Frank Boyd
Frank Boyd is Vice President of the Higher Education Practice at McAllister & Quinn. Frank brings 26 years of experience in higher education as a faculty member and academic administrator.
Why Collaboration Matters in Higher Education Today
As a professor, for a number of years I taught a seminar for first-year students entitled, “Why Humans Collaborate,” that tackled the question of how and why organizations are developed. The students and I explored the motivations for collaborative activity from an interdisciplinary perspective, as well as the institutional structures that both emerge from collaboration and best support it. These are some of the oldest questions for humanity, long-predating Aristotle and other ancient philosophers. Students very quickly concluded that collaboration did not always naturally occur, and that sustained cooperative efforts require supportive structures, resources, and shared goals among the participants.
A survey of consortia in higher education affirms these very basic conclusions. There is wide variation among the structure, size, and mission of consortia in higher education, but there are also common patterns of how these organizations support colleges and universities. That leads us to the questions at hand: How are consortia helping institutions “meet the moment” of the widespread uncertainty facing higher education? Further, are there certain areas in which consortia are best able to promote the interests and missions of their member institutions? Before reviewing some of these specific examples, it is worthwhile to think about the variety of ways that consortial groups are organized and about the variation in operational goals among them.
What Are Higher Education Consortia? Structure, Purpose, and Shared Services Models
No two consortia in higher education are alike, yet they all focus on providing support for specific operational issues and with resource sharing among the member institutions. Thus, founding of specific consortia often emerged from necessity, when member institutions identify a collective goal that would be difficult to achieve for any single school. Schools who partner with their peers can undertake initiatives that benefit from economies of scale and a focused scope.
So, the origin stories help us understand some of the variation found among consortia across the United States, yet the individual stories don’t really provide a theoretical lens that can inform a more general understanding of these organizations. Sarah Pfatteicher’s taxonomy provides a brilliant heuristic for understanding this variation.[2]
[1] National associations like the American Council on Education and the Council of Independent Colleges also provide services for member institutions, but the scope of this work is usually broader.
[2] Sarah K. A. Pfatteicher’s book, Collaborative Thinking: How to Build and Sustain College Consortia, is the source for this graphic and provides a sweeping analysis of consortia in higher education. It will very quickly be recognized as a seminal work on this topic, and Chapter One, “Why and How We Collaborate,” is a great combination of theory and praxis.
Pfatteicher’s Taxonomy of Consortia
Diverse Missions Geographically Close | Diverse Missions Geographically Spread |
Shared Mission Geographically Close | Shared Mission Geographically Spread |
There are dozens of consortia in higher education[1] that fall into each of these categories, and here are some examples of each.[2]
- Diverse Missions/Geographically Close
One example of this category is the consortium led by Dr. Pfatteicher herself, the Five Colleges Consortium in Massachusetts. The schools are within a few miles of each other, but are strikingly different in structure, mission, resources, etc. Another example is one of the early college consortia, the Claremont Colleges, that are functionally differentiated and in close geographical proximity to each other.
- Shared Mission/Geographically Close
The Five Colleges of Ohio provides a case-in-point of this category, with a group of liberal arts colleges within very close geographical proximity. For these schools, there is often sharing of resources and other collaboration that is facilitated by their shared location. Washington, D.C., has the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area that serves approximately 400,000 students in the nation’s capital.
- Shared Mission/Geographically Spread
The Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC) ranges from coast to coast, with all of the constituent members receiving state funding. COPLAC provides formal mechanisms through which professional development can be provided for staff, faculty, and administrators. Another great example in this regard is the New American Colleges and Universities (NACU), a national network of schools that seek to combine liberal education with professional programs and civic engagement.
- Diverse Mission/Geographically Spread
This is the category in Pfatteicher’s taxonomy that is the most difficult to identify, in large part because they possess few of the consortial characteristics found in the theoretical literature.[3] One very effective example of this category is the Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium that includes two-year and four-year schools, public and private. Their 115 members span the entire United States.
[1] The Association for Collaborative Leadership—a consortium of consortial leaders in higher education—has 50 groups that are members. However, there are many more consortia in higher education.
[1] The readers should note that the organizations cited here are examples of the many consortia engaged in this work.
[1] For those interested in really doing a theoretical deep-dive on the development and change of institutions, the work of Nobel Laureates Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom are a great place to begin.
How Higher Education Consortia Are Addressing Today’s Challenges in Colleges and Universities
What can consortia offer their members in this time of dramatic change? It depends in large part on many of the factors outlined above, as well as the opportunities and challenges facing each institution. Below are some contemporary examples of how consortia are helping institutions navigate some of the issues facing higher education.
Professional Development. Most consortia offer some professional development opportunities for faculty and staff that would otherwise not be available on their campuses. The Associated Colleges of the South offers faculty who are nominated by their chief academic officer the opportunity to attend The ACS Teaching and Learning Workshop. Like most programs of this kind, the ACS program brings together participants in a community of practice that harnesses the expertise of the facilitators and the participants.
Another example is from the Appalachian Colleges Association (ACA), which provides planning grants for collaborative projects and a faculty institute for teaching and learning. NACU offers a faculty leadership program for consortial members that is similar to programs offered in consortia of all types.
Capacity building for advocacy and extramural funding. In recent years, many consortia have supported their member institutions with capacity building programs that enhance the schools’ capacity to compete for extramural grant funding and to more effectively advocate for state and federal appropriations. Some of my colleagues at McAllister & Quinn have been working closely with consortial leaders to support this work. COPLAC, for instance, offers member institutions a Statehouse Toolkit to assist in their advocacy efforts for state funding.
The Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) has for the last two years offered a two-day workshop for faculty members who need support for effectively pursuing extramural grant funding. Grants Lab offers faculty attendees the chance to get feedback on draft proposals and to hear experts sharing intelligence on the submission and review process for federal and foundation grants.
Student Learning and Student Success. Many consortia offer programming to improve teaching pedagogy and retention practices for the faculty and staff from member institutions. The Higher Education Data Sharing (HEDS) Consortium provides a suite of surveys to member institutions and also provides comparison data from peer and aspirant institutions. Their Student Success Champions organizes a cohort of faculty and staff from member institutions in a development program that is designed to elevate their work on campus.
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