Eyes on UMBC

Lessons for Academic Leaders: A Harvard Program Draws From UMBC




UMBC became a case study at Harvard this year, an object lesson in institutional advancement strategies for the Presidential Seminar at the Harvard Institutes for Higher Education (HIHE). College and university presidents from around the nation attended the presidential seminar "Leading Institutional Advancement" in Cambridge last January. President Freeman Hrabowski and Sheldon Caplis, vice president for institutional advancement, served on the seminar's faculty.

Using Harvard's famous "case study" method, the HIHE--the professional development unit of the Harvard Graduate School of Education--conducted a detailed analysis of the evolution of UMBC's institutional advancement program. The case study focused on the strategic and tactical considerations faced by universities that decide to "ramp up" their advancement activities, and on the role of strong presidential leadership in the endeavor. Hrabowski and Caplis shared their "real-world" experiences with their colleagues. Now that UMBC has gone under the Harvard case-study microscope, it will become part of the HIHE curriculum.

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