Can the "Signature Experience" Revive a School's Fiscal Health?

A growing list of small, struggling, liberal arts colleges are pinning their fiscal turnarounds on the development of a distinctive campus-wide experience that, they hope, will distinguish them from competitors. The latest is Mills College, a small women's college in Oakland, California, which on Tuesday announced "a blueprint for restructuring" that would include significant layoffs along with "a new undergraduate signature experience" combining individualized and mentored learning, alliances with other institutions, and private and public partnership opportunities.

The strategy follows similar announcements from colleges including Agnes Scott, Simmons and Emory & Henry, whose president, Jake Schrum, told the Chronicle of Higher Education, "If you're not in the Nifty 50, you're not on anyone's radar screen unless you do something special. The straining remaining — the rest of us — I think we do have to distinguish ourselves in our digital materials, our print material, our social media."

(subscriber-only content) The Chronicle of Higher Education (05/18/17)

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