higher education assignment

A new president has been selected to run your university. His first initiative is to impose a new strategic direction that focuses on three key priorities:

1. Increasing student engagement

1. Integrating information technology into programs and services

1. Developing measurable learning outcomes

This has the potential to change a number of operations, priorities, and the allocation of resources in your department.

Identify your Department:

Hybrid/E-learning

New Departmental Priorities:

How might these new institutional objectives impact your department?

Create higher enrollment, decrease cost of adjunct faculty, create measurable data as all work is turned in online decreasing subjectivity and feelings of unfairness.

Determine the new priorities the department would need to pursue to meet the institution’s new strategic direction.

Making technology as part of the institutional goal (integration and implementation) is necessarily in order to show what the school is doing with these new programs and why they are beneficial and/or better than traditional learning.

Identify new initiatives to be undertaken and explain how they align with the department’s new goals

Free seminars about hybrid learning geared towards those who work and go school. Although a benefit for all, the older people are the more convincing they may need to think this non traditional way of learning is best for them.

Peer to Peer computer competency classes could be added in order to help those struggling with technology implementation.

Recommend Proposals:

Develop two proposals that reflect the new priorities and initiatives.

Students will now be able to choose one class per week to attend and the other they can do online. They will have the choice of an evening course or in the morning depending on student preferences. This will allow twice as many students and a 40 percent budget cut in faculty hours.

Campus wide seminars held for freshman and sophomores explaining what their new options are. This will allow the students to see their current college and incoming students to see their new colleges efforts to be tech savvy and able to accommodate a more diverse schedule than before.

Identify the purpose of these proposals, and describe the relationship of these proposals to the institution’s new strategic direction. How will these proposals contribute toward the achievement of the new strategic priorities?

The purpose of these proposals is to increase student engagement, integrating IT programs and develop measurable outcomes. As hybrid learning create more than just an attendance mandate, but active weekly participation students will be more engaged with their learning. While in the classroom students will have already completed the same work and students will be able to participate more in the class discussions.

The technology implemented will also allow students some flexibility in regards to their schedules, overall increasing enrollment. E learning creates a special type of data collection that is normally not able to be assed such as time spent on activities and weakness identification to find out early on if students are in need of special attention in order to adept to their new program.

Quantifying what students do online can be a big indicator of success in regards to their future. Creating mandatory hybrid and classroom time also ensures authenticity in the work as well as being able to gage what students find useful in the online programs offered. This can be used to get rid of erroneous materials as well as highlight for the University what is can do to show off its new IT programs and their success.

PART 2: Resource Allocation

Consider how your department should reallocate resources to meet the new initiatives you have identified, how these initiatives should be funded, and how a change in operations should be assessed given the new priorities.

Resource Allocation:

How should your department determine genuine needs and priorities?

As the institutional priorities have changed, the budget should also reflect this change. As new programs will become online, our budget should offer promotions for long distance learning, lower initial costs as classroom sizes can be larger. The department should also launch a team to begin to create assessments for qualitative and quantitative data across campus as well as create a budget for promotions within the city to create awareness about the new programs.

What you will do with resources should you get a windfall?

There must be an expansion of classroom space if a windfall were to occur. In order to allow the university to sustain itself after looking at the previous year’s budget, auxiliary resources may have to be reduced as well. With these two strategies we can increase enrollment and utilized other spaces (other Universities, parking lots etc.), we will be able to cut costs for the short to mid term.

What cuts will you make should you have a major budget cut?

If a major budget cut occurs, we must first look at our data to see how effective various programs are and if we need to increase funding by fundraising. There may be need to also rent out our own building to some religious NGO’s on Sundays in order to create new revenue streams. Using the same team that gathered data for some of our short to midterm cost saving, let’s check and see how effective those programs have been. Student Services will have to be reduced in order to save money and research time and funding may need to be reduced to allow for tenured faculty to teach more, decreasing the amount of adjunct professors needed.

Identify two competing priorities. What criteria would you use in assessing priority? How would you ensure equitability and fairness?

Cost cutting and student services cuts are one of many conflicts that may arise. Students should feel important in the process. Allowing students to participate via surveys as well as faculties and promoting think tanks are several ways in which we could address what feels fair as we are allowing everyone to participate together.

Funding:

How would you creatively find resources and funding or reallocate resources? What new funding sources would you consider, and why?

Enrollment services should begin to expand its net and possibly a look towards international students as well. Possibly going further than the hybrid learning and doing some full e-courses to create a new line of revenue. Additional funding could also be sought after from the board.

Fundraising and partnering with outside Universities in order to recruit students abroad may also be a good source of funding. Hiring an efficiency expect could also help us maximize our profits in order to have outside eyes looking in so that we know where money can be saved and objectively see what needs to be done.

How would you communicate your priority budget needs persuasively to upper management?

Given that we have gathered a large amount of data from faculty and students as well as having an objective opinion could guide our University into a much more efficient institution as well as cutting down on perceived cuts as being personal as we have included everyone in the process.

Data speaks louder than words, and if we can combine all the variables gathered, we can propose objectively what needs to be done in order to communicate our budget priorities while expressing our need to be in line with our school’s mission.

Assessment:

How will you assess your effectiveness as a department given the new priorities? How would you measure success?

Just as we began the process, we must have continued evaluations, especially among the freshman. Following this cohort will allow us to asses the general feeling of how the budget has effected students and faculty but simply looking at the numbers and seeing if enrollment is up and where we are doing best would show our effectiveness within the department. Our measurement of success can also be gaged by using focus groups and seeing if overall perception of the changes has been positive or negative, also revealing potential flaws from the original plan.

How will you evaluate the effectiveness of the department’s proposals?

Each proposal that is implemented will have a management team composed of faculty and staff. Having an efficiency expert that has given us suggested changes, being sure we implemented those changes and seeing how effective they are by reassessing these changes would give us a broad view of the success of the proposals. Continuously including students and staff to produce data through surveys can give us the temperature at any given time as well.

PART 3: Collaboration and Implementation

Examine the process of planning and collaboration needed to implement your department’s initiatives, and assess the impact of your department’s new operations on other departments.

Collaboration:

Describe how you will need to collaborate and consult with colleagues within and across departments.

When the budget cuts are being implemented, it is important for those in other departments to participate. Many have experience in other fields that are not utilized in what they currently do. It can still give additional insight and resources previously unknown by the department. Change coming from within is always a strong way to collaborate and create lasting change and utilizing all possible resources is paramount at this point. This allows for all characters to feel included and contribute more than they normally would.

What kind of strategic partnerships will you develop to ensure a more competitive and financially sound department? What resources and support would you seek from these partnerships?

As mentioned before, partnering with other Universities that are not in direct competition form abroad could allow for an influx of money for the Universities. Students from other countries typically have to pay higher tuition rates and keep classroom space open as well as larger class sizes. Partnering with surrounding businesses for parking space or renting out space when it is not being used are all ways that partnerships can grow between other institutions. Offering fundraising events that also promote other potential partners is a great way to establish bridges that can be used later and also combine to create a net of responses when the University is in a crisis.

Planning

Briefly describe the strategies anticipated for implementing your department’s proposals, considering the budget cycle, factors that affect the budget process, and the structure of financial management.

To implement the departments proposals, we must first check the previous budget and see where we have come from and the things that are cut should have low impact on the current student body while keeping the school in line with its mission.

The budget process will have to undergo major changes which need to pass through financial management. There should be safeguards in case the program fails as well as a positive flow of money in the proposal in order to convince management this is a viable solution. Having the data already collected and seeing the budget costs of implementation verses live classroom time and space are clear, the University will save money and the budget should reflect this for the up and coming semester.

What are some challenges and opportunities in the process of planning and management?

Hurt feelings may be one of the things that is not quantifiable here. Hurt feelings by non tenured faculty or unheard voices from places we did not think to ask. Every time something is cut someone is affected. Change is always uncomfortable, so being able to accommodate those willing to change in the process as much as possible, while at the same time knowing when others are against change is important to reduce the challenges and help exploit those who really shine to be using their full potential in the process.

What options exist within the department and institution if you are faced with unanticipated and unbudgeted major expense?

As the institution has built this safety net within this department already, this could be a guide for the whole institution itself. As those who have specialized skills are realized and erroneous programs are prioritized, as we also know what the students and faculty think about said chances through surveys and focus groups, we can cut services without having to do discovery again. This could be a cost saving tool for the whole institution and each department can benefit as the current department included others in its initial cuts for this program.

Impact on other departments:

Describe the potential impact of your department’s proposals on other programs, departments, faculty, and staff. Describe your plan to address any anticipated impact.

I imagine that the University will grow but uncomfortably. As adding technology into the classroom may be a challenge for some professors, causing them to have to step up into the process or potentially leave, I do believe the best of the best will rise to the top. Other programs will see that how E learning and distant learning can promote growth within every department and that it is an untapped market for the school itself in which it should be exploiting. There are now new resources and examples for other departments to use in order to grow their programs as well. Although each one may look different, the framework will be created in order to trigger certain mechanisms that enact change in the short term as well as the long term. It is also important to keep in line with the schools mission and this could also be more of a push for other departments to do the same.