2009 web

Report

The University of Georgia Institute of Higher Education Autumn 2009

Aspirational U.

Positioning for prestige in higher education

IHE launches new doctorate program

Ed.D. for executives will be offered in Atlanta

Two new professors join Institute faculty

International scholars instruct IHE students

Professors from Europe and Canada teach comparative higher education

Professor Xiaoguang Shi (Peking University, left) and Professor Baocun Liu (Beijing Normal University, right) visited the Institute in June to deliver presentations on their research and to meet with colleagues from across UGA offices as well as the University System of Georgia’s Office of Information and Instructional Technology. They are pictured here with Elisabeth Hughes, Ed.D. managing director, and Yang Yang, IHE doctoral student. Students from the new executive Ed.D. program in higher education management will spend a week in Beijing working with Professors Liu and Shi during summer 2010.

Publisher

The University of Georgia

Director, Institute of Higher Education Libby V. Morris

Publication Coordinator Susan Sheffield

Contributing Writers Elisabeth Hughes Betz Kerley

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he Institute of Higher Education, founded in 1964, is noted for its multidisciplinary approach to teaching, research, and outreach, with particular emphases on policy and law, faculty and instruction development, and public service and outreach. The Institute offers the Ph.D. in higher education, and students may earn an M.P.A. with a higher education specialization through the School of Public and International Affairs. The Institute also collaborates on projects and programs with the Franklin College of Arts & Sciences, the College of Education, the School of Law, and the Center for Teaching and Learning at UGA.

Designer & Graphic Artist Nick Ciarochi

Contributing Photographers Paul Efland, UGA Public Affairs Peter Frey, UGA Public Affairs Nancy Evelyn, UGA Public Affairs

www.uga.edu/ihe

FRONT COVER: Meigs Hall, the historic north campus building dedicated solely to housing the Institute of Higher Education.

In This Issue

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From the Director

Report

Two new faculty join IHE

Autumn 2009

New and ongoing research

The University of Georgia Institute of Higher Education

Two IHE Fellows debut books 2009 IHE Fellows

Institute launches College Advising Corps

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Institute launches executive Ed.D. Special topics: current international issues in higher education Class presentations focus on funding

Aspirational U.:

NSF innovations workshop

J. Douglas Toma

International Partnerships

Notes on positioning for prestige in higher education

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Lumina president & CEO to give 2009 Louise McBee Lecture IHE graduate discovers two unsung heroes of desegregation Mel Hill retires after 35 years International scholars at IHE

Students beyond the classroom

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A look at GTF’s professional stimulus Austin Lacy named Zell and Shirley Miller Graduate Fellow Education Policy Seminars 2008-09 A message from Libby Morris 2008-09 IHE graduates

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Autumn 2009

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From the Director LIBBY V. MORRIS

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he Institute of Higher Education enters the fall 2009 semester with high expectations and with a renewed appreciation for our many friends and colleagues around the state and around the globe. This past year was filled with budgetary challenges, and we expect more of the same in 2010, but the budget pinch was lessened by the generous donations of our friends and alums. Thank you for supporting the Institute in these difficult times and for supporting IHE in your annual giving!

This academic year, we welcome two new colleagues, Robert Toutkoushian and Erik Ness. Rob held positions with the University of Minnesota, the University System of New Hampshire, and most recently Indiana University. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal New Directions in Institutional Research and is president of the Association for Institutional Research. Rob holds a Ph.D. in economics from Indiana University. Erik received his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 2006, and he specializes in the politics of higher education and the public policy process. Previously at the University of Pittsburgh, he joins the Institute as assistant professor of higher education. Please plan to visit the Institute soon to meet these outstanding faculty members.

With the excitement of adding Professors Toutkoushian and Ness, I regret the departure of Chris Morphew to the University of Iowa, where he accepted the position of department chair and professor of higher education. Chris joined the Institute in 2005, and he served as graduate coordinator for the past three years. He was instrumental in attracting the very best students to the Institute and placing students in important research and administrative assistantships across campus. Chris and his family return home to Iowa, and we wish them the very best. We will miss his creative ideas, thoughtful insights, and wonderful sense of humor.

I am pleased to report that 2008-09 was another successful year in the Institute. The Ph.D. program remained in the top 10 programs nationally, moving up a notch to rank 6th among higher education programs (U.S. News and World Report).

The faculty dedication to quality in teaching and productivity 2

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in research resulted in outstanding achievements in FY09: 13 Ph.D. students were admitted to the Ph.D. program and 12 students graduated. Faculty productivity in grants and contracts continued to rise, reaching a record $2,421,830.

A record number of doctoral students, 24, held research and/or administrative assistantships.

In the last academic year, the Institute also continued to strengthen its involvement in international higher education by hosting three international visitors in the spring for a course on comparative education. Coteaching with Sheila Slaughter were Berit Karseth and Peter Maassen from the University of Oslo, Norway and Amy Metcalfe, University of British Columbia.

Sheila continued our exchanges with a summer in Norway as an Erasmus Mundus professor at the University of Oslo. In June, Professors Xiao-guang Shi of Peking University and Baocun Liu of Beijing Normal University were guests of the Institute to continue discussions of collaborative research and educational programs.

FY10 will be no less exciting. Our goal to offer an executive Ed.D. in the Atlanta area met with approval at the USG Board of Regents, and we will launch this program for upper-level administrators early next year. Our Ed.D. program will be distinguished from others in higher education by our international emphasis. Another new direction is signaled by the creation of the Georgia College Advising Corps with the generous support of the Watson Brown Foundation (see facing page). This program exemplifies the Institute’s commitment to college access and articulation as important areas of research and practice. We will learn more about the national agenda these areas in the fall from Jamie Merisotis, president of the Lumina Foundation. Mark your calendar now for November 12, the 21st anniversary of the Louise McBee lecture.

Again, I extend my thanks to our supporters and friends.

I hope you will visit us in Meigs Hall in the upcoming academic year.

Two new faculty join the Institute of Higher Education

R College Advising Corps: a new direction for tomorrow’s leaders

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he Institute of Higher Education in partnership with the Watson-Brown Foundation has begun an innovative college advising program to recruit and train recent college graduates to work full-time as college advisers in selected high schools across Georgia. The Georgia College Advising Corps (GCAC) is modeled on Teach for America and AmeriCorps and is coordinated by the National College Advising Corps (NCAC), headquartered at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

GCAC provides college advising assistance to help low-income, first-generation, and underrepresented high school students enroll in postsecondary institutions that fit their individual academic profiles, career goals, and personal circumstances. College advisers work with school staff members to assist students in navigating the college admissions process. The ultimate goal of the program is to increase the percentage and diversity of Georgia students who attend and complete college.

The first four high schools selected for the program are: Clarke Central High School (Athens), Meadowcreek High School (Norcross), Thomson High School (Thomson), and Westside High School (Augusta). Additional information can be found at www.uga.edu/ihe/gcac.

obert K. Toutkoushian, professor of higher education, comes to the University of Georgia from the faculty in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Indiana University. Professor Toutkoushian specializes in the application of economic theories and methods to problems in higher education. He has a Ph.D. in economics from Indiana University, and prior to joining the faculty at Indiana University, he worked as a research analyst at the University of Minnesota and as executive director of the Office of Policy Analysis at the University System of New Hampshire. He is teaching classes on quantitative methods for education research and quantitative methods in higher education this fall.

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rik C. Ness, assistant professor of higher education, comes to the University of Georgia from the faculty of the Department of Administrative and Policy Studies at the University of Pittsburgh where he also served as coordinator of the Higher Education Management program. Professor Ness conducts research on the politics of higher education, the public policy process, student financial aid, and the finance and governance of higher education systems. He earned a Ph.D. in education policy from Vanderbilt University and previously served as a policy analyst for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. This fall he will be teaching classes on the theories of the public policymaking process, and higher education in the U.S.

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New and ongoing research plays a vital role in the collective momentum of the Institute

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he Institute of Higher Education faculty continue to increase external funding by securing nearly $2.5 million for research and other projects for this year. These grants provide assistantships for at least 10 Ph.D. students.

■■ Sheila Slaughter continues research into issues of intellectual property, commercialization of academic science and technology, and academic capitalism. She has several forthcoming publications: a book chapter on academic capitalism with Gary Rhoades, which will appear in The Exchange University: Corporatization of Academic Culture; a chapter with Amy From left, Marc Caball (University College Dublin), Kathleen James-Chakraborty (UCD), IHE’s Sheila Slaughter, Metcalfe for the new book Michael Cronin (Dublin City University), Paula Gilligan (Institute of Art, Design and Technology), and Mick Wilson entitled Unfinished Business: (National College of Art and Design) gather for a conference in Dublin.

Women, Gender and the New Challenges of Higher Education published by Johns Hopkins Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, University Press; a chapter in The American Academic State and Higher Education (2004, with Gary Rhoades) was Profession: Changing Forms and Function, and an entry in translated into Japanese. the International Encyclopedia of Education. During the past academic year, Slaughter was awarded two NSF grants, while ■■ Over the past year, James Hearn has focused his research also continuing research on an NIH grant studying university on higher-education governance and organization and on trustees and conflicts of interest, and she is co-PI with Metcalfe the dynamics and impacts of state higher-education policy. He on a Canadian Social Science Research Council grant to study authored a chapter on recent centralizing and decentralizing gender and academic capitalism. In all, she has acquired grants developments in U.S. higher education for a volume edited by and contracts totaling more than $0.5 million for 2008-09.

Jeroen Huisman of the University of Bath in the U.K. Working Slaughter has made several invited presentations in Norway with IHE graduate student Austin Lacy, Hearn wrote a chapter and Ireland and the United States. An Erasmus Mundus reviewing policy-oriented research on higher-education Fellow (funded by European Union), she spent several organization for the new AERA Handbook on Education weeks at the University of Oslo (Norway) where she taught a Policy Research, and with Michael McLendon of Vanderbilt Summer School course to EU students, entitled “Critique of University and others, Hearn authored a variety of papers on the Neoliberal University.” She is a member of the Editorial state policy reform. One of these, on state student-information Advisory Board for Higher Education Management, and two of systems, was published in Research in Higher Education and her books have been translated into other languages: Academic will soon be reprinted in the forthcoming edition of the ASHE Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University Reader on Public Policy and Higher Education. A second, on (1997, with Larry Leslie) was translated into Chinese, and the emergence of state “eminent-scholars” programs, was

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presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association. In addition, a paper by Lacy and Hearn was presented at a conference on innovation in complex social systems in Dublin, Ireland. As co-principal investigator for an ongoing project sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Hearn has studied state science and technology policies that leverage university resources to foster economic development. In a related effort, Hearn and Sheila Slaughter won a grant from the National Science Foundation to organize a research workshop focused on the role of university centers and institutes in economic development and scientific and technological innovation. The workshop was held in March at NSF headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. In 2008-2009, Hearn taught Institute courses in organization and governance, finance, and higher-education research, and chaired the Institute’s junior faculty search committee.

■■ Libby Morris continues research into issues of teaching and learning online, and during the past year contributed two chapters to the recently released monograph, Lessons Learned from Virtual Universities (Meyer, New Directions for Higher Education, Number 146, summer 2009). This research emerged from her ongoing collaboration with Institute Senior Fellow Catherine Finnegan, director of the Advanced Learning Technologies unit of the University System of Georgia and Dr. Haixia Xu, recent graduate of the Institute’s Ph.D. program. She also published in the Journal of College Student Retention research on student persistence and achievement in the online environment. Dr. Morris presented her work on the interaction of students, instructors, and disciplinary characteristics as an invited speaker at the Department of Defense Worldwide Education Symposium in 2009 in Atlanta. Like other colleges and universities, much of the year was spent in reworking ever-shrinking budgets. However, a highlight of the year was the launch of the Georgia College Advising Corps, the UGA affiliate of the National College Advising Corps, which places recent college graduates into high schools to assist underprivileged and firstgeneration students with the college search and enrollment process. This program supports the service mission of the Institute while providing assistantships to students and a laboratory for research into issues of college access. To expand IHE’s international efforts, she supported visits by faculty from Peking University and Beijing Normal in spring 2009.

Efforts to establish more formal relationships in research are underway. She continues as the editor of Innovative Higher Education, a Springer peer-reviewed international journal.

Doug Toma (second from left) attended the planning meeting at American University in Cairo for the Middle Eastern Institute for Higher Education.

■■ J. Douglas Toma continues to develop his project on the strategies used by institutions to position themselves, especially for greater prestige. He presented the first paper from the research, drawing on case studies from four Georgia public institutions, in fall 2008 at the Consortium for Higher Education Research (CHER) annual meeting in Pavia, Italy, and the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) conference in Jacksonville. He is preparing a second paper from the study to present at CHER in Porto, Portugal, in September 2009, focusing on why institutions that are so different tend to share the aspiration to “get to the next level.” At the upcoming ASHE conference, he will present on the impact of the economic recession on these strategies, again drawing on data from the study. Toma is also working on several other projects. He is finalizing a book manuscript (under contract with the Johns Hopkins University Press) on strategic management and systems thinking for higher education, a project funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education and the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Toma also prepared a chapter on the business of intercollegiate athletics for an upcoming two-volume book on the business of higher education to be published by Praeger. With IHE doctoral student Dennis Kramer, he edited a monograph for the Jossey-Bass New Directions for Higher Education series titled “The Uses of Intercollegiate Athletics: Opportunities and Challenges in Positioning Universities.” The volume will appear in December 2009. Finally, Toma is developing a book for Routledge titled Managing the Entrepreneurial University: Legal Issues and Preventive Strategies. He hopes to use the first draft of the manuscript when he begins teaching the Institute’s course on higher education law in January 2010.

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■■ In July, Karen Webber became graduate coordinator for the IHE Ph.D. program. Over the past year, she edited a volume for New Directions for Institutional Research for Jossey-Bass in December 2008, co-authored a chapter with J. S. Bennett on the multifaceted design of undergraduate research in Creating Effective Undergraduate Research Programs in Science: The Transformation from Student to Scientist, and had a paper she wrote with doctoral student Charles Mathies accepted for publication. Webber presented three papers at institutional research conferences, including one in England. She, along with Professor Hearn and several IHE students, is examining data from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Webber hopes to develop a model across disciplines that would be a guide for efficient faculty productivity. She will continue her examination of faculty workload and productivity by presenting a paper at the annual ASHE conference in November (with IHE student Kangjoo Lee). Currently, her work with faculty in the departments of Math, Biological Sciences, Cell Biology, and the Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities seeks to document and further promote college success for undergraduate students in the sciences, and forms a new cooperative for the Institute with these UGA departments. In 2008-2009, Webber taught classes on institutional research, introduction to national datasets, and the psychology of women, and will teach a new introduction to research in higher education this fall.

■■ Christopher Morphew concluded his four-year tenure at the Institute with a significant year of productivity including 2 books, 3 articles, 4 chapters, and two years as graduate coordinator. “Does the privatization of public higher education threaten its very mission or support it?” is answered in three chapters by Morphew in Diverse Perspectives on the Privatization of the Public Research University (Johns Hopkins), which he co-edited with Peter D. Eckel. He is one of four editors of the newly released Routledge International Handbook of Higher Education, a reference manual on current world issues in higher education, covering a myriad of topics that include teaching and learning, curriculum, epistemology, comparative education, system policy, and management, to name only a few. His fourth chapter is forthcoming in Taming the Beast – Markets and Higher Education, edited by Roger Brown. Morphew has completed two journal articles for the Journal of Higher Education and one for Research in Higher Education. He is completing work as co-PI (with Maryann

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Feldman) on a $145,000 Kauffman Foundation-funded project to evaluate the NSF’s Partnership for Innovation program.

■■ For the upcoming year, Robert Toutkoushian will focus on several projects including an analysis of the impact of Indiana’s Twenty-first Century Scholars program (TFSC) on improving access to higher education for students from lowincome families. This work involves the analysis of a large cohort of 9th grade students in the state of Indiana, and will examine whether TFSC participants were more likely than other students to initially consider going to college, complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), and enroll in college. This analysis will complement IHE’s focus on higher education finance and policy. A second major initiative this year will be co-authoring a textbook, with Michael Paulsen at the University of Iowa, on the economics and finance of higher education. The textbook will be useful for institutions that offer courses on higher education finance and economics.

He will also be completing studies on the following topics: (a) the tuition differential charged by public institutions to in-state and out-of-state students; (b) the effects of merit- and need-based state financial aid on access to higher education; and (c) the effects of sanctions from the No Child Left Behind Act on student performance in Indiana. He is the editor of the journal New Directions for Institutional Research.

■■ Consistent with the Institute’s mission to produce policyrelevant research that may guide higher education policy formation, Erik Ness is currently examining the utilization and dissemination of information as states consider the adoption of new postsecondary education policies. In a chapter forthcoming in the Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Ness synthesizes the relevant literature on the use of information in the public policy process and scrutinizes the extent to which research utilization is incorporated in the conceptual frameworks of the policymaking process. He has received a Spencer Foundation grant to extend his earlier work on state merit aid programs to examine in greater depth the use of research evidence in the adoption process. Both of these studies aim to complement Jim Hearn’s recent empirical work on political dynamics of state-level higher education policy adoption and reform. Ness is also working on projects related to the evolution and impact of state merit-based scholarship programs with Jennifer Delaney (Illinois) and Liang Zhang (Penn State) for the New Directions in Institutional Research series edited by Robert Toutkoushian. 

IHE Fellows, 2009

Fellows from a wide variety of disciplines and institutions enrich the multi-disciplinary intellectual community at the Institute.

2009 Fellows include: SENIOR FELLOWS Christopher Cornwell Professor of Economics

Jerry S. Davis Education Research and Policy Analysis Consultant Delmer Dunn Vice President for Instruction Emeritus and Regents Professor Emeritus

Two IHE Fellows debut books ■■ IHE Senior Fellow Anne Profitt Dupre, J. Alton Hosch professor of law at the University of Georgia, examines how the courts have dealt with the question of free speech in public schools in her new book Speaking Up: The Unintended Costs of Free Speech in Public Schools, published

by Harvard University Press. Dupre observes that this issue is unique to public schools, as neither private school students nor teachers have constitutional rights against their schools. She highlights the debate about the constitutional right to school speech in the context of court cases that addressed student protests, student newspapers, book banning, school prayer, and teacher speech. She never loses sight of the historical context of each court opinion, ranging from the Nazi build-up in Europe, through the Vietnam War to student speech about gay rights today. Dupre, a former United States Supreme Court law clerk and expert on education law, allows the reader to work through the issue from all sides and to question whether the cost to the necessary discipline in the public schools has been too high.

■■ IHE Fellow Joseph C. Hermanowicz, associate professor of sociology at the University of Georgia, questions what we can learn by studying people over the course of their professional lives in his 2009 book Lives in Science: How Institutions Affect Academic Careers, published by the University of Chicago Press. Hermanowicz tracked 55 scientists at various U.S. institutions through different stages in their careers. He explores these scientists’ shifting perceptions of their jobs to uncover the meanings they invest in their work, when and where they find satisfaction, how they succeed and fail, and how the rhythms of their work change as they age. Eloquently told through their own words, Hermanowicz’ candid interviews with his subjects shed light on the ways career goals are and are not met, the frustrations of the academic profession, and how one deals with the boredom and stagnation that can set in once one’s career is established. 

Anne Proffitt Dupre J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law Catherine L. Finnegan Director of Assessment and Public Information Advanced Learning Technologies Board of Regents, University System of Georgia Susan H. Frost Consultant and Adjunct Professor Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, Emory University Karen E. Holt Assistant Vice President for Public Service University of Tennessee Edward J. Larson Hugh & Hazel Darling Professor of Law Pepperdine University Larry L. Leslie Distinguished Visiting Professor of Higher Education Senior Fellow-in-Residence David Morgan Former Assistant Vice Chancellor Academic Affairs/Deputy Board of Regents, University System of Georgia Kenneth E. Redd Director of Research and Policy Analysis Council of Graduate Schools Joseph Stevenson Executive Director and Distinguished Professor Jake Ayers Institute for Urban Higher Education Jackson State University

FELLOWS

Elizabeth DeBray Pelot Associate Professor Educational Administration and Policy Program Joseph C. Hermanowicz Associate Professor of Sociology Denise Gardner Director of Institutional Research Pamela B. Kleiber Associate Director, Honors Program David Mustard Associate Professor of Economics College of Business

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Institute launches doctorate for executives in Atlanta

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hat happens when 15 senior executives in higher education, each with a significant portfolio, gather every six weeks over two years to explore the most pressing questions in higher education management?

We will soon be able to answer this question, as the Institute of Higher Education is launching the UGA Doctorate, its executive format doctor of education degree (Ed.D.). The program will convene in the Buckhead section of Atlanta, with weeklong summer experiences in China and Europe.

The program offers multiple advantages and is distinctive in several respects. “Not surprisingly, given the scholarly interests of our faculty,” notes Libby V. Morris, IHE director, “coursework in the program includes international perspectives and centers on the increasingly entrepreneurial nature of universities and colleges.”

Class sessions promise to be dynamic and innovative, regularly employing actual case studies to spur lively discussions. The curriculum is a set sequence of courses directly relevant to management, with no electives. An outside expert will be present at each session to serve as discussant. The Institute has a significant global presence, with partnerships with the leading institutes worldwide devoted to research on higher education. These collaborations are integral to the teaching, research, and service programs at the Institute, including the new UGA Doctorate.

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In addition, the portion of the curriculum devoted to research concentrates on building expertise needed not only to complete the dissertation, but also to supervise and evaluate the research applied in managing complex organizations. Dissertation work is structured and systematic, unfolding during the curriculum and possible to complete over the six semesters of the program.

Dissertations will address a specific practical higher education management challenge – one that can be directly relevant to one’s institution.

“We are taking a boutique approach to the executive doctorate in higher education,” stated J. Douglas Toma, associate professor at the Institute and director of the program. “We are enrolling only 15 participants every other year. So, each participant receives maximum attention from the IHE faculty and others involved in offering the program.”

Because participants in the program have significant responsibilities at universities and colleges and elsewhere in higher education, their deep and broad knowledge of higher education management enables coursework to occur at an advanced level.

“It has been exciting and satisfying to put together such a coherent, advanced, intensive, management- and international-focused curriculum,” Toma suggests. “We are looking forward to getting started in January.”

For further information about the UGA Doctorate, please visit our website: www.uga.edu/ihe/edd. 

Special Topics Current international issues in higher education

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he IHE invited three visiting faculty members who are scholars of comparative higher education to teach a course on current issues in international postsecondary education: Berit Karseth, professor of higher education, University of Oslo, Norway; Peter Maassen, also a professor of higher education at the University of Oslo and director of the Higher Education Development Association (HeDDA), an association of seven European Union Higher Education Centers, which have an exchange agreement for students and faculty with the University of Georgia, and Amy Metcalfe, assistant professor of higher education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Berit Karseth (standing) discusses European higher education with participants in the comparative course ■■ Berit Karseth’s topic was “Curriculum development EU research strategies, examining new funding mechanisms and curriculum policy in Europe”. She spoke about designed to put the EU at the forefront of the global economy, professionalization of new fields in response to the and explored the tensions that exist between EU and national expansion of access and European integration, as well as policies and practices. to the restructuring of curricula in established professional programs. She analyzed curriculum as a signpost to discuss ■■ Amy Metcalfe the changing knowledge, teaching and learning regimes questioned whether embedded in European higher education policy. Karseth “Marketization of higher raised the question of whether current curricula are able education differentially to reach the aims of international mobility, employability, affects the careers of competitiveness and universal participation. She also men and women in the discussed the development of qualifications frameworks for United States, Canada the European Higher Education Area and asked whether this and Mexico.” Metcalfe attempt to coordinate and exchange qualifications represents examined the careers of a new instrumentalism in higher education curriculum. The faculty, administrators, course readings dealt with such topics as consumerism and and graduate students alienation, standardization, the teaching-research nexus, in the three countries disciplinary cultures, and curriculum discourses. through the lens of North

■■ Peter Maassen’s segment of the course was titled: “The Bologna process and the Lisbon Agreement: Developments in undergraduate and graduate education in the European Union and beyond.” He examined EU and national level policies and data that illuminate the degree to which undergraduate education in the EU has been integrated. Maasen presented

American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) policies, national policies that are geared to economic competitiveness, regional economic development activities, and the lived experience of the professionals in colleges and universities, at whom these policies are aimed.

Course readings dealt with globalization, trading blocks, marketization, and gender. 

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Class presentations focus on educational funding

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he spring class in finance of higher education, taught by Professor James Hearn, had opportunities to engage with two respected analysts regarding their latest research. In one session, the class learned how market downturns in the latter part of 2008 affected endowments’ investment returns and market values, and how those losses in turn are affecting the finances of colleges and universities. In another session, the students heard early evidence on the effects of a pioneering private, donor-funded program for encouraging college attendance.

In the March 5 class session, students heard from IHE Senior Fellow Ken Redd, who is director of research and policy analysis for the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). Redd presented the findings of both the 2008 NACUBO Endowment Study and the NACUBO-Commonfund Endowment Survey Followup Study, then discussed the findings’ possible Ken Redd implications for college and university finances over the coming years. The Endowment Study (NES) examined the investment performance, asset allocation, and investment management policies, practices, and strategies of college and university endowments and their related foundations during the 2008 fiscal year. The 2008 NES reported on 791 college and university endowments totaling more than $412 billion in assets. Because the sharp market downturn in the latter part of the 2008 fiscal year, shortly after the first study went to press, NACUBO and Commonfund Institute co-sponsored a follow-up survey updating evidence on endowment investment performance and market values for release in early 2009. Institute students were among the first to learn of the results of this follow-up analysis.

On April 9, students were joined by Professor Steve DesJardins, professor of higher education and director of the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan. DesJardins presented evidence on the impacts of Kalamazoo Promise, a non-governmental, donor-funded program assuring all of Kalamazoo, Michigan’s public-school students substantial funding for college attendance. The stated mission of the Kalamazoo Promise effort is to transform the Kalamazoo community and stimulate 10

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James Hearn speaks to the finance class in Meigs Hall

its economy through a helping create a new generation of advanced learners. This innovative program has now sent four classes of students to colleges and universities, and many students in the program’s first class (the high-school graduates of 2006) are close to graduation from four-year schools. The Kalamazoo Promise program is drawing widespread attention, and the positive early results reported by DesJardins may encourage the adoption of similar efforts elsewhere. The potential impacts on K-12 schools, postsecondary institutions, and communities are noteworthy.

For both talks, students in the finance class were joined by other students and by a good number of the Institute’s faculty, staff, and affiliates. Hearn, commenting on the two visits to his class, expressed his appreciation to the Institute and the university for their ongoing support of campus visits by distinguished researchers like Redd and DesJardins: “Such visits enrich our students’ learning experiences as well as the vigor and engagement of our larger scholarly community. I think that events like these bind us together, and help make the Institute a very special place for the study of postsecondary education.” 

NSF innovations workshop goes to the source

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he research university is increasingly viewed as an important resource in building national, regional, state and local competitiveness. Federal spending on science and technology research can stimulate the economic growth of a variety of industries.

Currently, governments and universities are seeking to advance and deploy intellectual capital for the welfare of the citizenry and, in particular, to promote scientific and technological innovation as a path to strengthening economies.

As higher education institutions adapt and evolve to emerging economic conditions, governmental participation and leadership in initiatives to promote innovation is becoming increasingly important.

Viewing university-based centers and institutes as key elements in the innovation ecosystem, Sheila Slaughter and James Hearn organized a two-day workshop with the goal of advancing the scientific study of centers and institutes funded by the federal government.

The workshop was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and took place March 26 and 27 at NSF headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. Institute graduate students Austin Lacy and Charles Mathies provided support for the event. The meeting brought together engineers and natural, physical, and social scientists to address central questions relating to the role of NSF-funded centers and institutes in scientific and technical innovation.

This workshop differed from previous workshops in two ways. First, it sought to apply social-scientific theories, models, tools, and data toward better understanding how federally supported centers and institutes can contribute to innovation.

Second, unlike many social-scientific discussions and analyses of organizational settings, the workshop directly engaged participants from the focal units of analysis — university centers and institutes.

Reflecting recently on the event, Hearn said that “In bringing together experts from so many different backgrounds to consider NSF’s centers and institutes, this event was rather unprecedented. Inevitably, the interdisciplinary conversations were sometimes challenging – sociologists and biochemists, for example, tend to see the world rather differently! But in the end, there was a clear consensus among participants that

Above: Engineers and scientists discuss the role of NSF-funded institutes and centers. Below: Professors James Hearn and Sheila Slaughter and doctoral student Austin Lacy discuss the workshop’s progress.

the workshop discussions might very well influence future governmental research efforts as well as the ways university science is organized. Sheila and I look forward to continuing to consider these significant issues.”

For more information on the workshop, please visit http://www.uga.edu/ihe/nsfworkshop/. 

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spirational

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Notes on Positioning for Prestige in Higher Education

espite the impressive diversity of institution types, the relative autonomy of individual universities and colleges, and the vast differences in respective resources available to them, higher education institutions in the United States tend to arrive, independently, at what amounts to a common aspiration (Toma, 2008). They are eerily similar in vision, in fact, seemingly obsessed with “moving to the next level.” Universities and colleges – those that are even modestly selective – are fixated on enhancing their prestige, recognizing it to be linked to their ability to attract resources.

As institutions seek to become more like those directly above them on the prestige hierarchy recognized within American higher education, they portray their ambitions using similar rhetoric. They also attempt to operationalize them through a rather generic set of strategies, acting in the entrepreneurial manner that has never been more characteristic of American institutions (Bok, 2002; Ehrenberg, 2002; Geiger, 2004; Kirp, 2003; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004; Zemsky, Wegner, & Massy, 2005; Weisbrod, et al., 2008). Universities and colleges are attempting to position themselves for increased reputation through efforts to attract more accomplished students and noteworthy faculty, as well as making significant investments such as academic initiatives, facilities, and campus life (Toma, 2008).

Having devoted themselves to advancing, institutions must make a plausible case that they are doing so. As aspiring institutions tend to be selective, even if some only barely, positive enrolment trends are particularly useful.

Establishing satisfactory measurements of institutional progress is challenging, with institutions and others left with such simplistic metrics as the average test scores of incoming students, or retention and graduation rates.

But annual increases in SAT or ACT scores are, at least, concrete – and they are commonly accepted as evidence of movement in institutional prestige. At institutions where other available indicators, namely research activity and endowment amount, are not much of a factor, student characteristics become even more central.

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U. J. Douglas Toma

So, initiatives toward attracting more accomplished students are particularly important. Institutions across types are thus positioning for prestige through making significant investments in “collegiate” infrastructure – student residences, fitness centers, dining commons, and even commercial districts – intending to better appeal to these prospective students. There is also an “arms race” in building science buildings, especially on smaller campuses.

American institutions have, of course, long expressed their ambitions through constructing impressive campuses, differentiating themselves more readily via facilities than is really possible through academic programs (Gumprecht, 2008; Toma, 2003). They must now, they believe, make these investments to keep pace or avoid falling back in the race for prestige and resources, the two are thought to be linked (Brewer, Gates, and Goldman, 2002).

Universities and colleges have also built academic programs to further their aspirations in an attempt to attract more desirable students, institutions are launching or augmenting popular undergraduate majors and graduate programs, encouraging faculty research, emphasizing honors programs and undergraduate research, and enhancing study abroad opportunities (Kirp, 2003; Geiger, 2004). They are also seeking prestige through noteworthy faculty hires.

If nothing else, positioning for prestige is making the environment at universities and colleges more dynamic than ever. But the energy here is commonly at the peripheries of institutions, as the traditional academic core continues to contract.

Examining a Market

I am in the midst of exploring the aspirations of universities and colleges of various types and the concrete strategies, both academic and collegiate, these institutions employ. I am also concerned with the implications of the seeming obsession with enhancing prestige, both at the institution level and more broadly. In addition, I am interested in why institutions across such different types

arrive at a certain vision. With the current economic crisis, a new question arises about the impact of budget cutbacks on these aspirations and strategies. Finally, how does the emphasis across countries upon developing a set of “world class” institutions relate to the American imperative to position for prestige across institution types?

In spring 2008, I interviewed presidents, gathered documentary data, and observed campus life at 38 institutions connected with the Atlanta market. Atlanta is an ideal laboratory, with essentially all major institution types in American higher education represented – public and private, research and teaching, larger and smaller, urban and rural, general and special focus, etc. As part of my case study methods course in May 2008, I also directed a group of doctoral students that conducted interviews with several senior administrators and faculty at four public institutions, including a research university, a large comprehensive institution, a liberal arts college, and a community college. This past spring, I began to explore the budget cutbacks question, including the interviews carried out by students in the May course.

In examining a market representing the continuum of institutions in U.S. higher education, my approach is unusual. Discussions about prestige, including how institutions compete for the most appealing students, typically focus on elites. (In fact, most writing on American higher education focuses on the most prominent universities and colleges). I explore positioning systematically across institution types, recognizing that those with few claims to prestige in the sense of market leadership must still make a plausible set of assertions here. My approach highlights the fact that most of American higher education operates in local markets where price and location are drivers of student choice and thus revenue. Finally, focusing on a market allows me to connect strategies with direct competition, examining how institutions really compete and how this occurs within market segments and differs between and among them.

Aspirations and Strategies

I am concluding that aspirations at universities and colleges across types typically amount to a desire to enhance institutional prestige. Advancing an institutional vision to “move to the next level” through employing a few generic strategies is the default position in American higher education: attracting accomplished students, hiring noteworthy faculty, developing appealing academic programs, and improving the collegiate infrastructure on campus.

Institutional theory and resource dependency theory are useful in answering the question of why such seemingly diverse institutions are responding to markets and competition by arriving at a standard vision and set of strategies. Institutions attempt to move to the next level – essentially replicating those with more prestige – to gain legitimacy (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). They also respond to the demands of the external entities on which they rely for support, attempting to minimize that dependency, when possible. Increasing prestige, they assume, will result in more available resources and thus more autonomy (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978; Pfeffer, 1982).

Universities and colleges with the highest status and most legitimacy are usually the wealthiest – and, accordingly, the most independent of external control.

These pulls are so strong within higher education that there appears to be no realistic alternative to positioning for prestige as institutions establish aspirations and determine strategy. Also, there is neither a set status hierarchy nor formal structural barriers in U.S. higher education. So, there is always the hope of moving up – winning the lottery, in effect. In fact, given the perceived connection with resources, it is arguably not realistic for an institution to opt out of the prestige race, saying, in effect, “we are doing fine and should relax.” The desire to improve stature also has the benefit of being attractive across internal constituencies – it is the rare matter that is just as appealing to senior administrators as it is to faculty members.

Finally, institutions must underscore their distinctiveness to compete in a crowded marketplace, but in reality the aspirations and strategies they adopt are causing them to become increasingly similar. So, as they chase the same goal in roughly the same manner, the needed claims they make about being different are essentially superficial – much more about look and feel than related to the traditional academic core.

■■ Aspirations. The status hierarchy in American higher education is reasonably clear, including as captured each year in U.S. News and World Report rankings. Institutions know there is a “next level” and understand fairly well the step required to reach it. They are also not bashful about announcing their intentions, even if only marginally plausible, as simply doing so tends to place an institution among others, thus adding legitimacy.

Georgia State University, for instance, aspires to progress (as it sees it) from a “commuter” institution established to serve Atlanta students into a destination for

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accomplished students State University and Georgia Southern University, two seeking a residential large comprehensives, for suburban Atlanta students and collegiate experience permission from the University System to add graduate in an urban setting. programs. Pursuing both strategies moves them closer to Georgia State is also their aspiration of assuming the characteristics of a state interested in continuing flagship. These institutions continue to serve their local to advance as a research market, as with Kennesaw drawing from the suburbs university, becoming north of Atlanta, but they are also interested extending recognized as akin to the their reach to be more like Tech or UGA, beginning to more developed Georgia offer the trappings, such as campus residences, needed Institute of Technology to do so. Armstrong Atlantic State University, a smaller and University of comprehensive, is following the same model in attempting Georgia. So, it employs to spread its influence beyond the immediate Savannah various strategies toward market. attempting to accomplish Some smaller private institutions within the Atlanta these aspirations, market are also extending their academic programs as Georgia State University investing in infrastructure they attempt to fulfill their institutional ambitions. Mercer in areas such as housing and research. Auburn University University, Piedmont College, and Brenau University have and Clemson University, also within the extended expanded over several years beyond their traditional liberal Atlanta market as defined in the study, arts core to include graduate professional are also seeking to move into the top programs and develop satellite campuses. tier of public research universities (with As they attract nontraditional students [A]spiring as an Clemson nearly there). Georgia Tech and into academic programs on the institution to enhance the University of Georgia, meanwhile, institutional periphery, these institutions prestige is essentially respectively aspire to become MIT and employ the resources they generate obligatory, no matter CalTech or Virginia and Texas, thus to invest in the expected collegiate the institution type. advancing a class. experience within the core. In doing Comprehensive institutions are also so, they advance aspirations that are interested in “the next level,” seeking similar to traditional liberal arts colleges. the more accomplished students and adding, as they can, In addition, financial stability, always a concern at less the graduate programs and research activity associated selective smaller private colleges, is the purpose of these with more prestigious flagship institutions. There is a professional programs, some prestige attaches to them in robust competition, for example, between Kennesaw fields such as business. So, in addition to advancing in the small college hierarchy, being more comprehensive is also part of the “next level” for these hybrid institutions.

Aspirations are not only associated with resources, however. There are intangible advantages associated with prestige within organizations. Because people come to understand themselves in reference to the organizations with which they associate, they are more likely to celebrate their connections with prestigious institutions, making just about everything on campus easier to achieve (Toma, Dubrow, and Hartley, 2005; Dutton, Dukerich, and Harquail, 1994). When the advantages of enhanced identification combine with the promise of greater resources and the security of increased legitimacy, aspiring as an institution to enhance prestige is essentially obligatory, no matter the institution type.

Accordingly, even aspirations at community colleges, Georgia Southern University

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College needs to continue in tier one in the annual U.S. News and World Report rankings.

Imagine the distraction for a president if an elite institution slips in the rankings, not to mention the added burden on the admissions staff. So, the investments in collegiate infrastructure and the like necessitated by their aspirations represent institutions both playing offense and minimizing risk by also playing defense. Thus, the emphasis on constructing facilities is a classic arms race, with moves by one competitor matched or exceeded by others, prompting an even greater commitment by the first competitor. Given the premium price they charge, liberal arts colleges should offer students substantive advantages.

But the quality of the faculty or curriculum is a “black box,” difficult for prospective students and other outsiders Agnes Scott College to ascertain. The look and feel of an institution is more while expressed in terms of access, are akin to other kinds apparent – and liberal arts colleges are making significant of institutions. Several Georgia community colleges, investments here, needing to keep pace in looking the part. (e.g., Dalton State College) are adding four-year degree Other smaller private institutions also focus on programs – the “next level” for them their collegiate character in attracting – successfully contending there is a residential students – needing also to need, including a mission drift by other underscore their distinctiveness more [A]spirations across institutions. Young Harris College, a rare than institutions atop the rankings. institution types are private two-year institution, is becoming Oglethorpe University, for instance, is essentially generic, a four-year college. At nonselective attempting to leverage greater prestige – all fixed on reaching institutions like community colleges, and the resources so commonly thought whatever level is next. there is also a prestige advantage in to follow – through its developing increasing size. In representing itself, identity as a liberal arts college in a Georgia Perimeter College, a large dynamic urban setting. The Savannah community college in suburban Atlanta, certainly cites College of Art and Design (SCAD), a relatively new private enrollment growth for fulfilling its purposes. But it institution, has prospered while aggressively developing also emphasizes possibilities for transfer to prestigious new undergraduate programs and transforming downtown institutions, having formalized relationships with several Savannah into an appealing college town. Similarly, leading public and private institutions including, for Southern Polytechnic State University, a public institution, example, Columbia and Pepperdine Universities. So, even is also interested in increasing in stature, as well as size, institutions devoted to access tend to highlight initiatives offering distinctive academic programs. or associations to which prestige is commonly attached.

Finally, colleges with a pronounced religious At the other end of the spectrum, the prestige ladder orientation, such as Covenant College and Toccoa Falls is most associated with traditional liberal arts colleges College, focus on their cultural distinctiveness, but still (along with research universities). What is less expected must pay attention to developing the appealing academic is how aspirations are defined by maintaining position, programs and attractive campus facilities considered to recognizing the difficulty associated with advancing in attract students. the rankings. Davidson College is acutely aware of the So, aspirations across institution types are essentially investments needed to maintain its top-ten national generic, all fixed on reaching whatever level is next. ranking, just as Emory University simply cannot tolerate Whether these aspirations need to be realistic or assertions falling from the top 15 among private research universities. about prestige and even distinctiveness, they need to be Similarly, the University of the South (Sewanee) must accurate, especially when received by less sophisticated maintain its top 40 ranking; Agnes Scott College and audiences. In sales, accuracy is sometimes a secondary Spelman College have to remain in the top 75; and Berry concern.

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Nevertheless, aspirations can be productive. They position among competitors. These public universities can energize a campus, making it more dynamic. But and colleges are similar in price, reputation, and even when moving toward the next level, what works best is academic programs. But their respective approaches to when it causes institutions to differentiate themselves. For collegiate life are quite distinctive: whether the urban instance, Columbus State University has developed its fine experience at Georgia State; the small town residential one arts program into a regional leader; Georgia College and at Georgia Southern; the suburban character of Kennesaw; State University has adopted the public liberal arts college or the liberal arts college feel of Georgia College or North mission; Morehouse College is especially mindful of its Georgia College and State University. identity as a selective, all-male, historically black college The strategies that they accordingly employ accentuate (HBC) when setting aspirations and crafting strategy; and these characteristics, such as building loft style dorms Fort Valley State University and Savannah at Georgia State, adding a residential State University, both public HBCs, have complex at Armstrong Atlantic, or continued to emphasize their historic renovating the historic core campus at Because enrolling mission, while also enhancing their Georgia College. Another kind of niche ... accomplished academic profiles. involves a product differentiated on students is primary substance as well, for example, a religious in determining ■■ Strategies. Like business firms, college like Covenant or Toccoa Falls, prestige, ... making universities and colleges attempt to one with specialized programs like the institution more achieve their aspirations through SCAD or Southern Poly, or a nonelite attractive to these positioning for advantage over small college selling a more intimate prospective students competitors in one of three ways: offering experience at a somewhat higher price. is paramount. a standard product at a low price, filling The third position type is product a niche, or developing a luxury brand leadership. Liberal arts colleges and (Porter, 1980). Treacy and Wiersema private research universities can attract (1995) term these value disciplines: operational excellence a higher price because they provide something akin to a (as a means to lower costs), customer intimacy (to meet luxury product --something to which prestige attaches their specific wants and needs), and product leadership and that offers a premium experience. State flagships have (through cutting edge products). sufficient prestige that they have some elements of a luxury Community colleges offer standard products at low experience. Strategies at these institutions emphasize prices, the first position type, with strategies supporting not only look and feel, which remains important, but the overall approach. But these institutions also know also the advantages associated with a leading institution. the advantages of people viewing their organization as The latter can be as simple, especially in the South, as distinctive, central, and enduring – and thus wanting to access to Southeastern Conference football at Auburn enhance and announce their association with it. Again, and Georgia. These institutions also offer more diverse when institutional identification is strong, everything is academic programs, with degrees in areas like engineering. easier (Toma, Dubrow, & Hartley, 2005; Dutton, Dukerich, Such advantages can also entail the low faculty-to-student & Harquail, 1994). So, reputation still matters, even ratio and generous staffing in areas like student affairs that at institutions with an access mission. Only instead of leading liberal arts colleges can provide, given available garnering prestige through admissions, endowment, or resources. research numbers, nonselective institutions concentrate Because enrolling – and, to some extent, retaining – on enhancing and celebrating their stature through accomplished students is primary in determining prestige enrollment growth, relevant programs, and personal at selective institutions, making the institution more accomplishments. attractive to these prospective students is paramount in Institutions that are even somewhat selective must sell determining strategy. So, institutions focus on what they more than just affordable cost. In the Atlanta market, most perceive most appeals to these students, enhancing their competition occurs among institutions having established collegiate character and developing attractive academic a niche, the second type of position. They offer a set of programs. attributes that are appealing to a certain type of prospective Research universities and liberal arts colleges also student, attempting to enhance these to improve their concentrate on building endowments and developing

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research, as not just admissions and retention numbers influence national reputation. In positioning for greater prestige, advancement in student numbers is more readily achievable than progress in endowment or research.

Georgia State, Georgia Southern, and Georgia College, for instance, each increased its average SAT scores to around 1,100, enough to put them near the top of institutions of their type.

Despite different ways of positioning both collegiate and academic strategies that institutions have available, they are relatively limited and tend to be generic across institutions both within a sector and across types.

In admissions, institutions across types have professionalized and expanded student recruiting as an initial matter. In order to appeal to the accomplished prospective students, universities and colleges have also launched or enhanced innovative or unusual academic programs, study abroad opportunities, service learning efforts, honors options, and undergraduate research initiatives. They are also concentrating more on marketing.

Georgia Southern, for instance, is advertising aggressively in suburban Atlanta, including installing large banners at upscale shopping malls.

Institutions are also seeking advantage in attracting the students (and faculty and administrators) they desire by updating the infrastructure devoted to collegiate life.

Necessities such as dormitories, dining halls, and gymnasia have become amenities – luxury apartments, upscale food courts, and deluxe fitness centers. Universities and colleges are in a construction arms race, competing with one another. In fact, each of the 38 institutions in the study is investing here, many significantly so. Georgia Tech, for instance, has recently completed a spectacular fitness center on the site of the former Olympic swimming pool.

It addressed the dearth of a shopping district adjacent to campus earlier in the decade by constructing storefronts below its new business school and conference center and hotel facility across I-75 from the main campus.

Institutions are also constructing academic buildings, especially science buildings, in another arms race. There is also some attention to “amenities” for the broader community, such as the new art museum facility at Auburn. (Georgia Perimeter, a community college, views amenities differently, focusing more on initiatives such as equipping classrooms with technology.)

Universities and colleges are engaged in similar efforts in intercollegiate athletics, improving facilities, “upgrading” to Division I, and seeking entry into better conferences as they position themselves for greater prestige

Georgia Institute of Technology

(Toma, 2003; Toma, in press). Georgia State, responding to student demand for a critical marker of a “real” American university, voted to tax themselves $85 per semester to launch a football team to compete at the Division I-AA level (now called the Football Championship Subdivision).

(They also voted for a fee increase to fund a library renovation.) Troy State University in Alabama, which is heavily involved in distance education, has built a Division I-A (Football Bowl Subdivision) football program of some note to provide its students around the world with a collegiate touchstone. LaGrange College, which is also enhancing its library, added Division III football recently intending to encourage both student recruitment and alumni and community relations. Savannah State has also moved to compete in Division I.

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Research universities continue to hire noteworthy faculty and invest in needed infrastructure to build their research programs, including both buildings and staff.

Georgia Tech, UGA, Georgia State, and the Medical College of Georgia are participating in this robust national market of faculty thought.

There are legitimate concerns with positioning for prestige, as with concentrating more on enrolling affluent students than on providing access to those across society.

But the implication of institutions being so interested and active in enhancing prestige is also that colleges and universities are working harder, and U.S. higher education is becoming more dynamic.

Two Final Sets of Questions

As I drew these conclusions earlier this year, the severe downturn in the economy in fall 2008 quickly presented public universities and colleges with mid-year budget cutbacks triggered by state government revenue shortfalls.

Georgia reduced its original higher education budget of $21.2 billion for the 2009 fiscal year by ten percent – with a similar reduction expected in the coming year. The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (USG), which oversees 35 public colleges and universities in Georgia (there is a separate system for technical colleges), mandates only a cutback, not how institutions achieve these reductions while supporting ongoing needs.

So, the fascinating question arises of whether severely and rapidly tightening resources are causing institutions to rethink or adjust their aspirations and the strategies they are employing toward realizing them. Instead, are institutions allocating resources to these positioning initiatives and perhaps away from other important institutional commitments? Another interesting question is whether institutions in making such decisions are employing data from institutional research offices and institutional effectiveness efforts, including as charged to do so by various accountability initiatives.

In addition, are institutions seizing various opportunities? Are they “right sizing” in staffing and programs, or using price advantages to enter more competitive student markets? Are the reductions in faculty hiring that are occurring exacerbating the trend toward shifting the instructional load from permanent faculty to temporary instructors, including graduate assistants at research universities (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004: Marginson, 2006)? Where institutions can most readily cut is in their instructional budgets. Does doing so not only risk offering students a diminished product, but does it 18

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also put institutional reputation in jeopardy?

Especially given the severe decline in endowment income, will the market for noteworthy faculty be less robust? With the hires that they do make, will universities and colleges focus on the academic areas that they have been building, thus acting more strategically than across-the-board cuts in discretionary spending? Will construction spending, especially on projects such as residences that have a revenue stream attached, continue at its current pace? Finally, will wealthier, more prestigious institutions suffer less – or more – especially given their reliance on endowment income?

I am also interested in a second set of questions: whether these trends are worldwide, especially as leading institutions in various countries enter into the international prestige race, driven to a significant degree by the global rankings. What is motivating them (a classic institutional theory question, by the way); what are they actually doing strategically; and what are the impacts?

As in the U.S., such positioning is certainly a potential challenge in many areas, including access, but a more dynamic global higher education market may also offer some unanticipated opportunities.

So, positioning has become a business imperative (so to speak) for institutions of all types, even those with the fewest advantages, as they either invest resources to compete favorably in the markets such as for students, or perceive themselves to be at risk of slipping and falling behind competitors. Often costly initiatives intended to enhance both the academic and collegiate environment on campus – tuition discounting, constructing facilities, recruiting faculty – have become the norm in American higher education, as institutions, seemingly without exception and even when they may not really be able to afford it, have fixed (obsessed, really) on “getting to the next level” of prestige.

References

Bok, D. C. (2002). Universities in the marketplace: The commercialization of higher education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Brewer, D., Gates, S. M. & Goldman, C. A. (2002). In pursuit of prestige: Strategy and competition in U.S. higher education. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press.

DiMaggio, P. J. & Powell W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48,147-60.

Dutton, J. E., Dukerich, J. M., & Harquail, C. V. (1994). Organizational images and member identification. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39, 239-63.

Ehrenberg, R. (2002). Tuition rising: Why college costs so much.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Geiger, R. (2004). Knowledge and money: Research universities and the paradox of the marketplace. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Gumprecht, B. (2007). The American college town. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Kirp, D. (2003). Shakespeare, Einstein, and the bottom line: The marketing of higher education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Marginson, S. (2006). Enabling democratic education in the neoliberal age. Educational Theory, 56(2), 205-19.

Pfeffer, J. (1982). Organizations and organization theory. Marshfield, MA: Pitman.

Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. R. (1978). The external control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective. New York: Harper and Row. Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. New York: Free Press.

Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Toma, J. D. (2003). Football U.: Spectator sports in the life of the American university. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Toma, J. D. (2008, November). Positioning for prestige in American higher education: Case studies of strategies at four public institutions toward “getting to the next level.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Research on Higher Education (ASHE), Jacksonville, Florida.

Toma, J. D. (in press). The business of intercollegiate athletics. In D. Siegel and J. Knapp (Eds.), The business of higher education.

New York: Praeger.

Toma, J. D., Dubrow, D., & Hartley, J. M. (2005). The uses of institutional culture: Strengthening identification and building brand equity in higher education. (ASHE Higher Education Reports, Vol. 31-3). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Treacy, M., & Wiersema, F. (1995). The discipline of market leaders.

Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.

Weisbrod, B. A., et al. (2008). Mission and money: Understanding the university. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Zemsky, R., Wegner, G. R., & Massy, W. F. (2005). Remaking the American university: Market-smart and mission-centered. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

■■ J. Douglas Toma is associate professor at IHE and has an appointment on the School of Law faculty. He also serves as dean of Franklin Residential College and directs the Postdoctoral Teaching Fellows program for the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

Toma writes primarily about strategy and management in higher education, but also addresses case study research methods and legal issues in higher education in his scholarly work. His present research is on strategies used by institutions to position themselves, especially for greater prestige, and he recently completed a research project and book manuscript on strategic management and systems approaches for higher education. In Football U.: Spectator Sports in the Life of the American University (Michigan, 2003), Toma addresses the strategic uses of college football made by research universities. Citing the work, the Chronicle of Higher Education profiled him in July, 2005 as one of eleven “upand-coming thinkers who have already made a mark on debates about American higher education and who are poised to influence national policies.”

The National Association of College and University Business Officers, the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the U.S. Department of State have funded his recent work. In 2004, Toma was program chair for Division J for the American Educational Research Association annual meeting and twice chaired the annual outstanding dissertation competition for AERA-J. He has served as a strategy and management consultant to over 25 higher education institutions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

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International Partnerships

O

ver a decade ago, Institute of Higher Education faculty Sheila Slaughter and Larry Leslie introduced many to the idea of the commercialization of research and commodification of education in Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). In doing so, they explored not only higher education in the United States, but also Australia, Canada, and England. As the Institute continues to build its partnerships with the other leading research centers in higher education worldwide, it is only more certain today that trends and issues in higher education are hardly unique to the United States, but instead global.

“The opportunities for joint work with our partners abroad, whether in research, teaching, or training, have never been greater or more dynamic,” notes Libby V. Morris, professor and director at the Institute. “In fact, we enhance our academic field, our doctoral students, and those we serve across Georgia when we engage globally with the very best people and programs.”

“These partnerships are less a series of bilateral associations,” suggests J. Douglas Toma, associate professor at the Institute, “but instead the most important clusters worldwide, of those exploring higher education policy and management, form a web of connections. Our partners abroad work with one another,” Toma notes, “so our international work increasingly occurs within teams with several perspectives represented.”

The new IHE executive model doctorate of education program based in Atlanta is a prime example. “The program is exciting and distinctive in many respects,” according to Morris, “but perhaps none more than the international perspective that will be embedded in the courses and activities.”

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Plans are underway to offer the first summer session abroad in collaboration with Peking University and Beijing Normal University working with our colleagues there, Xiaoguang Shi and Baocun Liu; both spent a week at the Institute in June (see pg. 24). CHEPS, the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies at the University of Twente will coordinate the sessions over the second summer in Europe.

Jon File, the CHEPS executive director, visited the Institute in December.

In addition to these experiences, a faculty member from one of the Institute’s international partners will be present at many of the Ed.D. program meetings in Atlanta, serving as a discussant. “Having an international perspective is essential for the senior managers with whom we are working – for their institutions, as they advance their careers, and in their academic work,” argues Toma, who is directing the Ed.D. program.

The Institute is also in discussions with the new L.H. Martin Center for Leadership and Management in Higher Education at the University of Melbourne about developing collaborative doctoral and masters programs. “The Melbourne partnership illustrates the importance of involving Institute doctoral students in an experience abroad,” offered Morris, “with the eventual goal of having all residential Ph.D. students and executive Ed.D. students spend time studying or researching overseas.”

In addition, the Institute is becoming involved with the Higher Education European Masters (HEEM) program based at the University of Oslo. The two-year program requires students to reside at multiple institutions, earning a joint degree from each. The Institute is part of a proposal to

University of Oslo

Lumina Foundation’s President and CEO to give 2009 McBee Lecture the European Union, through its Erasmus Mundus program, to extend HEEM for another five years.”We are pleased to include the Institute of Higher Education in our partnership of the leading higher education centers worldwide and look forward to our HEEM students studying there, extending our reach from across Europe to across the Atlantic,” states Peter Maassen, Oslo professor and HEEM director.

Partners in the planned effort include Oslo, the Universities of Alveiro (Portugal), Helsinki (Finland), Burgundy (France), Melbourne (Australia), Toronto (Canada), Twente (the Netherlands), the Western Cape (South Africa), and J. F. Oberlin University in Japan.

Current Ph.D. students Patrick Crane, Jennifer Olson, and Leasa Weimer, were all Oslo masters students. “In recommending that I study at the Institute, Peter was right in suggesting that it was the place in the U.S. that most focused on topics and questions of concern in Europe and elsewhere,” commented Crane.

Maassen, as well as Oslo colleague Berit Karseth and University of British Columbia assistant professor, Amy Metcalfe, were resident at the Institute in spring 2009, each teaching several classes of Slaughter’s seminar on comparative higher education. Slaughter is a 2009 Erasmus Mundus fellow, and she lectured and conducted research at the University of Oslo for several weeks this past spring.

Lianquan Qiao, associate professor of higher education at Xiamen University in China, who is visiting the Institute during the 2009 calendar year on a China Scholarship Council grant, also participated in the seminar and several IHE courses and activities. “Being at the Institute has deepened my understanding of contemporary issues in higher education worldwide,” noted Qiao, “and that China and the U.S. share more interests and concerns that might not always be obvious.”

For three weeks in July 2008, the Institute also worked in Athens with ten doctoral students from Makerere University in Uganda, continuing its partnership with the East African Institute for Higher Education Studies and Development through its director James Nkata.

The Institute continued its work in Croatia, with its sixth annual workshop on higher education management funded by the U.S. Department of State, this year addressing fund raising for participants from across southeastern Europe.

The Institute is also involved in new collaborations. It participated in the planning meeting at American University in Cairo for the new Middle Eastern Institute for Higher Education, working with IHE emeritus faculty member Edward Simpson, the AUC vice president for continuing education. 

November 12, 11 a.m. in the UGA Chapel

Jamie P. Merisotis has served as president and CEO of Lumina Foundation for Education since January 1, 2008. He is an expert on a wide range of higher-education issues. He is well versed in domestic and international issues related to highereducation opportunity and access, including student financial aid, minority-serving colleges and universities, global highereducation policy strategies, and social and economic benefits of higher education.

Long a champion of the idea that higher education enhances both society and individuals, Merisotis has worked for decades to increase educational opportunity among low-income, minority and other historically underrepresented populations. At Lumina, Merisotis is continuing that effort by employing a strategic, outcomes-based approach in pursuing the Foundation’s mission of expanding college access and success. Under his leadership, Lumina has embraced an ambitious and specific goal: to ensure that, by 2025, 60 percent of Americans have high quality twoyear or four-year degrees — up from the current level of 39 percent. It is Merisotis’ aim that all of Lumina’s efforts and activities — grant making, communication, evaluation, policy advocacy and convening — work toward achieving that goal.

Lumina Foundation for Education, a private, Indianapolis-based foundation with about $1.4 billion in assets, pursues the mission of expanding student access to and success in education beyond high school. Since its founding in August 2000, Lumina has made grants totaling more than $250 million.

The twenty-first annual lecture will be held in the UGA Chapel at 11:00 a.m. on November 12.

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Jan Wheeler (right) sits with adviser Thomas Dyer, university professor emeritus.

IHE graduate discovers two unsung heroes of desegregation

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By Betz Kerley

n a crisp autumn Saturday morning in 1960, high school students all over the country spent three hours of their day taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), a required component of college applications. However, in the then-segregated South, black students were routinely turned away from testing sites because they were usually held in what were then all-white high schools. Segregation was the law, no racial mixing in the schools was allowed. If a so-called “separate but equal” facility was provided, the testing room was often substandard. Some students were forced to take the test in poorly lit basements or – in one reported case – a janitor’s closet. But the year 1960 marked the beginning of a change in how the SAT was administered in the South.

While those days still live in the memories of many, they have long since given way to equitable treatment for all students. But there is an aspect to that change that is not widely known. It is thanks to the diligent work of two men, Ben Cameron Jr. of Sewanee, Tennessee, and Ben Gibson of Atlanta, that all students throughout the South, regardless of race, are given a fair and equal opportunity to take the SAT in suitable surroundings.

Thanks to IHE doctoral graduate, Jan Wheeler, the work of these determined men has finally come to light. While much has been written about the Civil Rights Movement, including obstacles faced by black students attempting to attend predominantly white colleges, very few people were aware of the two men who made it their mission to ensure that race was not taken into account when high school students were assigned an SAT testing center.

While conducting research for her dissertation, Wheeler, 22

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associate director for accreditation at the University of Georgia’s Office of Institutional Effectiveness, uncovered a treasure trove of documents written by Cameron and Gibson, who were employed in the southern regional office of the New York-based College Board that administered the SAT. These documents had been stored away for over 40 years in an underground facility in up-state New York.

The two Bens traveled to almost every school district in what were considered to be the five “hard core” southern states most resistant to racial change (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina), to push for the desegregation of testing centers. Over five long, difficult years, from 1960 to 1965, the two met with school superintendents, principals, and administrators in the various school districts, making every effort to convince them to open up the segregated testing centers to all students, or risk losing the prestige and convenience associated with being a testing center. “Principals liked being able to offer the test,” explained Wheeler.

Ultimately, 50 such centers located in recalcitrant districts were forced to close. Many were relocated to military bases where commanders were under orders from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to ensure that all students, regardless of race, were allowed to take the test.

Ironically, Cameron was the son and namesake of a judge from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, who worked to prevent James Meredith from becoming the first black student at the University of Mississippi. His assignment with the College Board put him at odds with his father, but it did not deter him from his mission.

One of the reasons that the actions of Cameron and Gibson were not widely known at the time was that the men wanted no publicity about what they were doing. They believed that if news of their campaign got out, it would increase the already-fierce resistance to school desegregation in the South.

While pursuing their efforts, Cameron and Gibson were often ridiculed. But they kept their eyes on the goal of ensuring that all students, regardless of race, should be tested under equitable conditions. Theirs was not a noisy crusade, but a campaign of quiet persuasion. Potentially, they could have been placing themselves in danger thanks to the passions of the times, but they believed in always conducting their meetings with school officials in a respectful and cordial manner, no matter how adamantly and unpleasantly some school representatives expressed their opposition to desegregation. One of Cameron and Gibson’s ironclad rules for school visits, Wheeler explained, was that “no meeting could end with a school administrator in a bad mood.” Cameron once reported to a group of his College Board colleagues that “it took a little better than two hours of listenin’ and talkin’ to get one official in a good humor.”

During her research, Dr. Wheeler reviewed over 10,000 pieces of paper containing meticulously written notes, memos and correspondence.

The files organized by state and school district, presented a fascinating story of two men, who not only had to meet with school administrators, but often had dialogues with organizations as disparate as the Catholic & Episcopal dioceses of Mississippi and the White Citizens Council. The two men felt that these often-difficult meetings were vital to their objective of desegregating the testing centers. While working toward that goal Cameron and Gibson had to proceed diplomatically, because the College Board was also training guidance counselors at these same high schools to help schools get their students into good colleges. “It became a balancing act,” says Wheeler. “They were trying to create a relationship with the schools and, at the same time, they were asking them to do something that was against state law.”

Dr. Wheeler’s dissertation has brought to light a remarkable and fascinating piece of history. The achievements of Ben Cameron and Ben Gibson were a big step toward creating a world of equal educational opportunities for all students. Jan Wheeler’s research ensured that their diligence and efforts will not be forgotten. 

Mel Hill retires after 35 years of service to the University of Georgia

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he Institute of Higher Education announces the retirement of Melvin B. Hill Jr., from the University of Georgia on June 30 with 35 years of service.

He holds a B.A. degree from Bucknell University, an M.P.A. and a J.D. degree from Cornell University.

Mel came to the University of Georgia in 1974 as a legal research associate at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government. He quickly moved up through the ranks becoming the director in 1984, after serving as the staff director of the Select Committee on Constitutional Revision of the Georgia General Assembly.

He joined the Institute in 1996 as the Robert G. Stephens Jr., Senior Fellow in Law and Government. He taught a course in law and higher education, organized and conducted the annual law and higher education conference, and served as editor of the Journal for Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, since 2000.

Professor Hill is the editor of School and College Law Section Newsletter for the State Bar of Georgia, a member of the Peabody Awards Committee since 1998, and an adjunct faculty member in the College of Environment and Design where he has taught “Historic Preservation Law.” He has helped to shape public policy debates abroad as well as in Georgia, serving on commissions and delivering lectures to a wide range of European audiences. His work in Ukraine, for instance, was recognized with an honorary diploma from Uzhgorod State University in 2001.

We wish him the very best in his future pursuits. 

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International scholars at IHE

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he IHE has hosted two international scholars working on research this year: Lianquan Qiao, an associate professor at the Institute of Education at Xiamen University in China, and Milena Serafim, a doctoral student from the University of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil.

Dr. Lianquan Qiao, whose speciality is curriculum and instruction, said that he will never forget his year spent at the Institute, “Having a chance to go to the U.S. was my dream as I was growing up and now it has come true.” The opportunity to carry out research in the U.S. was the result of the Chinese government’s “985 Project.” In 1998, as part of a goal of transforming Chinese universities into world-class institutions, the government gave grants of several billion dollars to the top two universities to build research centers, attract Chinese faculty educated overseas, set up international partnerships, and launch programs taught in English. In 2004, the program was expanded to the top 30 institutions, which included Xiamen University, and the China Scholarship Council sponsored more and more researchers to study abroad.

Qiao and his colleagues are focused on changing the way teaching and learning is done at their universities by applying what they experience in the U.S. Comparing the Ph.D. curriculum at the Institute with that of Chinese institutions, Qiao found many differences. The two most striking were the IHE’s emphasis on research methodology (4 courses) compared with one (usually an elective) or sometimes none at Chinese universities, and the cognate required at the Institute, ensuring IHE students have competencies in outside areas, resulting in a multidisciplinary approach to higher education research.

Qiao sat in on many IHE classes and was impressed by the added dimension of guest speakers and how actively students participate in discussions, as opposed to the Chinese custom of mainly teaching by lecturing. Another facet of higher education that impressed him was the opportunity offered for faculty development: the Governor’s Teaching Fellows, the Franklin Fellows, and programs provided by the Center for Teaching and Learning. Qiao and his colleagues are debating how to incorporate all they have learned in the U.S. system into their own teaching and research when they return home.

He is very grateful for the opportunity he was given, “I have made many nice new friends at the IHE, and I have learned American culture from them. They have been part of my life, and I will never forget them.”

During her six months at the Institute, Milena Serafim took Dr. Sheila Slaughter’s course on comparative education and a policy analysis course from Dr. Barry Bozeman, regents’ professor of public administration. Her dissertation topic grew 24

IHE Report

Above: Associate Professor Lianquan Qiao of Xiamen University; Below: Doctoral student Milena Serafim of the University of Campinas.

out of her research on academic capitalism in Brazil and the relationship between university and society. A paper she wrote for Dr. Slaughter’s class has been accepted for publication by the Brazilian journal Revista da Avaliação and she has submitted for publication a second paper on gender issues in Mercosur, the Latin American trade block. Milena will spend part of next year in Argentina, as she expands her study to include other countries in Latin America. 

IHE doctoral student Lisette Montoto spent the year in Panama studying how U.S. programs are adapted abroad.

Students Beyond the Classroom

The reputation and quality of the Institute’s graduate programs and faculty continue to grow. In 2009, U.S. News and World Report ranked the IHE doctoral programs 6th among programs of higher education nationally, which is the fifth consecutive year with a top-ten ranking. “Selecting the Institute of Higher Education was simply the best decision I could have made for my doctoral program of study,” states Dennis Kramer, a Ph.D. student who works as a staff consultant for the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics along with tutoring student athletes at UGA. “Even more than simply collaborating on research projects and publications with some of the most prolific scholars in higher education, the faculty truly care about their students and equipping them for success in their chosen careers. The cutting edge teaching and research are preparing me, as a future academic, to be on the forefront of policy issues and analysis and, hopefully, one day to make a substantive impact on the field of higher education.”

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Beyond the Classroom ■■ Leasa Weimer, a first-year doctoral student at the Institute, is studying at the University of Oxford, England from July to December 2009. She accepted a graduate assistantship position working on-site with the UGA/Oxford study abroad program, which affords her the opportunity to pursue her international research interests through a one-on-one graduate tutorial with an Oxford University faculty member.

Her international comparative research interests include investigating the various dimensions of the foreign student market and federal-level internationalization efforts. In March, she worked with Professor Douglas Toma in a study abroad course educating undergraduates on the culture and biodiversity of Costa Rica. Leasa completed her Master’s program in Europe as an Erasmus Mundus scholarship recipient.

and degrees are exported. Lisette is using a multi-case study approach to look specifically at issues of access, quality, and outcomes in an effort to understand how these cross-border efforts are impacting Panama’s developing higher education system.

■■ Another IHE doctoral student who, like Leasa, earned her M.A. in Europe, Jennifer Olson is spending the summer in Germany and Norway. First, she participated in a German course to assist in her dissertation research – a study of German and U.S. women abroad during critical times in history - at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, and then in July she took a course taught by Dr. Sheila Slaughter, an Erasmus Mundus scholar, at the University of Oslo Summer School. In the spring, Jennifer presented a paper (as part of Drs. Amy Metcalfe and Sheila Slaughter’s project, Gender and Academic Capitalism: Men and Women of the Entrepreneurial Academy), entitled “Comparing Canadian and American community colleges’ faculty: Are we moving toward gendered professionalization?” at the Comparative and International Education Society Conference in Charleston, SC.

■■ Austin Lacy, the current Zell and Shirley Miller Graduate Fellow, was one of the very few graduate students attending the Innovation in Complex Social Systems Conference held at University College Dublin in December 2008. His paper entitled “Entrepreneurialism and the Traditional Roles of the University: An Empirical Analysis of Emerging Product Shift,” is to be published as part of a book compiled from conference papers. Funding was provided by the Miller Fellowship. With follow graduate student, Mauricio Saavedra, Austin is studying data in the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) to ascertain college going patterns of high school students as they relate to certain background characteristics.

■■ Lisette Montoto received a 200809 graduate school dissertation completion award to study the ways U.S. institutions of higher education are developing new strategies for growth abroad. She spent the year in the Republic of Panama examining the process by which U.S. programs

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■■ In summer 2008, Isaiah O’Rear participated in the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain’s Summer School held in Roehampton, England. The workshop topic was social justice, and participants also developed projects in the area of education policy. Isaiah worked on developing a section of his Master’s thesis, “Six Reasons for Educational Resource Equality” (which has already been published in the online journal Education Law and Policy Forum) in greater depth, for eventual publication in a philosophy of education journal.

■■ Jennifer Nabors chaired her session and presented a paper titled “Auditing the audit culture in education research: A critical look at how the audit moved from the accounting firm to education research” at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry in May 2009 at the University of Illinois.

Beyond the Classroom ■■ Janea Johnson earned the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Grand Chapter scholarship. Founded January 13, 1913 at Howard University in Washington, DC, Delta Sigma Theta is a nonprofit Greek-lettered sorority of college-educated women who perform public service. With more than 350,000 members, Delta Sigma Theta is the largest African American sorority in the world.

■■ Jennifer Frum, deputy director of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, has been selected as a member of the Georgia Blue Key Honor Society, which is considered one of the highest honors on the UGA campus. Blue Key recognizes men and women of outstanding character and ability who have achieved distinction for scholarship and recognition for service and leadership. Jennifer was nominated by Professor Christopher Morphew and inducted into the Blue Key Honor Society on March 30.

■■ Dennis Kramer and Khoi Dinh To were accepted as Fellows for the 2009 Association of Institutional Research (AIR) National Summer Data Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. The Institute is an intensive introduction to National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) datasets along with training in research methodologies using these large national datasets. Kramer is investigating the impact of current faculty hiring and salary trends on the proliferation of research grants. Using the NSF’s Survey of R & D Expenditures at Universities and Colleges, the NCES IPEDS dataset, and data from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), he hopes to ascertain the impact the changing landscape of faculty members have on the total proportion of awarded research grants at state flagship universities. This project is the first of a larger agenda that will also include measures of state policies on faculty hiring and state appropriations. Kramer and To were two of about 50 people who received this competitive international

award. Previous IHE attendees include professors Christopher Morphew and Karen Webber, and IHE doctoral candidate Charlie Mathies.

■■ Anthony Jones and Mauricio Saavedra have been selected as Fellows for the 2009 Association for Institutional Research (AIR) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Fellowship Program in Institutional Research. The program is designed to support the improved quality of institutional research at U.S. postsecondary institutions.

Both will receive two-year awards with Anthony’s based on full-time enrollment and Mauricio’s on parttime. As Fellows, they are required to attend the AIR National Summer Data Policy Institute, which is an intensive study of NCES and National Science Foundation datasets.  The Institute would like to thank the following departments and institutions for providing assistantships to IHE students:

Gainesville State College Knight Foundation University System of Georgia Board of Regents The Office of Information and Instructional Technology UGA departments:

Admissions Office Small Business Development Center Office of Institutional Effectiveness Office of Institutional Research Office of Financial Aid Office of Service Learning Office of International Affairs Graduate School Controller’s Office

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An inside look at GTF’s professional “stimulus package”

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By Betz Kerley

t is said a teacher is always a learner and a learner is always a teacher. But the lessons and skills a modern teacher must learn are perpetually changing.

There may have never been a more challenging time to teach than in the 21st century. Juggling too many responsibilities with too little time, while dealing with needy students or facing immovable bureaucracies, is nothing new in academia. But now there are the added challenges of mastering advanced technologies in order to communicate more efficiently, of confronting the pressure to teach on-line when one’s comfort zone is defined by the bricks and Cynthia Alby (far left) and Marguerite Koepke (far right) with a group of 2009 Governor’s Teaching Fellows mortar of a traditional classroom, and of facing the sometimes-daunting reality of ever-tighter throughout the academic year, enrolling in an intensive budget constraints. The list keeps growing, and it can be summer symposium, or completing an academic year in overwhelming. The only way to combat the challenges and residence at the University of Georgia in Athens. Topics that stresses of this chaotic work life may be by developing a have been discussed in the past include student engagement, support system. Faculty members not only need to develop service learning ideas, instructional grant writing, leadership new skills throughout their careers, but they also need to issues in higher education, how to deliver quality instruction rediscover what inspired them to choose academic life in the online, the meaning of scholarship, and how scholarship first place. correlates to faculty satisfaction.

At the college level there may not be a better support “GTF is an opportunity for people to find a safe place system than IHE’s Governor’s Teaching Fellows (GTF) to freely and openly discuss problems, issues, opportunities, program. Established in 1995 things that have worked and by former Georgia Governor things that haven’t worked,“ Zell Miller, the GTF provides explains Koepke. The program Georgia’s higher education participants represent a broad faculty with expanded cross section of disciplines opportunities for developing and career stages, gender and important teaching skills. ethnicity.

“To our knowledge, no other “No two groups are program exactly like this exists the same, but predictably in the country” says Marguerite something good will come out Koepke, adjunct associate of every group,” says Koepke. professor of higher education and “When you get people who are director of the Institute’s GTF passionate about teaching and program. “This is a unique program that is open to all private want to do a better job, differences within the group tend to and public institutions in Georgia. They can be a two-year, fall away. They learn to look at things in a new way.” four-year, research institution or technical college. It is open to Fellow Lori Gann-Smith, professor of fashion design all faculty levels.” at Brenau University, explains that “having a room full of The GTF program accepts 12 to 14 Fellows out of an colleagues with varying points of view and perspectives on average of 40 applicants, for each academic year. Fellows teaching and learning made for an enriching experience every have the option of participating in a series of symposia held time we met.”

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Austin Lacy named Zell and Shirley Miller Graduate Fellow Marguerite Koepke, professor emerita of landscape architecture, has directed the Governor’s Teaching Fellows program since 2000. When asked what has been the greatest achievement during her tenure at the post, she replied, “Our growing number of applicants every year, and hearing back from college presidents how much they value the program.” She adds, “Because Fellows rejoin their academic communities armed with fresh ideas and new skills, you never know how many people the program will touch.”

Feedback from previous participants has been one of the strongest tools used to promote the program.

“GTF gave me the freedom to take some risks with ideas for class that had tumbled in my head but I had been afraid to try,” said Bobby Robinson, professor of humanities/English at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College and a 2008-09 Fellow. “I listened to my GTF colleagues talk about service learning projects, valuesbuilding projects, technology projects, and so on. I realized that I could apply them all in my own discipline, without fear that I had to anticipate every potential problem or have a plan for every conceivable situation.”

Fellow Jan Clark, associate professor of rhetoric at Georgia College and State University adds, “I learned new things about learning and teaching from all the experts they brought in, mastered new technologies—and almost liked it—and developed and implemented an original scholarly research project. GTF gave me a sense of belonging, of being liked, accepted and supported, and helped give me back my sense of self-efficacy as a teacher.”

Cynthia Alby, director of Foundations and Secondary Programs at Georgia College and State University, herself a former Fellow who now teaches in the GTF program, says “GTF made me feel honored to be a professor who puts the quality of my teaching first.”

Professor Koepke may have summed it up best when she said, “Our Fellows may come to the program to learn about advanced technology, but they leave with a sense of renewal. We want our faculty to find ways to maintain that sense of purpose and renewal. It’s our job to help them remember why teaching is so important.”

Teaching and learning, learning and teaching – ideally, we do both all our lives. But everyone can use a helping hand. Having a support system as sophisticated and flexible as the Governor’s Teaching Fellows program helps ensure that Georgia’s professors have access to the skills and tools they need to grow professionally throughout their careers.

To learn more about IHE’s Governor’s Teaching Fellows Program, go to www.uga.edu/ihe/gtf.html. 

A

ustin Lacy was named 2008-2009 Zell and Shirley Miller Graduate Fellow. The fellowship, established in 2006 to honor former Senator and Mrs. Miller for their contributions to higher education, is awarded to the graduate student who shows great promise for a future career in higher education. The professional development facet of the Miller Fellowship enabled Lacy to present a paper titled “Entrepreneurialism and the Traditional Roles of the University” at the University of Dublin conference on Innovation in Complex Social Systems.

A doctoral student working with Professor James Hearn, Lacy received his B.A. in Russian from the University of the South, and his M.Ed. from Vanderbilt University. As an undergraduate, he spent two consecutive summers in Russia, mostly in St. Petersburg, where he honed his language skills.

Before coming to the IHE, Lacy was a research specialist for Suntrust Bank and worked for 3 years in Student Affairs at the University of the South.

Lacy’s IHE assistantship has focused on Professor Hearn’s NSF grant and an NSF workshop in Washington D.C. with Professors Hearn and Slaughter. Lacy and Hearn recently coauthored a chapter in AERA’s Handbook of Education Policy Research titled “Governmental Policy and the Organization of Postsecondary Education.” In April, Lacy presented a paper at the Midwest Political Science Association. The paper titled “Analyzing the Origins and Spread of State ‘Eminent Scholars’ Programs” grew out of the grant and was coauthored with Professor Hearn and Professor Michael McLendon of Vanderbilt University. Lacy is currently working on two projects with Professor Hearn, one on states’adoption of stem cell policies and their intersections with universities, partisan politics, and other state-level factors, while the other attempts to correct the sample selection bias in data from the Association of Universities Technology Managers (AUTM).

Lacy plans to utilize both qualitative and quantitative methodology for his dissertation, which will be an assessment of the differences between states’ higher education governance structures. He stresses what the fellowship has meant to him: “Through the support of IHE and the Miller Scholar Fellowship I have been able to present a paper at a conference I otherwise would have been unable to attend. Attending the conference in Ireland has led to several opportunities that will further my professional development.” 

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Education Policy Seminars 2008-09 The Education Policy Seminars bring distinguished scholars to the Institute to address critical policy issues and cutting-edge research in higher education. Professor Christopher Morphew organizes the seminars, which are open to the entire campus.

The Role of Familism in Explaining the Hispanic-White College Application Gap

Ruth N. L贸pez Turley (above left), assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, is a sociologist interested in educational inequality, neighborhood effects, child poverty, race and ethnicity, stratification, and research methods.

Envisioning Black Colleges: A History of the United Negro College Fund

Marybeth Gasman (above right) associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is an historian of higher education. Her work explores issues pertaining to philanthropy and historically black colleges, black leadership, contemporary fundraising issues at black colleges, and African-American giving.

Ensuring that Public Higher Education Remains Affordable

David E. Shulenburger (right) is vice president for academic affairs for the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC). He is nationally recognized for his efforts to help the academic community understand the economics of scholarly communication and to reform the scholarly communication process.

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The Internationalization of Higher Education in the Context of Canadian Federalism

Glen A. Jones (left) is associate dean and professor of higher education at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on policy and politics of higher education in Canada including the relationships between institutions of higher education and government, the relationships between institutions, and the decisionmaking processes within these institutions.

From Constraint to Growth: Reconsidering the Narrative in Studies of Faculty

KerryAnn O’Meara (right) is associate professor of higher education at the University of Maryland. KerryAnn’s research explores academic structures and cultures that support faculty growth in community engagement and teaching.

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From Libby V. Morris, Director

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want to thank the many colleagues and supporters who gave generously to the Institute of Higher Education in the past year. Many of our programs and initiatives would not be possible without the contributions of our loyal donors.

For example, the Educational Policy Series, which brings higher education scholars to the Institute for lectures and collaboration, is a result of private giving. Student travel to conferences depends heavily on donated dollars. Recruitment of highly competitive faculty applicants is made possible with private funding. Faculty support in research is strengthened with private giving.

I know that the readers of the IHE Report understand development and its role in building a great university. It is no less important to build a great Institute of Higher Education.

I hope this publication shows the positive outcomes of your donations over the past several years. During this economic downturn, your contributions are vital for the Institute’s well being. Thank you, and please consider the Institute when you give and pledge to UGA in the upcoming year.

Gifts are essential to our continued growth in reputation and quality. If you wish to join others in making a taxdeductible contribution to one of the funds listed above, please use the envelope in this issue or visit our website at http://www.uga.edu/ihe/giving.html. Contact me by email, lvmorris@uga.edu, if I may answer any questions. I look forward to your notes keeping us informed of your activities throughout the year. 

IHE Funds Institute Arch Development Fund: Gifts to this fund assist in the continued development of the Institute of Higher Education as a leading unit of instruction, research, and public service. Donations are used to bring prominent scholars to UGA for the Educational Policy series and other programs and to assist students and faculty with conference and research-related activities.

Thomas G. Dyer Academic Support Fund: Established to honor Professor Dyer on the occasion of his retirement from the University of Georgia on December 1, 2006, following over three decades of distinguished faculty and administrative leadership. Dr. Dyer was university professor, professor of higher education and history, and director of the Institute of Higher Education. This fund supports the academic mission of the Institute, including the doctoral program in higher education, visiting scholars, and student programs and activities.

Louise McBee Professorship of Higher Education: The Louise McBee professorship of higher education was established in recognition of the quarter-century of distinguished service Dr. McBee rendered to the University of Georgia as faculty member and administrator and in recognition of her public service to the state of Georgia as a member of the Georgia General Assembly.

The McBee professorship sponsors the annual lecture each fall. Join us on November 12, 11:00 a.m., University Chapel, to hear Jamie Merisotis, President of the Lumina Foundation.

Zell and Shirley Miller Fellowship is awarded annually to a promising doctoral student in the Institute of Higher Education. The scholarly potential of the candidate together with an assessment of his/her academic record and professional achievement are considered in naming the recipient. The award supports the professional development of the Miller fellow.

Institute Graduates 2008 Mundia James Kahiga

Sue W. Henderson

Thomas H. Jackson, Jr.

Matthew R. Thompson Ines Beatriz Joseph Linn M. Storey Joy L. Blanchard

Angela D. Bell

Nichole H. Kennedy

Peter T. Snell

Wendy T. Thellman

Allison E. McWilliams

2009 M. Jan Whatley

Molly Corbett Broad, the first woman president of the American Council on Education, delivered the twentieth annual Louise McBee lecture, entitled “A Confluence of Challenging Trends” on November 14, 2008.

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Sean Brumfield

Haixia Xu

IHE

Faculty

Libby V. Morris

Arthur N. Dunning

Director and Professor of Higher Education

Professor of Higher Education and Vice President for Public Service and Outreach

Patricia L. Kalivoda

Marguerite Koepke

Adj. Assistant Professor, Higher Education; Associate Vice Pres.

Public Service and Outreach

Sheila Slaughter

Louise McBee Professor of Higher Education

Thomas G. Dyer

Vice President for Instruction Emeritus and University Professor Emeritus

Larry L. Leslie

James C. Hearn

Professor of Higher Education and Adj. Professor of Sociology

Erik C. Ness

Adj. Associate Professor, Higher Education

Distinguished Visiting Professor of Higher Education and Senior Fellow-in-Residence

Assistant Professor of Higher Education

J. Douglas Toma

Robert K. Toutkoushian

Karen Webber

Associate Professor of Higher Education and Adj. Associate Professor of Law

Professor of Higher Education

Associate Professor of Higher Education

Beijing, China Over the past several years, the Institute has developed close ties with leaders across Chinese higher education. In May 2008 an IHE delegation visited China to lay the foundation for a formal partnership with the higher education groups at Peking University and Beijing Normal University. This year, the Institute hosted a visiting scholar from Xiamen University, and Chinese professors from partner institutions will participate in the Executive Ed.D. program.

Institute of Higher Education Meigs Hall Athens, GA 30602-6772 www.uga.edu/ihe