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July 13, 2010
A Back-Office Collaboration in Wisconsin
This is interesting! In an article at Inside Higher Ed about colleges merging or dying, the author made mention of a collaboration between 20 private colleges in Wisconsin. I clicked and it's quite intriguing! Here - the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. Among other things, here's a list of their services for members.
Given the number of small colleges in Upstate New York I wonder if similar things are percolating here? I know we are involved in a number of collaborative library projects -- though one of the big ones, Nylink, recently announced that it would close down next summer because it is no longer self-funding and SUNY can't afford to support it.
Similarly, I read an article while I was at home in Chattanooga about a back-office collaboration between the Hunter Museum, the Creative Discovery Museum, and the Tennessee Aquarium - the Aquarium is now providing all the HR services (and maybe some other stuff) for all three institutions. Those 3 institutions happen to be within sight of each other, while the colleges we might consort with tend to be further apart . . . but I wonder.
One problem for the small-college collaborations is emotional - many of the small colleges I'm thinking of are the traditional largest employers in town (I know we are, one way and another). Now "employment" is not our core mission, but having sat on the Budget Advisory Task Force I learned if I didn't already know it that it's something we take seriously. William Smith just celebrated its centennial and Hobart is coming up on its bicentennial -- we are embedded in Geneva. That's even more true of places like Colgate, which is pretty much the only employer in Hamilton, NY. So consolidation of back-office functions (finance, HR, purchasing) would be a real problem.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at July 13, 2010 8:12 AM