This chapter describes consortial efforts within the Great Lakes Colleges Association to share expertise and programming to build research skills throughout the undergraduate curriculum. Strategies to scaffold research skill development are provided from Allegheny College, Kalamazoo College, and The College of Wooster.

The Colleges of Worcester Consortium has created a broad array of statewide, higher education access services over several decades by leveraging federal, state, local, and foundation resources. The consortium comprises thirteen diverse colleges and universities in central Massachusetts and is a nonprofit regional association of these institutions:…

The Virginia Tidewater Consortium's effort to reach out to the community began twenty-seven years ago when it received an Educational Opportunity Center (EOC) grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The EOC was specifically designed to work with adults from low socioeconomic backgrounds, most of them minorities. In southeastern Virginia,…

Discusses how consortial arrangements afford the opportunity for colleges and universities to leverage resources jointly so that the end result produces more than the members could have accomplished single-handedly. (EV)

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…

A parade of people composed of young mothers, young professionals, middle-aged men and women and elder South Carolinians are marching across the parking lot into the former McAlister Square Mall. They have access to higher education because higher education has come to them--not in the form of a traditional campus but as the concrete realization…

Discusses how higher education consortia are forming K-12 partnerships and alliances that are linking with individual public schools and their school systems. Offers the examples of the Hartford Consortium for Higher Education and Massachusetts' Five Colleges, Incorporated. Includes a list with Web sites addresses of such consortium partnerships.…

Small colleges can be effective in consortial arrangements because they are more independent and often less fiercely competitive than larger institutions, making better personal relations possible. The Associated Colleges of the St. Lawrence Valley in northern New York, with four member institutions, has expanded student opportunities, shared…

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…

College and university libraries can work together to enhance library access and share resources, but there are problems inherent in such alliances. Existing library consortia illustrate some important considerations in forging a new library consortium, including complexity of organizational processes, funding issues, technology for sharing both…

The experience of college consortia suggests that success and sustainability depend on high-level leadership and commitment; clear mission and goals; balance mechanisms for assuring parity of participants; decision-making ability; a third-party, neutral function; adequate funding; clear cost-sharing arrangements; mechanisms for measuring success;…

Leadership training and professional development programs offered by college and university consortia, systems, and professional groups illustrate a variety of program models. All use shared resources and pooled opportunities of institutions of similar types, missions, and interests, keeping costs down and enhancing opportunities for professional…