University of Colorado Denver

Carla Ho-a is the Associate Dean for Finance and Administration at the University of Colorado’s College of Nursing on the Anschutz Medical Campus.  Her career primarily has been in higher education administration, where she has held several progressively responsible roles in both academic and administrative units.  Her education and experience includes higher education budget, finance, human resources management, organizational leadership, and strategic planning.  In addition to her professional role, Carla has held leadership roles on the Business Officers of Nursing Schools steering council, a network of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and on the University of Colorado’s Staff Council. Carla holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of Colorado Denver.

Carla’s area of research interest is predominantly in higher education administration and policy and specifically, evaluating and measuring faculty productivity in public institutions of higher education.  Faculty salaries often comprise the largest percentage of the academic budget in public institutions, and the principles of stewardship and accountability have begun to drive greater pressure to ensure these costs represent a maximal amount of effort and investment.  Unless policy-makers and legislators have a high-quality and well-researched means by which they can ground policy in this area, the implications of decisions they make may have far-reaching and potentially detrimental consequences.