Category: Blog

The Most Creative and Productive Ways to Engage Volunteers

by Jim M. Langley

Volunteers, we know, give ten times more than other philanthropic contributors. Yet, not all volunteer work automatically triggers greater giving. With one hour of volunteer time valued at an estimated $22.55, it is crucial your organization creates compelling volunteer opportunities that engage your constituents and inspire giving. The keys are to find work that: Creative ways of engaging the busiest of constituents include providing ways for them to: Share their voice:  Presidents or deans, for instance, learn a great deal and make top executives feel like valued insiders by asking for twenty minutes on the phone to talk through a pending difficult decision. Share their skills: A medical center president, for instance, could provide invaluable insight on cost control and resource reallocation to a board, president, or VP of operations in a one-hour presentation. Share their passions:  Very often those who are most generous to their alma mater are also deeply committed to their communities, churches or social causes. Asking them to speak to their particular passion at a nonprofit fair on campus or to lead a public service project to engage alumni in their community makes them feel far more valued for who they are than for what they […]

5 Questions to Help Restore a Strained Town/Gown Relationship

by Neil Calfee

PART OF A SERIES ON RFPs, CAPITAL PLANNING, AND PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS This is the first in a series of articles by Neil Calfee. Currently the principal of NPC Group, specializing in the creation and negotiation of public/private Partnerships, Neil Calfee previously served as Arizona State University’s director of real estate development. He has over 15 years of experience in development and management of complex development projects involving partnerships between government entities and the private sector. This article offers Calfee’s advice for strengthening often-strained town/gown relationships, and is written from his unique perspective in working for both Arizona State University and the City of Tempe. We also recommend his previous articles with AI: You may also be interested in his recorded webcast, “Creating Financial Expectations in the Housing RFP Process.” by Neil Calfee (NPC Group) “Love/hate” may be a little strong in describing many town and gown relationships, but “strained” may not be too far off the mark. The town/gown relationship can be full of drama, jealousy, passive-aggressiveness, and it can take “staying together for the kids” to a whole new level. But the town/gown can also be quite rewarding and mutually beneficial, and given that breaking up is nearly impossible, it’s best […]

How One Institution Revamped International Student Arrival and Orientation

by Lisa LaPoint, Daniel Fusch

San Jose State University (SJSU) has experienced a spike in international enrollment in the past couple of years—”instead of building slowly, a tsunami wave of hundreds of additional students each semester,” as Karen O’Neill, San Jose State’s recent director of international programs and services, remarks. How the university has responded to this wave has made them a model for other institutions. We reached out to Karen O’Neill to discuss their success and critical tactics other institutions may want to try. Learning from SJSU’s Success O’Neill remembers that SJSU faced two significant challenges when international enrollment climbed rapidly: lack of coordination across departments and lack of a process for managing international student arrival and orientation. To address the issue, SJSU called together a task force and sent them to AI’s conference on international orientation in 2013. Some task force members hadn’t met prior to attending. The task force included key professionals from international programs and services, international recruitment, academic advising, and marketing and communications. At every break and during every evening during the AI event, the team convened to review and plan. Using what they learned at the conference upon returning to campus, the task force moved quickly to set a […]

Tips for Innovating Responsibly in Enrollment Management

September 2014 A GUEST ARTICLE FROM J. JOSEPH HOEY & ALICE PARENTI J. Joseph Hoey, Ed.D, is the vice president of accreditation relations and policy with Bridgepoint Education; his portfolio of work includes regional and specialized accreditation and policy related to accreditation. He is co-author with Jill Ferguson and David Chase of Assessment at Creative Institutions: Quantifying and Qualifying the Aesthetic (Common Ground: 2014). Alice Parenti is Bridgepoint Education’s associate vice president of operations compliance and previously served as vice president of admissions for Ashford University. Her portfolio of work in this area includes leading geographically diverse enrollment teams and associated services through several key management positions. In this article, Hoey and Parenti review the changing landscape of enrollment management in higher ed and offer practical advice for how enrollment managers can adapt. We also recommend J. Joseph Hoey’s previous article with AI, “6 Reasons Faculty and Departments Need to Be Deeply Involved in Student Learning Assessment,” and his free webcast, “Ideas from the For-Profit Sector on Making Your Program More Competitive.” by Alice Parenti and J. Joseph Hoey (Bridgepoint Education) In our progressively more turbulent higher education environment, what innovations can responsible, ethical enrollment management officers bring forward to help navigate […]

Taking Virtual Academic Advising from OK to Great

by Daniel Fusch, interviewing Cory Phare (Academic Impressions) September 2014. With the “high-touch, high-tech” mindset and 24-hour service expectations of today’s students, many advising programs are exploring how to offer quality advising to distance learners. Advising departments are also continually asked to do more with less, and to make processes more efficient while still providing superior student service. Are you currently using technology in the best way possible to address these challenges? DEFINING OUR TERMS “Technology as it relates to advising is a bit of a weaselly term. Are we only talking about working with online populations? Or are we looking at different tools to improve reach and process? Or is it just synonymous with social media? Defining what tech does, can, and should mean for a department is a key part of a comprehensive strategy.” – Cory Phare, Academic Impressions Cory Phare, a conference director at Academic Impressions, has conducted extensive research into current practices and trends in academic advising, including: A recent survey of over one hundred advising directors Frequent conversations with advising experts such as Laura Pasquini, Karen Thurmond, Sue Ohrablo, and Benjamin M. Forche, among others I spoke with Cory this week to learn more about […]

4 Ways to Rethink Donor Relations

by Meghan Saenz

As donors are increasingly cautious of how their resources are allocated, properly informing, communicating, and stewarding donors is essential to ensure continuous giving. However, few institutions are strategic in identifying which donors need attention, and when and how that attention should be paid. Moving to a strategic donor relations model allows you to improve the effectiveness of your institution’s stewardship efforts. We reached out to the faculty for Revitalizing Your Donor Relations Program, four nationally-known donor relations experts and asked each of them the question, “What is one way that we need to rethink donor relations this year?” Here are their answers. Debbie Meyers, University of Maryland What is one way we can rethink donor relations? Put on your donor glasses! This will sound funny, considering we’re talking about the field of donor relations. But sometimes we get caught up in the mechanics and the bling of all the things we do, and we forget to see things from our donors’ perspective. For instance, rather than sounding genuine and sincere, our acknowledgment letters – which are produced in massive quantities – begin to sound like the result of fundraising mad libs: “your generous support propels us into frontiers of excellence.” Blah, blah, […]

The Best and Worst Annual Fund Strategies

YOUR ANNUAL FUND IN FY15 With the academic year kicking off this month, your annual fund is once again in full force as well. It is likely that your first solicitation of FY15 dropped recently or is about to drop. Follow Jim Langley’s advice on what makes for the best and worst annual fund strategies to ensure FY15 is a successful year for your annual giving operation. by James M. Langley (Langley Innovations) The 2 Worst Annual Fund Strategies Using the annual fund to balance the annual operating budget. Donors give much, much more in the name of philanthropy than they do for charitable purposes.  Charity calls people to meet an urgent need; philanthropy is a means by which people can create a better society.  If you cast your annual fund as a way of meeting urgent need, you raise unsettling questions in the minds of philanthropic investors: Why do they need money for basic operating costs when they charging $20,000 or more in tuition? Does this suggest that the school is struggling to make ends meet? If so, will my investment be used to advance the mission or just plug holes in a broken system? Where is there a […]

Confronting the Challenge of Tuition Discounting

by Patrick Cain (Academic Impressions) and John Dysart (The Dysart Group) September 2014. This week, we interviewed John Dysart, president of The Dysart Group, about how institutions can optimize tuition discounting strategies to balance goals of access and net tuition revenue. A key expert on this question, Dysart has consulted with more than 160 colleges and universities to increase new student enrollments by as much as 70% in a single cycle, reduce or stabilize discount rates, and improve academic quality. Here is what he shared with us. Interview with John Dysart Patrick Cain, AI: Several industry experts continue to warn of higher-than-ever average tuition discount rates. However, a recent Academic Impressions survey completed by nearly 100 institutions revealed several institutions experiencing net tuition revenue gains, despite offering discounts at or above national averages. Do you see these situations as merely outliers, or are they proof that institutions can inform themselves on how best to discount tuition while boosting NTR? John Dysart: The survey results are in line with the experiences of my client institutions.  Certainly, there are many instances of colleges and universities facing stagnation or reduction in net revenue due to rising discount rates.  Schools can, however, still realize […]

Soft Skills for Managing Capital Projects: Communication

by Mark Hartell, Capital Projects Consultant September 2014. We continue our look at why soft skills are an essential part of the project manager’s repertoire if large capital projects are going to deliver sustainable outcomes that meet wider project objectives. This time, communication. Scenario Picture this scenario: you survived your first week on the project and, on Friday afternoon, you sent out your first status/progress report outlining some key milestones including move dates for staff, expected groundbreaking for the new facility and the key risks/issues. It is standard project management stuff; a nice, color coded summary covering all the key factors. You did not expect that by Monday morning the sponsor would be calling you concerned that they are hearing rumors of unhappy people and misunderstandings. What went wrong?  In your well intentioned desire to communicate, you opted for a one way, “tell” message, written in your own terminology, that focused on what and when rather than why. People jumped to different conclusions about the information that was presented: Some felt that move decisions were unfair. Others saw the decisions as a “Trojan horse” for organizational changes that have nothing to do with the capital project. Departments in any way […]

You’re Embarking on Competency-Based Education; How Do You Fund It?

September 2014. We wanted to gather advice for how to set up internal funding for CBE courses and programs effectively. How can colleges who are in the early stages of piloting competency-based education set up their own CBE course development or program development grant?  To learn more, we reached out to Dr. Sally M. Johnstone, vice president for academic advancement at Western Governors University, who has worked extensively with colleges across the US, assisting them in developing their own CBE programs.  This article is excerpted from our interview with Sally. Interviewer: Daniel Fusch, Academic Impressions AI: Sally, thank you for joining us today. You’ve been working with 11 community colleges over the past two years now as they create their own competency-based education programs.  What have you learned about financing pilot CBE projects? Johnstone: Some of the colleges had a substantial amount of external funding through the Department of Labor’s TAAACCT grant. For these institutions, setting up a CBE program was still a lot of hard work, but it’s easier when you have a couple of million dollars to do it.  They were able to hire a dedicated project manager, pay for faculty time and new equipment, engage employers in focus groups, and […]