This guide helps child welfare agencies and their partners craft more family-focused and neighborhood-based service systems. It suggests a framework that agencies can use to assess their current policies and practices and develop plans to integrate Family to Family values, principles, and strategies into existing initiatives and activities. Family…

This guide uses the planning process at the University of Maryland, College Park, as an example of comprehensive campus-wide planning for institutional and programmatic diversity goals. Five planning principles are identified: (1) accountability, (2) inclusiveness, (3) shared responsibility, (4) evaluation, and (5) institutionalization. Chapters…

This book is a how-to manual on creating an alumni relations program, including starting an alumni association. Brief sections address the following topics: defining purpose, launching the organization, establishing a membership policy, establishing a budget, writing a mission statement, creating a long-range plan, working with the development…

This document contains a tool that defines elements of whole-school improvement that school leaders can put into effect at elementary through secondary school levels. The school principal, in collaboration with other members of the school council, can use it to prepare a school portfolio and school profile for self-study or needs assessment.…

An examination of recent experiences in the varied institutions of The University of Wisconsin System suggests valuable lessons regarding the impact of various approaches to faculty reduction. Principal provisions of retrenchment regulations are summarized. (Author/LB)

Practical steps for designing and implementing a planning process for small colleges are described, including designing for desired changes and measuring the changes accomplished. Focus is on the achievement of desired change rather than acceptance of uncontrolled change. (This article was excerpted from a handbook by Miller and Louis J. Vaccaro.)…

Colleges and universities should approach strategic change by establishing three kinds of key performance indicators (KPIs): mandated (state-mandates or other imposed objectives); management (determined by the administration); and derived (from the special intentions of institutional units). By assembling the three kinds of KPIs, the strategic…

Between the master plan of a college campus and design of single buildings is the neglected province of "microplanning" small campus spaces. Such planning is guided by campus finances and institutional academic needs; knowledge of the distinctive tradition of American campus planning; and understanding of the particular institution's…

Strategic planning models seek order in a disorderly world. However, chaos science offers a language of concepts to discern deeper patterns in organizational life that appears out of control. Many of these concepts apply to higher education institutions. Interpretation of chaos theory principles suggests five tools for making high-leverage change…

Discusses how colleges and universities with excess facilities should "rightsize" their campuses by divesting unneeded buildings and property. Such institutions should develop a comprehensive master plan, which includes a strategic plan, academic plan, space needs plan, facilities master plan, and financial plan. (MDM)

The magnitude of funds needed to rectify the college deferred maintenance crisis make a quick fix unrealistic. However, by increasing funding levels and shifting spending patterns over time, institutions can address the problem without jeopardizing other goals and projects. A consortium of higher education associations recommends a…

This summary of a 1978 article presents four approaches to preparing gifted children's thinking for the future, such as showing clear relationships between their learning and potential future careers and learning about future work options. A 1989 update then emphasizes such needs as computer and technological literacy, expanded mentor programs,…

Explains a microcomputer application that aids the academic advising process. Reports that this process makes students more responsible for their future and has beneficial effects on computer literacy, student recruitment, career and graduate school planning, early mentoring, and the quality of letters of recommendations and resumes. (KO)

Explains how studying a floodplain can help students analyze the interactions between humans and the physical environment. Analyzes data from two cities in California to demonstrate that housing prices did not rebound after a flood. (GG)

This article suggests that campus architecture should be grounded in research on behavior, especially intellectual work behavior. College campus planners can design buildings to foster collegiality and productivity by including spaces that encourage chance meetings, informal discussions, intellectual exchanges, and views of other persons at work.…