Developing Academic Strategic Alliances: Reconciling Multiple Institutional Cultures, Policies, and Practices

Colleges and universities have often been required to evolve in response to shifting societal priorities. Over the past century, this occurred in the context of an ever-expanding system of higher education built with a substantial investment of public money. If society needed more professional programs, institutions added them. In the current context, however, the expectation of institutional accountability remains undiminished despite an increasingly resource-constrained environment. This places colleges and universities in a double bind. They are expected to address society's needs, yet they often do not have the resources to respond to them. Our institutions of higher learning are limited in the ways they can generate additional capital, and efforts to free resources by reducing administrative overhead and reallocating responsibilities have often produced pyrrhic victories (Eckel, 2003).