How We Help

Ad Verum empowers leaders to make and act on choices that position their universities for enduring leadership within the evolving landscape of higher education.

We work at the intersection of mission priorities and resources, helping you to navigate tradeoffs and seize the opportunities that are most consequential for your institution.

Questions we address for Deans, Provosts and Presidents:

Do we have the right priorities? Are they achievable?

And often from new leaders, a fundamental question: How do I manage my leadership as I transition from faculty to administrator?

  • How can I tell how my school/department/field compares to peers, and what should I do with that information?

  • How can I tell which changing student major interests are durable, and what does that imply for faculty hiring plans?

  • How much money will my STEM goals take, and how should I sequence those investments over a decade?

How do I redesign my budget or organizational model to match our priorities?

  • How can my budget model encourage interdisciplinary work?

  • How should I restructure my Provost office to complement a 
new President?

  • How do we better coordinate activities with interdisciplinary relevance (e.g., data science, computing, climate, innovation)?

How can we implement our big new idea?

  • How do I start a new school of engineering? How should I set up the governance, how much money is required, and what should be the operational plan over the first five years?

  • What operations need to scale, by how much, to accommodate a 20% increase in undergraduate students?

  • What staffing is required to separate a school of public health from medicine?

What data can help us understand and improve our programs or policies?

  • What would happen if we increased our parental income threshold for full financial aid?

  • Is my first-gen bridge program working?

  • Did my redesigned intro math sequence increase persistence in STEM?

As the funding and regulatory landscape changes, what can I do to stabilize and advance our research and educational activities?

  • If revenue declines (IDC cuts, endowment taxes, decline in international students) what difficult-but-necessary budget changes would best advance our core missions-aligned priorities?

  • What options do we have to grow and diversify revenue to offset declines in other revenue sources?

  • How can I strike the right balance between decisiveness and speed with consultation and input in deciding on how to adjust our operating model?

  • Do I need a Chief of Staff?

  • Do I have the right set of direct reports? Would a reconfiguration make my team more effective?

  • How often do I meet my direct reports? 1:1 or in combinations?