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The Chief of Staff and the Presidential Transition

In this series, we’ve talked about how the chief of staff can operate as an effective liaison, what qualities presidents desire in the chief of staff, and where new chiefs of staff could look for resources. Now, in our seventh article, we want to ask: How does the chief of staff’s role change during a presidential transition, and what key steps does a chief of staff need to take? In this series of articles, experienced chiefs of staff offer critical advice on managing the chief of staff role. We will share their answers to questions such as these: Contributors to this series include: We hope you will enjoy the series and share each article with your peers. If you find these articles useful, please consider attending and learning from these and other experts at these virtual trainings: Today, here is the seventh installment in our series: 7. What Steps Does the Chief of Staff Need to Take During a Presidential Transition? Academic Impressions. What are one to two key steps chiefs of staff must take in order to best serve their institution during presidential transitions? What sometimes gets missed? Karen Whitney, President Emeritus, Clarion University. To best serve the institution during a […]

When the Chief of Staff Needs to Handle a Crisis

In this series, we’ve talked about how the chief of staff can operate as an effective liaison, what qualities presidents desire in the chief of staff, and where new chiefs of staff could look for resources. Now, in our sixth article, we want to ask: What are key skills that chiefs of staff need to build in order to best handle crises on campus? In this series of articles, experienced chiefs of staff offer critical advice on managing the chief of staff role. We will share their answers to questions such as these: Contributors to this series include: We hope you will enjoy the series and share each article with your peers. If you find these articles useful, please consider attending and learning from these and other experts at these virtual trainings: Today, here is the sixth installment in our series: 6. What Skills Does the Chief of Staff Need in a Crisis? Academic Impressions. What are key skills that chiefs of staff need to build in order to best handle crises on campus? Chris Romano, Ramapo College. Here are 3 skills that are essential for chiefs of staff to have in order to best handle crises on campus: 1) Relationship management […]

Tackling the Challenge (and the Stigma) of Student Food Insecurity

by Heather Fernandez

In 12 years, the number of food pantries on college campuses has grown from 1 to 700. However, due to the cultural stigma of facing hunger, the existence of a food pantry, by itself, does not solve the issue of student food insecurity. In early 2019, the Hope Center reported that up to 45% of today’s higher education students face food insecurity. Many colleges and universities are responding to this alarming number by creating on campus food pantries to meet students’ dietary needs. In 2007, the College and University Food Bank Alliance knew of only one food pantry operating on a college campus. As of October 2019, the Government Accountability Office estimated that this number had grown to more than 700! While this growth is remarkable, the existence of a food pantry does not guarantee that food-insecure students are receiving the assistance that they need. The cultural stigma associated with facing hunger in the United States, of being seen by their peers receiving free food, can discourage students from utilizing on-campus pantries. The fear of stigma leaves administrators tasked with pantry operation with some difficult logistical choices: While conducting research into the many challenges of addressing food insecurity in higher […]

Our Lost Colleges

by Marcel J. Dumestre, Ed.D.

Amid rising public doubt about the continued accessibility of US post-secondary institutions, university leaders need to think differently about how they operate. Until that happens, our colleges will remain lost in a fog of cultural skepticism about higher education. Here are questions every institution’s leaders need to be asking. A friend’s daughter applied to 10 universities last year. All of the institutions offered admission. But financial aid packages were a different matter. One top-ranked state university sent her an offer with this punch line: your net tuition for this year is 0. Wonderful, but the breakdown included $2,500 for work study and a $59,000 loan requirement. In other words, she would have nearly free tuition, room and board, while in school, but after graduation a $236,000 student loan debt would become due. How could an admissions officer craft such an insensitive and misleading financial aid letter? William Bennett claimed to know the answer. In 1987, as Secretary of Education he wrote a combative NY Times op-ed titled “Our Greedy Colleges.” He argued that higher education has no incentive for operating efficiently because government guaranteed loans cover escalating tuition prices. His contention became known as the “Bennett Hypothesis.” Thirty years later, […]

Looking at 2020: How is Annual Giving Changing?

by Brian Daugherty

Many annual giving shops struggle with stagnant or underperforming annual giving programs, trapped in traditional approaches that work a little less effectively with each passing year. As we look forward, we wanted to invite a panel of experts to share their perspective on the changing landscape of annual giving. We asked three questions of Dan Frezza, associate vice president for lifetime philanthropic engagement and annual giving at William & Mary; Molly Robbins, director of institutional advancement at Gladwyne Montessori School; and Melissa Rowan, assistant vice president for strategic initiatives at Iowa State University: Here is what they shared with us. They will also be speaking on these topics in depth at our next Institute for Annual Giving. 1. How is the landscape of annual giving changing?  Dan Frezza. Annual giving at one point in time was considered the “first stop” for higher education fundraising.  Inarguably, this was the case due to many factors.  Ranging from career trajectory to pipeline development, it all began with annual giving, and the horizon seemed more impressive to the onlooker than the foreground. Not much has changed in today’s modern world of fundraising – with the exception of one critical difference.  Investment in annual giving […]

Showing First Generation Students They Belong at Your University

by Elizabeth Ross Hubbell, Daniel Fusch

The first generation college student often feels alone in navigating the processes and culture of higher education. In this article, we wanted to highlight some of the programs that are making them feel welcome. The challenges first-gen students face are well-documented, as is their determination and grit. Their presence at our colleges and universities represents one of the best things about American higher education—the way it gives students an open door to create more opportunities for themselves and their families. Yet, one of the pervasive obstacles and the most difficult to battle is the feeling of “I don’t belong here.” Surrounded by other students who appear to navigate college smoothly and have a wealth of family advice and experience they can draw upon, the first-generation student can feel alone. Often, first-generation students don’t realize how many of their peers are also the first in their families to attend. First-generation can easily be an invisible identity. In the U.S., November 8 is National #CelebrateFirstGen Day. Last year, to celebrate, we shared this article with you, in which our staff offered advice for other first-generation students. This year, we wanted to reach out to ask our colleagues at several universities what they […]

Finding the Leaders We Don’t Know We Have

by Patrick Sanaghan

To meet the challenges facing higher education, we need to start finding leaders who don’t fit the charismatic stereotype. A recent program developed in the for-profit sector may provide a model for finding our colleagues who have enormous potential for leadership but who frequently remain invisible to us. Patrick Sanaghan explains. Several years ago, a corporate client with whom I had a long working relationship contacted me with an unusual request. He said, “I want you to find the leaders in my organization that we don’t know we have.” I was immediately drawn in by this counter-intuitive notion. This leader had built a robust and successful organization over twenty years and was smart enough to know that leadership didn’t reside only at the senior levels of his company. He had invested his money, time, and attention to developing distributed leadership throughout the organization, but he wanted to dig deeper. He told me, “I know we have really good leaders here, but they aren’t enough. We need more and better ones if we are going to stay competitive. I want you to help me find those leaders who are hidden from us.” Finding the “Stylistic Invisibles” I agreed to help with […]

5 Steps Any University Can Take to Develop Student Leaders

Beyond a workshop, what does developing student leaders effectively look like? The former president of Nichols College shares 5 quick steps any college can take – followed by advice on how to take student leadership development to the next level. by Susan West Engelkemeyer, Former President, Nichols College At many colleges and universities, student leadership development programming is limited or localized to an office in the student affairs division. Yet we know that leadership is one of the core capacities that employers (and society) require of our graduates in the 21st century. Leadership development should be integrated throughout the curriculum and co-curricular experience, for all students. We have been working on that integration systemically at Nichols College, but you don’t have to systemically re-imagine your general education curriculum in order to get started. Here are 5 things any university can do that supplement existing offerings and programs with meaningful leadership development: 1. Add a Module to Your First-Year Seminar In a course already required for first-year students, include a several-weeks-long module or two that focus on leadership practices and issues. Or offer a dedicated seminar during intercession. Having students work through case studies serves as useful format. The subjects can range […]

Why So Many Abrupt Exits for University Presidents? And How Can We Prevent Them?

by Patrick Sanaghan, Steven E. Titus, J.D., Ph.D., Karen M. Whitney, EdD

At four institutions, a university president exited abruptly – in a single week in June. What causes such abrupt departures? And how can they be prevented? On June 24, 2019, campus leaders and stakeholders awoke to find out that four campus presidents (Auburn, Bennett, Marist, Mullenberg) “were out, without notice or explanation”—to quote the headline Inside Higher Ed ran that day. Each president was in office less than three years.  This was startling news. Thursday that week, a fifth president “resigned,” from Hollins University. That’s a lot of exits and resignations in a single week. We believe we will continue to see more of these unexplained departures. Unfortunately, we can no longer afford them. A sudden and unexplained exit creates havoc for a campus, leaving stakeholders left in the dark, wondering what happened and plagued with unanswered questions: Why didn’t they see the warning signs? Could they have helped prevent the departure? Why did the board dismiss the president? Who will be the next president, and will they be successful under these difficult circumstances? Who would want to step in after such a sudden departure? (Will we get anyone good?) This atmosphere of instability, confusion, and even fear is not […]

The Urgent Need to Reduce Workplace Bullying on Campus

While some colleges and universities are developing workplace bullying prevention programs (we’ll list examples in a minute), it is evident that we have a lot of work yet to do. And this work needs to be done; unaddressed, workplace bullying impacts the processes of tenure and promotion, the collegiality of the department, and the academic freedom of its junior members. In this article, find out what a policy should include, and what institutions have existing policies you can learn from. by Clara Wajngurt, Ph.D. What is workplace bullying? By this term, we’re referring to hostile behavior that includes repeated harrassment, physical harm, verbal abuse, or other conduct that is viewed as threatening, humiliating, intimidating, or sabotaging – behavior that interferes with the performance of the one who is being bullied. (See Namie & Namie, “Risk Factors for Becoming a Target of Workplace Bullying and Mobbing,” in M. Duffy and D. Yamada, Workplace Bullying and Mobbing in the United States, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Press, 2018, 1-17.) These are the characteristics of workplace bullying: What Workplace Bullying Looks Like in Higher Ed Imagine the following scenarios of how workplace bullying manifests itself in an academic setting. SCENARIO AA unit director submits […]