Beyond Boundaries Reports, presentations, and affiliated works
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- Beyond Boundaries Steering Committee Meeting - Tuesday, February 23, 2016(Virginia Tech, 2016-02-23)Minutes from the Beyond Boundaries steering committee meeting held on February 23, 2016, in the Library Multipurpose Room.
- Envisioning Virginia Tech: Beyond Boundaries Forum(Virginia Tech, 2016-03-31)A program for the forum held in Arlington, Virginia, on March 31, 2016, in which Virginia Tech faculty and industry leaders gathered to discuss the Beyond Boundaries Initiative.
- The Future Role of FacultyCamargo, Elsa (Virginia Tech, 2015-10)During the last 20 years, there have been major disruptions in higher education including: a decrease in state funding of public institutions, an increase in technology, a shift in student demographics, and a growth of interdisciplinary work. These disruptions have produced new needs for higher education to address. As individual institutions begin to address the future needs of higher education, they must pay close attention to the development of faculty. Faculty development is a “strategic lever for institutional excellence and quality, and a critically important tool for fostering institutional readiness and change in response to the array of complex demands facing universities and colleges” (Austin & Sorcinelli, 2013, p. 97). Given the importance of faculty in institutional success this paper discusses more details about each of these disruptions, the future role of faculty, and a few faculty development models worthy of consideration.
- Beyond Boundaries 2047: The Campus Plan(Virginia Tech, 2018-11)Beyond Boundaries 2047: The Campus Plan sets out a vision for each of Virginia Tech’s campuses, building off of the goals, objectives and aspirations of the 2016 Beyond Boundaries visioning document.
- 32nd Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) Research Symposium: Beyond Boundaries, Across Disciplines(Virginia Tech, 2016-03-23)The Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) Research Symposium & Exposition is a unique opportunity for graduate and advanced undergraduate students to bring together ideas and research findings from different disciplines by showcasing their scholarly pursuits and achievements in a variety of formats, including posters, papers, panels, roundtable discussions, and creative installations. This year’s theme is Beyond Boundaries, Across Disciplines. This reflects the goal of the GSA Research Symposium & Exposition Organization Committee to highlight intersectionality across multiple disciplines, and our commitment to showcasing research from a wide variety of departments, programs, and colleges during the Symposium.
- What Twitter Reveals about Virginia Tech's Future: An Analysis of Content Related to the Beyond Boundaries InitiativeSong, Alice (Virginia Tech, 2015-05-10)This research analyzes social media (specifically Twitter) to gauge different aspects of life at Virginia Tech for the Beyond Boundaries initiative. We were interested in using Twitter data to understand people’s perceptions unaltered by the researcher. Other sources of data collection for Beyond Boundaries invited people to share their ideas through an idea bank, participate in an input session, comment on committee work, or submit a personal video. These data collection methods rely on people’s interest in participating. Participants know that their answers are being analyzed in some way. Social media, as a data source, does not include this barrier to research. Although we were interested in learning about particular topics related to the future of Virginia Tech, we also were interested in learning from the data. What discussions were taking place that we might not have identified through our background research? Were conversations about Virginia Tech positive or negative? We were open to what the data had to offer. This provides context to our method of learning from and refining a large data set of over 1 million tweets.
- Visioning Initiative: Inventing the Future of Virginia TechEdwards, Jaimie; Hundley, Meredith; Sharif, Fatima Sparger; Keeney, Katherine Preston; Miller, Mallory (Virginia Tech, 2015-08)The year 2047 will be the 175th anniversary of Virginia Tech. In order for the university to be well positioned to meet the needs of the communities it serves at this monumental point in time, Virginia Tech is preparing for two related goals: advancing as an internationally recognized, global land-grant institution, and strategically addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by the changing landscape of higher education. This paper offers as a university-wide visioning process to address the complex questions facing our institution. The effort is conceived from an analysis of Virginia Tech’s strategic plan, President Sands’ installation remarks, the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia’s 2014 strategic plan, literature on the changing landscape of higher education, and the work and characteristics of benchmark institutions. From this research, we identified seven elements of the changing landscape and four thematic areas of inquiry that will serve as the foundation for the initiative.
- Considering Student Population Trends for Virginia Tech's FutureHundley, Meredith (Virginia Tech, 2015-10)As Virginia Tech looks towards its 175th anniversary, questions regarding what kind of student body it intends to serve must be answered. At present, the university is serving an almost-exclusively “traditional” student body, which is typical of many residential colleges and of its peer institutions. The university will almost certainly continue to recruit and be attractive to this population, which is likely to grow in the future based on current Census projections. There are also opportunities to expand its role as the “people’s university” to educate more of the non-traditional student populations as part of its land-grant mission.
- Recent Macro-trends in Higher Education FinanceWalz, Jerald H. (Virginia Tech, 2015-09)Several fiscal trends illustrate the environment in which public higher education institutions operate to educate students. While many factors affect the total fiscal environment, the trends that most directly affect institutions and students are presented in this paper. Specifically, this paper examines trends in college pricing (defined as institutional charges for tuition, fees, room, and board), student aid (a combination of grants from all sources and tax credits and deductions), state and local appropriations, and student loans.
- Public University Endowments: What Stakeholders Need to KnowWalz, Jerald H. (Virginia Tech, 2015-11)The purpose of this paper is to introduce the topic of endowment management to university stakeholders [and] other interested readers. Scholars and professional endowment managers have outlined these topics in detail. This paper summarizes those topics, explaining what university endowments are, why they exist, and how university trustees and university administrators can best manage them. The paper concludes by suggesting that effectively managed endowments provide a part of the solution to the major financial challenges currently facing higher education.
- Envisioning the Learning Spaces of the FutureHundley, Meredith (Virginia Tech, 2015-10)Envisioning Virginia Tech in 2047 requires an understanding of the ways in which the university may alter its physical landscape to adapt to the more metaphorically changed higher education landscape. The physical setting will be one reflection of the global land-grant mission at Virginia Tech. We must question the ways that the university of the future might be structured and where it will be located, such as looking at non-traditional delivery options and classes, and whether and towards what ends will there be a continued need for and investment in large capital projects. Shifts away from both geographic homogeneity and traditional course delivery present new challenges to all institutions. These institutions may seek to modify the university campus to best meet the needs of their changing communities and create new mechanisms for interaction and outlets for socialization for geographically-dispersed populations. As higher education institutions look towards the future to evaluate which types of investments they will make in what facilities and towards what ends, several issues will likely, or at least should, be taken into consideration. This paper addresses some of these factors that Virginia Tech will need to consider in the coming generation in terms of the ways in which knowledge will be created and delivered and the physical infrastructure needs of the university community.
- Idea Bank: Results and AnalysisEdwards, Jaimie (Virginia Tech, 2016-04-28)Launched in September 2015, the Beyond Boundaries idea bank was created by the Office of the Senior Fellow for Resource Development to engage the Virginia Tech community with the Beyond Boundaries Initiative. The purpose of the idea bank was to gather ideas from the university community that would advance the initiative’s two goals: advancing as a global land-grant university and addressing the changing landscape of higher education. Respondents were given the option to respond to six prompts that correlated with these themes.
- Global Land Grant White PaperHarder, James (Virginia Tech, 2015-09)“Envisioning Virginia Tech – Beyond Boundaries” sets out to advance the university as a global land-grant and address the shifting landscape of higher education (Sands, 2015). This white paper sets out to explore the upper-echelon of higher-education programs operating in a global context and the ways that they have transitioned from international into global experiences. A secondary aim is to glean ideas about how Virginia Tech can globalize while maintaining its land-grant, public focus (e.g. access, engagement)... A central focus of the work conducted throughout the “Envisioning Virginia Tech – Beyond Boundaries” process will be an articulation of how Virginia Tech finds its own equilibrium between global and local missions as means to advance both in tandem...
- Funding Models and Virginia TechEdwards, Jaimie (Virginia Tech, 2015-10)As Virginia Tech moves towards becoming an internationally recognized, global land- grant institution, considering current and identifying new funding sources will be critical in its endeavor... This paper seeks to examine some of the challenges and opportunities associated with funding sources that Virginia Tech will face as it moves forward over the next 30 years and beyond. These areas include state appropriations, tuition and fees, endowment opportunities, federal dollars, and other opportunities.
- Community RelationshipsHundley, Meredith (Virginia Tech, 2015-10)“Community relationships” is a broad term used in the higher education literature to describe a university’s relations with the community in which it finds itself situated... This paper touches on some of the interactions between these players and the effects of a university’s presence in a community... This paper begins with a focus on the local and regional roles Virginia Tech plays and the challenges it faces. The second section focuses on its relationship with the commonwealth including some of those tension points followed by a brief exploration of the impact of its land-grant mission on this relationship.
- Characteristics of Highly Ranked Universities in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University RankingsSharif, Fatima Sparger (Virginia Tech, 2015-07)The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings include a list of the top world universities based on the indicators of teaching, research, citations, industry income, and international outlook. While an in depth analysis of the methodology THE employs helps universities to better understand the influential university characteristics, it does not point specifically to how other factors, identified in the literature as important to a world class global university, do or do not play a role in the university’s rank. This research, therefore, attempts to explore other university characteristics that may be important to a university’s THE ranking. It includes the 78 universities from the United States that are ranked in the top 200 of THE.
- Beyond Boundaries Steering Committee Toolkit [DRAFT](Virginia Tech, 2015-12-07)An essential part of the Beyond Boundaries initiative is the work of the four thematic area groups: Advancing as a Global Land-Grant Institution, Preparing Students for the World, Envisioning the Campus of the Future, and Discovering New Funding Models. The groups have been diligently working over the course of the fall semester to lay the groundwork for the Steering Committee to use in constructing its vision of Virginia Tech at its 175th anniversary in 2047. Each group approached both the process they undertook and the tools enclosed in this document in an organic fashion to take into account both the talents of their group members and the particularities inherent to their thematic areas.
- Discovering New Funding ModelsWalz, Jerald H.; Edwards, Jaimie (Virginia Tech, 2016-04-12)During the course of its meetings, the Funding Models Committee prepared a funding vision statement, identified core values essential to Virginia Tech’s identity, and developed Preparestrategies for the future. The funding vision conceives of a future that understands the dynamic nature of higher education while identifying new revenue mechanisms, managing costs, and maintaining the high quality of research and education at Virginia Tech. The core values embrace ideals that are essential to maintaining the university’s identity and frame the future; without them, Virginia Tech ceases to be Virginia Tech. Strategies for the future provide broad options to university leaders for implementing the funding vision while maintaining the university’s core values.
- Advancing as a Global Land Grant UniversityHarder, James (Virginia Tech, 2016-05-06)A land-grant university concentrates on the creation and dissemination of knowledge that enables people. At the Morrill Act’s inception, and remaining relevant today, land-grant universities are structured around “placing knowledge in the hands of people who can apply it in the world” (Provo, 2013). The land-grant vision considers access to higher-education as a public good and develops avenues that increase the dialogue between research and practice... As land-grant institutions grow into global land-grant institutions, they need to be inclusive, integrated, and dynamic. Virginia Tech is considering how global changes (i.e. climate change, globalization, resource constraints) and modernization (i.e. advances in technology and communication) shift the definition of what the land-grant university will be.
- Envisioning the Campus of the FutureHundley, Meredith (Virginia Tech, 2016-05-05)The Beyond Boundaries visioning initiative identified the “campus of the future” as one of four thematic areas of inquiry central to Virginia Tech responding to a changing landscape and advancing as a global land-grant university. The initial topics assigned to the group to address included determining future facilities and infrastructure needs for the ways in which students, faculty, and staff learn and work, and exploring the role of technology in tomorrow’s university. This report documents the educational trends that the group identified as influencing the campuses of the future and the principles and visioning ideals guiding this direction. Participants propose three transformative platforms to organize and support the campuses of the future.