The Lilly Endowment, Inc. is offering Ball State University's digital technology field a second chance at life - but the budget planners are going to have to learn from their mistakes and plan ahead if the next generation of grant programs are to thrive.
The Digital Exchange - a $20 million grant from Lilly to be applied next Fall Semester --¡ will help the university create reputation-boosting programs. However, for the university to maintain its reputation as a technology and digital research leader, these programs cannot be temporary. And that means the money cannot be temporary, either.
The university must plan now - before a dime of the grant funding is spent - to establish internal funding or additional sources of external income to keep these programs at peak performance.
And that's where learning from past mistakes comes into play.
In 2001, the $20 million iCommunications grant helped create several innovative programs for students to study and gain experience - including the NewsLink Indiana immersion program and the Center for Media Design, which benefitted students in several colleges as well as the greater Ball State community.
But the excitement and utopian advancement of the iComm era came to a close just four years later - as soon as the money ran out. Because the university hadn't planned where it would find the funds necessary to maintain iComm initiatives after the grant ran out, many of the award-winning programs struggled and suffered during the past year, wondering how long it would be until they, too, entirely lost funding. A lack of thinking ahead lost students valuable opportunities and professionals their jobs.
The institutes planned for the Digital Exchange have more potential to be financially generative in a way the iComm initiatives weren't -¡- but that doesn't mean the university can depend solely on private funding to keep these programs running.
If the university can create long-lasting, sustainable programs, it will improve the school's reputation and draw larger numbers of students. At that point, the grant money can increase overall funding for Ball State digital technology programs -¡-¡- through increased tuition, government assistance and attracting other private funding.
To fix the mistakes made with the first Lilly grant, Ball State must see the 2006 grant not as a gift but as an investment.
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