Category: Blog

Customer Service in Higher Education: More than Just Demeanor

In a survey of professionals of higher education a few months ago, Academic Impressions found that: If asked to give their institution a letter grade for customer service, most professionals would assign a “C” or lower. There is a growing awareness among managers in higher education that customer service entails more than presenting students or internal clients with a “friendly face,” that it involves responsiveness and collaborative problem-solving. Yet most cite similar challenges to improving customer service in their office: lack of time and uncertainty on how to effectively train it. Two Resources on Training Customer Service Interviewing an array of experts who have made strides in providing customer service training in higher education or in transitioning enrollment or academic support services to a one-stop approach, Academic Impressions offers two complimentary resources: A Complimentary Publication Our recent Monthly Diagnostic, “Improving Customer Service in Higher Education,” we take a close look at the barriers to customer service and interview past and current presidents, vice presidents, and department heads in student services and enrollment management for practical advice in meeting those barriers. A Complimentary Webcast In our January 22, 2013 webcast, “Raising the Bar on Customer Service in Higher Education,” panelists Susan […]

Taking the Campaign Beyond Campus Events: A Case Study

The University of the Virgin Islands (an HBCU with campuses on St. Thomas and St. Croix US Virgin Islands) saw their alumni giving rate increase from 13% to 42% in the past year during the institution’s “50 for 50 Campaign” celebrating UVI’s 50th anniversary. What is especially noteworthy about this jump in giving rate is how UVI did it: rather than relying heavily on reunion, other on-campus events, or even alumni events in other locations to boost giving rate, UVI reached out to alumni at 30 local community events and festivals throughout the year. Rather than just bring alumni back to UVI, their annual giving and alumni affairs staff and volunteers went out into the community to find their alumni — where their alumni were already gathering. Intrigued by UVI’s ambitious (and effective) alumni outreach, we interviewed Linda Smith, UVI’s director of annual giving and alumni affairs, and Nanyamka Farrelly, UVI’s public relations officer, to learn more about UVI’s approach in the past year. Here is what they shared with us. Academic Impressions (AI): Linda, Nanyamka, thank you for joining me for this conversation. I am fascinated by your approach. What did your participation at these community events look like? […]

Identifying the Untapped Potential of Mobile Devices on Campus

January 18, 2013. “Missed Opportunities” Interviewing a range of experts in the use of mobile technologies in enrollment, teaching and learning, and alumni relations during the closing months of 2012, we found consensus on several points: Many institutions still limit their use of mobile technologies to replicate what they already do or provide through other, more traditional technologies. (For example, an institution might simply provide a course schedule that can be read on a mobile device, or a campus map — without having thought through the unique capabilities of the new technology and how those might add value to the schedule or the map.) In terms of adoption, most institutions lag behind student and alumni demand for the use of mobile technologies in their interactions with the campus. For a review of the current research on the rate of student/alumni adoption versus university adoption of mobile technology, read this recent article. Also, polling the institutions who attended our December 4, 2012 complimentary webcast, we found that 74% of those attending believed their office at the institution did lag significantly behind student or alumni demand for mobile interaction with the campus. 3 Unique Capabilities of Mobile Devices For our December 4, […]

Predicting Student Success: Beyond the Traditional Approach

Given increasing competition, shifts in student enrollment, and reduced resource levels, it’s critical that colleges and universities recruit and retain the students who are most likely to succeed at their institutions. By transitioning from a risk-based model for predicting student enrollment and retention to a success-based model, you can look across the student life cycle to identify not only the factors that impede desired outcomes such as yield and student retention, but also the positive factors that contribute to those outcomes. What are the shared characteristics of students who enroll and persist? What were the shared characteristics and behaviors of your most engaged alumni when they were students? Success leaves clues. Identifying these indicators of success can help inform smarter investments in recruitment and intervention, and can inform cross-campus efforts to maximize yield, student success, and alumni engagement. Exploring this approach further, Rob Durkle, the University of Dayton’s assistant vice president of enrollment management, and Bernadette Jungblut, West Virginia University’s director of assessment and retention, recently joined Academic Impressions for a complimentary webcast offering examples of how specific indicators of success might drive specific decisions on campus. Here is One Example: “Grit” During the webcast, Bernadette Jungblut directed attention to […]

A Diagnosis for Academic Advising: 3 Missed Opportunities

by Sue Ohrablo, Ed.D.

Through a series of surveys and interviews with advising directors across North America, Academic Impressions has identified a number of frequently missed opportunities that prevent institutions from maximizing the effectiveness of academic advising to improve student retention and academic success. The following are among the most significant: Developmental Advising: Empowering the Student In developmental advising, the student is given the resources to self-audit progress toward the degree, or is sent a degree audit by the advisor prior to meeting. Then, the student’s time with the advisor is spent defining academic and career goals and problem-solving to address obstacles that are likely to arise on the way to meet those goals — rather than going over the course catalog. The strength of developmental advising is that it empowers the student to take ownership of their own goals and progress, and partners them with a professional who can help them plan ahead proactively. EMPOWERING STUDENTS TO SELF-AUDIT THEIR PROGRESSRead our member exclusive report on early alert programs to review recommendations for empowering your students to self-audit their progress and, if appropriate, self-identify when they are academically at risk. For this article, we interviewed two of the architects of Arkansas State University’s forward-thinking approach […]

How will MOOCs Affect Fair Use and Copyright Compliance?

As more institutions consider offering Massive Open Online Courses (or MOOCs), we wanted to investigate what impact these open-enrollment online courses might have on copyright compliance issues for faculty in higher education. To learn more, we turned to copyright and fair use policy experts Steven McDonald, general counsel for the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and Kevin Smith, director of scholarly communications for Duke University’s Perkins Library. Here are the insights that McDonald and Smith shared with us, related to issues of both copyright compliance and ownership. A Closer Look at Compliance and Fair Use Kevin Smith. We are seeing two things: People are more cautious about relying on fair use when anticipating sharing content with 170,000 people in the (online) classroom than we are when anticipating sharing content with 170 students on campus. We also have a huge opportunity to establish new partnerships with copyright holders (publishers and various clearinghouses), developing agreements to use their materials in the MOOCs, because of the significant opportunity for the MOOC to raise the visibility of their materials. I’ll tell you a story. We had a situation where a faculty member wanted to use materials from a textbook. In her regular class, […]

Restructuring Your Financial Aid Office: Debunking 3 Misconceptions

With continuously changing regulations and compliance standards, financial aid offices sometimes find it difficult to balance legal obligations and customer needs. Gettysburg College recently undertook a restructuring of its financial aid office and dramatically improved customer service without adding additional staff members or making significant changes to the budget. We turned to Chris Gormley, Gettysburg’s director of financial aid, to learn more about her approach, and in our conversation Gormley highlighted several misconceptions about moving to a customer service approach in the financial aid office. Misconception No. 1: The Talent Needed “So many offices hire staff trained in financial aid administration, rather than hiring for specific skill sets. I came to financial aid from student accounts, where I had worked as a functional analyst, and then I trained in the financial aid knowledge I needed. Hire for skill sets first; you can train knowledge.” Chris Gormley, Gettysburg College Gormley adds this example. One of her current assistant directors was originally employed in the admissions office; Gormley hired her because of her customer service skills and her holistic understanding of the entire admissions/enrollment process, then trained her in financial aid management. Another of Gormley’s assistant directors came to her with ten […]

Revitalizing Your Phonathon Effort

Often you hear that “the phonathon is dead”; perceived barriers to bringing in dollars through your phonathon include fewer alumni owning phones, fewer alumni answering the phone, and the difficulty of maintaining an accurate database of cell numbers. Yet a small number of institutions have seen some significant success in approaching their phonathon effort in new ways — among them, the University of Southern Mississippi. This week, we turned to Jessica Cloud, who administers a comprehensive annual giving program for the University of Southern Mississippi Foundation, to see what might be learned from the success of her phonathon program. Academic Impressions (AI): Jessica, thanks for joining us for this interview. How do you revitalize the phonathon effort? Jessica Cloud (JC): It has to start with the data — take some time to pull any reports you can and digest that data. Make connections between your policy decisions and the statistics. How can you then change your approach to move those statistics in a favorable direction? Rolling out new policies at the beginning of the year is best. Old callers can have a re-orientation session where they agree to the new rules and methods. New callers will not know any different. […]

The Student-to-Alumni Transition: Are You Missing These Opportunities?

To develop a stronger donor pipeline, the key is to start earlier. However, institutions attempting to raise giving rates for young alumni are often rebuffed. In a study of the attitudes of young alumni conducted in 2010, the Engagement Strategies Group confirmed that the majority of young alumni are reluctant to give due to high tuition costs and a lack of understanding of how institutions of higher education are funded and how institutions do (and don’t) draw on endowment spending to finance their needs. Colleges and universities need to solicit more support from their former students, but what such reports demonstrate is that the best opportunity to create an ambassador for your institution is to cultivate them while they are still students on campus. It is more expensive and much more difficult for the development office to build relationships after commencement. Yet most institutions still treat student philanthropy and annual giving as separate programs, rendering the transition from student giver to alumni donor more problematic. To take a closer look at some of the missed opportunities, we turned this week to Elise Betz, executive director for alumni relations at the University of Pennsylvania, who heads up a key example of […]

Taking the Next Step with Early Alert Programs: From Reactive to Proactive

Early alert programs have been emerging on college campuses for the last 10 years to varying degrees of success. Too often after the initial startup, many early alert programs fail to fully meet their designed purpose of identifying and reaching out to academically at-risk students — in part because these programs are often focused on reactive rather than proactive identification and outreach, relying heavily on faculty to provide a “single stream” approach to flagging at-risk students. This week, we reached out to two of the architects of Arkansas State University’s forward-thinking approach to early alert: Jill Simons, executive director of Arkansas State’s University College, and Darla Fletcher, director of technology services and support. Fletcher and Simons provide three key pieces of advice for making an early alert program truly effective: Use predictive modeling to proactively identify and reach out to your most at-risk students. Empower students to self-identify and self-report when they may be at risk. Reach out to your most successful, not just your least successful students, celebrating milestones in their progress toward their degree. Let’s take a closer look. Use Predictive Modeling Mining your data is key. Simons speaks to the importance of moving to a “pre-emptive” approach […]