Michael Heric is a partner with Bain & Company’s Performance Improvement practice and leads the firm’s support functions capabilities globally. He is based in New York. Send questions or comments about this story to [email protected].
Measuring faculty effectiveness has never been a perfect science—and it has always held potential for contention among instructors and administrators. Today, tighter budgets, greater demands in terms of student outcomes and service responsibilities, and a push for hard data increase the pressure to develop fair and accurate evaluation systems. The types of information collected on […]
While most libraries have cleared out hundreds, if not thousands, of books from their shelves, that doesn't mean they have surrendered square footage. In fact, many colleges and universities are investing millions of dollars to repurpose or even expand these facilities to make room for collaborative learning, technology centers, dining areas, research support and other […]
While 98 percent of librarians in a 2015 Gale/Library Journal survey wished for better communication with faculty, only 45 percent of faculty expressed the same wish. This gap presents both a challenge and an opportunity for libraries to make a case for their usefulness to faculty, in both their teaching and scholarship. To promote faculty […]
In an era when prospective students and their parents can learn about hundreds of schools from the comfort of their homes, the in-person campus tour offers a golden opportunity to tip the scales in your favor. The tour is also the most influential factor in enrollment decisions, according to a 2012 Noel-Levitz study. But too […]
As the definition of student success continues to expand beyond retention and graduation rates, its physical presence on many campuses is also beginning to sprawl. Student success centers have been emerging for years, and the trend is expected to continue. For each school considering one, decisions involve how to structure and design the space, as […]
The growing view of higher education as a global commodity has driven many ambitious institutions to deepen their international presence by setting up shop overseas. While still far from common practice, international branch campuses have risen from a worldwide total of 15 in 1995 to 231 in 2015, according to the Cross-Border Education Research Team […]
Thirty percent of higher ed students today are the first in their family to attend college, while 24 percent—4.5 million—are both first-generation and low-income. That means a significant portion of students is at risk of dropping out, as National Center for Education Statistics data shows that only 11 percent of low-income, first-generation students graduated within […]
Ohio State, Arizona State, Creighton (Neb.), Bentley (Mass.), George Mason (Va.) and Purdue (Ind.) universities are among the first that have hired Gallup to survey their alumni to gather data on their graduates' well-being and workplace engagement. Findings will be measured against the Gallup-Purdue Index, which launched in May with the goal of creating national […]
What college students are learning—and how—has become a mainstream talking point across the political spectrum. Much of this talk concerns dollars and cents—namely, cost and payoff. As a result, 2015 may be a year in which many institutions do a gut-check of their own value propositions, as pressure to increase affordability—and return on investment—pervades all […]
Managing course scheduling involves more than just cracking a complex logistical code each semester. It's also a potential bane or boon to the operating budget. Course scheduling is tied integrally to two of an institution's most expensive resources—facilities and faculty. An