Thriving "Out on a Limb"

I consider myself to be an advocate for branch campuses.  At their best, branches create access and opportunity for individuals and contribute to the economic development of the communities they serve.  In Out on a Limb:  A Branch Campus Life I go into much more detail about why branches matter, but for present purposes the key point is that branches serve an audience that is different than the audiences served by a traditional main campus or by a fully online program.  There are excellent opportunities for campuses and programs to partner in multiple ways, but it is a mistake to overlook the differences.

Institutional leaders certainly recognize that the world of higher education is much more complicated and more competitive than it was just a few years ago.  Count me among those who believe that the financial/business models are broken, and the impact of technology has forever changed delivery options in ways that are exciting but also increase risk.  In my opinion, despite recognizing the issues, most leaders remain stuck in frames and practices that are unlikely to be effective in this “new world,” but that’s a story for another day.

The last few chapters of Out on a Limb are more explicitly strategic about the conditions that allow branch campuses to thrive and the likely challenges they will face in the future.    There are outstanding opportunities, but institutions need a comprehensive strategy that includes distinctive approaches for their traditional audience, for online programs, and for their satellite operations.

For branch campuses, I believe the greatest threat to growth occurs when the main campus attempts to control too many decisions that are better made locally, in the mistaken belief that they understand the branch audience or that they need to guard against branch campuses somehow undermining the institutional brand.  Prospective branch students are not the same as main campus prospects, and their priorities are quite different.

Specifically, I believe that course scheduling, marketing/recruitment, and those support services that are directly visible to students should be administered locally, whereas those that are more of the “backroom” sort, such as financial aid needs assessment, registrar, and bursar functions can most efficiently be centralized at the main campus.  Any given institution may vary somewhat from the ideal, but enrollment success depends on connecting effectively with the audience.

Failure to appreciate the perspectives and priorities of different audiences is a serious mistake.  For both online and branch programs it is important to give them enough independence to avoid getting trapped by the demands of the “production engine” (see Govindarajan and Trimble, 2010, The Other Side of Innovation), which will try to rein in anything that is truly innovative, simply because the established academic and administrative units will view that innovation as a distraction, perhaps as a threat, and for sure as inferior to their own efforts on behalf of the institution.  It isn’t easy to support entrepreneurship in an established organization, but those who thrive in the future will figure out how to make it happen.

Out on a Limb:  A Branch Campus Life is available in print and Kindle versions on amazon.com.  I hope you will check it out.

NABCA Conference for 2014

I attended the annual conference of the National Association of Branch Campus Administrators (NABCA) last week, and it was a great time.  The program was strong, but as usual a lot of the value in attending was the opportunity to network with people committed to the branch mission of providing access to higher education.

I presented a session, titled “Get Strategic to Compete:  New Directions for Branch Campuses” which turned out to be a lot of fun.  The audience was engaged and participated enthusiastically, which in turn gave me all the more energy for my topic.  In a later post I’ll share more about some of the new directions I’ve observed.

My book, Out on a Limb:  A Branch Campus Life was available for purchase at the conference, and I was pleased to have 34 copies picked up.  I also noticed an uptick in purchases of both print and Kindle versions on Amazon, so maybe word is getting around.  I’m not aware of any comparable book that is relatively comprehensive on the branch campus topic, but it is difficult to promote it in the absence of any sort of broad database covering branches.

In fact, I found sessions tied to members of the NABCA research committee to be especially interesting.  That committee has come a long ways over the last several years, and I noted enthusiasm for further steps.  The challenge simply to identify branch campuses and their characteristics is enormous. 

As one who has been around for most of NABCA’s existence, I felt real pride in the work of the current leadership.  I wish the original founders could have attended this year.  Their vision seems to have reached a tipping point, and the organization is definitely on a roll.  NABCA seeks to be a national, broad-based organization in support of branch campuses, and I was struck by the diversity of campus missions represented on the program, including both public and private institutions and growing participation from community colleges.

For years we hoped to establish a position of executive director to provide consistent leadership and better organization, and joyce gilley gossum is making a huge difference in that role.  My congratulations to joyce and to the members of the executive committee who hired her.  Susan Cooper, dean at California State University, Fullerton—Irvine Campus has been president for this past year, and her campus also hosted the conference:  Great job!  Leigh Atkinson, from Ohio University, was conference chair, and Allison Fitzpatrick, from Brookdale Community College was co-chair.  They and their committee had everything well organized, and if there were any glitches, I didn’t notice them.

If you see this post, then by all means track down NABCA.  You can become a member, “friend” NABCA on Facebook, and join their LinkedIn group.  Check out www.nabca.net and keep returning, because things are moving ahead quickly.