Center for Leading Improvements in Higher Education

The mission of the Center for Leading Improvements in Higher Education is to serve as a leader in, and resource for, higher education assessment and improvement endeavors by providing professional development opportunities, producing and disseminating scholarship, and engaging with various institutions, organizations, publications, and initiatives. 

The Center fulfills its mission through the following activities: 

• Assessment Institute in Indianapolis
• International Conference on Assessing Quality in Higher Education
• Assessment and Improvement in Higher Education Book Series with Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group
• Assessment Update with Wiley
• Leading Improvements in Higher Education Podcast
• Free Webinar Series
• Partnerships with national-level higher education associations, research organizations, publications, and initiatives

The Center for Leading Improvements in Higher Education also offers consulting and technical assistance in the following areas: 

• Leadership Coaching and Team Development: A facilitated process of working with individual leaders or teams to optimize individual and collective performance. This includes clarifying and prioritizing goals; identifying roles, competencies, and behaviors needed for success; determining work styles and processes to support goals; seeking periodic feedback from stakeholders; and evaluating performance outcomes and making necessary changes.

• Strategic Planning: A facilitated process to help institutions, programs, departments, or units develop a strategic plan for their context. This includes performing an environmental scan; conducting a situational analysis (internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats); identifying strategic priorities; developing goals, objectives, and metrics; and transitioning to strategic plan implementation.

• Program Review and Process Improvement: A facilitated opportunity to foster improvements or changes within a program or process. This includes involving stakeholders in identifying the problem and need for change, often informed from existing data and information sources; exploring and generating solutions; designing evidence-informed interventions; implementing the interventions; and evaluating the outcomes.

• Learning Experience Improvement: A facilitated approach to support designers of learning in academic, co-curricular, and experiential contexts. This includes assisting them in setting goals for learning; developing evidence-informed interventions to implement learning goals; routinely assessing student achievement of learning; and making ongoing improvements to instructional practices and processes based on the outcomes.

• Retreat or Event Facilitation: A facilitated intervention to help maximize the time and talents of individuals attending retreats and meetings, with a focus on both processes and outcomes. This includes determining the purpose of the event; identifying the outcomes desired by stakeholders; outlining topics to discuss; inviting appropriate attendees and subject-matter-experts; developing attendee engagement strategies; and planning for post-event deliverables, responsibilities, and next steps.

• Environmental Scanning: A facilitated approach to gathering and analyzing information from external sources to clarify positions, develop priorities, and respond to emerging opportunities. This includes identifying the purpose and goal of environmental scanning; determining and selecting appropriate external benchmarks; using various data collection tools and approaches; analyzing and prioritizing findings; and using results to make informed decisions.
  

Stephen P. Hundley, Ph.D. is Founding Executive Director of the Center for Leading Improvements in Higher Education and Professor of Organizational Leadership at Indiana University Indianapolis. He serves as Chair of the Assessment Institute in Indianapolis, the oldest and largest U.S. event focused on assessing and improving higher education; Chair of the International Conference on Assessing Quality in Higher Education; Executive Editor of Assessment Update, an award-winning bimonthly periodical from Wiley; Series Editor of the Assessment and Improvement in Higher Education Book Series with Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group; and Host of Leading Improvements in Higher Education, the award-winning podcast service of the Assessment Institute in Indianapolis.  

Stephen has addressed a variety of audiences in more than 30 countries on six continents and throughout the United States. He writes, consults, and presents on topics related to organizational effectiveness, learning and development strategies, and higher education administration. Additionally, he has been recognized for his accomplishments through teaching, publication, and service awards and has received competitive funding from private foundations and state and federal agencies to support his work, including continuous funding from the National Science Foundation for more than a decade. 

Stephen’s higher education leadership roles include Senior Advisor to the Chancellor for Planning and Institutional Improvement; Interim Chief Enrollment Officer; Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education and Dean of University College; Associate Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives; Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Undergraduate Programs; Department Chair; and Program Director. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Virginia Commonwealth University and his doctoral degree from American University in Washington, D.C. Stephen may be reached at shundley@iu.edu.