Competing on Innovation, Quality, Partnering and Price: Transforming and Amplifying the Future of the

State Comprehensive University

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it”.

---Alan Kay

About Fort Hays State University

• Founded in 1902 as a “teaching academy” on 4,000 acres of military land ceded to the state of Kansas by the federal government

• Its state college role was expanded in the 1960s in response to the need for access/affordability for first generation and nontraditional students and the changing demands being place on other types of four year institutions (AASCU)

• Assigned current liberal and applied arts mission in 1992 as one of three regional, state comprehensive universities in the Kansas Regents System (36 institutions) responsible for 66 western and central counties (52,000 square miles)

About Fort Hays State University

• Founding member of the Higher Learning Commission’s (HLC/NCA) alternative accreditation track known as the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP)

• Academic Programming 52 undergraduate degree programs 19 graduate degree programs 25 programs completely accessible off-campus

• General Structure Three divisions: academic, student affairs, admin-finance Four academic colleges, graduate school, distance education

delivery unit called the Virtual College

About Fort Hays State University

• Branding Tagline: Affordable Success

• Enrollment: The Way We Were (Fall, 1998) On-campus: 4718 Off-campus: 839 Grand total: 5557

• Enrollment: The Way We Are (Fall, 2007) On-campus: 4449 Off-campus: 5375 (2300 in China) Grand total: 9824

Where in the World is FHSU?

The Future Isn’t What It Used To Be:Change-Drivers Reshaping Higher Education

• The emergence of a more demanding, educated consumer with a “shopper’s mentality”

More choices among a wider array of options

Convenient, relevant and close to home learning experiences

Readiness to use several educational organizations on the way to one or more credentials

• Growing pressure for flexibility/nimbleness to meet learner needs

• Competition: new providers/old players

• A growing, worldwide demand for learning

The Future Isn’t What It Used To Be:Change-Drivers Reshaping Higher Education

• Changing demographics/diversity

• Continuing need to integrate/apply technology

• The realization of a lifelong relationship between work and learning

• Greater segmentation of the learning marketplace

• Caught in the squeeze: declining public funds vs. market opportunities

• The public reform imperative: access, affordability, assessment and accountability

Taking Charge of Change: Framing Strategic Choices/Inventing FHSU’s Future

• Analytical Questions for Developing StrategyWhat are the key issues/opportunities we face?How can we best compete?

In what “direction” do we want to go?

• In the Process of Responding to the Analytical Questions, What “Big, Hairy, Audacious Approach” Frames the FHSU Selection of Strategic Themes and Competitive Capabilities?

An Approach/Guide for Shaping the FHSU Future: Mission-Centered, Market-Smart, Politically-Savvy

Mission-Centered, Market-Smart, Politically-Savvy:The Value Proposition

• “….when the history of American higher education….in the 21st century is written, we hope that becoming more market smart proves to be only part of the tale. The rest of the story ought to be about using market smarts to regain control of institutional mission---about the restoration of American colleges and universities as places of public purpose.”

---Zemsky, Wegner and Massey, Remaking the American

American University: Market-Smart and Mission-Centered (2005), p. 202.

Mission-Centered, Market-Smart, Politically-Savvy:Select Elements of the Value Proposition for FHSU

• Demographics (Growth and Diversity)

• Caught in the Squeeze: Declining Public Funds

• Financing Institutional Goals and Creating Campus Culture Internationalization/Worldwide Demand for Learning Technology: Mobile Learning and Enterprise Initiatives Continuous Quality Improvement (AQIP) Convenience of Access (graduation rate), Affordability of Access (low

tuition), Learning Accountability (assessment), Faculty Enhancements

• New Ways of Doing Business (flex, common course and redesign strategies/see Graves, “Voluntary Counter-Reformation”)

• Energizing Mission, Public Purposes and the American Dream

Translating the Mission-Centered, Market-Smart, Politically-Savvy Strategic Approach into Themes and Essential Competitive

Capabilities

Mission-Centered, Market-Smart, Politically-Savvy

Innovation

ContinuousQuality

ImprovementPartnering Price

Peopleand

Leadership

Strategic Focusand

Alignment

Operationsand

Management

InteractiveCompetitiveCapabilities

Strategic Themes

StrategicApproach

Using Themes to “Stretch” the Strategy: Competing on Innovation

• Envision and Introduce Curricular Products

– Online BBA in Management/Marketing (sustaining innovation)– Alternative Teacher Certification (low-end disruptive innovation)– Professional Science Masters (new market disruptive innovation)

• Envision and Implement Curricular Reformation

– MIS 101(course redesign to improve learning/reduce costs)– On-line Service Learning (unique off-campus learning and

meeting public purposes)

Using Themes to “Stretch” the Strategy: Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)

• Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP)– New, more inclusive view of institutional excellence (applies to all three

divisions---see Ruben, Pursuing Excellence….2004)– New opportunities to leverage excellence across the institution, e.g. AQIP

action plans (research, mobile learning, new annual reports)– Year of the Department (YOTD): A Call to Engagement (defining the

faculty role in academic quality work/academic audit)

• Office of Quality Management– Aligning process improvement and performance initiatives with long-term

strategic planning, themes and priorities– Kansas Board of Regents Performance Agreements– Institutional Expansion of Academic Analytics

Using Themes to “Stretch” the Strategy: Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)

• New On-line Quality Course Development Process

• New Student Outreach Call Center in Virtual College to Enhance Learner Relationship Management and Findings About Learner Satisfaction – Timeliness– Knowledgeable and courteous staff– Fair treatment– Expected outcome achieved

• Institutional Performance Scorecard• Dare to Dream: Yearlong Organizational Rethinking and Restructuring

Process (new units, programs, certificates, etc.)• Kansas Academy of Mathematics and Science

Using Themes to “Stretch” the Strategy: Strategic Partnering

• “As institutions promote their individuality and autonomy, they will also need to enter into a wide array of partnerships and strategic alliances to maximize their effectiveness and quality.”

--From the introductory message to the ACE web site by David Ward, 2007

• For FHSU, strategic partnering is a leveraging process that expands growth, learning opportunities, energy and revenue while helping to implement strategy and maintain mission and public purpose.

• Office of Strategic Partnerships

• Internationalization of the Campus/Enrollment Management

• Pioneer in Cross-Border Distance Education (China, 2300 students)

ShenyangShenyang

BeijingBeijing

TaiwanTaiwan

XinzhengXinzheng

HangzhouHangzhou

University of International Business

and EconomicsBeijing

University of International Business

and EconomicsBeijing

Shenyang Normal UniversityShenyang

Shenyang Normal UniversityShenyang

Tak Ming CollegeTaiwan

Tak Ming CollegeTaiwan

Beijing Normal University Zhuhai Campus

Zhuhai

Beijing Normal University Zhuhai Campus

Zhuhai

Tianjin University of Science and Technology

Tianjin

Tianjin University of Science and Technology

Tianjin

Sias International UniversityXinzheng

Sias International UniversityXinzheng

Hangzhou Normal UniversityHangzhou

Hangzhou Normal UniversityHangzhou

Hong Kong Institute of Continuing Education

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Institute of Continuing Education

Hong Kong

The FHSU-China Connection

Using Themes to “Stretch” the Strategy:Competing on Price

• Without going into issues of price elasticity, discounting and higher education price indices, FHSU’s ultimate goal (horizon 3) is to remain mission centered by spending its market earned marginal revenues to enhance access, increase affordability and maintain the traditional public purposes of the university. Price is determined by this careful balance between market, mission and academic values and the political savvy to understand that competitive pricing is closely tied to improvements in productivity and quality.

• “To improve affordability, we propose a program of cost-cutting and productivity improvements….new performance benchmarks [and] lowering per-student educational costs by reducing barriers for transfer students” (lowest in Kansas Regents System). ---Spellings Commission

• Average five year tuition increase: 5%

Using Themes to “Stretch” the Strategy:Competing on Price

• On-Campus Tuition and Fees per credit hour Undergraduate Resident: $111.85Graduate Resident: $154.65Undergraduate Non-resident: $351.45Graduate Non-resident: $408.65Undergraduate Contiguous State & MSEP: $155.06Graduate Contiguous State: $219.19

• Virtual College Fees per credit hourUndergraduate Virtual College: $148.00Graduate Virtual College: $197.25Graduate MBA Virtual College : $400.00

Developing Capabilities for Executing Strategy:People and Leadership*

• “The good-to-great leaders began the transformation by first getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus)…. and the right people in the right seats---and then figured out where to drive it.” Jim Collins, From Good to Great, 2001, p. 63.

• The Academic Compact: The Most Essential Social Software (YOTD)• FHSU Academy of Academic Leadership• You Are the Future: Yearlong New Faculty Orientation• Faculty Leadership/interim Opportunities/Talent Development and

Succession Strategy• Center for Teaching Excellence (CTELT)/Faculty Enhancement Plan• Awards/Incentives/Amenities

Developing Capabilities to Execute Strategy:Strategic Focus and Alignment*

• Council for Institutional Effectiveness (CIE) works to ensure that process improvement and resources are devoted to the Strategic Themes and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that measure progress toward goal-achievement

• AQIP Action Projects, the university strategic planning process and KBOR Performance Agreements serve as the foundation for cascading themes, goals, KPIs and information designed to “align” organizational with unit-level (college, departments, budget unit) plans and initiatives

• Themes provide unit-level leaders with flexibility and freedom to innovate and develop goals of their own

• Employees are engaged in activities and receive information to help understand the institution strategy, values, mission and capacity-building efforts (Performance Scorecard and YOTD)

Developing Capabilities to Execute Strategy:Operational Excellence and Management*

• Access, Affordability and Talent Development (success) as branding elements are reinforced by operational excellence (quality). Since uniqueness is hard to achieve, the FHSU choice is to conduct “operations” better than any other SCU

• Use Principles of Excellence/Not Business

– Management by measurement/clarifying and improving processes– Service quality in on- and off-campus operations (e.g. telephone

etiquette for administrative assistants)– CIE operational plan ties together people, strategy and operations– Review synchronization/alignment and need for strategy adaptation– Results management plan including annual reports from NSSE, CLA, FSSE, HERI, AQIP and specialized accreditation to close the

accountability gap

Developing Capabilities to Execute Strategy:Operational Excellence and Management*

• Continuing discussion, implementation and institutionalization of mission-centered structure and activities for serving public purposes– American Democracy Project (ADP) sponsored by AASCU (see

FHSU ADP web site)– Center for Civic Leadership (Tigers in Service, Kansas Youth

Leadership Academy[KYLA] camps, service learning, Ben Franklin Papers project, etc.

– Diversity Learning– Internationalization/Seven Revolutions

*Adapted in part from Bossidy, L. and Charam, R., Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, 2002.

• In closing, let me re-emphasize why FHSU thinks it’s so important to “take charge of change”:

On the plains of hesitation, bleach the bones of

countless millions who at the dawn of victory,

sat down to wait….and waiting, died.

George W. Cecil, 1923

Thank you. Questions?

Available at: <www.fhsu.edu/provost>