Difficulties facing private colleges and universities in the future are considered, with attention to the situation in North Carolina. An important determinant of the future of independent higher education will be public policy. Three major considerations include: private colleges and universities are public resources and serve a predominantly…

The process of conducting needs assessment at State Community College of East St. Louis is described. Among the objectives of the needs assessment are: program and service evaluation, marketing, new program development, and strategic planning. The basic purposes of the needs assessment were curricular planning and development, and several target…

Several factors influenced the development of a system-wide articulation policy by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. Enrollment patterns were changed by the creation of metropolitan community colleges and by the influx of first-time and older, non-traditional students. Increasingly, pressures were placed on the system to provide for…

Rowan College of New Jersey has adopted an "enterprise model" for strategic planning that is seen as central to attaining the mission of the college during a time involving a substantial decline in state support. Rowan pursued a strategy termed "growth by substitution." This new process was cast in a more entrepreneurial mold…

The University of Maryland System administration has been constructing a relational database that enables comparisons between the more than 500 public four-year colleges and universities in the United States. The data base contains information from nationally available sources, including the National Science Foundation, National Center for…

This paper examines the use of strategic planning by the biology department of William Paterson College in New Jersey to chart a future mission and role for the department in the university and the community at large. After reviewing the literature on strategic planning in an academic setting, it describes the evolution of the biology department…

This study examined the effects of budget reductions in the 1990s on public higher education systems in six major states. Finance officers at the campus, system, and state level in California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin were surveyed regarding budget reductions, approaches to reduction allocation, the impact of budget…

This report presents the historical background of New York State's normal school system, the system that predated the centralized organization of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. New York's first state normal school was established in Albany in 1844. Nineteen years later the state began to provide support for the normal school at…

The value of a statewide analytical perspective to the institutional program review process is discussed. This perspective can also assist in answering the questions of how declining resources can be distributed within and among institutions. The analytical approach was developed in order to provide background information that can be used both by…

The tension between competition and cooperation within the various sectors of higher education are considered by the president of the American Council on Education. In American society, the tension is between the pursuit of individual goals and commitment to the collective good. In higher education, competition for high achieving, traditional-age…

Four types of interinstitutional arrangements in higher education are described, and research results on one type (merger) are presented. A continuum of cooperative endeavors are considered: voluntary cooperative agreements, formalized consortiums, federations, mergers, and closings. The objective of the research was to determine conditions…

The role of governors in higher education was studied through a 1984 survey of 70 former governors from 40 states. Attention was directed to issues such as: how often and when governors get involved in university issues, the influence of various higher education constituencies on gubernatorial decision making, gubernatorial views on private higher…

In the flush of the academic bull market of the 1960's a few perceptive writers called for a reexamination of higher education's mission, institutional goals, and the need to improve the quality of college and university instruction. But by and large these cries went unheard in the cacaphony of academic inertia. In the mid-70's a crisis in higher…

The pressures engendered by the scarce resources of the 1980s demand the development of new organizational designs that respond to local cultural, economic, and social needs. In the Cumberland and Shenandoah Valleys, a four-state region containing 12 postsecondary institutions, a voluntary association of colleges was formed to solve mutual and…

The Rochester Regional Center, or consortium, a cooperative arrangement involving several public and private postsecondary institutions in the Southern Minnesota area, is described. The regional center is designed to provide studies leading to bachelor's and master's degrees through joint services and courses offered by institutions from four…