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Global Context:
1. More students will be enrolling from outside the USA.
2. More students will need and desire part of their college education to be from outside the USA.
3. Colleges will need to offer more international course offerings in their programs to meet the need for more internationally rounded individuals.
4. To meet STEM needs, more students will be recruited from international locations.
5. Students educated to meet employer needs from entry-level through managerial positions will increase as employers seek out skilled workers; ie, certificate level grads will continue to be in higher demands.
US Higher Educational Context
1. Tuition pressures will increase from student, parent and government.
2. Demographics of students will shift in numbers from the NE. More first-generation students will enter college. More students with lower abilities to pay will attend college.
3. Revenue / Cost pressures will continue to hit most Universities with only the IVY-League less impacted.
4. More 2+2 programs will materialize.
5. Universities will need to compete more and more with internet-based learning.
RIT-specific Context
1. RIT’s model of delivering work-ready new hires to employers will continue to be appreciated by employers, parents and students. Our challenge is to deliver students who fit the “T” concept of experience. RIT must become a more inter-disciplinarilly focused institution to capitalize on our unique ability to prepare such students for the world.
2. RIT will reach its maximum enrollment in next few years given current infrastructure. Therefore, the ability to increase revenue by adding students will diminish markedly.
3. Revenue / Cost pressures will continue to rise due to economic backgrounds of our students. Students with less ability to pay will be on the rise as our enrollment drops from NYS and increases from the S/E.
4. RIT will become a nationally-rated university in next few years as we begin to graduate 20 PhD candidates annually.
5. RIT’s national stature will continue to grow (as well as international stature).
Definition of Agility at RIT:
A University that is able to easily cross disciplinary lines in order to provide a well-rounded (“T”) education to our students. Agility means our ability to capitalize on the individual strengths of each college in order to deliver this education. RIT: “Tear down these walls”.
Pre-meeting Task for Wednesday, March 26th
Consider the context of RIT’s future over the next 5-10 years. What trends do you see from the perspectives listed below?
In the space below list five trends in each of the following contexts and rank according to importance.
1) Global Context
2) US Higher Educational Context
3) RIT-specific Context
Based on your list of trends, what is your definition of agility at RIT? This definition should be no more than 2-3 sentence
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Margaret Bailey | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Stefi Baum | Global | |||||
Global
Rank 1 Many new technical universities in China, India and around the world
Rank 2 More freedom to conduct and more financial support from government to conduct scientific, engineering, and medical research in other countries around the world
Rank 3 Relatively small percentage of US Students (relative to global) entering the S&T fields.
Rank 4 Increasing number of international students being recruited by public university in the US
Rank 5 Growth in international S&T companies.
Higher Education
Rank 1 Increasing costs, decreasing value proposition.
Rank 2 Growth of the student oriented, flexible, for profit educational institutions and online education -
which are more responsive to a variety of student needs and the changing demographics.
Rank 3 Growth of temporary professors (adjuncts) and instructors relative to tenure track professors at University, and associated decreasing benefit of attending 4 year college rather than much less expensive community college followed by transfer since entry levels classes at two places are vastly different in cost but not content.
Rank 4 Growing industry interest in capability, not in degrees.
Rank 5 Changing demographics.
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Focus on offering value to students through (1) decreasing the costs and burden of a large centralized and costly bureaucracy, (2) allowing streamlined decision making at the faculty, staff, and unit level (maximum 2 signatures on anything!), (3) encouraging fluid exchange of ideas and opportunities across organizational boundaries by changing incentives and looking at RIT the way a student would, (4) concentrating resources on and limiting new initiatives to those which maximize the value of an RIT education.
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Peter Browne | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Enid Cardinal | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Jeanne Casares | Global | information access must be fast, immediately easy to access. Information can’t be controlled | China and India represent a large majority of world population (2.8B in 2025), thus the reason the business focus will be on serving those countries / people | Widespread aging will create a labor gap | Cyber security will continue to grow to thwart attacks on both people and governments. | widespread aging will creatre a labor gap. |
Higher Ed | Alternative certifications? influence of moocs and new distance learning will challenge the traditional model--how will this fit in? | demographic changes adding to enrollment declines. | Social media, digital video matures into viable channel for learning. | Value propositions will be key to school selection | role and significance to world of business will grow and become more defined | |
RIT | strategic use of technology will be critical for growth such such as the ILI, med centers etc. | Growth will come from international and non-traditional students. | Funding, productivity and roi will be critical to remaining relevant. |
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Milagros Concepcion | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Nancy Fein | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Cindee Gray | Global | economic and social istability | need for cultural competencies | increasing university competition abroad | ||
Higher Ed | rising cost | competition from for profit less expensive models | increase in technology changes | changing student demographics | ||
RIT | Cost and funding model | structural model that presents too many barriers | increasing demands for technology and need to train to keep current | lack of overall institutional view to prioritize resources versus view by silos | sustainability of people and resources |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Joseph Hornak | Global | Increased desire for higher education. | Instant and open access to information. | |||
Higher Ed | Decreasing desire for knowledge. | Instant and open access to information. | Poorer secondary school preparation. | |||
RIT | Polarizing politics hindering education. | Proliferation of programs without viability review of obsolete ones. |
Organizational Agility at RIT: The ability to respond expeditiously to new opportunities.
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Barbara Hoerner | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Ed Lincoln | Global/National | Lingering economic malaise coupled with the need for solutions to social issues and workforce demands | Demographic shifts - more diversity, fewer students overall, fewer students in primary student markets; growth in the number of non-traditional students | Increasing interdependence among countries and the need for greater cultural awareness and respect | Growing concern for the health of the planet (Sustainability) | |
Higher Ed | Economic pressures - affordability, debt burden, access, the need to develop revenue alternatives to tuition | Greater scrutiny and calls for higher levels of accountability for containing costs and meaningful outcomes | College readiness and the lack thereof | Technology use and increasing expectations from students, faculty and staff for enhancing teaching, learning, research, and administrative effectiveness | Increasing emphasis on interdisciplinary programs and research | |
RIT | Broad, balanced academic program portfolio that results in outstanding graduate school and career placement outcomes | Fiscally well-managed | An enhanced student experience | Successful enrollment growth but modest improvements in freshman persistence and graduation | Structural barriers to interdisciplinary collaboration and exploration and to on-time graduation |
Organizational Agility at RIT: Organizational agility at RIT is the ability to create academic programs,scholarship activities, and student experiences (especially interdisciplinary) that anticipate or quickly respond to global/social issues and workforce demands. It is also the ability to focus our attention and resources on those academic programs, scholarship activities and experiences that give RIT an advantage in attracting the highest quality faculty , students, and staff. Finally, it is the ability to create affordable, timely pathways to on-time graduation for all students.
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Sophia Maggelakis | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Gary Mendola | Global | |||||
Global Context:
1. More students will be enrolling from outside the USA.
2. More students will need and desire part of their college education to be from outside the USA.
3. Colleges will need to offer more international course offerings in their programs to meet the need for more internationally rounded individuals.
4. To meet STEM needs, more students will be recruited from international locations.
5. Students educated to meet employer needs from entry-level through managerial positions will increase as employers seek out skilled workers; ie, certificate level grads will continue to be in higher demands.
US Higher Educational Context
1. Tuition pressures will increase from student, parent and government.
2. Demographics of students will shift in numbers from the NE. More first-generation students will enter college. More students with lower abilities to pay will attend college.
3. Revenue / Cost pressures will continue to hit most Universities with only the IVY-League less impacted.
4. More 2+2 programs will materialize.
5. Universities will need to compete more and more with internet-based learning.
RIT-specific Context
1. RIT’s model of delivering work-ready new hires to employers will continue to be appreciated by employers, parents and students. Our challenge is to deliver students who fit the “T” concept of experience. RIT must become a more inter-disciplinarilly focused institution to capitalize on our unique ability to prepare such students for the world.
2. RIT will reach its maximum enrollment in next few years given current infrastructure. Therefore, the ability to increase revenue by adding students will diminish markedly.
3. Revenue / Cost pressures will continue to rise due to economic backgrounds of our students. Students with less ability to pay will be on the rise as our enrollment drops from NYS and increases from the S/E.
4. RIT will become a nationally-rated university in next few years as we begin to graduate 20 PhD candidates annually.
5. RIT’s national stature will continue to grow (as well as international stature).
Definition of Agility at RIT:
A University that is able to easily cross disciplinary lines in order to provide a well-rounded (“T”) education to our students. Agility means our ability to capitalize on the individual strengths of each college in order to deliver this education. RIT: “Tear down these walls”.
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Heidi Miller | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Kelly Murdoch-Kitt | Global | Sustainability & Social issues | Internationalism and cultural learning | enhancing physical learning spaces | open-source and crowdsourced info & learning | MOOCs and ubiquitous online learning |
Higher Ed | multidisciplinary collaboration | incorporating “soft skills” | supplementing a degree w/online learning | flipped classroom | teaching kids who came from “standards of learning” schools | |
RIT | balance technical learning with critical thinking | interactions and collaborations within and across disciplines | leadership, creativity, innovation & self-learning | use campus and its initiatives to teach sustainability across disciplines | encourage faculty to teach outside of their specific departments or open courses to students from different disciplines |
Global:
Interest in employing graduates who have some training or background in social issues and sustainability, regardless of their given field
Internationalism and cultural learning; e.g. VCU's program in Doha, Qatar, includes a spring break "field study" trip for students that is sponsored by the university, but organized by the students (students each plan different sites to visit and research them so they can teach their classmates and faculty in situ). Also Minerva Institute (global higher-ed startup).
Creation of physical spaces that support hybrid and/or collaborative learning (and investing in the physical learning context to make it stimulating, comfortable and pleasant).
Open-source and crowdsourced information (e.g. wikipedia) and learning (Livemocha language learning community)
Online learning, MOOCs; "University of the People" (free higher ed courses online); Making learning (and diverse topics) accessible to global learners at low (or no) cost.
National:
Multidisciplinary collaborations in higher ed (e.g. Stanford) to not only mimic industry, but to foster student engagement and lead to innovative outcomes
Incorporating "soft skills" into higher education curricula as part of career preparation
Supplement a degree (or lack of degree) with online learning, particularly to learn coding/programming skills (for career enhancement or career shift)
Flipped classroom model, using class time to focus on activities and interactions that cannot be replicated in a textbook or online and relying on students to give themselves the necessary background information on their own outside of class.
Coping with students coming from public high schools that have had to adapt to federal "Standards of Learning" and who expect college to be a similar "teach to the test" environment.
RIT:
Balance technical and skills-based/"employee-training" learning with holistic, conceptual and critical thinking
Interactions and collaborations within departments, colleges, and between different disciplines
Focus on leadership, creativity, innovation, and self-learning
Leverage RIT's sustainability focus as a unique learning opportunity that provides multidisciplinary collaboration possibilities and makes our students more competitive in the global workforce
Encourage faculty to teach outside of their specific departments and/or create courses that can enroll students from other disciplines (or co-located courses that can work together)
Organizational agility at RIT will shape the entire institute, from creating modular and adaptable learning environments at the departmental or college level, to encouraging large-scale learning, research, or community-building projects that engage students, faculty and staff across different colleges. The barriers to intellectual exploration and multidisciplinary collaboration will be reduced, resulting in innovative thinking and making experiences that will position RIT graduates competitively in the global career market.
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Rico Peterson | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Andy Phelps | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Beth Prince-Bradbury | Global | Sustainable model that anticipates marketplace changes from worldwide socio-economic transformation | Population booms in nations lacking technical infrastructure | Maintain the global edge that drives desire to consume US based education | Unchecked open source online education sources/MOOCS | |
Higher Ed | Sustainable model that can respond to changes in the marketplace without requiring restructure | Can we make the benefits of attending greater than the cost? | Adopt a P16 approach in the interest of developing college readiness; define college readiness | Finding the right balance to provide solid teaching while preserving the value derived from research | ||
RIT | Can we develop a sustainable model for delivery less dependent on tuition and traditional infrastructure | Will we be agile enough to respond to a changing marketplace | Can we create a culture that embraces a workplace focused on agility | Can we redesign our model to embrace multidisciplinary approach |
Organizational Agility at RIT : Abiility to respond to change with minimal disruption to the Institution (structurally and culturally). The capacity to take risk and to respond to change before such the change characterizes the marketplace.
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Sue Provenzano | Global | sustainability/ environmental/climate concerns | economic stability/ instability | access to information | need for education and cultural awareness | changing demographics |
Higher Ed | cost and accountability | relevance - is a degree still the best measure or indicator of learning? | expectations of parents and students | changing demographics | access to info and learning across time and space | |
RIT | dependence on tuition | an organizational structure that is not working - does not reward innovation or creativity and does not encourage exploration and experimentation | access to information and learning outside of traditional classroom setting - on demand along with different ways to assess learning | too many programs /initiatives without proper resourcing or accountability | changing demographics/ preparation of K-12 students |
Organizational Agility at RIT: the ability to assess current needs and trends and respond appropriately to provide students with the skills and knowledge to be productive, engaged, and responsible world citizens.
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Matt Purcell | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Amit Ray | Global | Environmental and FInancial Instability | Increase in elites overall and middle class from developing economies. Rise in poverty across the planet. | Wicked Problems of Scale that require multiple disciplines functioning in unison. | Privitization of Higher Education and continuing decreases in State support | |
Higher Ed | Rising costs | Diminishing federal support | Competition from state-subsidized for-profits. | Expectation of technology as a easy fix for rising costs | Continuing expansion of contingent labor | |
RIT | Population Decrease in NE. Other demographic shifts. | Expectation of technical proficiencies across all fields. | Expectation of social/cultural proficiencies across all fields. | Student as learner/educator/entreprener | Continuing emphasis on co-ops and a ‘maker’ economy |
Organizational Agility at RIT :To anticipate and design for change with minimal disruption to the Institution. The capacity to take risk and to respond to change before such trends become broadly manifested.
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Katie Schmitz | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Lauren Shields | Global | ? of globally mobile students from India and China. US visa regulations hinder MS and PhDinternational students | Increased competition for student globally | |||
Higher Ed | Calls to stem the rising cost of tuition. Make college education more affordable for all | Increase in % of non-traditional students- adults, distance learners. Numbers of high school graduates leveling out | Increased popularity of online education and e-learning | |||
RIT | Bureaucratic and administrative bloat is a huge problem. MIcro-managers at the executive level double the time it takes to accomplish anything | Lack of alumni engagement and major donors will continue to hamper RIT’s growth as enrollments level off | Aging infrastructure in many buildings, as well as technologies readily available for faculty and staff use |
Organizational Agility at RIT: RIT needs to be prepared to leverage any relationships with China and India. With the probability that the US will not loosen it’s visa restrictions, we must look at more global campuses in Asia and increasing our online degree offerings- marketing in Asia as well.
Administration at RIT- specifically in Academic Affairs has gotten out of control. The oversight of every decision made delays many processes. If it is a training issue, RIT needs to invest in it’s people and train those in middle-management,and then trust them to make the right decisions with less oversight, not none.
RIT needs to better engage its alumni in not only fund-raising but as a customer base- offering opportunities for continuing education in non-traditional ways.
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Kimberly Slusser | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Bill Turri | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Lynn Wild | Global | Technological capacity/accessibility | ||||
Higher Ed | Funding and finance | Competition from new models of education | Open systems with continuous access | Distinctiveness and specialization | Cpntinued growth in adult learners | |
RIT | Funding and finance | Competition from new models of education | Open systems with continuous access | Distinctiveness and specialization | Cpntinued growth in adult learners |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Name | Perspective | Rank 1 | Rank 2 | Rank 3 | Rank 4 | Rank 5 |
Howard Ward | Global | |||||
Higher Ed | ||||||
RIT |
Organizational Agility at RIT:
Organizational Agility at RIT: