Building Organizational Capacity: Strategic Management for Higher Education »

Every university or college president envisions bold initiatives-big projects intended to change the nature of an institution with significant implications across all sectors. How can leaders and senior managers charged with implementing reforms effectively frame their work and anticipate potential pitfalls?

No organization can maximize its capacity, defined as the administrative foundation essential for establishing and sustaining initiatives, without considering its core elements individually and in concert, according to J. Douglas Toma. This book examines eight essential organizational elements-purposes, structure, governance, policies, processes, information, infrastructure, and culture-and illuminates their influence in strategic management through case studies at eight institutions.

Building Organizational Capacity situates strategic management within the context of higher education, providing practitioners with the tools to better understand institutional challenges in accomplishing its missions and realizing its aspirations. Toma's clear and well-integrated review of the latest research, as well as his advice for decision makers applying the book's lessons in practice, ensures this volume's place in the growing literature on strategy and management in higher education.

Foreword James E. Morley, Jr. vii

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1

1 Strategic Management and Systems Thinking 15

2 Managing Increasingly Complex Institutions 35

3 Purposes: Redesigning the Curriculum at The College of New Jersey Matthew Hartley 54

4 Structure: Rethinking the Setting for Teaching Mathematics at Virginia Tech Kelly Ward 75

5 Governance: Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation at Valley City State University Adrianna Kezar 97

6 Policies: Enhancing Faculty Scholarship and Integrating Student Research into the Curriculum at LaGrange College Kathleen Shaw 118

7 Processes: Improving Student Retention at Paul D. Camp Community College Christopher C. Morphew 135

8 Information: Tuition Discounting at the University of Redlands Kevin Kinser 151

9 Infrastructure: Maintaining Quality with Static Resources at Seminole Community College Lisa Wolf-Wendel 172

10 Culture: Invigorating Undergraduate Education at the University of Georgia Greg Dubrow 189

Conclusion 207

Appendix 221

Notes 229

Bibliography 239

Index 259