Like library administrators across the country, David Lewis of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis is used to making hard choices. This year, he saved $200,000 by canceling dozens of subscriptions to scholarly science journals. In exchange, he began offering researchers on-request access to articles within hours, replacing the instant access they were accustomed to. He also […]
To academic librarians, the serials crisis—the budget squeeze caused by the rising cost of subscriptions to scholarly journals—is old news. Library spending on serials rose 402 percent between 1986 and 2012, according to the Association of Research Libraries, and costs for individual subscriptions rose by an average of 12 percent over the past two years […]
The momentum building behind higher ed analytics is hardly surprising, considering the explosion of tech tools available to make sense of institutional data. What might surprise some, though, is who on campus is responsible for predictive analytics. Rather than assigning the task to institutional research or creating a new department, schools are tapping administrators in […]
Just as websites morphed from digital brochures into versatile multimedia portals, electronic portfolios have evolved from information repositories to robust tools for showcasing student learning. Now generally referred to as “ePortfolios,” these software systems house completed assignments, reflections on learning, photos, creative work and journal entries—all evidence of a student’s education. “It is a personal, […]
Higher education is supposed to be a critical first step on the ladder that leads to economic mobility. But William Elliott and Melinda Lewis say that students often leave school with debilitating debt that delays or even prevents any upward climb on that ladder. The Real College Debt Crisis: How Student Borrowing Threatens Financial Well-Being […]
Like it or not, we spend a lot of time on planes and in airports as we travel to campuses across the Nation and around the world. Over the 2015 summer session we sensed winds of change in the aeronautics industry – read as, devising new global security measures; retrofitting outdated air fleets; and creating […]
Roughly six years ago, David Lewis served on a team that was designing policies for a new college in the Middle East. As president of OperationsInc., a national HR consulting and outsourcing firm, he met with seven top U.S. higher ed institutions to review their policies, including travel. To Lewis, travel has now become “a […]
What types of people at your school are not saving for retirement? Young employees? Low-income earners? Maybe single parents with children? Several years ago, Linda Nilsen needed to know. As the executive director of benefits and compensation at Princeton University, she analyzed the non-savers—about half of the school’s 6,000 employees. To her surprise, there were […]
Experts in higher education administration and management predict that 2015 will bring intense and sometimes surprising governance, financial and legal challenges to the sea of potential worries for university leaders. A few critical issues that will bubble to the surface involve financial health, academic performance, student wellness and continuity in leadership. Creating financial sustainability Answering […]
