Right there on their own community college campus, students and alumni of Tidewater Community College (TCC) can now earn a University of Virginia (UVA) bachelor's degree.  This November 2004 arrangement came as a result of a partnership - a sometimes difficult but high-payoff way to get things done cost-efficiently.    

This unique story sprouted from professional association between TCC president Deborah DiCroce and UVA president John Casteen.  Now it's evolving into a strategic model that any organization - higher education, business, religion or government - can use. That is, if the organization has a big enough mission. 

Deborah DiCroce John Casteen

Aim high and choose your partner

DiCroce makes this observation, "If you're going to go the partnership route, which is messy work, be sure your dreams are huge.  Otherwise it's not worth the effort and the parties won't have enough at stake to stay committed." 

So far, the only downside to the UVA Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies, reports Casteen, "is its success."  There has been a barrage of requests for more slots in the original degree program and more of these types of degrees to be established elsewhere. 

The first class of 24 students was intentionally small.  Included were a mid-career shipyard technician, an information technology entrepreneur, a finance assistant, and a grandmother.  Enrollment has since grown.  It will continue to expand and be replicated in other Virginia locations to satisfy current "consumer demand."    

When you're sure the goal is a worthy investment, the second step in partnership is selecting the right partners.  By "right," DiCroce means those who are like-minded.  A  partnership that involves fusing different organizational cultures requires decisive people who know what is non-negotiable and who have the skills to orchestrate the tradeoffs of what is negotiable.  In addition, they must be prepared to stick with their commitment, after the initial excitement has cooled. 

Wrong partners, whether they unite within higher education or a corporation's global supply chain, can sink any project.  There will be everything from foot-dragging to sabotage.  In July 2003, a panel of experts interviewed in The Harvard Business Review concluded that it's the willingness and ability of people to work as a team, not the strategy, logistics or technology, that lead to success in partnering.

Two Virginia partners

During her nine years as president of Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, DiCroce got to know Casteen.  He has been president of UVA, based in Charlottesville, since 1990.

Although Casteen heads a four year university that has ranked number two among public universities by U.S. News & World Report, DiCroce says he values a community college education.  When she moved on to the presidency at TCC, she created a vision for students there to earn a four-year degree, without a hefty commute.  To help make that happen, she knew she had a kindred spirit in Casteen.

Casteen frames his openness this way.  "Both the administration and faculty at Virginia realize our responsibilities to the Commonwealth to conceive new ways to reach out to those whose access to our institution may be limited." 

Casteen, of course, is referring to challenges faced by the "non-traditional student." 

Narrowly defined, that student is older than 24 years of age.  More broadly though, a nontraditional student is working full time, not financially supported by parents and may have a family.  Obviously he or she is not in the carefree crowd depicted in Tom Wolfe's novel of campus life "I Am Charlotte Simmons." 

If you're going to go the partnership route, which is messy work, be sure your dreams are huge. - Deborah DiCroce

Serve what they need where they need it

Today, according to the U.S. Department of Education, about 39 percent of postsecondary students are nontraditional versus 28 percent in 1970.  About 50 percent of them are not completing degree programs versus 12 percent of traditional students.

Busy schedules are a factor.  Long commutes to distant classes are just not in the cards for many of them.  "By providing the Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies right where the students live, we remove one more obstacle for them," Casteen explains.

Together DiCroce and he made sure that those students can experience and benefit from the UVA campus culture.  Tidewater students visit the UVA campus at Charlottesville for orientation and peer-mentoring.  And UVA faculty come to Tidewater to teach the degree courses. 

Align the expectations - and the operations

A third front-end step in successful partnering is hammering out the expectations of the partners.  What will each partner put into the project, and wheat does each intend to get from it.   

Input and buy-in from representative members of both organizations is needed here.  Of course, that's time-consuming. Because it may involve authority and power, it may also produce conflict.  Nonetheless, it is 100-percent necessary.  "If your partnership is based on a 'top-down' mandate, without the leaders and faculty of both schools, there will be problems and no progress," states Casteen. 

The academic curriculum, its content, operation and by whom, were major issues during the TCC-UVA negotiations.  "Neither of us," says DiCroce, "wanted a watered-down academic program or ambiguity about authority and responsibility.  So, we made sure that didn't happen." 

TCC "owns" the program but both institutions operate it jointly. The degree is open to students with two years of college courses, at least a year of which has to be taken at TCC.  The academic content, regulations and grading are the same as for courses provided on the UVA campus. 

A concession for Tidewater students is a minimum grade-point average of 2.0, which is lower than the requirement for UVA, Charlottesville applicants.  Nevertheless, nearly all Tidewater students so far have applied with averages above 3.0. 

Monitor, nurture

An ongoing fourth step in partnering is constant vigilance.  "Probably the best analogy for professional partnerships," observes DiCroce, "is a marriage.  The partners have to look at the nitty gritty every day and put any problems in the open."  Everyone from administration and faculty to students are consulted regularly.  In addition, Casteen values old-fashioned caring and nurturing.  "A partnership," he sums up, "is a relationship between people, not only institutions." 

Nevertheless change can bring trouble.  Turnover in executive leadership or the project's champions, or a shift in organizational priorities, or pressures on the budget can each produce rough water for any partnership. 

How then can the founders ensure a partnership's survival?   DiCroce feels strongly about building and reinforcing credibility.  A track record over time should establish broad support that will help it withstand the pressures that may come and go. 

If your partnership is based on a 'top-down' mandate, without the leaders and faculty of both schools, there will be problems and no progress. - John Casteen

In addition, Casteen recommends the design of longevity mechanisms specific to project.   One of those may be an organizational or project culture that "looks beyond the financial bottom line when evaluating benefits." 

Casteen's point is significant in these volatile times.  Many organizations are faming their mission beyond the immediate stakeholders.  In the case of the TCC-UVA partnership, the eventual stakeholders may include the business community as well as national and regional policy leaders.

For example, high-profile supporters of the community college movement emphasize that the community college is a user-friendly, cost-effective way to help the American workforce become and remain globally first-class.  The community college may be the most accessible on-ramp to the knowledge and skills needed for US competitiveness.

Location, location

While developing professional know-how and talent, the community college can also keep it in a geographical region.  The Council on Competitiveness reports that geography or "place matters more than ever." 

"Clustering" is an emerging business development phenomenon.  Certain locales or regions seem to attract the capital, technology, and entrepreneurial spirit that create new sources of economic growth.  A prerequisite is a local skilled and educated labor market. Thanks to the TCC-UVA partnership, Virginia has enhanced the odds of becoming and remaining a major cluster region.

So there is a link between easy, low-cost access to education and training and regional economic growth.  That may be the most compelling argument for thinking beyond the immediate bottom line in support of partnerships like TCC-UVA.  Institutions which accept this mission stand to create a new form of value for their graduates, regions, and for the U.S. 

Full circle

Historically, the community college has regularly done so, even when such a point of view wasn't popular in academic circles.  Since a prototype was launched by the University of Chicago in 1901, the community college has been presenting education to policy makers and the public in the language of economic reality. 

For instance, reports DiCroce, "We pushed for Saturday classes because they served students' immediate bread-and-butter career needs.  And we did so long before four-year institutions saw it as 'cool' or smart marketing.  Likewise, we're aware and communicative about our students' lives and the tensions between the demands of those lives and the needs of industry." 

Currently, there is downright urgency for more traditional institutions of higher education to see those realities, accommodate them, and speak the same language of economic survival and competitiveness that TCC and UVA use.  The degree partnership is not just an academic offering.  It's a 21^st-century message about U.S. economic competitiveness.

Robert L. Dilenschneider is founder and chairman of The Dilenschneider Group, a global corporate strategic counseling and public relations firm.