News

Bootcamp for Academic Advisors: The New Skillsets

When training academic advisors at your institution, don’t overlook the relational and interpersonal skills that make great advisors. by Benjamin Forche, Academic Advisor, Patton College of Education, Ohio University, Joe Murray, MSHR, Director of University Advising Services, Florida Atlantic University, and Karen Thurmond, Director of Academic Advising and Degree Planning Resources, The University of Memphis with Daniel Fusch, Director of Research & […]

The Strategic Planning Implementation Clinic

by Patrick Sanaghan

Bogged down in implementing your strategic plan? Try this creative meeting design to get things moving. Successful execution of a strategic plan separates the excellent from the “pretty good.” Creating great “visions” and ennobling pictures of the future for a campus is not difficult. There are many smart, dedicated and hardworking faculty, staff and administrators throughout every […]

5 Reports Every Enrollment Manager Should Read

by Daniel Fusch, Sarah Seigle Peatman

by Daniel Fusch and Sarah Seigle, Academic Impressions As we start the new calendar year, it’s an excellent time to step back and read ahead. What is the newest data on college enrollment and student demographic trends? On financial aid? On retention? On international students? Because we know you’re busy, we’ve taken a moment to […]

5 Articles Everyone in Your Annual Giving Office Should Read

by Gwen Doyle Herbert, Daniel Fusch

As we start a new year, and as many shops are starting planning for the next fiscal year, there continues to be a pressing need to strengthen the donor pipeline, and often annual giving is under increased pressure to build this sustainable pipeline for future philanthropic efforts. Consider the example of Michael Bloomberg, who gave […]

Best of AI: 11 Recorded Webinars

  Here are a few samples from our digital library of hundreds of higher-ed professional development webinars and recorded online trainings. You might know Academic Impressions from our comprehensive library of complimentary articles, papers, and reports or from our higher education professional development conferences and workshops. What you may not know is that our small […]

6 Powerful Ideas for Building a First-Class Team on Campus

by Patrick Sanaghan, Clint Sidle

Why You Need a Stellar Team To build a high performing team is a daunting and noble task, and such teams are as rare as blue diamonds. The silo mentality that often exists on our campuses often limits our collective actions, and creates redundancy and replication. Given shrinking resources and the rapid pace of change, […]

The Small College Turnaround: Counter-Intuitive Lessons from the Success of Anoka Tech

by Donald Lewis, Julie Myers

with Daniel Fusch and Amit Mrig contributing (Academic Impressions) The Story: A Remarkable Turnaround Anoka Technical College recently instated an annual collaborative budgeting process that took the college from a projected $1.4 million operating budget deficit over two years to a $500,000 (and growing) operating surplus. The process by which we did this was counter-intuitive […]

Leveraging a Donor Network to Fund Innovation: Lessons Learned from the Success of the Jefferson Trust

by Daniel Fusch

University budgets are tight, so how do you set aside funding for innovation? Here’s one strategy from the University of Virginia, which has issued 141 grants in a little over a decade to fund strategic projects at the institution. In an earlier paper, we highlighted several distinct approaches institutions had taken to setting aside funds […]

3 Ways to Rethink Career Services and Post-College Outcomes

by Lisa Cook

Tracking post-college outcomes continues to be an urgent issue as students, parents, and lawmakers press colleges to quantify the value of a college degree. Tracking results, however, is only half the battle, says Branden Grimmett, associate provost for the Office of Career and Professional Development at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.  Institutions that want […]

Can Confusion Be an Asset and a Resource for a Leader?

by Patrick Sanaghan

How Do Successful Higher-Ed Leaders Deal with Adaptive Change? 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, […]