NCCI Now Accepting Applicants for 2011 Leveraging Excellence Awards

WEST HARTFORD, Conn., Nov. 19, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Consortium for Continuous Improvement in Higher Education (NCCI) announced today that it is accepting applications for the 2011 Leveraging Excellence Awards.  This prestigious peer-reviewed award recognizes effective academic and administrative practices that have been successfully implemented beyond one department, campus, or institution, resulting in significant impact on quality, efficiency, service, or learning.  The award recognizes initiatives where excellent academic and administrative practices are widely leveraged within or across higher education institutions, systems or organizations for maximum impact.

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"Today's university communities are under intense pressure to provide high-quality educational experiences with decreased resources," said Margaret Harrington, president of NCCI and director of Organization Improvement Services at the University of Southern California.  "These awards recognize universities that are leveraging innovative approaches to advance higher education by creating maximum efficiencies."

The Leveraging Excellence Awards program is sponsored by Follett Higher Education Group, the leading provider of bookstore services and the foremost supplier of used books in North America.  Exemplifying the spirit of the award, Follett works with a network of nearly 900 schools to implement programs that provide improvements across institutions.  Most recently, Follett took its popular Rent-A-Text textbook rental program from a seven-school pilot to a national rollout at nearly 800 campus bookstores in less than eight months.  Rent-A-Text has already resulted in student savings of more than $60 million and improved campus bookstore performance.  The program is expected to save students more than $130 million in the 2010-2011 academic year alone.

Best in Class

Previous NCCI Leveraging Excellence Award recipients represent some of the brightest thinkers at some of the most forward-thinking institutions in higher education, from universities to educational groups and coalitions, including:

• Brigham Young University's (BYU) "Capital Needs Analysis" – BYU created an integrated program for managing capital assets.  The initiative saved millions of dollars and has been adopted by other BYU campuses.  Many educational institutions and governmental entities are introducing BYU's design.
• The Committee on Institutional Cooperation's (CIC) "Strategic Collaboration" – CIC, a group of 12 research universities, developed a strategic collaboration that saved more than $29 million and impacted more than 900 faculty leaders and 100 peer networks.
• Kuali Foundation, Inc.'s "Community Source Systems by Higher Ed, for Higher Ed" – is a growing community of universities, colleges, businesses, and other organizations that have partnered to build and sustain open-source administrative software for higher education, by higher education.  Kuali software is designed to meet the needs of all sizes of institutions, from land-grant research universities to community colleges.  Members of the Kuali Community share a common vision of open, modular, and distributed systems for their software requirements.  Kuali software is released under the Educational Community License.
• MIT Venture Mentoring System (VMS) – harnesses the knowledge and experience of volunteer alumni and other business leaders to help prospective entrepreneurs in the university community bring their ideas and inventions to market.  Entrepreneurs receive practical education through a hands-on, team mentoring process that builds a trusted long-term relationship.  This experiential learning increases the innovation output of the institution through greater commercialization of ideas and university technologies.

Application Process and Panel Review

To apply, applicants should complete an online form at the NCCI website at http://www.ncci-cu.org/ award application/.  The deadline to apply for the awards program is February 14, 2011.

A distinguished panel of presidents, leaders of universities and educational groups will make final selections for the award, after initial review and screening by a group of NCCI leaders.

Winners will be announced at NCCI's Annual Conference July 7-9 in Tampa, Florida and will be invited to present their accomplishments as keynote speakers at the conference.  For more information on the award, including previous award winner submissions, visit http://www.ncci-cu.org/go/awards/leveraging-excellence-award/leveraging-excellence-program-overview

About NCCI

NCCI represents a wide range of member institutions, with many individuals working in organizational development, quality assessment, planning and institutional improvement.  Its programs promote sharing best practices and supporting professional development of individual members.  To learn more about NCCI and the Leveraging Excellence program, visit www.ncci-cu.org.

About Follett Higher Education Group

Follett Higher Education Group of Oak Brook, Illinois, is the leading provider of bookstore services and the foremost supplier of used books in North America. Follett services five million students and over 400,000 faculty members through more than 850 stores. Follett also services more than 1,600 independent campus stores with its wholesale services, and has the most visited ecommerce collegiate website, efollett.com, that provides services and products through a network of more than 900 campus stores.

SOURCE Follett Higher Education Group