The broad vision of an environmental research institute that conducts regional research to inform local decision making has proven to be compelling.

California's vast Central Valley has been called "the Appalachia of California" and "the Other California." Long neglected as either irrelevant or hopeless, the Central Valley has become the focus of government and private philanthropists who understand the growing importance of this region to the state and the nation. The…

The North Suburban Higher Education Consortium, a regional consortium in metropolitan Chicago (Illinois), illustrates how sharing technological resources can advance state educational technology initiatives. Begun as a modest effort to coordinate academic programs, the consortium has evolved into a complex system for the funding and use of…

Research universities will have a growing role in regional economic development if they embrace trends affecting economic development in a knowledge society; see their social role as mobilizing and making accessible campus-wide academic resources relevant to knowledge problems; and invest politically and financially in facilitating, brokering, and…

Describes how the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges (Pennsylvania), a regional consortium of six private colleges and universities, in experimenting with video conferencing and other online forms of technology-based collaboration, developed into the 101-member Community of Agile Partners in Education. This organization, by being…

The major benefit of library automation lies in the potential for sharing infrequently used titles among libraries through local, regional, national, and international networks. These offer administrators a powerful tool for maximizing their institutions' research resources and flexibility. (Author/MSE)

Economic demands on postsecondary education are encouraging formation of partnership universities with an external orientation and extensive community alliances. Such universities combine characteristics of five categories of institutions; doctorate-granting research universities, comprehensive universities with graduate programs, liberal arts…

Compares traditional and current activities of community colleges in promoting local and regional economic development, and makes recommendations concerning the colleges' role in economic development: more research on community college involvement; a system of model programs; improved communication using advanced information technology; enhanced…