Ingram Center Services

Trustee Education and Board Development

Through AGB and in consultation with AGB Consulting, the Ingram Center offers trustee education and board development institutes and workshops by seasoned facilitators. By assisting states with their annual orientation programs, the center works to strengthen communication, clarify responsibilities, define a shared agenda among state institutions, and contribute to cohesion and improved performance.

Center workshops have helped clarify the board's responsibilities in overseeing academic programs, appointing the chief executive, defining trustee expectations and obligations, and allocating resources. Center staff work closely with state higher education agencies and volunteer board leaders to carefully tailor each program to meet specific state and institutional needs. A range of options and services include speakers and tailored sessions, and full and half day workshops are offered.

The center also conducts periodic institutes for executives and board leaders of public colleges and universities and university systems on their leadership responsibilities.

Ingram Center Consulting Services

The Ingram Center provides consulting services and short-term action research to help states and public agencies, political leaders, public university systems, and AGB member boards objectively diagnose and act on the governance and policy challenges they face.  If you are interested in speaking to an individual from the Ingram Center, contact us at centerforgovernance@agb.org or 202-296-8400.  

In partnership with other individuals and organizations at the leading edge of public higher education innovation, the center offers comprehensive strategies that states, university systems, institutions, and foundations affiliated with public institutions can deploy to strengthen oversight, planning, efficiency, and effectiveness.

For example, working with the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities, the center advised on policy options concerning governance, productivity and efficiency, cost and access, capacity, and accountability. Working with the Board of Supervisors of the Louisiana State University System, the Center produced a report on the future leadership and structure of the system. And working with leaders in South Carolina, the Center co-produced a public agenda for the state focused on degree attainment and student success complete with governance and financing strategies to achieve it. The center's international work consists of a major governance project for the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education funded by UNESCO, and extensive work in the Republic of the Marshall Islands with the College of the Marshall Islands.

Policy Dialogues

The center facilitates policy dialogues among state, business, and higher education leaders.

These conversations range from small-scale roundtable discussions to high-profile invitational leadership summits at which trustees, college executives, policymakers, and business leaders forge a shared public agenda for higher education. Center staff have worked with systems in more than a dozen states to lay the groundwork for constructive communication. Based on the critical success factors identified through careful study of these and similar initiatives, AGB helps foster and sustain these conversations so that participants work as teams to establish shared priorities while respecting institutional responsibilities and relationships.

State Leadership Summits

A unique policy dialogue is a state leadership summit, which brings together state and local policymakers, leaders of the higher education and business communities, and other key stakeholders. The center works with all parties to provide a neutral common ground that supports candid, goal-oriented policy dialogues among state and higher education leaders. Summit topics range from college costs and access to technology and economic development.

The summits help answer these key questions:

• What are the state's major priorities?
• How can public and private colleges and universities forge new partnerships with their communities to better address them?

Working together to seriously address their shared concerns, trustees, university executives, policymakers, business leaders, and other stakeholders can forge a shared public agenda for higher education--and an action plan to implement that agenda. By laying the groundwork for and facilitating state leadership summits, the Ingram Center helps communities find the tools they need to meet their unique educational and social challenges.