Cautionary Tales: Strategy Lessons from Struggling Colleges

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brown, Alice W., author.

Bowen, William G., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Universities and colleges--United States--Administration--Case studies.

Universities and colleges.

Universities and colleges--Mergers--United States--Case studies.

Universities and colleges--United States--Finance--Case studies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (280 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Routledge, 2023.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Scarcely a week goes by without a headline about the unsustainability of higher education as we know it, under threat from new models, for-profits, or online education. Most threatened are small liberal arts colleges - with commentators predicting the demise of colleges with fewer than 1,000, or even 1,500 students. Are these trends inevitable, or can they be overcome?Through a unique case study approach to examining and analyzing colleges that have struggled, Alice Brown reveals the steps that can lead to a sustainable operation and, when closure is inevitable, the steps to do so with orderliness and dignity. Rather than expounding on trends, or management theory and prescriptions, Brown focuses on narrative examples of survival and closure, recounted by real people in actual colleges, and reports the lessons they learned. Here are examples of strategies involving mergers, partnerships, or "going it alone", and their outcomes, that illustrate principles that can serve as guides for fragile colleges struggling to address their social and economic challenges.Added to Brown's six carefully researched and extended case studies, her own insights and analyses of decisions made and actions taken, this book offers guidance by seasoned scholars and administrators on issues as varied as leadership, the roles of the president, governing boards, faculty and staff, in articulating and implementing mission and strategies for survival, and on the changing landscape of higher education. The references to the literature on college survival strategies constitute an education in themselves.While this book is of immediate practical value for trustees and leaders of small colleges as they look toward and plan for the future and for anyone aspiring to an administrative positions in higher education, the examples constitute a microcosm of the interplay between the external constituencies, governance structures and internal forces that sustain or undermine institutional health, and which are hard to observe clearly in larger, more decentralized environments.

Contents:

Early history

Twentieth century

Twenty-first century

Trustees

How governing boards fail / by Susan Whealler Johnston

Presidents

Observations of a past president / by Michael G. Puglisi

Faculty and staff

The role of faculty and staff in reviving fragile institutions / by Elizabeth R. Hayford

Financial resources

Sue Bennett College

Mary Holmes College

Lindenwood University

Rx for nonprofit colleges / by Richard K. Kneipper

Barat College/Depaul University

Western College/Miami University

College of Santa Fe

The for-profit challenge / by Robert Zemsky

Is there a future for small colleges / by Richard R. Johnson.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781003443391

1003443397

9781000978773

100097877X

9781000972894

1000972895

9781579227814

1579227813

OCLC:

1390712652