Next Steps with Stimulus Funding

The next six months will be revealing for the Chief Academic Officer (President) of major public universities. States will be receiving the initial stimulus funding, and the legislatures and governors will be deciding if higher education will be a recipient or if other state agencies will receive a majority of the funding. It is clear that higher education was de-emphasized in the final legislation; the winners were students and the national science funding agencies.

The National Science Foundation received 3 billion dollars in additional funding and the National Institute of Health received 10 billion. There is another 3.5 billion for Energy and others. Expectations are the two funding organizations will disperse the funds quickly with current projects being expanded. Also expect a number of facilities upgrades to compliment the expanded research. With science receiving limited funding in recent years, it would be exciting to see the majority of the funding going to areas that were important in the presidential campaign: energy and healthcare.

State universities could use this opportunity to set themselves apart from the crowd for the next decade by deciding to optimize outputs through large collaborations with other universities. Further, it would be exciting to see the next boom in venture capital funding follow the Obama stimulus funding. A decade of economic growth could easily follow in renewable energy, healthcare, and informatics.

Many communities are waiting to see the direction higher education will decide to pursue. Will it be more of the same, or will universities step up with innovation that is noteworthy? Academic leaders must decide the next steps; the actions in the next year will set the direction for the next decade. State universities will be forced to reevaluate every aspect of the curriculum as budget cuts take their toll. The universities that can limit administrative and academic duplication statewide will be able to invest wisely in emerging academic programs across the sciences. It is time for the CAO to step up and lead.

Stimulus Funding Planning

It is time for Presidents (CAOs) to decide what steps to take: the following is a guideline for senior university leadership. This is presented in a sense of priority, but each university must interpret the legislation in light of their circumstances. The final legislation resulted in projects that require one-time funding, limiting federal and state exposure to long-term commitments. Initially, NSF, NIH, and Energy should be busy distributing the additional funds. Student financial aid appears a winner across the nation providing needed tuition for lean budgets. Funding that would stabilize operating budgets and funding to provide deferred maintenance were the losers.

Recommendation:

1. Focus on enrollment management with university staff. Each university should be in the middle of the enrollment cycle and staffed to handle this task. The CAO must decide how the stimulus funding will impact the incoming class—no easy task. It will be tempting to listen to the student’s request for admission and accept the increase in grants and aid to support higher education. The problem is stimulus funding that ensured state support for higher education was the largest single cut in the budget. End result will be pressure from students for admittance without offsetting funding for staff and faculty salaries.
   
   
2. Identify shovel projects that will “green” your campus. I expect every campus has a list of deferred maintenance projects; focus on projects that make your campus energy efficient. You will need projects you can begin immediately so you should have a task force underway to prioritize your spending plans. It is also time to visit the appropriate state offices to ensure your university receives a fair share--lobbying is not a dirty word. It appears the funding will be distributed in block grants to the state.
   
   
3. Research universities with medical centers should evaluate if they are prepared to request funding for electronic medical records. University hospitals and clinics that have only given passing interest will be at a disadvantage in becoming shovel-ready quickly; others who are committed will be ready to request funding, and statewide projects appear to be in the best position to receive funding.

More on iPhone Applications

We've mentioned previously that creating relevant campus applications for the iPhone is one of many student services that IT departments should give attention to in 2009. Several items I have seen recently have reminded me of just how important this is.

Abilene Christian University is the first of likely many universities to incorporate the iPhone into campus life; while this video is a dramatization, it does give us a picture of what future iPhone applications could do for the classroom and for everyday student life. Imagine a world where the iPhone really is a student's "campus lifeline"--the video is worth a look. (Incidentally, ACU has an impressive information commons in the library; I attended a presentation from their director last year and made a few notes.)

Speaking of libraries, I wrote a bit recently about a new iPhone application which allows users to search the library catalog, place holds, and view summaries/book jackets. The code will eventually be available to other libraries so that they too can build iPhone applications for their local catalogs.

A post today on The Chronicle's Wired Campus blog discusses a new iPhone application created by Georgia Tech students which provides an interface to several campus services. The application gives students iPhone-friendly access to campus email, a campus map, a bus schedule, and the course management system. One particularly nifty feature is that the application also includes a real-time computer availability map to see when a machine is available in their information commons. This is seriously cool.

Incidentally a librarian had suggested that the students incorporate the computer availability map into their application. He has a very good point about the importance of working together to build applications:

It is easy for us (as librarians) to complain that we don’t have money or staff to develop cool things—but sometimes that’s ok, because maybe we can partner with those who are (doing cool things) and get our materials and resources included in their work. Instead of investing our time in “a library app” we can attach ourselves to an already popular and successful app and gain a wider audience.

I couldn't agree more. So as IT departments (or groups of students) look to building iPhone applications, consider working with libraries and other campus departments to incorporate important student resources into your applications. Those applications will be far more valuable to students, and certainly we librarians will thank you for it.

The Obama Stimulus Plan: Thoughts for University Presidents/CAOs

Mr. President, you are two months away from making several very hard decisions. As you look at your state budget revenue and the demise of your endowment funds, you are about to make budget cuts you had hoped you would never have to implement. To confuse matters further, the House has passed the Obama stimulus plan, and the Senate will follow shortly. Once Obama signs the legislation, you will face two additional pressures.

First, you will have a pot of gold to further fund Pell Grants—a good problem that could allow you to increase your total tuition revenue without having to implement double-digit tuition increases. This itself will offset pressure from the state legislatures to freeze tuition rates, but the downside is the state legislature will be tempted to pass larger state budget cuts to universities. This will be a political football that could really help or make planning almost impossible. One bit of good news is that states must meet a minimum level of higher education spending in order to receive funding from the stimulus plan, assuming that language holds in the Senate.

Second, the Obama plan could fund a number of new research building projects and even more deferred maintenance projects. One-time funding for the projects will appear to be manna from heaven. The operation and maintenance budgets will not increase with the stimulus funding, leaving Presidents/CAOs with greater pressure on the operations budget that the state will likely ignore.

The stimulus funding will result in the appearance of growth and activity. The lack of state funding for operating budgets and the continued pressure on lower endowment funds will result in sleepless nights for many Presidents. The next two years will be the most difficult in the recent decade.

The Cloud and Libraries

Most libraries, including university libraries, typically offer at least a few computers available for use by the general public. In the university library, the purpose of these machines is primarily to provide the general public with access to the library catalog, subscription databases, and in the case of federal depository libraries, government information. For obvious reasons these public machines are pretty locked down, and they generally offer few applications beyond a web browser and perhaps word processing software. Some libraries have moved toward thin client solutions, but many still manage expensive desktops which barely make use of the 80GB or more hard drives. Utilizing cloud technologies could potentially make these machines easier to manage and less costly. Read more on the ALA TechSource blog.