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Jennifer Latino, the director of first-year experience at Campbell University, recently shared with us three ways to help peer educators succeed; in a follow-up interview, she spoke with us to identify some frequently missed opportunities in the design and execution of first-year seminars. Latino highlighted the need to: Review your own institution’s student data, rather than relying on trends or on practices from peer institutions Invite parents’ participation in the first-year student experience in meaningful ways Involve faculty more directly in the first-year seminar Keep the Focus on the Unique Needs of Your Current Students “It’s easy to get too comfortable with the first-year seminar,” Latino warns. “Often, when I’m speaking with representatives of institutions that have had seminars in place for 10 or 15 years, the missed opportunity is that institutions continue to focus on the same learning outcomes they identified years ago, without pausing to check if those outcomes still respond to the needs of their current students. It’s also a risk to attend too closely to what your peer institutions are doing — without checking that against the needs of your own student body.” Take a look at what your seminar spends the most time on — […]

  This week, we interviewed Joe Murray, the director of academic advising and retention services at Miami University Hamilton Campus, about innovations in course scheduling that can help maximize the impact of early alert intervention and proactive or intrusive advising. A number of these approaches have been piloted at Miami University or soon will be. Murray shared the following models with us. Late-Start Courses for the Core Curriculum Institutions investing in early alert intervention or intrusive advising may identify students who are underprepared for a particular course and need to switch to a different one. The problem most students in this position face is that by the time they realize this, it is too late to secure a place in another course they need and get a successful start in that course. Murray recommends offering late-start course sections that begin several weeks into the term. Many institutions offer these for elective courses, but to leverage this model in a way that supports student success, you need to offer late-start courses for your core requirements. For example, consider a student who is registered for Algebra II, and realizes two or three weeks into the term that they will need to refresh […]

As more students look to housing as a key factor in college choice, and as more research points to the impact of on-campus accommodations on retention and academic success for undergraduate students, it is increasingly important that investments in student housing not be ad hoc or merely reactive. Recently, a growing number of colleges have been considering whether to take the step of developing a housing master plan to guide expenditures in construction, renovation, and replacement of residential facilities. To learn more, we’ve turned to David Jones, the associate vice president for student affairs and enrollment management at Minnesota State University Mankato. An early adopter of master planning for university housing, Jones offers his advice about the critical steps to take when developing a housing master plan. Conduct a Facility Audit “Like any plan, the housing master plan must be based on data, and you need to have good data.” David Jones, Minnesota State University, Mankato Jones advocates beginning with a “total audit” of your space: “You need to know what you have and how you’re using it. Don’t assume that old data you have about that space is still accurate.” When the University of Alabama (Jones’ previous institution) undertook […]

“Space is a critical resource, just like your institution’s financial resources; it has to be managed effectively and used efficiently. It is an asset that you need to allocate in order to support short- and long-term priorities.” Frances Mueller, University of Michigan Institutions of higher education have a limited history of tracking and allocating their existing space effectively, but facing state budget cuts and/or rising enrollments, a handful of institutions have taken recent action to organize campus-wide space management initiatives to help reallocate prime “real estate” on campus in support of strategic priorities, looking for ways to optimize the space they already have. This is a critical step, and it involves: Acknowledging that your campus space is a strategic asset for your institution Building out a robust space database to allow for more sophisticated tracking of space utilization Taking steps to change the culture of space ownership on campus, shifting space from a departmental asset to an institutional asset Frances Mueller, project manager for the Space Utilization Initiative at the University of Michigan, and Phil Rouble, facilities planning specialist at Algonquin College, offer their advice about making this shift. Assessing Your Space Use For example, Mueller recommends assessing your use […]

“You have to be clear on the distinction between deferred maintenance and ignored maintenance, and ensure that your institution’s leadership is clear on this. Intentionally deferring needed maintenance after a careful assessment of your facilities condition is a strategy. Ignoring maintenance is a problem.”Faramarz Vakili, Associate Director of the Physical Plant, University of Wisconsin-Madison In January – February 2012, Academic Impressions conducted a benchmarking survey of facilities managers at more than 75 institutions of higher education. The results were indicative. For example, the survey confirmed that addressing deferred maintenance has moved from a worry to a priority at the majority of institutions: When we dug deeper, we found facilities managers at a variety of stages in addressing the issue — but they all feel the pressure. Some are making presentations to the board; some are proposing five-year or three-year plans for reducing the maintenance backlog. Some have succeeded in allocating a small annual budget for the purpose, and are now working to prioritize a campus’s worth of maintenance needs. It’s critical to develop a sustainable model for funding facilities replacement and renewal. To learn from successful models currently in place at two very different institutions, we turned to Faramarz Vakili, […]

In recent years, more institutions have looked for innovative, outside-the-box methods of funding their investments in the physical campus — including an array of models for public-private partnerships, mixed-use facilities, and (in a few cases) fundraising for renewal and maintenance. We asked Pete Isaac, senior project manager with Brailsford & Dunlavey, to offer his insights on trends in the lending market and what institutional leaders need to rethink in order to achieve their capital planning goals. We also invited Kambiz Khalili, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs and executive director of housing and dining services for the University of Colorado at Boulder, to share his lessons learned from CU-Boulder’s innovative approach to leveraging rate increases to avoid the bond market or having to rely entirely on private developers. Whether you turn to a public-private partnership or develop an innovative plan to leverage rate increases, the key is intentional and pro-active planning for investment in the physical campus. Public-Private Partnerships DRIVING THE PROCESS “It is critical that the institution drives the planning and development process.  This approach will yield the best return and the best results for both the institution and the institution’s potential partners.”Pete Isaac, Brailsford & Dunlavey Isaac recommends […]