Blog

The language we currently use to describe the space colleges and universities occupy in the larger educational/learning landscape is based on accretion–either along a horizontal axis (“post-secondary education”) or a vertical axis (“higher education”). In the first...

Reports of budget, program, and personnel cuts at institutions of higher education almost invariably refer–directly or indirectly–to the issue of shared governance. When faculty leaders address a perceived lack of transparency from the administration, it’s an issue of...

Sustainability is about much more than recycling or turning off the lights… While it is, in an important way, certainly about the physical environment, it’s also about the human, social, economic, and cultural environments. From a systems perspective, sustainability...

For years, colleges and universities embraced the idea that more is better in their pursuit of trying to be all things to all people. Recent fiscal pressures–driven largely by changes in demographics and attitudes about the “value” of higher education–have pushed many...

Announcements that a college or university is closing usually include a reference to an unsuccessful attempt to find a partner who would have allowed the school to continue operating. While many of these schools have simply waited too long to go looking for a partner,...

Transformation is everywhere…at least the word “transformation” is everywhere. Unfortunately, too often it's just another, fancier word for change. But real, meaningful transformation is much more than change, no matter how complicated any given change might be. In...

Inviting presidents of smaller colleges and universities to webinars, information and conference sessions on mergers and acquisitions is the equivalent of inviting them to learn more about what amounts to “institutional estate planning.” “When your school is no longer...