4 building blocks of a continuous improvement culture
Process improvement is a proven method of redesigning and transforming sub-optimal workflows. Veterans of process reengineering attest to the value of beginning the journey by tackling universally frustrating processes that can be quickly fixed. Securing these early wins helps to generate buy-in and whet the appetite among stakeholders for even more improvements. As interest and…
How to get strategic enrollment management planning right
Community colleges across the country are experiencing declining enrollments, from 20% reductions in New York to 25% in Oregon1. Further, more than one in ten community college presidents are concerned that their college may merge or close in the next five years2. Clearly solutions are needed to succeed within this troubling future. To help get…
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View all Posts10 ways to implement maintenance endowments
While campus growth is an important priority for many higher education institutions, each new building comes with substantial upfront and recurring costs. Unfortunately, campus leaders often focus on first costs (e.g., design and construction) without considering how to appropriately fund recurring costs (e.g., maintenance and renewal) across a building’s lifecycle. While some institutions obtain incremental…
Building a sustainable districtwide social-emotional learning strategy
Over the past few decades multiple approaches, frameworks, and practices have been developed to help districts manage disruptive behavior and support students’ long-term social-emotional competency and well-being. But as districts have experienced a rise in the frequency and intensity of disruptive student behavior, many have responded with a “more is better” approach, adopting a number…
How to navigate IT’s great re-skilling
The revolution has arrived. But it’s not on the premises—it’s in the cloud. The IT Forum’s ongoing research into IT organizational design makes it clear that the transition to cloud services is having perceptible impact on IT staffs. Data centers are closing and downsizing, systems and database administration roles are declining in importance, and new…
Help your finance team navigate future uncertainties
Higher education institutions are confronting a host of external pressures, including changing demographics, heightening competition, and increasing affordability and value concerns. These pressures are compelling finance teams to perform more—and more complex—financial activities. Three examples of ways in which finance team’s responsibilities are evolving are listed in the graphic below. First, finance teams are broadening…
Who are Gen Z transfer students—and three insights to recruit them
In an environment of increasing competition for first-time, full-time students, growing pressure on tuition revenue, and stagnant state support, colleges and universities of all types are looking to transfer students to help fulfill enrollment goals. Transfer students can increase diversity and bring in additional revenue, fill upper-division course capacity, and satisfy state goals and regulations.…
How to explain F&A to critical stakeholders in a simple handout
Despite the importance of facilities and administrative (F&A) funding to the research enterprise, CROs and their teams struggle to explain the concept in a straightforward way. While many research offices post their F&A rate on their website or include a brief section about F&A in their policy catalog, these descriptions tend to be overly technical…
