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The 19 th meeting of the National Association of Branch Campus Administrators (NABCA) was held in Delaware last week, and as usual, it was a fine success.   The meeting was hosted by Wilmington University, with attendance approaching 100 individuals.   Special credit goes to our extraordinary executive director, joyce gilley gossum, as well as to President Faimous Harrison, Conference Chair Rebecca Burton, Vice Chair Ali Crane, and site hosts Melanie Baldwin and Tom Hurd. The program was excellent, as we’ve come to expect.   In particular, the two keynote addresses were both entertaining and inspiring.   On Thursday, educator Scott Paine spoke on “Where the Story Begins,” and on Friday, we heard from adventurer Matt McFadyen,   “Journey to the End of the Earth.”   Neither speaker was specifically addressing branch campuses or their issues, but they gave us a lot to think about.   Good decisions by the program committee! I continue t...

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...

Continuing my end-of-the-year observations, I urge you to spend a lot of time studying your budget.   Take a close look at the gross revenue generated at your campus, as well as your direct costs of delivery.   (By direct costs I mean actual costs of instruction, local staff and facilities.   Do not include any overhead or other charges levied by the main campus.)   In most cases that I’ve seen, the net revenue per student credit hour is significantly positive.   In fact, generally, the net revenue is higher at branches than at a residential main campus, precisely because the branch has a more focused, limited mission. Your main campus finance people may insist that you consider allocated costs from the main campus, such as for admissions and financial aid support, registrar, and so on.   For some purposes they are absolutely correct, but at the same time, you should know that the overhead you pay (or the branch income they keep) probably...

I post infrequently on this blog, especially since the publication of my book, Out on a Limb .   I’m pleased that people are finding the book through Internet searches and word of mouth, as well as through their connection to NABCA ( www.nabca.net ).   For that matter, I’m also pleased that I occasionally hear from someone who has discovered this blog and found it useful. As I continue to scan the environment, visit various campuses, and think about branch campus issues, I will occasionally comment on what I observe, although I may wind up repeating ideas I’ve expressed before.   Thus, here are a few end-of-year observations. First, I feel increasingly frustrated by the failure of most institutions to fully exploit the strategic potential of their branch campuses.   (Check out this post: http://branchcampus.blogspot.com/2013/04/revisiting-revenue-sharing-and.html .)   The branch campus audience is not the same as that on a residential main cam...

Last time I wrote about planting seeds and suggested that the mission of branch campuses is to plant seeds in the lives of their students and then nurture their growth.   Keep in mind, however, that a “campus” is just a place; it is people who plant and nurture those seeds.   In that context, I want to acknowledge the importance of individuals who had the vision and determination to establish those branches and launch the opportunity for their contribution.   Anywhere you see a branch campus, you can be sure that the campus reflects someone’s vision for reaching out to serve place bound students.   The motivation for that vision may have been financial, political, or pushed by some other force.   Regardless, a seed was planted, an idea was nourished, and it made a difference. I feel drawn to offer a “shout out” to a few individuals who launched and built Ohio University’s branch campuses.   None of these men has a branch building, let alone a campus n...

A couple of years ago I wrote a post for my Creating the Future blog, titled “Coaching, Consulting, and the Planting of Seeds.”   If you are interested, you can find it at http://drcharlesbird.com/creatingthefuture/2012/03/coaching-consulting-and-the-planting-of-seeds/ . I mention it because four years into my encore career I’ve found myself feeling more and more as if planting seeds has been the underlying significance of almost everything I’ve done.   I enjoy the variety of professional activities that fill up my days, from consulting, coaching and speaking, to writing my blog posts and (at long last) finishing my book on branch campuses.   Looking back, I also enjoyed teaching and administration, which surely are seed planting endeavors.   I maintain that the mission of branch campuses is access and outreach, providing opportunities for students to pursue their dreams.   Although online programs may be changing things, branches often are t...

I’ve mentioned this before, but it interests me that the most read post on this blog is the very first one, which followed an opening introduction.   That post concerned branch campus characteristics, and it has been viewed more than twice as often as any other.   It can be seen at http://branchcampus.blogspot.com/2007/07/characteristics-of-branch-campus.html .   Dating back to 2007, it continues to get regular hits, which I assume means that I chose a good title that shows up on Google searches. Other frequently and persistently viewed posts mostly relate either to some aspect of branch characteristics, or to financial matters and revenue sharing.   With regard to branch characteristics, in presentations at NABCA and RBCA this year I discussed some emerging trends that I believe are worth watching.   (As usual, what I have to say represents personal observation, rather than any sort of systematic data collection.) One trend is to open branche...

Continuing to share from my personal experiences, I’ve been fortunate to visit a wide range of branch campuses both across the United States and internationally (Hong Kong, Russia, Mexico and Canada).   Some of the domestic visits tied to meetings of NABCA or RBCA, whereas others were consulting jobs, mostly over the last five years. The consulting work shaped my understanding and opinions more than I expected.   In the absence of a substantial literature or research that identifies best practices, institutions developed branches for their own reasons at varying times in their history.   Every institution I visited had a unique story to tell.   There were common themes, of course, such as struggling to bring programs from the main campus, wrestling with interference from certain main campus offices that think they know more about the branch audience than the people who work there, and making sure that courses and class schedules actually meet stude...

Perhaps the most interesting career transition for me came with my promotion to vice president at Ohio University.   In that position, I was responsible for five campuses, with a combined enrollment (at the time) of approximately 9000 students.   Each campus had a dean, as well as local faculty and support staff.   In addition, I was responsible for the Division of Lifelong Learning, which supported a variety of programs, including paper-based correspondence courses, summer programs, conferences and workshops, and other activities.   In fact, we had a center in Hong Kong that reported to the dean of Lifelong Learning, so in a sense, we even had a branch on the other side of the world.   Later, we also provided administrative support for online courses and programs, which drew my work in new directions. Although having a vice president specifically focused on branch campuses and other outreach programs may not be unique, I do believe it is rela...

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...