Category: Blog

How Strategic Planning Can Bridge the Divide Between Athletics and Academics

by Ken Halpin

Every college and university that sponsors intercollegiate athletics, at any level, must come to grips with how that division fits into the overall mission of the institution. And, at the same time, athletics must work to integrate itself into the university’s culture. One way to achieve that is to embark on a highly collaborative strategic planning process. Part of the Institution, Yet a World Apart The academic community often perceives the intercollegiate athletics division as a separate world: Athletics has “admissions criteria” distinct from the institution’s.  Students will not be recruited to become student-athletes without demonstrating some athletic ability in addition to their academic accomplishments. In many cases, the athletic facilities, which often take up a fair amount of real estate, tend to be grouped together in a remote part of campus creating the impression of an athletics “fiefdom.” While anyone can walk into the library or the student center, it is perceived that not everyone can walk into the athletics department. Although this is a perception and not a reality, it does foster an “us vs. them” mentality. At institutions with higher profile athletic departments, additional challenges like larger marketing and advertising budgets or the continual purchase of big-ticket […]

Managing the Donor and Alumni Database: The 3 Biggest Challenges

by Sasha Wedekind

Managing the donor database and tracking your alumni data is complex. Here is a quick look at the three most common challenges with alumni data–and what is keeping our advancement operations from doing better. Recently I spoke with two dozen advancement services professionals to get a more defined sense of what is most challenging in managing the alumni database–and why. I’ve summarized what I learned in the following graphic: Problem #1: The Wrong Data What are people doing now?Everyone I spoke with mentioned the same key challenge: having wrong information on alumni, particularly addresses, emails, and employment history. This is a major problem; without accurate contact information, advancement shops cannot communicate with their constituents. This challenge is particularly applicable to young alumni data, since many young alums do not update their addresses through the Postal Service (US universities can verify alumni addresses through the Postal Service Change of and have multiple email accounts, many of which they don’t check. What stops people from doing better?The root of the problem is that alumni do not inform their institutions about changes to their contact information. Secondarily, universities do not currently have an efficient way of finding correct information and monitoring all of their […]

Share This Advice with Your First Generation College Students

The first generation college student often feels alone in navigating the processes and procedures of higher education. Here is some advice from staff at Academic Impressions who were first generation themselves. Share this with the students on your campus! by the Staff at Academic Impressions “My interest in higher education is a deeply personal one,” our president at Academic Impressions, Amit Mrig, relates. “My family is here in this country because my father had an opportunity many years ago to come to this country and be afforded a scholarship. He didn’t have any money, any resources to warrant that opportunity other than his intelligence and his hard work. In my mind, that is what the American dream is. Anyone who has the determination, the drive, and the intelligence should have an opportunity to move up the social ladder. The engine that drives that is higher education.” Today, November 8, is #CelebrateFirstGen Day. One of the amazing things about higher education in the U.S. is the doors it opens for families who have never been to college; our hope is that higher education will remain the engine of social mobility in this country. In that spirit, our team shares the following stories […]

College Student Mental Health Statistics and What They Really Mean

by Sarah Seigle Peatman

There has been a lot of media attention to college student mental health statistics and to the upsurge in demand for mental health services. But does the data really suggest a mental health “crisis”? What does the upsurge actually mean for postsecondary institutions? Where do we need to shift the conversation, and what do we need to do next? Learn more in the infographic and article below. What the Upsurge in Demand for Mental Health Services Means (and Doesn’t Mean) The first thing I want to underscore is that institutions are facing an unprecedented level of demand from students seeking help and support for mental health issues. Counseling centers are not new on campus–and mental health services are certainly not new–but the upsurge in volume from students accessing these services is. The two main presenting issues we’re seeing in students are anxiety and depression. The other issue institutions are concerned about but that is statistically much less frequent is suicidality. If you read the press on this topic, there are a lot of articles that emphasize the number of college students committing suicide. That’s obviously a horrible mental health outcome and something institutions are investing prevention and education efforts around, […]

What is the Blockchain and How Can It Transform Higher Education?

by Alicia Miranda, M.S.

What is blockchain? As academic leaders, you want to stay on top of what’s coming next. And the blockchain could transform how colleges and universities operate in 5 critical ways. What is the Blockchain? The blockchain has been described as the new internet, the next generation of data and information. As a digital ledger that allows data to be dispersed across different users and user systems via cryptography, the blockchain allows for “trustless commerce in a trusted way,” according to one leading blockchain expert. That means you do not have to know the person on the other end of a transaction in order to know the transaction is secure and permanent. The technology takes care of that for you. Most people who have heard about the blockchain know of it because they’ve heard of cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin or Ether. Blockchain is the technology that enables cryptocurrencies, but it has potential uses far beyond just Bitcoin. Leading expert Michael L. Mathews, vice president of innovation and technology at Oral Roberts University, suggests that the basic concept of blockchain technology has already been proven by the US Library of Congress’ use of MARC codes. These codes ensure that each item exists as […]

Research Grants: Which Colleges are Getting Them?

Research grants are increasingly competitive, and our analysis shows that just the top 50 colleges and universities account for nearly two thirds of research expenditures in the U.S. by Sasha Egorova, Research Analyst, Academic Impressions A Disparity in Research Grants More higher ed institutions, including predominantly teaching universities, are facing a push to increase their research activity. Higher research expenditures mean prestige and contributions to economic development and innovation. However, breaking into this highly competitive space is a challenging endeavor. The current research environment in the US is as competitive as ever. Federal funding rates have been consistently declining over the past decades. For example, the NIH funding success rate has decreased from 31% in 1998 to 19% in 2017. The NSF funding rate has been hovering around 23% in the past couple of years. The increase in competition has been caused and amplified by multiple factors, including flat federal research budgets. Other key factors, though, include: Taken all together, this means that 1 in 4 federal proposals gets funded, and the winning proposal is most likely to have come from a top 50 research university. In Canada the competition for funding is not as fierce, with the government making […]

Retaining Your Major Gift Officers—From Day One

by Dr. Joshua Jacobs

Retaining major gift officers begins on day one—with how you onboard them and connect them with key networks across the institution. A formal process for major gift officer training is one of the key factors in their success that is also within your control. In my article “Recruiting the Right Major Gift Officers,” I encouraged managers to define the specific skills they are hiring for—and seek non-traditional candidates for major gift officers. Now I would like to encourage you to rethink how you onboard and support your major gift officers in ways that encourage their success and retention from day one. Major gift officers, due to their sporadic attendance in the office, need as much clarity as possible, and this is especially true if you are hiring non-traditional candidates who are new to both the work and the institution. This means more than just ensuring that you have a formalized onboarding and training process (one that communicates the unit philosophy, establishes a common foundation of expectations, and outlines options for potential professional development) and clear performance expectations for both input metrics (e.g., contacts, substantive visits, number and value of asks made, and office attitude/collegiality) and output metrics (e.g., dollars raised, […]

Are We Measuring the Impact of Advising the Right Way?

by Sue Ohrablo, Ed.D.

Here are three commonly used academic advising metrics that fail to measure the impact of advising, and three qualitative measures that DO matter. Advising administrators are challenged with recruiting, training, and retaining effective advisors. They are tasked with positively impacting student success and retention, and are often held accountable for student persistence, academic performance, and graduation rates. Additionally, advising administrators must develop measures to evaluate advisor performance to ensure that they are successfully meeting student needs. Because of these demands, administrators may use quantitative measures to evaluate student success and advisor performance. However, the use of these measures may be a source of frustration and dissatisfaction for advisors and may unjustly place the burden of student success on their shoulders. As a result, advisors may experience burnout that can lead to poor performance and possible departure. 3 Academic Advising Metrics That Fail to Accurately Measure the Impact 1. Number of Contacts an Advisor Makes The logic is sound. Research has shown that the more engaged a student is with an institution and its personnel, the more likely he or she is to persist. By encouraging advisors to reach out to their students, administrators are hoping to build connections to promote […]

Success Coaching: How to Turn Training into Action

by Steven Riccio, Ed.D., SPHR, PCC

How do you make sure that what you bring back from a conference gets followed up on and leads to action? How do you get more return on that investment and really build your capacity? Often the missing step is to pair training with success coaching. Here’s what that can look like. Take a moment to think back to the last time you researched a conference or workshop that you wanted to attend. If you are like most, it was probably an exciting experience, an opportunity to get “off campus” and meet new colleagues who are more than likely experiencing the same challenges you are. As you reviewed the content of the offering, you considered the changes you could implement when you returned from the training. After you registered and then attended, that feeling increased to the point where you could almost envision the changes already made and how those changes would impact you, your team, and maybe the entire institution. Having spent much of my career managing and facilitating training and development programs, there have been countless times when I would feel a high level of satisfaction observing participants’ energy and enthusiasm as each program concluded. In most instances, […]

Hiring Non-Traditional Candidates for Your MGO Team: Navigating the Opportunity and the Risk

by Dr. Joshua Jacobs

To find your talented next major gift officer, look beyond your borders and deepen your candidate pool by searching for non-traditional candidates who have the right combination of skills and personality traits to succeed. But also recognize that candidates who are new to university advancement or to higher education will need onboarding and support. The recruitment and retention of our best talent in higher education is fraught with challenge. In institutional advancement, the average tenure of an MGO, by some estimates, is just above 18 months, levying a high cost on the institution in repeated searches, lost philanthropic momentum, and severed relationships. Not only is the length of tenure brief, the search costs to replace MGOs are high. Because the central pillar of successful fundraising is the relationship with the donor, and because each representative of the institution must establish credibility and trust with the donor before the best gift can be secured, replacing one MGO with another is not a simple plug-and-play process. It’s a position — like many in higher education — that requires specific talent, and the competition for that talent is fierce. Recently, I recommended that leaders in advancement boost their odds of finding the right talent […]

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