Click or touch the Business Officer Magazine logo to return to the homepage.
Ethics Steady the Ship
In April 2016, 19 students were arrested at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, while protesting the fossil fuel investments held in the university’s endowment. The previous year, students and faculty members at New Jersey’s Princeton Universi...
A Multipurpose Palette
“Diversity” and “inclusion” take on different meanings in different communities, emphasizes Jesús Treviño, who likes to use a dance metaphor to describe what the two often-used words mean to him. “‘Diversity’ is being invited to the da...
Insightful Speakers
Making Sense of 2007? By Karla Hignite Thomas Friedman As the opening general session presenter and follow-on community colleges luncheon guest speaker, Thomas Friedman stirred the curiosity and the anxiety of attendees with his provocative view of a wo...
Islands of Civility
Michele Norris is perhaps known best for her decade as a cohost on “All Things Considered,” NPR’s flagship afternoon newscast. Prior to that, she spent nearly 20 years reporting on politics, education, drug abuse, and poverty for network television ...
Who’s Missing From the Conversation?
In her significant work to advance the dialogue about race in America, Beverly Daniel Tatum, scholar, educator, administrator, and past president of Spelman College, tackles tough topics. She has written about the impact of continued segregation in public...
Talk About Diversity
Diversity and inclusion are everyone’s business,” asserted Mary Ontiveros, co-presenter of the webcast, “The CBO’s Role in Diversity and Inclusion on Campus.” Ontiveros, vice president for diversity, and associate vice president for enrollment a...
Choosing Civility
“We’re all adults, so let’s act like it.” Many of us have heard this expression or maybe even said it ourselves a time or two. Yet, maintaining a civil workplace is considerably more complex than this. Based on polls conducted with thousands of wo...
How Diversity Spurs Creativity
Diversity—the varied experiences, skills, cultures, and interests of a group of people—can be a rich source of innovation and creativity for institutions, if that potential is properly harnessed, according to Sharang Biswas and Juliana Echeverri from ...
Inspiring Speakers
Where Passion Meets Talent We are living in an educational revolution, noted author, adviser, and researcher Sir Kenneth Robinson, and institutions need to act quickly to ensure that students’ experiences lead to personal fulfillment while preparing i...
Combat Unrest With Respect
Mary Ontiveros gets why college students protest. The Kent State shootings and the Cambodian invasion took place during her freshman year, and she was among the throngs of students across the United States expressing their collective concerns. In recent d...
Setting the Pace in Indy
The following NACUBO staff members and consultants contributed to this report: Mary Bachinger, Liz Clark, Deborah Cumbo, Jeanne Cure, Bryan Dickson, Barbara DiRocco, Sally Grans-Korsh, Anne Gross, Matt Hamill, Amy Hemphill, Karla Hignite, Sue Menditto, ...
Seismic Shifts
America’s demographic makeup is changing and, in the process, dramatically transforming the nation’s workforce, workplaces, and consumer markets, as well as social, economic, and political institutions. Moreover, our shifting demographics are changing...
What’s the Story in SoCal?
Nestled between the southeastern corner of Los Angeles County and Orange County, Long Beach is a small, yet bustling city. As it continues ongoing expansion efforts, Long Beach has become an attractive option for business, tourism, and entertainment, and ...
Where Are the People Like Me?
Think back to a time early in your career when you were the new kid on the block and feeling unsure just how to fit into your institution’s culture. How did you find other employees with whom you could identify? That’s the role that employee resource ...
When Activism Rises
Students on college and university campuses across the nation are protesting—and they are protesting a lot. Responding to everything from controversial speakers to politically-themed social events, students are more comfortable than ever with communicat...
A Conversation With Judy Woodruff
A broadcast journalist who has covered politics and other news for more than three decades, Judy Woodruff was certainly in her element during the presidential election year of 2012. In fact, she made television history when she and Gwen Ifill became the f...
Dawning Demographics
Reality is rapidly catching up with prior predictions of topsy-turvy population change. The most recent U.S. Census indicates that by 2019, minority children will become the majority; and by 2043, whites will no longer make up a majority of Americans. A...
Powering Up The Mind
Preparing students for the current and future workforce includes equipping all students, regardless of discipline, with the skills that will lead them through life. The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, is unapologetic about its liber...
Students Counsel
When the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire developed its Centennial Plan, 2008–16, its strategic vision called for a focus on enhanced learning that would engage all students in at least one high-impact experience such as study abroad, undergraduate ...
High Notes in Nashville
Edited by Khesia Taylor About midway across Tennessee, the city of Nashville is often associated with eclectic music, live bands, and the Country Music Association awards. While it’s often referred to as Music City, Nashville is undergoing a number of...
Impactful Speakers
The Future of Work Is Collaborative Josh Miller (left) and Sarah Sladek Taking the main stage on the morning of Sunday, July 14, from the generational research and management consulting firm XYZ University, Sarah Sladek, founder and CEO, and Josh Miller,...
The Multigen Advantage
She’s a Gen Xer. He’s a Gen Zer. Put them together and Sarah Sladek and Josh Miller offer multigenerational intelligence for businesses and organizations that want to engage younger talent or grow their membership. Sladek is chief executive officer of...
Symbiotic Systems
Seven years ago, in his inaugural address as president of Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Ronald Daniels emphasized that the university’s health and well-being are inextricably tied to Baltimore’s physical, social, and economic prosperity. Since the...
Eclectic Perspective
Set to conclude his first term as board member on the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) on June 30, 2019, Brian Caputo, vice president of administration and treasurer,the College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Ill., confides that time management has ...
Presidential Perspectives
With very few exceptions, the economic condition of higher education institutions is under stress. For public institutions, state funding has seen such significant declines in the last decade that costs have shifted to students, who now must pay much hi...
Tools of Engagement
“Good morning everyone. Let’s get started. I want to hear your thoughts about the campus climate issues, which the president raised yesterday, and then we will have our usual roundtable discussion. At 9:30, we are scheduled to hear from the director o...
Research Parks Redux
In the early 1980s, the idea of university-related research parks began to pique the interest of business leaders around the world. These unique planned properties offered close proximity to university researchers, student workforces, and the cutting-edge...
Step Up
As the workforce grows older and competition increases for highly skilled professionals, developing a robust pipeline of future leaders is an increasingly important priority for colleges and universities. For instance, in NACUBO’s 2016 survey of busine...
Presidential Perspectives
With very few exceptions, the economic condition of higher education institutions is under stress. For public institutions, state funding has seen such significant declines in the last decade that costs have shifted to students, who now must pay much high...
Enabling Equity
Becoming “student ready” was a natural progression for Augsburg College, Minneapolis, given its commitment to diversity and inclusion, its urban location in one of the most diverse ZIP codes in Minnesota, and its Lutheran roots in service and vocation...
Mainstream Minneapolis
Minneapolis, one of the Twin Cities, along with St. Paul, lies on both banks of the Mississippi River, and at the junction of the Minnesota River. Known as the City of Lakes, it is home to more than 20 lakes, as well as wetlands, creeks, and waterfalls. T...
Look-Ahead Leadership
In many ways, the College of Wooster fits the economic model for small, private liberal arts colleges with endowments under $500 million. Although thriving in terms of reputation, admissions, and academic quality, the college, located in Wooster, Ohio, is...
High Priority
Prior to and including her tenure as Maurice P. During ’22 Professor in Demographic Studies and Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University, Princeton, N.J., Marta Tienda has spent years researching, presenting, and writing broadly...
To Engage Students, Listen
In 2014, the White House invited the Center on Violence Against Women and Children, at Rutgers University, to pilot a sexual assault climate survey on its New Brunswick campus. One outcome was an assessment model for encouraging higher education instituti...
Joining Forces
With 2017’s record tab for U.S. disaster costs, estimated at $307 billion, the concept of resilience remains top of mind. Defined by the American Psychological Association as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, t...
As Colorado begins to slowly reopen its economy, Christina Lacerenza, assistant professor of organizational leadership at Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder, is trying to stay hopeful and foster a sense of resilience in her students....
ESSAY: A Curriculum to Change the World
SHIRLEY ANN JACKSON, a theoretical physicist, has served since 1999 as the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, New York, and Hartford, Connecticut), the oldest technological research university in the United States. From 1995 to 1999...
Campus Efficiencies
CAMPUS EFFICIENCIES Posters Portray Savings Where will your energy come from in 20 years?” asked one of the 30 posters highlighted at the first Sustainability Advisory Panel (SAP) Open House on Saturday, July 19, prior to the NACUBO 2014 Annual Meeti...
Austin Attitude
One of the first things that comes to mind when you think of Austin is music. With a thriving arts scene that includes more than 250 music venues and features the renowned music festivals South by Southwest and the Austin City Limits Music Festival, Austi...
Skill by Skill
Today’s challenges confronting higher education are stretching the role and responsibility of the chief business officer beyond that of the traditional finance and operations guru. Tomorrow’s CBOs will be greeted with greater demands for enterprisew...
Talent Scout
While we have all repeatedly heard and tried to act upon Jim Collins’ admonition in Good to Great (HarperBusiness, 2001) to “get the right people on the bus” and make sure they are “in the right seats,” we must also deal with the reality that hi...
Learning Lessons
An Alternative to Textbooks The cost of books can often be a burden to college students, and at Pierce College, a two-year public institution with campuses in Washington state, students report that they either don’t purchase the required textbook (66 ...
Reflections on Transitions
John Walda is president and CEO of NACUBO Many of you know that I will be concluding my 12 years as NACUBO President and CEO with this year’s annual meeting in Long Beach, Calif. It has been a pleasure and an honor to serve our organization and member...
Mindful Messaging
Stephen Young, senior partner at Insight Education Systems, is NACUBO’s 2016 Leadership Series speaker. “I see what you’re saying,” might be an accurate phrase to describe a central theme in Micromessaging: Why Great Leadership Is Beyond Words (Mc...
Student Advocate, Model Mentor
An advocate for women in the workplace, Mary Lou Merkt believes that the chief business officer role is a good fit for women. “It’s a position that requires you to juggle four or five projects at the same time,” Merkt said during her recent intervie...
Personalized Pathways
In an era of rising tuition and student debt levels, colleges and universities continue to universally face pressure to justify their programs. As parents and legislators focus increasingly on jobs as a sign of institutional effectiveness, communicating ...
Mission as Muse
With three years still to go on its current strategic plan, Elon University in Elon, North Carolina, has already completed 90 percent of the 41 major objectives. We are confident of completing almost all the remaining goals by 2020, as planned—and if hi...
Professor Kevin W. Tharp is uniquely positioned to meet the moment. With 20 years of experience learning and teaching technology, communication, and social interaction, and currently as an associate professor in the department of communication technologie...
ESSAY: Remedying the Demographic Disconnect
GRETCHEN M. BATAILLE, most recently senior vice president, Division of Leadership and Lifelong Learning, the American Council on Education, Washington, D.C., is a strategic partner with ROI Consulting Group. Previously, she served as the first female pres...
A World of Options
Decade after decade, the number of international students in the United States has increased significantly. While fewer than 50,000 international students enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions in 1960, their numbers had more than doubled by 1970 ...
Vying for Viability
America’s colleges and universities are facing myriad challenges that threaten their viability. Institutions are ever negotiating the equation of how to deliver a high-quality education at a price that families can afford. Despite this effort, many scho...
The Upside of Strategic Discipline
Liberal arts colleges today face game-changing challenges, such as a declining number of students, acute financial situations, intensifying competition, and pressure to keep academic offerings updated. Add to that the recent recession, which stressed flaw...
Readying Your Replacement
FIRST IN A SERIES – Major career shifts are on the minds of many a chief business officer, as well as those who aspire to the C-level position. Confirmation of such imminent transition has been coming from several fronts. NACUBO’s 2013 National Pro...
Season to Task
Let’s say you win the lottery today and, excited about your unexpected good fortune, resign your position tomorrow. What’s the likelihood your institution will have one or two current employees that you’ve seasoned to be ready and able to step into ...
Forward Focus
The game of contract bridge—also known as bridge—is a card game that’s about figuring out the next move and deal, and working collaboratively with your partner. As an avid bridge player for more than 30 years, Lynne Schaefer, who won a national cham...
Comfort Zones
Here’s a head-turning statistic from the U.S. Census Bureau: In 2012, Hispanics represented 23 percent of elementary and high school students in the United States—but only 7 percent of college students. Overall, reports the Census Bureau, 13 percent o...
The Countdown to Indy
It’s just around the next turn: the 2013 NACUBO Annual Meeting, in Indianapolis. The conference theme, “Driving Innovation,” couldn’t be more appropriate, with Indiana’s state capital surging from robust high-tech and manufacturing growth; a foc...
On the Water Front
If you don’t like the weather in Texas, wait a year. Or three. The latest drought cycle that has persisted across wide swaths of the state since 2010 has convinced many Texans that much more is needed to conserve the state’s precious water resources. ...
From the Ground Up
Mary L. Herrin first encountered Wichita State University as a student. After completing her bachelor of science in business administration and then a master of science in accounting at WSU, Herrin wanted to work in a CPA firm. But, that was a time when i...
The Community College Reincarnation
When you examine the inherent business case for U.S. higher education today, it’s unlikely that any savvy Wall Street investor would view the enterprise as offering a promising return on investment. Consider the salient indicators. Many employers—th...
Optimize Onboarding
When Shannon Seales, learning and development consultant at the University of Denver (DU), participated in the institution’s employee onboarding program five years ago as a new hire, she was dismayed. At that time, the program consisted of 90 minutes of...
The Path of Most Persistence
Susan Whealler Johnstonis president and CEO of NACUBO. sjohnston@nacubo.org They say that life isn’t a destination—it’s a journey. The same can be said of strategic planning. Done well, it’s an iterative process that helps organizations stay on tr...
Culture of Clarity
Historically, higher education’s management of its finance and operations involved relatively little discussion among the diverse array of stakeholders on campus. By contrast, today’s college and university constituents have a deep interest in the fin...
Crisis Control
An early morning phone call or text is often a college or university leader’s first signal that a crisis is unfolding. The military calls this moment—when you must employ rehearsed battle drills without hesitation—react to contact. The harsh reali...
Reporting Reimagined
First in a Series To explain more clearly the costs of operating their institutions, college and university leaders need a unified reporting model and a common language of understanding. And in fact, communicating the cost and value of higher education ...
Connecting the Dots
Thanks to our adoption of a responsibility-centered management (RCM) budget model, implementation of a program review process, and use of a new data analytics platform, colleges and departments at the University of South Dakota (USD), Vermillion, are see...
Isaac Newton coined the phrase “What goes up must come down.” But, in the tuition-discounting world, when tuition goes up, the related discount rate tracks right along with it. The hope is that the combination, designed to show the institution’s qua...
Mark Coldren Tells How to Tap the Talent Within
Succession planning has captured greater attention across the higher education landscape, as more leaders understand the need to step up the pace in filling a growing number of key positions vacated because of retirement. Mark Coldren, associate vice pr...
There is a significant lack of diversity in the accounting profession, notes a study released last year by the Howard University School of Business Center for Accounting Education. “Despite decades of intensive efforts, the accounting profession has ...
Bridging the Learning Divide
Two kids with the same name—Wes Moore—lived within blocks of each other in Baltimore. One Wes Moore grew up to be a decorated combat veteran, banker, Rhodes Scholar, White House fellow, and social entrepreneur. The “other” Wes Moore, however, is ...
Listening Power
Earlier this year, within weeks of his arrival at the University of Arizona, Tucson, as the senior vice president for business affairs and chief financial officer, Gregg Goldman was thrown into discussions involving about a hundred million dollars of redu...
Ripple Effect
The statistics about tuition discounts don’t lie … but neither do they tell the complete story. The 2014 NACUBO Tuition Discounting Study (TDS), which reports final discount data for the 2013–14 academic year and preliminary data for 2014–15, i...
Insightful Learning
Prep for New Leaders In the session “Ushering in a New Era of Leadership” three CBO’s discussed the growing number of senior-level retirements and the importance of retaining and developing new talent in order to fill the gap. Speakers agreed tha...
Impactful Speakers
Lessons From Storytelling Matthew Luhn Telling a story isn’t difficult, but “whoever tells the best story wins,” said Matthew Luhn, storyteller, consultant, and former Pixar story artist. Luhn, who was the opening main stage session presenter and ...
In It Together
Edited by Carole Schweitzer Nearly everywhere you look, colleges and universities are stepping up their game when it comes to regional collaborations. Whether it’s to increase community resilience in the face of natural disasters, revive lagging or disr...
Keep Calm and Listen On
One question that W. Kamau Bell gets asked a lot is why he dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), a coveted Ivy League institution in Philadelphia, where he had enrolled to become an East Asian studies major. Bell explains that early in the...
Striking a Balance
Two principal challenges facing four-year private, nonprofit colleges and universities today appear essentially antithetical, placing institutions in a precarious situation. On the one hand, institutions face a charge from students and their families, as ...
Montréal: Melding Old and New
Edited by Khesia Taylor The city of Montréal at sunset. Multifaceted and dynamic, Montréal is the largest city in the Canadian province of Québec. The vibrancy of the city stimulates the senses through education, history, food, and culture. In a city t...
Each year, NACUBO honors individual and institutional excellence through its awards program. The 2016 recipients were recognized in July, during the annual meeting in Montréal, at a ceremony supported by Sodexo. Hunter, Yestramski Receive Distinguished B...
When the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) set out to determine the cost of delivering IT services to its internal customers, it began by identifying 190 basic products and service elements in the university’s central IT department that also captu...
Systemic Strength
Colleges and universities have always played an important role in their communities—offering education and employment opportunities for diverse populations, boosting economic growth, partnering on infrastructure and energy improvements, and helping fill...
Forever USA
The Forever GI Bill signed into law in August brings mostly favorable news to veterans, their families, and the institutions they are choosing to attend. “The Forever GI Bill expands the success our veterans have had with the GI Bill, providing opportun...
Immersion Excursion
Never mind the nomenclature. Whether they are called living labs, learning communities, experiential learning opportunities, or something else—giving students real-world projects to tackle can yield important lessons in how to lead, interact with, and ...
An Array of Advances
Part of the research we’ve conducted in support of NACUBO’s Economic Models Project (EMP) over the past three years includes numerous focus groups involving wide representation of higher education leaders and stakeholders. The EMP advisory com...
Force Multipliers
Idea in Brief Strong collaboration among cities and their education and business sectors brings economic, social, and environmental benefits to the entire community. Embedding sustainability within an organization’s structure ensures that it gets prior...
A Good Offense
Board Chair Devona Williams calls Delaware State University, Dover, a hidden gem. Even so, the university’s growing enrollment suggests that more students and families are discovering the value of this public land-grant, historically black university. S...
Multimodal Instruction
When it comes to teaching models, one size does not fit all. Institutions are weaving a variety of approaches—online, blended, flipped, competency-based, gamification, adaptive, service learning, and virtual—into their curricular offerings. You name i...
Spotting Silver Linings
Clarence Page Having grown up in the working-class, factory town of Middletown, Ohio, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Chicago Tribune Clarence Page credits college with facilitating his entry into the middle class. “I spent my high school years...
Ethics at the Core
During the past decade, campuses have begun leveraging large sets of data to uncover previously unseen trends and drive strategic decision making. From measuring financial health, to optimizing enrollment and aid packages, to supporting student learning...
The 2016 Higher Education Accounting Forum will be held April 10–12 at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Orlando. This popular event offers the latest information on trends, issues, and best practices in financial accounting and reporting, financial man...
NACUBO board members, staff, and members representing the four constituent councils attend NACUBO’s eighth annual Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill. NACUBO’s four constituent councils—consisting of chief business officers serving community colleges, smal...
Financial Fix
Higher education is experiencing significant disruption in an increasingly complex and demanding operating environment. In many colleges and universities, the basic business model and value proposition are under significant pressure. Scrutiny is increasin...
Dilemma á Deux
Canada: Coming to Terms With the Times By Ken Snowdon The economic model of Canadian universities needs a reality check. Over the past two decades, Canada’s universities have been expected to improve access for underrepresented groups; increase enrollme...
Matching Investments to Mission
Most college and university endowment managers face the same set of core challenges: how to enhance financial returns, lower investment risk, and deliver increased cash flow to ensure adequate support of operating and capital budgets. How can your endowme...
In Anticipation
The two greatest risks today for institutions involve generating sufficient resources to maintain their operations and preserving their reputations in increasingly volatile environments, insists Eric Hartman, vice president, risk management and institut...
Thinking Differently, Together
Cognitive neuroscientist Dawna Markova and communications expert Angie McArthur are CEO emeritus and CEO, respectively, of Professional Thinking Partners, teaching collaboration strategies to executives around the world. Partners for the past 20 years in ...
Find Your Foothold
In 2015, despite significant sustainability success over the years, leaders at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill realized that they lacked a comprehensive strategy for addressing sustainability campuswide. “We wanted to bridge our ac...
Leading With a New Lens
Idea in Brief Real and lasting environmental progress will require close alignment of an institution’s sustainability agenda with its central mission. That mission must include equipping students to lead in a future where complex environmental, social,...
Walking the Walk
“Given the growing skepticism of higher education, combined with the explosion of data that give insight into what happens on campuses and after students graduate, I believe that colleges and universities will be—and should be—assessed by criteria t...
A Different Lens
THE PRIVATE INSTITUTION PERSPECTIVE The definition of reserves is fairly standard across private and public higher education. Reserves funds increase an institution’s ability to enhance programs, expand mission-related activities, respond to en...
