2010 2011 Annual Report - Claremont University Consortium

2010 2011 Annual Report
MESSAGE FROM THE CEO
November 2011
During 2010–2011, the Claremont University Consortium (CUC) concentrated our
best talents and efforts on a strategic planning process. One of the outcomes of a good
strategic planning process is to identify and engage strategies that will deliver value and
success to users, something that is presented in this report. Another great outcome is the
identification and development of new and emerging leaders. During the CUC strategic
planning process, more than 50 CUC employees and managers “left their comfort zones”
and worked collaboratively to settle on five key result areas (KRAs) that define the work
of the CUC:
KRA 1: Building the market competitiveness of services.
KRA 2: Building the financial value of services.
KRA 3: Establishing a neutral center for entrepreneurship and experimentation.
KRA 4: Improving national reputation and branding.
KRA 5: Recognizing that we achieve these things by paying attention to our culture,
our people.
Based upon this framework, the CUC will now move into the second phase of the process
by adapting and improving our service strategies and workflows to align to these key result
areas, all led by an expanded cohort of new or “re-minted” CUC employee leaders, the
authors of the plan.
During July 2011, the CUC opened the new CUC Administrative Campus Center (ACC)
located on the edge of the Claremont Village. In addition to serving as the administrative
offices for the CUC, the ACC includes an Executive Conference Center serving as an
alternative venue to facilitate the intellectual and social opportunities that complement the
unique programs of each member institution of e Claremont Colleges. e Center was
designed to provide flexible and comfortable spaces—from formal conference rooms to
stadium style seating to tented outdoor spaces—for a variety of student, faculty, and staff
interactions at the Colleges. While primarily focused on supporting the education and
business needs of the Colleges, the Executive Conference Center was also designed to be
a resource for additional educational, cultural, and civic engagement activities in the larger
Claremont Community.
ese are exciting times for the CUC and e Claremont Colleges!
Sincerely,
Robert A. Walton
Chief Executive Officer
key result areas
Katherine Hauser Rubel,
Director, Real Estate
and Housing, at the
entrance to the Robert E.
Tranquada Student
Services Center.
KRA
1
Adele Vuong, Director,
Business Affairs, in the new
CUC Administrative
Campus Center.
Building Market Competitiveness of Services
e KRA 1 team’s goal was to define the market competitiveness of CUC’s services. Each
individual member of the KRA 1 team participated in conducting interviews and analysis. ey
surveyed each of the seven colleges to find out who they think their competition is, including
interviews with admissions departments, institutional research departments, and student deans.
All seven institutions identified peer institutions. After getting feedback on who the Colleges
identified as their peers, the team then began to compare CUC’s services to the peer colleges’
services. At this point, they are still evaluating outcomes.
e peers most chosen by student deans and admission departments included Amherst, Bryn
Mawr, Carleton, Princeton, Stanford, Swarthmore, Wellesley, and Williams. e peers most chosen
by research departments included Carleton, Claremont McKenna College, Haverford, Middlebury,
Pomona, Swarthmore, and Williams. Peer colleges are currently being provided by the college
presidents.
Team leader Katherine Hauser Rubel said, “KRA 1 will have identified those CUC services which
are market competitive, those that are market leaders, and those that are not market competitive.
e goal is to elevate services to the next highest level and to trim services which do not meet the
standards defined by e Claremont College’s customers. KRA 1’s work is to identify each service’s
place among their market competitors and to define each service’s aspirational goals.”
KRA
2
Building the Financial Value of Services
e Claremont University Consortium offers a wide range of business, academic, student,
and infrastructure services. e services are all designed to benefit e Claremont Colleges
as a group. KRA 2 is grounded in quantitative analysis of those services in order to measure,
analyze, and build financial value. Financial value means a service a) exceeds in quantity and/or
quality at the same price what any single institution could offer on its own, or (b) provides an
equal quality or quantity of service at a lower financial cost than a single institution could
operate on its own.
Team leader Adele Vuong said of their evaluation process, “e first step is to measure where
we are right now, and then see where we can improve.”
is year, the KRA 2 team focused on looking at the economies of scale concept and the
purchasing power of the consortium. “We’re developing a set of financial value measurement
tools to be used consistently. We want to determine if there’s a difference between what a
single college would spend on a service versus all seven Colleges,” Vuong said.
Currently, the team is piloting a measurement template with several CUC services. ey are
compiling group expenses, cost estimates by institution, and key assumptions used in each cost
model. is data is needed to establish a baseline measurement and to identify opportunities
for improvement.
key result areas
Chris Martin, Director,
Enterprise Services, in
the Honnold Café.
KRA
3
John McDonald, Associate
Vice President and Chief
Information Officer, near
the north entrance to
The Claremont Colleges’
Honnold/Mudd Library.
Neutral Center for Entrepreneurship and Experimentation
Chris Martin’s team focused on standardizing the creation of new services, ideas, and projects.
He said, “We’re still defining the process of how we come up with new things. We started by
defining ‘What is experimental?’ or ‘What is entrepreneurial?’ Is it a new product or service?
Is it something that’s already happening that could be done on a larger scale?”
Following those questions, his team identified three major areas of focus:
1) Expanding existing practices/services at one college to the other Colleges. A service that has
proven useful at one of the Colleges may be of use to the other Colleges. CUC would become
the neutral sponsor or provider of that service.
2) Co-creating services between Colleges with CUC. When a college identifies a new service it
would like to provide, there is a substantial chance that the service would also be of interest to
the other Colleges. In such cases, CUC is well-placed to act as a neutral lead agency in creating
and managing the service.
3) Unilaterally creating a service that no college currently has. ere are services which none
of the Colleges have asked for, but CUC believes they will value.
“Our goal is to send two new initiatives through our process this year, even if they aren’t piloted.
We’ll use those as test projects to see how if our New Initiative Incubation Process works,” Martin
said. e KRA 3 team hopes to provide the opportunity for staff throughout e Claremont
Colleges and CUC to bring new ideas and projects to life.
KRA
4
National Reputation and Branding
With a team of seven, the KRA 4 group met throughout the year to identify key areas where
national recognition is a priority. e team discovered that promoting e Claremont Colleges
as an entity was not being executed as much as it possibly could be. So it was determined that
CUC should take on this role of promoting e Claremont Colleges. “e plan is for CUC to
complement what each of the Colleges already do and supplement what they might be missing,
or where they might have challenges,” said team leader, John McDonald.
CUC can focus on promoting aspects of the group (all seven Colleges) as a whole because the
Consortium is uniquely positioned to promote e Claremont Colleges in a neutral way.
Whereas each of the schools is focused on promoting themselves individually, CUC is agnostic.
One of the team’s expected initiatives is the consolidation of information related to the
Colleges. ey hope to build a toolkit of information that different parts of the Colleges can
choose from when promoting e Claremont Colleges. Pieces of the toolkit may include
media clips, graphic elements, and statistics reports. ey also plan on raising the visibility
of e Claremont Colleges through greater CUC participation in local, national, and
international arenas. One example that is already occurring is hosting national conferences
in Claremont.
key result areas
financial highlights
Summary
As a strategic sea change is being created at CUC, KRA team
leaders and the administration see the Key Result Areas as a
toolbox to which they can return year after year for structure
and measurement. Consultant Max Stark helped shape the
strategic overhaul that CUC has been working on for the last
18 months. “e nature of the KRAs was worked out with the
steering committee early on. We talked about what goals we
wanted to achieve. Bob and others wanted to invent a structure
that makes CUC cohesive and turns it into a service business,”
Stark said. “e KRAs were also designed to drive some creative,
strategic thought.”
Bonnie Clemens,
Secretary to the Board of
Overseers and Assistant
to the CUC CEO, at the
entrance to the new
CUC Administrative
Campus Center.
By 2014, Stark expects major transformation. “ere are a
number of things that will be achieved, some very objective,
related to the market competitiveness of services, financial value,
and the branding of e Claremont Colleges.” He points out
that one of the greatest outcomes of the KRA process will
be adding more quality services and financial efficiency to
the Colleges.
KRA
5
Our People, Our Culture
e KRA 5 team functioned a bit differently from the other KRAs; team 5 also serves as the
steering committee for strategic planning. KRA 5 team leader Bonnie Clemens said of the entire
KRA effort, “e whole process is based on a different way than most of us have viewed strategic
planning. It’s a new vocabulary and a new way of thinking, and we decided early on that we wanted
to focus on customer service. One of the first things we did was draft a vision statement, a mission
statement, and our values for CUC. ese were thoroughly vetted by joint meetings of managers
representing all 5 KRAs.”
e vision statement for CUC is “To be the standard for collaboration in higher education.”
e mission is “To advance e Claremont Colleges by promoting collaboration; by providing
innovative, high quality, and cost effective customer-oriented services; and by supporting the
establishment of new institutions.”
Another key effort was a crucial exercise to understand who the CUC customer is and to begin
thinking of CUC as a service company. e team identified several areas to focus on through
the year 2014. ese include 1) inculcate an understanding of CUC mission, vision, and values
throughout the organization; 2) improve managerial effectiveness; 3) improve staff quality
4) implement a wellness program; and 5) improve the orientation program.
Clemens said, “One of the primary initiatives for the next year will focus on training with the
expectation that staff will incorporate an understanding of the mission, vision, and values into
their daily work.”
Breakeven operations for fiscal year 2010–11, combined
with gains realized from investment gains, resulted in
healthy financial results for the year. In keeping with
key result areas identified in strategic planning, efforts
over the next year will focus on building market
competitiveness and financial value of services.
Sources of Revenues for the Fiscal Year
(Ended June 30, 2011)
Sales and Services
Gifts
Investment Income
Other revenue
$34,303,529
106,353
1,312,377
225,683
Total revenues
$35,947,942
Program Service and Administrative Expenses
for the Fiscal Year
(Ended June 30, 2011)
“In addition, another huge change is the unification of the
Consortium. e people of CUC will see how they fit into the
whole. And they will see what they can achieve independently.
ere’s now a sense of ownership among the people. e sense
of shared destiny,” he said. In over 150 strategic plans Stark has
worked on over the course of his career, he said, “is one really
stands out as a true transformation.”
Bob Walton, CUC’s CEO said, “We essentially have a brand
new vocabulary that’s never been used before. It’s not just a
document you write and then put in a drawer. is language
floats around and has become part of the staff. e KRAs have
provided us with a lot of focus and discipline. e KRAs are also
creating a structure that allows us to identify what we do well,
and what we don’t do well and why. It will allow us to turn our
weaknesses into strengths.”
Walton concluded, “e key thing is that this process never ends.
Most strategic planning processes begin with writing a document
and ends with a group going back to doing things as they always
had done them in the past. What we’re doing here is challenging
ourselves by looking at a lot of brutal facts and doing a great
deal of self-assessment. We’re putting together a set of tools,
established in these KRAs, by which we can measure ourselves.
And once we do that and go through this process, we’ll do it all
over again. Essentially we’re here to make staff, students, and the
Colleges more successful.”
42%
Institutional Support
Services
15%
Administrative
and General
32%
Academic Support
Services
11%
Student Support
Services
Academic Support Services
Student Support Services
Institutional Support Services
Administrative and General
$11,044,962
3,761,769
14,473,752
5,214,999
Total expenses
$34,495,482
Other changes in net assets
$5,282,747
Total change in net assets
$6,735,207
*e fiscal year 2010–11 numbers shown are
unaudited as of the publication date.
pushing the boundaries of
collaboration in higher education
ACL was formerly known as the Interinstitutional Cooperative Program (ICP) and the
Council of Interinstitutional Leadership (CIL). ICP formed in 1965, when several consortia
executives at a conference began to discuss the idea of a forum where they could share ideas,
experiences, and resources. CIL was formed in 1968, as a network of consortia, under the
direction of Dr. Lewis Patterson. ey continued to operate, grow, and formalize for fifteen
years. By 1993, the CIL name was deemed “not serviceable” and the organization became
known as the Association of Consortium Leadership (ACL).
CUC Chief Executive
Officer, Bob Walton,
addresses participants at
the 2011 ACL Institute.
e organization operates today from Norfolk, Virginia, under the executive direction of
Dr. Lawrence Dotolo. “e goal of ACL is to promote cooperation among the consortium.
We like people to get together and talk about issues. It’s about promoting collaboration in
higher education. ACL really gives you a lot of ideas of what you can do within your own
consortium,” said Dotolo. “ACL offers a lot of opportunities to work with one another,
especially in an economic downturn,” he continued.
About CUC specifically, he said, “Claremont is obviously a great place. It’s the oldest
consortium in the United States. And it has a lot of show pieces that other consortia may
want to emulate. e college presidents there have always been interested in working with
other colleges.”
He points out the new CUC facility as a model of openness. He said, “Even the building
itself and the way it’s constructed is designed to share information and ideas. It’s very stateof-the-art.” Just a few other examples of consortium leadership Dotolo finds exemplary in
Claremont are shared security among the Colleges, the shared library, and services offered
independently by the consortium itself.
e Association for Consortium Leadership (ACL) is a national association that focuses on
promoting and supporting higher education partnerships through professional development,
resource sharing, and program enhancement. It provides a forum for higher education
professionals involved in cooperative programs.
ACL has 60 members located throughout the United States, and it is the only organization
of its kind that focuses entirely on cooperation in higher education. e organization
provides guidance in creating and strengthening partnerships whose members include
colleges and universities. In addition to higher education institutions, these partnerships
frequently incorporate government agencies, businesses, K–12 schools, and other
non-profit organizations.
Bob Walton, CEO of CUC said, “ACL is a very valuable organization for us because it’s
essentially our peers.” He continued, “Higher education, like every other industry, is feeling
the pressure of the economy—you are finding you are having to produce equal or more
services with no more money. We have learned that more and more universities are looking
at economies of scale, which gives you an advantage. In many ways, collaboration has
become a best practice in terms of organizational models.”
Walton also noted that CUC is a key proponent and thought leader involved in ACL currently.
CUC hosted ACL’s Annual Conference on October 12–14. e conference covered topics
such as sharing information technology services, redesigning to foster success, security and
emergency planning, collaborative academic programs, and pushing the boundaries of what
collaboration in higher education could mean now and in the future.
claremont university consortium
board of overseers 2010–2011
Lori Bettison-Varga
President
Scripps College
Brenda Levin
Principal
Levin & Associates, Architects
James A. Blancarte
Partner
AlvaradoSmith APC
Harry T. McMahon
Chair, Board of Trustees
Claremont McKenna College
Executive Vice Chairman
Bank of America/Merrill Lynch
Robert E. Curry
Chair, Board of Trustees
Keck Graduate Institute
of Applied Life Sciences
Partner
Curry Henos Partners
Paul S. Efron
Chair, Board of Trustees
Pomona College
Advisory Director,
Goldman Sachs & Co.
Front Row (L to R), Stan Hales, Rod Hamilton, Frank Ulf, Linda Davis Taylor, Maria Klawe,
Robin Kramer, Pamela Gann, Deborah Freund; Back Row (L to R), Robert Adler, Susan Nelson,
Brenda Levin, Robert Curry, Robert Walton, Bry Danner, David Oxtoby, Lori Bettison-Varga,
Laura Skandera Trombley, Sheldon Schuster, Donald Baker, Reg Gipson, James Blancarte;
Not present for photo: Paul Efron, Harry T. McMahon, William Mingst.
Bryant C. Danner
Chair, Board of Overseers
Retired, Executive Vice President
and General Counsel
Edison International
The 2010–2011 CUC Board of Overseers welcomed James Blancarte and Roderick Hamilton
as At-Large members of the CUC Board.
Robert L. Adler
Vice Chair, Board of Overseers
Executive Vice President
and General Counsel
Edison International
Robert A. Walton
Chief Executive Officer
Claremont University
Consortium
Donald P. Baker
Chair, Board of Trustees
Claremont Graduate University
Retired Partner
Latham Watkins LLP
Deborah A. Freund
President
Claremont Graduate University
Pamela B. Gann
President
Claremont McKenna College
Robert E. Gipson
Counsel
Gipson, Hoffman & Pancione
R. Stanton Hales
Senior Consultant
Academic Search, Inc.
Roderick Hamilton
Principal
Consilia LLC
Maria M. Klawe
President
Harvey Mudd College
Robin Kramer
Chair, Board of Trustees
Pitzer College
e Annenberg Retreat
at Sunnyland
William A. Mingst
Chair, Board of Trustees
Harvey Mudd College
Cyprus Partners
Susan A. Nelson
Head of Schools Emerita
e Webb Schools
David W. Oxtoby
President
Pomona College
Sheldon M. Schuster
President
Keck Graduate Institute
of Applied Sciences
Linda Davis Taylor
Chair, Board of Trustees
Scripps College
Managing Director
CCM Family Advisors
Laura Skandera Trombley
President
Pitzer College
Franklin E. Ulf
Chairman and CEO
Covington Capital Management
Emeritus Member
Robert E. Tranquada
Emeritus Professor of Medicine
and Public Policy
University of Southern
California
101 south mills avenue
Claremont, California
91711-5053