In Chapter 11 of Why It Matters: Reflections on Practical Leadership, I emphasize the need for leaders to keep score. This is especially important when significant changes are planned. Effecting change doesn’t come easily or quickly. The leader can be convinced that change is necessary, but not everyone will “get on board” without evidence that change can occur and, more importantly, that change will be beneficial to them. The WIIFM (What’s In It for Me) raises its head again.
As I stated in Why It Matters, “Keeping score doesn’t matter, unless you want to accomplish something. Then, it really matters.” I also said, “Given my industrial engineering education, I used data to support my arguments for change. I was influenced by W. Edwards Deming, who said, ‘In God we trust, all others must bring data.’”
Benchmarking is an excellent way to make the case for performance improvements. If you are going to keep score, you need a score card. While serving as UA’s chancellor and as Georgia Tech’s engineering dean I used benchmarking and a score card.
As UA’s chancellor, I benchmarked against 53 public research universities: Alabama, Arizona, Arizona State, Auburn, Clemson, Colorado, Colorado State, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky, Louisiana State, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, North Carolina State, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Oregon State, Penn State, Purdue, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Washington, Washington State, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Drawing on data available from U.S. News & World Report, each year we showed how each university ranked and where UA ranked on eleven measures: academic reputation; undergraduate acceptance rate; board score averages for freshmen; percent of freshmen in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class; high school grade point average for entering freshmen; six-year graduation rate; freshman retention rate; fraction of undergraduate classes with 20 or fewer students; fraction of undergraduate classes with 50 or more students; and fraction of alumni contributing financially above the cost of alumni association membership.
Benchmark data helped communicate two important messages: based on board scores, class rank, and grade-point averages, the quality of UA’s entering students moved into in the middle of the benchmark set, but UA’s students ranked at or near the bottom of the benchmark set in completing their degrees within six years. Because enrollment growth wasn’t accompanied by increased faculty size, UA lost position in the benchmark set in the mix of small and large class sizes and in student:faculty ratio.
The score card included the following performance measures: average freshman ACT score; percent of freshmen in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class; average freshman high school grade point average; freshman mid-year retention rate; freshman year retention rate; new freshman enrollment; number of entering freshmen who were National Merit and National Achievement Scholars; undergraduate enrollment; graduate enrollment; new transfer enrollment; total minority enrollment; total enrollment; bachelor’s degrees awarded; doctoral degrees awarded; master’s and other degrees awarded; total degrees awarded; research dollars (new awards); research dollars (expenditures); research dollars (federal expenditures); student:faculty ratio; and state support dollars. Beginning in 1997, we established annual goals for each measure through 2010 and we shared the results with the general public.
For the score card, progress occurred in all measures, but not at the same rates. Enough progress occurred for doubters to realize the university was becoming stronger over time.
In general, public universities sit on a three-legged stool. The legs are student tuition, state support, and private support. For decades, states chose to either keep tuition low by providing significant state support or offset low state support with high tuition levels. In recent decades, state support of public universities declined nationally. Upon arriving to be chancellor, I learned UA’s legs were so short, it was like eating in a Japanese restaurant and sitting on tatami mats. We worked to increase the lengths of all three legs, but state support didn’t keep up with enrollment growth and the university became more dependent on tuition revenue and private support.
Significant attention was given to increasing freshman retention rate and six-year graduation rate. Both were far more challenging than anticipated. The six-year graduation rate finally reached our 2010 goal during my successor’s tenure as chancellor.
Next: Decisions and Outcomes
