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 Spring 2002
Budgeting for Information Technology Colleges and universities are increasingly being called upon to explain the rising cost of higher education. One of the pressure points in many institutional budgets is the somewhat unpredictable cost of providing up-to-date information technology to support the teaching and learning environment. Taking a long-range view of those needs can help the institution plan for continued integration of new technologies and better manage costs. At Susquehanna University, too many of our technology expenditures were being made on the margins of the institutional budget. When possible, we invested what resources were available for the greatest needs at a given moment. While we were justifiably proud to have been a leader among small colleges in fully wiring our campus by 1994, our lack of a long-range technology financial plan led us to a point where our technology infrastructure was beginning to suffer. Additionally, we faced the ever-present decisions about replacement cycles for desktop machines and printers and were increasingly interested in infusing technology in the classroom. Several months ago, an ad hoc group at Susquehanna University began developing a detailed budget model for financing anticipated information technology needs for the campus over a five-year period. The group, which comprises the university's IT director; assistant treasurer; vice president for finance; vice president for academic affairs; and executive vice president for administration and planning, based the model on priorities outlined in the university's IT plan. While that plan is useful for identifying needs that will advance academic programs and improve administrative functions, the additional step of prioritizing those needs and committing to a disciplined method for controlling costs was critical. The budget model shared with Susquehanna's board of directors in February 2002 estimates annual costs for:
Exploring a renewal schedule for hardware purchases led to a cost-benefit analysis of leasing versus purchasing PC's for an average three-year period. The leasing option had some attractions - fewer maintenance demands on IT staff and a definite replacement schedule - but planners concluded that Susquehanna would save more than $300,000 over a three-year period by purchasing PC's for faculty, staff and student computer laboratories and replacing them every two-to-three years. While budget modeling was underway, a separate planning team examined how to better integrate administrative computing systems. Our current "best of breed" practice enables departments to purchase individual systems that work well for their needs, but that don't necessarily interface well with other systems on campus. After about two months of research, the group recommended that Susquehanna adopt an integrated, single-vendor administrative software system, with accommodation for best of breed applications in special circumstances. The new system is expected to help streamline operations, reduce duplication of effort, and offer easier opportunities for students, faculty and staff to access information. The multi-million dollar price tag for an integrated software system exceeds what we can handle in annual operating budgets and we will explore a combination of operating and capital funds for this project. The IT budget model is expected to be a fluid document that will be adjusted as new circumstances warrant, including planned growth in student enrollment. In addition to outlining estimated expenses over five years, it includes a breakdown of funding sources for each year of the plan. The university's operating budget is expected to contribute a portion of the needed funds for information technology, with the remainder built into the university's capital investment plan.
Developing a Comparison Group One of the cardinal rules of a successful business plan is to know the competition. The same could be said of an institutional strategic plan. While most colleges and universities use some form of benchmarking data from other institutions or national education associations to help guide institutional goal-setting, developing a valid and realistic comparison group of schools can help yield more accurate results. Such a peer group can help when setting goals for faculty and administrative salaries, staffing levels, program costs, and endowment activity, to name a few. For years Susquehanna University has used its top admissions competitors as a primary peer group when seeking various kinds of comparison data. While this group has been useful for admissions and marketing analysis, it didn't seem to be right to help assess a different set of metrics connected to compensation for faculty and staff. There has been a growing sense that salaries and benefits at Susquehanna are not keeping pace with those of institutions with similar profiles. As faculty and staff recruitment draws from a much wider pool than is represented by our admissions competitors, we needed a different set of benchmarks. Charged by the university's board of directors to come up with a plan for making valid comparisons, a small, ad hoc working group of Susquehanna faculty and staff formed in the summer of 2001 to develop a new comparison group. They were aided by consultant Peter Blake, now assistant secretary of education in Virginia. He brought to our process the experience of working to establish peer groups for all of Virginia's public institutions and the neutrality of an external voice. The database used for comparison included Department of Education IPEDS data (from 1998-99) as well as the College Board's Annual Survey of Colleges data set for 1999-00. To arrive at the final comparison group, Blake used the statistical tool of cluster analysis, which identified a subset of institutions that were most like Susquehanna based on a set of variables. The variables reflect a mix of enrollment, academic emphasis, and research activity, which are all important factors in determining faculty salaries. Subsequently he and the working group overlaid a set of quality screens that further refined the set of institutions. Finally, they recalculated the cluster analysis and rank-ordered the remaining institutions. The top 24 were adopted as the peer group. The new set of schools includes institutions that are of similar quality, size and program mix as Susquehanna and more geographically diverse than our admissions competitors. Examining the program mix at each of the schools was especially important because it correlates so closely with faculty distribution and salaries. Our primary purpose was to develop a reference group more tightly aligned with Susquehanna than the AAUP national survey. Susquehanna's first use of the new comparison group, for the study of faculty and administrative salaries, has confirmed a competitive weakness that is being addressed. While we do not presume that this peer group can be equally helpful in all institutional analyses, we do expect that future comparative studies will provide a useful snapshot of our position in relation to other institutions similar to Susquehanna.
Leadership Transitions According to a 2000 report of the American Council on Education, college and university presidents remain in office an average of about seven years. It is critical therefore that a campus be prepared to handle well the transfer of institutional leadership. A transition team can assist by providing the president-elect detailed information about the university, helping to introduce the new leader to the college's various constituencies and facilitating the family's relocation. Many of those same strategies can also help smooth the transition of new senior administrators to campus. Susquehanna's presidential transition committee, composed of faculty, staff, board, and student representatives, met several times in the three-and-a-half months between my election and move to Selinsgrove in January 2001. Their key objectives were:
To help guide the committee's work, a few Susquehanna staff also traveled to the college I was then serving to meet with key staff and faculty there to learn about my work habits and style. The committee's plans and recommendations were immensely helpful in my getting to know the campus community and the university's external constituencies quickly. The group also paid special attention to my family's needs, by providing information about recreational and cultural opportunities and such practical matters as day care and drycleaners. This kind of thoughtful and intentional planning can also be tailored to transitions caused by senior administrative staff changes. Often new staff receives cursory orientation information before they begin work. Adapting some of the principles of a presidential transition can help ease the gap between the time of a candidate's selection and their start date. Communicating with incoming senior administrators early on can help orient them to the university and ease the transition for them and their staffs.
Susquehanna University is a national liberal arts college enrolling approximately 1,800 undergraduates in the School of Arts, Humanities and Communications, the School of Natural and Social Sciences and the Sigmund Weis School of Business. For additional information on programs described in FYI, please contact the Division of University Relations, 514 University Avenue, Selinsgrove, PA 17870-1164, phone 570-372-4119, or e-mail robertso@susqu.edu. Previous editions of FYI may be found at www.susqu.edu/fyi.
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