“The pandemic has forced us to confront higher education’s broken business model more directly. While we can no longer afford to be broken, the fundamental items that caused the problem are not resolved. The very thing that broke us – our missional focus on those who we must serve, though such service is not ‘profitable’ […]
“We’re already seeing … you tell someone to cover their nose with their mask and they roll their eyes at you. Our staff have a lot of anxiety. But we’re all in this together.” “We need students to physically distance and stay safe, and to wear masks, but the academic library is not set up […]
Is it a microaggression? The authors of Fix Your Climate, two leading experts on hierarchical microaggressions, discuss how microaggressions operate within an academic workplace and offer a few quick tips for identifying and reducing them. Microaggressions, microbullying, and bullying are the silent destroyers of a university’s climate. Because microaggressions have a cumulative and amplifying effect […]
Our care for students in the fall must be expressed, paradoxically, both by the barriers that we put in place to separate our community and by the measures we take to keep our community connected and welcome. Here are examples of service excellence, hospitality, and care from other sectors that can translate well on our […]
Being named the interim leader in your unit or department can be both exciting and scary. Unfortunately, there are not many road maps out there to guide you. Here is some guidance from others who’ve been there. by Ashlyn W. Sowell, Associate Vice President for Campaign Operations and Engagement, Johns Hopkins University In this time […]
What the blockchain does is get rid of the notion that institutions operate as siloed entities, involving them instead as part of a larger system of data transactions. An exclusive report for our members by Alicia Miranda, Senior Research Analyst, Academic Impressions On average, college students will now attend three or more institutions before receiving […]
In these rough waters, higher education leaders cannot indulge the luxury of sitting back and waiting to see what everyone else does. Whatever happens with the pandemic or the economy, we are not going to see a simple “return to normal” or to the conditions under which our institutions operated in January, and leaders must […]
Increasingly, faculty leaders are responding seriously to the call for more “culturally relevant pedagogy,” referring to more inclusive classrooms and pedagogical styles. This article draws on findings from a recent inquiry into how institutions are thinking about equity within pedagogy. In late 2019 (prior to the COVID-19 pandemic), I conducted 28 phone interviews with both […]
What does the future of higher education hold? How will our sector emerge from this crisis? To answer these questions well, we need to think bigger and bolder, with all the creativity at our disposal. by W. Kent Barnds, Executive Vice President for External Relations, Augustana College I once had a boss I called “the […]
COVID-19 testing and contact tracing is an evolving topic with many unknowns, but several critical tips emerged from a recent discussion among peers at different institutions, both residential and commuter. by Daniel Fusch, Academic Impressions On May 28, 2020, academic leaders, student health, and student affairs professionals from just under two dozen campuses met online […]
