Crisis in Higher Education

Mark A. Vonderembse, PhD, is Professor Emeritus from the University of Toledo (UT) where he spent 38 years as a faculty member. He earned a Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Michigan in 1979, an MBA from the Wharton Graduate Division of the University of Pennsylvania in 1973, and a BS in Civil Engineering from UT in 1971. Mark has sixty refereed journal publications including thirteen in the Journal of Operations Management, which is widely regarded as the best journal in the field. He has also published in Management Science, Decision Sciences, International Journal of Production Research, European Journal of Operational Research, among others. He has more than 100 proceeding publications and has published three books and an annotated bibliography.He has nearly two dozen awards for research including Outstanding Researcher at UT. He has more than 40 research grant from various sources including the U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Defense, and the National Science Foundation. He has garnered more than $4 million in grants as principal investigator and another $10 million as co-investigator. He has taught a wide variety of courses at the undergraduate, masters, and Ph.D. levels. He has taught in Germany, India, and China, and he has traveled internationally making presentations in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, India, Morocco, South Africa, Spain, England, Germany, Greece, and Canada.He has a strong track record in leadership. While at UT, he was the founding Director of the School for Healthcare Business Innovation and Excellence. He was Vice President, and ultimately President, of the Production Operations Management Society’s College of Healthcare Operations Management. He was also the founding director of UT’s Intermodal Transportation Institute. He was responsible for designing and building an institute that combined resources from four colleges within UT to address regional and national needs for research, education, and planning and technical assistance in the areas of transportation, supply chains, and logistics. He organized an Advisory Board of more the 40 members. He built coalitions with other universities in the region and received two designations as U.S. DOT University Transportation Centers. He was Director of UT’s Ph.D. program in Manufacturing and Technology Management for nine years, a program that he co-founded. He also served as Department Chair of Information Operations and Technology Management and of Finance for nine years.

• TOCChapter 1: The Higher Education ConundrumCope with two important demand-supply relations: Students to universities and universities to companies that hire graduatesAddress the needs of multiple customersFace accreditation by independent agencies that attempt to ensure high standardsHave a tri-partite mission of research, teaching, and service Amass and manage key resourcesAllocate resources among administration, faculty, and facilitiesChapter 2: Identifying the Underlying Problems Costs are too high – rising much faster than the rate of inflationQuality while good can be improved Access is limited by high costs and poor preparation Low graduation rates Imbalance between supply of graduates and demand from companies in some programsChapter 3: Understanding the Root CausesReductions in state government support for public universities Increases in the percent of university budgets spent on administrationExpanding student expectations increase costsGeneral fund budgets are sometimes used to subsidize ancillary services such as sports.Funding finesse: The use of student fees as surrogates for tuition increasesUnclear understanding of who is the customer.Learning mechanism are largely unchanged for hundreds of yearsUniversities have no or limited responsibility to ensure that programs they offer lead to jobsStandards are more and more difficult to maintainChapter 4: A Customer-Focused, Resource Management Resolution Understanding the customer: The demand-sideUnderstanding the resources: The supply-sideChapter 5: Focusing on the Ultimate Customer Chapter 6: Becoming Student-Centered Chapter 7: Determining Government’s Role in Higher EducationChapter 8: Redesigning Curriculum and PedagogyChapter 9: Reshaping the Faculty Structure and Role Chapter 10: Creating High Technology Teaching MaterialsChapter 11: Reforming Administration and Management Chapter 12: Revamping Relationships among High Schools, Community and Technical Colleges, and UniversitiesChapter 13: Framing and Implementing a Practical SolutionWhy and how is higher education different?The need for an integrated and comprehensive solutionImplementing a customer-focused resource management solution