Each year, members nominate a small set of urgent and aspirational issues to be the focus of the Council’s most in-depth research efforts. Teams of three to four staff devote six to nine months to reading thousands of pages of literature and interviewing hundreds of experts and institutional practitioners to identify 10 to 15 innovative and replicable practices, presented to the membership at provost roundtable meetings and published as best practice studies.

The agenda below describes the major initiatives from the Council’s first full year.

Completed Initiatives

Engaging University Faculty in Learning Outcomes

Spurred by rising accreditor expectations and the VSA, many universities are re-examining approaches to defining, measuring, and communicating student learning outcomes. This study examines the governance processes, IT investments, and task specializations innovative four-year institutions have deployed to reduce the time and expertise burdens of assessment on faculty, and how assessment data is being used to inform consequential decisions about general education content and budget priorities.

Breakthrough Advances in Faculty Diversity

Despite disappointing overall progress in diversifying the higher education professoriate, a handful of institutions have made significant progress—without the advantages of deep pockets or geography—through disciplined attention to best recruiting practice. This study examines diversity leaders’ strategies for cultivating faculty support for diversity initiatives, resourcing outreach efforts to diverse candidates beyond the active search period, and instilling accountability for recruiting efforts.

Initiatives in Progress

The Global University

Many higher education institutions assert with confidence that their top strategic priority is globalizing the university; few are able to discuss with precision how that goal translates into coordinated initiatives. This study will examine how universities are striving to internationalize, profiling frontier practice (and quantifying requisite infrastructure investments) in attracting foreign students, building study abroad programs, supporting faculty, extending campus presence overseas, and developing global research partner networks.

The Next Five Percent: Frontier Innovations in Student Retention

Having captured gains from a generation of student retention investments, universities are experimenting with a variety of new policies and analytic approaches to achieve the next step-function in reducing attrition. This study will assess the most innovative approaches in restructuring admissions practices to minimize retention risk, enhancing early-warning identification and rapid intervention practices (for freshman and upperclassmen), creating a system of graduation-focused academic advising, as well as first experiments with data-mining analytics.