bodner089

In my last few posts I’ve emphasized the need for branch campus leaders to immerse themselves in data, studying enrollment trends in order to better understand changes that are unfolding across the country.   Recognizing trends is fundamental to effective strategic thinking. I’ve suggested some simple ways of following trends, also urging leaders to aggressively tell the story of how their campus contributes to the local community and serves an audience that is quite distinct from those seeking either a traditional residential experience or a fully online program.   Nevertheless, despite my belief that branch campuses serve an important mission and audience, I am concerned about their future, even as I observe the creation of new branches every year. To begin with, the continuing growth of online enrollment is bound to affect branch campuses.   Across the country, institutions struggle to maintain enrollment and balance their budgets, with the result th...

Touching on several subjects, mostly personal: A few days ago I passed 20,000 views on this blog.   Given how long I’ve been posting, 20,000 is anything but “viral,” but it pleases me that some people either subscribe/follow or simply stumble on the blog, and from the feedback I receive find it to be helpful.   Nice. Originally I started this blog to provide a service to the National Association of Branch Campus Administrators (NABCA), as well as to help me organize my thoughts for a book I wanted to write.   That book, Out on a Limb:   A Branch Campus Life was published almost two years ago, and I’m pleased to see that it continues to sell, in both print and electronic versions on Amazon. Speaking of NABCA, if you haven’t attended the conference, you should consider doing so ( www.nabca.net ).   Unfortunately, it often isn’t until a person attends that he or she realizes how valuable it can be to meet other people working in the branch world...

I feel as if I should offer an end-of-the-year post, but I don’t see a lot of change in the past twelve months that would affect what I wrote last year.   (See http://branchcampus.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-few-end-of-year-thoughts-on-branch.html   and http://branchcampus.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-few-more-end-of-year-thoughts-about.html ) I do have a couple of suggestions for people interested in branch campuses.   First, in the past I wrote about immersing yourself in data.   It is only by digging into the information available to you that you can confidently identify trends.   It is equally important to take a “macro” view of things that are happening broadly, so that you can see the bigger picture beyond your own situation. If you are looking for that macro perspective, you might consider using Google Alerts.   I have an alert for “branch campus,” and nearly every afternoon I get an email with one or more hits from the Internet that mention ...

Perhaps you’ve seen articles about universities establishing branch campuses in other countries.   Check out this piece, which is the most informative I’ve seen on the subject: http://theconversation.com/universities-that-set-up-branch-campuses-in-other-countries-are-not-colonisers-46289 .   It was written by Nigel Healey, at Nottingham Trent University. Follow the links embedded in the article, and I think you’ll have a good overview of the trend.   Note that quite a few international branches have failed and, if you are associated with what I’ll call “domestic” branch campuses, you’ll also see that there are extra challenges that come with working internationally. The article mentions that universities in the United States currently have 50 international branches and United Kingdom universities have 27.   Other countries have smaller numbers, yielding a total of well over 200, in all.   Of course, these numbers are probably a tenth of the nu...

Years ago, when I was associate dean of the Mansfield Campus of Ohio State, I was talking with a department chair on the main campus who had been especially resistant to allowing one of our tenure track faculty members teach a course for which he appeared to be well qualified.   The chair said, “We have to be sure that the quality of a regional campus course is equivalent to that on the main campus.” I jumped on his use of the word “equivalent.”   “You mean,” I said, “We should make sure we have 300 or more students in introductory sections and make sure that we have TA’s teaching most of the lower division courses, rather than using full-time faculty?”   The chair was surprised by my directness, but I was tired of the nonsense.   It took some more work, but eventually the faculty member was cleared to teach the course. At about the same time, a local business leader and main campus alum challenged me on that same issue of quality.   My respon...

The 18 th annual conference of the National Association of Branch Campus Administrators (NABCA) was held in the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois, on April 15-18.   As perhaps the longest serving member who still attends, I thought it was the best conference yet.   The founders of NABCA should be proud of what they started, and as I told attendees, what NABCA has become is very much what the founders intended.   (I was not a founder, by the way.   I began attending the conference, then known as the Western Association, about five years after the launch.) This year, especially, I thought there was a spirit and collegiality that was remarkable.    Presentations were excellent, and the organization of the event was spot on.   Everyone involved in planning and executing the conference deserves praise, and I offer special congratulations to joyce gillie gossum (executive director), James McCaslin (president), Allison Fitzpatrick (conferen...