Leaving Miami

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Sunday February 8, 2009
Sitting in the Miami airport…using the Admiral's Club and taking advantage of what may be the last access to wi-fi. My departure was uneventful…tho I was the last to board in Norfolk after racing through security following an airport wide page! I think the flight actually left EARLY! Go figure!
I have compiled a list of questions to use in interviewing the leadership of the CCCU schools….some from conversations with Paul when we talked in DC a few weeks ago…..and others arising from my breakfast with several international presidents in DC last week. That was a good occasion…giving me a sense of the caliber of our overseas partners! Wil Goodheer from Vienna, Kees Boele from Amsterdam, Steve Fogarty from Sydney, Masanori Kurasawa from Tokyo, Leah Marangu from Nairobi, Seungam Im from Cheonan (Korea), Stephen Noll from Mukono (Uganda), Victor Gadzekpo from
Tema (Ghana), Timoteo Sanchez from Santa Cruz (Bolivia)….whom I hope to see in just a few hours when I land there!
Here are the questions:
These are the things CCCU believes it does well for US members:
Faculty/Staff Development: Teaching, Administration, Disciplinary
Governance: Advice and support on institutional governance
Networking: Brokering student and faculty exchange
What do THEY want of these things that CCCU does well?
What do they want that CCCU may not do well that maybe we can try?
Who in the US do you partner with now? (CCCU and others)
What relationships work well?
What are new ways of doing things that THEY do that we in US do NOT do? (Kees Boele)
What are their challenges? How can the CCCU help? (Leah Marangu)
How do THEY handle multicultural issues? (Kees Boele)
What is the direction THEY intend to go? (Victor)
What are the specific objectives of each school? What do THEY want to get out of CCCU? (Leah)
How do THEY spend their budgets? (Kees)
How much do you know about CCCU? How do you plan to use it? (Godfrey)
How do we build networks & articulations (Timoteo)
How can we avoid one-sided exhanges?
Is IAPSE or ICHE importna to you? (Wil)
How much $ is CCCU worth? If added services how much more would you pay?

And here are a few of the initial ideas that have surfaced…and remain to be "tested" over the next few weeks:
Expert SWAT teams
Sister school relationships
"Accreditation" or certification of quality (virtual Accreditation team visits?)
Perhaps to be used a) as informal helps, or CCCU proper membership requirement, to give credibility in their own accreditation with governments, or even formal accreditation (takes over IAPSE etc.?) (Knoll & Fogarty)
Regional Centers of Excellence
Help with staffing…especially with retired faculty (Fogarty)
Fill gaps in program offerings (Like off campus programs do for US members) (Fogarty)
Online library resources with CCCU as central hub (Goodheer)

I pray the time spent will be encouraging to all those I visit!