critical information from, 29; leadership style and, 29–31; ongoing cycle/community building of, 40–41; successful models of, 30; SWOT analysis in, 33–34; UNC Ashville’s, 38–39 Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis, 33–34 structured questions, 33 student affairs: learning environment supported by, 123–24; of University of Minnesota, 121–22 student-centered campuses, 81–83 student engagement: at campuses, 132–35; faculty actions for, 138–39; faculty and, 131; NSSE measuring, 114–16 students: academic opportunities/ work obligations and, 159–61;

272

Index

active social life of, 104–5; branch campuses recruiting, 61–63; campus identity/recruitment of, 100–101; character formation of, 90–91; civic leadership provided by, 236–37; classroom engagement of, 114–16; of color, 62–63; communications and, 196–97; community connections made by, 234; curricular programs for, 82; debt burden of, 159; employment of, 120–21; engagement, 132–35; enrollment management and, 131; faculty dealing with issues of, 121; individual performance study of, 228; intercollegiate athletics recruiting/retaining, 116–17; Kent State University issues of, 196–97; local food spending of, 222; multicampus universities attracting/ retaining, 98; multiple universities attended by, 107–10; newspaper of, 190; retention of, 110–11, 131; service professionals, 198; shared learning outcomes of, 144–45; studio art, 228–29; transfer, 159; UMM orientation of, 1; UMM’s diversity of, 218; universities measuring learning of, 86–87; university success for, 110–11, 114–16. See also honor students studio art students, 228–29 SUNY. See State University of New York swirling, 107–8 SWOT analysis. See Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats system authority, 56

system board: system head reporting to, 183–84; system head’s communications with, 184–85 system head: campus CEO’s relationship with, 184–85; system board’s communications with, 184–85; system board’s report of, 183–84 system-level approval, 168 system of communications, 190 system staff: campus CEO’s relationship with, 185–86; external communications coordinated by, 210–11 teaching: faculty research/, 79–80; importance of, 78; public confidence of, 95–96 team players, 250 team-taught seminar, 144 teamwork, independence versus, 185 tenure-track faculty, 199–200 tenure-track positions, 78, 85 Terenzini, Patrick T., 239 term contracts, 89–90 Texas A&M, Corpus Christi, 142, 155–56; learning outcomes at, 147–50 Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), 147 THECB. See Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Tinto, Vincent, 152 top-down communications, 192 Toyota T-Ten Training Center, 134 transfer students, 159; enrollment targets and, 171; multiple institutions and, 168–71 transformative experiences, 97–98, 163

Index

tuition: COPLAC approach to, 176n2; faculty salary and, 82–83; University of Maine calculating, 162–63 Tutoring-Reading-Enabling Children program, 236 UCCP. See University Core Curriculum Programs UMF. See University of Maine at Farmington UMM. See University of Minnesota, Morris undergraduate study: campus size/ location important to, 102–3; higher education valuing, 78 uniformity, 163–64 universities: student learning measurements by, 86–87. See also complex universities; multicampus universities; specific universities University Core Curriculum Programs (UCCP), 148 university courses, 52 University of California, 17; decentralization of, 19; as multicampus university, 20–21 University of Colorado Denver, 16 University of Illinois, 2; as multicampus university, 21 University of Maine, 5; challenges of, 164–65; enterprise software system of, 164; pricing policy of, 163–64; tuition calculation of, 162–63 University of Maine at Farmington (UMF), 158–61; education reform of, 170; NSSE surveying, 167 University of Michigan, 59 University of Minnesota, 68n1; application processing of, 112–13;

273

enrollment management of, 111–12; intercollegiate athletics programs of, 119–20; “Keeping Our Faculties” of, 69n2; student affairs of, 121–22; unique character/educational experience at, 215–16 University of Minnesota, Morris (UMM), 100; baccalaureate degrees of, 58; civic engagement movement of, 234–40; civic engagement of, 239–40; civic engagement theme floor at, 235–37; community-based learning experience of, 230; community partnerships of, 237–40; community ties of, 216–17; CST’s programs benefiting, 238–39; distinctive mission of, 217–18; facilities added to, 104; learning environment enriched at, 222; local organic foods served at, 219–21; Pride of Prairie food initiative of, 218–24; service-learning courses of, 232–33; service-learning goals of, 231; service-learning program of, 225; student diversity of, 218; student orientation at, 1; transforming experience of, 97–98; work/study opportunities at, 223 University of North Carolina, 17 University of North Carolina at Ashville, 4, 36; strategic plan of, 38–39 University of Northern Iowa, 59 University of Southern Maine, 5 University of Washington–Bothell, 142, 155; First Year Learning at,

274

Index

143–44; NSSE participation of, 145 University of Wisconsin, system statistics of, 257 university systems: characteristics of, 17–18; leadership of, 24–25; mission diversity of, 21–22; of North Carolina, 30; public colleges differing from, 161–62 vocational schools: budget cuts of, 130; evolving, 128; Hammond Association of Commerce initiating, 130 Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA), 172; in California State

University, 152–53; national association rejecting, 173 volunteerism, 234–35, 240–41 VSA. See Voluntary System of Accountability Wainwright, William S., 129 Washington State University Vancouver, 16 Whetten, D. A., 22 work obligations, 159–61 work/study opportunities, 223 Wright State University, 4 writing, context specific, 173–74 Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, 254

About the Contributors

Shirley J. Barton is executive dean of the Kent State University Regional Campuses and a member of the provost’s staff, having served almost twenty years as an administrator in the Regional Campuses Office. In prior years, she was a tenured faculty member teaching in business and teacher education at one of the Kent State regional campuses, after having taught at other institutions in Ohio and South Carolina. Allen H. Berger is the provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Maine at Farmington, Maine’s public liberal arts college. He has served at UMF since 2000, having previously worked as vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college at Franklin College (Indiana). A cultural anthropologist with interests in the Mediterranean and Africa, Berger helped develop and lead the Indiana Consortium for International Programs. As a faculty member, he has taught anthropology, sociology, and international studies courses and has been active in general education. Berger received his B.A. from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from Columbia University. Patricia A. Book is vice president for regional development at Kent State University where she serves as an executive officer and member of the president’s cabinet. Her leadership role includes outreach to Northeast Ohio through Kent State’s eight-campus network. Book served as associate vice president for outreach at Penn State prior to joining Kent 275

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About the Contributors

State. Earlier she served as dean of a regional campus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Harold A. Dengerink received his bachelor’s degree from Calvin College and his master’s degree and Ph.D. from Kent State University, all in psychology. He spent the first twenty years of his academic career at Washington State University in Pullman as a faculty member, program director, and eventually associate dean of humanities and social sciences. When the Washington legislature approved branch campuses for its two research universities, he assumed leadership of a new campus of Washington State University in Vancouver, Washington (just north of Portland, Oregon), where he remains as chancellor. Merianne Miller Epstein is news services director at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. She started her communications career as a reporter on a midsized daily newspaper. Epstein worked a number of beats, including education, health, county government, and general assignment. Understanding the demands placed upon reporters (whether they work in print, television, radio, or on the Internet) continued to inform her work as she moved on to related fields of health care media relations and higher education communications and issue management. Leslie Heaphy is associate professor of history at Kent State Stark, as well as codirector of the honors program. She is treasurer of the Kent State Stark Faculty Council and a member of the dean’s faculty cabinet. Heaphy has also authored or edited four books on Negro League baseball and women’s baseball. Sharon G. Hornsby currently serves as the campus dean (administrator) of two branch campuses, Hammond Area Campus and Florida Parishes Campus, with thirty-two years of experience as an educator. She holds both an educational specialist degree and a master’s degree from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, and a bachelor’s degree from Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond. Sharon Hornsby is a licensed professional counselor and therapist. She currently serves as a team leader for the Council on Occupational Education (COE) accreditation agency.

About the Contributors

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Theodora J. Kalikow is a native of Swampscott, Massachusetts. She received an A.B. in chemistry from Wellesley College, a Sc.M. in philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston University. During the academic year 1967–1968 she served as tutor in philosophy at the University of Exeter, England; and in 1968–1969 she began teaching at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, where she attained the rank of professor and served as department chair and faculty union president. In 1981 Kalikow became the interim assistant to the president at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, and during 1983–1984 she served as an American Council on Education Fellow at Brown University. From 1984 to 1987 she was dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado, and in 1987 she moved to Plymouth State College (NH), where she served as dean of the college (with one year as interim president) until 1994. Since 1994 she has served as president of the University of Maine at Farmington. Emily Lardner is codirector of the Washington Center for Improving Undergraduate Education (www.evergreen.edu/washcenter), which is involved in national learning communities work and other curricular reform initiatives. Lardner has taught academic writing and composition for many years. Along with Gillies Malnarich, she currently teaches in Evergreen’s Evening and Weekend Studies Program. Gillies Malnarich serves as codirector of the Washington Center for Improving Undergraduate Education, helping to lead its national learning communities work and other curricular reform initiatives. She has taught developmental education and sociology. Along with Emily Lardner, she currently teaches in Evergreen’s Evening and Weekend Studies Program. Gary McGrath has served as the dean of student affairs at the Arizona State University the Polytechnic campus since November 1999. As the senior student affairs officer he is responsible for student recruitment, financial aid, registration, housing, dining services, student activities/student union, counseling, career counseling/placement, disability resources, health service, student conduct, recreation, and intramurals. McGrath

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About the Contributors

received his doctoral degree in higher education from Indiana University, master’s degree in student personnel administration from Western Illinois University, and bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Minnesota, Morris. In l998 McGrath received the Robert H. Shaffer Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indiana University Department of Higher Education and Student Affairs. McGrath has been an active member of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), and currently serves on the Advisory Board of the NASPA James E. Scott Academy for Leadership and Executive Effectiveness. Sandra K. Olson-Loy is vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Minnesota, Morris. Olson-Loy has worked to expand the college’s many community partnerships and has been actively involved in the Pride of the Prairie Local Foods Initiative since its inception. She lives in Minnesota’s glacial hills on the edge of the tall grass prairie with her husband, Doug Loy, and their sweet dog, Max; she grew up on a farm in Morrison County. She serves as the Small Colleges and Universities Division Chair on the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) Board of Directors. Mark W. Padilla serves as provost and professor of classics at Christopher Newport University, a public liberal arts and sciences campus in Virginia. Padilla earned a B.A. in classics and English at the University of California at Santa Cruz and then a master’s degree and doctorate at Princeton University in the Department of Comparative Literature. Starting in 1985, he served in the Department of Classics at Bucknell University for sixteen years. His research focus has centered on ancient Greek myth and drama, on which he has published and presented nationally and internationally. His current scholarship has moved into the study of mythic patterns in cinema. Anne Ponder became the sixth chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Asheville in 2005. She earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in English from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. She began her academic career at Elon College, where she taught English and communications and founded the college’s honors program. She has served as associate academic dean at Guilford College

About the Contributors

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(NC), academic dean at Kenyon, and for a decade as president of ColbySawyer College (NH). She has been a frequent faculty member of Harvard University’s Institutes for Higher Education. Chancellor Ponder is a member of the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center Board of Directors, the Mission Hospitals Audit Committee, and the United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County Board of Directors. She also serves as a member of the Asheville Community and Economic Development Alliance. Angela M. Salas received her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska– Lincoln. She has published articles about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, and the poet Yusef Komunyakaa. Her book Flashback through the Heart: The Poetry of Yusef Komunyakaa was published in 2004. Salas is currently the director of the Indiana University Southeast Honors Program and associate professor of English. Samuel Schuman has served as chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Asheville and the University of Minnesota, Morris. He holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Renaissance dramatic literature. He has published books and articles on Jacobean drama and on the twentiethcentury Russian-American author Vladimir Nabokov, as well as books on the subject of higher education. Dr. Schuman served as president of the International Vladimir Nabokov Society, and of the National Collegiate Honors Council. His most recent books on higher education include the fourth edition of Beginning in Honors: A Handbook and Old Main: Small Colleges in Twentieth-Century America. John F. Schwaller is the fifteenth president of the State University of New York College at Potsdam. He holds his undergraduate degree in history from Grinnell College, an M.A. in Spanish from the University of Kansas, and a Ph.D. from Indiana University in colonial Latin American history. He has served as a faculty member and academic administrator at Florida Atlantic University, the University of Montana, and the University of Minnesota, Morris. He is the former director of the Academy of American Franciscan History and a noted expert on the history of the Catholic Church in colonial Latin America, and is a scholar of the Aztec language Nahuatl.