According to a recent survey of auxiliary directors conducted by the National Association of College Stores, we know that the top reason (41 percent) for outsourcing the campus store is to eliminate operational headaches and simplify processes. Those are valid reasons. Managing a retail operation is a complex business—and quite different from other higher education […]
Leaders at private colleges concerned about the National Labor Relations Board’s ruling allowing Columbia University teaching and research assistants to unionize can look to their peers at public universities to prepare for coming changes. The impacts of unionization can be seen at several U.S. public universities, including the University of Washington, University of Michigan and […]
Higher education facility managers are under pressure to reduce operating expenses. This is part of a national trend for all non-academic departments to reduce overhead expenses in order to keep spending down and tuition stable and we’re seeing this trend among both private and public campuses. As a facilities manager, you are probably asking yourself: […]
A bit of institutional self-interest motivates campus leaders when they work to spend money with businesses owned by minorities, women, veterans and other underrepresented groups. In fact, the institution’s own bottom line comes into play, says D.M. Hodnett, director of the University of Missouri System’s Supplier Diversity and Small Business Development Program. “If we can’t […]
The world of online learning has significantly changed the landscape of higher education over the last decade. In a survey by the Instructional Technology Council (ITC), 94 percent of student respondents said their online courses were equivalent or superior to traditional courses, indicating improvements in both online pedagogy and delivery methods. Fred Lokken, a member […]
Times of transition are always a good opportunity for evaluating processes in a financial aid office. So when the director of financial aid at Beloit College in Wisconsin took a new position, leadership at the 1,350-student institution decided to examine that department’s business operations. “We wanted to see if we were operating at best-practice level,” […]
If you work in enrollment management you've probably heard the term "big data." Ubiquitous in the business world, big data is being adopted by higher education, particularly in the area of recruitment. With stagnant or declining recruitment budgets and increased competition for students, leveraging the data most colleges capture is a cost-effective approach that can […]
Print marketing is often an opportunity for improvement for higher ed institutions, particularly print mailings. What is the most common setup? Recruitment typically begins with the purchase of lists of prospective students’ addresses. Ensuring those lists are accurate is a huge undertaking, especially when marketing leaders want to segment mailings by different criteria. For 95 […]
There’s “a real revolution” underway in integrated, cloud-based human resources software, says Josh Bersin, of Bersin by Deloitte, a consultancy specializing in talent management and acquisition. Besides freeing up IT to handle other tasks, these systems allow HR to be more efficient because data is located in one spot rather than spread through multiple systems […]
The founders of George Washington University could not have anticipated that, almost two centuries later, the institution’s prime location in D.C.’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood would be a developer’s dream—and a golden opportunity for the university. Their major venture, a mixed-use retail, residential and office development called Square 54 and completed in 2011, has close to […]
