bodner089

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...

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 comparabl...