Rubber Triangles, Not Iron: How Institutions Can Simultaneously Improve Quality, Access, and Affordability, and How Digital Technologies Can Help

A handful of institutions have been simultaneously improving their quality of learning, their equity of access, and their affordability. These gains typically resulted from a decade or two of committed, consistent effort. The session will look into how five such institutions each developed a constellation of mutually supportive initiatives that can together respond to all three challenges. The institutions are Georgia State University, Governors State University, Guttman Community College, the University of Central Florida, and the University of Central Oklahoma. Their constellations span three domains: changes in institutionalized educational strategies, changes in how their organization encourages or discourages those educational strategies, and changes in how the institution interacts with its wider world. We’ll also illustrate how digital technologies can help magnify the framework’s influence on three-fold gains. The presenter will describe the research and the framework. Former CIO Joel Hartman was at the center of the UCF action for over 20 years; he’ll use the framework to identify important events, initiatives, and trends and explain how they fostered three-fold gains at the university. The session will also invite participants to apply this same framework to what their institutions are already doing: how ready is their institution to pursue three-fold gains?