Many areas of investing have become so specialized and complex that they need to be addressed by a special effort. Chief financial officers must evaluate whether that effort can be delivered by internal staff or whether an outside contractor is appropriate. Diagnostic questions for making that determination are offered. (MSE)

This collection of essays provides an overview of personnel policies and practices in two-year colleges. The volume includes: (1) "The Personnel Function in Two-Year Colleges," by Priscilla Haag-Mutter and C. Wayne Jones, which considers historical antecedents, human resource development, future trends, and the role of planning; (2) "Organization…

Small colleges can make a virtue of the need to use administrative staff flexibly and to train young staff. Senior administrators must assume a variety of tasks, and young administrators can develop their skills while covering key functions. (MSE)

Although volunteers serve many useful functions in fund raising, soliciting gifts should be left to staff. Volunteers are hard to recruit, keep, motivate, are unreliable, lacking in expertise, and they can balk at the realities of development tasks. Development offices should carefully think through the appropriate roles for these individuals.…

A model for allocation of college faculty teaching load is proposed. It requires that the department's overall teaching function be identified and broken into components and the components weighted. The model also permits the opportunity cost of decisions made on other criteria to be assessed. (MSE)

College and university public relations specialists find that, to get competitive coverage for their institutions, they must provide the media with instant access to information and understand the way the media operate. Although the computer is useful in expanding contacts, responsiveness and information of real interest are foremost…

Offers advice to administrators and faculty in small colleges on planning, building, and managing campus computer networks. Also included are observations about the network as a strategic asset, funding and staffing issues, and planning for unexpected results. (Author/MSE)

The "academic ratchet and administrative lattice" framework for examining costs and productivity in college administration is applied to the University of Delaware. The productivity of academic units is analyzed quantitatively and issues in overstaffing and overbudgeting of administrative units are discussed. Faculty staffing trends from…

A computerized system used in an Australian university school of education to allocate faculty teaching loads equitably and flexibly is described. It features reconciliation of workloads based on (1) course design and enrollment and (2) formulas relating to administration, research, and development responsibilities negotiated within the faculty.…

The ICA Communication Audit is described in detail as an effective measurement procedure that can help an academic institution to evaluate its internal communication system. Tools, computer programs, analysis, and feedback procedures are described and illustrated. (JMF)

To reach older, nontraditional students and alumni, alumni associations must offer a different type of programming Suggestions include ignoring class years of alumni, bringing current and former adult students together, emphasizing career connections, supporting networking, featuring a college speaker to satisfy lifelong learners' hunger for…

In a broad institutional planning exercise, Ramapo College (New Jersey) used charts to analyze the state of the college and brought in a theater and set designer to help assess the institutional context for its work. The technique has been used to explore organizational patterns in staff utilization, curriculum design and organization, space…

A survey of 300 medical school faculty members gathered information about the staffing processes and concerns of those institutions, with some comparisons to an earlier study of colleges of arts and sciences. Focus is on allocation of faculty positions, the search and selection process, and the recruiting environment. (MSE)

Results of the seventh annual national comparative data study on public two-year college financial characteristics are summarized, including statistics on expenditures and revenues, staffing, and credit enrollments. (MSE)

Occupational stress, either chronically high or inadequate, is a serious problem within organizations. A variety of factors contribute to the individual's perception of stress and the methods available to reduce or moderate stress levels, including organizational structure, placement, gender-related characteristics, and opportunities for…