During “Campuses at the Inflection Point: Strategic Innovation for Sustainability and Equity,” Mary B. Marcy, president emerita of Dominican University of California and author of The Small College Imperative: Models for Sustainable Futures, explored the current challenges faced by independent higher education, including the disruption of the pandemic, the long-anticipated demographic cliff, problems with the business model, and overdue racial reckoning, while also emphasizing the essential value of engaging students across differences, building strong communities, and asking fundamental questions. Marcy presented a strategic framework and innovation models to identify creative solutions and highlight examples and trends from institutions that are successfully adapting to the shifting higher education ecosystem.
Participants joined sessions on related themes, such as “Continuous Transformation for Sustainable Business Models,” “Academic Programming for Financial Sustainability,” “Innovative Mergers, Collaborations, and Partnerships,” and “Financially Sustainable Strategies for Smaller Colleges,” where they emphasized the need for financial transparency, assessment, creativity, and acting quickly to take advantage of opportunities.
