Corporate Council provides a business point of view
By Garry Boulard, Published July 13, 2010

When Marcia Daniel visits a community college, she almost inevitably walks away impressed with the institution’s determination to weather the most recent economic downtown.

"More often than I can count, these colleges have been asked to do more with less," says Daniel, associate vice president for client and partnership development at CollegeNET, Inc., a software company that develops educational tools for colleges and universities.

Daniel says she admires how public two-year institutions have found ways to continue running programs during the current recession. But she's concerned that such resourcefulness can only go so far.

"My fear is that with the national unemployment situation being what it is, community colleges are going to be asked to do even more—and sometimes I wonder how that is economically possible," Daniel says.

Community colleges and their supporters have to find new ways to secure funds in order to continue to serve students at the current rate, says Louis Oberndorf, president and chief executive officer of Medical Education Technologies Inc., a provider of medical and health care simulation technologies.

"I am convinced that because state and local funding is going to be a challenge for these colleges for the foreseeable future, there needs to be an examination of how they get their support," says Oberndorf, predicting that community colleges will be looking at "new ways of doing things without, of course, having any of them lose sight of their important educational goals and objectives."

Darrell Shumway, community college practice leader with Parsons, a full service program/construction management company, sees an intersection of the community college and business worlds combining to overcome economic challenges.

"These are also tough times for corporations, too. In many ways, we are facing the same challenges," he says. "What really interests me is whether or not the solutions that corporations seek out and settle on in addressing changing times can be used for the same purposes within the world of community colleges. I personally believe that in most cases they can."

Daniel, Oberndorf and Shumway, along with more than 20 other peers from business and industry discuss such issues as members of the American Association of Community Colleges’ Corporate Council, a body established in 2003 to provide two-year college leaders with feedback and recommendations from the private sector.

The council members are closely involved with higher education, notes Sandra DeCastro, the chair of the council.

"We see ourselves as part of the higher education community," says DeCastro, who is general manager of association and customer programs at SunGard Higher Education, a provider of college and university software and services.

In that context, the council members observe how community colleges are addressing the current economic downturn, and they are direct in sharing examples of what they see working at other institutions and discussing new business models and collaborative partnerships.

During a recent meeting of the group in Seattle, the council identified trends that illustrate how colleges are thinking differently to overcome economic challenges and noted that such institutions have moved from accepting a bleak economy as part of their future to more aggressively fighting for funding.

Many colleges are also emphasizing their value to their local communities and collaborating with businesses and other colleges in order to share expertise and services, according to council members. They cite as an example the Ohio User Group Collaboration, which includes 28 public and private schools in Ohio that focus on shared services designed to produce more efficient results in such areas as increased performance standards, student services and accountability.

Council members also note that community colleges are increasingly redirecting their planning inward in order to extend current investments with products and services designed to improve both effectiveness and efficiencies.

In addition, community colleges are showing an increased interest in finding new ways to both consume and manage technology, including leveraging “cloud services” and outsourcing. In fact, in 2009, the number of colleges outsourcing their information technology departments was the highest in three years.

Such findings are highlighted and examined in meetings that have come to be known for their intellectual verve.

"When you get that many strong-minded people in one room and ask them what they think, you're going to get some very honest and vigorous discussions," says Daniel, who previously served as an information system project manager at the North Carolina Community College System.

The council, which meets twice a year, doesn't shy away from tackling difficult issues, agrees Oberndorf.

"We're going to continue to ask tough questions because I think that sort of honesty is good for community colleges and their leaders," he says.

Such honesty can yield blunt advice, says Shumway, a former trustee at Pratt Community College in Kansas. He notes that at a recent meeting, council members talked specifically about the need for community colleges to "do a better job of informing the public of the importance of community colleges and what they do for workforce development as well as the larger community."

That kind of straight talk reflects the fact that community colleges historically have been open to change and new ideas, Oberndorf says.

"Our challenge in the council is to support these changes where they take place and promote them elsewhere," Oberndorf says. "If we can do that, and in the process make community colleges more efficient and successful institutions, then I think the council will be really serving a great purpose."