One
thing about change is sure. It does not take place or if it does it is
very very slow in higher education. I recall a study done by some
professors at the University of Pennsylvania in the 80’s which showed
that higher education changes seven times slower than business and that
was on issues such as technology that all agreed with. (Sorry, I lost
the study but if anyone knows of it I would love to hear so I can get it
again.) Imagine how slow change can be on issues that are even slightly
controversial? Such as changing the culture of a school to embrace
student success above research and personal success? To place student
learning and teaching at least on a par with research? To actually get
colleges and universities to embrace the idea that it is not enough to
simply admit a student, that student has to really be taught and
retained to graduation? To embrace Principle 15 of the Principles of
Good Academic Customer Service – Actually give as big a damn about graduating students as recruiting them. (If you’d like a copy of the 15 Principles of Good Academic Customer Service, just ask for them at info@GreatServiceMatters.com)
Somehow
we have this attitude that it is okay and even good to have students
failing and leaving a school. The old “look to your right, look to your
left…” Somehow losing students by the left and right establishes a
university or college as a tough school and academically valid. That is
not so and needs to change. If that were so then schools such as Dalton
State, Golden Gate University, Baker College, the University of Phoenix
and over 1,000 others would have to be really great schools since they
graduate far less than 30% of their students in six years. While
universities such as Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and Davidson would be
weak schools because they graduate over 90% of their students in six
years. Talk about an upside down idea!
Lose Students: Lose Money
What
losing students does establish is that the school is losing money;
leaving millions of tuition dollars on the table as students walk out,
drop out, stop out and get out. Every student that leaves takes tuition
and fee dollars with him. That is not just pocket change, but dollars.
It is highly likely that your college or university is losing millions
of dollars a year due to attrition as a study of 1668 colleges and
universities I recently completed shows. If you want to find out how
much your school is losing from attrition just ask me (Nealr@greatservicematters.com)
So
it is important for any college or university which is to focus a bit
on its revenue and budget to also realize that it would have to change
its attitudes and culture. That is not easy to do. Not easy but
necessary. Sorry to be so blatant on this point but to increase revenue
and not have to keep cutting into the muscles and sinews that hold the
college together, it will be necessary to focus on retention. It will
thus be necessary to focus on student success above all else. Not just
retaining at any cost but retaining by helping students succeed. That
also means that the culture will have to change from a “research first”
culture to a students first. It will be necessary to move from “this
would be a great place to work if it weren’t for the students” to this
is a great place to work because of the students.” Colleges and
universities will have to move from churn and burn to learn and earn.
These
will all be major cultural shifts that will demand changing beliefs,
practices, habits, traditions, folkways and attitudes of all the members
of the school from the lowest adjunct pariah through the administrator Brahmin caste.
This would not be easy. It will demand strength of vision, tenacity,
sensitivity, patience, and at times the strength of purpose to take a
chance moving forward. These unfortunately are not always qualities we
ascribe to out leaders in some schools. Nor are they qualities that we
attribute to some key members groups for success such as faculty who
have an interest in a vested academic power structure built ion research
and recognition. Turning around the good ship Academia is not easy but
it has to be done.
The Heat of Budget Cuts Could Melt the Culture
Change
as we learn from organizational development requires something to
happen. Some event or situation that causes enough “heat” to unfreeze
the organization. When the organization is unfrozen it might be able to
start to make some changes required to reshape it into a new
organization with perhaps different mission or purpose. Granted it is
very difficult to “unfreeze” higher education as a result of tenure.
Tenure isolates a key group i.e. tenured faculty who hold the power
among the faculty in general and much of the college at large. Tenured
faculty are largely personally immune to the heat of budget and
personnel cuts that have made others in academia feel the heat. They
cannot be dismissed due to revenue reductions as students continue to
stream out the exit with their tuition money. Tenure keeps them as
almost untouchable. Sort of ironic in that Brahmins have become the
untouchables because they are Brahmins!
Years
ago, my wife and I were driving across the US heading to Boston to
bring our new daughter to meet her grandparents. As we drove, there was a
news story about some homeless people who froze to death in the cold. I
quickly questioned why no one did anything to help them? Aileen hauled
off and punched me in the arm. “Ow” I yelled to which Aileen said “I
didn’t feel a thing.” This is the situation in many colleges and
universities which keeps them from unfreezing even in the face of
revenue reductions that are causing cuts that are hurting students more
and more every day. But because of tenure, many faculty who can control
change are not directly feeling the heat. Yes, they do feel when people
are let go. They feel the cuts in equipment, release hours travel funds,
staff, etc. They are not heartless or impervious to the cuts but they
are protected. This makes change even more difficult since the mind of
the faculty is usually the consciousness of the institution unless the
leadership is really committed to an idea or goal that can pull tenured
faculty along.
Change
might take place now since there is the ever-hotter potentially
unfreezing effect of revenue reductions and cuts in almost every college
and university in the country. This is a time when leadership can make
a clear and clarion case for focusing more on students and a bit less
on research; focusing more on revenue and budget growth than
expenditures and cuts. But it will demand that leadership show the
college what’s in it for them and maintain a clear and consistent
message. Presidents should be willing to do this since they should be
rather fatigued at cutting budgets and trying to explain the cuts while
having to place reductions in the best light possible when the first
thing to go was the light bulb.
The
campus should also be fatigued from hearing and absorbing the cuts. The
members of the campus community should be ready to embrace some change
even though they will simultaneously resist that same change hoping all
will go back to the good old days of the nineties which may not have
realty been all that good anyway.
This
is a time for presidents, boards and college communities to draft
customer-centric, thus student success centric plans to focus on
students as a primary and actual activity. Yes, missions all say
something about student being our most important business but that has
not been true on most campuses for many, many years now.
The
budget crises hitting higher education demand change and the best way
to affect change that will also increase revenue is becoming student
graduation-centric. The more students that stay in school and graduate,
the greater the rewards –monetarily and mission-wise. And it is not a
time for the usually glacially slow change of college. The reductions in
budgets are so severe that to wait too long to embrace change will only
expose the college to greater damage.
The time to change is now. The change needed is to focus on retention and student success.
IF
THIS ARTICLE MAKES SENSE TO YOU, YOU WILL WANT TO OBTAIN A COPY
OF THE BEST-SELLING BOOK ON RETENTION AND ACADEMIC CUSTOMER
SERVICE THE POWER OF RETENTION: MORE CUSTOMER SERVICE IN HIGHER EDUCATION by clicking here
NRaisman & Associates is the leader in increasing student
retention, enrollment and revenue through workshops,
presentations, research, training and academic customer service
solutions for colleges, universities and career colleges in the
US, Canada, and Europe as well as businesses that work with them
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