Professional Organizations Supporting Academy-Business Partnerships

This chapter explores four categories of organizations that support academy-business partnerships. First, there are general organizations that guide higher education behavior in academy-business partnerships. This area also includes third-party accrediting agencies and rankings. Second, there are also general organizations that guide business-industry relationships in academy-business partnerships. Some in this area also include third-party indices and ratings of businesses and corporations. Third, some support organizations emphasize human resource, human capital, or talent and skill development including career services and relationships with professional associations, student clubs, honor societies, and alumni relations. Finally, some organizations are research and/or commercialization related for technology transfer. While these supporting organizations are independent, they periodically interact to share ideas and best practices.

Testing Assessments of Integrated Experiential Learning

Design thinking is a powerful platform that provides the structure and process to measure integrated experiential learning (IEL). IEL situates the activities of experiential learning in an interdisciplinary setting that facilitates learning through reflection on experiences that engage deep knowledge in broad applications and span co-curricular and curricular environments. Using courses developed at two institutions as case studies, the authors describe pedagogy, instruction, and assessment methods, and focus the data types, collection, analysis, and implications of three assessment approaches (reflections, networks, and deliverables). They show how design thinking is essential to the assessment of IEL in courses and across institutional stakeholders, including student and academic affairs, alumni relations, employers and local businesses, and those focused on data for improvement in design (e.g., institutional research and legislators). Moreover, they show that the assessment phase of design thinking is essential to sustainability, scalability, and rigor of design thinking IEL projects.

The Constant Search for New Sustainable Funding Sources for Public Universities

Although publicly-funded universities receive financial support from governments for teaching, research and infrastructure, they require additional sources of income in order to survive and thrive, and particularly to allow innovation and strategic development. It is amongst the responsibilities of the university leadership to ensure financial viability and to seek novel sources of funding, tasks for which they are not always well-trained. In this chapter, the author draws on his experience as a university leader on two continents to illustrate the possibilities as well as some of the hurdles and challenges. The chapter includes sections on philanthropy; alumni relations; industry/business relationships; commercialisation of research; and digital technologies & future horizons. Universities need to diversify their income streams, invest to succeed and get better at demonstrating their societal worth. Education is one of the most powerful tools of social and economic mobility. The world needs us to succeed!

Looking Inside the Strategic Plans: Strengths and Weaknesses of Turkish Higher Education Institutions

As strengths and weaknesses are regarded as internal features of an organization, the present study focused on strengths and weaknesses of Turkish public universities by analyzing the SWOTs (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) of twenty higher education institutions. By applying qualitative content analytical tools, we tried to make some comparisons, twenty universities, ten ranked at the top and ten at the bottom of the URAP list, were chosen to analyze the strengths and weaknesses. Findings show that all universities top or bottom ones have internal strengths and weaknesses on their own. The strengths of universities differ according to their size, field of service, structure, history and geographical locations. Top universities which are in big size, have a deeply rooted history and situated in a better geographical location can enjoy the strengths as qualified faculty members, organizational culture, internationalization process, infrastructure and good alumni relations. On the other hand, bottom universities which have not got those advantages deal with other strengths such as young faculty members, organizational support and internal communication. As for the weaknesses, top universities need more budget and acceptable rate of faculty member and student. Bottom ones need more qualified faculty members, students and staff. As they are located in disadvantageous regions, they are in need of some promotions to attract faculties, staff, national and international students. In addition, they also should be aware of the contributions of good alumni relations.

Understanding Alumni Relations Programs in Community Colleges

The purpose for conducting the study was to explore and describe the use of alumni societies and associations in community colleges, particularly focusing on the intended outcome of their implementation. To collect data for the study, a research-team developed survey instrument was distributed electronically to 250 community college advancement senior leaders. A total of 106 (42%) usable surveys were returned for use in the study. The results of the data collection and analysis described community college expectations for alumni societies, and that this expectation was primarily focused on fundraising. The societies were also critical, however, in career placement for students, developing career-oriented programs, and reviewing curricula. Survey results also indicated that many community college leaders use alumni societies in creative ways, including assisting in faculty searches, hosting recruitment events, and teaching community education (lifelong learning) courses. Study findings are critical for college leaders who are often faced with difficulties in funding existing or new programing. The respondents to the study illustrated how alumni societies can serve as critical catalysts for improving existing programs and expanding the reach and value of the institution. Findings also suggest that alumni societies are perceived to be strong gateways to developing philanthropic support for institutions.