In this report:
- Advance with a Defined Sense of Purpose
- Identify Inefficiencies on the Academic Side of the House
- Prioritize Academic and Administrative Units
- Plan for Resource Allocation in Ways That Build Trust
October 2010. In reviewing the last two years, it might be easy to think that higher education’s economic challenges largely precipitated from the recession and are thus temporary. Unfortunately, most institutions have been operating in a financially unsustainable way for many years. Rather than make the tough decisions about what to invest in and what not to, many institutions have instead continued to add programs and seek new sources of revenue to fund these investments.
However, this recession demands that institutional leaders face a hard reality: most new resources are not going to come from external sources but from strategic reallocation of the resources you already have.
That’s why we’ve chosen to address resource allocation and reprioritization in our first issue of Higher Ed Impact: Monthly Diagnostic. Many institutions are already making difficult cuts that would have proven politically untenable in stronger economic times. Yours might be one of them. But are you being strategic in your approach to ensure that after these cuts are made, your institution is stronger and more competitive as a result?
We’ve asked former presidents, provosts, and CFOs for advice on what campus leaders can do in both the short and long term to free up much needed resources in ways that help position their organizations for success. We hope their advice will be useful to you.
