The Associated Colleges the Midwest:

Fifty years of accomplishments

Founded in 1958, the Associated Colleges of the Midwest stands proudly as one of the oldest and most successful American higher-education consortia. With roots reaching back to 1920 in the Midwest Collegiate Athletic Conference and to 1951 in the Midwest Faculty Conference, the ACM can claim an extraordinary record of collaboration amongst its member colleges. With the ten founding members (Beloit, Lawrence, and Ripon in Wisconsin; Coe, Cornell, and Grinnell in Iowa; Carleton and St. Olaf in Minnesota; Knox and Monmouth in Illinois) still actively engaged, and strengthened by new members Macalester and Colorado Colleges in 1967, Lake Forest College in 1974, and the College of the University of Chicago from 1988 through 2008, the ACM has shown remarkable stability and vitality over 50 years of profound change in American higher education.

The founders of ACM, united in a common commitment to excellent liberal arts education, identified three main purposes to support the members through joint action:

1. To advance the interests and to contribute to the educational effectiveness of the member colleges of the Association;
2. To develop and assist the member colleges in improving the efficiency of their operations both administrative and cultural;
3. To assist the member colleges in developing additional sources of revenue.

President Miller Upton of Beloit College summarized the collaborative goals of ACM in saying that the new association should “provide individual colleges through collective action” with assistance they could not provide individually; ACM should help the member colleges’ president, faculties, and trustees be better able to “appraise their existing educational efforts, stimulate them into awareness of certain conditions…and encourage experimentation in meeting the demanding problems of the future.” Upton further wrote that the ACM should “help identify areas where cooperative college action might be undertaken with profit and serve as a creative stimulus to the individual colleges in planning for their separate missions.” That common purpose and commitment to ACM as a “creative stimulus” remains vital after 50 years.

New challenges

American higher education—and the place of the residential liberal arts college within it—has changed considerably since 1958. Barely 3% of American college students are educated in liberal arts colleges, and public understanding of this distinctive educational mission has fallen, along with public resources for higher education in general. Meanwhile, financial and other disparities have emerged among member colleges of the ACM, changing the originating dynamics of the association. Off-campus study programs have proliferated on member campuses and throughout the higher-education community, challenging the collaborative framework of ACM programs and putting pressure on the long-established business model for ACM programs. Not only has competition in off-campus study become fiercely competitive, but the falling dollar, changing enrollment patterns, and steep costs have added further challenges. The growing impact of new technologies on higher education, increasing challenges to the professoriate, and a global economy all contribute to a remarkably different educational milieu than the ACM founders knew in 1958. Meanwhile, members’ dues to support the organization have escalated, threatening another founding assumption that the association should help its members find more “efficient and productive ways to operate.” As the ACM addresses these changes the consortium must find ways to be more flexible, more efficient, more prepared to seize new opportunities.

New opportunities

Although[BEH1] ACM enters its 50th year facing very real challenges, it also stands poised to take advantage of distinct opportunities. Interest in global and experiential education has never been higher on our campuses, and students and faculty recognize the need to understand the complexity of our world within a liberal arts framework. Our colleges have also increasingly recognized that one of our key assets—outstanding teaching in a supportive environment that privileges student-faculty interaction—needs considerable nurturing, support that is often best done collaboratively. Technology, which can threaten the principles of liberal arts education, also highlights the importance of learning in community and can enable the building of our collaborative communities over space and time. And foundations have increasingly recognized the benefits of working with consortia, not simply as a means of gaining efficiency but in building synergies and in bringing together like-minded institutions for collective action that exceeds what can be achieved individually. At this point in its history, ACM finds significant opportunities to reaffirm its founders’ goals of collective action, experimentation, and “creative stimulus.” At such a time it is fitting that the association re-articulate its mission and formulate a priority plan for action over the next five years.

Mission

The Associated Colleges of the Midwest, a consortium of residential liberal arts colleges, serves to strengthen its member colleges as leaders in liberal learning through significant, innovative, and sustainable collaborations. The ACM does this by

• Providing opportunities to enhance the professional effectiveness of faculty and administrative leadership at member colleges;
• Fostering exemplary liberal arts learning communities in off-campus studies;
• Highlighting excellence in teaching and learning achieved by the member colleges, especially through collaboration.

This new articulation of ACM’s mission as it enters its second half-century recognizes its place both as a “creative stimulus” and as a facilitator for its member colleges. It reaffirms the Association’s role in providing both a site for the intangible benefits of community and a portfolio of distinctive, high-quality programs for its member colleges. As has been true throughout its history, ACM seeks to foster excellence in liberal arts learning, whether through its off-campus study programs, through grant-funded opportunities for faculty and staff development, or through the celebration and publicizing of the aggregate excellence at its member colleges. Through these activities, judiciously chosen to maximize impact and to most effectively sustain collaboration, ACM seeks to strengthen its member colleges as leaders in liberal education.

Strategic Priorities 2008-2013

Using this mission as a framework and recognizing the challenges it faces, the ACM identifies these four areas as vitally important priorities for the next five years.

1. Expand and build on opportunities for professional interaction and development of faculty and administrative leadership.

Through five decades of collaboration, the ACM colleges have collectively constructed a powerful asset for their faculty and administrative leaders: a variety of forums and other opportunities for peers to discuss not only the direction of programs, but the common challenges and emerging opportunities they face on their campuses. In these forums the colleges have woven a rich fabric of regular encounters in which participants exchange information, discuss concerns, and develop ideas with exceptional candor.

The results from these opportunities have been distinctively valuable, but also uneven. Experience has shown that regular, ongoing engagement with peers in their fields from other campuses—especially when set in the context of multiple, overlapping relationships among the campuses—enriches the intellectual lives and professional capacity of faculty and administrative leaders alike, despite important differences among the campuses. But these exchanges have not always been systematically available to strategically important groups from the campuses, have often not been guided by clear criteria, and have frequently lacked visibility beyond the immediate participants. Meanwhile, new media technologies now offer ways to connect peers that were not possible 50—or even ten—years ago.

As ACM moves ahead in a period of change, it must recognize that while the collegiality and community it fosters are often intangible, these are among the most valuable contributions to member colleges. The ACM should be assertive in finding timely ways to build on 50 years of collaboration to strengthen the variety of forums where this community of exchange is nurtured. In particular, ACM has the potential to enhance the signature feature of member colleges—the academic and teaching quality of its faculty—by responding to shared needs, expanding networking opportunities, and nurturing academic achievement and curricular skills. In many instances, opportunities tailored to ACM faculty could be enhanced in collaboration with other organizations.

To increase its efficacy in fostering professional exchanges among faculty and administrative leaders, ACM must:

1.1 Assess current offerings for their strategic impact

1.1.1 Define expectations: For all conferences, workshops, annual meetings, data exchange, and other professional development and collaborative activities, require clear statements of goals, expected outcomes and dissemination plans. Clarify the current curricular, scholarly or institutional needs and goals each activity would address and the expected impact on specific groups.

1.1.2 Assess outcomes: For each activity, evaluate which goals are met, which are not, and why. Clarify the costs and financing mechanisms, as well as the staff time involved, to assess benefits relative to costs. Consider whether there may be more effective ways to achieve results.

1.1.3 Set priorities: Prioritize by identifying those activities that strengthen member colleges most today and which should be refocused or dropped; set priorities for allocating resources among remaining activities, and establish criteria for adding new activities.

1.2 Expand opportunities to network, creating regular, ongoing and self-sustaining opportunities for faculty and administrative peers to interact

1.2.1 Explore the potential for professional association meetings as a venue for faculty or administrative leaders to meet on a regular basis.

1.2.2 Create online tools that facilitate regular communication among colleagues, especially those who have few peers on a given campus.

1.2.3 Clarify and publicize the resources ACM can offer to facilitate faculty or staff development activities in self-organizing and sustainable ways.

1.3 Form strategic partnerships

1.3.1 Leverage resources in collaboration with foundations and other organizations that foster professional development, focusing efforts on the specific needs and distinctive potential of ACM faculty and staff.

1.3.2 Encourage opportunistic collaborations, such as technology-based sharing of key lectures and data or coordinated strategies to expand diversity, between and among faculty at ACM member colleges, and between ACM colleges and other institutions, to amplify the effects of ACM efforts. Tailor the scope of participation to involve some or all colleges, certain disciplines, or outside partners as opportunities dictate.

2. Review, revise, and strengthen Off-Campus Study programs

Collaborating with its member colleges to provide off-campus study (OCS) programs for students has been at the core of ACM’s identity since the 1960s. Indeed, ACM was a leader and helped to pioneer this field. Today, however, a host of challenges threaten the continuation of that legacy.

Enrollment in ACM programs has fallen steadily over the past decade, decreasing the variety of programs offered as programs have closed for insufficient participation, and as students have opted to participate in campus-based or third-party programs in growing numbers. ACM programs lack a clear identity compared to alternative programs and vary widely from place to place without a clear unifying theme. Program schedules do not fit well with the calendars of half the member colleges, student evaluations are not comparable across programs and in some cases program operations have failed to keep pace with best practices. The current pricing structure is complex and probably not competitive since costs are high.

To regain leadership and foster exemplary liberal arts learning communities in off-campus studies, ACM must:

2.1 Clarify the identity and niche for ACM’s portfolio of OCS programs

With limited resources and a wide variety of alternatives available to ACM faculty and students, ACM must shape a readily identifiable portfolio of programs that draw upon the core missions and strengths of its member colleges.

2.1.1 Define distinguishing characteristics of ACM programs: Conduct survey and focus group research to map the perceptions and expectations of ACM programs among ACM faculty and students. Identify the salient characteristics from ACM programs for a compelling portfolio with a distinctively liberal arts focus and unique locations—combining academic rigor, close faculty-student contact, meaningful field experiences followed by reflection and significant academic products, noteworthy independent research, integration across fields and with the home curriculum, and a tight fit between location and curriculum—to best complement campus-based and other programs.

2.1.2 Develop ongoing mechanisms to track and respond to evolving campus conditions: Monitor shifting curricular interests among faculty and students, as well as campus policies on OCS; create procedures to involve campus OCS directors, financial officers and faculty advisors in annual strategic planning for the portfolio.

2.1.3 Develop modular options: Solicit ideas from campus OCS directors and others on how to accommodate students for different lengths of time and resolve scheduling conflicts between semester and non-semester calendars.

2.1.4 Develop ancillary programming in conjunction with campuses to integrate the OCS experiences more closely with on-campus studies, through expanded communication before, during and after students’ studies off-campus.

2.2 Evaluate and update current OCS programs

ACM must fully evaluate individual existing programs to bring them in line with a clear identity for its OCS portfolio, focusing on the following steps:

2.2.1 Accelerate the review calendar: ACM must move to more frequent reviews —within at least a five-year cycle—for all its off-campus study programs, creating mechanisms for using feedback to effect necessary change.

2.2.2 Strengthen procedures for assessment and nimble response: Using current best practices, ACM must update its procedures for annual assessments of curriculum, teaching and learning in its programs, for systematic and comparable student evaluations and for gauging financial performance and use this information to make strategic adjustments to individual programs quickly.

2.2.3 Align curricula: In its reviews, ACM must examine each existing program in light of a clear and over-arching liberal arts identity for its portfolio, as well as evolving curricular priorities on campuses, changing frames of reference used by students when thinking about off-campus study, to revise program curricula and structures accordingly. In doing so, ACM should deepen the connections between its OCS programs and the curricula of the member colleges, insuring that its programs complement and extend current campus curricula.

2.2.4 Establish clear health and safety protocols: Accountability for the health and safety of students in off-campus programs must be a high priority for the consortium. ACM must employ best practices for informing program participants about risks and for preparing students to protect their health and safety while off campus. The consortium must standardize tracking and reporting of health and security incidents to member campuses.

2.2.5 Recognize that ACM would close programs: In order to focus time and resources on the strongest curricular opportunities and develop the portfolio organically with campus interests, ACM should be prepared to shed programs that are less compelling than they once were, in comparison with other priority programs, without implication of a negative judgment on the program itself.

2.3 Develop new program opportunities

To flourish and provide leadership, the ACM portfolio of programs must become more innovative, flexible and nimble.

2.3.1 Experiment and innovate: ACM should actively explore opportunities to introduce short-term and modular OCS programs as well as direct exchanges, internships, new forms of faculty-student research, shared programs and new program sites, especially in under-served regions. In doing so, ACM should establish pilot programs to test these opportunities.

2.3.2 Attract new resources: ACM should seek external funding to help launch new programs and should explore possibilities for partnerships with other organizations through which ACM can both create efficiencies and deepen its signature commitments to liberal arts learning in OCS.

2.4 Re-evaluate the financial model for ACM programs

ACM programs must be academically sound and distinctive, but they must also be sustainable. Over the coming months, ACM must focus on the following areas to assure the economic sustainability of its portfolio of OCS programs:

2.4.1 Analyze finances and alternatives: ACM needs to conduct a rigorous financial analysis of its current economic model and potential alternatives, with clear discussion about the advantages and disadvantages—both fiscally and academically—of each. In part, the analysis must examine ways to reduce the variable and often high costs of the current role defined for ACM visiting faculty in a number of the existing programs.

2.4.2 Reform pricing: Using its extensive financial analysis, ACM must consider new pricing structures that, among other things, reflect cost variations among different program sites and from year to year at any given site. Pricing reforms must also address the issue of covering both direct and indirect costs of programs.

2.4.3 Control costs: ACM must seek creative ways to reduce the costs of OCS programs, making them more accessible to students at member colleges and sustainable in a highly competitive field while continuing to build academic quality.

2.5. Recruit aggressively

By clarifying its identity and niche in providing academically rigorous liberal arts OCS programs and in strengthening its offerings and financial model, ACM will have solidified its position, but to be successful ACM must also update its methods to reach and recruit students to enroll in its programs. ACM must set as priorities:

2.5.1 Create a comprehensive recruitment plan: With a new Director of Recruitment and Marketing in place, ACM must develop a coherent strategy for reaching students that is tailored to each ACM campus, as well as for targeting under-represented groups, and for recruiting students from other leading liberal arts colleges (while maintaining preferential access for ACM students). The strategy should coordinate the efforts of the Chicago staff, program staff, faculty advisors, and program alumni with a clear timeframe and set of responsibilities for all recruiting activities.

2.5.2 Revamp the ACM web site: ACM must quickly develop new web resources for publicizing its programs, for communicating effectively with prospective, current, and former students, as well as faculty advisors, and for promoting communication among these groups as well. Added functionality must include the capacity for online applications, enrollment, course management, evaluation, and follow-up activities. ACM should create a consistent graphic identity and messaging that effectively conveys the distinguishing characteristics of ACM programs in both web and other recruiting materials.

2.5.3 Showcase achievements: Perhaps the best recruitment strategy for ACM will be to disseminate the accomplishments of participants in its programs. ACM should create an annual OCS conference where students with the top presentations selected from campus-based panels of ACM returnees present their independent OCS work. ACM should work with the colleges to build on existing post-OCS forums and help to integrate these achievements back into the home curriculum and gain notice in the wider higher education community.

3. Promote ACM members’ leadership in liberal arts education by highlighting their accomplishments, especially those achieved through collaboration.

If the ACM is effective in boosting its professional development and off-campus study activities as outlined above, the ACM colleges will be well positioned to exercise leadership in liberal education as individual institutions and as a group. Astutely disseminated, these accomplishments will not only enhance the excellence of member colleges and their reputation in the larger higher education community but will help make the case for the vitality of liberal education and shape its future direction. Although ACM has not explicitly fostered such leadership in recent times, doing so would amplify the impact of consortial successes. ACM can begin by pursuing this end in several ways:

3.1 Document and disseminate to help member colleges lead: As scholars know well, getting good data and analysis of results in the hands of key audiences is a reliable recipe for influence.

3.1.1 Record and analyze the results of joint action: Track the results of ACM’s professional development and off-campus study programs, as well as conferences, grant-funded projects and other collaborations, to reflect on their significance for liberal education. Inform the internal communities of the ACM, as well as the broader higher education community and the wider public, about significance of the liberal education achievements nurtured by this Association.

3.1.2 Add up the considerable human resources that can interact within the consortium: Generate profiles of key groups of faculty, administrative staff or students within the ACM colleges to portray the aggregate significance of collaboration within this sector, both to reinforce internal awareness of the potential for professional collaboration among peers and to expand recognition among external groups of the collaboration in this sector.

3.1.3 Raise the profile on the web: With a revamped web site, ACM will be in a stronger position to reach targeted audiences and convey the results of leadership networking, faculty development, and off-campus study. Dissemination should aim to contribute to conversations about best practices and to influence new thinking about liberal arts education, both among internal and external audiences.

3.1.4 Broaden the scope of publicity for ACM activities: Publicize conference findings and outcomes, student-faculty collaborations, student accomplishments, and faculty achievements, institutional innovations and strategic partnerships with external funders, other organizations or foreign universities where interest in liberal arts is growing rapidly. As appropriate, toward this end use new events such as online journals or working paper series, research symposia, juried arts festivals, invitational athletic competitions or consortial prizes.

3.1.5 Target key audiences: Use new activities and electronic communication to expand awareness among ACM faculty, administrative staff and students of both the significance of and opportunities for collaboration; as appropriate, use these means to reach external groups, including high school students and their parents, higher education peers, the higher education press, and policymakers to demonstrate value and significance of ACM member colleges’ collective contribution to liberal learning.

3.2 Commemorate 50 years of collaboration to focus on the future: The 50th anniversary of ACM’s founding gives the association a unique opportunity to celebrate the kind of achievements that we think are consequential for ACM’s internal and external audiences.

3.2.1 Use commemorative celebrations to pilot events that convey the distinctive qualities of liberal education within the ACM and the significance of collaboration for higher education.

3.2.2 Seize this opportunity to stage substantive collaborations that create awareness of and interest in the initiatives advocated in this strategic plan.

4. Enhance Organizational Effectiveness

In order to accomplish the ambitious goals set out above, ACM must adapt its organizational structures to meet the new challenges of the 21st century. After five decades, ACM must now find ways to be more flexible, more efficient, and better prepared to seize new opportunities. Unless the consortium—both as a collaboration of colleges and a central office staff in Chicago—meets the key organizational priorities below during the next five years, it will be difficult to accomplish and sustain the previous strategic priorities.

4.1 Establish clear priorities and processes to focus on ACM’s mission. As a consortium, ACM has many constituencies, many possible avenues for collaboration and development; as an organization, ACM must choose wisely its forums for engagement. ACM cannot be everything to everybody; nor should the consortium aim to do everything together all the time. It must, as a consortium, establish clear mission-driven priorities for taking on new projects and for evaluating ongoing activities; from those priorities, ACM must also be ready to drop activities when appropriate.

4.1.1 Focus on strategic goals: ACM must operate from the Mission and Strategic Priorities outlined in this document, framing the agenda of boards and advisory groups in terms of these goals and the policies intended to achieve them rather than operational details.

4.1.2 Clarify organization: ACM is an organization that serves complex organizations and so requires a communication structure that recognizes both the idiosyncratic and complex nature of its individual members and the need for a strong collective voice. ACM should clarify the flow of ideas and authority among the various governing, advisory, and other constituencies it helps to convene in order to process and act effectively on feedback, new ideas, and recommendations.

4.1.3 Clarify responsibilities: As a consortium, ACM depends upon numerous advisory boards for shaping agendas, creating programs and collaborations, and for reporting and follow-up activities. ACM must develop a strong communication structure for insuring both collaboration and authority clearly stating how activities must be accomplished, communicated, and evaluated. The roles of faculty directors, visiting instructors, and faculty advisory boards must be clearly defined and communicated.

4.2 Create a culture of accountability and assessment: The good intentions of this plan for strategic priorities will be meaningless without a robust program of accountability and assessment within the organization. As a consortium, ACM must create a climate of assessment that applies not just to its Chicago office but extends through all its programs and activities; ACM must establish a culture of assessment sensitive to the values and modes of the liberal arts education community it serves.

4.2.1. Develop program criteria: ACM must develop strong criteria and ongoing review processes for evaluating and ranking both the wide range of current programs and all future programs in terms of their alignment with ACM’s mission and their financial costs.

4.2.2 Apply criteria to make choices: Analyze which activities strengthen member colleges most and choose which should be dropped or recast, to focus ACM time and resources on the highest priorities and allow scope for innovation and growth.

4.2.3 Standardize annual reporting: ACM’s communication with its member colleges and with external agencies should be thorough, systematic, and practical; better use of web resources and more engagement with analysis, rather than mere reporting of data, should be a priority.

4.3 Develop sustainable economic practices to support priority activities

As a consortium, ACM has limited sources of revenue, depending upon income from its programs, dues from its member colleges, and grants from external agencies. To work effectively as an organization and to maximize the trust its partners and collaborators place in its officers, ACM must develop more robust methods of stewarding its resources through the following priorities:

4.3.1 Organize for flexible and nimble responsiveness: Given the differences among its member colleges, the consortium must provide mechanisms for a range of collaborations that may include all members, sub-sets of members, or, when appropriate, supra-sets of ACM members and non-members. As an educational consortium with limited resources in a dynamic environment, ACM must be ready to change quickly to act on the results from assessment, on the ideas generated by internal constituencies, and on information about external resources to achieve its mission.

4.3.2 Assess costs and benefits: The measures for strengthening assessment and accountability within the organization should also clearly relate to business practices. For each activity the consortium pursues, it should examine costs and financing mechanisms, analyzing staff time involved and, as much as possible, the benefits to members. This process should include examining alternatives for providing programs and services more cost-effectively, such as outsourcing or “self-executing” operations that would require minimum investment of ACM time and funds.

4.3.3 Make programs self financing: ACM programs—whether for off-campus study, faculty development or leadership networking—should be either self-funded or externally funded (including indirect as well as direct costs) unless the ACM Board of Directors authorizes funding from dues to conduct specific activities.

4.3.4 Pursue new funding: In order to realize the agenda spelled out in this document, ACM must continue to actively seek funding from external foundations and other agencies that would otherwise not be available to individual campuses, capitalizing on the current climate in which consortial work is prized for both its efficiency and ability to effect change.