Excellence in Higher Education Guide ─ A Framework for the Design, Assessment, and Continuing Improvement of Institutions, Departments, and Programs

The new (8th) edition of The Excellence in Higher Education Guide: A Framework for the Design, Assessment, and Continuous Improvement of Institutions, Departments, and Programs updates and extends the classicEHE series. This edition includes a broad and integrated approach to design, assessment, planning, and improvement of colleges and universities of all types, as well as individual academic, student affairs, administrative and services units. The framework included in the Guide is adaptable to institutions and units with any mission, and is consistent with the current directions within regional and programmatic accreditation as well as the time-tested Baldrige organizational excellence framework. It includes a focus on institutional and learning outcomes assessment, as well as assessment, planning and improvement in other functions, departments and programs.

While earlier quality enhancement programs and models focused primarily on incremental, unit and team-based improvement, the EHE framework not only provides a guide organizational leaders in assessing current practices, and but also in identifying the need for, and planning of, a wide range of organizational change initiatives—from local and incremental, to organization-wide and transformative. The review process outlined in EHE helps faculty and staff leaders determine when the needed change requires minor refinement, and when a program or service should be transformed or eliminated, and provides guidance as to considerations to guide the organization in designing and implementing those changes. The framework also now includes an enhanced emphasis on leadership and innovation processes—both of which are increasingly critical to creating and maintaining strong and sustainable institutions.

Self-assessment leads to stronger performance in our nation’s colleges and universities—this is the premise upon which the success of the EHE organizational assessment framework has been built. EHE has earned accolades from the higher education community, was recognized by NCCI with a Leveraging Excellence Award, and has been used in more than 100 academic and administrative departments at colleges and universities throughout the U.S. and internationally.

Blending the perspectives of the accrediting models and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, this classic framework has become the definitive tool for college and university administrators in delineating mission and aspirations, developing strategic plans, assessing stakeholder perspectives, reviewing academic and administrative programs, measuring outcomes, gauging performance against and learning from other institutions, and ensuring continuing improvement. The newly expanded framework includes a more expansive view of organizational change, an emphasis on continuing innovation, and an expanded perspective on leadership strategy.

The flexibility of the EHE framework makes it appropriate for use with academic and administrative departments. It is also ideally suited for use with faculty councils, advisory groups or senates, and with programs, centers or institutes. Moreover the framework can be used by an entire college or university, or with a particular program, department, division, institution or system. In each case, a great advantage is that the framework creates a common understanding and language for discussion, information sharing, and collaboration across disciplinary and functional specialties.

The EHE program includes everything needed for self-guided review and assessment, as a structure for external evaluations, continuing professional development within a department, or individual or group-based leadership development.

Detailed information is provided in each of seven review, assessment, and planning categories:
1.0. Leadership
2.0. Purposes and Plans
3.0. Beneficiary and Constituency Relationships
4.0. Programs and Services
5.0. Faculty/Staff and Workplace
6.0. Metrics, Assessment, and Analysis
7.0. Outcomes and Achievements

In addition to the Guide, a Workbook and Scoring Manual is available to help guide users in quantitative and qualitative applications of the model.Facilitator’s Materials are also available. The books and materials provide users with a solid understanding of the EHE model, and provide detailed guidance for varying ways the framework can be used.

The Guide is also sold as an ebook bundle with the Facilitator's materials.