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Topic: Governance

Case Study
September 10, 2015

Reshaping System Culture at the North Carolina Community College System

With 58 schools that enroll more than 800,000 students annually, the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) is the third largest system of higher education in the nation.[1] In 2010, NCCCS embarked on SuccessNC, a strategic initiative focused on sharing best practices, developing performance-based student success metrics, and testing system-wide policies to improve student access and success across all NCCCS schools. The SuccessNC initiative states that its ultimate target is increasing “the percentage of students who transfer, complete…
Blog Post
July 10, 2015

Resources for Reinvestment in Academic Libraries

At ALA Annual in San Francisco last month, one of the interesting panels that I attended featured the executive leadership of six library technology companies. The moderator, Marshall Breeding, started things off with a question about how each company’s business model helped it serve library needs. OCLC’s Skip Prichard spoke about his organization’s governance as a partnership of libraries, while ProQuest’s Kurt Sanford emphasized that because it is family-owned his organization can take a long-term perspective. I…
Blog Post
February 4, 2015

A different appoach to governance at ASU

Locus of Authority deftly chronicles the emergence of shared governance as a means to further university goals, and its ossification into an end in itself and a barrier against which transformative changes crash.  As my colleague Deanna Marcum elaborates, university leaders interested in pursuing innovations in online learning and other areas have sought to evade sclerotic shared governance processes through various workarounds, such as new, agile subunits and incentive programs. Such approaches are often marginal, providing an opportunity…
Blog Post
February 4, 2015

Shared Governance

Lessons from Public Flagship Universities

Often, when discussing shared governance, we talk as if everyone is part of the system—either administrator or faculty. It is also assumed that when change does happen, it occurs through formal channels. Last year, Ithaka S+R conducted a landscape review of technology-enhanced education in ten public flagship universities. The goal of our study was to understand the online learning strategies in these institutions and to learn more about perspectives on this topic among faculty and administrators. In our multiple-day…
Blog Post
February 2, 2015

Locus of Authority

The Evolution of Faculty Roles in the Governance of Higher Education

On January 1, Ithaka S+R launched its new Educational Transformation program, which consolidates all of our higher education initiatives into a single, more impactful program. One of the first publications from the program, in conjunction with Princeton University Press, was Locus of Authority: the Evolution of Faculty Roles in the Governance of Higher Education, by William Bowen and Eugene Tobin. Addressing one of the most important issues in higher education, the authors discuss the evolution of the concept of…
Blog Post
January 20, 2015

The New American University

S+R Report Takes a Closer Look at ASU

“The New American University.”  To the outsider, or to the leader of another higher education institution, it may sound like a brash and arrogant boast.  On the inside, for a person associated with Arizona State University (ASU), it can be an aspirational expression of pride and the opportunity to take a leadership role in U.S. higher education.  ASU’s president, Michael Crow, envisions the “new American university” as one “measured not by who we exclude, but rather by who we include…
Case Study
January 20, 2015

In Pursuit of Excellence and Inclusion

Managing Change at Arizona State University

“The New American University.” To the outsider, or to the leader of another higher education institution, it may sound like a brash and arrogant boast. On the inside, for a person associated with Arizona State University (ASU), it can be an aspirational expression of pride and the opportunity to take a leadership role in U.S. higher education. ASU and its president, Michael Crow, seem to conjure up strong reactions from observers and competitors, both positive and critical. For example, Newsweek…
Blog Post
December 19, 2014

Innovation in Teaching and the Freedom to Teach

Last year the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) released a statement on the freedom to teach which asserts several rights for faculty, including the right to determine the texts and assessments within their courses. While recognizing that “common course syllabi and examinations are… typical,” the statement emphasizes that these “should not be imposed by departmental or administrative fiat.” Our newest issue brief, “Exploring the Contours of the Freedom to Teach,” considers the potential impact of AAUP’s statement on the…
Issue Brief
December 19, 2014

Innovation in Teaching and the Freedom to Teach

Last year the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) released a statement on the freedom to teach which asserts several rights for faculty, including the right to determine the texts and assessments within their courses. While recognizing that “common course syllabi and examinations are… typical,” the statement emphasizes that these “should not be imposed by departmental or administrative fiat.” This issue brief, “Exploring the Contours of the Freedom to Teach,” considers the potential impact of AAUP's statement on the academy. Authors Lawrence…
Research Report
December 11, 2014

Technology-Enhanced Education at Public Flagship Universities

Opportunities and Challenges

Public research universities are under great pressure to increase access, lower costs, and improve instruction, even as they face diminishing financial support from the states they serve. Against this backdrop, Ithaka S+R, with funding from Lumina Foundation, undertook a study of ten institutions in the Public Flagships Network (PFN). Over the course of the 2013/2014 academic year, Ithaka S+R interviewed 214 individuals, ranging from presidents and provosts to key administrative officers and staff, to department chairs and faculty. Members of…
Issue Brief
October 13, 2014

Technology: Its Potential Impact on the National Need to Improve Educational Outcomes and Control Costs

On Monday, October 13, 2014, William G. Bowen delivered the opening address at Rice University's De Lange Conference, "Technology: Its Potential Impact On The National Need To Improve Educational Outcomes And Control Costs." We are pleased to publish it here as an Ithaka S+R issue brief. Bowen, who is president emeritus of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and also president emeritus of Princeton University, was the founding chairman of JSTOR/ITHAKA and continues to serve on ITHAKA's board. The paper explores…
Issue Brief
April 14, 2014

Technology to the Rescue

Can Technology-Enhanced Education Help Public Flagship Universities Meet Their Challenges?

How might public flagships meet some of their most pressing challenges? Earlier this month, Ithaka S+R completed a study on behalf of Lumina Foundation to  understand the growing but contested role of technology-enhanced education at these universities.  In this issue brief, Deanna Marcum, Ithaka S+R's Managing Director, offers an abbreviated look at the study's findings on how public flagships are addressing the need to increase access to education, contain costs, improve student learning outcomes, and increase institutional efficiency.
Research Report
October 6, 2011

Revenue, Recession, Reliance

Revisiting the SCA/Ithaka S+R Case Studies in Sustainability

In 2009 Ithaka S+R investigated the sustainability strategies of twelve digital content projects in the higher education and cultural heritage sectors in the US, UK, France, Germany, and Egypt. Two years and one economic crisis later, Ithaka S+R, with the generous support of the JISC-led Strategic Content Alliance, decided to revisit the original twelve case studies to see how their models had held up, where weaknesses might be starting to show, and what new strategies project leaders were adopting in…