No goal could be more noble as we advance into the 21^st century than making Virginia's system of public education, from kindergarten to post-graduate, the very best. Governor Jim Gilmore

The support for higher education in Virginia has always been strong, and higher education continues to be seen as critical to the future of Virginia. In a recent public opinion survey conducted for the Virginia Business Higher Education Council, a majority of Virginians perceived college students to be receiving good to excellent value for their education investment, with a significant 82 percent responding that a college education is more important today than it was 10 years ago. The increased public scrutiny of higher education today comes not because it is less valued but because it has become more important to the citizens of Virginia. The issue is not the quality of the past but a concern that higher education maintain a defined level of quality for the future. And this poses the dilemma: How can quality be defined and ensured?

For many, defining and ensuring quality is an impossible task. Heywood Fralin, a member of the Virginia Business Higher Education Council, was quoted in the Roanoke Times as saying, "We all know we have one of the best higher education systems in the country. We can't define it. We know we have it. We think we're on the verge of losing it." H. Lynn Hopewell, Jr., vice chair of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), remarked at SCHEV's October 20, 1998, meeting that education is the only institution in America that cannot define quality.

However, the real issue is not that the quality of higher education is undefinable. Rather, the issue is a lack of agreement concerning the context for defining quality. Ed Flippin, chair of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Higher Education in Virginia, has stated that colleges need to be run more like business organizations if they are going to win credibility with external constituents and significant new state support. A new American Council on Education book, What Business Wants from Higher Education, supports this opinion. The authors, Diana G. Oblinger and Anne-Lee Verville, express concern that higher education may be out of touch with the future. They begin their book with this observation:

Our motivation for writing this book is the pace of change. It has never been faster. It seems as though neither organizations nor people can move fast enough to stay ahead of changes brought about by globalization and technology. Both business and higher education will be challenged to stay abreast of these changes. . . . The point is not that the past is wrong or that education is failing; the point is that the future will be different (p. ix). Governor Gilmore addressed these concerns by establishing a Blue Ribbon Commission on Higher Education. In his remarks at the first meeting of the commission, he stated: Virginia is facing a time of critical change in the way people think about the enterprise and purpose Of higher education. People increasingly are coming to the conclusion that in the words of SCHEV's new director, Bill Allen, "Quality of academic life, rather than the quantity of academic life, ought to be our paramount concern."

Because of this concern, Governor Gilmore has made the defining of what constitutes quality higher education a major concern for this commission. The first question one of the commission's task forces seeks to answer is, "How should we measure quality?"

CAN QUALITY BE DEFINED?

In developing an answer to the question "Can quality be defined?" it should be recognized that higher education is not the last industry in America to define quality. A vast majority of American profit and non-profit organizations have not troubled themselves with this task. The organizations that have made quality a passion are exemplified by the recipients of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. These businesses have learned four important principles in creating a quality organization:

1. Knowing what quality is, is not an option; it is a necessity.
2. Quality is the result of meeting customers' expectations.
3. The more the vision and mission of an organization are clearly defined by the customer and shared by everyone in the organization, the more successful the organization.
4. The care and training of an organization's people so they are able to meet the customers' expectations are the most important tasks of the organization's leaders.

On the surface, a higher education institution is no more or less complicated than a company with multiple products. However, two major exceptions exist: the much wider constituency that a higher education institution must satisfy and the measurability of its outcomes. A business is generally accountable to its customers to deliver a satisfactory product or service, to the government to keep within various regulations, and to its stockholders for sound financial management. While higher education must do all of these things, it must also satisfy a constituency that includes the faculties who are the creators of the knowledge base, students who are not customers in the traditional sense but major stakeholders nonetheless, alumni, parents, employers, elected representatives, donors, and the general public. Many higher education outcomes are easily measured, but otherse.g., critical thinking or the ability to make sound decisions in ambiguous situationsare more difficult. Thus, the process of defining, measuring, and reconciling the expectations held for higher education is much more complicated and inclusive than it is for the corporate world. Nevertheless, this does not mean that quality cannot be defined for higher education. It just means that it is not as easy as it might seem. The truly successful quality organizations recognize that quality is better understood, not as a nouna static conditionbut as a verban active process with ever-changing outcomes. These organizations recognize that quality results from understanding the dynamic relationship of vision and mission, resource inputs, systems and processes, outcomes, and the need for continuous assessment and improvement.

CONCEPTUAL MISCONCEPTIONS IN DEFINING QUALITY

One misconception in defining quality is the notion that there is an ideal standard. In higher education, this has been called the "Harvard Model." Under this concept, the quality of an institution is measured against that of the most prestigious institution. The underlying concept of this approach in defining quality is the assumption that all customers want the same thing. For good reason, states have recognized the differing needs of their citizens and purposefully resisted this model by establishing diverse higher education institutions that are designed to serve a wide variety of education objectives. However, despite attempts in Virginia to individualize an institution's restructuring plan and performance measures based on its individual mission, there is still a tendency to compare outcome results across institutions. Such comparisons only serve to confuse the real issue that every institution serves distinctive and different stakeholders. The quality of an institution is determined by how well it serves its own stakeholders, not how well it imitates the performance of the "flagship" institution.

Related to the concept of an ideal standard is the belief that quality standards can and should be set by the organization and not the customer. This sense of knowing what is right for the customer has caused many a business to fail, as exemplified in the problems of the U.S. automobile industry in the 1970s. In higher education this process of internally defining academic quality is characterized by the self-appointed groups who are determined to protect higher education from the insidious decline of academic standards. This position of inflexibility about quality standards has caused one wag to observe that "there appear to be only two types of people in higher education, the educated and the uneducated, and it's the liberal arts majors who decide who is who." It should be obvious, both for businesses and education institutions, that setting quality standards must involve both those who create and those who consume the goods or services of an organization.

Another misconception is to view quality as a constant, i.e., what was considered quality performance in the past should be the performance criteria of the present. Under this concept, certain courses or curricula are held sacred based on tradition rather than on effectiveness. This concept allows very little flexibility to add new Knowledge and practices to the curriculum. The problem is that, if the length of a degree program is held constant, the addition of new coursese.g., new technologies or international business studiesmust necessitate the elimination of some other coursese.g., Latin or a second history course. The quality of higher education in the future may not fit well with past quality standards if the public's demand for more effective and relevant education programs is to be met. What should concern policymakers is not that the standards of quality are changing but who will determine the new standards and on what rationale these standards will be based.

The fallacy of the concept of the constancy of quality also applies to an institution's reputation. Unlike businesses, whose reputations are annually reevaluated based on successful products and profits, the reputations of higher education institutions are based on history, traditions, and prestige. The older the institution, or the higher on the academic food chain, the more it is held in high esteem. What is missing is both qualitative and quantitative measurements that can help in giving current indications of the quality of an institution. The identification of measurable indicators of quality is possible. To understand how this can be accomplished, it is useful to examine the limitation of past models of quality.

WHERE QUALITY STARTS

Part of the problem in defining quality is not knowing where to start. The truly outstanding organization has a clear focus on why it exists and what it is working to accomplish. The want-to-be does not. Thus, the first step is to develop a sense of vision, mission, and measurable outcomes that are defined by all the constituencies and shared by everyone in the organization. For higher education, two difficulties arise in creating this shared sense of being. First, in the 1920s and 30s higher education developed organizational structures and ways of communicating that were very effective when the size of institutions allowed almost everyone to be on a first-name basis. Today, for institutions with thousands of students and hundreds of faculty, developing a shared vision does not happen so easily.

The second consideration is the role of the stakeholder. Because of the increased significance that higher education has for the individual and the state's economy, more people have a stake in the outcomes of higher education institutions. These stakeholders can be divided into two groups. One group includes those who help to create the institution and help with its funding: faculty, administrators, parents, alumni, boards of visitors, and the state executive and legislative branches. The second stakeholder group consists of those who directly benefit from an institution's services and outcomes: students, faculty, and administrators in addition to employers, the local community, and individuals and organizations using the research and cultural enrichment that are afforded by the institution. What is important to understand is that while every group has a stake in how well an institution performs, not all groups have equal power or voice in defining the vision, mission, and outcomes of that institution. Without giving respect and input to all stakeholder groups, the base from which to define and build a quality institution will be ineffective, incomplete, and destined to produce conflict.

The automobile industry made this mistake when it ignored the need for fuel-efficient cars. IBM almost made this mistake when it underestimated the significance of the personal computer. And this may happen for higher education if an adversarial relationship develops between major stakeholders as the issue of quality is debated. Too often, faculties have been pitted against administrators; administrators conflict with boards of visitors; and academic elitists spar with training-oriented employers.

When the stakeholders of individual institutions are brought into a discussion of mission and outcomes, it quickly becomes apparent that each institution is serving several different types of stakeholders, each with different expectations. Thus, the expectations of stakeholders of the University of Virginia differ considerably from the stakeholders of Christopher Newport University. When these discussions are designed to eliminate conflicting and unrealistic expectations within an institution, a shared vision and sense of purpose emerge. Winning corporations have come to understand that the quality of any product, service, or activity is measured by how well it meets the expectation of the stakeholders. This is no less trueof higher education.

FAULTY QUALITY
INDICATORS AND MODELS

Assessing stakeholder expectations and satisfaction has not been a conventional tool to measure quality in higher education. Traditionally, a combination of three models has been used: Input Resource Model, Superior Output Model, and the Inspection Model.

Input Resource Model: The underlying assumption of this model is that the outcomes will automatically be of the highest quality only if the highest quality input materials are used. For automobile manufacturing this would mean having the highest quality of steel; for baking it would mean using the freshest eggs and butter. Higher education has three categories of input resources: financial resources, e.g., high faculty salaries, large endowments, and low faculty-student ratios; capital resources, e.g., state-of-the-art science and computer labs, number of books in the library, and new performing arts buildings; and personnel resources, e.g., faculties from the best graduate schools and students with the highest standardized test scores. However, despite its appeal, this model does not ensure quality. As the automobile companies learned when too much steel meant low fuel efficiency and any cook knows that the freshest of ingredients means little if the proportions are wrong, considering resource inputs without considering institutional vision, mission, and outcomes will give a false reading on quality.

Superior Output Model: This model judges quality based on various forms of national recognition. Such judgments could result from a reputation survey based on past successes, publishing and research efforts of the faculty, or number of national or international fellowships awarded to students. The model has at least two weaknesses. The first is whether or not the reputation of an institution reflects its current accomplishments. For example, in a ranking of graduate programs in higher education administration reported last year by US News and World Report, four of the ten ranked programs were no longer active.

The second concern is the relationship between what is being judged as quality performance and the mission of the institution. The superior output model is effective only when it is carefully coordinated with an institution's mission and outcomes. For example, if an institution's mission is teaching and student learning, using faculty articles published in national refereed journals as the primary focus for faculty promotion may conflict with the institution's mission.

Inspection Model: Underlying this model is the assumption that only one standard of quality exists, and the tougher an institution is on judging its students and faculty, the higher its quality. Therefore, it is a badge of honor to have a high failure rate. Faculty giving too many high grades are more likely to be judged as lacking rigor than to be seen as effective teachers. Institutions that award tenure to a high percentage of faculty are considered as lacking standards rather than having high hiring selection criteria or a nurturing faculty development program. The problem with this model is that it does not improve the education process. It is concerned only as a gatekeeper of a static standard of quality. The inspection model is not concerned with the value-added education a student receives; it is only interested in whether a student has met a quality standard as demonstrated by passing an exam.

In the quality corporate world, the inspection model as the primary method of judging quality has gone out of favor. Yes, quality inspections are still performed. But there is an understanding that "you cannot inspect quality in." The inspection at the end provides only three results: acceptable outcomes, rejects, or scrap and rework. For a quality organization, the latter two results are unacceptable. However, for higher education, a 60 percent graduation rate is praised without any recognition that the institution has also produced 40 percent scrap or rejects.

ENSURING A QUALITY INSTITUTION

The new quality model is a systematic integration of stakeholder expectations with a constant review of processes and systems. This dynamic model of quality is based on three principles:

• Quality is the result of meeting or exceeding the expectations of the organization's stakeholders. Therefore, when establishing the vision, mission, and outcomes of an organization, the expectations of all stakeholders must be considered.
• The processes and systems within the institution determine the quality of the outcomes.
• Quality can be assured only through continuous assessment.

STAKEHOLDERS-DRIVEN VISION, MISSION, AND MEASURABLE OUTCOMES: It is accepted that the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary are different from Virginia Tech and Radford University. The question is, from a quality perspective, which ones are of higher quality? Using the elite Harvard model, the answer is the first two. But using the stakeholder model makes the answer less obvious. Before the question of quality can be answered, one first must know who the stakeholders are, what expectations they hold, and how well these institutions are meeting those expectations. Therefore, three areas need to be considered before the quality of an institution can be determined:

Stakeholders: The stakeholders of an institution must be identified and be part of the process of defining a shared expectation for the outcomes of that institution. An example of unique shareholders would be the regional families and employers served by an institution.

Expectations: Stakeholder expectations, which may differ from institution to institution, must be identified for each individual institution. The expectations of education students of Longwood College differ greatly from the expectations of nursing students at Radford University.

Outcomes: The effectiveness of an institution should be judged by how well it fulfills the stakeholder-defined outcome for that institution. The stakeholders of the College of William and Mary may expect that a high percentage of the students will go on to graduate schools, while the graduates of Old Dominion University may look for successful careers in business.

PROCESS-OUTCOMES INTERDEPENDENCY: This is the key conceptual link to the major improvements organizations have made in their quality. Built on the understanding that the quality and success of an organization depend on meeting or exceeding the expectations of its stakeholders, organizations have come to understand the following:

Processes or systems are interdependent: When two or more people interact to accomplish a mutual goal, their ways of interacting are defined as systems or processes. The larger and more centralized the organization, the more complicated and numerous are the processes and systems. These processes and systems interrelate and are interdependent. That is, a change in one process may have a profound impact on another process. For example, an admissions office may decide to raise the academic standards for the entering freshman class. The result may be that this class has higher SAT scores than previous first-year classes, but the number of admissions is the lowest in years. The consequence is an institution with millions of dollars in deficits because of loses of tuition and state revenue.

Processes and systems are people based: The major inputs that make the processes and systems work in any organization are its people. Everyone is involved with processes and systems, and everyone needs specific skills to be successful. Quality business/industry organizations understand this principle and the importance of continuously developing employees' skills. As a result they spend between 3 and 7 percent of personnel dollars on the annual education and training of all personnel. Higher education spends less than one-half percent on educating and training its faculty, administrators, and staff. It should be obvious that assessment of quality should include an evaluation of the human resource development programs within an institution. Does the institution specifically identify the skills necessary for a job and ensure that the people involved have these skills, e.g., are faculty members skilled in the assessment of students? are administrators trained in process assessment?

Processes and systems are mission and outcomes based: Any process or system was first developed under the assumption that it would help to meet the mission and outcomes of the organization. As an organization grows, the expectations of the stakeholders change; however, often the institution's processes and systems do not change. To have effective processes, there must be a continuous assessment of the link between process and mission and outcomes. An example of a disconnect between process and outcomes is when a board of visitors institutes new curricular requirements without assessing the availability of faculty. Such an action might actually decrease the institution's ability to deliver specialized training.

Virginia's public colleges and universities are beginning to learn these principles of quality. At the December meeting of Governor Gilmore's Blue Ribbon Commission, most panelists discussing quality in the curriculum agreed that the development of an institution's general education requirements should be a shared responsibility. And on many new program initiatives, stakeholders are being invited to the table to discuss the process.

DEFINING QUALITY THROUGH SYSTEMATIC ASSESSMENT

Because quality is process dependent and the success of one process is dependent on how well all the processes are working, it is more effective to judge quality through a systematic assessment of the entire organization. Many assessment methods can accomplish this purpose. One method that has had national acceptance and is used, at least in part, by nearly 40 state quality award programs is the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award's Education Criteria for Performance Excellence. These criteria do not provide a proscriptive definition of quality. Rather, they provide a systematic way to assess the performance of an institution in the areas of leadership, strategic planning, student and stakeholder focus, information and analysis, faculty and staff focus, educational and support process management, and school performance results. Throughout the Baldrige assessment process, there is concern that an organ- ization demonstrate a feedback process that will ensure continuous improvement. Because this assessment process forces an institution to review its current performance and then compare that performance with both the expectations of its stakeholders and a "best-in-class" ideal, the institution gains an understanding of how successful it currently is in meeting its stakeholder expectations and what it must do to improve.

Defining the quality of higher education is not easy. No single static definition of quality will fit all institutions. Quality is a process, an ever-moving target. Stakeholders' expectations change, revenue sources are inconsistent, student employment opportunities are cyclical, and the needs of society are often unclear. Therefore, higher education is not served well by defining its quality as a static condition. Quality is best viewed as a process and best defined through an assessment of the processes that are functioning to meet the ever-changing expectations of the stakeholders.

Virginia public colleges and universities, along with the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, have incorporated several of the major themes of this mission-driven, process-outcomes model of quality in some of their newest initiatives. But more needs to be done before this model can fully become part of the Virginia higher education institutional culture.

Jonathan D. Fife, currently a visiting professor with the Education Policy Institute of Virginia Tech, previously served as director of the ERIC (Educational Resource Information Center) Clearinghouse on Higher Education and professor of higher education administration at George Washington University. He has been a senior examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and is the co- author, along with Jann E. Freed and Marie R. Klugman, of the 1997 ASHE (Association for the Study of Higher Education)-ERIC Higher Education Report, A Culture for Academic Excellence: Implementing the Quality Principles in Higher Education.

Steven M. Janosik is an associate professor of higher education and student affairs and co-director of the Educational Policy Institute of Virginia Tech. From 1994 to 1997, he served as the deputy secretary of education for the Commonwealth of Virginia. His most recent publication, co-authored with Susan Short, is Trends in Community College Litigation: Implications for Policy and Practice.