Promoting Organizational Efficiency Best Practices in Higher Education

Oct. 21, 2009 - PRLog -- NCCI Launches 3rd Annual Leveraging Excellence Award

In these difficult economic times, higher education institutions are under intense pressure to reduce costs and operate more efficiently. By promoting the implementation and dissemination of best practices in organizational efficiency, the Leveraging Excellence Award sponsored by the National Consortium for Continuous Improvement in Higher Education (NCCI) provides positive solutions that benefit all higher education institutions in the current budget environment.

For the third year the NCCI invites applications for its Leveraging Excellence Award. Sponsored by Follett Higher Education Group, the award recognizes and shares initiatives where effective academic and administrative practices have been successfully implemented beyond one department, campus, or institution. While other awards exist to recognize excellent improvements or innovations, the unique distinction of this award program is dissemination or scaling of those improvements/innovations for leveraged impact.  We look for initiatives that have resulted in significant impact on quality, efficiency, service, or learning.

For more information on the Leveraging Excellence Award, visit http://www.ncci-cu.org/go/awards/leveraging-excellence-aw....

“While many award programs focus on innovation and improvement, the NCCI award recognizes active leveraging for greater impact of projects that are on the frontier of expanding excellence in higher education. The NCCI award winners have cultivated improvements beyond the initial implementation of an innovative practice,” said University of Kentucky President Lee T. Todd, Jr., chair of the award judging panel.

In 2009 The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning, located at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), won for its Delta Program in Research, Teaching, and Learning. The mission of the center is to develop a national faculty in the natural and social sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics with the knowledge and experience to forge successful professional careers that include implementing and advancing effective teaching and learning practices.

Also winning in 2009 was the Collegiate Retail Alliance, which was recognized for its work in codifying business processes into a common software program. The alliance owns a comprehensive, business management system for collegiate retailers used by members. A core group sets priorities and develops operational prototypes (such as e-commerce and CRM) for broader deployment.

Other past winners include Brigham Young University and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC).  

More information about the Leveraging Excellence winners, honorable mentions and nominees is available on NCCI’s Web site http://www.ncci-cu.org/?frompress=1.  Applications for the 2010 Leveraging Excellence Program are now being accepted at  http://www.ncci-cu.org/awardapplication/?frompress=1.

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NCCI advances sustainable excellence in higher education by promoting the practice and discipline of continuous improvement across all academic and administrative functions.