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Higher education is in the midst of great change and transformation, and SPH Consulting Group is here to guide you. Not unexpectedly, major future-oriented institutional restructuring, including mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, corporate conversions, and closures, are increasingly common. An environment that is characterized not only by significant challenges, but also by even greater opportunities. Important and complex institutional transformations that require careful consideration of many potential partner opportunities, a defined pace and process, and expert support.
SPH Consulting Group is ready to serve as the partner of choice, advising, guiding, and assisting college and university governing boards and executives as they consider major future-oriented institutional restructuring strategies. SPH Consulting Group is a team of experienced higher education experts who have actively and directly managed to success the many major restructuring events institutions of higher education face and consider in today’s climate. We provide a variety of services that will help ensure full and complete consideration of the strategic options for major institutional transformation available to higher education leaders and, when it is the right decision, the successful execution and implementation of the chosen strategy.
Gary D Stocker (00:01.169)
Welcome to the multi podcast discussion of the new higher education book, Leading Existential Change in Higher Ed Mergers, Closures and Other Major Institutional Restructuring. Hi everybody, Gary Stocker back in front of the blue yeti microphone. I'm founder of College Viability and joining me in this continuing series is author and physician and former college president, Dr. Ricardo Aziz. He and I have created a series of seven podcasts.
to review the book, but more importantly, dig into the details. Get greater perspective on the content itself. Dr. Aziz, Ricardo, always a pleasure to do these podcasts with you.
Ricardo Azziz (00:39.042)
Thank you and thank you for having me, Gary. Always a pleasure.
Gary D Stocker (00:40.819)
And for those listening to this podcast for the whole series, if you have questions, comments or additional podcast topics you'd like us to address, send me a note to gary at college viability. That's one long word, gary at college viability dot com. And Dr. Zee, today we're talking about facing resistance and opposition. Of course, there's none of that in higher education. And we're also going to talk about athletics as well. And I think for each of the podcasts, we always have focus on the case studies and the fascinating approach you used in the book.
And the case study you have for facing resistance and opposition is a merger of Northeastern University and Mills College. And there was, I guess it's fair to say, Ricardo, there was much emotion from the Mills students and faculty and trustees. And you write in the book that the emotional investment of stakeholders in a college or university's identity can often impede necessary strategic restructuring.
And for what it's worth, I've often teased in a lot of different forums that when a college changes the font on its business card, somebody's going to protest. And of course, a merger is always going to generate both objective and subjective pushback. What are the ways that big scary change BSC leaders can prepare for those in advance?
Ricardo Azziz (01:58.562)
You know, the way to prepare for it, and we're gonna have to start because I was trying to check something out. So edit this one out.
Gary D Stocker (02:10.951)
You go and answer the question now, that's fine.
Ricardo Azziz (02:12.994)
Yeah, just tell me what the question was because I was looking here at Northeastern.
Gary D Stocker (02:17.071)
Okay, make a note here, edit.
So the question is, what are the ways that a big scary change leader can prepare for resistance and opposition in advance?
Ricardo Azziz (02:27.041)
Okay.
Well, Gary, the first thing in order to prepare for resistance and opposition is to actually expect it. Any leader who does not expect significant opposition, particularly in a major restructuring, a merger acquisition, closure, other kind of major issues, is really a Pollyannish. mean, this will happen. There will be people who do not agree with the decision. There will be people who are
opposing the decision and the strength of that opposition will vary. in general, leaders should expect a strong opposition and they should expect a fast opposition. Today with social media, the negative words will come out very fast. We have to remember that regular media, if you would, they tend to leverage negative news rather than good news. There's only so much attention that one can say everything is going well as opposed to everything is going bad. And these are the problems. So negativity,
does capture attention. leaders should expect opposition and negativity.
Gary D Stocker (03:35.091)
So you talk about outcomes in this chapter 11 in the book. And of the merger between Northeastern University and Mills was that students who needed eight credits or fewer to graduate were offered a special six-week term to complete their degrees. Are there other examples you can share that merging colleges have used to get that merger to the finish line?
Ricardo Azziz (03:59.886)
Well, I think that the first thing about all mergers, the first thing about all restructuring in higher education is that it should be about the students. So, you know, we need to always find a solution that improves the student's outcome. Because if it isn't about the students, then we're obviously pursuing the wrong kind of actions. So the first thing that happens in a merger is you need to decide, or a closure for that matter, you need to decide on teach-outs, you know?
What are you gonna do with your students that you currently have? Sometimes the institution that you're merging with has lots of the same programs and you can then merge those programs together and the students can complete their degrees, right, at the new merged institution. But again, there are caveats, you know.
the accreditors are not going to be looked favorably on a merger that says to students, now you have to travel two and a half hours to complete your degree to a new campus, right? I mean, so it's also about not inflicting excessive hardship on students. The second thing is, what happens if that course isn't being given by the emerging institution, that it's a course that's gonna be sunset or closed? Then you need to find third party teach-out
systems or you need to decide how you, the institution that is responsible for those students, how you are going to create a plan so that the students can complete their degrees to the extent possible. Now, if somebody still has two years of education to go, that's not going to be possible. But if you have six credits or 12 credits or 10 credits,
then it is possible, again, it's not obligatory, but it is possible to create programs in your own institution or in a teach-out third-party institution that would provide these students with their degree in a relatively short time.
Gary D Stocker (06:07.251)
So it is generally accepted, Ricardo, that change or resistance to change is really firmly embedded in higher education culture. And the old adage that culture eats change for lunch applies, particularly in my mind, to college faculty. And you've got a summary box on page 206 titled Challenges to Advancing BSC, Big Scary Change in Higher Education. I'm going to talk about a few. Let me just list them individually, get your comments, and then I'll offer the next one.
And the first one you talk about is incrementalism as a usual approach to change.
Ricardo Azziz (06:42.552)
Yeah, and those of us who've been in academics, and I will tell you that I'm a long-term academic, still have faculty appointments, still do research, and I've been in academia for almost 40 years. My parents were both university professors, so I sort of come from a lineage of that. And we don't like sudden change. We've been doing and teaching things in this tradition that is 1,000 years old, right? This is why we wear our
are, if you would, I don't want to say togas, but are robes at graduation and so on and so forth, right? So, and the second thing is we've done things pretty darn well. People have succeeded, know, individuals who finish college generally do better than individuals who do not finish college. have universities and colleges have come up with incredible, you know,
novels and fiction and creativity and science and discovery and you know, we've done great. The problem is that that greatness as a sector sort of blinds us to the fact that the environment is changing rapidly and we would love for things not to change but the problem is that it does change and so our usual stance about a change that is proposed is to be incremental.
Let's do this little by little, make sure that nothing else gets broken, right? Let's make sure we don't rock the boat. And to be fair, there is some wisdom in that approach for some things, okay? But in general, when you're trying to respond to an environment that is moving super fast and is changing dramatically, and you use that incremental approach, you're always going to be behind the eight ball.
from the day, from the get-go.
Gary D Stocker (08:36.359)
And then there's a long list of these challenges, and I've just got a couple more I want to talk about. The next challenge you list on page 206 of the book is the sunk cost and established brand of existing programs.
Ricardo Azziz (08:50.06)
Right, I mean, to be fair, know, changing or changing programs or discontinuing program, et cetera, never takes into consideration that sunk costs, how much you've already invested to get you there, right? The problem is that that statement, that recognition of sunk costs, the costs are gone. You're not gonna recover them by either keeping the program going or by stopping the program. So very often we hear about these sunk costs, we hear about
individual saying we've already invested so much in our name, in our course, etc. Yeah, but that's fine, but that doesn't tell you what the future is. It's a little bit like looking at the stock market and saying, you know, the past has indicated this is the issues with stock or this is what happens with stocks and so the future must be the same. And it's not.
Gary D Stocker (09:41.991)
And I'm sure there's listeners today listening to this podcast. They're saying, when's he going to talk about shared governance? And of course, challenges, shared governance, and tenure on decision making in a merger or a closure or other major restructuring is going to be a big deal.
Ricardo Azziz (09:58.606)
Well, know, after students, because students are always the number one consideration, say, in a merger or any other major change, faculty are then going to be the most affected. And we want to ensure that we can protect the faculty to the extent possible, right? I mean, if we have faculty that are valuable, they are scholars, they are contributing to the education of the students and contributing to the general knowledge of our country and the globe, I would say that we need to actually work to protect them.
Now we do have this sort of different type of management, if you would, in higher education, which speaks to a shared governance, right? And the word seems to imply that that means that both faculty and whoever else is managing the institution would be managing together side by side the institution. But that's not true. I think that even when you read the red book, the AUP red book,
and you look at the definitions of shared governance. Shared governance means that you really do want to have and hear the voices of faculty. But faculty are going to be mostly responsible for and have really their freedom to determine what is taught, how it's taught. In other words, the discipline. This is really where they have the greater governance. This is one of the issues that we're having today when boards and
political individuals, et cetera, trying to tell faculty what to teach and how to teach it. But the flip side is that decisions around executive issues or decisions around governance, these belong in different sectors. The governance really belongs to the board and nobody else. Decisions around executive decisions will belong to the president, the CEO, and his or her team.
And so it's important to remember that. Shared governance isn't uniform. It doesn't simply say faculty have the right to manage the institution, nor does it say that executives have the right to determine what is taught.
Gary D Stocker (12:10.099)
on page 214 in the book Leading Existential Change in Higher Ed, you ask the question, who is the opposition to mergers, closures, and other major restructuring? Who is the opposition, typically?
Ricardo Azziz (12:25.368)
Well, I think we have to distinguish between those that oppose a decision because there may be individuals who really think this is the wrong thing. They really don't have to agree with the thoughts of the governing board or the executives, et cetera. And then there is the opposition. And the opposition really is an organized opposing force. They are organized, their messaging is coordinated in some way.
They form a formidable obstacle potentially. So I think it's important to recognize that not everybody who opposes or disagrees with a decision is the opposition. That would be, that's not fair to those individuals. All of us have the right to have different opinions and thoughts and to express them by the way. But what is more difficult to deal with is when the opposition begins to organize and trying to scuttle or
or undermine a decision that has been made without understanding that often the future of the students and the institution lay in balance.
Gary D Stocker (13:34.515)
So let's move on to athletics, which is the next chapter, chapter 12 in the book. And arguably, many colleges are better known for their athletic programs than they are for their academics. The team nickname, mascot, college colors are all an integral part of a college's identity. Talk about mergers, where the athletic teams are mostly retained, and then like the two Georgia colleges in this section, when the athletic departments are merged into one.
Ricardo Azziz (14:05.39)
So I think that athletics, I will tell you that when I became university president, I really didn't know much about athletics. I mean, obviously I knew what athletics was in the environment of the university, but I really didn't know how absolutely impactful athletics are. My wife is a graduate from the University of Alabama and every Saturday that Alabama plays, she is either in the stadium cheering
or at home dressed up in Alabama garb cheering. And all I can say is, this is a reasonable rational woman until that particular Saturday. So it's impressive, I mean, how impactful, but it's also impactful in many other ways. It creates a brand, it creates an environment, it brings pride or not so much, right, to an institution.
Gary D Stocker (14:46.429)
Ha ha ha.
Ricardo Azziz (15:01.176)
But to be fair, it also is often a anchor for enrollment. A lot of smaller colleges will leverage their athletic programs as a way to enroll students who want to play athletics while they are in college, may not certainly qualify for scholarships at D1s and so on and so forth, but certainly would like to play athletics. But athletics is complex during the merger.
You don't wanna, you're trying to actually be efficient, right? So having two departments of athletics is, you know, creating two double costs and potential competition between those institutions in which students go where. Removing and merging departments into one means that, you you may lose students. You know, not all students will have the ability to participate in sports. Remember that in sports,
there are specific teams and a specific roster sizes. So it isn't like saying, you know what, let's have that, you know, basic math. And so this year we'll teach 300 students and next year we'll teach 100. That's not possible in the setting of sports. You have a regulation around the number of students that have participated in a team, et cetera. So merging does imply that some students will not be playing here. And this is where in fact sometimes you need to help them teach out, right?
in in in for those opportunities so the the other issue has to do with the other do you think that has to do with athletics is that students are not students that are in a merger acquisition or closure and there are student athletes they they don't just have to find an academic program that they can actually finish in they have to find an academic program and an athletic program
that fits their philosophy as well. that varies. So it's doubly hard for those students to find the right position. So we have to start early, we have to help them, institutions should invest sufficient resources to help these students move forward in their athletic careers as well as their academic career.
Gary D Stocker (17:17.745)
And then finally, I want to look at future college students, I guess. And I make the argument regularly. And I have had this discussion that youth sports are deeply embedded into American culture. Parents, sometimes with delusion, envision their children becoming skilled enough in whatever sport to earn a college athletic scholarship. So the elimination of a single college sports program through merger or closure or whatever mechanism got back.
impacts, like you just said, student athletes, academic and athletic pursuits. Now think about this, if you would, within that big scary change model, what guidance would you provide college leaders in recognizing the athletic culture in our country and its importance to eight-year-olds and 18-year-olds?
Ricardo Azziz (18:06.392)
So first we need to know that most presidents know absolutely nothing about athletics. We had a tongue in cheek saying that presidents lost their job because of jocks or docs. In other words, they had a health system or medical center and they had no clue what they were doing there. Or they had athletics, which was fairly dominant, didn't know what they were doing. And there's lots of examples of presidents who...
run afoul of their large athletic and well-funded fan-based programs and or their health systems. So I think it's important to recognize that. So the first thing is presidents, CEOs of institutions that have athletics that are planning, emerging, or acquiring, etc. They should be clear that they need to get external help. Internally, everybody will have a position, will have staked out their sort of
position around athletics, pro-con, et cetera. So this is really one of those areas where external advising will be helpful. The second step is that, preserving sometimes is a, there is a temptation to preserve all the programs the way they are, even after merger. And that sounds pretty good, except that there's a significant cost to that. Most associations, athletic associations and conferences,
are now allowing institutions to be in multiple conferences and associations, right? They don't wanna lose you, they wanna keep you involved and that's understandable. So that's less of an issue today than it was say 10 years ago. But the question really then becomes, what is the cost of keeping two programs versus the cost of losing potentially some students if you have to close some programs, right?
athletic program. So that is a complex issue. It requires careful thinking and may require some external expertise as well. Somebody who is impartial to this subject.
Gary D Stocker (20:06.395)
So the book is Leading Existential Change in Higher Ed Mergers, Closures, and Other Major Institutional Restructuring from Johns Hopkins University Press. Doctors Lloyd Jacobs, Benita Jacobs, Richard Katzman, and me, Gary Stocker are all contributors to the book. The book is available on Amazon and other online retailers. Dr. Z, it's always a pleasure. Let's do this one more time, and we'll talk in a couple of weeks.
Ricardo Azziz (20:32.28)
Thank you very much, Gary.