Institutional research (IR) experts can offer a wealth of knowledge to many campus departments, such as assessment. Utilization of dashboard techniques is a good way to improve the quality of university information that is available to support assessment research and do so in an efficient way. Institutional research at Wayne State University…

The campus of Salahadin University--peaceful, bustling, and collegial-- is a rare sight in Iraq, where sectarian violence has brought the higher education system to the verge of collapse. Home to the country's historically repressed four million to five million ethnic Kurds, it is an oasis of stability and tranquility while much of the rest of…

As an enterprise that relies heavily on state funding, public higher education has long seen its support rise and fall with the boom-and-bust cycle of the economy. This chapter examines how the University System of Maryland repositioned itself as a state system able to thrive in an era of permanently diminished resources and perpetually escalating…

This paper describes the year-long process of building a set of peer comparators for Oregon's seven diverse public universities to serve the analytic needs of budgeting, performance measurement, and trend analysis. Some underlying assumptions informed the development of the peer groups: because several critical political issues required…

Explores the adoption and use of Native American-related nicknames and symbols by three U.S. universities: the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Miami University of Ohio, and Eastern Michigan University. Historical case studies review how the nicknames were chosen, how they evolved, and why the decision either to keep or replace the…

When real resources decline, demands change, or programs lose vitality, then a logical move is to reallocate resources to facilitate academic planning. Reallocation schemes and experiences at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and Oklahoma State University are described and compared. (Author/MLW)

A program focusing on recruitment of new freshmen at the University of Colorado at Boulder illustrates some major planning considerations in the development, implementation, and evaluation of a marketing plan. (MSE)

This paper describes first year implementation efforts of Southwest Texas (SWT) State University to develop a system to integrate planning, budgeting, assessment, and quality to improve the delivery of education and other services to all the institution's customers. The document addresses the common situation when an organization already has…

An overview of the Maryland Longitudinal Study (MLS) is presented, including information on the study's purpose, goals, features, subjects, and design. Features that make the study unique among collegiate longitudinal studies are identified. Information is provided on the study groups: a general representative sample of University of Maryland…

Eastern Michigan University's health center program and its use by faculty and students were assessed by a select group of faculty, staff, and students. Focus was on determining an acceptable level of service, insuring an accessible program, and achieving an equitable distribution of student fees. To determine an acceptable level of service,…

The development of an unusual database at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) is described. The Student Census-date Report File (STUCENFL) was designed to meet both internal and external data recipients' needs for student-related information. Attention is directed to needs for the database, underlying design…

A case history is presented that recounts the evolutionary development of a unified evaluation, budgeting, and planning system at Michigan State University. It is a system that is strongly based on the collection and analysis of department, college, and institutional data. (Author/MLW)

This 25-year history of the women's studies program at Humboldt State University (California) is based on two surveys completed by former and current program leaders (n=10), faculty members (n=18), and students (n=201), as well as on the authors' personal recollections. After an introductory chapter, individual chapters address the following…

The imperatives of institutional planning in an environment of scarce resources have brought program evaluation activities under more systematic processes serving varied needs. Evaluation processes at Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Houston are examined. (Author/MSE)

A methodology for developing a strategic, long-range organizational information architecture is described. The development of a plan to identify key categories of information to enhance decision making and operational productivity is detailed. Figures and tables detail the methodology's application at the University of Minnesota. (DB)