This case describes an actual event, and was developed through field research. Numerous uses of this case appear useful: a) in schools of education, in courses such as School Leadership, The Principalship and School Law; b) for use with faculty workshops and boards of directors of schools and colleges; c) in courses dealing with ethics and/or management of non-profit organizations; and d) in courses dealing with the management of athletics.

A boarding school’s championship 8-oared crew, believed to be the best ever, was ready to go to the royal Henley Regatta in England. Graduation is over, and many of the oarsmen have graduated. Many parents, other relatives, and friends have made expensive travel plans to accompany the team. In the middle of their annual retreat for faculty and staff, it is learned that the oarsmen have left their dormitory after lights out, consumed a considerable amount of beer, and caroused around the campus and a neighboring town. The headmaster describes what happened, and challenges the group to decide what action to take.
 

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Contact Person: Timothy W. Edlund, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD 21251
Mail: 16 Coldwater Court, Baltimore, MD 21204-3043, USA
Voice: (410) 337-9143; Fax: (410) 337-5253; E-mail: tedlund@morgan.edu

The four case studies included in this series are designed for use in freshman orientation or seminar courses. They are arranged in roughly the order that a new freshman might encounter similar situations during the first days on campus. Each case is purposefully short so that new students, who have never experienced the case method of instruction, might start with less complex case studies. Case brevity also allows the cases to be used within a single class period of one-hour length.

Each of these cases are based on field research using a case research and writing technique developed by the author for use in cross-cultural case research.

These four cases have been prepared to help college freshman understand the nature of their personal relationships. They are case studies of real life experiences of four different freshman as they struggled with problems they encountered in dealing with personal relationship early in their college careers. The first case, Speak English, finds a freshman trying to deal with the communication skills of a foreign professor. The second case, Should I Leave?, explores a roommate conflict through the journal entries of a young student who begins to question whether she belongs at the university. The third case, Designated Driver, describes the situation of a freshman who suspects the designated driver has had too much to drink. And, the fourth case, The Chat Room, details the problem faced by a freshman who becomes addicted to the internet.

While not every college freshman will face the exact problem contained in these four case studies, the discussion of them under the direction of a skilled instructor or orientation leader will help students identify campus resources that they can use to resolve the troubling problems that may arise when they try to put their personal relationship in order during those first harried days of college.
 
 

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Contact Person: Michael F. Welsh, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208
Mail: Department of Educational Leadership and Policies, USC, Columbia, SC 29208
Voice: (803) 777-3090; E-mail: mwelsh@ed.sc.edu

This case aims to inform students about the problem of growing health care costs and the degree of concern with them in colleges and universities. It further intends to sensitize students to the problems involved in tip down decision making. Among the significant issues this case raises are: leadership succession and its impact on performance; effects of a command culture on professional personnel; and increasing concern with controlling costs in higher education.

This case is designed for use in upper division undergraduate and graduate courses in business strategy, nonprofit management, and higher education administration.

St. Wolfgang College recently decided to change its health care plan. The administration took this action after just minimum consultation with the faculty. Consequently, the faculty is disheartened, seeing the action as a reflection of the college’s top down decision making process and command culture. Faculty are in a quandary as to what they can do. Further, the administration of the college has rebuffed the faculty’s efforts to increase its involvement in governance, rejecting a faculty reform effort

The college’s president has a background primarily in administration at the secondary school level. Since assuming leadership he has focused on improving physical plant. He avows a mission of enhancing the college’s academic reputation and has taken actions that he and the administration believe will achieve this goal, such as dismantling two-year degree programs that primarily served disadvantaged and minority students and providing extra funding for flagship programs.

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Contact Person: Donald Grunewald, D.B.A., C.P.M., Iona College, New Rochelle, NY 10801
Mail: 5 River Road, Suite 307, Wilton, CT 06897
Voice: (203) 761-1111; Fax: (203) 761-9949

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This case presents students with a chronicle of events in the development of a public elementary school. It helps students appreciate the complexity and interaction of planned and unplanned organizational change and the role of various stakeholders in the change process. This case prepares students to: (1) understand the dynamics of organizational change over an extended time; (2) explore theories of organizational change, and; (3) discuss and develop ways that complex, dynamic organizational change can be managed successfully.

The case is suitable for courses for courses that focus on how organizations change and the management of change. The subject of the case is most relevant for graduate courses in education including planned change, school reform, and supervision and administration. However, the case is also useful in business schools for MBA courses in organizational theory, organizational development, and the management of change because the issues raised by the case apply to a variety of organizational settings. For example, the punctuated equilibrium model, the analytical framework for the case, was developed from data on businesses. In addition, students outside education schools have familiarity with public education from their own experience and the wide coverage of the educational reform movement in the media.

This case describes the development of a public elementary school over 23 years. Innovative features of the school included open space architecture, team teaching, individualization of instruction, collaborative relations with its community, and participation in decision making by faculty. A short time after it opened, however, the community became dissatisfied with the educational program and its implementation. This resulted in a reorganization of the school into a traditional format without open space, team teaching or the other planned innovations. After the demise of the innovations there was a twelve year period during which a new principal restored some of the innovations. A short period followed in which another principal reintroduced traditional educational ideas. This principal was unsuccessful and replaced by a principal who obtained outside funding for extensive innovations. The case ends with a description of the implementation and future prospects of the most recent innovations.

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Contact Person: Barry Allen Gold, Lubin School of Business, Pace University, New York, New York, 10038
Voice: (212) 346-1877; E-mail: Bgold20028@aol.com

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THE MERGER OF REGIONAL EVANGELICAL SEMINARY AND FRIENDS REGIONAL UNIVERSITY

Mergers within higher education are very uncommon and yet the survival of some institutions call for this uncommon solution. This case details the difficulties of combining two institutions of higher education each with its own mission and constituency. It challenges the reader to think through the process and to determine how such mergers might be accomplished with higher probabilities of success.

This case is best used with the graduate level courses in higher education administration such as the course in organizations, administration and governance or the in finance. It could also be used in executive or leadership seminars.

This case deals with the merger of a seminary and a regional college to form a university. The college is owned and operated by the regional meeting of the Friends (i.e., Quakers). The president of the seminary, Donald Le Sieur, realized it would be forced to close if it did not merge with a stronger institution, such as the college. He proposed the merger to the college president, Earl Stanton, who at first rejected the idea, given the high debt of the seminary, but later accepted it, after the debt had been reduced through grants and donations. Earl was interested in the merger because it would transform the college into an institution with enough graduate programs to justify the name "university" and also provide the college with a seminary. This would take Earl and the University board chairman one step further in their journey toward making the University a more prominent Christian institution.

Neither the Seminary nor the University faculties were part of the decision-making process, though some of them were consulted. When they were consulted they generally concluded that the synergies Earl saw in the merger were not present.

The incoming University president must now determine how to proceed. Through the merger held great promise of helping the University achieve its Christian mission, the first year of Seminary revenues and expenses resulted in a projected loss of $20,000 and a drop in enrollment. The University does not have enough income from its endowment or surplus to sustain this level of financial drain indefinitely.

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Contact Person: Asbjorn Osland, George Fox University, Newberg, OR 97132-2697
Mail: Department of Business and Economics, 414 N. Meridian St., Newberg, OR 97132-2697
Voice: (503) 554-2817; Fax: (503) 554-2829; E-mail: aosland@georgefox.edu