Grover J. Andrews serves as associate director for instructional services at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education.

I've Been Thinking...

. . . about the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and college- and university-based continuing education organizations. In 1987, through congressional legislation, the Baldrige Award was established to promote quality, improve products and services, and foster sharing of best practices in American business and industry--all for the purpose of improving the national economy. This program has been so successful that a few years ago, a pilot program, underway now, was authorized for education and health care institutions and organizations. It is the hope of the Baldrige sponsors that the ripple effect the criteria for the awards have had on improving American business in general can also take place within the education and health care sectors of our society.

The results of the business awards program since 1987, with 22 recipients, have been dramatic. To quote from the awards document, "award recipients have demonstrated a wide range of improvements and achievements, including product and service quality, productivity growth, customer satisfaction, reduced operating costs, and improved responsiveness."

Do these things sound familiar to the current dean or director of continuing education? Do we not need to achieve the same results within our own organizations? Do we not need to know how to help those clients whom we serve achieve the same results within their own organizations?

Recently, I had the opportunity to be an observer with a Baldrige team that was evaluating a university that was measuring itself against the Baldrige Education Pilot criteria. What a mind-stretching, eye-opening, startling experience! Prior to the team visit, the institution had measured itself against the Baldrige criteria in the areas of leadership, information and analysis, strategic and operational planning, human resource development and management, educational and business process management, school performance results, student focus, and student and stakeholder satisfaction.

When the team came to the campus, they were thoroughly prepared, having read and spent several days in telephone conference calls to gain consensus in advance on the major issues to be addressed. I was greatly impressed with the professional manner and quality each team member, some from business and some from education, brought to the task. The criteria are rigorous--without being rigid--and to use an old phrase, "No stone was left unturned!"

Why Baldrige and why continuing education?

With the environment for continuing education operations on our campuses changing so rapidly, it is urgently important that the continuing education organization become proactive within the total college or university to maintain and preserve its role, mission, and purpose. It is equally important that this same proactive stance be taken in service with present and future clients. A Baldrige or Baldrige-like review of our operations will enable us to prepare ourselves for both internal viability and preservation and enable us to maximize external services to our publics. Such a review will provide the database that will enable us to improve, reengineer, reinvent, or reorganize for efficiency in operations and effectiveness in programs and customer service, with value-added quality.

However, one caution--from my recent experience, most of us in continuing education, yea, all of education--may not be prepared to withstand the rigor of the Baldrige review. Our souls are tender and our insecurities are many. Baldrige removes all of the facade and leaves you standing as the "emperor with no clothes" before one and all! How many educators do you know who would accept a score of say 30 out of 100, or perhaps 50 at best?

But that's what Baldrige does for you. And why should we not try? Industry has and the rewards have been many. As kids are prone to taunt, I will if you will!

Editor's Note: This September, Grover J. Andrews was honored by the Interational Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) with the establishment of the "Grover J. Andrews Research Endowment Fund" to support the "Grover J. Andrews Research Award."

The fund recognizes Andrews, as the association's literature says, for "his visionary leadership and profound contributions to research in the field of adult and continuing education and training." The fund is set up "to support graduate students and others in conducting research studies aimed at refining and strengthening standards of good practice in continuing education and training." The one or two research projects funded each year will be published by IACET.

Andrews also received "The Pinnacle Award" from IACET in September, given to an IACET memeber of five or more years for "lifetime achievement or major leadership contributions to the profession."

Congratulations, Grover!

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