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The National Association of Higher Education Systems (NASH) manages a number of projects within its Power of Systems initiative launched in December 2021, and expanded in spring 2024.
NASH defines a public higher education system as a group of two or more colleges or universities, each having substantial autonomy and headed by a chief executive or operating officer, all under a single governing board that is served by a system chief executive officer. NASH systems include multiple four-year institutions; several also include two-year institutions. Together, public university systems educate approximately three-quarters of the nation’s students in public, four-year higher education, and a significant proportion of students seeking two-year credentials.
Participating college and university systems in the Power of System Initiative hold themselves accountable to three overarching metrics which together are posited to result in meaningful progress toward a strategic agenda to advance prosperity for the nation:
Five imperatives frame the Power of System Initiatives:
In April 2024, NASH convened leaders across higher education, philanthropy, business, and government to learn about plans to expand the systemness agenda, by fostering collaboration, innovation, and scalability within and across higher education systems through its Seed, Test, and Scale approach to implementing interventions. Conference sessions addressed challenges and opportunities unique to system-level leaders, such as leadership through systemness, the advantages of utilizing system-level data to improve outcomes, the unique ability of systems to nimbly address emerging issues (e.g., responding to the world’s refugee crisis with education and career training opportunities); using system-to-system and cross-sector collaborations to create tangible solutions and shift the narrative around postsecondary education; the critical role systems have in shaping the future of states and their economic prosperity.
NASH announced several new initiatives within its Seed, Test, and Scale program framework:
NASH manages several cross-system initiatives, mobilizing expertise within participating systems and partnering with other organizations. In recent years, cross-system collaboration has focused on increasing student access and success in college, especially for low-income students and students of color.
NASH’s operations are founded in its commitment to “systemness,” the idea that the whole can be more than the sum of its parts. Rather than seeing systems as collections of disparate actors, NASH sees systems as like-minded coordinated actors that can leverage their power to convene and facilitate, along with their governing and policy-making authorities, to build collaborations to support students and campuses —rather than trying to mediate competitive actions.
NASH | National Association of Higher Education Systems
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