Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Consortia
The "consortium movement" now appears to be going through a time of testing, reexamination, and confusion, while at the same time experiencing fairly steady growth. The situation seems paradoxical. Meaningful cooperation is viewed by most observers of higher education as essential, while at the same time it is often labeled as "impractical" or "politically impossible." The 1960s saw a period of rapid growth for consortia, most of which had a fairly clear sense of direction. Yet, faced with such current issues as whether voluntary cooperation or compulsory cooperation is the wave of the future, whether reluctant administrators and faculty can ever strongly support cooperative academic arrangements, whether consortia actually can promote institutional survival for financially distressed institutions, and similar unanswered questions, consortium advocates in the 1970s appear perplexed and uncertain. However, an examination of current issues facing colleges and universities reveals that there exist very real opportunities for vol-