Larry D. Lauer

A number of forces are converging to change the future of higher education: (1) Governments everywhere are changing how they support education, often cutting back. (2) Digital technology is changing both how we teach and how we tell our institutions’ stories. (3) Globalization is gradually and steadily changing the competitive dynamics of our marketplace.

In the United States all of this is happening in an atmosphere of state government cutbacks. Many institutions therefore are focused more on saving their core business and local markets than on exploring international opportunities.

But the facts suggest that global forces are already changing higher education… ready or not. Migration patterns of both students and faculty are already changing. Institutions everywhere are recruiting and raising money in markets previously foreign to them. Institutional partnerships are being formed. New campuses are being built. And technology is creating new international on-line markets, while at the same time changing the communication of everything from subject matter to institutions.

In such an environment it is only prudent for institutions to consider these international realities at the same time they are addressing their local core business disruptions. And what’s exciting is that all of these challenges are ones that all advancement professionals are capable of addressing. Who better than they can identify the parts of the world where their institution has  fundraising potential? Who better than they can call upon alumni in other countries to help recruit students and lift visibility? Who better than they can access and clarify the international appeal of their special program strengths? And who better than they can understand and explain how media revolutions change everything?

The only bad news in all of this is that advancement work will require more sophistication than ever before. But the exciting good news is that there is no one in all of higher education better suited than advancement professionals to help lead the way.

My new book with much more on this topic is coming soon from CASE Books: The Transition Academy: Seizing Opportunity in the Age of Disruption  (http://www.case.org/books).