bodner089

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...

No matter how much disruption and change I see coming, I want branch campuses to thrive.   Long before I explored the concept of disruptive change, I argued that university branch campuses, at least in Ohio, had many advantages over main campuses, especially for first generation students, adult learners, and others for whom we were a good fit.   Moreover, branches offer opportunity and support that are important to many people, and they tend to engage with their communities in meaningful ways. Today, I believe branches continue to have an important role, although exactly how it is expressed may change in significant ways.   The catch is that branches face so much more competition and risk than ever before.   As a result, I expect to see some branches go under, even as new branches are created.   Successful branches will do a great job of market research and position themselves to serve specific audiences.   Although they will excel at ser...

Let us sing the praises of outreach centers! When I started this blog, I wrote about the difference between branch campuses and centers. Briefly, a campus (according to me, among others) offers complete or nearly complete programs and has a permanent facility. There is a local administration, providing a reasonably wide range of student services and support programs, although not the range one would see at the main campus. It has a resident faculty, but curriculum control and the establishment of minimum faculty credentials come primarily from the main campus. Not all branch campuses meet all of these criteria, but the description is typical. Outreach centers have a more restricted range of programs and services, probably do not have a resident faculty, and have a relatively small support staff to handle local operations. A center does have some sort of facility, so it is more than what we might call a “site,” but it probably is quite limited in the total space available. Centers, ...