Forget basketball and March Madness. Aside from always pressing financial issues, it is "MOOC madness" that has emerged as the topic "du jour" at a growing number of American colleges and universities. Indeed, in boardrooms all across the country, people are grappling with what the advent of MOOCs--massive open online courses--means to their…

Dormitories, student centers, lecture halls, laboratories, athletic facilities, quads--just try to imagine a residential campus without them. Impossible. They are among its most important assets. As fiduciaries, boards must ensure that those assets are protected and enhanced over time. But how to do so effectively when growing internal and…

The stately collegiate gothic buildings that define the iconic West Campus at Duke University evoke a strong sense of stability and the status quo. Like all institutions of higher learning, Duke faces many potential challenges to campus equilibrium--some of which could prove devastating to the university. Risk is inherent in academe, yet colleges…

A Dartmouth University professor puts the tasks that all organizations must perform into three boxes: (1) a box containing those things an institution does to make its core business as excellent as possible; (2) a box of "selective forgetting" for eliminating activities no longer productive or useful; and (3) a box of innovation for selective…

The strategic plan represents an institution's top priorities. Yet colleges commonly set aside financial resources to pursue them only after investing in maintaining the status quo. When building a budget, boards should focus on putting institutional assets at the center of the process and aligning fiscal decisions with their college's mission and…

Service on a college or university board of trustees has always been an honor, and still is. It has always entailed significant responsibilities, and still does. At a time of rising expectations and diminishing resources, of profound demographic and cultural change, of global opportunities and global competition, trustees are called to think…

Moody's Investors Service provides credit ratings for hundreds of private and public colleges and universities--ratings that can strongly influence the interest rates higher-education institutions can obtain when they want to borrow money. How colleges are governed and managed are key determinants of those credit ratings, especially in an…

The downturn in the economy of the author's state, North Carolina, so far is less severe than that of much of the rest of the nation, due to their diversified economy, financial discipline, constitutional mandate for a balanced budget, "rainy day" fund, and many years of consistent investment in higher education. In the University of…

Presidents and boards deal with great uncertainty all the time. Today, however, many of them also face a troubling certainty: Business as usual is the road to failure. The trend lines of revenue and expense, once aided by marginal income from growing enrollments, once amenable to marginal annual balancing tweaks, and once cushioned by reserves,…

Strategic finance is aligning financial decisions--regarding revenues, creating and maintaining institutional assets, and using those assets--with the institution's mission and strategic plan. The concept known as "strategic finance" increasingly is being seen as a useful perspective for helping boards and presidents develop a sustainable…

With all the trials and tribulations, the job of a university president is one of the most rewarding. Yet, like every other aspect of society, the academic presidency has changed over the last several decades. A surprise turn of events gave the author an opportunity to reflect on the "then and now" question. Having served as president of…

When the author became president of Wheelock College in Boston in 2004, she asked the trustees and the entire campus community to engage in an innovative strategic planning and visioning process. The goal was to achieve consensus on a strategic vision for the future of Wheelock College by the end of her first year. This article discusses how…

As the United States moves toward becoming a "minority-majority" country, what more can--and should--college presidents and governing boards do to provide low-income students and students of color with a pipeline to high-quality education? Ongoing discourse about shifting demographics locally and nationally must be built into…

The process of strategic planning wears out institutions. Strategic planning, pursued with high purpose and energy, is enervating and exhausting. In this article, the author describes the value-added work of trustees in high-performing boards and discusses the role boards of trustees play as the process of continuous strategic planning unfolds.…

Describes development and implementation of a four- page strategic plan at Colby-Sawyer College (New Hampshire). Notes initial small group meetings of faculty and staff to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Explains the resulting plan's format which is organized around eight critical areas, three institutional goals, and…