Over the last 40 years, the mission statement has been consistently viewed as an indispensable management tool for organizations in both the public and private sectors. In addition, there is a plethora of popular management literature that puts mission identification as the first and most important task of an organization's leadership. Strategic…

America's private colleges and universities include most of the oldest institutions of higher education in the country, and their evolving physical campuses say much about American education. In recent years, the study of campus history, preservation, and adaptive reuse has received increasing attention by many sectors of the educational…

There are many articles about space management, including those that discuss space calculations, metrics, and categories. Fewer articles discuss the space budgeting processes used by administrators to allocate space. The author attempts to fill this void by discussing her administrative experiences with Middle Tennessee State University's (MTSU)…

Given their value to the student experience, institutional identity, alumni loyalty, and economic welfare, historic preservation efforts must unite with institutional sustainability efforts and other high priorities to develop an approach for mutual success. Further, it is important to recognize the limits in the current milieu of economic…

This article is inspired by recent observations, events, and publications, as well as by a general and rising concern for and appreciation of the culture of American historical heritage as manifested on college and university campuses. Among the influences and inspirations for this article are Richard P. Dober's (2005) "Campus Heritage"…

Effective strategic planning for community colleges contains four key elements: (1) It must be mission driven; (2) It must be integrated with capability and resources; (3) It must define measurable standards for determining outcomes; and (4) It must be transparent in its intent and strategic goals to all levels of the organization. Using a…

Discusses the commodity model (the university as competitor in the marketplace) and the community model (the university as idealized microcosm of society). Asserts that despite inherent tension between them, they have always coexisted in the institutional design of the university. Argues that no matter how radical the changes in information…

Institutional mission influences college and university decision making by providing a shared sense of understanding about core values and aspirations. For institutions to maintain the benefits of having a clear mission, they must periodically revise and redefine the institutional purpose. This article compares the changing missions of two liberal…

Presents the outcomes of research conducted at UNITEC Institute of Technology, New Zealand, that support the development of a new and distinctive "university of technology" within a relatively traditional national higher education system. The first involved a survey of staff opinion on the organizational development aspects of this new…

Discusses the importance of a higher education institution's intellectual capital as a strategic asset in long-range planning. Addresses problems of part-time and graduate student instructors in the context of teaching quality as the institution's fundamental mission. Suggests that tenure encourages research, builds institutional strength, and…

The four cornerstones of an enrollment management program are identified: institutional commitment, strategic planning, integration, and evaluation. The Enrollment Management Task Force at California State at Los Angeles adopted a model for strategic planning that is designed to provide decision support for managing university enrollments. (MLW)

This article addresses criticisms that U.S. colleges and universities have lost their moral and civic purposes. It suggests that a major problem is the fragmentation resulting from higher education's organization into departments. A University of Pennsylvania project to revitalize an urban Philadelphia neighborhood is described as an example of…

A fatal flaw in accountability programs is that they leave academic departments--the units most responsible for results--out of the performance loop. This article ties together institutional priorities and departmental performance through a limited list of common departmental indicators. It also links institutional aims and departmental…

The trend toward commercialization in research universities is attributed not only to economic dependence on the commercial sector, but also to a changing interpretation of universities' role in research and service to include development of technology, technology transfer, and economic development. (MSE)

It is argued that while the concept of "vision" in higher education has been met with disdain, criticism is based on misconceptions of vision's nature and role--that vision requires a charismatic administrator and that visionaries are dreamers. Educators and planners are urged to use imaginative thinking to connect the institution's and staff's…