Category: Blog

Retaining Online Students: 3 Expert Perspectives

by Sarah Seigle Peatman (opens in new tab), Dr. Kristen Betts (opens in new tab), Dr. Mark Parker (opens in new tab), Tom Porch (opens in new tab)

In the wake of recent declines in online program enrollment across many institutions, renewed attention to online student success and retention has become especially critical. We wanted to hear the best current thinking on improving online student retention, so we reached out to a panel of three accomplished experts in this area: You can read our in-depth interview with them below. These three also serve as the faculty for our upcoming workshop, Improving Online Student Retention and Success, where you will have the opportunity to develop a series of action plans to increase online student success at your institution. In this interview, we asked them for: 1. Examples of untapped opportunities Sarah Seigle Peatman, AI. Looking across the landscape of online programs, what do you see as the biggest untapped opportunities for improving online student success? Kristen Betts, Drexel University. One of the biggest untapped opportunities for improving online student success is to get a better institutional understanding around cognitive and non-cognitive factors associated with student retention, completion, and attrition. Research often links cognitive measures (e.g., GPA, rank, achievement tests, etc.) to academic success. However, for non-traditional students, these measures may be more elusive. According the 2016 Learning House Report, the average age […]

How One Institution’s New Approach to Budgeting is Creating a Culture of High Trust

by Daniel Fusch (opens in new tab)

Recently, AI’s program manager Grace Spivak and our director of research and publications Daniel Fusch had the opportunity to interview Steve Kreidler, the vice president of administration and finance at Metropolitan State University of Denver, a public institution enrolling 20,000 undergraduate students. Several years ago, Metro State underwent a transformational strategic planning process and instituted an advisory budget task force that operates in an entirely new way. To learn more, we invited Steve Kreidler to speak with us about: Here are the key findings from our interview… 1. Bringing Transparency to the Budget Grace Spivak, AI. Can you describe how the new budgeting task force builds trust through transparency? Steve Kreidler. Previously, Metro’s budgeting process involved three people in a room (the president, the VP of administration, and the budget director). And this isn’t unusual; it’s common for universities have a small group huddle over the budget without gathering much input. What that leads to is the complete belief throughout the rest of the campus that deals are being made, some colleagues are getting preferential treatment, and that there is more money available than is being distributed. Today, we have a budget task force that includes a representative from each of the formal […]

Makerspaces and Academic Incubators: Giving Innovation on Campus a Home

by Daniel Fusch (opens in new tab)

Listening recently to Melissa Kaufman, executive director of The Garage at Northwestern University (which incubated 147 start-ups in its first year), and David G. Broz and Todd Heiser, principals for Gensler, speak about academic incubators at our recent webcast (you can obtain a recording here), I was especially struck by the research showing the hunger for entrepreneurship among today’s traditional-aged college students: This generation of students has an entrepreneurial and creative spirit. We just need to create the spaces—innovation centers, makerspaces, academic incubators—that foster their learning and growth as young entrepreneurs. Illustrating this, Kaufman describes the culture of Northwestern University before the institution converted a parking garage into The Garage, a central incubator for the campus: “Students were incubating in their dorm rooms, in their homes; faculty were connecting in classrooms and lab spaces. But there was no one space where all these people could connect. We needed a space where they could work on their schedule, that would be available 24/7 and where they could meet creative entrepreneurs from elsewhere on campus. We needed to give innovation on campus a home.” What is an academic incubator? “We want to help students develop an entrepreneurial toolkit, but I don’t believe you can […]

Civility in the Classroom: A Better Approach

by Richard K. Olsen (opens in new tab), Vernon Cronen (opens in new tab)

More Articles for Faculty:How to Encourage Academic Grit and a Growth Mindset in Your StudentsOne Easy Way Faculty Can Improve Student Success Leading controversial discussions that develop communication skills is an enduring teaching challenge. Often a faculty member’s assumptions about what communication is inform their approach to these classroom activities. I want to contrast two approaches to communication – and then illustrate how the less common approach can enhance faculty efforts to teach and harness communication in the classroom. 2 Ways of Viewing Classroom Communication The instrumental view. The more common view has several labels, but we will call it the “instrumental view.” This view assumes that communication starts with a communicator and terminates in a receiver’s accurate or inaccurate perception. This view is focused on control and accuracy, on individuals and on individual acts, and on the present. Within this view, the instructor is the central figure in determining the rules of behavior, and violations of those rules require an immediate response that emphasizes realignment of individual behavior. The systemic view. The less common view also has several labels, but we will call it the “systemic view.” This view assumes that communication is a way of being, and that much of […]

The Trump Effect on International Students: Early Indications & Insights

by Amit Mrig (opens in new tab)

Much has been written in the last few weeks about the possible negative consequences of the current administration’s policies towards immigration. The travel ban is the latest in a series of actions or statements that include policy changes affecting undocumented immigrants already in the United States and the plans to build a wall on the southern border of the U.S. Almost universally, reports in the news portend significant concern that the current administration’s policies will dissuade students from wanting to study here, including those students from non-Muslim-majority countries. Academic Impressions recently surveyed more than 100 enrollment managers and international education professionals to find out what we can learn so far. While it’s too early to get exact results, we wanted to get an early indication and put some data to much of the widespread conjecture and concern. In this article we’ll share a worrisome picture, painted with both quantitative and qualitative data. What the Numbers Say Attendees at AI programs and our survey data repeatedly show that the negative effects began well before the first travel ban was signed by President Trump. In fact many of our respondents (stories below) tell us of student concerns that began during the election […]

The 10 Barriers to Innovation in Higher Education

by Melissa Morriss-Olson, Ph.D. (opens in new tab)

Why is it so difficult to nurture innovation and academic entrepreneurship at a college or university? My keen and longstanding interest in innovation was first fueled by my doctoral dissertation research, conducted in the early 1990s with a focus on small college resiliency. I studied the financial performance and management strategies of 100 small resource constrained institutions over a ten-year period to account for why some colleges thrived while others declined. I found that the most resilient colleges employed several strategies that, when taken together, helped explain their success. Most significantly, each of these schools exhibited an innovative institutional mindset, something that has been touted recently by prominent higher education thinkers as a critical prerequisite for thriving in these disruptive times. In fact, my research suggests that at the end of the day, institutional resiliency may depend more on mindset than skill set. Having been in the trenches for more than thirty years, I also know that this is not easy, especially for academic institutions. As legendary management consultant Peter Drucker concludes in his classic article The Discipline of Innovation: “In innovation, there is talent, there is ingenuity, and there is knowledge. But when it is said and done, what innovation requires is hard, […]

Four Stats That Will Impact Higher Ed in 2017

by Amit Mrig (opens in new tab)

2017 has the potential to be a volatile year in higher education, and that was the case even before Donald Trump took office. Regulatory uncertainty, continued economic and demographic headwinds, and shifts in both domestic and international student enrollment trends are just a few of the rapids that higher-ed leaders will need to navigate. At Academic Impressions, as we review current research and much of the best current thinking on paths forward for colleges and institutions, we want to draw your attention to four stats that are likely to have an immediate impact in 2017—but that not many are paying heed to. Here are four statistics we think every higher-ed leader should know. 1.  80,000 Nationwide, we are in the midst of a multi-year decline in the number of high school graduates, which began in 2013. This year, however, will see the sharpest single-year decline in the approximately 10-year downturn (numbers are expected to surpass 2011 figures in 2024). WICHE projects that in 2017 we will have approximately 80,000 fewer high school students graduating, a decline of more than 2%. For institutions that still heavily rely on this population of approximately 3.4 million students, this decline will be significant. We are […]

How One Institution is Engaging Alumni through Strategic Community Service Activities

by Timothy Ponisciak (opens in new tab)

Networking events, game watches, fundraising activities, and mentoring opportunities all have a place in the engagement strategies portfolio. However, there are a significant number of alumni that want to create deeper bonds through community service work. As community service and civic engagement have become an important part of students’ time on campus, it is also a great opportunity for alumni relations teams to keep alumni connected. Approximately 25% of all adults participate in some form of community service each year. That number would probably be even higher, except that community service often requires someone to exit their comfort zone and to do something with a group of people they do not know. Participating in community service through an alumni association helps break down barriers for individuals, since they know they can participate with a group of individuals who already share a connection with them. At the University of Notre Dame, we took this thinking to the next level, and I want to share with you: What We Learned Because alumni associations serve a college-educated community, we have an opportunity to create service activities for alumni that go beyond task-based activities and take advantage of specific educational backgrounds. Creating these more […]

Student Affairs: Trends to Watch in 2017-19

What will student affairs look like, 3 years from now? Looking ahead, what concerns you most? What do we most need to do this year? Recently, we held vigorous discussions of the future of student affairs with a panel of experts that included two vice presidents of student affairs (Les Cook and Paul Marthers), a career services expert (Jeremy Podany), and a sitting president (Karen Whitney, Clarion University) whose background is in student affairs. All four are forward-thinkers and bring unique perspectives to student affairs. Paul Marthers heads up both student affairs and enrollment management at SUNY’s central office, and Les Cook, as vice president for student affairs and advancement at Michigan Tech, oversees the entire student-alumni lifecycle from pre-college outreach to planned giving. Karen Whitney’s approach to leading Clarion University is deeply informed by her work in student affairs, and Jeremy Podany, as executive director of Ascend and The Career Center at Colorado State University and the founder of the Career Leadership Collective, is pursuing the integration of career and co-curricular at every step of the student experience. Our conversations with this panel of experts left us enthused, and we want to share some of the highlights from these interviews […]

One President’s Advice: Focus on Student Affairs

Recently, we had the chance to chat with Karen Whitney, president of Clarion University, about the future of student affairs – you can read the full interview in our article “Student Affairs: Trends to Watch in 2017-19.” As a past student affairs administrator, Karen Whitney brings a unique perspective both to the presidency (you can read more of her thinking in our paper Presidential Dialogues: Making the Difficult Decisions) and to working with student affairs leaders. “Student affairs is core to any university operation – especially now,” Whitney suggests, but also notes that college and university presidents aren’t always cognizant of the role student affairs leaders can play in helping the institution drive its strategic priorities: “It depends on their own professional backgrounds and their previous experiences with students and with student affairs professionals. Presidents who had distant or disconnected experiences with students and presidents who did not see an urgent reason to work with student affairs professionals might be inclined to undervalue or even dismiss the field and the people in it. “In contrast, if prior to being a president you were an engaging teacher, active in the life of the college, and/or experienced an urgent incident in which […]

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