Category: Blog

Alternative Facts In Higher Education

by Marcel J. Dumestre, Ed.D. (opens in new tab)

In higher ed, do we often offer “alternative facts” too, operative myths that don’t accurately reflect the realities of higher education? The term “alternative facts” used by President Trump’s counselor in an interview about the inauguration crowd size has become a media meme. The idea of an alternative fact being something other than a falsehood has proven amusing to some but quite disturbing to others. Importantly, the need to judge ethically what facts to report and how to interpret them is not confined to the media. It is part of organizational life, perhaps even more so in higher education. Universities are unique social institutions with the mission to educate, to disseminate knowledge, and to contribute to the common good. The “search for truth” is an embedded core principle of this enterprise, and that search for truth depends on verifiable facts, not on falsehoods or obscurities. Yet university communities are not immune to embracing alternative facts. It is less likely to occur in academic disciplines because of ongoing scholarship and the crucible of continuous debate. But, as social institutions, universities exist in the public commons, which is much more susceptible to the vagaries of alternative facts. 4 “Alternative Facts” Embraced by Universities […]

Designing for Student Recreation and Wellness: A Look Inside the U of Utah

by Michelle Sponholz (opens in new tab), Mary Bohlig (opens in new tab)

As institutions strive for new enrollment and increased retention, it is no surprise that many institutions are focusing on recreational facilities in their immediate capital plans. If designed well, a new recreation and wellness facility will serve as more than an immediate invitation for prospective students and families. The physical, social, and communal aspects of the facility can help to boost student enrollment and improve the overall engagement across the campus community. Recreation facilities have transformed from just places to work out to facilities that cater to the whole student. Institutions across the country are adding in wellness aspects, such as health services, counseling services, and demonstration kitchens. As institutions look at the design and construction of these facilities, some key considerations come to mind: The University of Utah’s new Recreation and Wellness building is an excellent example of this kind of inclusive design and comprehensive thinking. To get an inside look at the facility and its design process, we reached out to Mary Bohlig, the university’s director of campus recreation services, for an interview. Interview with Mary Bohlig Michelle Sponholz. Mary, thanks for joining me. Can you talk a little about how to move beyond just a “space is at […]

Responding to a Crisis: Lessons for College Leaders

by Sarah Seigle Peatman (opens in new tab)

What can college and university leaders learn from military leaders about crisis preparedness? Find out from this panel of experts. Colleges and universities all too often face a series of challenges in responding actively and speedily to a crisis or emergency on or affecting the campus, but they needn’t reinvent the wheel: there are proven models developed in the government and military sectors that can be applied to the higher ed context. To help senior leaders in higher education improve their crisis preparedness, we’ve assembled and interviewed a panel of experts, including Dr. Connie Book, provost and dean at The Citadel; Major General Jim Boozer, US Army (Ret.); and Colonel Cardon Crawford, US Army (Ret.) and Director of Government and Community Affairs at The Citadel. Collectively, this panel of experts has 35 years of experience in higher education and 59 years of experience in the US Military. In the interview below, we wanted to ask for their perspective on what critical lessons college and university leaders can learn from the military’s approach to crisis action planning. These instructors will also provide an intensive training for presidents and other senior leaders this March in Charleston, SC. Interview: Lessons for College Leaders […]

Shifting from a Scarcity Mindset to an Opportunity Mindset

by Amit Mrig (opens in new tab)

Series: Costs Down, Quality Up Historically, initiatives to improve quality have also meant added cost—smaller class sizes, more faculty who conduct research, etc.—but this is no longer a sustainable model for all institutions. What are the innovations that can actually drive the cost to educate a student lower while driving critical outcomes like student success and completion higher? This series offers provocative questions that challenge the cost-quality paradigm and the old ways of managing institutional strategy and growth. The Danger in a Scarcity Mindset Many institutions have responded unproductively to economic scarcity in recent years—often by freezing in place. Institutions have reduced spending, streamlined inefficient practices and shelved futuristic plans, in effect trying to do the same work with fewer people and fewer dollars. We don’t mean to sugar coat or deny problems. The lack of investment capital or any number of other critical resources presents real and difficult challenges, leaving institutions with hard choices to make. But this way of reacting reinforces a dangerous dynamic that is prevalent on many campuses, something we call the “scarcity mindset.” By this we mean that prevailing beliefs, even amongst leadership, are uninspired and self-limiting – “we’re carrying too much, change is hard, it won’t work, we […]

Checklist: Taking Support for Online Students to the Next Level

by Lisa Endersby (opens in new tab)

“It’s important… to remember that online is not a type of student, rather, it is a mode of delivery for academic coursework.” Sue Ohrablo, High-Impact Advising The changing reality of our student demographics means that the diverse demands of outside employment, caring for children or dependents, and even commuting to and from campus greatly impact how, when, and if students are able to access the very services we promote as both valuable and essential. We continue to wait behind desks and office doors for students to approach us, often left wondering why more students haven’t simply reached out for help when these myriad of offices exist. The competing demands for our students’ time and attention are not an indication that our students are any less invested or engaged with their learning; it simply yet profoundly means that we need to do better at reaching out to them as a partner in their success rather than wishing or hoping they will access something that may not be easily accessible given their daily lived reality. Of course, it is one thing to understand and yet another to do. What might it look like to better engage and support our online learners? I […]

It’s Not Just About the First and Second Year of College

by Paul Marthers (opens in new tab)

Series: Managing the Student LifecycleThis new series convenes expert perspectives on student success and predictive analytics. We hope to empower enrollment managers, student affairs professionals, deans, and faculty to think deeper about their student data, predictors of success, and managing the student lifecycle holistically from recruitment to retention to completion. Earlier in this series:Improving Student Success Can’t Be a One-Office EffortDeveloping a Metrics-Driven Culture within Student AffairsIt’s not just about the first and second year of college. Here are 5 places where students and campuses falter later in the student lifecycle. Traditionally, colleges measure retention as the percentage of enrolling first-year students who return for their sophomore year. No doubt this is an important measure. But equally important are the retention rates from sophomore to junior year, from junior year to senior year, and from the start of senior year to graduation. Colleges committed to promoting student success need to take a closer look at their year-to-year retention and graduation rate trends in order to determine patterns, identify pitfalls, and take steps to make improvements. Only when the obstacles are identified and understood can an institution take intentional and strategic steps to achieve higher student success levels. In this article, I […]

24 Higher-Ed Leaders Look to the Future

by David Kiel (opens in new tab)

with contributions from Amit Mrig (President, Academic Impressions)and Pat Sanaghan (President, The Sanaghan Group) Future Timeline: What Trends, Events, and Issues Will Shape Your Campus? No one can foresee the future of higher education with certainty, but we can cultivate the habit of looking forward, scanning the horizon, and preparing to respond adaptively as the landscape changes. Pat Sanaghan’s future timeline activity (NACUBO, 2003) is a useful way to quickly generate and prioritize a list of predictions about the next ten years, and we hope this case study of one such activity will give your campus a tool for facilitating and capturing horizon thinking. This article provides: For further discussion of how to make such horizon thinking habitual for your team (and for additional tools for doing so), read my companion piece “How Good is Your Crystal Ball?“ The participants in the November 2016 future timeline activity were 24 attendees at Academic Impressions’ “Creating a High-Impact Leadership Development Program for Your Campus” workshop. For the activity, participants posted a timeline on the wall of the room using flip chart pages titled for each of the next ten years (i.e., 2016, 2017, … 2026). Then, using post-it notes, participants listed trends, issues, and […]

How Good is Your Crystal Ball?

by David Kiel (opens in new tab)

with contributions from Amit Mrig (President, Academic Impressions)and Pat Sanaghan (President, The Sanaghan Group) How Academic Leaders Can Reinvigorate Forecasting and Planning Processes on their Campuses The recent surprise in the US presidential election results suggests that those who do not pay close attention to current trends and possible future events may be unprepared for sudden and impactful changes. This is especially a wake up call for those who are in leadership positions on college and university campuses. In today’s volatile environment, predictions that were once thought unlikely may actually have huge consequences. For example, many thought the call for free public higher education that surfaced several years ago was so unrealistic that it could be discounted. Now several states have enacted laws in that area. How many people predicted MOOCs, or even now have a good sense of their long-term implications? The FLSA executive ruling on overtime, originally due to take effect December 1, was stayed by a federal court. Competition from for-profit educational programs looked like it might be on the wane after the recent federal crackdown, but now the founder of Trump University is the POTUS, so what does that mean for the for-profit sector? How do […]

What Does Customer Service in Higher Education Actually Look Like?

by Sarah Seigle Peatman (opens in new tab)

Customer service in higher education is still new and few are certain how to do it well. Here’s what our panel of experts have to say. Providing good customer service to students has become an expectation in today’s higher education environment, yet customer service in higher education is still new and few are certain how to do it well, or what the term means when placed in the context of students, faculty, and staff. To learn more about how colleges and universities are adapting the concept of service competencies to this sector, and to gather practical advice for how units and departments can navigate this shift in mindset, we turned to three acknowledged experts on customer service in higher education: These three are also the authors of the popular book Elevating Customer Service in Higher Education: A Practical Guide. Sarah Seigle. Hi Heath, Emily, Eileen. Thank you for joining us for this conversation! The first question we want to ask is: How has the way higher ed looks at customer service changed over the past 5 years? Emily Richardson. The expectation of immediate responsiveness was not around 5 years ago, and in the digital age, we now expect a response to a […]

Graduate Enrollment and Gender: A Changing Landscape

by Jon Boeckenstedt (opens in new tab)

Series: Changing How We Understand the MarketIn this series, we analyze current enrollment and demographics data, uncovering stories that challenge how institutions often understand their marketplace—or that shed new light on emerging trends. We want to encourage a deeper look at the implications of today’s marketplace data. We hope that you will share these stories across your institution and use them to start critical conversations to drive not only enrollment strategy but discussions of curricular offerings, student support, and course design. While we’ll highlight findings and stories worthy of closer attention, each article includes an easy-to-use Tableau dashboard that you and your colleagues can use to drill deep in the data yourself.Also in this series:Yield Rates are Declining – Why?Is the International Enrollment Boom a Rising Tide that Lifts All Ships?How Simpson’s Index Can Offer Universities a Different Look at DiversityWhy Measuring Diversity Matters The rise in undergraduate enrollment in the United States has been well documented and much discussed: Between 1980 and 2010, for instance, undergraduate enrollment rose almost 74%, far outstripping the growth (about 2%) in traditional-age college students in the US.  There are likely several factors contributing to this surge, including economic growth; population growth; the belief […]

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