Quality and Performance Excellence in Higher Education: Baldrige on Campus (review)

Quality and Performance Excellence in Higher Education describes the processes used by six diverse colleges and universities to implement the criteria of the Malcolm Baldridge National Award program. The editors aptly call them "true pioneers" for pursuing the difficult path that few colleges and universities have dared to take.

These pioneering schools include two relatively small regional comprehensives (the University of Wisconsin-Stout and Northwest Missouri State University), a small two-year branch campus of New Mexico State University at Carlsbad, a two-year technical college with mostly part-time enrollment (Western Wisconsin Technical College), National University, a private multi-campus institution devoted to educating adults, and Montfort College of Business at the University of Northern Colorado. Two of the six actually won Baldridge Awards. The University of Wisconsin-Stout became the first higher education institution to achieve that honor in 2001; and Monfort College joined it in 2004.

In her Foreword, Katherine Lyall, then president of the University of Wisconsin System, details the difficulties of pursuing continuous quality improvement: the lack of committed leaders, the rigidity of campus cultures, and the strength of faculty resistance. An introductory chapter describes the six institutions and outlines the Baldridge categories. The six core chapters recount the efforts of each college or university to implement those categories: institutional leadership; strategic planning; a focus on students, stakeholders, and market; measurement, analysis, and knowledge management; faculty and staff focus; process management, and organizational performance results. The editors conclude the volume with a brief discussion of eight "Lessons Learned."

The editors and chapter authors know their subject, for each led his or her campus efforts to implement Baldridge principles. The editors, Chancellor Charles W. Sorensen, Assistant Chancellor Julie Furst-Bowe, and Vice President Dian Moen, helped the University of Wisconsin-Stout to win the Baldridge Award. The authors of the other institutional chapters also championed the Baldridge criteria in their organizations. They include Gerald Shadwick (Monfort College); Patricia Potter and A. Cathleen Greiner (National University); Rick Blackburn (New Mexico-Carlsbad); Dean Hubbard and David Oehler (Northwest Missouri State), and Jerrilyn Brewer (Western Technical College).

Their accounts suggest several ingredients as essential to success in adopting the Baldridge approach. First, strong leadership from senior officers, particularly presidents and chancellors, seems critical. Leaders provide the direction that drives the Baldridge principles and communicate the required practices throughout the organization. Continuing the Baldridge culture depends on continuity of leadership. All of these institutions have processes for developing in-house leadership and have promoted an unusual percentage of their senior officers from within.

But second, the Baldridge way couples strong leadership with active participation at every level. The number and variety of committees with interlocking membership required to align unit and institutional goals is astonishing. Integration of planning, budgeting, and assessment constitutes the third ingredient. Each of these colleges and universities has traditional organizations with presidents and vice presidents, deans and directors, and academic units. They differ from most colleges and universities in their ability to align public and market needs, institutional missions and goals, and departmental performance and priorities.

Five "Cs" constitute the secret to their success: connection, collection, communication, collaboration, and—last but far from least—commitment. Everything in these six colleges and universities is connected: from external needs to institutional priorities to departmental programs through shared goals and performance indicators. Everything in data or information is collected from an astonishing array of surveys of students, alumni, faculty, employers, and community groups and from benchmarking their performance with peer institutions. Everything gets communicated by emails, websites, or formal and informal meetings. Every effort encourages collaboration though an astounding array of committees with shared membership. On many campuses, professors, staff, and students cry for more participation; but in these six colleges and universities, some must...