In recent years, issues related to quality in higher education have received a great deal of attention in various scholarly publications as well as in the popular media. The literature is filled with a wide range of attempts to define the problem within a meaningful and realistic context. Once the author feels that this has been accomplished, he/she typically proceeds with a very lengthy and detailed discussion of how their particular strategy should lead to a better academic world.

With all this collective mindpower focused so intently on the topic, it sometimes seems perplexing that we have not made more significant progress in this area. Why?

Although it can be argued that more than a few of the "experts" who are currently grappling with concerns related to quality in higher education are rather out of touch with reality, some of their rhetoric does manage to confirm the notion that we do, in fact, have a problem.

Exactly what constitutes a "quality" educational experience? How can it be defined? Quantified? Enhanced? These are all questions that different individuals and organizations have wrestled with extensively and attempted to answer -- most with only marginal degrees of success.

There is a very obvious tendency in the academic world to define "excellence" in terms of characteristics that are easily identified and measured. For example, when a college or university is referred to as a "major center of learning," what kinds of things spring to mind? In most cases, when we hear terminology like this, we automatically assume that the institution has a large research budget, its faculty contains a lot of well- known "names,: its graduates receive preferential treatment in the job market, etc.

Only when pressed do we mention other qualities such as the faculty and staff seem to have a genuine commitment to educational goals and ideals, graduates appear to leave the institution in a truly educated state, etc.

The Chronicle of Higher Education is the journal of the academic community. In glancing through its pages, what you typically find is a lot of space being devoted to such topics as who has received the latest grant from the National Science Foundation, how faculty/staff insurance plans compare nationally, and who has recently been placed on probation for recruiting violations.

Conversely, only a relatively small percentage of space is devoted to such seemingly insignificant subjects as the overall quality of undergraduate advising and instruction, the enhancement of student services delivery systems, or different ways to better facilitate student involvement in the total educational process. Especially in higher education, the acquisition of resources often becomes more important than their allocation. In the minds of many of our nation's most influential academic and political leaders, "quality" is measured almost solely within a materialistic context.

Whoever has the most must be the best.

As Alexander Astin has so eloquently stated, ". . . many academics seem content to define educational excellence in terms of what they have, rather than what they do."

This is not to say that money is not essential to the development or maintenance of a quality educational enterprise. It most definitely is. The fact that academics complain so vehemently about a lack of needed funds says more about the misplaced priorities of our legislators, and to some extent our society as a whole, then perhaps anything else.

In the same vein, however, it is naive to assume that quality in higher education is directly proportional to the amount of dollars spent. Unfortunately, as most of us who work in higher education know, this belief is held to a far greater extent than you might imagine.

The relative quality of the education received at a given institution is largely a function of the level of education and commitment exhibited by the administration, faculty, and staff employed there.

Having millions of dollars in external funding does not insure high quality. Neither does having a distinguished faculty, a student population saturated with national Merit Scholars, or a highly respected reputation.

On the other hand, having administrators, faculty, and staff who share a common commitment to the general welfare of the students they serve goes a long way toward insuring excellence at the institution.

For the most part, parents are not overly concerned about whether or not the school their son or daughter attends has 8-9 Nobel Prize winners on the faculty. They are primarily concerned with whether or not the school is treating them fairly and providing a solid education.

Professionals in the academic arena should spend a little more time thinking about what really constitutes "excellence" in our delivery of services. Are we continually trying to do a better job of assisting students in the attainment of their educational goals and objectives? Are we continually looking for ways to improve our internal operations to make them more efficient and effective? Are we continually striving to work as a team within the institution?

Or are we always too preoccupied with the needs of No. 1?