This review draws on William Massy's recent book--"Honoring the Trust: Quality and Cost Containment in Higher Education" (Anker Publishing, 2003)--to establish the case for change and to suggest some of the tools to better manage institutions. Also included are two disparate resources to help reach that goal--resources that are used by…

A growing number of colleges and boards of trustees are looking to the future by embracing succession planning as the key to assuring college sustainability in an environment that requires global thinking, strategic planning and political savvy. Once confined to the corporate world or to family businesses, and limited to the CEO, succession…

Multiple 2- and 4-year public institutions exist within many states in the United States. Our paper develops a methodology that can be used to help evaluate how each 2-year public institution in a state is doing in preparing those of its students who transfer to 4-year public institutions in the state to successfully complete 4-year programs.…

College rankings and guidebooks have become big business. The prominent role played by rankings and guidebooks is problematic because the criteria used to evaluate institutions have little to do with the quality of education students receive. Designed as an alternative to college rankings, NSSE assesses student engagement in activities that…

Based on e-mails gathered from listservs, a variety of sources are suggested for preparing for an upcoming accreditation: the previous accreditation report of one's home campus, published literature, the national library peer comparison tool as well as statistical sources, the U.S. Office of Postsecondary Education's website of accreditation…

Building a campuswide culture of assessment is a complex, long-term goal, and the process for achieving such a lofty goal must be thoughtfully planned, persistently and sensitively implemented, and, above all, inclusive of the various campus constituencies that form the backbone of the academic community. Often as campus assessment initiatives…

Since 1996, all Swedish public authorities, which includes most universities, have been made responsible for contributing to the sustainable development of the society. Swedish universities are thus required to submit annual environmental reports about their policies, structures and actions. This study provides a review of the activities that…

Evaluation of higher education can be described a species of its own with only few connections with other fields of evaluation. When considering the future developments in higher education evaluation (quality assurance), it is useful to observe its similarities and differences with various evaluation approaches in other than higher education…

The planning and implementation of institutional and programmatic assessment to ascertain what students have learned and how well they have learned it encompasses a number of challenges. Some of these major challenges are gaining institutional resources for assessment, designing faculty development plans, determining student learning outcomes and…

The results from a U.S. national survey of doctoral programs in kinesiology and physical education covering the years 2000-2004 are presented. The survey was conducted by the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education with all 61 institutions with doctoral programs (32 institutions provided complete data, 52%) invited to participate.…

Strategic planning is complex (Dodd, 2004), and when managed well, it requires deliberate incorporation of evidenced-based data and the collaboration of key stakeholders. Thus, it is essential that the planning process includes the integration of data that are collected regularly and that both internal and external professional partners have the…

This paper discusses whether there are differences in performance based on differences in strategy. First, an attempt was made to determine whether the institution had a strategy, and if so, did it follow a particular model. Major models of strategy are the industry analysis approach, the resource based view or the RBV model and the more recent,…

The Stupski Foundation has focused on the implementation of a comprehensive aligned instructional system as a critical lever for district reform. In the challenging environment of urban education, reforms focusing on only one system component (i.e., assessment, curriculum materials, professional development, resource utilization, regulatory…

Governmental and accrediting entities are demanding increased accountability and efficiency from colleges and universities. This chapter discusses strategies for developing institutional data sets that create a "culture of evidence." (Contains 5 figures.)

This article examines the role and usefulness of league tables that are increasingly used to measure and compare the performance of tertiary education institutions. The article begins with a general overview and a typology of league tables. It continues with a discussion of the controversies they have generated, including the basis and the range…