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As a result of both the external pressures and the known benefits of collaboration, many higher education institutions are trying to create learning communities, service and community-based learning, and interdisciplinary research and teaching. However, over 50% of collaborations fail. There has been virtually no research on how to enable higher education institutions to conduct collaborative work. This article focuses on examining how institutions moved from a culture that supports individual work to the ones that facilitate collaborative work. A three-stage model emerged. The first stage, building commitment, contains four contextual elements-values, external pressure, learning and networks. Here the institution uses ideas/information from a variety of sources to convince members of the campus of the need to conduct collaborative work. In the second stage, commitment, senior executives demonstrate support and re-examine the mission of the campus and leadership emerges within the network. The third phase is called sustaining and includes the development of structures, networks, and rewards to support the collaborations.

How is the new industrial model of privatization, commercialization, and corporatization altering higher education's traditional mission? To provide policymakers with understanding about the traditional charter between higher education and society, this article defines the concepts of the public good underlying the charter, analyzes the new model's pervasiveness, synthesizes empirical evidence about its effect on the social and public purposes of higher education, and proposes a list of issues and questions for discussion among education and government leaders.

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