Category: Blog

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 […]

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 […]

Expanding the Reach of Your Alumni Events through Social Media and Mobile Technologies

Social media and mobile technologies offer low-cost opportunities to increase the impact of your alumni events, because you can extend the reach of your current efforts to online alumni communities such as a Facebook alumni group or Twitter feed. Andrew Gossen, senior director for social media strategy for alumni affairs and development at Cornell University, advises: “Our engagement efforts and our annual cycle is built around offline, physical events … reunion, homecoming, etc. … and our staffing is often allocated to serve those events. We support the growth of alumni communities and clubs because they connect alumni to each other and to the university in beneficial ways. We need to think about online communities in the same way, and find opportunities to extend what we are already doing.” Expanding the Footprint of Your Annual Events Asked for examples, Gossen illustrates how an alumni relations office might employ social media tools to enhance and extend the reach of a reunion event: Beyond just tweeting and posting reminders about the upcoming event, use a Twitter hashtag to encourage conversation among alumni before they arrive on campus Tweet actively to a backchannel during the event Have staff – or trusted volunteers – active […]

Five Experts on the Need for Annual Giving Planning

For most shops, the past several years have been a financial roller coaster for annual giving numbers. As annual giving recovers momentum this year, now is the right time to invest time and energy in planning for the long term. One of the most critical lessons that can be learned from the past few years is the importance of not remaining at the mercy of macro-level trends in giving. Rather than invest in the same efforts year after year, take a proactive approach to annual giving planning so that you can deploy your solicitation tools in support of specific, long-term goals. This week, we reached out to five leading thinkers on the issue to learn more about the shift in thinking that needs to occur in order to position the annual fund strongly for the future: Jessica Neno Cloud, assistant director for fundraising initiatives and planned giving for the University of Southern Mississippi Foundation Brian Daugherty, director of development and alumni relations for the School of Law at the University of San Diego Heather Grieg, interim senior director for Georgetown University Medical Center’s annual fund Chris Harmon, leadership giving officer with Gettysburg College Janine Kraus, assistant vice chancellor for annual […]

Survey Report: Customer Service in Higher Education

2012. Academic Impressions surveyed professionals from 79 institutions of higher education, asking them to grade their institution’s level of customer service and to comment on the challenges faced in improving it. The responses were revealing. A “C” in Customer Service 29 of our respondents rated their institution with a “B” letter grade for level of service offered, and 31 would assign a “C” grade (together accounting for three quarters of the total responses). Only 6 would assign an “A.” Among those who assigned a failing grade and those who assigned a C, a shared litany of common complaints emerges: Many of the respondents emphasized that front-line staff are focused on completion of tasks rather than achievement of (student-centered) outcomes, and lack the time and the perspective to provide better service to students. When asked to describe how they see exemplary customer service, overwhelmingly, the respondents focused on responsiveness. And while some respondents cited the need for a “friendly” attitude, among many there is a growing awareness that providing effective service to students has less to do with targeting “customer satisfaction” through an improved demeanor and more to do with eliminating wait times, shortening lines, and ensuring that students receive the […]

Supporting Adjunct Faculty: An Investment in Your Instructors, an Investment in Your Students

A 2010 US Department of Education study found that adjunct instructors teach 60% of the college courses in the US. They represent a critical first line of instruction for many students, yet often receive minimal faculty development and minimal institutional support for serving students. This week, we interviewed Jennifer Strickland, the interim director for Mesa Community College’s Center for Teaching and Learning, which supports the college’s 300+ residential faculty and 1100+ adjunct faculty. We asked Strickland why the issue of adjunct support should be accorded some urgency – and what forms of support she has found to be most needed in order to improve teaching and learning, as well as retention of adjunct faculty. The Need for a Shift in Institutional Culture Strickland argues that providing adjunct faculty with few resources to improve pedagogy and limited logistical support doesn’t serve students well. While the rationale for this has to do with the level of investment in contingent versus full-time faculty, what is actually at stake is the level of investment in the student. Strickland notes the example of institutions at which part-time faculty lack an office (even a shared one) and a phone line on campus-–curtailing their ability to offer […]

Examples of Innovations with Mobile Technologies

Here is a showcase of examples from different institutions that have found relatively inexpensive ways to use mobile devices to add real value to key interactions with students and alumni — for example, during the campus tour, in the classroom, and at alumni events such as reunion and homecoming. Fully Leveraging the Power of the Mobile Campus Map “Our campus footprint is tremendous. Getting onto campus as a visitor, a new student, or a new prospective faculty member, is daunting, overwhelming. Providing a mobile version of our campus map with wayfinding may sound trivial, but actually it’s critical. You can use this to create a positive first-time experience on your campus … or a positive ongoing experience.” Ted Hattemer, Ohio State U Using GPS and location-based technology, you can offer a mobile app that not only pinpoints where a visitor or member of your campus community is, but also provides wayfinding information. The possibilities are extensive. Ted Hattemer and Brett Pollak offer these examples: Chart different possible routes onto and through campus. Offer GPS tracking on campus or city buses, so that a student can access realtime data on where the next bus is, and how long it will take […]

Moving to a Mobile-Enabled Approach

Post-secondary institutions are traditionally both risk averse and slow adopters of new technologies. In facing the rapid adoption rate of mobile technologies by the general population, it can be difficult to know where to start and how to know whether your initial efforts are working. But this is the time to jump in and learn. These technologies are evolving, and your institution will need to evolve with them—but you will only be positioned to do so if you are already working with these technologies, testing what is and isn’t effective for your students and alumni, and working proactively to identify those opportunities to leverage mobile technologies to move your institution forward—whether in recruitment, teaching and learning, or advancement. “Don’t be afraid to get started. It’s easy to get afraid because things are moving so fast. But if you don’t jump in, you are really just doing a disservice to your end users, your students and your alumni. At least you can be addressing their needs and moving in the right direction, even if you need to evolve over time. Mobile devices aren’t going away, and you need to keep your website and your other interactions with students relevant and accessible […]

Adopting Mobile: Reasons for Urgency

But how urgent is it to move on mobile technologies? Let’s review the data. Mobile Technologies in the Eyes of Students and Alumni In June 2010, Ball State University released a study showing that of college students owning phones, 49% owned smartphones. An ECAR report released a few weeks ago documented that this number has since risen to 62% — showing a rapid rise in adoption. A study by the Pearson Foundation found that a quarter of college students owned a tablet as of January 2012, a population that has been growing at 400% yearly. Projections by technology researchers over the past year confirm the immediacy of this trend: In a May 2011 survey, Gartner Inc. reported that the amount of time people currently spend reading on a digital screen is nearly equal to the amount of time spent reading print IDC reported last year that by 2015 in the US, more people will access online content through mobile devices than through wired Internet connections According to a 2012 survey released a few weeks ago from ECAR, 75% of students surveyed indicate they believe that technology is critical to their academic success; 45% cited tablets as important to helping them […]

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