My alma mater is tearing down silos in Cleveland, Ohio.

My first encounter with Case Western Reserve University was in January 1974, nearly a year after I was released from active duty by the United States Coast Guard.  I had three years of experience as a Public Information Officer for Charlie Gulf's Great Lakes region (followed by a year of travel and freelancing), which got me an entry level editor/writer position with CWRU's Office of University Communication.  During the next five years I got two promotions, ending up running the whole shop, and completed the course work toward my PHD in American Studies.  I then moved across campus to become a law student for the next three years.

CWRU is the 1967 amalgamation of Case Institute of Technology, where the famous Michelson- Morley experiments, which provided empirical support for Einstein's theories of relativity, took place, and Western Reserve University, which in the 1950s had been ranked as having a top-ten medical school.

Now Case is poised to be a top-ten healthcare entity once again.  As reported on NPR this morning, Case and the Cleveland Clinic are combining resources to create a new facility in which medical, dental and nursing student all will train together.  In the Fifties, Western Reserve's med school achieved its high ranking by an innovative curriculum that put med students in contact with patients from the very start of their education to be doctors.  Now, ripping down the silos that separate the three predominant healthcare professions is likely to catapult successor CWRU into the very top tier yet again some sixty years later.

What Case and the Clinic are doing is a guidepost for what all of us in higher education must do, if we are to thrive.  This advice goes double for the private sector.  Silos must go if we are going to maximize our resources.

A good book on this topic is Silos, Politics and Turf Wars by Partrick Lencioni.  It's a slim volume and quick read, but worth the investment of a little time and money.  The provost at my home institution had her deans read and discuss it at a retreat.  You could do a lot worse than that.  You might try combining it with the CWRU/Cleveland Clinic venture as a case study on point.