Economy

Located in northwest Arizona, Mohave Community College has four campuses in a county that spans almost 14,000 square miles. To get from the centrally located business office on the Kingman campus to the North Mohave campus requires traveling around the Grand Canyon.

Our process was pretty much like everybody else’s. It was all about paper and very time consuming.

A PREMISE OF HIGHER EDUCATION is that if you study hard and do well in your courses, you will be rewarded at the next stage of life.

JULY 1 WILL MARK THE START of the new budget year in most institutions across the country. Nothing new, as that’s the regular budget cycle of higher education. But new this year are the deep cuts some budgets have undergone due to the economic situation.

NEARLY 100 YEARS AGO, when North Carolina was still a largely agricultural state, North Carolina State University President Daniel Hill described its mission as developing students who can “skillfully and unhesitatingly lead the industrial progress of our people.” His comment speaks to NC State’s historical commitment to driving the state’s economic growth.

Today, with a bow to our school colors, we express that spirit in slightly different terms: “Red means go!”

Welcome to the second Streamlined of 2009! My colleagues and I are proud to continue this series of publications designed to inform college and university administrators about new and innovative methods of streamlining business office operations.

Our process was pretty much like everybody else’s. It was all about paper and very time consuming.

NOTHING TENDS TO FOCUS the mind more than impending doom, which lately has taken the form of the speeding train that is our current financial crisis. College and university presidents and provosts across the nation are studying spreadsheets as if they were scholars examining the Dead Sea Scrolls.

MANY PEOPLE HAVE stopped watching the evening news. Why bother? More corporate greed. More stocks plummeting. More people losing their jobs, homes, or life savings. There’s the occasional “nearing the end of the recession” headline thrown in, but budget struggles have caused a number of layoffs on campuses.

SINCE WORLD WAR I, FORT ORD IN SALINAS, CALIF., HAD BEEN AN ARMY training facility and artillery target range. Today, 15 years after the army left, the property’s main feature is a growing regional university—California State University, Monterey Bay.