chuckstaben Uncategorized

National Meetings

National meetings are useful and renewing, for presidents and for other cabinet members. Of course, there is a bewildering array of meetings, so I wanted to share impressions and some observations, as well as how a Cabinet might use them.

I found it useful to report back on meetings that I attended-perhaps just 10 minutes at a Cabinet meeting. And, encourage your VPs to do the same. Keeps them focused, but leverages each meeting for the whole group.

Most universities will belong to one or more national societies; as a land grant university, the natural for the University of Idaho was the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities. The Council of Presidents meetings are very useful-fast paced, focused presentations. Because this organization springs from the Land Grant community, there is strong participation from Agriculture Deans and Extension. The Research VPs are also very active. The Council on Academic Affairs is for Provosts-the summer meetings are less formal, more focused, and more productive. Spend some time meeting with colleagues. Few attendees tour the vendor hall, but I have always found this very productive…and one of the other presidents I usually see there is Michael Crow, from ASU-one of the most innovative and respected of university presidents. Hint.

ACE, the American Council of Education, draws a very wide audience from small privates to large publics. The sessions tend to be very diverse in topics and applicability; I found them somewhat repetitive of APLU but generally less useful because they were less focused. The adjunct meeting for NAPAHE is a good one for your chief of staff or assistant. I often participated in a session with my chief of staff-very worthwhile and few presidents do that. The other ACE session that is lightly attended by male presidents is the session on Women’s Leadership. If we are serious about moving the gender needle in higher education, I think both men and women need to attend such sessions…and what better place to recruit women interested in leadership positions at your university?

A “once-hidden” gem that I urge anyone to attend is the ASU-GSV conference. The conference has grown exponentially. Definitely a Michael Crow brainchild, but a great place to meet innovators, see new trends…and some wonderful plenary sessions. Not that expensive for academics. I see few fellow presidents there, but the ones who do attend include those I most respect for innovation. If you have not tried this one, put it on your list.

AGB (Association of Governing Boards) runs several conferences. I think attending with your Board chair or members is the way to go-never did this with my governing board, but I did with my Foundation Board chair, VP Advancement, and Foundation Executive Director. Great way to hear talks, compare notes-get new ideas and have someone objective (or at least outside your foundation) provide perspectives you may want the Chair to hear.

I know that there are many other meetings, but I can personally vouch for the usefulness of these. Enjoy…and feel free to email me additional suggestions.

chuckstaben Uncategorized

Ethnic Diversity Goals and Metrics

The Chronicle of Higher Education analyzed diversity of the freshman class at the flagship university in each of the 50 states, comparing the domestic student population to the ethnic composition of each state. The bottom line is that the domestic student population of most flagships shows significant underrepresentation of American Indian/Native Alaskan, Black, and Hispanic students (URMs) when compared to the demographics of the state population. The difference in URMs at flagships ranged from +0.7 at the University of Maine to -37.4 at the University of California, Berkeley with the overall national average at -22.2%.

Is this an appropriate, or the only appropriate measure of ethnic diversity? And, curiously, the Chronicle left out a large and important group, Asian American students.

I think that the ethnic diversity of the student body reflects several priorities. First, does the flagship enroll an ethnically diverse reflection of the resident students of the state? Second, do students attending the university receive the benefits of attending an ethnically diverse university, even if the ethnic diversity of their state may be limited? Though the diversity of the freshman class is important, the success of enrolled students by ethnicity is certainly also very important.

Let’s look at #1 (Maine), #50 (UCB), and my own university, University of Idaho (#11). Maine enrolls almost 50% out-of-state students; Idaho 25%, Berkeley is capped at 18%. I was not able to tease out ethnicity by resident status for Maine and Berkeley, but there may be surprises embedded in the data. At Idaho, for example, more than 1/2 of all black students are out of state, student athletes…hardly a representative sample.

Second, look at a table that compares these three states, their flagship URM data to their state and national data.

 State PopulationFreshman Domestic StudentsTotal URMDifferences
 %Black%Native%Hispanic%Black%Native%HispanicStudent-StateStudent-Nation
Maine1.30.61.6214.94.4-21.9
Idaho0.71.312.41.10.8130.5-14.9
California6.51.7391.70.117.6-27.8-10.4
National12.60.916.35.20.510.9-13.2-13.2

Though the table is a bit tough to read, I think that one can see that Berkeley underrepresents its state population, but closely reflects national diversity…more closely than even that national flagship average. And, though Maine is “more diverse” than its state…the student body does not reflect the experience of our nation.

Numbers alone can’t tell the diversity story…but let’s be clear about what the numbers we collect mean.