August 2011. Institutional marketing departments are increasingly asked to be all things to all people and are frequently under-resourced and under-staffed. In order to be effective and meet the competing demands of various campus constituents, department heads need to think creatively and strategically about structure, staffing models, and resource allocation. We turned this week to Elizabeth […]
August 2011. A growing number of colleges and universities have launched pilot projects to test how the iPad might be used to produce a positive impact on student learning and engagement. Pepperdine University has just completed the first two terms of its three-term iPad Research Initiative (consisting of classroom observations, surveys, and focus groups), looking at how students are […]
August 4, 2011. Living-learning communities offer high potential for boosting the academic success and the education of the whole student, but they also present your campus with unique challenges because of the coordination they require between academic affairs and student services at your institution. The National Study of Living-Learning Programs (NSLLP) has begun documenting how living-learning […]
July 28, 2011. The past decade has seen a plethora of research studies attempting to document the impact of online learning on measures of academic success and student persistence. The studies often produce widely divergent results, in part because institutions vary dramatically in the level of support and preparation they offer to both students and faculty. […]
July 28, 2011. According to a national survey of higher education alumni conducted by the Collaborative Innovation Network for Engagement and Giving and presented to the Annual Giving Directors Consortium (April 2010), only 52 percent of alumni at those institutions with the highest alumni participation rates believe their alma mater keeps them closely connected and values […]
July 28, 2011. As advancement shops in higher education struggle with a slow economic recovery, it is increasingly important to build staff metrics that encourage effective work. Tracking meaningful metrics beyond dollars raised can empower you to: Reward high performers, making it easier to retain your best officers Identify training needs Incentivize cross-boundary work toward shared […]
Given the lower retention rates of first-generation students, more colleges and universities are devoting attention to how best to aid the success and persistence of this cohort. To learn more about how higher ed institutions can respond to the issue, we turned this week to Thom Golden, senior associate director of admissions at Vanderbilt University […]
Telling the story of your institution’s sustainability efforts to key stakeholders is a critical step both for building momentum and support for an initiative, and for leveraging your successes to solicit both engagement and funding from your constituents. When Academic Impressions surveyed a number of the nation’s leaders in campus sustainability, we found that one […]
July 7, 2011. In a climate of increased demand for online courses and increased federal scrutiny of regulatory compliance, it is increasingly critical that colleges and universities ensure the accessibility of their online course materials for students with disabilities — and not only for online courses, but also for classes held in the physical classroom that direct […]
(An earlier version of this article ran in April 2010.) With the percentage of students who are taking online courses rising rapidly (a 17% increase in 2009 alone), improving completion rates for online students (many of whom are returning, adult learners) will likely become a key priority for higher education. In an interview with Academic […]
