Sustaining Change in Higher Education

1. Sustaining Change in Higher Education J. Douglas Toma Associate Professor Institute of Higher Education University of Georgia May 28, 2004

2. Challenges to Higher Education • In both Europe and the U.S., higher education faces ferocious cost pressures; vigorous competition for the best faculty, staff, and students; more diverse and demanding students; and new, disruptive technologies. • An increasing number of strong for-profit, accredited institutions are growing rapidly, taking away part the most lucrative student markets and expanding into the student base of some established colleges and universities. • Furthermore, there are growing demands for greater accountability, improved governance, and increased efficiencies.

3. Responses by Higher Education • The challenges of the contemporary economic and political environment require colleges and universities worldwide to be more effective as organizations by adapting more rapidly to change and using resources more efficiently. • Institutions have reacted by attempting to be more efficient, responsive, and market-sensitive. But the challenges remain formidable.

4. Building Organizational Capacity • In response to these conditions, Building Organizational Capacity (BOC) seeks to help colleges and universities realize institutional effectiveness over the long term, even through changes in leadership and personnel. • Initiated by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), BOC provides conceptual and practical tools for every type of college and university to anticipate and respond systematically and effectively to institutional challenges in ways that have continuing impact beyond changes in leadership and emergence of new conditions. • In particular, BOC aims to promote a disciplined way of thinking and action – at once a conceptual framework, a vocabulary, a toolkit and an approach – to enable individual institutions design and achieve significant long-term improvements.

5. Building Organizational Capacity • Using case studies of a variety of initiatives across the full range of American higher education institutions (and some in Europe), BOC seeks to illustrate the application of eight interrelated elements in different contexts by leaders using different approaches and styles, confronting disparate strategic challenges, and having different levels of resources and capabilities at their disposal. • The eight elements central to strengthening colleges and universities on a sustained basis are: (1) mission, vision, and goals; (2) governance; (3) structure; (4) policies and practices; (5) processes; (6) systems; (7) infrastructure; and (8) culture.

6. Building Organizational Capacity • The project will bring together both campus academic and administrative executive leadership, a bridge too rarely built in American higher education. It has an ambitious program of outreach intended to engage all types of institutions throughout the country. The major higher education presidential and professional associations are supporting BOC and including it in their programs. There will be continuous and rigorous evaluation of the initiative.

7. Mission, Vision, Goals The fundamental purpose and significant aspirations of an institution or activity within it. Everything begins with articulating the mission, vision, and goals of the organization. Starting an effort without fully articulating its central purposes and objectives too often results in unintended consequences, less than complete success, or even outright failure. The more important and costly the undertaking, the more clarity about core principles is requisite.

8. Governance The exercise of authority, responsibility, and control over goals, activities, and results. In the highly decentralized culture of higher education, effective governance is critical for success – both across institutions and within units (faculties, departments, projects, etc.). Those in authority must be included and involved in decisions that affect their spheres of influence.

9. Structure Aligning people and activities to realize the mission, vision, and goals and accomplish the core processesof an organization. Identifying and implementing effective structures serves fiduciary, legal, financial, and cultural ends. Success in any organization depends upon leaders crafting and nurturing the arrangement and alignment of its components.

10. Policies and Practices The core principles and practices guiding all aspects of the realization of the mission, vision, and goals of an activity. Policies are formally articulated, while practices are understood within organizations on the basis of culture and established action. Successful outcomes require decisions shaped by the right policies and practices -- how clear, appropriate, and comprehensive they are and how effectively leaders apply them.

11. Processes The means by which organizations realize their mission, vision, and goals. Processes follow from goals and policies -- and every organizational action and outcome is a result of a process. These processes are typically in a hierarchy of importance to which resources should be allocated appropriately. Processes tend to be intertwined with (1) policies and practices and (2) systems, with the most important of them having extensive connections.

12. Systems The supporting information and other actions which promote effective communication, management, and oversight. Systems of the right scope and operability are central to successful operations. They are rapidly evolving in their sophistication, range, importance, and cost. Systems are critical to the realization of policies and implementation of processes, define aspects of institutional culture, and affect structure and infrastructure.

13. Infrastructure The human, physical, and financial support assets in place to create and sustain the entire organizational effort as defined its the mission, vision, and goals. Infrastructure refers to a broad range of organizational assets, rather than the more typical consideration of buildings and people. An often neglected aspect of institutional planning and implementation, infrastructure always equates to financial and human resources. Leaders must take account of money, time, and human capabilities to shape an action successfully.

14. Culture The overall character, values, and beliefs of the organization – its essential personality. The sum total of the behavioral aspects of the interactions and interrelationships of an institution, culture is complex and dynamic. Many otherwise admirable initiatives have come to naught because of leaders a failure to appreciate and account for culture. Culture can evolve, but changing the norms, values, and beliefs of an organization is not easy.