Category: Research & Reports

Special Report: Why Donor Relations is the Next Game-Changer

Donor Relations: A Strategic Asset to Your Fundraising Program The field of donor relations has undergone a transformative few years. In the summer of 2014, we embarked on a comprehensive survey of more than 300 chief advancement officers at higher ed institutions and discovered more shops making a significant investment in their donor relations programs. With 35% of shops nationwide reporting making a ‘strong’ or ‘very strong’ investment in donor relations in FY2015, compared to 27% in FY2014, now is the time to consider your donor relations program and ensure it is strategically designed to support all of your advancement efforts. This research brief includes key data from our survey as well as a few excerpts from our most popular articles highlighting how donor relations can strategically support all of your fundraising efforts. Read the brief. __________________________ See Upcoming Advancement Events

10 Ways Leadership Development Programs Fail in Higher Ed

Diagnosing Leadership Development Programs In the past decade, institutions of all types and sizes have started in-house leadership development programs—programs aimed at developing key faculty, staff, and administrators. While building in-house leadership development programs is a critical long-term strategy, these investments are not without risk. These programs often come at considerable cost and can potentially alienate some members of campus who are not selected to participate. To set programs up for long-term success, campus officials need to be cognizant of common pitfalls that derail a program or limit its effectiveness. In this paper, we review ten of the most common ways internal leadership development programs fail and some strategies to deal with them. Read the paper. Come to the Conference Get more out of the time and resources you spend developing your faculty and staff. At our Building an In-House Leadership Development Program in Higher Education conference, join us for a one-of-a-kind program that will help ensure your in-house leadership development program is highly effective and impactful over the long-term. We will cover key components of organizing your LDP as well as dozens of resources and activities that you can incorporate in your program. See Other Topics in Leadership

Preparing Tomorrow’s Leaders: Leadership Coaching in Higher Education

Spotlight on Leaders in Transition In this paper, leadership experts Beth Weinstock and Patrick Sanaghan walk you through: Benefit in this paper from Weinstock and Sanaghan’s combined fifty years of experience working to develop higher-ed leaders. Read the paper. Academic Impressions Provides Coaching That’s Specific to Higher Ed – Find Out More

Small but Mighty: 4 Small Colleges Thriving in a Disruptive Environment

by Amit Mrig

Bucking the National Trend In this new paper from Academic Impressions, learn how four small colleges have bucked the national trend of enrollment decline, by: Profiled in this paper: _____________________________________________________________________________ Read the paper. ______________________________________________________________________________ Continue this Conversation If you: Contact amit@academicimpressions.com. We would love to continue this conversation with you. See Other Topics in Leadership

Higher Ed is Facing Adaptive Changes: Why This Conversation? Why Right Now?

by Patrick Sanaghan, Jillian Lohndorf

The Changes You Face Now Are Different From the Changes in the Past We’re well-equipped, in higher education, to meet technical change head-on. We’re often less well-equipped for adaptive change. This is a distinction Ron Heifetz drew, first in his thought-provoking book Leadership without Easy Answers (1998) and later with Martin Linsky in Leadership on the Line (2002). With technical challenges, situations arise where current knowledge, expertise and resources are enough to deal effectively. A technical problem is not necessarily trivial or simple but its solution lies within the organization’s current repertoire of resources (such as updated technology, takeaways from past experience, or decisions to invest more money or people). With adaptive challenges, there are fewer clear answers. Adaptive challenges cannot be solved with current knowledge and expertise, but require experimentation, risk taking, creativity and the ability to use “failures” as learning opportunities. The problem is that we too often treat adaptive challenges as technical ones. On top of this, many people tend to resist or deny adaptive challenges (e.g., Khan Academy, MOOCs, mobile technology in the classroom) because these challenges could dramatically change the way they think and act. Often, these people expect their leaders to come up with […]

The Physical Campus: A Critical Asset, a Key Opportunity – Second Edition

This report includes four chapters: Reconsidering the Physical Campus Improvement and stewardship of the physical campus is key to your institution’s competitiveness. It is critical to treat your physical campus as a resource, and manage it effectively and efficiently. With more intentional management of your facilities, you can: Yet too often, institutions make ad hoc and reactive decisions. And just as often, critical decisions are made without all of the key voices at the table — from academic leaders to the registrar, student housing, and facilities management. For this report, we’ve interviewed officials from across the college campus who have shown proven success in fostering cross-campus planning and buy-in around investments in physical facilities. These experts from the trenches bring outside-the-box thinking and a strategic, proactive perspective. We hope their advice will be useful to you. Read the report

The State of Professional Development in Higher Education

For twelve years, Academic Impressions has been assembling many of the leading experts in higher education to teach and facilitate webcasts, conferences, and workshops to develop critical skills and knowledge in the staff who are committed to helping change their institutions—to make higher education more sustainable for the future. We believe passionately that professional development is key to helping higher-ed professionals prepare for both the threats and the opportunities of the years ahead. Earlier this year, we surveyed higher-ed professionals to learn: We surveyed a random sampling of higher-ed professionals; 501 responded. In this report, we share our findings. Read the report

4 Blind Spots Colleges Miss in Revising General Education

by Amit Mrig, Daniel Fusch

AN IN-DEPTH STUDY OF GENERAL EDUCATION REVISION In 2013, Academic Impressions conducted a survey of 308 post-secondary institutions and conducted select follow-up interviews to learn more about how US and Canadian institutions are seeking to revise their core curriculums. We presented our findings and several case studies in our paper General Education Reform: Unseen Opportunities, and based on our research, we designed an intensive and highly acclaimed conference for institutions seeking to revise general education. The article that follows is based on an excerpt from our 2013 paper. Based on our 2013 research into 308 post-secondary institutions in North America, we have identified several common “blind spots” in general education revision—decision points that most curriculum committees skip. We have also identified a handful of institutions that didn’t skip these critical steps, and that were able to develop a more holistic and impactful core curriculum. We hope that this article and our other resources on general education will help you learn from their successes! Blind Spot 1: Are You Talking to Enough Faculty? When most institutions revise their general education curriculum, they don’t seek the input of external stakeholders to help define the goals and outcomes of general education programs—a critical mistake. And our research shows that even many internal stakeholders are […]

8 Keys to Improving Task Forces and Committees in Higher Education

by Amit Mrig, Patrick Sanaghan

Time is the most precious resource on campus, and it is one we can control and influence. But how closely do we manage people’s time across our institutions? What are the biggest opportunities to increase the value from someone’s time? And how do we actually derive more value? These are the questions that led us to our most recent project: examining committees and task forces. We invite you to explore what we found through this project. In this unique report, you will be a able to: Read the full report here. ___________________________________ See Upcoming Leadership Workshops

From Enrollment to Net Tuition Revenue: Where CEMs and CFOs Need to Focus

Recent studies have chronicled enrollment shortfalls and their impact on institutions across the country. Yet, given the increase in tuition discounting over recent years, it’s imperative that institutions manage the critical metric of net tuition revenue and not just enrollment numbers. This will require a more unified and methodical approach — and close collaboration between the chief enrollment officer (CEM) and chief financial officer (CFO). This paper reviews four critical areas for CEM/CFO partnership: Included in the paper are findings from a recent Academic Impressions survey of chief enrollment officers, and insights from leading experts Jim Anderson, Jon Boeckenstedt, Barbara Fritze, Daniel Konstalid, Kathy Kurz, and Lucie Lapovsky. Read the paper