The reductions in state tax support for public universities that began around 1990 and continue today are progressively redefining relations between government and public higher education. The reasons for the drop in appropriations per student vary from state to state and include aging electorates, voter fervor for tax cuts, and mandated…

In this article, the author explores how athletic success translates into advancement gains. He shares the Cinderella story of the Butler University's Butler Bulldogs which became the prototypical college sports Cinderella during its star turn in the 2010 tournament. Many institutions say that their athletic accomplishments have brought them…

The National Park Service actively educates the public about registered historic places on college and university campuses and encourages people to visit them through its "Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary Series." By featuring the historic buildings and grounds of colleges and universities in the itineraries, the National…

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are heavily tuition-dependent. When enrollment goes down, the schools are vulnerable. This article discusses how HBCUs explore ways to liberate themselves from tuition dependence. It describes how historically Black college and university leaders are moving their institutions from a model of…

Rural community colleges are employing several fundraising strategies to offset the pain of increasingly anemic budgets in the face of higher student enrollments. Whether it's educating stakeholders about the potential impact of campus improvements or reaching out to donors for financial support, it's critical to tout the economic and educational…

Just a few years ago, the University of Notre Dame averaged about six mega gifts--$10 million or more--a year. Last year, however, the Fighting Irish received only one such donation. "That multimillion donation has become more difficult to obtain," says Lou Nanni, vice president for university relations at the Indiana institution.…

This descriptive study surveyed current, lapsed, and major gift donors to explore the impact of college communications on donors' decisions to contribute to the college, the likelihood of donor financial support for various college projects, and the philanthropic motivation profiles of the donors of a midsized, multicampus community college in…

In January, when Dr. Teresa Sullivan became the first woman selected to become president of the University of Virginia, expectations were that the noted sociology professor and provost and executive vice president for student affairs of the University of Michigan would ease into her job in bucolic Charlottesville. When she took over in August,…

At the end of 2010, for the first time ever, smartphones outsold PCs. Mobile device adoption rates continue to rise rapidly around the world. A recent forecast by Cisco found that global mobile data traffic more than doubled last year, and by the end of 2012, the number of mobile devices in use will outnumber the world's population. In the United…

Tight budgets and an uncertain economy did not diminish creativity for the 2009 CASE Circle of Excellence Award winners. In fact, judges gave 19 Grand Gold awards this year, a significant increase over recent years. The program received 2,800 entries from 690 member institutions, representing 13 different countries. Forty-four panels of volunteer…

Research suggests that institutional commitment to community engagement can be understood by examining levels of student, faculty, and community involvement in engagement; organizational structure, rewards, and campus publications supporting engagement; and compatibility of an institution's mission with this work (Holland, 1997). Underlying all of…

Virginia Tech has decided to count gifts to a memorial fund for victims of the April 16 shootings toward its goal of raising $1-billion in a capital campaign. Higher-education fund-raising experts agree that counting the memorial-fund contributions toward the total does not break common donation-reporting guidelines. Many big college fund-raising…

In an interview, Gerald L. Baliles, a former Democratic governor of Virginia, talked about how the job of college president has changed over the years. Baliles said that a president must be many things to many people: leader of the academic community, chief executive of the business enterprise, the spokesperson, the fundraiser, the advocate for…

Beginning in 1980, legislation in six states to establish a Children's Trust Fund has been enacted. The legislation creates new sources of support for preventive services in the area of child abuse in Kansas, Washington, Iowa, Virginia, Michigan, and California. To show how the trust-fund concept has been and can be adapted to different political…

Greene County, near Charlottesville, is a predominantly farming community with little commerce and about 15,000 residents. It has been more adversely affected by recent economic conditions than counties with a stronger tax base. Yet it is also among the most rapidly growing counties in Virginia. County resources alone would not be enough to build…