Summer Plans for the CAO

The end of another academic year is behind us, and we are all looking ahead, wondering what next fall will bring our universities. Will our student retention be acceptable, will the predictions on the incoming freshman class be on target, and how bad will the state budget get? The long, deep recession has ravaged our budgeting process, and next year does not look better. The Chief Academic Officer will be in the hot seat next year. The only bright spot on the horizon is the stimulus legislation.

Three actions the Chief Academic Officer must take this summer:

1. The university (especially the CIO) must provide leadership in two areas budget cutting and business process re-engineering. The two areas most universities have ignored to ensure political peace: the large maintenance contracts to support administrative and research computing and allowing multiple customer support centers when one would be better for faculty and students.
2. Form a stimulus action team and be prepared to submit multiple requests in the first round of funding planned for September 2009. The group needs to be aggressive and creative in seeking additional funding for the university. Three areas are going to fare better than others: electronic medical records, energy, and research facilities.
3. Student retention will become increasingly more important during the economic downturn. Universities must become student-friendly; this does not mean you need to give everyone a laptop and an iPhone. The university must review its processes and policies and ensure they make sense for the 21st century. We must make the faculty available to student questions, and we must recognize what worked for the student’s grandparents will not work with today’s student.

Following the above recommendations will not guarantee success, but it will improve your odds. Several recommendations should save you hundreds of thousands of dollars, and others will ensure your students will continue to return to graduate. Both will ensure you will be better prepared than many others when the budgets improve, and we can focus on academics.