The rise and spread of institutional advancement in higher education
Keywords: Education.

Institutional advancement has grown exponentially in recent years to become a highly professionalized global field. This dissertation explores the emergence of the profession from the combination of the distinct components of alumni services, public relations, and fundraising. The field is built on a belief in the value of having a professional administration to lead the university in those components combined with a conviction in the benefit of fundraising and private philanthropy for the advancement of higher education. These fundamental beliefs not only supported the establishment of the field, but also helped fuel the spread of institutional advancement ideas and practices globally through professional associations and global networks. The first article examines the development of the professional field in institutional advancement by professional associations. Through a historical content analysis of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education's (CASE), monthly periodicals, Currents, the American College Public Relations Association's (ACPRA) monthly periodicals, Pride, and the Greenbrier Report, this paper examines how professional associations actively promoted the professionalization of fundraising practices and institutional advancement offices in the United States. This article argues that they developed norms, practices, and defined the standards of their field in order to establish the professional enterprise, often organized under a mission to raise funds for the university from private sources. The second article provides a descriptive field-level analysis of the structures of institutional advancement and leadership in the modern American university. The article uses a web survey of 262 public and private four-year colleges and universities in the United States as defined by the Carnegie Classification (CC) system randomly and purposefully selected from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics. The analysis suggests that institutional advancement structures at universities become increasingly similar as they become professionalized. Furthermore, institutional advancement is closely linked with university leadership. The third article examines the roles of professional associations in promoting 'American-style' fundraising and institutional advancement ideas and practices in higher education globally. This article uses a textural content analysis to examine the Council for Advancement and Support of Education's (CASE) monthly periodical, Currents, from 1975-2017, its predecessor association, the American College Public Relations Association's (ACPRA) monthly periodical, Pride, and other key policy documents. The study finds a dramatic rise in global interest in institutional advancement from member universities, foundations, governments, wealthy philanthropists, and others. States, philanthropists, and foundations provided financial support for institutional advancement practices and training in new regions. However, the association facilitated the diffusion of institutional advancement because of a fundamental conviction in 'American-style' fundraising and private philanthropy.