A Return on Investment Force Multiplier of an Entrepreneurial Administrative Organization for Professional Studies

Scaling a maturing fee-based administrative organization, delivering professional programs to working professional adult learners, to maximize return on investment, required a fully aligned and synchronized, and, naturally derived and time-phased three-pronged approach: (1) being open to multiple mediums of increasing band-width delivery, (2) creatively visualizing, and performing a detailed job enrichment and enlargement analysis supporting backfill at the lowest levels, and (3) finding synergistic cross-university collaborations for efficiency gains and cost containment. Over a seventeen year period, mediums of delivery evolved to support an ever increasing breadth of potential professional working adult learner participants. Dating back to 1998, the origin of the currently known Center for Professional Studies in Technology and Applied Research (ProSTAR), the medium of delivery originated as a weekend program, evolving through four natural distance delivery derivations. With mediums of distance delivery as the foundation, there evolved a natural derivation for effectively compensating participating faculty and their academic departments. Corporate budget constraints coupled with continually evolving market forces, required a competitive posture supporting continued expansion, while controlling cost growth. This dual approach of increasing gross revenue through student enrollments, while simultaneously exercising pro-active cost containment formed the premise and requirement for strategically aligned collaborations. This paper will examine a seventeen year history of distance delivery mediums and their corresponding models for faculty and academic department compensation models. In addition, this paper will reflect the cost savings from an exhaustively performed and executed detailed job enrichment and enlargement analysis of members of a professional organization serving the needs of professional working adult learners. Finally, this paper will discuss the synergistic results to-date of the single largest distance learning cross-college collaboration in the history of this tier 1 research university. A Seventeen Year History What follows is a historical context for the current Purdue University Center for Professional Studies in Technology and Applied Research (ProSTAR). The purpose of this section is to provide a framework to better understand the evolution of ProSTAR administered programs and delivery mediums. On June 11, 1998, the Purdue University College of Technology (CoT) initiated the process for University, and subsequently, Indiana Commission for Higher Education, approval of a nontraditional delivery medium, fee-based weekend alternative to Purdue’s traditional on-campus tuition-based Master of Science with a major in Technology degree1. On October 13, 2000, the Indiana Commission on Higher Education (ICHE) approved the University request for delivering a hybrid distance-based alternative to the traditional on-campus tuition-based classroom-only programs. The entire process from conceptualization to full final ICHE approval took two years and four months. Noteworthy, from the proposal excerpt, the concept of evaluation [quality of the program] was integral to the program proposal from the onset. In the fall of 1998, the CoT’s Department of Industrial Technology took a lead role in implementing, pursuant to ICHE authorization, the first weekend master’s program (WMP) in Technology on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. The original offering was cohort-based and it employed a weekend format; meeting from Friday through Sunday. The cohort met three times a semester, twice in the summer semester, for a total of five semesters (Fall, Spring, Summer, Fall and Spring). After 22 months, all members of the initial cohort format graduated in the May 2000 graduation ceremony. Because of its non-traditional approach, the state’s authorization included the establishment of a different fee structure than normal on-campus classes which resulted in a program cost that was higher than traditional oncampus equivalent programs. The Center for Professional Studies in Technology and Applied Research (ProSTAR) was approved by Purdue University under the College of Technology as an academic Center in February 2009. At that time, the underlying foundation for ProSTAR’s professional education activities was a Master of Science degree with a primary focus in technology leadership and innovation skills including tools for process improvement and quality management. In addition, this program incorporated other innovations beyond its delivery system, schedule and fee structure. To be consistent with its goal of developing practical skills and knowledge immediately, or at least quickly, applicable to business and industry, its plan of study2 incorporates a base of essential core studies, flexible and easily tailored courses to insure relevance to emerging technologies, and a guided, industry focused applied research and development project called simply the Directed Project (DP). The latter DP was deliberately designed to require work commensurate to what is typically expected of a master’s degree thesis3. ProSTAR is entirely self-funded from fee-based programs. It offered its first 100% distance program in 2010. The initial on-campus distance-hybrid offering in the fall of 1998 spawned a comparable off-site instantiation of this sole program in 2005. The 2005 instantiation was delivered in an on-site format at the location of a target corporate partner. This industryand corporate-specific instantiation provided for the first time significantly increased enrollments outside of the main campus and the prior and on-going on-campus distance-hybrid baseline programs. Figure 1.0 below depicts the suggested first wave of increased enrollments. Figure 1.0 – Delivery Induced Enrollment Growth The geographical limits of on-campus programs, even taking into consideration the distancehybrid aspects of the programs, created a self-imposed constraint. Moving the programs to a customer’s location, geographically distant from the main on-campus programs, spurred enrollment growth, but it too created enrollment limitations based on corporate sponsorship and geographical specificity. In 2010, ProSTAR, in collaboration with the academic departments, entered the distance education market with three 100% distance programs. Distance offerings created a significantly greater market, one not bounded by geography. Most growth to-date has been the result of distance offerings. It is further anticipated that most future growth providing the greatest opportunity for sustainment of an on-going administrative organization will materialize through distance delivery models. The 2010 offering of distance programs came in two noticeably different delivery methodologies: namely, synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous delivery of a given distance program implies the recipient of the instruction is receiving the instruction in real-time as the instruction is being provided. While this methodology supported the distance element thereby not requiring the student to attend class on the university campus or, in a previously discussed format, at an employer’s location, it still limited student participation by requiring a set time by which the instruction was to be given and therefore a set time by which the student must be available and prepared to receive said instruction. This concept created yet another limitation to full enrollment possibility or potential for maximum enrollment opportunities. Distance programs offered through the latter delivery mode of asynchronous delivery, fixed, or removed, the barriers other predecessor synchronized program delivery models created. While the on-campus distance hybrid, on-site distance-hybrid, and 100% distance asynchronous delivery models still exist in a multitude of program offerings, the 100% distance asynchronous delivery model creates the greatest promise for maximum enrollments; only limited by the desire to obtain the offered degree program. Figure 2.0 below depicts the delivery modes employed and their respective limitations. Figure 2.0 – Enrollment Limitations by Delivery Mode Enrichment, Empowerment, Responsibility and Accountability A fee-based self-funded organization has to be particularly attuned to any organizational expenditures that might impact the overhead rates for the organization. Overhead rates for an administrative self-funded organization are an additional burden against gross revenue that results in a reduced profit/residual to the academic department(s); the home department for administered academic programs. Coupling the need for controlling overhead rates with the theoretical employment vulnerabilities of being employed in a self-funded administrative organization, it is even more important that employment growth capitalizes on individual knowledge, skills and capacity for growth within each specific individual context. The manifestation of this theory and practice is twofold: to free senior employees to perform those many activities requiring their advanced knowledge and skill set, and, to fill open opportunities for employment at the lowest levels of the organization. Filling at the lowest level of an administrative organization frequently means filling at the department/organization administrative/secretarial level. This level of new employee also is afforded the greatest opportunity for continuing employment within other organizations, in the Delivery Mode / Limitations Geographical Employment Real-Time 1998 Distance-Hybrid; on campus 2005 Distance-Hybrid; on-site, off-campus 2010 Distance Synchronous Programs 2010 Distance Asynchronous Programs unlikely event the originally hiring administrative organization experiences a downturn in continuing funding; resulting, for example, from a loss of enrollments. Specifically, other nonadministrative organizations, e.g.