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Collaborative Strategic Planning for Higher Education
Our History & Expertise
The 1970s brought both opportunities and challenges to virtually all colleges and universities. Many factors contributed to this paradox, including the dynamic growth of knowledge and information, changing demographic patterns (i.e., the influx of the Baby Boomer generation entering postsecondary education), escalating costs, and increased competition for resources. As a result, many schools began to engage in more formal, long-range planning. This type of information-based planning and management focused on the projection of certain conditions such as enrollment numbers and associated costs. NCHEMS developed a computer-based instructional-cost simulation model known as the Resource Requirements Prediction Model (RRPM) to assist institutions with these planning and management challenges.
The shift from long-range planning to strategic planning took place in the mid-1980s after NCHEMS observed new demographic changes that resulted in fewer enrollments and led to the consideration of how student outcomes could impact planning and management. NCHEMS demonstrated that the collection and use of outcomes information could be used to improve planning in colleges and universities. NCHEMS quickly became a central source for applied information and practical guidelines regarding the assessment of student outcomes and the use of the resulting information for planning and management purposes.
With well over a quarter-century of experience in strategic planning work, NCHEMS has maintained a significant track record of recommendations that have substantially changed the trajectory of postsecondary education in Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Wyoming, Connecticut, Tennessee, Kentucky, and others has resulted in lasting changes.