ATLANTA — A business major at Clark Atlanta University, Delaina Mims said she spends at least eight hours a day at the Robert W. Woodruff Library.
“It’s a good space and it’s better than being by yourself,” said Mims, who had just met up with three of her friends near the library’s outdoor promenade, which students call “Club Woody” because at night students sometimes play music there.
Mims can mingle here with fellow students not only from Clark, but also from nearby Morehouse and Spelman colleges and the Interdenominational Theological Center. That’s because all four schools share the library.
Three of the four belong to the Atlanta University Consortium, a nearly 90-year-old alliance under which these neighboring colleges and universities plus the Morehouse School of Medicine jointly offer services and space. It’s a model other schools are increasingly considering, to help reduce the rising costs of doing business by leveraging purchasing power and collectively operating everything from shuttle buses to security and from course offerings to classroom space.
“Working together, we can raise productivity and lower out-of-pocket expenses,” said Dr. Ronald A. Johnson, Clark Atlanta’s president.
Efforts to build alliances like this are especially growing among smaller private colleges that are heavily dependent on tuition and whose revenues and enrollment have stalled.
The Higher Education Systems and Services Consortium, which encourages collaboration among private colleges to reduce costs, has grown from five members to nearly 100 in the three years since its founding, said Keith Fowlkes, the consortium’s cofounder and vice president.
