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5 Steps to Boost Your Alumni Volunteer Engagement

by Courtney Yuen

The University at Buffalo’s alumni volunteer teams have seen a big increase in participation and engagement. Here’s what they’re doing differently. When Clayton Connor looks at his volunteer management calendar he channels his inner Hollywood mogul. “We always liken it to a movie studio that comes out with a big blockbuster every three or four months,” he said. As the Assistant Director for Constituent and Alumni Engagement at the University at Buffalo, keeping his “audience” interested is crucial. In his eyes, big volunteer opportunities are feature films primed to make an impact. “They’re the tent-pole movies. There’s a big summer movie and then when the holidays come around there’s another big movie to keep their viewers engaged,” said Connor. “We try to do the same thing with our volunteers.” He spaces out the big opportunities or “blockbusters” every three months and then sprinkles in smaller opportunities throughout the year. This way the University of Buffalo is always top of mind for their alumni. A More Planful Approach to Volunteer Management When he started in this role two years ago, he saw there was a need to have a better developed plan for volunteer management. Connor, like anyone else managing volunteers, was […]

Checklist: Preparing Adjunct Faculty to Teach Online

Department chairs and program directors are busy people, and orienting adjunct faculty may not be top of mind. But adjuncts who are teaching online for the first time need support and information to hit the ground running. Here is a quick checklist of items to cover with first-time online instructors. by Teresa Focarile, Boise State University(who also wrote: “Adjunct Faculty: A Department Chair’s Guide to Orienting New Instructors“) Many institutions are expanding their online course offerings, and using adjunct faculty to do so. While these faculty members are often teaching from a master course and therefore are not responsible for developing the class, there is still important information about teaching online that needs to be shared with these new instructors in order for them to be effective online teachers, and to ensure they understand the expectations for teaching in your program (Larcara, 2011). Checklist Some items on this checklist might already be in place. For example, most institutions have a team that can get adjunct faculty up to speed on the functionality of the Learning Management System (LMS). In addition, many institutions have developed trainings (sometimes mandatory) for faculty who teach online. But if your institution does not have those kinds […]

Challenging Androcentrism in the Academy: Creating Environments that Empower Risk Taking and Confidence in Women Leaders

In a culture of androcentrism, women are likely to be stymied by a reluctance to take risks. Moreover, women who have a well-developed sense of confidence often present it differently from men. How do we shift the culture within our institutions? by Rosalind Spigel, Organizational Development Consultant and Leadership Coach, Spigel Consulting  In this fifth article in our series on Challenging Androcentrism in the Academy, we’ll look at a set of leadership traits and behaviors we identified earlier in the series: confidence, achievement drive, and tempering assertiveness. If you find this article useful, you may also be interested in the upcoming conference Women’s Leadership Success in Higher Education. Confidence “Confidence isn’t optimism or pessimism, and it’s not a character attribute. It’s the expectation of a positive outcome.” ― Rosabeth Moss Kanter In an androcentric, male-dominated setting, women are likely to be stymied by a reluctance to take risks. When someone fears she will be judged differently, she is less likely to go out on a limb, step up, or raise her hand. For this reason, going for an assignment without knowing in advance exactly how to accomplish it generally takes more courage for a woman. Research shows that this confidence gap between […]

How Strategic Planning Can Bridge the Divide Between Athletics and Academics

by Ken Halpin

Every college and university that sponsors intercollegiate athletics, at any level, must come to grips with how that division fits into the overall mission of the institution. And, at the same time, athletics must work to integrate itself into the university’s culture. One way to achieve that is to embark on a highly collaborative strategic planning process. Part of the Institution, Yet a World Apart The academic community often perceives the intercollegiate athletics division as a separate world: Athletics has “admissions criteria” distinct from the institution’s.  Students will not be recruited to become student-athletes without demonstrating some athletic ability in addition to their academic accomplishments. In many cases, the athletic facilities, which often take up a fair amount of real estate, tend to be grouped together in a remote part of campus creating the impression of an athletics “fiefdom.” While anyone can walk into the library or the student center, it is perceived that not everyone can walk into the athletics department. Although this is a perception and not a reality, it does foster an “us vs. them” mentality. At institutions with higher profile athletic departments, additional challenges like larger marketing and advertising budgets or the continual purchase of big-ticket […]

Managing the Donor and Alumni Database: The 3 Biggest Challenges

by Sasha Wedekind

Managing the donor database and tracking your alumni data is complex. Here is a quick look at the three most common challenges with alumni data–and what is keeping our advancement operations from doing better. Recently I spoke with two dozen advancement services professionals to get a more defined sense of what is most challenging in managing the alumni database–and why. I’ve summarized what I learned in the following graphic: Problem #1: The Wrong Data What are people doing now?Everyone I spoke with mentioned the same key challenge: having wrong information on alumni, particularly addresses, emails, and employment history. This is a major problem; without accurate contact information, advancement shops cannot communicate with their constituents. This challenge is particularly applicable to young alumni data, since many young alums do not update their addresses through the Postal Service (US universities can verify alumni addresses through the Postal Service Change of and have multiple email accounts, many of which they don’t check. What stops people from doing better?The root of the problem is that alumni do not inform their institutions about changes to their contact information. Secondarily, universities do not currently have an efficient way of finding correct information and monitoring all of their […]

Share This Advice with Your First Generation College Students

The first generation college student often feels alone in navigating the processes and procedures of higher education. Here is some advice from staff at Academic Impressions who were first generation themselves. Share this with the students on your campus! by the Staff at Academic Impressions “My interest in higher education is a deeply personal one,” our president at Academic Impressions, Amit Mrig, relates. “My family is here in this country because my father had an opportunity many years ago to come to this country and be afforded a scholarship. He didn’t have any money, any resources to warrant that opportunity other than his intelligence and his hard work. In my mind, that is what the American dream is. Anyone who has the determination, the drive, and the intelligence should have an opportunity to move up the social ladder. The engine that drives that is higher education.” Today, November 8, is #CelebrateFirstGen Day. One of the amazing things about higher education in the U.S. is the doors it opens for families who have never been to college; our hope is that higher education will remain the engine of social mobility in this country. In that spirit, our team shares the following stories […]

College Student Mental Health Statistics and What They Really Mean

by Sarah Seigle Peatman

There has been a lot of media attention to college student mental health statistics and to the upsurge in demand for mental health services. But does the data really suggest a mental health “crisis”? What does the upsurge actually mean for postsecondary institutions? Where do we need to shift the conversation, and what do we need to do next? Learn more in the infographic and article below. What the Upsurge in Demand for Mental Health Services Means (and Doesn’t Mean) The first thing I want to underscore is that institutions are facing an unprecedented level of demand from students seeking help and support for mental health issues. Counseling centers are not new on campus–and mental health services are certainly not new–but the upsurge in volume from students accessing these services is. The two main presenting issues we’re seeing in students are anxiety and depression. The other issue institutions are concerned about but that is statistically much less frequent is suicidality. If you read the press on this topic, there are a lot of articles that emphasize the number of college students committing suicide. That’s obviously a horrible mental health outcome and something institutions are investing prevention and education efforts around, […]

What is the Blockchain and How Can It Transform Higher Education?

by Alicia Miranda, M.S.

What is blockchain? As academic leaders, you want to stay on top of what’s coming next. And the blockchain could transform how colleges and universities operate in 5 critical ways. What is the Blockchain? The blockchain has been described as the new internet, the next generation of data and information. As a digital ledger that allows data to be dispersed across different users and user systems via cryptography, the blockchain allows for “trustless commerce in a trusted way,” according to one leading blockchain expert. That means you do not have to know the person on the other end of a transaction in order to know the transaction is secure and permanent. The technology takes care of that for you. Most people who have heard about the blockchain know of it because they’ve heard of cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin or Ether. Blockchain is the technology that enables cryptocurrencies, but it has potential uses far beyond just Bitcoin. Leading expert Michael L. Mathews, vice president of innovation and technology at Oral Roberts University, suggests that the basic concept of blockchain technology has already been proven by the US Library of Congress’ use of MARC codes. These codes ensure that each item exists as […]

Research Grants: Which Colleges are Getting Them?

Research grants are increasingly competitive, and our analysis shows that just the top 50 colleges and universities account for nearly two thirds of research expenditures in the U.S. by Sasha Egorova, Research Analyst, Academic Impressions A Disparity in Research Grants More higher ed institutions, including predominantly teaching universities, are facing a push to increase their research activity. Higher research expenditures mean prestige and contributions to economic development and innovation. However, breaking into this highly competitive space is a challenging endeavor. The current research environment in the US is as competitive as ever. Federal funding rates have been consistently declining over the past decades. For example, the NIH funding success rate has decreased from 31% in 1998 to 19% in 2017. The NSF funding rate has been hovering around 23% in the past couple of years. The increase in competition has been caused and amplified by multiple factors, including flat federal research budgets. Other key factors, though, include: Taken all together, this means that 1 in 4 federal proposals gets funded, and the winning proposal is most likely to have come from a top 50 research university. In Canada the competition for funding is not as fierce, with the government making […]

Retaining Your Major Gift Officers—From Day One

by Dr. Joshua Jacobs

Retaining major gift officers begins on day one—with how you onboard them and connect them with key networks across the institution. A formal process for major gift officer training is one of the key factors in their success that is also within your control. In my article “Recruiting the Right Major Gift Officers,” I encouraged managers to define the specific skills they are hiring for—and seek non-traditional candidates for major gift officers. Now I would like to encourage you to rethink how you onboard and support your major gift officers in ways that encourage their success and retention from day one. Major gift officers, due to their sporadic attendance in the office, need as much clarity as possible, and this is especially true if you are hiring non-traditional candidates who are new to both the work and the institution. This means more than just ensuring that you have a formalized onboarding and training process (one that communicates the unit philosophy, establishes a common foundation of expectations, and outlines options for potential professional development) and clear performance expectations for both input metrics (e.g., contacts, substantive visits, number and value of asks made, and office attitude/collegiality) and output metrics (e.g., dollars raised, […]