Category: Blog

2 Ways to Move Students Out of Academic Probation

by Christine Robinson

Moving at-risk students out of academic probation quickly is a worthy challenge—and at Western Michigan University, two recent retention efforts at the Haworth College of Business (HCoB) have seen positive outcomes in this regard. Students who complete HCoB’s Phoenix Success Course as well as mandatory study hours in the University’s new award-winning Bronco Study Zone are retained at a rate of approximately 73%. Compared to students who do not participate in these two efforts, this rate represents a 32% increase in retention. HCoB is one of nine Colleges at Western Michigan University with an enrollment of approximately 3800 undergraduate students and 400 graduate students, and its success in these new initatives provides valuable clues for other institutions. Let’s take a closer look. 1. The Phoenix Student Success Program Launched in 2013, The Phoenix Program is a holistic student success and engagement program implemented to intercept a high dismissal rate for undergraduate students on academic probation, whereby approximately 59% of students on academic probation in HCoB were being dismissed at the end of their first probation semester. The program includes initiatives across several touchpoints throughout students’ academic careers. These initiatives include: One main component of the Phoenix Student Success Program is […]

Improving Student Success Can’t Be a One-Office Effort

by Paul Marthers

Managing the Whole Student Life CyclePaul Marthers is the author of Managing the Whole Student Life Cycle: A Handbook for Higher Ed. Make retention a whole-campus initiative in more than just name. From matriculation to graduation, walk through how to coordinate across enrollment management, student affairs, and academic affairs to create conditions and programs that drive student success. Find out more. Across higher education, we are seeing sweeping reorganization of student affairs, often driven by cost reduction, the need to do more with less. But the conversation we need to be having is how to structure student affairs and allocate resources in ways that help the institution manage the whole student lifecycle. Equally critical to the need to reduce costs is the need to move away from a history of one-office efforts to improve student success. These efforts are rarely successful and are often the product of a campus that is a collection of silos or what some call (with no small amount of irony) “cylinders of excellence.” And this can’t only be about getting student affairs and academic affairs talking. We need a more integrated effort than just that. In more than twenty five years working in the enrollment and student […]

Rethinking General Education: Too Many Options?

by Robert C. Dickeson

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. Also in this series:Why Good is Still the Enemy of Great for Most Colleges and Universities After a visit to a university campus, I received the following inquiry from one of its academic leaders: Bob, when you visited, you mentioned that we have too many GE course options. We are taking a look at this. What are the advantages of decreasing the number of options? Is this a resource question? What if the course is part of a major? Is there a problem including it as a GE distribution as well? This inquiry deserves a serious response and, as it also affects academic sensibilities on other college and university campuses, I thought I’d write a fuller response. In this article, I will speak briefly to: 1. […]

Checklist: Questions the Governing Board Must Ask Before Launching a Fundraising Campaign

by Jim M. Langley

Series: Creating the Conditions for Support Everyone is trying to raise more money. Rather than simply suggest the next tactic that can boost giving in the short-term, this series offers a more intensive look at the strategic thinking that drives philanthropic support: Why do donors give? How do institutions strengthen their core and emphasize initiatives worthy of support? How do we align strategic plans, strengths, and advancement strategy to create the conditions for ongoing and sustained support? In this series, distinguished current and past chief advancement officers apply their most innovative and creative thinking to this question. Previously in this series:Why Donors Give: It’s Not What You ThinkMore than Dollars: How Many Opportunities are You Missing with Your Alumni?Engaging Women in Philanthropy: Practical Ways to Shift Our Approach In the course of running three university campaigns, and in guiding dozens more as a consultant, I have seen virtually every college or university fall short of its full fundraising potential. This occurs both because of competing assumptions by various institutional leaders about the keys to success and therefore, the strategies and tactics that are most likely to produce it, and because institutional leaders often fail to ask the pivotal questions before […]

Feasibility Checklist: The Science of Bringing New Academic Programs to Life

by Melissa Morriss-Olson, Ph.D.

The best ideas in the world can easily fall off the radar unless you have a process in place for evaluating, vetting and bringing them to life. Also in this series: Is it Time to Launch that New Academic Program? The Art and Science of Answering that Question Financial Modeling for New Academic Programs Once you have generated an idea for a new academic program, how do you sustain and implement that idea? As Jim Collins suggests in Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck—Why Some Thrive Despite Them All, organizational ‘luck’ and success can be leveraged by cultivating a discipline around process and metrics.  Indeed, he suggests that this discipline is key for maximizing whatever ‘luck’ might naturally come one’s way. This has certainly been the case at Bay Path University, where we have developed a rigorous process and template for evaluating the feasibility of new program ideas that we use across all divisions of the University. This process has enabled us to remove some of the subjectivity that accompanies new academic program decision making, relying instead on a set of objective key elements and metrics that are applied equally to all new program possibilities. When a new program […]

Retention Strategy: What Holds Us Back?

by Elizabeth Ross Hubbell

Prevailing views on retention and student success have evolved significantly — but often, our practices lag behind. To help close the gap, we interviewed several of the foremost experts on student retention, individuals who have made a demonstrable difference at their institutions and who also facilitating our annual Developing a Comprehensive Retention Plan conference. Here is what W. Kent Barnds, vice president of enrollment, communication, and planning at Augustana College; Veronica Hipolito, dean of student services at Coconino Community College; and Margot Saltonstall, director of analytics & assessment for enrollment management & student affairs at Northern Arizona University, have to say about where institutions should be shifting their thinking — and their efforts — to support student persistence and completion. Question #1: What Holds Us Back? Elizabeth Hubbell. What do you think holds institutions back from pursuing more comprehensive retention planning? What are the missed opportunities if efforts remain siloed? W. Kent Barnds. Too many institutions are reactive rather than proactive. Too many spend most of their energy related to retention in analyzing data after the fact and asking “Why did that happen?” I also think that too many colleges don’t really understand that a comprehensive retention plan requires that they consider […]

Infographic: How to Budget for Innovation

We hope you will share this infographic with your colleagues to start some critical conversations on campus. (Click here to see a full-size version.) Learn More For more from Art Kirk and other innovators among college and university leaders, read our complimentary paper Small but Mighty: 4 Small Colleges Thriving in a Disruptive Environment! See Upcoming Events for Business Officers

Is the International Enrollment Boom a Rising Tide that Lifts All Ships?

Series: Changing How We Understand the Market In this new series by Jon Boeckenstedt, 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. Jon Boeckenstedt (DePaul University) It may be time to challenge some assumptions about the international enrollment boom. Sit in on any discussion about enrollment in America’s colleges and universities, and it won’t be long until someone brings up international enrollment. The US continues to be a strong attractor of talent worldwide, despite our own struggles domestically; and perhaps our biggest export—American culture—can be seen as a leading cause of the boom in international enrollment. Of course, a big part of American culture revolves around […]

Why Good is Still the Enemy of Great for Most Colleges and Universities

by James E. “Cid” Seidelman, Ph.D.

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. Why Good is Still the Enemy of Great for Most Colleges and Universities Many small private colleges and universities knowingly or unknowingly are what could be called high-risk institutions. They lack huge endowments, a large reservoir of student demand, significant differentiation in the market, and high brand value. Many of these institutions are either implementing or contemplating a significant innovation and change strategy to address challenges related to a declining value proposition, a lack of differentiation, budgetary problems, and/or the development of new programs and markets that provide enrollment and revenue lifting power. These are the colleges and universities that most need to utilize a data-driven and evidence-based approach to culture, process and change. It is possible to turn the threats they face into […]

Prioritizing Team Chemistry Over Individual Performance: What Higher Ed Can Learn from Athletics

by Martin Klubeck

In higher education, as in other sectors, managers tend to prioritize individual talent over team chemistry. This is a mistake. Consider a sports team. The individual talent of the star players isn’t enough to ensure victories for the team. The best players have to do more than just score points, block shots, or play great defense. If you watch any sport and you listen to the announcers, you’ll find a recurring concept discussed. The very best players are judged not by their individual abilities, talent, or statistics, but by how much better they make their teammates. The best quarterbacks make their receivers, running backs, and even offensive linemen better. The best safeties make their defensive compatriots better. The best point guards make their teammates better. The mark of the truly great player is that she makes her teammates better. In your office, at your college, or at your university, this means your “star players” have to do more than get along with their colleagues; they should also positively affect their abilities and attitudes. They have to lift the productivity and effectiveness of the entire team. When you realize this, it has practical implications for who you promote (and why), for how you approach […]