2022 Planning, Budgeting, and Analytics Forum

After conducting member focus groups and a survey, NACUBO recently released a list of the top business issues confronting colleges and universities. In this session, panelists will explore the top challenges college and university business leaders are working to navigate. Presenters will share how these business issues are evolving at their institutions as well as strategies they are developing to tackle challenges and take advantage of opportunities.

• Dennis Jones, Norfolk State University
• Katie Walker, University of Virginia
• Jim Hundrieser, NACUBO

Join one team on their journey from analysis to building a transformative operational plan. This session will lay out and review the goals, steps taken, analysis, the operational plan, and its outcomes. The exposition will be followed by an interview that will dive into the impact of analysis and planning on the institution-wide system.

• Lorenzo Esters, Ivy Tech Community College Indianapolis
• Katie Hagan, rpk GROUP

This interactive session will provide key insights and best practices for how organizations can leverage an all-funds approach to budgeting and financial management to communicate financial position, identify opportunities for resource reprioritization, and optimize investment opportunities. Join an institution in a rich discussion on why this approach leads to robust financial communication and encourages a transparent and common understanding of financial position. Learn how this approach can help you communicate critical financial information in a simple and comprehensive way for a variety of audiences.

• George Kolb, associate vice president of budgeting, University of Florida
• Taylor Jantz, manager, Huron Higher Education
• Kevin Lintner, higher education senior associate, Huron

Colleges and universities have an abundance of data, but transforming data into actionable information often involves time-consuming, manual processes. In this session, you will hear how one institution invested in modern technology, addressed the level of manual effort, and improved processes to better leverage data for decision-making. These investments and process improvements led to more automation, greater transparency, and a single source of truth for high-level actuals and budget comparison.

• John Schmidt, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
• Kathleen Kissam, OneStream
• Joel Bittick, OneStream

Immerse yourself in the genesis, design, development, features, and uses of an application of ServiceNow (aka Budget Assist) employed by one institution in support of the university's annual operating budget creation process. This session will review Budget Assist's institutional benefits, lessons learned, examples of real requests, and provide a live demonstration.

• Michael Harrington, University of San Francisco
• Jeff Hamrick, University of South Florida

This session explores enabling data-informed decision-making in financial planning and management processes. Tarleton State University has been working on a transformational approach that aligns financial planning and budgeting processes with funding priorities and strategic plan goals and objectives. Their approach helps leaders across campus baseline their spending to address commitments, staffing, and operational priorities that align with the institution’s mission, goals, and objectives.

• Jo Ann Kern, Tarleton State University

Find out how one institution utilized academic, financial, student success, and course scheduling data to improve student success and financial sustainability. You will access concrete examples of how the data is being used to support academic and student success planning. Learn practical strategies institutions can implement to improve academic program financial health and remove barriers to student success.

• Jill Loveless, West Virginia Northern Community College
• Lisa Hunter, Ad Astra Caleb Tegtmeier, Ad Astra

Learn how one university created a business intelligence platform and pushed a real shift towards a more data-informed culture. This session will review the project management, design, collaboration, technology, and data governance aspects of creating such a platform, and will talk through the wins and struggles along the way in leveraging resources and engagement/adoption. Find out how you can apply these elements via a live demonstration of the platform.

• David Doig, University of Colorado Denver
• Dave Deffenbacher, University of Colorado Denver

The University of Virginia implemented a responsibility center management budget model in FY2015 and conducted its second review of the model during FY2021. That review resulted in significant simplification of the model, making it more strategic, transparent, and supportive of multi-year planning. This session will give participants an overview of how the review was conducted, the parties involved at all levels through the process, and the early results of the revised of the budget model. Session presenters will discuss communication strategies, governance issues, and data integrity as they present participants with a roadmap for evaluating their own budget models.

• Bill Ashby, associate vice president for financial strategy, University of Virginia
• Adam Daniel, vice provost for planning, University of Virginia
• Rob Hoover, senior associate dean for administration and chief financial officer, McIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia
• Eduardo Lorente, associate vice provost for budget and financial planning, University of Virginia
• Katie Walker, Executive director of financial planning and analysis, University of Virginia

Hear how one institution developed an analytical tool to measure the rate of return for academic programs at the institutional, college, department, and course levels, as well as by course number. This tool measures actual individual net tuition revenue and cost of instruction and provides staff in academic affairs with valuable insight into the financial performance of academic programs. Not only does the institutional analysis examine performance of the last six years, but the data also forecast and look forward to the next six years. Discover how this valuable tool can support the annual budget allocation model and can serve as a key input into academic master planning.

• Darrell Haydon, University of the Incarnate Word

Institutions often make program decisions absent data on market trends or impacts on other departments. Predictive models help institutions estimate the effects of program decisions and market trends on staffing and budgets, both within the program’s department and in other departments. Participants will learn about the data and tools needed to reduce the time spent on budgeting and increase accuracy. Discover how to avoid expensive mistakes, such as reducing overall margins by cutting the wrong programs or failing to account for the effect of program growth on staffing needs in general education courses.

• Peter Holbrook, provost and chief academic officer, Tiffin University
• Peter Starrett, senior partner and chief product officer, Gray Associates

Discover how one university is using analytical insights and information to support broad set of institutional goals including student equity, accessibility, student diversity, student success, and enrollment growth. This presentation will discuss how a collaborative and integrated data and analytics initiative is supporting the implementation of Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) practice to achieve these goals. Presenters will discuss the institution’s goals, process issues, collaborative data initiatives, and demonstrate the analytics platform while acknowledging the challenges in implementing change culture.

• Juan Espinoza, Virginia Tech
• Abhay Joshi, Virginia Tech

In the business office, it can sometimes be easy to be focused on tasks, challenges, and the here-and-now so that staff may lose focus on their college or university’s mission and how their work fits in to the institution’s strategic goals. Working together, higher education leaders at all levels in all departments can help an institution move towards its vision. Hear perspectives from one college president on how business officers fit into these conversations. The transformational changes faced by colleges and universities will be covered as he draws upon personal experience to emphasize how to stay true to mission in turbulent times and beyond.

• Michael Baston, Cuyahoga Community College

As institutions continue to engage in data-driven decision making at all levels, effective analytics leadership and data management systems are essential to providing trusted, timely, high-quality data consistently to all users. This presentation describes how analytics were reorganized into a new office of centralized institutional analytics to focus on improving operational efficiencies, developing new synergies, leveraging analytics expertise, strengthening collaboration, and advancing student success and well-being. Audience members will learn the specific steps used to engage stakeholders, optimize analytics, and address a myriad student success concerns. Panelists will discuss the issue of reducing equity gaps in student performance in certain courses across the university and underscore the need to promote culturally responsive and inclusive data analytics practices that recognize the increasingly diverse student, faculty, and staff populations we serve.

• Michele Hansen, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
• Sabrina Andrews, Indiana University

As student-centered practices become more deeply integrated into all aspects of strategic planning and operational priorities, chief business officers and their teams are discovering new ways to contribute to student success and equity initiatives. This session will present current trends in business office practices and explore opportunities for business office professionals to support and facilitate positive changes in student outcomes. The presenters will also provide an update on the tools and frameworks being developed by NACUBO’s Strategically Financing Equitable Student Outcomes grants, funded by Ascendium, College Futures, and Trellis.

• Jo Ann Kern, Tarleton State University
• Laura Lupei, Sonoma State University
• Kelli Rainey, NACUBO

It is not uncommon for senior leaders to make commitments for financial resources. Things like "3 years of support for this new center" or "move this position over to a new area and move the funding with it" seem straightforward but can quickly become complex. Worse, if there is a change in leadership, how do you know what was or wasn't agreed to? This presentation will discuss a process put in place to track, monitor, and manage multi-year commitments and agreements in a way everyone can live with. Take home templates for such a commitment process that can be adapted for any institution, its priorities, and its other systems.

• Rebecca T. Barber, associate vice president, financial planning, budget, and analysis, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
• Susan Wynn, director of special projects, business affairs, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

To leverage analytics for data-informed decision-making, institutions need to focus on change management and both technical and process needs. In this session, you’ll learn how an institution built their data intelligence capabilities and dashboard solutions to support planning and budgeting efforts. Miami Dade College will share how they implemented this analytics initiative and how they utilize student, finance, HR, and facilities data to provide actionable, consistent, and integrated views of institutional information. Attendees will view example data visualizations so they can experience how the information is presented.

• Marta Mitzenmacher, Miami Dade College
• Chuck Persky, Performance Architects

Three years ago, the University of North Texas System embarked on a journey to completely integrate all budgeting, accounting, and strategic planning processes. The organization has since achieved the goal of establishing a cohesive financial planning structure, which ensures the budget is informed with a comprehensive perspective of strategic goals and available resources. This session will provide an overview of the system’s integrated financial planning framework and the path they followed – from coalition building to technology adoption – to create a circular flow of data to create institutional financial reports, annual budgets, and strategic plans. Panelists will share use cases detailing how they have utilized this new structure to drive data-informed financial decisions across their organization and the value they have realized as a result.

• Kerry Romine, University of North Texas System
• Paige Smith, University of North Texas System
• Jill Winkler, Syntellis

As colleges and universities reimagine program offerings, thinking outside the box can help them consider partnerships while focusing on student success and institutional financial health. In this session, you will hear how one institution, after evaluating current programs, created a new partnership with a professional theater company. This new partnership allowed the institution to focus on critical areas, including enrollment and retention efforts, supporting affinity groups, offering innovative programs and student experiences, and maintaining their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion—all while reducing expenses and maintaining quality.

• Isabelle Martinez, Oglethorpe University
• Peter Stobie, Oglethorpe University

Higher education is undergoing momentous changes at an accelerated pace. The need for proactive, long term decision making is increasingly necessary for institutions to remain sustainable and, ideally, thrive. By analyzing alternative options around key business areas such as enrollment, new programs, capital expenditures, and funding sources, two institutions gained insight into the direction they were each headed, while senior leadership gained confidence that their decisions were supported by strategic analysis. This session will explore the stories of Texas State and Lehigh University – what their challenges were, how they tackled them, and what the outcomes were. Best practices, as well as lessons learned, will be shared, along with examples of how to communicate results to leadership.

• Christine Black, Texas State University
• Alexia Pereira, Synario
• Jim Quinn, Lehigh University
• Michael Nicolescu, Synario

Higher education is facing myriad challenges, and one of the resources that all institutions should use to help them navigate this environment is data. To leverage data as an institutional asset, colleges and universities need to have an information strategy that allows them to integrate and analyze data, disseminate information, and ensure data-informed decisions support institutional priorities. Presenters will share elements of their institutions’ information strategies, including linking data to mission, data governance, data access and usage, reporting, and navigating information challenges. Audience members will have the opportunity to reflect on their own institutions’ information strategies.

• Orkun Toros, University of Texas at Dallas
• Karen Tumlinson, Central College
• Jackie Agustin, NACUBO

Understanding the cost of instruction is key to ensuring nimble and effective responses to external pressures and threats. A scenario-based approach that emphasizes advanced planning with a focus on resiliency can be the difference between responses that are nimble and effective vs. sluggish and reactionary. This session will introduce and discuss the development of the Collegiate Academic Program Resiliency Index (CAPRI). Combining measures of instruction, faculty workload, and space utilization, the CAPRI score provides a succinct snapshot of an academic program’s resource resiliency within the larger university context while still factoring in critical elements such as enrollment mix, funding sources, and key outcomes.

• Rafael Hernandez, California State University East Bay
• Jason Smith, California State University Fullerton

Choose from one of three topic-based discussion groups.

Changing Revenue Streams

Given the ever-changing environment, colleges and universities have a strong need for diversified revenue streams. Join your colleagues to discuss resource challenges, how data can help with planning, and how others are approaching the next steps.

Making the Most of People

Data Colleges and universities have many stakeholders—students, faculty, staff, and others. In this roundtable discussion, we will discuss challenges and opportunities with leveraging data from student systems, human resources systems, and other sources.

Connecting Budget Conversations

Come ready to discuss a variety of challenges and strategies budgeting officers should be considering on their campuses. All funds budgeting, planning applications, and the connection between financial statements and budgeting will be discussed, but attendees are encouraged to bring topics of their own.

As challenging times continue for higher education, data literacy and data-informed decision-making are even more important for student and institutional success. We have a lot of data, yet well-designed data presentations that foster effective decision-making are few and far between. How do you move from simply sharing data to connecting with your audience in a meaningful way? In this session, we will explore the importance of storytelling and the effective use of visuals to communicate with data. Our goal is to provide the audience with a toolkit they can use to up their game when it comes to presenting and communicating with data.

• Jasmine Yang, Hamilton College
• Kirk Kelly, Vantage Technology Consulting Group

Hear how three institutions embarked on journeys to overhaul their existing planning processes to improve resource allocation, increase stakeholder engagement, and enhance administrative efficiencies. Each institution will discuss how they have successfully transformed planning capabilities and now spend less time reviewing data entry, inefficient consolidations, and manual reporting—and more time optimizing institutional resources by aligning them to strategic priorities. Presenters will provide attendees a practical framework to follow, including key considerations for success and common pitfalls to avoid. Join this presentation to learn how you can help your institution enable agile planning and improve data-driven decision-making.

Speakers

• Rebecca Barber, associate vice president, financial planning, budget, and analysis, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
• Kelly Epting, associate vice president for finance and budget, University of South Carolina
• Kevin Edelblute, associate vice president for finance, Mississippi State University
• Mela Fezzey, director, higher education, TruED Consulting

In the wake of the pandemic, colleges and universities are reconsidering how to best utilize their physical spaces. If all employees don’t return to their offices, what are the opportunities for these spaces? What lessons have we learned from how academic spaces and program offerings were transformed during the pandemic? What about co-curricular spaces? In this session, panelists will share a framework for how the use of data and analytics can support institutional space planning. Panelists from different institution types will share examples of how they are using data to optimize space utilization.

• Raijanel Crockem, Texas Southern University
• Jason Hornberger, University of Kansas
• Lindsay Wayt, NACUBO

The staff at University of Montevallo knew they had a need to improve financial planning and reporting processes, link strategic plans, as well as promote more transparency into the processes. These changes facilitated updates and easier data flows for the in-year forecasting and budget reporting project as well as improving the budget development process. With the updates to data, processes, and technologies a foundation has been set for improved capabilities and transparency for the future evolution of the planning and reporting processes. Discover what has already been completed and what items remain on the roadmap for this institution.

• Susan Hayes, University of Montevallo
• Alicia Smith, University of Montevallo
• Curtis Gratz, Spaulding Ridge

It is no surprise that many institutions are experiencing serious declines in enrollment over the past several years due to many factors, causing a corresponding decline in tuition revenue. At Sonoma State University, those challenges have resulted in a 12 percent reduction to the academic affairs budget. Examine how the provost created the first-of-its-kind advisory working group to recommend solutions to the budget crisis and balance the budget for FY23. The resulting experience was a lesson in managing crises, strategic communication, working with stakeholders, and cultural change at an institution where distrust between faculty and administration runs deep.

• Emily Acosta Lewis, Sonoma State University
• Laura Lupei, Sonoma State University
• Mike Ogg, Sonoma State University

Using data for strategic decision-making is more vital than ever for higher education institutions. Technology and approaches to transform data into information and describe it in robust and flexible ways have certainly leapt forward. But for many organizations, the processes that underpin the productive and responsible use of information remain bundled in complexity and practices of ownership rather than stewardship. Hear how promoting data as an institutional resource and establishing a practical roadmap can chip away at these challenges and move towards the goal of answering strategic questions for the right people at the right time, in an environment of trust and shared responsibility.

• Suneetha Vaitheswaran, Princeton University