How the University of Alabama is Learning from the

Baldrige Winners

By Dr. John Robert Dew

Summary: The University of Alabama has turned to four companies that have won the

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for advice on how to improve academic and

administrative processes. This article exams how business executives can influence the

direction of a major university by providing guidance on listening to stakeholders,

conducting self-assessments, strategic planning, and employee recognition.

Many executives are asked to serve on the Board of Directors of a university, or

on an advisory board for a college or school at their alma mater or in their community. This can be a frustrating experience since most universities have a mission and values that cause them to function and think in ways that are dissimilar from corporate or government models.

This article examines changes at The University of Alabama, one of a few major universities actively engaged in using the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria as a roadmap for planning and implementing a process of continuous improvement, and the role of corporate managers in influencing

the change process.

The story begins with Andrew Sorensen, President of The University of

Alabama, and his Provost, Nancy Barrett, who shared a desire to create a climate that would embrace change on the historic campus in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

To help jump start the change process, Sorensen established a Quality Advisory Board and invited representatives from companies that have won the Baldrige Award to serve as advisors. Peter Kirk, from Millikan, Eugene Barker, from Boeing, Glenn Pearson, from Federal Express, and Clif Deaton, from

Ritz-Carlton are active members of the Advisory Board. The Board also benefited from the expertise of a Baldrige National Examiner, Camise Paschell, who now works with PriceWaterhouse Coopers, and from the continued support of Bill Rose, a retired Human Resources Vice-President from Dow Chemical.

The Quality Advisory Board began meeting with the University's President and Executive Staff, which includes the Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs, the Vice-President for Student Affairs, the Vice-President for Financial Affairs, the Vice-President for Advancement, and the Director of Intercollegiate Athletics.

Mission, Vision, and Values

The first question posed by the Quality Advisory Board members concerned

whether or not the University had a sense of mission, a clear vision and whether

the leadership embraced a set of values that would give everyone on the campus

a common frame of reference for action. The Board members found that Alabama had already done significant work in these areas. The University's

mission is to add value to the state of Alabama through teaching, research, and

outreach, which is a mission statement that reaches back to the founding of the

university in 1831.

The vision for The University, established by President Sorensen, is to continuously improve the quality of the educational experience, to facilitate economic growth for the state, to expand outreach activities throughout the region, to enhance the diversity of the university community, and to cultivate a sense of community on the campus.

The values that the leadership promotes are:

1. Service to our students.

2. Collaboration

3. Creativity and innovation

4. Balancing traditions with change

5. Being at the cutting edge of technology

6. Tolerance for individuals and communities

Stakeholders

Another early challenge from the corporate advisors for the University was to define its stakeholders and to develop processes for listening and learning from key stakeholder groups. After some reflection, the Executive Staff identified fifteen separate stakeholder groups that can have overlapping interests or at times have interests that are in conflict with one another.

The stakeholder groups are:

Students 18-22 years in age.

Adult students

Parents

Alumni

Employers who hire our graduates

Citizens of Alabama

Faculty

Staff members

State Officials

Retirees from the University

The Local Business Community

Foundations and Corporations

High Schools and Community Colleges

Other friends who support the University

An International Community that uses our German and Japanese schools

The process of identifying these stakeholders shed new light on the complexities of decision making within a major university. While the goals of these stakeholder groups are often aligned, there are circumstances when the needs

of stakeholders compete, causing conflict within the campus community.

Having identified the stakeholders, the University is now creating processes

to listen to these groups. Surveys have been administered for feedback from faculty, staff, students, parents, department chairs, and alumni in order to establish a baseline of data regarding the satisfaction of these stakeholders with the University. In the process, the University found that very little effort has been made anywhere in higher education to survey the parents of undergraduate students to understand their views about the quality of the educational process they are supporting.

The data from all of the stakeholder surveys have been summarized into a report

card format that grades The University's performance in key areas. Students,

parents, and alumni give Alabama A grades on the academic program, the

quality of classes, and the availability of instructors. High marks from customers on the core processes in any business is good news. Some support processes receive passing grades, but can certainly be improved. A few support processes have received failing grades from students or faculty or department chairs, and these are priority areas for process improvement. Focus groups have been formed to obtain follow-up information in areas where stakeholders gave the University a low grade. Staff members, for example, gave the University low grades on encouraging personal growth and development, so the University has introduced a new Career Planning Workshop to help staff identify growth opportunities and academic opportunities that can prepare them for career growth.

In some cases, support organizations were surprised to learn that while they

were delighting their student stakeholders, they were not meeting the needs of

other stakeholder groups, such as department chairs. Student stakeholder data

have been analyzed to determine student views on services by each college

group and by whether students are in-state, out-of-state, or international.

Student satisfaction with a diverse range of issues, such as advising services and parking were found to vary significantly by college. International students expressed a much higher degree of dissatisfaction with student insurance and

with food services.

The Executive Staff are particularly pleased with the feedback from parents regarding their confidence in the University's academic programs. Parents consider the variety and quality of academic programs at Alabama to be excellent. Parents also give very positive feedback on campus security, health care for students, and student meal programs. Parent feedback has focused the administration's attention on several opportunities for improvement on the campus.

Meetings have also been conducted with representatives of community colleges and high schools that form the student supply chain. Plans are being made to listen and learn from other stakeholder groups, such as the employers that hire Alabama's graduates and the local businesses that rely on the University and its students as customers.

Teamwork

The third challenge from the Quality Advisory Board to the University's

Executive Staff was to stop managing from silos within the University and to

start managing the University together as a team. Problems within Universities

are generally complex and require teamwork among faculty, staff, and student

leaders in order to make improvements. As in business, the tendency is to

manage one's area of responsibility. Problems that require coordination and

collaboration can easily be ignored because the traditional structure is not

ready or motivated to address issues that require cross-functional collaboration.

As Provost, Nancy Barrett had already set a strong expectation for collaboration among academic groups in order to improve teaching and research

processes. Undergraduate engineering has been redesigned to provided an

integrated curriculum of math, engineering, and writing and presentation skills.

Faculty teams that cross academic boundaries are being encouraged and supported in research efforts. So it was a logical step to encourage cross-functional teams to improve other academic and support functions.

There are numerous team initiatives and task forces at work across the campus.

The Undergraduate Student Success Council has been formed to improve student retention rates. Teams made up of college faculty and staff are now working with maintenance employees to improve maintenance support. A cross-functional team is working to smooth out complexities associated with managing one of the country's largest distance education programs.

Learning About Quality

The fourth challenge from the QAB was to accelerate the understanding of quality principles across the campus. Like many universities, Alabama has faculty who are nationally recognized for their research and consulting in the quality field. While strong in helping outside organizations learn to use the quality principles, Universities seldom invest internally in teaching those principles to their own administrators and faculty. To fix that shortcoming, the University launched a Continuous Quality Improvement training program that has involved 400 staff members in understanding how to apply the quality concepts in an academic setting. Leadership workshops on running participative meetings, developing strategic plans, organizing and managing projects, consensus-based decision making, creative thinking, and teambuilding are all offered and attended by department chairs, deans, faculty, and administrators from all across the campus. More and more departments are selecting a

workshop for all the staff or faculty to attend as a group, in order to maximize

the application of new practices back in the office area.

The University has formed a Quality Council, with representatives from the Deans, Faculty Senate, Student Government Association, and staff groups, to serve as a sounding board and internal advocacy group for the quality improvement effort. The Quality Council developed a model (Figure 1) to

illustrate the manner in which quality improvement enables The University

to achieve its mission. This Council is chaired by Provost Nancy Barrett, and is

another indication of the degree of commitment to quality on the part of the

University.

Self-Assessments

The Quality Advisory Board also challenged the University to develop and implement a process for self-assessment, using the Baldrige Award Criteria.

The purpose of self-assessment is to re-frame the way people think about how

they are managing their organization by giving them a new yardstick against

which to measure. Self-assessment reinforces the positive actions in an organization and motivates people to improve in the areas they have identified

for themselves. The University developed and piloted a quick and easy-to-use

self-assessment instrument and piloted it with the College of Continuing

Studies. (Figure 2) Deans and administrative directors are using the self-assessment instrument across the campus. Through the use of self-assessments and action plans for improvement, some colleges and organizations will be prepared to apply for the Alabama Quality Award, which is a state level, Baldrige based quality award that now includes education.

Strategic Planning

The executives on the Quality Advisory Board have reviewed and encouraged

the work of the Deans in several colleges that are developing strategic plans. The College of Community Health Sciences and the College of Human Environmental Science have both completed fresh strategic plans within the last year. The College of Business and Commerce, the School of Nursing, and the Law School have well established strategic planning processes. The College of Social Work is now developing its strategic plan. These plans share a common focus on meeting stakeholders' needs, on collaboration within and between colleges, and on finding innovative answers to problems. In addition to championing strategic planning, the Deans have identified many areas for teambuilding and collaboration within their colleges and are supporting a new process for professional development for academic department chairs.

Support Processes

The University has been aggressive in applying the quality tools and principles to administrative support processes. Bob Wright, Vice-President for Financial

Affairs, has encouraged improvement activities in a wide range of areas. Teams

have been working on process improvement in the campus bookstore, in

the printing office, and in the maintenance organization. The accounting group

has conducted a focus group with academic department chairs to learn how to

better meet their needs for financial data. Sybil Todd, Vice-President for Student

Affairs, has championed quality improvement in student support services and

has involved student leaders in quality activities. The Russell Student Health

Center has an active quality improvement initiative and has made significant

improvements in shortening the amount of time students wait to see a physician.

University Recreation has migrated to a team structure, with teams working on

significant facility upgrades and working on designing new programs to serve

the campus community.

Results

Like an executive in any business, Andrew Sorensen expects to see the quality initiative lead to improvements in results. Many teams are working on

improvements with potential short term and long term financial benefits and

bottom-line improvements in student performance and research. Focus groups with students have been launched to enhance the academic program review process and information from these focus groups is already being used to improve teaching practices. Administrative groups that support the research grant writing process have been collaborating with faculty to improve this critical step in the research process.

Bottom-line results for The University of Alabama are impressive. Freshmen

enrollment is up and the scholastic achievement of incoming freshmen is at an

all-time high. Research funding has risen sharply, along with funding for new

research-oriented laboratories. Alumni giving is the strongest in the region.

Faculty salaries are up due to increased support from state government. Student,

parent, and alumni satisfaction with the overall University is very high. Faculty

and staff commitment to the University is very strong, although some are wooed

away by higher salaries at other Universities.

President Sorensen and Provost Barrett have clearly been successful in raising the bar in performance expectation and have established a climate conducive to

continuous improvement. The perspective and challenges from corporate managers who have won the Baldrige Award has helped to shape and reinforce

the constancy of purpose for quality within the University of Alabama's management team.

Recognition

The Quality Advisory Board also encouraged the University to continue to

develop new approaches to provide better recognition to employees and to

highlight the many positive improvements going on across the campus. A

university committee developed and implemented a new recognition process

where employees can receive a complimentary lunch at a campus food court

in thanks for outstanding work. Faculty, staff, and students have access to

new "Thank-You" cards to make it easy to give someone positive feedback for

being helpful or for making an improvement. A new service award, The Sam S. May Award, has been instituted to recognize teams and individuals who contribute to improvement on the campus.

Feedback to the Campus

Board members have advised The University repeatedly to get the word out

across the campus about the positive changes that are occurring. The campus newspaper for faculty and staff, Dialog, emphasizes improvement activities and gives the campus community feedback on survey results. The University's web site includes a section on quality that posts its surveys so that other schools can download them for use. The web site, www.ua.edu, includes the self-assessment tools for administrators and a diagram that models the way

in which quality improvement enables the University to better accomplish its mission of teaching, research, and outreach.

The University of Alabama sponsors an annual Quality Forum that highlights

campus accomplishments and brings in speakers from other campuses and the

corporate world. In 1998, the Quality Forum brought in speakers from the

University of Wisconsin - Madison, and from the Pennsylvania State University

to share the successes from their quality initiatives. The 1999 Quality Forum

focused on the impact of quality at Boeing, Federal Express, and Miliken, with

Quality Advisory Board members as speakers, along with a presentation by the

Dean of the College of Community Health Sciences, the Chair of the Department

of Physics and Astronomy, and the Director of The University of Alabama Press.

The 2000 Quality Forum features participants from over 20 teams from across

the campus. The teams are showing the results of their efforts to improve process quality, to improve planning skills, and to improve stakeholder

satisfaction.

Conclusions

Through the insights of managers from companies that have won the Baldrige Award, and through review of the Baldrige criteria, The University of Alabama has accelerated the rate at which improvements are being made across the campus. While most universities can be counted on to make some improvements each year, those that focus on using stakeholder data and that

create a process to facilitate change, will provide the best value to students and all of the other stakeholders that look to American schools for excellence in higher education. The business executive's perspective can make a difference.

Author Information:

John R. Dew worked for 24 years with Lockheed Martin Corporation as a quality professional prior to joining The University of Alabama as the Director of Continuous

Quality Improvement, reporting to the Provost. John earned his Doctorate in Education

from the University of Tennessee.

Publication Information

This article was published in Journal of Organizational Excellence, Spring 2001,

published by John Wiley & Sons.