This report, by our Public Engagement team for the Lumina Foundation's Higher Education Productivity Initiative, builds on and extends Public Agenda's ongoing research on attitudes toward higher education reform. At the heart of this research are two questions: what does it take to bridge the most pervasive divides in perception between productivity advocates and faculty, and what can be accomplished through deeper, more strategic engagement?

Faculty, and sometimes college leadership as well, have often been viewed by reformers as tangential to the development and enactment of productivity policies. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that these "frontline" stakeholders in higher education are, in fact, critical to the success of any productivity agenda.

There is growing awareness among many productivity advocates that engaging such key stakeholders in strategic ways at each step of the policy process—from development to implementation to sustainability—is key to generating the sense of shared purpose necessary for long-term success.

Still, many questions remain about how best to engage those stakeholders who are typically most resistant to productivity agendas.

The insights and strategies summarized in this report are drawn from three focus groups with faculty at both two-year and four-year institutions and roughly 25 in-depth, one-on-one interviews conducted with college presidents, higher education researchers, representatives of collective bargaining associations, disciplinary associations, accrediting bodies, professional development organizations serving faculty, and representatives from a wide range of higher education consortia.