UB Buzz

Online Summer Reading

Four "Online Only" articles accompany the July/August 2009 issue of University Business magazine.

In higher education, digital signage can be applied to just about any need for communicating information. In "Digital Signage for Education," Andrea Waldin, vice president of marketing for Scala, provides the technical how to on what makes digital signage effective and how administrators can get started on establishing their needs for a system. Waldin provides two examples of this application in use at Utah Valley University and State University of New York in Binghamton.

With the fallout of significant budget cuts at public universities, it can be hard to find a silver lining. However, Brian Mueller, CEO of Grand Canyon University (Ariz.), argues there is a success model: private, market-driven higher education. He writes in his piece, "Down Economy Presents Opportunity for Private, Market-Funded Universities," that since these institutions are operated by investors and owners, and do not rely on government funding from tax monies, a market-driven university is compelled to adapt to changing economic and social trends for long-term sustainability.

Feel confident your campus emergency plans are effective? In "Continuity Planning and Crisis Communications – Their Dual Role in Campus Evacuations," Tim Patterson and Matthew Rose find that one of unconsidered factors in emergency planning is the integration between the operational/logistical response and the communications response. These functions, they say, should go hand-in-hand. Patterson is president of Paratus and Rose is executive vice president and global corporate communications practice leader for MWW Group.

The more students for-profit colleges can retain, the more they obtain degrees and help make these institutions financially successful. Neal Raisman, president of AcademicMAPS, provides data and insight on this lesson in his piece, "Why Students Are Leaving Your College or University."

A Benchmark for Progress

With the Post-9/11 GI Bill to take effect on August 1, a new report tries to give higher ed institutions a benchmark for measuring their to-date progress on preparing for veteran enrollments.

Based on data from 723 participants, "From Soldier to Student: Easing the Transition of Service Members on Campus" is to provide a view into what campus programs, services, and policies are in place and what areas need improvement.

"Our findings suggest that institutions are increasingly aware of the complex needs of veterans and military personnel pursuing postsecondary education programs and are concerned with how best to meet those needs," states Kathy M. Snead, president of the SOC (Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges) Consortium, in a media release.

The report finds that 57 percent of respondents currently provide veteran-related programs and services geared to service members and veterans, while 60 percent view them as part of their long-term strategic plans.

Among the areas where higher education is cited as meeting the needs of military students are:

• Recognizing prior military experience. Eighty-one percent of the report's respondents award college credit for military training.
• Assisting military students with finding appropriate counseling services. Eighty-five percent of campus counseling centers at these institutions coordinate and refer students to off-campus services when necessary.
• Providing financial accommodations for students who are called to active duty. Seventy-nine percent have an established policy for refunding tuition for military activations and deployments.
• Assisting veterans with their education benefits. Eighty-two percent provide Department of Veterans Affairs education benefits counseling for military students.

In contrast, areas in which higher education can improve their efforts include:

• Assisting military students with their transition to college. Only 22 percent of these postsecondary institutions provide transition assistance.
• Providing professional development for faculty and staff on transitional needs. Approximately two out of five schools provide training to them to be better able to assist military students with their transition.
• Training staff to meet the needs of students with brain injuries and other disabilities. Twenty-three percent have staff who are trained to assist vets with brain injuries and 33 percent have staff trained to assist veterans with other physical disabilities.
• Providing opportunities for veterans to connect with their peers. Only 32 percent have a club or other organization for them.

The report resulted from a collaboration between the SOC, American Council on Education, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, NASPA - Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, and the National Association of Veterans' Program Administrators. The Lumina Foundation for Education supported the project.

The report is available for download here.

University Business reported on similar efforts by other institutions in its current issue, which can be read here.

Nearly Four in 10 Higher Ed Employees Delaying Retirement

College and university employees are delaying retirement these days, according to findings from an ongoing TIAA-CREF Institute tracking study to measure the impact of financial market developments on retirement planning.

Conducted in March 2009, the study of investors age 50 and older reveals that nearly four in 10 (37%) say they have delayed their planned date of retirement (up from 33% a month earlier and from 28% in October 2008).

At a recent TIAA-CREF Institute Fellows Symposium entitled “Managing Risk in a Market Meltdown” the Institute presented these latest results.

Varying views on evaluating financial preparedness for retirement were discussed.  While traditional media report only about a quarter of baby boomers will be prepared financially for  life after they retire, a growing line of research indicates that the baby boom generation may be better prepared than conventional wisdom suggests.

Speaker Thomas Rietz, associate professor of finance at The University of Iowa, posed the question of how the risk should be presented to individuals investing for retirement. Rietz explained that people do seem to understand the concept of investment risk and to care about it, but need an environment that makes the risk they face more salient to the outcome they will achieve. His research indicates that the right information presented the right way has the ability to create such an environment and improve the choices made by investors. Rietz raised the possibility of laying out for investors the entire distribution of investment outcomes, not investment returns.

With more campus employees postponing retirement and uncertainty about the future, higher education leaders are examining new ways to manage employee retirement patterns, including:
• Early retirement incentive programs with clear goals and targets
• Coverage of healthcare expenses during retirement. TIAA-CREF recently introduced a potential solution, The Retiree Healthcare Savings Plan, a voluntary employer-sponsored defined-contribution savings account that offers a tax advantaged way for employees and retirees to accumulate funds to pay for future medical and health expenses.
• Increasing employees’ base salaries or giving instructors fewer courses to teach in exchange for an irrevocable declaration that they will retire within a certain time period
• Allowing faculty who reach 70 to continue being a member of the intellectual community; e.g., senior faculty members stop drawing a salary but retain their office, participate in seminars and teach courses
• A pay-for-performance system that allows rookie faculty to earn more than tenured faculty if requirements are met
• Buying back tenure from older faculty members with a lump sum cash payment
• Offering online communities for retirees. For example, TIAA-CREF created www.myretirement.org last year – one example of providing individuals with an outlet to talk with other retirees about financial issues as well as travel, family and living in retirement.

Summer Reading

It's that time of year. Although I've been out of school for many years, I will probably always associate summer with reading assignments. What do college presidents assign for themselves?

“When reading purely to relax I enjoy biographies. I suppose it might relate to my education and past work in theatre, but biographies allow me to wear other people’s skin for awhile. I find that can also be useful as president as well,” says Maravene Loeshcke, president of Mansfield University (Pa.). “This summer I hope to start with the biography of Andrew Jackson American Lion, the new book on Ted Kennedy and one on Ethel Merman.”

Here’s a sampling of some other brainy books college presidents plan to spend time with this season:

President Lex O. McMillan, Albright College (Pa.)

• Ike by Michael Korda
• The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason
• American Lion by Jon Meacham
• Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo
• The Age of the Unthinkable by Joshua Cooper Ramo

President Ray Ferrero, Nova Southeastern University (Fla.).:

• Flags of our Fathers by James Bradley
• The Prince of Darkness by Robert D. Novak
• The Last Lion: William Spencer Churchill by William Manchester

President Mike Maxey, Roanoke College (Va.):

• American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation by Jon Meacham
• Big Russ and Me by Timothy J. Russert
• Columbine by Dave Cullen
• A Link among the Days; the Life and Times of the Rev. Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin, the Father of Colonial Williamsburg by Dennis Montgomery. (Goodwin, an 1889 graduate of Roanoke College, began the effort to restore and preserve Williamsburg).

President Kim Phipps, Messiah College (Pa.):

• How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In by Jim Collins
• Blue Ocean Strategies: How To Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renee Marborgne
• An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Bradford Taylor
• Falls the Shadow by Sharon Kay Penman

Any campus administrators up for sharing their own to-read lists for the summer?