The HigherEdInk Reader: The Small College Imperative

Marcy, Mary B.  The Small College Imperative:  Models for Sustainable Futures (New York:  Routledge, 2020).  ISBN 978-1-62036-971-5

The news from our industry is more and more troubling each day.  There are prognosticators, critics, and sirens on all sides.  But what about solutions?  If small IHEs are in trouble, what shall we do about it?  One problem with most of the solutions is that they take a one-size-fits-all approach.  Move more programs online!  Go after those college dropouts!  Dual enrollment is the key!  Abolish tenure!  Go all in on professional programs!  Merge with another institution!  

Each of these ideas has merits and demerits, advocates and opponents.  But the reality is that we cannot lump all small colleges and institutions into one pile and force a single solution on all of them to save them.  These many institutions have deep differences.  Unless and until we recognize those differences, we will be unable to apply the best solutions to individual IHEs in each single case.

In The Small College Imperative : Models for Sustainable Futures, Mary B. Marcy outlines a five-node taxonomy of small institutions and highlights relevant steps toward the transformation of each type of IHE toward a sustainable future.  Marcy is currently President Emerita of Dominican University of California, where she served as active President from 2011-21.  While on a sabbatical at Harvard, she developed the idea that models for sustainable success for small colleges should be geared to the type of institution under consideration.  This book is the result of her research on that subject.

Contents of the Book

Marcy’s stated goals are:

1. To describe how small colleges are currently adapting to their changing circumstances;
2. To offer a taxonomy of small colleges that highlights their significant similarities and differences; 
3. To offer a template for institutions considering transformative change as they respond to their respective contexts; and
4. To hold up the possibility of consortia and partnerships as a key factor IHEs should consider when addressing their current realities.

The Shifting Landscape

In Chapter 1, Marcy surveys the current shifting landscape for small colleges.  The changes those IHEs face primarily arise from four factors:

1. Changing Student Demographics: A shift towards a more diverse student population, including increasing proportions of students from underrepresented and lower-income backgrounds.
2. Business Model Challenges: The traditional high-tuition, high-financial-aid model is no longer effective, leading to stagnant net tuition revenue.
3. Shifting Market Demand: A decline in demand for traditional liberal arts programs and an increase in demand for majors with clear career paths.
4. Growth of Educational Technology: The rise of online courses and programs, while not replacing traditional in-person learning, has created new competition for programs offered by small colleges.

Marcy observes further that in order to be successful, small IHEs must move from a reactionary stance of pursuing austerity to a more proactive, strategic goal of pursuing long-term sustainability.

The Core of the Book

Chapters 3-8 form the core of the book.  Here Marcy outlines and describes in detail her taxonomy of small colleges.  One of her central claims is that these institutions generally fit into one of five categories:

• The Traditional Model: These institutions tend to be primarily residential campuses with an emphasis on the liberal arts.  They are often heavily endowed, providing them with plenty of resources to continue this model in spite of the changing marketplace.  The majority of small colleges began with this model.  But evolving circumstances have forced many of them to move to one of the other four models.  Each of the following models veers more and more steeply from the traditional liberal arts model.
• The Integrated Model: Faced with declining enrollments in traditional arts and letters programs, these schools combine an array of liberal arts majors with professional and graduate programs to address enrollment and fiscal challenges.  The goal here is to prop up flagging enrollment and revenue in traditional liberal arts programs with professional programs that aim at current market trends and student interests.  Still, these schools choose professional programs with an eye upon integrating into them the perspectives of a liberal arts education.
• The Distinctive Program Model: These schools promote a unique student experience anchored by a common set of educational practices and outcomes.  Whereas all small colleges aim to provide a quality student experience, these IHEs formalize and universalize these emphases.  They accomplish these aims by incorporating high impact student experiences such as internships, professional development, and international study across the curriculum and co-curriculum.
• The Expansion Model: Schools following the Expansion Model focus closely on market responsiveness and add or expand programs to increase enrollment and revenue.  While the Integrated Model also pursues this goal, the Expansion Model often pursues the same aim without attention to how these new programs fit into the traditional array of liberal arts programs found in the Traditional Model.
• The Distributed Model: Some schools extend the Expansion Model by opening branch campuses and/or offering existing programs in multiple modalities such as online and hybrid.  In so doing, leaders of these schools hope to extend the institution’s reach and so enhance enrollment and revenue.

Marcy’s Conclusions and Guidance

In the final sections of the book, the author offers guidance for small institutions looking for a path forward into a future that looks increasingly fraught if not bleak.  In Chapter 9, she correctly points out that her five-point taxonomy is not absolute and that it actually speaks to a spectrum of institutional types, with individual schools falling somewhere on the spectrum between the Traditional and Distributed Models.  She then points out that successful transformation will depend upon schools answering a series of fundamental questions about themselves before adopting large-scale change.  These questions are:

• The Question of Mission: The path forward may involve staying the course, adapting within the existing model, or fundamentally changing the mission to ensure sustainability.
• The Question of the Specific Challenge(s) to Be Addressed: Models are designed to address specific challenges faced by small colleges, such as student recruitment, market forces, or demographic shifts.  But not every institution presents the same array of challenges.
• The Question of the Students: Campus leaders must consider the nature of the student body, including age, diversity, and needs, when selecting a model that will effectively serve students.
• The Question of Resources: Evaluating the availability of time, financial resources, and institutional capacity is crucial before embarking on model adoption.
• The Question of Leadership and Shared Governance: Successful implementation requires strong leadership that maintains fidelity to the long-term vision while also engaging key constituencies in decision-making.

In the next chapter, Marcy advises struggling institutions to consider the possibility of consortia or partnerships as a strategy for sustainability.  Each of the transformative models she highlights in the central chapters of the book will require heroic leadership, perseverance, resources, and time.  But not all institutions have those prerequisites ready at hand.  Hence, some institutions may opt for joining with other like-minded institutions in consortia that share the burdens of back-end institutional costs, the resources needed to launch successful online programs, or the evaluation of learning outcomes.  Other schools have arranged partnerships with neighboring institutions to offer courses or whole programs.

Evaluation

Marcy’s five-point taxonomy is an excellent reference point for understanding small colleges in the United States.  Late in the book, she carefully outlines how these five models are actually only points on a spectrum and that individual IHEs may evince traits of more than one of these models.  Stressing this important point earlier in the book could prevent the reader from anticipating this objection throughout the long central section only to see it addressed near the end of the work.

As is the case with almost every research project, the research sample here is limited.  It would be impractical to replicate the qualitative, narrative aspects of this research across a large number of institutions at once.  Hence, the relatively small number of sample cases Marcy surveys in the book are not necessarily indicative of all cases throughout the industry.  Nevertheless, readers will see enough of their own institution in two or three of these sample cases to receive important guidance on how to proceed in their own institutional context.

It would be interesting and instructive to get the perspectives of faculty and alumni on the observations made in this book.  Admittedly, the book is written for small college administrators, not for faculty, alumni, or any other constituency group.  Still, groups such as faculty or alumni can be either strong advocates or significant hindrances to the transformative changes described here.  Faculty’s fealty to the status quo means they feel vested interest in preventing the types of evolution needed to keep their institution healthy.  It’s certainly not that they don’t care, and it’s certainly not that they’re incapable of understanding the need for radical change.  It’s simply that the context in which faculty work depends upon a level of stability that is getting harder and harder for college administrators to maintain.  Marcy frequently mentions the active role that faculty had in effecting the huge changes described in her book.  But more needs to be done to provide guidance on changing a faculty culture that sees transformative change as inherently harmful rather than helpful.

Likewise, alumni see themselves as the institutional memory of a school.  They therefore also have a vested interest in protecting that memory by avoiding transformative change.  Once again, almost all alumni want their alma mater to survive and thrive.  But their desire for the institution’s health is inexorably tied to their memories of a place and time that is no longer with us.  More needs to be done to discover how to get alumni on board with the deep institutional change Marcy describes in this book.  

Some of the solutions mentioned by the author beg for further analysis, since their efficacy in the higher ed industry remains in dispute.  Examples include the value of a tuition reset and the practice of developing professional academic programs without consideration of their connection to a traditional institution’s liberal arts core.  One campus for which I worked strongly considered a tuition reset and then decided against it.  How do we know whether or when a tuition reset will work?  Is this question simply one of finances and other quantitative metrics?  Or are there more subtle factors at work?  Professionals and graduate students should consider these topics for further research.

The Small College Imperative offers important insights into the nature of small IHEs today and will help campus leaders understand their campuses more clearly.  Marcy’s five-point taxonomy plainly accounts for the major features of small institutions.  And the case studies she provides contain plenty of great ideas for all campuses to address some of the most fundamental threats to their long-term sustainability.  Finally, Marcy provides a foundation for further work in the areas of institutional classification as well as the various tactics the schools adopt to help ensure their long-term health.

4 stars out of 5 ★★★★☆