News

How RIT is Building An Adjunct Community

by Lisa Cook (opens in new tab)

MORE FROM RIT RIT’s strategic plan calls for the institution to become a “model of inclusive excellence for all faculty and staff in the areas of professional development.” Here are further examples of what RIT has been trying recently: Beyond Workshops: How RIT Incentivizes Faculty Development “George”: How RIT is Encouraging Interdisciplinary Collaboration When thinking about a student issue or working on a syllabus, faculty members often seek the advice of a colleague — usually by just walking to the office next door. For adjunct faculty, however, the colleague next door has often left for the day and administration offices may also be shut. Adjunct faculty often operate largely on their own, and have a difficult time meeting colleagues who can provide feedback and support. When institutions deliberately build adjunct communities, this allows the faculty to support each other, helps make adjunct faculty feel appreciated and rewarded, and improves adjunct teaching and student success in the classroom. The Rochester Institute of Technology is working to build an adjunct community to foster the kinds of relationships that many full-time faculty and staff take for granted. We talked with Anne Marie Canale and Cheryl Herdklotz, Faculty Career Development Consultants, to learn more about the […]

For Fundraisers: How to Build a Successful Partnership with Your Athletic Director

by Josh Azer (opens in new tab)

It doesn’t matter if you are a Major Gift Officer working as a liaison to the athletic department or a Director of Athletic Development. Now more than ever, to effectively raise money for your college athletic department you must have a successful partnership with your Athletic Director. Many advancement professionals working with college athletic departments do not have a background as a coach or an administrator. So how can you, as the athletic fundraiser, build a successful partnership with your Athletic Director? Unfortunately, there is no magic formula to help build this relationship, but here are four steps you can take to get started: 1. Schedule a weekly meeting with your Athletic Director. If a weekly meeting isn’t possible, then make sure it is at least bi-weekly. These meetings will ensure that you, as the frontline fundraiser for the athletic department, have a strong understanding of the current needs of the department. While you’re meeting, you’ll also have the opportunity to coordinate upcoming travel and additional events that require the Athletic Director’s attendance. It may also be helpful for you to attend athletic staff meetings and for your Athletic Director to attend development meetings going forward, to further strengthen the connection […]

A Tool for Increasing Application and Retention Rates for At-Risk Students

by Lisa Cook (opens in new tab), Daniel Fusch (opens in new tab)

SPOTLIGHT ON INNOVATION SERIES The US Department of Education has awarded multi-million dollar “First in the World” grants to 18 colleges, universities, and organizations that are innovating to solve critical challenges with access, recruitment, retention, and student success. At AI, we have interviewed each of the recipients to learn more about the projects these institutions are pursuing, how their approaches are unique, and what other colleges and universities can learn from these new efforts. 2015 was the second year of the First in the World grants. You can read our interviews with the 24 institutions that received 2014 grants here. Is college choice always an informed choice? Often, first-generation and low-income students enroll at a college or university that someone in their family knows about, or simply enroll at the institution closest to home, regardless of whether that student and that institution are a good fit. First generation and low-income students may find themselves overwhelmed with promotional materials from several colleges but lack the knowledge to determine which institution will best suit their skill sets and goals. And often they can’t rely on the prior experience of other family members to help them make the best choice. Yet there is research to […]

Juggle Smart: Steps for Managing the Intersections of Clery Act, Title IX, VAWA, and DFSCA

by Daniel Fusch (opens in new tab)

For this addition to our ongoing column on managing regulatory compliance in higher education, we’ve reached out to Bev Baligad, Director of Compliance at the University of Hawai’i – West O’ahu. When we asked Bev what Title IX coordinators and others on campus should be paying closer attention to this year, she pointed us to the overlap between multiple federal regulations, and argued that coordinators need to do more to “juggle smart” and manage these intersections. In this interview, she offers practical steps for doing that. Interview with Bev Baligad Daniel Fusch. Bev, thank you for joining us for this conversation. Given the array of overlapping federal regulations dealing with student safety issues, what do you wish more institutions understood about the ways Clery Act, Title IX, VAWA, and DFSCA intersect? Bev Baligad. Aloha, Daniel! I believe many institutions are missing valuable opportunities in programming and training by only focusing on Title IX, VAWA or Clery separate and apart from each other. By understanding the big picture of the basic training and programming requirements for these federal laws, institutions can address several “birds” with one stone.  And many times, they can be addressed simultaneously. Daniel Fusch. What parties need to be talking to each other […]

Assistance Animals and Compliance: What You Need to Know About Recent Developments

In at least three recent lawsuits, post-secondary institutions have come under fire for failing to comply with provisions of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) that make it unlawful to deny housing based on a person’s handicap and that require institutions to accommodate “assistance animals.” What most institutions don’t realize yet is that the federal definition for an assistance animal is much broader than the definition for a service animal under the ADA. (A service animal can only be a dog or, in some circumstances, a miniature horse. An assistance animal can be any type of animal and need not be specially trained.) While colleges and universities do have a long history of accommodating service animals, the concept of accommodating assistance animals is relatively new. But though it’s new, failing to comply can still create legal risk for your institution. Three Recent Cases In three recent cases: In all of these cases, the institution in question fell back on traditional housing policies regarding pets. And in these cases, the institutions faced legal action for holding to that exclusion. As our researchers at Academic Impressions note, “No one wants to pay $40,000 for a guinea pig.” It’s important to be aware of how […]

“Game On” for the Liberal Arts

by Mary Hinton (opens in new tab)

Over the past few years, the liberal arts have become an easy target in the current narrative about higher education. From politicians to parents we’ve heard a never-ending cry questioning the value of the liberal arts and bemoaning their “real world” applicability. There is solid evidence that the long-term arc for students earning liberal arts degrees is overwhelmingly positive—personally, professionally and for our democracy. Those of us in higher education know this firsthand. Yet the prevailing narrative continues to focus on “hire-ability” and that first job out of college. There’s also a perception that liberal arts colleges take students away for four years and insulate them in a cocoon of academia before dumping them, unprepared, into the “real world.” Both of these are short-term views and provide a dangerously incomplete picture. The Challenge: Making the Case In fact, part of what has made the liberal arts so easy to attack is the general lack of response from within our sector. For many of us, the value of the liberal arts is so self-evident we likely never imagined a world in which we would have to not only promote, but defend, the value of critical and creative thinking, strong communication skills, […]

What Does Collaborative Strategic Planning Actually Look Like? An Informal Case Study

A PROCESS THAT WORKSIf the case study below intrigues you, you can learn the 5-phase Collaborative Strategic Planning process that Anoka Ramsey Community College undertook in Pat Sanaghan’s book Strategic Planning: 5 Tough Questions, 5 Proven Answers.Case Study: Anoka Technical College & Anoka Ramsey Community College by Andrew Aspaas, Patrick Sanaghan, Donald Lewis, and Kent Hanson “Collaborative” Strategic Planning (CSP) has a nice ring to it, sounds a little like mom and apple pie, inclusion, and lots of participation. Who wouldn’t want that? In reality, authentic collaboration is a difficult process for leaders to undertake and do well. The challenges of conducting a collaborative planning process are many: you can get lost in too much process, where seemingly endless loops of engagement become confusing and exhausting for stakeholders; in an attempt to be inclusive, way too many people are informally involved in the planning effort, with no real ownership for the outcomes; the process can lose focus quickly, or people become overwhelmed by all the data that is gathered, and sense making becomes almost impossible. In this informal case study we want to show how you can actually conduct a large group collaborative planning meeting with 200+ faculty and ensure […]

One Easy Way Faculty Can Improve Student Success

by Lisa Cook (opens in new tab), Daniel Fusch (opens in new tab)

More Resources for Faculty:How to Encourage Academic Grit and a Growth Mindset in Your StudentsCivility in the Classroom: A Better Approach There has been a lot of talk recently about how faculty serve on the “front lines” of student success, and how changes to syllabus design or implementation of more active learning strategies can have a big impact on students’ academic success and persistence. Mary-Ann Winkelmes, coordinator of instructional development and research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, associate graduate faculty in the History Department, and senior fellow at the Association of American Colleges and Universities, has developed an approach she calls “teaching transparency.” It isn’t a pedagogical strategy, but rather a framework that faculty can use to help students better understand the rationale and relevance of specific learning activities and the steps they should follow to complete an activity successfully. “It’s a simple adjustment to teaching,” Winkelmes notes, but one that has a demonstrated impact. In one study at seven minority-serving institutions, Winkelmes found that when faculty revised just two assignments to be clearer about their purpose, task and criteria, there was a statistically significant increase in student success for all students, but a particularly notable increase for underrepresented, first-generation, and low-income students. […]

6 Questions Advancement Leaders Need to Ask New Presidents

by Jim M. Langley (opens in new tab)

Quickly establishing a rapport with a new president is of immense importance to an advancement leader. If a shared sense of purpose and a framework of collaboration are established between the two of you in the first month of a new presidency, the institution can soar to new heights. But if this groundwork isn’t established, missteps and misunderstandings can accrue and result in heightened tension, mistrust, and, ultimately, turnover in advancement leadership.Advancement leaders can help establish that rapport by asking their new presidents some very strategic questions. The Right Questions to Ask These questions include: 1. Who were your mentors or the leaders who inspired you? What in particular did you admire most about them? Why this is the right question:The answer will provide you real insight into the president’s leadership style and allow you to mesh your style with his or hers. 2. What information would be most helpful for my staff and I to bring back as we interact with alumni, parents and other key constituents? Are there questions that you would like us to be asking these constituents on your behalf? Why this is the right question:This question will help the new president understand that advancement can be […]

5 Ways that SUNY Oneonta Optimized its Social Media Strategy

by Hal Legg (opens in new tab)

A few years ago, I realized that social had tremendous potential that was only increasing, not just as a transactional communication tool but as a space to have meaningful relationships with prospects, current students, their parents, alumni, community members, even the media. However, up to that time, my campus had focused more on improving old media than on investing in new. The danger of falling behind if we didn’t do something to jumpstart our efforts was real. We needed to cover a lot of ground, both technical and strategic, in a short time. That’s why I brought a team to Academic Impressions’ Social Media Strategy for Higher Education: Beyond the Basics conference (twice, in fact). The breadth of material at the conference and how it was covered allowed my staff and me to plan our work, set goals, and identify the metrics to gauge our progress. We talked the whole way home about next steps and began implementing almost immediately after the conference. Among State University of New York’s 27 four-year campuses, SUNY Oneonta was ranked #1 in social media presence by students in 2015. Engagement with our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts continues to increase, and we’re shifting ad dollars away from traditional media […]

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