Inside Higher Ed highlights cross-college collaboration
A story in Inside Higher Ed highlights how St. Olaf and Carleton Colleges will use a $1.4 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to increase collaboration over the next four years.
The project, which aims to strengthen liberal arts learning and teaching in ways that each college could not accomplish individually, will advance collaboration in library services, information technology, management operations, and academic programs.
Decisions to collaborate are based on two criteria, St. Olaf President David R. Anderson ’74 tells Inside Higher Ed. Would collaborating be efficient and save costs, or would it improve current programs or enable new offerings?
Eugene Tobin, program officer at the Mellon Foundation, tells the publication that collaboration between departments and faculty members is “the future for the financial equilibrium of liberal arts.”
It’s a “common-sense observation that given the financial pressures, it probably doesn’t make sense for us to have two of everything,” Anderson tells Inside Higher Ed. Carleton President Steven G. Poskanzer notes that the cost-savings will come later in the process, as the colleges first focus on building trust and a culture of collaboration.