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Voices of Leadership…

On The Enterprise of Education

The Enterprise of Education encompasses a wide spectrum of responsibility, organizational challenges,

fnancial management, and community partnerships all with the purpose of enabling students to achieve
their educational, personal, and professional goals. We asked leaders throughout our global community
about the most pressing issues confronting higher education in sustaining the enterprise for the future.
We also asked them to share the leadership challenges that are at the forefront of leading and managing
the enterprise and, fnally, for their views on the health of the enterprise in the next few years. We hope their
refections, insights, and experiences inspire you to examine the ways in which the Enterprise of Education
impacts your role at your institution and the current trajectory of post-secondary education.

Harry McCarry - M.Ed, Cert. Ed, DASE, Adv Cert. Ed, PGCMgt, FInstLM, Head of Leadership Development, Belfast Metropolitan College, N. Ireland

What is the most pressing issue confronting higher education in sustaining the enterprise for the future?
All learning must be contextually relevant. Tis is vitally important when ensuring the challenge of linking learning
to the development of skills, employment, economic growth, and sustainable prosperity. We must resist a college
education being marginalized and dismissed because of this emphasis. We take pride in the adage that one goes to
university to get a qualifcation but goes to college to get a job. In this corner of the world (Northern Ireland) this is our
contribution to our maturation as a productive community as we emerge from darker times.
What leadership challenges are at the forefront in leading and or managing the enterprise?
Leaders must not shirk their responsibility to create a learning culture and a community of collective action, with
a shared understanding of purpose. Tis requires clarity of vision and direction by leaders, and communication of
tangible results for learners as empowered customers. Leaders need to engage in authentic employee engagement to ensure a commitment to this
defnition of purpose and establish that achievements are the result of collective action and not despite it.
What is your overall prognosis regarding the health of the enterprise in looking forward three to fve years?
Charles Schulz’s said, “Life is full of choices, but you never get any!” I ofen found this a reality in my 35 years of professional experience, especially
as a young teacher working with behaviorally challenged teenagers in Belfast during our “troubles”. If we are to be sustainable for the future, we
must ensure that our educational ofer is relevant, accessible, and afordable and provides a constructive pathway with real choices for learners. We
must act through service, with a customer-led focus. I am confdent, with brave leadership, this can be achieved.

Pam McIntyre - President, St. Louis Community College-Meramec, USA

What is the most pressing issue confronting higher education in sustaining the enterprise for the future?
For me, afordability of higher education and college readiness are at the top of the list because both directly impact
college completion. Te rising cost of tuition and the declining availability of fnancial aid force many students to work
full-time while maintaining a full course load or to stop out in order to earn money to return. Some students become
part-time students. Tese responses signifcantly reduce the likelihood of a student earning a degree. Not being
college-ready further complicates the issue and threatens college completion, since students who need to take remedial
education must take and pay for additional classes.
What leadership challenges are at the forefront in leading and or managing the enterprise?
Te need to become more fexible and more responsive to changing societal needs is a high priority. A leader will have
to focus on creating a context supportive of innovation and experimentation. Student services, for example, should be redesigned to be delivered
with greater fexibly through the variety of pathways students use to access these services, with specifc regard to adult learners’ expectations.
Academic programs need to be more customized to meet not only the needs of traditional students, but also the needs of non-traditional students.
What is your overall prognosis regarding the health of the enterprise in looking forward three to fve years?
Presently, higher education is afected by many diferent forces: a lack of college readiness; changing demographics; market-driven competition
focused on the working adult; the economy; cost increases; increased accountability regarding graduation rates and student learning outcomes;
how students consume higher education. Terefore change and transformation of higher education will continue as it has over the last 50 years.
My prognosis looking forward three to fve years is this: higher education institutions will be more student-focused, accountable for what students
learn, and extremely fexible.

4 LEADERSHIP Vol. 19.3 Winter 2014

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