CO-Chair Bob Hemenway of KU concurred. "The whole group came out four square for collaboration," he would joke later in the session, "and also apple pie." As inevitable and uncontroversial as collaboration might appear, and as eager as all were
to collaborate, Hemenway spoke seriously of the "impediments," and of these everyone at the table was all too aware. Kim Wilcox, representing Kansas Board of Regents, noted that "some of them were administrative, some of them political, some of them financial," but no one denied their existence.

Still, as Karen Pletz noted, collaboration presents a "tremendous opportunity to maximize resources." As president of University of Health Sciences, Pletz has participated in the Life Sciences initiative, "a catalyst for the greatest change in the way the various colleges and universities view their separate talents and abilities." On a more practical level, she cited her university's relationship with Rockhurst University in creating a program through which med students can get an MBA in health care leadership. As Pletz sees it, this collaboration led to a "huge growth in the relationship which tends to strengthen the community."

Richard Wallace of MU acknowledged the potential of collaboration but not before launching a (very) minor controversy when he claimed that "at 125 miles away . . . we're the institution furthest removed." Jim Guikema of Kansas State politely challenged his contention, claiming that KSU was likewise 125 miles away.
"It's a tie," laughed Wallace, fully in the collaborative sprit. More seriously, he acknowledged that if MU were to take advantage of the opportunity here and if KC were to take advantage of MU's resources, "It is going to be through collaboration and partnership," Wallace added, "We truly look for ways we can work together and in effect get far more out of our collective resource base."

"I second that from the west," said Jim Guikema. "The outcome of that enterprise," he noted boldly, "should have the biggest footprint it can have."

The problem, offered Kala Stroup, is that despite the fact that there are 130,000 students in metro KC alone, "We are rarely ever viewed as a collective." Dan Carey of Benedictine College suggested that the diversity of educational choices among which these students can choose "pushes all of us to do a better job." Still, Carey too asserted, "collaboration is the future." Mary James of Univ. of Missouri Board of Curators pointed out the "importance of keeping your boards informed and using them to help support these collaborative processes."

"Unfortunately, from one perspective," offered Manuel Pacheco, President of the University of Missouri System in a cautionary note, "it is not those around the table who are able to make collaboration work."

Pacheco was referring to the faculty, "people who've been prepared in essence to be loners." Borrowing an old Harvard saw, KU's Hemenway only half jokingly referred to them as "independent contractors held together by a central heating system."

Pacheco argued for the need to set up mechanism through which decision-makers could get the tools and the knowledge to those faculty who could make collaboration work. "They need to realize," Pacheco added, "that their own research will not be the key to solving all problems."

Echoing Paceco, Kim Wilcox of the Kansas Board of Regents confirmed the need for a "middle management piece of this." He was referring here to a formal structure that would move the process "from direction at the top to implementation at the bottom." Wilcox, however, having been on the faculty at both KU and MU, was more bullish than Pacheco on the faculty's desire to participate.

"I believe there are faculty who want to collaborate," he noted. The less sanguine Pacheco generalized of the same faculty, "The value of collaboration isn't recognized."

ON BEING "NIMBLE."
Each industry develops its own vocabulary, a verbal shorthand that allows insiders to speak directly to a point without wasted energy. One word that reoccurred often in this session—but not in any of the proceeding seven Industry Outlooks—was that of "nimbleness," the ability of an institution to adapt quickly to changes in the marketplace.

For collaboration to work, as Kala Stroup, commissioner of the Missouri Board of Higher Education commented, participants have to talk about it continually. There must be a funding stream for it. There must be all the necessary mechanisms in place to make it work. There must be an equal respect for all participants regardless of perceived status. And there has to be recognition "that some institutions are some far more nimble than others as well as an "equal regard for that nimbleness."

If private businesses are all more or less nimble, and if government entities are more or less not, higher education spans the gamut. On the one extreme are the large state universities whose inherent power is inevitably offset by their slowness of foot. On the other extreme are the private institutions, particularly the small entrepreneurially minded ones, and the for-profits.

Manuel Pacheco, for one, recognized the value of the state universities "learning from and partnering with those institutions that look at the world differently," nimble institutions like Ottawa and the University of Phoenix. To date, Pacheco admitted, "We haven't done that."

Pacheco was one of at least half a dozen participants to refer specifically to the University of Phoenix with a mixture of awe and apprehension. As Bob Hemenway noted, "Do we look on Phoenix as a threat, an opportunity, or as an institution we should be collaborating with."

Wayne Giles observed that the Metropolitan Community Colleges has done "a great deal of articulation" with most of the universities at the table. ("Articulation" is also unique to the higher education vocabulary, meaning roughly to make one's case or to negotiate.) "The university most interested in an articulation agreement," he continued, "a statewide agreement, is the University of Phoenix."

In fact, as Giles admitted, Phoenix is in some discussion with MCC about facilities. It is a mistake to believe that "the only thing they do is use the web," Giles continued. Instead, he believes that Phoenix has found a flexible niche that allows them to charge more since students will pay more. He argued for the need to "include the University of Phoenix in this collaborative way so we can indeed serve students in what they really want."

THE MONEY TRAIL
John Neal of Ottawa University attributed Phoenix's nimbleness to its money source, repeating an insider's joke that "their endowment is Wall Street." "They don't want to buy our faculty," he added. "They just want to borrow them." If this is collaboration, he suggested, it is not fully intentional.

For the more traditional colleges and universities, raising money is not so simple. Although KU has the oldest endowment in the country for a state school, it has historically depended less on the endowment than on state funding. "The dilemma we're facing," Hemenway noted, "is that we all recognize that state support is not likely to accelerate in a large way." As state budgets tighten, state universities are more and more compelled to compete for private dollars. As Hemenway observed, "The key to our success will be private giving."

"How we fare in our own fundraising," agreed MU's Richard Wallace, "will go along way in determining our future." If the state provided 50% of operating revenues in Missouri 30 or so years ago, that figure today is down to 23% and even less at MU, Columbia. "That's the reality."

"One way we can contribute to economic development," joked Pacheco, "is to build a basketball arena and call it economic development." Wallace laughed back, "Let's talk about life sciences." The state, in fact, had recently approved goodly sums for both.

But as Pacheco would later ack-nowledge, he spoke only half in jest about the arena. "That kind of effort positions the institution for future kinds of opportunities." Understood but unspoken was the uneasy recognition that winning teams often mean winning capital campaigns. Bob Hemenway of KU wondered if this increased effort by state universities to raise private funds "put pressure on private universities."

"We'll take 1% of whatever your campaign total is," responded the quietly wry Dan Lambert in the day's best laugh line. Although Baker University has to live with competition in fund raising as with anything else, the competition does not affect the school's success. "We fare well in our fund raising," Lambert noted, "depending on whether or not the issues that we're trying to address resonate with supporters." He argued, in fact, that competition for dollars "makes our industry better."

Karen Pletz pointed out that the national average of donor participation in college fund raising is just 25%. "There is a tremendous amount of potential out there." She was of the opinion that success could be had at all levels.

Richard Wallace of MU concurred. "By far and away most of our efforts focused on our own alums," and by far and way "most of our success" derived from alums as well. "If we don't pursue them," Wallace added, "they're lost to higher education."

Still, as John Neal of Ottawa noted, "There are days it does feel like a zero sum game." He observed that gifting opportunities even in the private sector have become more like granting opportunities. In other words corporations have become more goal oriented with their giving and less openly altruistic.

One of those goals, argued Kathleen Collins of the Kansas City Art Institute, might be to support the kind of cooperative agreements under discussion. "Funders need to step forward," said Collins, "to create these collaborations." "I hate to say it," she added, "but money is an important part of this."

Dan Carey of Benedictine argued that this emphasis on raising money is changing the "the role of leadership in higher education." He wondered out loud about the percent of time people in the room spent on fund raising. A president better be able to raise dollars," Carey acknowledged, "on the private side for sure, but on the public side as well."

Wayne Giles affirmed that "more and more" community colleges have moved seriously into fund raising. If those funds provide the operating expenses for some colleges, for MCC they provide the "margin of excellence," a margin critical to success in a competitive market.

THE NURSING TANGENT
In each of Ingram's Industry Outlooks, unplanned topics inevitably emerge. This session was no exception. Baker's Dan Lambert introduced one such issue that developed a life of its own. "I'm very concerned about the shortage of nurses in this country," Lambert offered as an example of how the "industry" of higher education has not responded to this pressing need. "We need to make this an attractive program for vastly more people," he argued.
Karen Pletz agreed that the industry has failed to mobilize around a conspicuous need. "We do have a very strong collective voice and that is of great value." "Why hasn't there been meetings like this," asked Wayne Giles on this same subject. "Where have we been as a collective?" Richard Wallace proposed that "this might be a fertile and an important area to explore."

As testament to the usefulness of the Industry Outlook, by meeting's end Pletz and Lambert had arranged a lunch to further the conversation.

THE IT CHALLENGE
Bob Hemenway agreed that there was a nationwide crisis in nursing supply. One way to address it, he argued, was through information technology and distance learning. "Information technology," he noted, "is driving dramatic changes in education and
dramatic changes in society."

Don Hagen of KU Med offered corroborating detail on Ku's efforts to deal innovatively with the nursing shortage, IT being part of that solution. "We have to facilitate it," said Hagen of collaborative new uses of IT. "Faculty has to see the value."

Hagen also argued for continual evaluation of online courses. As did Kim Wilcox, concerned by the absence of a "common notion as to what really was an improved environment for student learning." He added, "I don't think we have a very good agreement on how we measure that."

Donna Levene noted that Ottawa had been on line since the seemingly Jurassic age of 1989 with a Sprint bulletin board. Like Hagen and Wilcox, Levene affirmed that "care has to be taken in terms of strictly online program in terms of monitoring." The model at Ottawa has been to convene the students on site, dispatch them to their homes for three months of distance learning, and then to reconvene them. The challenge, Levene acknowledged, is to find an appropriate level of engagement for each student.

Benedictine's Dan Carey argued that IT enhances a traditional curriculum, it does not replace it. He implied that those who rely solely on IT run a risk. "Not everybody is turning a profit with IT," he contended. As proof, he cited the reported closing of Temple's virtual university.

"Phoenix, I guarantee you, is making money," countered Hemenway." What we may be realizing," he continued, "is that there is a consolidation of the
market." He also wondered if there might not be "even greater threats to the traditional university than we realize."

John Neal affirmed that universities are becoming more and more dependent on IT and students are growing more and more demanding. What they want, he offered, is "a smorgasbord of delivery types." "Our challenge in collaboration," he continued, "is how to build bridges back to IT industry and be value added for them."

Upon assuming the presidency of Park University, Beverley Byers-Pevitts discovered that Park has 1/10 of the online education in the country. At Park she now faces the challenge not only of programming and evaluation but also of the "discrepancy" between online faculty and campus faculty and the way that divide affects the whole environment. This, she added, is an issue that "we all have to collaborate with."

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Byers-Pevitts believed that the flow of the morning's discussion from collaboration through IT to intellectual property was the "perfect order." Universities like Park that generate on line materials face constant challenges as to who owns what. "Faculty are always afraid of losing intellectual property rights," she observed. But, she added, we all have "to collaborate and get with it."

"Your comment really resonates," Hemenway complimented Byers-Pevitts. Although universities have tended to define intellectual property as a result of basic research, Hemenway noted that some of the more interesting court cases on the subject deal with faculty in their role as teachers. "It isn't just a matter of who owns it," added John Neal, "but what do they do with it."

Manuel Pacheco tied property rights back to the unifying theme of collaboration. "How do you encourage the kind of collaboration that needs to occur with the private sector," he noted, "and assure faculty they won't be sold down the tubes." As of now, he observed, faculty members are sometimes "extremely suspicious" of those who would choose to partner with an institution.

As to a solution, Byers-Pevitts suggested, "The word "royalty" comes to mind."

K THROUGH 12
"We need to talk about students," Dan Carey asserted, not only the clients, but also the raison d'etre for all academic institutions. Said Martha Gilliland, "The relationship between higher education and K-12 may be the most important one for us to put are arms around."

Dan Radakovich of Johnson County Community College showed a keen understanding of these relationships. "First of all," he said of the high schools, "you have to take them a product that is worthwhile for their students and works for them as well." JCCC, he noted, serves a transitional role. Said Radakovich. "We have to make sure that course will go to KU." He also spoke of the "unwritten kind of thing" that exists between JCCC and KU: "We won't do what you do, you don't do what we do." For JCCC, collaboration is "just a way of doing business."

Fred Grogan suggested that Longview Community College has a comparable relationship with UMKC. As he admitted, "We had rested on our laurels in some of our relationships with high schools for far too long." So Longview, like JCCC, started an effort to work collaboratively with each of our high school districts, beginning as early as the ninth grade and developing a program to help prepare students for higher education.

Kala Stroup noted that although Kansas and Missouri high schoolers test somewhat higher than the national norm, there are still many problem areas, including the number of students who take advanced placement courses. "Focusing together," she stated, "we might make a difference."

Tom Gordon of Avila affirmed the need for collaborative action. "We're duplicating things," he insisted. The challenge is to "get rid of the border, mental or physical, and collaborate together in a cooperative spirit." As he noted, however, "Some time you have to bring faculty and staff dragging to the table."

A fan of collaboration, especially in his school's relationship with UMKC, Carl Cleveland of Cleveland Chiropractic College suggested that perhaps local institutions could go "back to the model of KCRCHE"—the Kansas City Regional Consortium for Higher Education (or something quite like that).

Dan Lambert then scored the day's number two laugh line as well when he confessed that he, in fact, had been chair when KCRCHE closed up shop. "We miss it." He added, "It"s probably a little embarrassing that someone outside our industry had to call us together today."

THE BOTTOM LINE
It was not until the very end of the morning that anyone addressed what has proved to the most constant concern in all of the previous Outlook sessions. Bob Hemenway called it the "implicit imediment to collaboration." And that, of course, is the state line. Collective success will ultimately hinge, argued Hemenway, on "our ability to think beyond institution and region."