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"Some college administrators seem so distracted with fund raising, academic infighting, and community initiatives that they set up their emergency communications departments very poorly. Training is poor to nonexistent, secretaries are pressed into service with tremendous responsibilities for running 'notification systems' 24/7 and on weekends because no one else knows how to do it and the administration won’t pay for additional staff. Procedures are seat-of-the-pants and dependent on HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion), except when something like Virginia Tech happens and there is some sort of scramble to do something different." --Donna
Most Colleges Avoid Risk Management, Report Says
Jill Biden Shines a Global Spotlight on American Community Colleges
Speaking at a Unesco conference in Paris, the vice president’s wife stressed the importance of two-year institutions to the nation’s educational goals.
Connecticut Public Colleges Lose 200 Professors to Early Retirement
Administrators are scrambling to plug holes in their course schedules for fall, with most expecting to do so by hiring more adjuncts or increasing class sizes.
U. of Georgia Paid 2 Fraternities $2.4-Million to Relocate, Contracts Show
The two were among five with houses on property where the university plans to build new academic facilities.
New Allegations in Admissions Controversy at U. of Illinois Suggest Ex-Provost Played a Role
Linda P.B. Katehi, the incoming chancellor of the University of California at Davis, has insisted she knew nothing of the admission of politically connected applicants at Illinois.
Sonoma State U. Foundation May Lose $350,000 on Loan to Former Board Member
The foundation will be forced to issue fewer scholarships in the 2010-11 academic year because of a diminished endowment, a university official said.
College Suspends Student for Working in Gay Pornography | 58
President Obama's Visit to Notre Dame Carries Barely a Hint of Controversy That Preceded It | 58
Drug Sting Nabs 21 Students at U. of Illinois | 57
Faculty Members and Union Protest Staff Layoffs at Temple U. as 'Cruel' | 57
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January 4, 2008
Chief Executive at Strayer Inc. Is Named CEO of the Year
The chief executive of Strayer Inc., a higher-education company that has pointedly avoided the aggressive growth strategies of many of its competitors, has been named CEO of the Year for 2007 by Morningstar, an independent investment-research company.
Strayer, based in Arlington, Va., owns Strayer University, which operates 51 campuses in 12 states in the eastern United States and Washington, D.C. Strayer enrolls 36,000 students, about half of whom take all their courses online.
Morningstar said it had chosen to honor Strayer’s CEO, Robert Silberman, because he has “created a culture at Strayer that would rather provide quality education with subpar short-term financial performance than offer subpar education for short-term financial gain.”
In an industry where competitors seek to bolster their revenue by “packing students into seats regardless of the consequences,” Morningstar said Strayer was notable for “keeping growth at a manageable eight to 10 campuses a year” — an approach that “has helped ensure that Strayer’s schools are opened only when qualified faculty and staff are available.”
As Morningstar noted, the company is also among the most financially successful of its peers, with profit margins of about 30 percent.
Mr. Silberman, who formerly ran an energy company and was an assistant secretary of the Army during the first Bush administration, became CEO in 2001. —Goldie Blumenstyk
Posted on Friday January 4, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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This is refreshing to read. For profit education can be as ethical, memorable and academically sound as that offered at other insitutions.
But we all know that is not always the case.
Kudos to Robert Silberman and to Morningstar for the award. May their joint examples encourage others to act accordingly.
— Gustavo A. Mellander Jan 4, 11:26 PM #
When an investment company recommends a higher education institution, via awarding an award for something to it or its CEO, we can expect it is operating out of an investment perspective, primarily, and a quality of education perspective, secondarily. Ten campuses a year as a “modest” growth rate that enables “quality” of faculty is a proposition that makes sense primarily and possibly only in the context of Univ. of Phoenix and others institutions that teach buzzwords, changing courses whenever Microsoft or Oracle invent new acronym-bearing computer somethings. In THAT context, this CEO and institution are being given an award. We need not get all hot and bothered about either the primary or secondary context in which this event has taken place. We can applaud the strict separation between business and academic functions maintained as a matter of policy by the initial leaders of this institution. However, history indicates the most likely outcome is a second or third generation that completely ruins such principles in the name of personal career advancement or pleasing investors grown restless, not at their actual returns but at the way those returns look when viewed by increments of greed, stimulated by nearly anything.
— Richard Tabor Greene Jan 7, 05:56 AM #