Category: Blog

Why Donors Give: It’s Not What You Think

by Jim M. Langley (opens in new tab)

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. Next in this series:More than Dollars: How Many Opportunities Are You Missing with Your Alumni?Engaging Women in Philanthropy: Practical Ways to Shift Our ApproachChecklist: Questions the Governing Board Must Ask Before Launching a Campaign Given that annual alumni support nationally has been declining for 22 years and that less than one in ten alumni are currently giving back to their alma maters, it is clear that our core practices and the philosophies that underpin them need to change. In short, we need to elicit more and solicit less. And foremost among the thoughts we should be eliciting is why our alumni give to […]

Improving Student Success: A Conversation with the Incoming President of WICHE

by Amit Mrig (opens in new tab)

Being based in Colorado, we were excited to hear that our current Lt. Governor, Joseph Garcia, was named the new President of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), which works to expand access and opportunity across its 16 member states and territories. Garcia will begin his new role in July. Previously, Garcia served as the president of Pikes Peak Community College and the president of Colorado State University – Pueblo. Having served across such a diversity of roles, Garcia has a unique and multifaceted perspective on higher education. Recently, I had the opportunity to meet with the Lt. Governor and gather his insights on the ongoing shift in focus to student outcomes and how higher-ed institutions will need to adapt in the years ahead. An Interview with Joseph Garcia Amit Mrig. You’re in a unique position, having served as the president of a community college, the leader of a 4-year institution, having run the Higher Education department for the State, and having served also as Lt. Governor. Given these multiple viewpoints, what do you see as the biggest challenges confronting higher education? Joseph Garcia. When we started community colleges–when we first started talking about the Higher Education Act–the focus […]

Due Process and the Likely Gap in Your Title IX Investigation

by Daniel Fusch (opens in new tab)

Series: The Compliance Issues You Need to Know About Welcome to the third in this series. You can read the first two articles here: Daniel Fusch. Bev, thanks for joining me for this conversation. There have been several cases recently in which a judge has ruled against a post-secondary education in a suit brought to court by a student (or former student) accused of assault: the University of Southern California; University of Southern California, San Diego; the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; and George Mason University, to name a few. In these cases, the judge cited the institution for lack of due process. I can’t help thinking that this may be just the crest of an oncoming wave of similar cases. Could you tell us a little about the need for due process in Title IX investigation? Bev Baligad. First and foremost, institutions must understand that the hallmark of due process is fairness: fairness for all parties, whether they be complainants or respondents. This isn’t just a best practice; institutions have to be fair. In fact, this isn’t just about a “need for due process in Title IX Investigation.” There is a need for due process to be embedded throughout an institution’s processes. Period. […]

Student Resilience: How One Institution is Helping At-Risk Freshmen Seize a Second Chance

by Elizabeth Ross Hubbell (opens in new tab), Sarah Seigle Peatman (opens in new tab)

If this article proves useful…You can take a deeper dive into this Middle Tennessee State University case study and a case study from Bay Path University in our recorded webcast. We’ve written a lot in past articles about the importance of resilience or “grit” to student persistence, and about what some offices on campus can do to help students—particularly first-generation and PELL-eligible students—build their resilience. Middle Tennessee State University has adopted a remarkably comprehensive and affordable (and therefore replicable) approach to doing so. To learn more, we spoke recently with Vincent Windrow, formerly the University’s Director of Intercultural and Diversity Affairs and now the Assistant Vice Provost for Student Success, and Dr. Rick Sluder, Vice Provost for Student Success at MTSU. They shared with us an in-depth look at MTSU’s REBOUND program: its three key phases, the results it has produced, and practical tips for other institutions that may wish to implement a similar initiative. What MTSU Set Out to Do Enrollment of students at MTSU who identify as either first-generation or are PELL-eligible has increased by 24% over the past five years. Now, nearly 50% of the incoming freshman class each year (1,400 out of 2,800 students) fall into […]

Engaging Alumni on Social Media: Sample Posts from 5 Small Colleges

by Timothy Ponisciak (opens in new tab)

Recently, I partnered with Academic Impressions to survey over 100 institutions about how they engage alumni on social media. By far, these institutions had seen the most success via Facebook, and I invited them to submit their most popular Facebook posts — those that drew the most reaction (Likes) and engagement (Comments) from alumni. I published the aggregate findings in the paper Engaging Alumni on Social Media: What Works, and I will discuss best practices (informed by this survey and other research) in the upcoming webcast Strategizing for Social Media in Advancement. Today, though, I want to share a few of the popular Facebook posts that survey respondents highlighted. If you’re looking for some inspiration for your own alumni-facing Facebook page, check out these examples from five small colleges that are keeping their alumni engaged via their social channels. Whether you’re looking for questions you can toss to your alumni, #tbt posts, or giving-day campaign ideas, here is a sampling of how other small colleges are talking with their alumni. Example 1: Augustana College Alumni Augustana showcases just how much of a connection athletics success can bring between a school and it’s alumni base. You don’t have to play at a Division […]

The Current State of Competency-Based Education in the US

by Daniel Fusch (opens in new tab)

Recently, I had the privilege to sit in on a press release of the very preliminary findings from a joint Eduventures/Ellucian survey reporting on institutions’ level of commitment to competency-based education (CBE). The full report on the survey will not be released until June, and in fact the survey is still open. But as of late April, 261 institutions have responded, representing a diversity of Carnegie classifications and institutional types, and some of the findings are illuminating. The findings listed below were shared with me by Richard Garrett, Chief Research Officer at Eduventures, and Carie Ann Potenza, Director of Academic and Grant Services, Teach and Learning, Ellucian. I have also asked several leaders of innovative CBE programs (who will also be speaking at our upcoming conference Developing and Managing Competency-Based Education) to comment on the initial findings, and their comments are also below. Findings: Everyone is Interested in CBE, Few are Scaling It First, some quick demographics. Of the 261 early respondents: These are preliminary findings only, and the survey’s administrators haven’t yet segmented the data to learn more. However, Richard Garrett has noted that preliminary segmenting by Carnegie classification has revealed very little variance in response across types of institutions. […]

Students with Goggles: Virtual Reality and Adaptive Learning in the Classroom

by Daniel Fusch (opens in new tab)

I was recently invited to visit Ellucian’s Innovation Lab to speak with Brian Knotts, Ellucian’s Chief Data Scientist, and to sample some emerging learning technologies first hand. We discussed machine learning, virtual personal assistants, and I had the chance to don a set of virtual reality goggles to experience what it might be like for college students participating in a virtual reality simulation. After I adjusted the focus (I am afflicted with very poor eyesight), I was at once confronted with what appeared to be skittering, giant cockroaches. To my relief, the scene quickly shifted to a sandswept environment populated by cloaked figures that looked as though it had been plucked from the pages of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Two things struck me as I looked up, down, and around in these VR goggles: How Colleges are Already Using this Tech In fact, some colleges and universities are already putting the technology that we currently have to use, both in and out of the classroom. For example: Brian Knotts explained some of the affordances to me, with a sense of childlike wonder I could easily appreciate: “You fired arrows at targets. Now imagine you were doing something less martial. Suppose you stepped […]

Leveraging Parents as Allies in Student Success

by Daniel Fusch (opens in new tab)

by Daniel Fusch (Academic Impressions), interviewing Marjorie Savage (University of Minnesota) While some colleges are seeking positive ways of managing parent involvement throughout the college years, others have established farewell rituals near the start of a student’s first term to deliver the message that parents are expected to let go and step back. These separation programs range from a formal ceremony at Morehouse College to sessions on “Letting Go” during orientation at other institutions. Not Just About Letting Go Although introducing programming to encourage parents to “let go” may be a way to define the separation process for both students and student services staff, this approach (especially if adopted in isolation from a more holistic strategy for parent engagement) precludes opportunities to leverage parents as key resources in promoting the academic and social success of your students. Marjorie Savage, researcher on the topic of parent/college relations and author of the books Not Helicopters but Allies: Partnering with Parents to Better Support Students (Academic Impressions, 2016) and You’re on Your Own (But I’m Here if You Need Me) (Simon & Schuster, 2009), suggests that parents can be an asset to the institution and play a key role in student success — if that role and the […]

Start a Young Alumni Council? Yes or No?

by Ashlyn W. Sowell (opens in new tab)

WHERE THIS ARTICLE BEGAN… Ashlyn Sowell was a faculty member at AI’s conference on Strengthening, Strategy and Growing Engagement for Alumni Boards. This article was sparked by conversation among schools at the event who were considering the next steps for adding a board or council to their young alumni programs. Some critical questions were raised; here, we start to answer them. Should You Start a Young Alumni Council? The Answer is Maybe Volunteer groups can be a great asset, but do require cultivation and meaningful work to engage with your institution. Here we will talk more about how Gettysburg College made its decision and what the outcome has been. Gettysburg College has a strong history with its alumni board, dating back many years. Around 2008, alumni relations staff began thinking about ways to engage young alumni who made up a large percentage of the overall alumni population and had  unique ways that they wanted to interact with their alma mater.  As such, a proposal was made to the Board of Trustees, and we created the BOLD Council (Burgians of the Last Decade), a young alumni council of 25 members. The council’s strategies include ways to engage alumni through communications, interaction […]

How RIT is Building An Adjunct Community

by Lisa Cook (opens in new tab)

MORE FROM RIT RIT’s strategic plan calls for the institution to become a “model of inclusive excellence for all faculty and staff in the areas of professional development.” Here are further examples of what RIT has been trying recently: Beyond Workshops: How RIT Incentivizes Faculty Development “George”: How RIT is Encouraging Interdisciplinary Collaboration When thinking about a student issue or working on a syllabus, faculty members often seek the advice of a colleague — usually by just walking to the office next door. For adjunct faculty, however, the colleague next door has often left for the day and administration offices may also be shut. Adjunct faculty often operate largely on their own, and have a difficult time meeting colleagues who can provide feedback and support. When institutions deliberately build adjunct communities, this allows the faculty to support each other, helps make adjunct faculty feel appreciated and rewarded, and improves adjunct teaching and student success in the classroom. The Rochester Institute of Technology is working to build an adjunct community to foster the kinds of relationships that many full-time faculty and staff take for granted. We talked with Anne Marie Canale and Cheryl Herdklotz, Faculty Career Development Consultants, to learn more about the […]

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