Tag: Strategic

Cross-Functional Marcomm Teams Drive Strategic Success

During my first foray into marcomm leadership, every project seemed on fire. If the project was due at 3 p.m., the first draft was ready at 2 p.m., giving little time for adjustments. I noticed this happened with almost every project. As I did some research into the production calendar, I realized there were more projects than time. That meant if one project got behind, there was a ripple effect that continued to impact more and more projects the team was working on.

An initial strategy to address this involved offloading projects that were not the best use of marcomm’s time. The second strategy looked at increasing capacity through student workers and approved freelance partners. Despite implementing both, the team still struggled to accomplish all the tasks, finding many delays in the back-and-forth process with the campus partner. As I started exploring what would help the team, the idea of cross-functional teams emerged as a viable strategy to yield better alignment with key constituents, increase efficiency and create better products.

Cross-functional teams are groups of people from various areas in an organization who work together to achieve a common goal. I have used these teams with key university partners including enrollment, advancement and athletics. Each cross-functional team has several members from the marcomm team (usually a representative from communications, marketing, creative and web) and two or three members from the other unit. Together, these groups meet regularly and work as strategic partners to meet institutional goals.

Cross-functional teams are time-consuming but can have significant impact on outcomes, culture and organizational success when done well. Below are a few benefits of utilizing cross-functional teams when working with strategic campus partners.

Moving From Service Provider to Strategic Partner

One benefit of cross-functional teams is positioning marcomm teams as a strategic partner, not just an order taker. This shift allows marcomm to more meaningfully support institutional goals. Instead of executing someone else’s strategy, these teams can apply their individual expertise while collaborating on integrated strategies that support the partner and ultimately the organization. For example, the web team member can begin approaching the project thinking about the entire digital strategy, instead of just making a website pretty. This role’s shift helps improve relationships between the teams but ultimately drives results.

Operational Efficiency Creates Wins Faster

Familiar teams work faster. Less time is required to navigate procedural and relational decisions, such as who needs to review something or what the feedback process entails. In cross-functional teams, the members become comfortable with these aspects, allowing them to begin working faster. The speed comes not only from familiarity but also from intentionality. Shared institutional knowledge of the goals and the internal processes to complete tasks results in more thoughtful responses when adjustments are needed because of changes like enrollment shifts, market changes or budget adjustments.

Consistency Builds Brand Equity

Aligned teams also create consistent work. Regular collaboration leads to consistency in voice, tone and look on projects. For example, when cross-functional teams are collaborating on the goals for a piece, there is more likely to be synergy in the tactical execution of the piece or at a least a shared understanding of the approach. When there is no alignment, the teams may agree on the goal but are less likely to agree on the strategies and tactics, resulting in disjointed messaging and less effective outcomes.

Cohesive messages also build trust and recognition with external audiences, which is critical to support for university objectives. Ultimately, consistency across teams strengthens the university’s voice in the market and amplifies the impact of every communication.

Internal Alignment Supports Goals

One of the biggest benefits of cross-functional teams is how they strengthen internal alignment within marcomm. By collaborating closely with colleagues across disciplines, the marcomm team is better equipped to align its work with the goals and priorities of campus partners. For example, telling our story takes on an enhanced meaning when it is viewed through the lens of growing enrollment or raising private institutional support. In addition, this cross-functional collaboration fosters greater accountability and trust within the marcomm unit itself. From my experience, the team often internally aligns on the approach and presents a strategic (and united) front when pitching concepts or suggesting strategy shifts.

Empowered Teams Create Elevated Outcomes

Cross-functional teams facilitate learning from all members. Hearing new perspectives from other divisions creates new understandings, both within marcomm and outside of it. For example, web team members learn about graphic design and enrollment best practices. This occurs because cross-functional teams are collaboration-based, so all team members are empowered to contribute ideas instead of only giving feedback on their traditional roles. More broadly, the entire marcomm team benefits from cross-functional teams if there’s a way to share these learnings with the full group instead of just those in a specific meeting.

Working Toward Success

When I first stepped into marcomm leadership, the team was running full speed just to keep up, racing from one fire drill to the next with little time to pause, reflect or align. What initially seemed like a time-management problem turned out to be a deeper issue of structure, communication and partnership. Through the intentional creation of cross-functional teams, we began to shift from reactive executors to proactive strategic partners.

Cross-functional teams require time investment to create shared mission, collaboration frameworks and understanding of the work at hand. However, these teams generate shared ownership and strong trust, central to ongoing collaboration, partnerships and organizational innovation. Most importantly, the outcomes are usually a more agile, aligned and high-performing organization—better equipped to meet both immediate goals and long-term strategic priorities of the institution.

Carrie Phillips, Ed.D., is chief communications and marketing officer at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Source link

June 3, 2025
Negotiating the Future: How HBCUs and MSIs Can Leverage Strategic Enrollment Management for Institutional Resilience
Dwight SanchezIn today’s hyper-competitive higher education landscape, the challenges facing Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) are immense. Declining birth rates, changing student expectations, shifting public sentiment, and persistent underfunding place extraordinary pressure on institutions that have long served as lifelines for students of color and first-generation learners. Yet amid these challenges lies an opportunity. By reimagining Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) through the lens of negotiation theory, HBCUs and MSIs can increase their strategic agility, strengthen institutional partnerships, and yield more robust enrollment outcomes.

SEM as Negotiation

Strategic Enrollment Management isn’t merely about admissions and financial aid—it’s about aligning institutional mission with market realities in ways that are both student-centered and data-informed. Viewed through the lens of negotiation, SEM becomes a dynamic system of interdependent relationships: with prospective students, families, community influencers, K-12 schools, alumni, faculty, and internal staff. Drawing from 3D Negotiation: Powerful Tools to Change the Game in Your Most Important Deals by David Lax and James Sebenius, and Essentials of Negotiation by Lewicki, Saunders, and Barry, three principles become especially relevant: setup, deal design, and tactical interaction.
- Setup involves determining who needs to be at the table, what interests are at stake, and which parties have influence over enrollment decisions. For HBCUs, this means engaging not just students, but parents, clergy, high school counselors, and community mentors who shape the decision-making ecosystem.
- Deal Design refers to how institutions create value through the student’s experience. It’s not just about price; it’s about crafting offers that resonate emotionally and practically with underserved populations. This might include mentorship programs, clear career pathways, and intentional support systems.
- Tactics, while often emphasized, should follow—not lead—strategy. Scripts matter less than systems, and strategic enrollment leaders must know when to pivot from persuasive messaging to coalition-building and issue reframing.
The Cultural Context

The diversity within HBCUs and MSIs also means that enrollment negotiations occur across varied cultural, economic, and generational dimensions. Chapter 11 of Essentials of Negotiation reminds us that in international and cross-cultural negotiations, assumptions can be fatal. For instance, assuming that all Black or Latino students respond similarly to recruitment strategies ignores regional, familial, and economic differences. Strategic enrollment leaders must develop cultural humility and data literacy to avoid overgeneralization and instead build nuanced personas that guide outreach.

Equally important is the political environment. Public perceptions of DEI initiatives, affirmative action, and federal funding can dramatically alter an institution’s appeal and perceived legitimacy. In this context, setup becomes a shield—anticipating changes, diversifying recruitment pipelines, and framing the institutional value proposition in ways that transcend political cycles.

Leadership and Accountability

Leading enrollment through this lens requires a shift from short-term performance metrics to long-term strategy. Enrollment managers must adopt a leadership posture that blends transformational vision with collaborative execution. As Lewicki et al. note in Chapter 10, multiparty negotiations (such as cross-department SEM committees) require clear roles, shared goals, and open channels of communication. Leaders must foster psychological safety while holding teams accountable to institutional KPIs—bridging the often-siloed worlds of marketing, academic affairs, and student support.

Professional development plays a critical role here. Too often, enrollment teams are equipped with tactical training (CRM usage, phone scripts, event planning) but lack exposure to systems thinking, data storytelling, or negotiation dynamics. Embedding professional learning communities and creating leadership pipelines within SEM units allows HBCUs and MSIs to develop internal change agents who can sustain innovation over time.

The Path Forward

HBCUs and MSIs are more than educational institutions—they are engines of social mobility and cultural affirmation. But to thrive, they must adopt a strategic posture that sees every element of SEM as a negotiation: from brand positioning to student engagement, from financial structuring to internal alignment.

Consider this: An HBCU looking to boost STEM enrollment among underrepresented males recognizes that traditional outreach and scholarship packages have limited impact. Instead of only increasing merit aid, the institution reframes its offer through negotiation theory. They partner early with high schools, launch a summer bridge program co-led by STEM faculty and alumni, and guarantee every enrolled student a faculty mentor and paid internship by year two. They also engage parents and community leaders as ambassadors—tapping into local trust networks. At the internal level, they align academic and student affairs teams through shared enrollment metrics and regular scenario planning meetings, increasing accountability and cohesion.

This isn’t just marketing—it’s “setup” and “deal design” in action. It expands the scope of stakeholders, adds value beyond dollars, and creates a win-win proposition for the student, family, and institution. It also reflects a broader institutional willingness to act as a proactive negotiator in shaping its market position.

By leveraging the principles of negotiation—particularly setup, value creation, and coalition building—enrollment leaders can develop strategic enrollment plans that are not only adaptive but transformative. In doing so, they ensure their institutions remain vital pathways for generations of students yet to come.

Dwight Sanchez is the Executive Director of Enrollment Management at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.
Source link
May 30, 2025
strategic implications for UK and Australian universities

Aston Education, a Hong Kong-based international education consultancy, has long supported students in securing places at universities in the UK and Australia. However, Hong Kong’s outbound market is changing.

According to the Hong Kong Education Bureau’s data for the 2023/24 academic year, the growth rate of local students studying abroad stands at just 2%, significantly lower than global market averages. Factors behind this include Hong Kong’s stable job market and rising tuition and living costs overseas—both encouraging families to reconsider traditional study-abroad pathways.

At the same time, migration incentives such as the UK’s BNO visa scheme have encouraged significant numbers of Hong Kong residents to settle abroad. This movement has contributed to local talent gaps. To help fill these, the Hong Kong government introduced the Top Talent Pass Scheme (TTPS) in late 2022. By September 2024, over 100,000 applications had been received, with more than 95% of successful applicants coming from mainland China. The result is a rapidly changing demographic profile and increasing integration between Hong Kong and the mainland.

These shifts are mirrored in student priorities. Families—particularly those newly settled in Hong Kong from mainland China—are placing greater emphasis on employment outcomes when considering overseas study. Choice of destination, university, and programme is increasingly shaped by how international qualifications align with career trajectories back in Hong Kong or across the region.

Against this backdrop, Aston Education has evolved its strategy. The demand from mainland China, especially the GBA, is growing rapidly. In 2022, around 661,200 Chinese students pursued study abroad, a sharp increase from earlier years. And the GBA continues to emerge as an integrated educational and economic region. Several Hong Kong universities have established campuses in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Dongguan, further strengthening cross-border academic links.

For education providers, the GBA presents a unique environment. Language, policy, and cultural familiarity create a landscape where nuanced, locally embedded strategies are vital. With deep roots in Hong Kong and a working understanding of both Cantonese and Mandarin, Aston Education is well positioned to navigate this space. Our approach differs from traditional mainland recruitment: we focus on a culturally blended student population, many of whom see Hong Kong as a stepping stone for international education and regional employment.

This shift is not just geographical—it’s philosophical. Understanding why students choose to study abroad, and what they hope to gain, is key to engaging the next generation. By working closely with institutions in the UK and Australia, we aim to provide tailored recruitment support in markets that are evolving beyond traditional patterns.

As the GBA continues to gain momentum, opportunities abound for international universities ready to think regionally and act locally. Aston Education looks forward to contributing to this conversation—and to building more agile, informed partnerships that reflect the changing realities of the Asian education landscape.

About the author:

Boyi Huang is the managing director of Aston Education with over 15 years of experience in international education planning. She holds a postgraduate diploma in international education from the University of Bath She has guided students to top universities across the UK (Oxbridge and G5), the US (Ivy League & Top 20), and Australia (Go8). With strong experience in cross-border admissions and institutional partnerships, Boyi specialises in helping students from Greater China and Southeast Asia access world-class higher education through personalised strategies.

Source link

May 26, 2025
Beyond the AI Hype: Strategic AI Implementation in Higher Education

The buzz around AI in higher ed is undeniable. The topic dominated conference discussions at ASU + GSV, with nearly every booth, breakout, and keynote referencing AI somehow. When AI gets tossed around so often, it can be hard to differentiate between what’s real and what isn’t.

While the transformative promise of AI is exciting, successful AI implementation requires more than fast adoption. The more important question is: How can institutions move from ideas to impact?

The reality is that achieving meaningful results with AI requires more than just purchasing the latest tool. That’s often the easiest part, but it can also be a trap. Tool and tech procurement, absent a well-informed implementation strategy, can add to your technical debt. It’s critical to look beyond the buzzword and first define where you want your institution to be in the future. With your north star in place, you can determine how AI can play a role in a holistic solution.

Operationalizing AI for Real Impact

Many discussions around AI for higher ed focus on its evolving capabilities to generate content, automate tasks, engage and support students, and handle other critical functions. But what is the impact you’re looking to make, and how are you going to measure the return on investment? Those questions tend to be missing from higher ed’s ongoing AI conversation. Don’t implement tactics (or tools) until you know their role in your broader tech strategy. Too often, there is a heightened sense of urgency to implement and not enough focus on the complexities of weaving these tools into the intricate fabric of an institution. There is no easy button in AI.

Trying to catch the AI hype without having a strategic AI implementation plan is like buying state-of-the-art lab equipment before you’ve decided what type of science courses you are going to offer. Effective integration involves significant change management, process design, and ongoing investment.

For example, many schools already use AI-powered agents to assist with student recruitment by answering prospects’ questions and suggesting next steps. These bots can scale engagement significantly — but to be effective, they require meticulous training, constant monitoring, and attentive human oversight to ensure the interaction is aligned with a school’s culture and values. As technology evolves, the operational model must adapt. Without constant care and feeding, AI tools can become outdated, provide incorrect information, or fail to align with the institution’s unique voice and mission. Remember, technology and tool outputs are only as good as the inputs.

And the investment isn’t just the initial software cost. The investment also includes ongoing commitment to deployment, integration, training, and ensuring the technology drives the desired outcomes. Many underestimate this operational heavy lifting in the rush to adopt AI, yet it’s the linchpin for success.

Start with Strategy, Not Just Software

A more effective, pragmatic approach to AI implementation in higher education begins by identifying the institution’s core challenges and strategic objectives.

Are you focused on reversing enrollment declines? Improving student retention rates? Enhancing support services? Increasing operational efficiency? By defining your goals and measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) from the outset, you’re in the best position to strategically evaluate how AI — alongside other data, technology, and talent resources — can contribute to a solution that supports the entire student lifecycle.

Without this clarity, institutions risk spending significant resources without achieving tangible returns. It’s about focusing efforts, perhaps starting with a contained, controllable area where impact can be carefully monitored and measured, rather than attempting to boil the ocean.

Leveraging AI Strategically

Currently, many institutions are grappling with important discussions around AI ethics, academic integrity, and preventing misuse by students to cheat. It’s important not to get stuck there. Students who want to circumvent rules will find a way. AI is simply the newest tool. Focusing excessively on policing AI use means missing the boat on its strategic potential.

The real opportunity lies in leveraging AI across the entire student lifecycle — from recruitment and enrollment to engagement, support, and retention. AI can personalize outreach, provide 24/7 advising support, identify at-risk students earlier, and automate administrative tasks, freeing up staff for higher-value interactions. It will almost certainly be part of effective solutions, but it shouldn’t be the only part.

The Indispensable Human Element

In the race to apply AI, we must not forget the crucial role of human intelligence (HI). AI tools, even sophisticated ones, require human oversight. They must train on the correct data and the institution’s values, mission, and unique persona.

Humans are essential for guiding AI, correcting its inevitable errors and ensuring its outputs align with institutional standards. Furthermore, education remains a fundamentally human endeavor. While AI can enhance efficiency and scale, it cannot replace true empathy, mentorship, and social-emotional connection, which are vital to student success and belonging. The most effective approach combines the power of AI with the irreplaceable value of human talent — a synergy Collegis champions through its focus on data, tech, and talent.

Moving Fast, But Moving Smart

The desire to rapidly adopt AI in higher ed is understandable. However, a rushed implementation without a clear strategy is likely to falter. Stepping back to define objectives, plan the integration, and establish metrics is the best way to accelerate the path to meaningful impact.

This more deliberate, strategic approach enables institutions to harness AI’s power effectively, ensuring it serves their unique mission and drives measurable results. It’s about moving beyond the hype and focusing on the pragmatic steps needed to make AI work for higher ed, creating sustainable value for the institution and the students it serves. The journey requires careful navigation, a focus on operational reality, and often, a partner who understands how to bridge the gap between potential and practice.

Innovation Starts Here

Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.

Source link

May 7, 2025
R&D spending brings the era of strategic ambiguity to an end

I was working with a university on how they communicate their research work.

An academic remarked to me that they simply couldn’t understand why the university didn’t talk more about the leading work they were doing in defence research.

At the time, I thought talking about research into the things that kill people would be an obvious and enormous error. I now think I may be wrong.

Missiles have a PR problem. They are not the soft embrace of a civic university which wraps its arms around their places. They are not the technician helping to solve the pandemics and global disasters of our time. And they are not the lofty ideals of pushing forward the shared understanding of the human experience.

Conducting research into defence is to acknowledge that universities are part of the unsavoury end of geo-politics too.

Universities have generally followed the lead of the government on the international research front. This is to say universities work with people, even where they may disagree with them, if it furthers a common cause of research. In an era of sharpening geo-political divides, increased defence spending, and pressure on the moral mission of universities highlighted by what they choose or choose not to cut, this feels untenable.

Strategic ambiguity is possible where the strategy is clear and the policy is not. The government has now made its spending policy for defence clear.

Defence and its detractors

There are plenty who have made the moral case against UK universities being involved in research into lethal weapons. Open Democracy carried out work in 2023 where they drew the line between weapons manufacturers, university research, and global conflicts, to make the case that

“Responding to Freedom of Information requests, 44 universities told openDemocracy they had taken a combined total of at least £100m in funding and donations from eight of the biggest UK and US defence firms: RTX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce.

All are listed in the top 100 arms and military services in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.”

And there are a constellation of left-wing blogs that have sought to make the same arguments. Novara Media, for example, have sought to bring to attention the links between university weapons research and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. It is not that universities are undertaking research directly for difficult and despotic regimes and demagogues directly. It is that they are undertaking research with companies where their technologies may either be used directly, or through their dual applications, in the defence of nations and by extension the killing of people all over the world.

This attention is likely only to grow as the government increases investment into defence technologies. The 2020 Spending Review committed to an extra £6bn of defence R&D over four years. In 2024, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised a further uplift in defence spending with a significant proportion dedicated to R&D. Keir Starmer has now promised that defence spending will reach 2.5 per cent of GDP, with an ambition to reach 3 per cent, and further increases to R&D in defence.

This includes a further £2.9bn of spending in the coming financial year compared to 2024–25. This is a big increase but in context BAE systems alone spent £1.45bn on R&D in 2022 as a combination of their own and government money.

This presents a challenge for universities. The flows of R&D spending are increasingly toward defence but they have, collectively, not found the language which sets out the moral case for doing the work.

Re-arm for Britain

Today’s piece from Jess Lister makes it clear that a plurality of citizens in the UK are in favour of increased defence spending. A majority of the public also agree it would be better to invest in R&D in new defensive technologies. Of course, this presumes there is always a clear and practical difference between the use of weaponry for defensive and offensive purposes, and the reasons for research are as important as the actual mechanism through which research is deployed.

There are the universities that undertake research which makes the country safer but isn’t directly involved in the business of lethality. The examples of universities building partnerships, engagements, projecting the UK across the world, making the UK a better place to live, are numerous. In an era of constrained funding and increasing concerns about defence spending, the ability for universities to talk about national safety, the tolerability of living in the UK, and national security, the freedom to live free from the threat of harm or death from a foreign power, may end up moving closer together. The decision to cut Oversees Development Assistance, funding used to promote social, economic, and welfare capacity, to fund defence spending is in this regard an absurd political decision in making the UK less safe on the one hand while making it, potentially, more secure on the other.

And there is the business of the production of the UK’s defensive capabilities. There are a range of regulations which cover this work. In particular, the rules on dual use technologies which place extra restrictions on the exports of research that could have both civilian and military applications. There are specific cases which have come under scrutiny particularly under the use of technologies which could be used for drones. As a minimum, if universities are going to increasingly grow their R&D and defence budget they will need the internal capacity to navigate what has been a difficult and changing world.

Narrative interventions

Aside from the regulation there is a real narrative problem on defence research. There are generally three explanations used when a university is asked about defence research. The first is that we follow all of the rules. The second is that we work directly with companies and what companies choose to do beyond our due diligence isn’t within our control. And the third is that even where projects are within the rules we continually monitor them. The problem with all of these responses is that they are the minimum of procedural compliance not explanation of work.

In his acceptance speech newly appointed Chancellor of the University of Oxford and once foreign secretary William Hague stated that

We do not need to agree on everything, indeed we should not. I am pleased to say we do not need a foreign policy: we are not a country. Nor do we need a view on every daily occurrence: we are not a newspaper. The concern of a university is that opinions are reached on the basis of truth, reason and knowledge, which in turn requires thinking and speaking with freedom.

This is the same William Hague who suggested in 2015 that

In the 21st Century, foreign policy is no longer the preserve of governments speaking behind closed doors. It’s also about that web of connections between individuals, groups, companies and all kinds of organisations, on social media and international travel.

The William Hague of 2015 is correct and the William Hague of 2024 is mostly wrong. The frustration with university work into defence isn’t because the public believe what they are doing is illegal – in fact the public support what they are doing. It is that universities are trying to pursue an amoral approach to defence (as in, without a moral position, as opposed to immoral or evil), which leaves them open to charges of hypocrisy.

The reason for this is a refusal to commit to bright red lines. It would be totally legitimate for universities to state there are certain partners, certain countries, and certain contexts in which they will not work. It also would be totally legitimate for universities to say they work with anyone regardless of their politics, but universities have done neither.

The one unilateral intervention in refusing to work with Russia was the morally correct step, and has of course opened up the charge of hypocrisy. The line seems to be that universities will work with foreign partners irrespective of what they do unless they are legally barred from doing so and/or said foreign partners undertake a full scale invasion of a neighbour.

The age of strategic ambiguity is over because ambiguity cannot be funded, supported, or made consistent to a public who don’t always appreciate the value of universities. Universities are not a country but they are a global network that allows for the movement of people, ideas, and technologies. The basis on which these things are allowed to move is the moral mission of our era for universities.

Source link

April 7, 2025
Do More with Less: 7 Strategic Advantages of Shared Services in Higher Education
College administrators wear many hats to ensure their institutions thrive. Stakeholders expect them to be visionaries, budget stewards, tech experts, and student champions. However, wearing too many hats can hinder the ability to meet more strategic and forward-thinking institutional demands, effectively diluting leadership capacity and outcomes.

How can administrators remove some of those hats without losing control or spending more?

How can they guide their institutions to achieve better outcomes with fewer resources?

At the 2024 Collegis Education Summit, keynote speaker Dr. John Smith-Coppes, president of Joyce University, shared his advice for achieving higher ed excellence amid market paradigms, shifting learner expectations, and capacity constraints.

“Embrace your institutional superpower and then partner for expertise. You have to know what you are really good at, but also where you might need help. Having the bravery to objectively look at the brutal facts can take you from good to great. Keep this in mind: Your institution is perfectly designed to get the outcomes it’s getting.”

-Dr. John Smith-Coppes, President of Joyce University

Dr. Smith-Coppes is right. If you’re not getting the results you want, you have to shine a light on the operation and consider what adjustments or changes will better position your institution for desired outcomes.

To echo Dr. Smith-Coppes and answer the earlier questions, working with a strategic partner who has deep expertise in higher education shared services and can manage certain responsibilities more efficiently can get your institution closer to turning aspiration into reality. A true partnership is not about simply outsourcing tasks. Rather, it’s a strategic way to gain access to specialized knowledge, proven methodologies, and scalable resources, all while enabling administrators to focus on their core areas of expertise.

Mounting challenges facing higher ed leaders

When I talk to administrators, the conversation inevitably turns to the challenge of doing more with less. They consistently grapple with four key issues:
- Budget Cuts: Funding is uncertain or shrinking, forcing them to rethink the allocation of resources.
- Advancing Technology: Technology is rapidly evolving, leaving administrators to scramble after the next advancement or emerging capability.
- Socioeconomic Pressures: With some questioning the value of postsecondary education, relevant programs with affordable tuition have never been more critical.
- Employee Turnover: Retaining top talent is difficult, leaving critical gaps.
But none of these issues surprise us. On the contrary, Collegis Education has partnered with numerous public and private institutions of varying sizes and levels of brand recognition to address these challenges, uncovering advantageous pathways toward more sustainable and fruitful operations.

The results speak for themselves. Administrators gain more time to leverage their core strengths to elevate their institution’s mission and educational outcomes while actualizing a variety of clear benefits. Here is what Collegis Education continues to deliver for our shared-service partners.

Seven ways shared services in higher education deliver results

Institutions that leverage shared services experience benefits in a variety of key areas. Explore some of the most significant advantages:

1. Improved financial stability

Predictability and optimization are the key words here. With our solutions for technology management, enrollment management, and student services, institutions know exactly what to budget every year. At the same time, we find cost savings by getting a better return on technology investments, strategically decommissioning redundancies, and renegotiating contracts.

2. Enhanced operational efficiency

Is there a better way to reach an institution’s goals more efficiently? More often than not, the answer is yes. We help bring these opportunities to the surface by fully assessing the school’s infrastructure, technology, processes, and other operating procedures. This assessment denotes areas of excellence and points of failure as well as identifies where lag or waste exists. With these insights, we can identify and prioritize emerging opportunities to drive improvement. All this informs a multiyear roadmap that guides higher ed leaders on how to thoughtfully implement changes that engage key stakeholders to accelerate the change management cycle.

3. Objective perspective & best practices

We bring a unique perspective to our recommendations based on our work with other schools while protecting each school’s anonymity and uniqueness. This helps give you a baseline of how your school performs when compared to similar ones. Are you leading or lagging? As an unbiased third party, we offer fresh ideas backed by the knowledge of the results they have produced. It’s a great way to eliminate the “but this is how we’ve always done it” objection and gain buy-in from internal staff.

4. Risk mitigation & accountability

There’s rarely a higher ed situation we haven’t already dealt with at another institution. Our partners benefit from this experience, allowing them to proactively avoid operational and technical risks. They also benefit tremendously from having a partner who holds themselves accountable to quantifiable outcomes measured by agreed-upon service level agreements (SLAs). Together, these provide a lot of peace of mind when it comes to issues like cybersecurity, compliance, disaster recovery, and business continuity.

5. Specialized expertise without the overhead

Hiring and retaining experienced staff is challenging enough. Finding people with skill sets to leverage evolving technology capabilities like artificial intelligence (AI) is a whole other story. That’s why our partners rely on Collegis to provide the expertise that’s hard to find. We’re software-agnostic and implement solutions that are in the school’s best interest from a financial, operational, and strategic perspective without the need for full-time employees to manage them.

6. Data-enabled decision making with full transparency

Data at most institutions is stored in siloes, with limited stewardship and governance over its quality and consistency. However, many of the “data” solutions in the market today are complicated and difficult to implement and support.

This is why we built Connected Core, a scalable higher education industry cloud solution that integrates siloed data sets, systems, and applications to enable institutional intelligence. This proven approach and methodology for collecting, connecting, and activating institutional data eliminates data doubt and gives leaders the confidence to make quickly make strategic decisions with confidence.

7. Focus on core mission & educational outcomes

By outsourcing some functions, administrators can redirect resources and energy to what truly matters: student success. By reducing the number of hats they wear, leaders can instead focus on using the tools they have on hand to manage strategic initiatives that drive institutional growth.

Strategic delegation to yield better outcomes

Some leaders fear losing control through outsourcing, and rightfully so. Too many vendors tout “partnership” when, in fact, they are trying to build an unhealthy dependency that is not mutually beneficial.

That’s just not us. It fundamentally goes against our values and who we are as a company.

Our partnerships are built on collaboration and shared governance. Institutions set priorities, and all actions follow clear assessments, implementation plans, and progress reviews. Our partners gain greater control over technology, enrollment, and budgets. Control isn’t lost, but visibility and accountability are gained.

Shared-services models allow administrators to confidently offload specific responsibilities. Leveraging external expertise amplifies your internal strengths and empowers your leaders to focus on building and maintaining a thriving campus community.

But the first step is starting the conversation with the right partner.

Innovation Starts Here

Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.
Source link
April 2, 2025
We need strategic technical leaders

As a society we’re seeing rapid changes, especially in technology, that impact how we live, work and learn. Higher education institutions have needed to reevaluate their priorities and adapt to this new environment. Strong, diverse and skilled leadership to drive change is more important than ever – and strategic technical leaders can play a key role.

These relative new positions in the sector bridge the gap between organisational goals and technical capabilities. They champion their teams, drive innovation and collaboration.

Technicians are critical to teaching, research and innovation and there is an increasing demand for strategic technical leaders in universities to strengthen and develop this vital workforce, helping institutions to thrive in this ever-changing landscape.

Filling the technical leadership gap

Historically there has been a leadership gap for technicians in higher education institutions, with their roles often being capped at lower levels, meaning a lack of representation in strategic decision-making.

In recent years this trend has been reversed, with several institutions appointing strategic technical leaders. At first glance, HESA data indicates that 45 per cent of UK HEIs have a strategic technical leader in position, which – while not ideal – at least illustrates a promising improvement.

But given this figure is based on those institutions that opt-in to submit data to HESA for their non-academic staff, the number of senior strategic technical leaders is potentially far lower than the statistics suggest. Conversely, the HESA statistics also do not account for strategic technical leaders who are operating at lower levels in institutions.

Variation across remits and institutions

Data from existing strategic technical leaders (published in the report Strategic technical leadership: advocacy, empowerment and transformation) revealed variations in these roles between institutions, particularly around responsibilities, remit and seniority.

As relatively new roles in the HE landscape, they are still evolving. Institutions establishing these roles have often defined the scope with limited reference points, resulting in positions being shaped around individuals or tailored to specific priorities. While some inconsistencies are to be expected, greater consistency in defining the remit and responsibilities of these roles would be beneficial.

There’s an opportunity to guide the integration of strategic technical leaders into leadership structures. This would not only support their effective implementation but also ensure continuity, which is critical for their long-term impact and sustainability.

Defining the role

Previously undefined, our report proposed the following definition of a strategic technical leader:

An empowered decision-maker who aligns the technical workforce with the institution’s long-term goals by anticipating future needs, advocating for technicians, and shaping policies that impact both technical staff and the broader organisation. They play a pivotal role in strategic planning, particularly in areas such as workforce sustainability, skills development, and investment in technical resources, while ensuring technicians have access to meaningful development opportunities.

Acknowledging that the definition and roles of strategic technical leaders are still evolving, their benefits are already clear, bringing significant advantages to their institutions, technical staff, and the wider higher education sector.

Strategic technical leaders are vital for aligning technical operations with university strategy, offering significant benefits to institutions, technical staff, and the wider higher education sector. Their holistic view of technicians’ roles across teaching and research ensures consistency in opportunities, operations, and experiences. By fostering the development and application of technical skills, they drive efficiency across the institution.

Working as changemakers

Input into the university’s overall strategy ensures sound investments in equipment and facilities while reducing inefficiencies and duplications of equipment, resulting in cost-savings. Where responsibility for the technical portfolio of activities is integrated into the executive level of the institution, our report indicated wide-reaching benefits internally and externally.

Strategic technical leaders who are embedded within the higher level of the institutional decision making act as important changemakers for the technical community, advocating for representation in decision-making.

Improving the visibility of technicians is vital for improving the long-standing lack of recognition and visibility technicians have endured. The results can be far-reaching with evidence suggesting improved results in two often challenging areas associated with technical careers – recruitment and retention.

Embracing and influencing change

The focus of the strategic technical leader’s role extends beyond the boundaries of their own organisation – they also have an important externally-facing role. The strategic leaders we spoke to highlighted the importance of their external networks, for developing opportunities for collaboration and sharing of best practice to benefit their home institutions.

Beyond this, strategic technical leaders are well placed to engage with bodies that advocate for technicians such as the UK Institute for Technical Skills and Strategy and the Technician Commitment.

Their influence reaches other important networks such as policymakers, professional bodies and sector stakeholders where they can influence sector change, an approach that was recommended in the TALENT Commission report.

To work at their optimal, universities need innovative and collaborative leadership that represents the entire workforce. It is time that technicians and the vital work that they do is represented in university leadership. Investment in these roles not only supports the development of an institution’s technical teaching, research and operational efficiency but safeguards future excellence.

Source link

January 24, 2025
Escalating Humanitarian Needs (Center for Strategic & International Studies)

Higher Education Inquirer : Global Conflicts to Watch in 2025: Escalating Humanitarian Needs (Center for Strategic & International Studies)

Global Conflicts to Watch in 2025: Escalating Humanitarian Needs (Center for Strategic & International Studies)

Source link

December 22, 2024