"Collaboration is the heart of any successful sustainability program," a quote from president John W. Mills at the American College & University, to describe their ability to commit to "neutralize carbon emissions" as a way to "lead teaching students to improve society." Their innovative ways to reduce energy and waste has brought together students and awareness. Thus far, since September 2007 they were able to reduce waste by 80%, all by using collaborative efforts with their students. They also provided the "Campus Sustainability Center" where they provide spaces for the students to display and inform others of achievements and efforts towards a healthier community. The American College & University state "communication has been critical to a successful collaboration for sustainability and constant celebration of our successes."

This article written by Denneen and Dretler, compares higher education to other industries in the United States and it is the most effective and consistent. Denneen and Dretler also stated "colleges and universities are the cornerstone of our economic prosperity and the key to realizing the American dream," regardless of the fact that "student loan debt surpassed $1 trillion and is now greater than credit card debt." The article goes on the explain that many leaders working in the field of higher education understand that change and innovation need to happen. Crisis is facing small colleges and universities, and this article show diagrams that depict "financial statements are significantly weaker then they were several years ago," and that "the expense ratio is significantly up." Also endowments have decreased and the current ones are not growing. This article explains how in the past tuition and student cost would make up the difference, but they are no longer able to pay and federal funding isn't available to make up the difference. Overall this article describes the specific financial issues of American institutions and some of the possible solutions for change.

This article covers a NACUBO (national association of college and university business officers) meeting in which the cultural / political climate, international law, the downside to university defensive posturing, and sustainable practice were explored. The event brought together 1,750 professionals from the backbones of America's institutions of higher learning. These traditionally money minded people are finding that their roles are expanding to areas typically associated with entrepreneurial business ventures. Today's business officer needs to understand and perpetuate and even create the university's vision. Sustainability demands efficiency. Efficiency has a host of demands that no single or even group of university components can handle, as all components require a sync to achieve efficiency. The 2008 NACUBO meeting better defined the role it plays in the health of Higher Education.
The cultural / political climate regarding university business officers has apparently been under increasingly intense scrutiny from the judicial system around conflicts of interest regarding business practices. Not only was "conflict of interest" a topic at the meeting, as living testimony to the urgent message of ethical business practices, the state's attorney general was on site to collect data on various business exchanges or arrangements that occurred at the meeting.
International law did not interest all participants, but a great many universities have ties to over-seas institutions. Tax code information and financial planning models were discussed. The primary issue is many countries have tax policy that: limits transfer amounts, require long term planning to withdraw or require significant legal buffer to even attempt.
The downside of defensive posturing content can be summarized by college leader's response to the Commission on the Future of Higher Education's report which requests for an increase in accountability measures in higher education. College leaders who rallied to impede such policy change looked short sighted in a NACUBO report, which indicated that such measures would improve their connectivity to the outside community and increase enrollment. The status of such a significant policy change is unclear, but with disagreement amongst the community, a clear path of progress has yet to be defined.

This article focuses on the concepts of Education of Sustainability, a program created by Second Nature. The Education of Sustainability program encourages and supports higher education demonstrating community / social leadership.
Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University describes sustainability as more than green technology. Crow describes the three components of a sustainable university system as: environmental, economics and societal stewardship.
Crow warns, "Right now the compass of the united States points the entire world towards a nonsustainable future." The articles describes how throughout the history of American higher education, Universities have risen as social leaders to create solutions to critical challenges.

The article describes Rhode Island Colleges effort to support itself, its students and its community. She delivers a speech to stakeholders, on a quad marred by pipes and holes. Carriuolo describes the various aspects of building and maintaining a vibrant organization. RIC's Nancy Carriuolo indicates, "Infrastructure is what keeps the campus running, but it isn't glamorous."
Infrastructure supports all of the colleges' endeavors. Carriuolo describes how cost effective measures are carefully balanced for long and short-term growth. From renovating outdated piping to finding sources for additional scholarship awards, infrastructure is important for sustainable growth. Carriuolo describes how RIC's income is dependent directly on enrollment, with greatly reduced financial support from federal, state and local organizations.
Carriuolo describes how carefully tending to infrastructure by grooming faculty, efficiency planning, monitoring growth and perhaps most importantly, bolstering the community in which the university exists. For example, Carriuolo talks about how the school has strengthened its connections to local and other Rhode Island secondary schools. This not only helps maintain enrollment, but it places the school in a larger context with more stakeholders to tend to its needs.

This article found posted in the Chronicle of Higher Education describes how Internet2 appointed a new president H. David Lambert after serving as Georgetown university's vice president for information services. This article describes how Internet2 brought him on the solve the problem of how "financial and cultural obstacles " stand in the way of their much needed "superfast" global networking system to provide international access and research. Lambert proposed bringing on broadband for a project to "reconnect universities" and to also receive $62.5 million in federal stimulus money and stated, "This may be the best thing that's happened since the Morrill Land Grant Act." He also stated that, "universities are recognizing that they have to compete globally. To do business at a distance means you become very dependent on technology infrastructure." This article served as a perspective of what leaders in the technology field are thinking in terms of globalizing higher education in innovative forms such as online learning models.

Frank Donoghue, author of the article More adult college students: A frightening proposal, posted in the Chronicle of Higher Education was written in response to a press release, entitled "Not Just Kid Stuff Anymore: The Economic Imperative for More Adults to Complete College," because he thinks it is "Flawed." He thinks it's flawed, because it alludes to the fact that "all Americans are entitled to a college education, regardless of their level of preparation, intellectual curiosity, and their ability to afford increasing tuitions." He states, it is "unreasonable" and "rests on an uncritically accepted assumption, an odd amalgam of American exceptionalism and the delusion that the United States doesn't have a markedly distinct class system." Donoghue then compares America to India and China and how they accept the fact that not everyone has to go to college.

In this forum found on the Chronicle of Higher Education website six people were asked to "assess the quality of online-learning programs, and to discuss any issues that concerned or encouraged them." Alexander C. McCormick, associate professor of education at Indiana University made the point, Little is known about quality in face-to-face classrooms, therefore they were incomparable.

The question of "what defines quality?" was brought up, and that one cannot assess quality in higher education if one doesn't know what it means. Several people shared the view that, there isn't a difference in quality between face-to-face classrooms if the same standards and curriculum is being provided. Carol A. Twig, president and CEO of the National Center for Academic Transformation stated, "An overwhelming body of research tells us that the quality of online learning is, in general, as good as that of face to face learning." Early on online education was built to model the traditional classroom, but now online education is providing components that cannot be used in the classroom and has become innovative. These innovations include class sizes of thousands of learners around the world working on the same goals, e-collaboration with experts in specific fields, the use of avatars, simulations, cutting edge assessments, individualization, and mentoring.

George Veletsians, assistant professor of instructional technology at the University of Texas at Austin stated, "Online learning versus face-to-face learning. The tendency to compare the two prevents us from seeing the unique opportunities offered by online learning." This blog shared a summary of people who are in the field of higher education that got to the core of the infrastructure of online education and it's ability to grow into its own entity out side of the traditional face-to-face institutions.