We reviewed the entire academic affairs function for a state university with six colleges serving more than 18,000 students. Our review included the provost office, dean’s office, and departmental level. We created metrics for estimating volume of work and recommended improvements that improved academic affairs across the university.

A School of Design and Architecture at an R1 university had grown organically and the dean was looking for ways to consolidate and centralize administrative activities for enhanced performance and cost effectiveness. We interviewed all of the staff and provided an updated organizational structure designed to enhance staff engagement and also take advantage of university shared services.

An online community college poised for its next stage of growth approached us for a robust design for its future state. Our organizational assessment included college-wide interviews, focus groups, and a survey ensuring the entire community provided input into the new design, accompanied by a change management plan.

A business school challenged by morale issues and faced with an accreditation challenge came to us looking for support to align faculty and deepen their engagement. Working closely with human resources, we conducted a culture survey and interviewed all faculty and staff. The resulting recommendations served as the basis for a two-day team-building workshop that we conducted on site. One year later, a new culture survey showed an increase across every measure, with an overall average increase of 43%.

A university president in her third year wanted a unique and impactful offsite for her senior leadership team. We developed a custom two-day workshop focused on inspiration, development, and taking action on the strategic plan. This was followed by a second workshop in the following year to enhance accountability.

On behalf of the Provost’s office we conducted a needs assessment, then designed and delivered a leadership development program for a university-wide team of administrative deans located across five schools. This program focused on individual leadership development, leading through change, and influence and communication. It created a common language and experience that enhanced collaboration and effectiveness.

A small university was in need of aligning its faculty and senior administration on cost-cutting measures, however longstanding conflict between these two groups meant that progress was not made. We conducted a “listening tour” and then developed a targeted workshop that included an organizational history exercise, strengths appreciation, and tools for managing difficult conversations. It provided the reset needed to create productive conversations to help the faculty and administration move forward together.

We partnered with the Society of Women Engineers to create an award-winning program that added coaching to their leadership development program for aspiring and junior faculty in STEM fields. Read more about it in this press release.

A scientific institute with an interdisciplinary focus had achieved its initial goals and needed support to create a vision for its next decade. However after some time the internal committee still didn’t have the buy-in to move forward. We conducted interviews, online and in-person workshops, and external benchmarking to map the environment, identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and evaluate multiple future scenarios. This work was then brought together in a vision document for faculty input and buy-in, and then a full strategic plan was delivered.

A US-based university with a presence in the Gulf Region sought to grow its master’s and executive programs. We conducted detailed market and competitive research, reviewed their portfolio and operations, and identified near-term opportunities to grow, motivating and focusing the team on a plan that yielded immediate results.

When a leading state university school wanted to evaluate the impact of newly-developed blended learning programs to meet the evolving demands of a global workforce. We created a comprehensive assessment ecosystem that is a foundation for ongoing innovation and global impact. It included  

• custom impact assessment framework with learner outcome and workforce metrics

• a complete question bank integrated throughout all courses to measure knowledge acquisition, skill development, and impact

• an interactive dashboard design for real-time visualization of learner progress and program effectiveness

• survey toolkits for long-term data collection

• detailed implementation guides

A major research lab was looking to increase the scope and profitability of its online professional offerings. We did an in-depth analysis of the profitability, expenses, staff support and external partnership opportunities and made recommendations that set the programs up for their next stage of growth by leveraging external partnerships and optimized internal support and staffing..

An executive and professional organization came to us looking to design new and innovative ways to increase revenues with their highly successful professional degree programs. We conducted a benchmarking study and an environmental scan, interviewed current and past clients, stakeholders and staff, and developed a two-year strategic plan for growth.