News

The First Critical Outreach Point in Intrusive/Proactive Advising

by Joe Murray, Casey Hudson, Cory Phare

Gain strategies to engage and direct at-risk students on a path to success. The “intrusive,” or proactive, advising model helps advisors anticipate students’ needs and connect students to appropriate resources and support early in their academic careers. While intrusive advising can prove to be a complex and involved process, there are three major outreach points to keep in mind: Beginning-of-term Mid-term End-of-term As Joe Murray, director of university advising services at Florida Atlantic University, shares there are several tactics you can use at each of these points that have shown effective results for many institutions. Here are the tactics that will prove useful for beginning-of-term advising. How to Help before Classes Even Begin Many institutions now offer summer bridge programs for students who need extra help before fully matriculating, but what about students who need just a bit of college-prep work? What about first-generation students? Murray suggested some pre-term options for these students: Pre-Term Classes: When awarding financial aid, the federal government does not care exactly when your fall semester begins; it has simply designated August 1st as the beginning of fall term. So one creative way to help students who need a small amount of developmental education to become college-ready is […]

Worksheet: Rate Your Behavioral Intervention Team’s Effectiveness

When Did You Last Update Your Behavioral Intervention Process? by Louise A. Douce, Ph.D. (The Ohio State University), Gregory T. Eells, Ph.D. (Cornell University), Ruben Robles (University of Redlands), and Lisa LaPoint (Academic Impressions) After the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, most higher-ed institutions established behavioral intervention teams (BIT) to better manage potential issues of student and campus safety. But have you updated your BIT?A lot has changed in recent years, including: Confidentiality limits and ways to work within them Formal processes and procedures for intervention and dismissal National and local standards for violence prevention If you haven’t kept your team’s processes and procedures up to date, your BIT may not be effective in keeping your students safe. To help you pinpoint areas where your BIT may need improvement, we offer the worksheet below and the following interview with experts Louise Douce, Special Assistant for Student Life at The Ohio State University; Greg Eells, Associate Director for Gannett Health Services and Director of Counseling & Psychological Services at Cornell University; and Ruben Robles, Associate Dean of Student Life at University of Redlands. Douce, Eells, and Robles suggest that there are three areas in which most BITs fall short: [wcm_restrict] Problem […]

Why You May Be Excluding Some of Your Most Loyal Donors From Recognition

PRACTICAL STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPMENT This article is the third in a unique series by Heather Greig, senior associate with Bentz Whaley Flessner. The previous articles in this series were: Building a Strong Case for Support for Your Annual Fund 4 Keys to Building a Stronger Advancement Team by Heather Greig (Bentz Whaley Flessner) Over the last decade, many colleges and universities have launched programs intended to encourage annual giving through the recognition of donor loyalty. In every case that I can think of, these societies are recognizing consecutive giving, which makes sense—we want people to give every year. I am a long-time fan of the loyalty society and the value it can add to a program as part of a comprehensive donor retention strategy but that’s not what this article is about. This article is about what might be missing from the equation.   By defining loyalty as consecutive giving, we are in fact, excluding some of our most loyal donors from recognition.   Most likely, many of your major donors have not made gifts each year, and while philosophically, we strive to create a culture that promotes annual giving among our top donors, the reality is that there will always be […]

New Strategies for Funding Academic Research

by Ed Mason

A SERIES ON INNOVATIONS IN FUNDING ACADEMIC RESEARCH Ed Mason, president of EMNR & Associates, is writing this series to assist academic leaders in finding creative strategies to merge public/private funding for existing and new research initiatives. Mason has studied an array of collaborative partnerships between the two offices most focused on external funding (the development office and research & grants), and he will be sharing some of the models he has observed, as well as directions for the future. We hope you will join us for this innovative series: Increasingly, universities are compelled to develop new fundraising models because of several prevailing trends: Additionally, federal programs are beginning to ask for matching funds from either state or private sector. Searching for Other Sources of Funding Hybrid models of funding academic research — leveraging relationships in both the public and private sector — are the current reality for universities. Hybrid approaches to funding have multiple models: Funding agencies are supportive of the hybrid approach because it leverages community resources more effectively, disseminates research, expands outreach programs and lowers administrative costs for grant audits. The hybrid approach utilizes federal, state, private foundation, corporation and donor sources of funding for programs. To what degree […]

6 Reasons Faculty and Departments Need to Be Deeply Involved in Student Learning Assessment

by J. Joseph Hoey, Ed.D

A GUEST ARTICLE FROM J. JOSEPH HOEY J. Joseph Hoey, Ed.D, is the vice president of accreditation relations and policy with Bridgepoint Education; his portfolio of work includes regional and specialized accreditation and policy related to accreditation. He is co-author with Jill Ferguson and David Chase of the forthcoming volume, Assessment at Creative Institutions: Quantifying and Qualifying the Aesthetic, to be published in 2014 by Common Ground. In this article, he reviews: Developing a program and culture of effective student learning assessment is not sustainable without the support and involvement of the institution’s faculty. When faculty members are engaged in assessment, it sends a message of active leadership in academic quality to students, parents, legislatures, and external stakeholders. Faculty engagement in assessment enables innovation in teaching and learning through better understanding of what works and what does not, and serves to forge closer linkages with those who have an interest in hiring our students – employers, agencies, and even the startups that spring from within the engaged institution. 6 Reasons to Get Involved Here are six reasons why this involvement is both critical and beneficial to academic departments: PUBLIC EXPECTATIONS & DEPARTMENTAL REPUTATIONPublic expectations with regard to the quality of student […]

You’ve Just Issued an RFP: Here’s What Can Go Wrong Next and How to Avoid It

THE SECOND IN OUR SERIES ON RFPs, CAPITAL PLANNING, AND PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS This is the second in a series of articles by Neil Calfee. Currently the principal of NPC Group, specializing in the creation and negotiation of public/private Partnerships, Neil Calfee previously served as Arizona State University’s director of real estate development. He has over 15 years of experience in development and management of complex development projects involving partnerships between government entities and the private sector. Neil Calfee’s first article reviewed 5 mistakes institutions commonly make in writing an RFP document; you can read it here. Calfee’s new article, below, reviews 5 frequent mistakes made in the solicitation and evaluation of responses once the RFP has been issued. You may also be interested in his recorded training, “Creating Financial Expectations in the Housing RFP Process.” by Neil Calfee (NPC Group) In my first article on RFPs, you learned about how to avoid common mistakes made in issuing one. While the beginning of the RFP process is critical, it is only half the battle.  Administering the process effectively once the RFP is issued and then evaluating the responses can present some unique challenges, but getting these stages of the process right can pave the […]

Developing Your Campaign Reports: Getting It Right the First Time

by Ashlyn W. Sowell

Related articles:Spring Clean Your Major Gifts Portfolio4 Lessons Learned from Campaign Volunteers at Gettysburg College Today, Ashlyn Sowell, Gettysburg’s associate vice president and campaign director, with input from Gettysburg’s director of advancement services, walks you through the process of developing effective campaign reports — and discusses several sample reports. We hope you will find this article useful and share it with your colleagues. As we prepared for our campaign at Gettysburg College, we knew that we had to have accurate, easy to understand, and useful campaign reports.  In addition to the staff needing to know where we stood on our progress to goals, our president and the trustees were interested as well.  Here are a few tips based on what we learned that might help you to get yours right the first time! 1. Clean Up Your Data Our last campaign ended in 2004, but believe it or not, we had some outstanding data issues to clean-up.  You can imagine – pledges that had not been fulfilled or written off, pledges that had been extended, planned gifts that had not been recorded accurately, etc.  We all wish we did not have these niggling issues, but we do. We had also […]

Navigating the Challenges of Faculty Retirement Incentives

by Tunde Brimah, Jennifer Faust, Daniel Fusch

REVIEWING FACULTY RETIREMENT INCENTIVES This article briefly reports the results of an informal poll of academic deans and offers expert advice from Jennifer Faust, a former associate vice president for academic affairs who has extensive experience in faculty affairs administration, including strategic planning, labor relations and grievance handling, faculty policy, faculty and department chair training and development, and faculty personnel management. It is widely recognized that the professoriate in the US is aging; with no mandatory retirement age and on the heels of sometimes-devastating drops in financial markets, faculty members are opting to delay retirement. A recent survey conducted by TIAA-CREF found that nearly one-third of faculty surveyed expect to work until at least 70 years of age (as compared to 25% of workers in other fields). At the same time, most colleges and universities face dwindling budgets, a factor that favors the lower salaries of newly hired professors and adjuncts. In addition, some—though by no means all—tenured faculty are less productive in late career stages. These factors have led a number of academic deans to ask: how might we incentivize faculty retirements? Asking Academic Deans About Their Approach In March 2014, Academic Impressions conducted an informal poll of about […]

Title IX Compliance: Steps to Take Today, Next Week, and Next Month

by Rabia Khan Harvey (Loyola University Chicago), Scott Warner (Franczek Radelet), and Lisa LaPoint (Academic Impressions) The White House Task Force recently released it’s 20-page report, “Not Alone: The First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault,” making it clear that addressing these issues is a top priority for the federal government. To help your institution enhance compliance efforts within a reasonable timeframe, we interviewed two experts on Title IX–Rabia Khan Harvey, assistant to the vice president for the Division of Student Development and Title IX Deputy Coordinator at Loyola University Chicago, and Scott Warner, partner at Franczek Radelet P.C. Below, Harvey and Warner discuss critical steps your institution can take to avoid an Office of Civil Rights audit and make a good faith effort to meet the recommendations of the Task Force’s report. What You Need to Do Today Lisa LaPoint: What is one step your institution can take TODAY to ensure compliance? Rabia Khan Harvey: Make sure all employees (including student-leaders such as RAs, Orientation Leaders, etc.) at your institution understand their duty to report all gender-based acts of misconduct/violence to the designated Title IX Coordinator and/or designated Deputy Coordinator(s). Scott Warner: Make sure […]

How Data Mining Can Increase Phonathon Acquisition

by Jessica Neno Cloud, CFRE

A NEW SERIES FROM JESSICA NENO CLOUD This is the second in a series on donor acquisition by Jessica Neno Cloud, CFRE, the author of Successful Fundraising Calls: A Phonathon Scripting Workshop. Cloud is the assistant director for fundraising initiatives and planned giving at the University of Southern Mississippi Foundation. She practices evidence-based fundraising with a focus on return on investment, and has a variety of innovative and effective techniques to share. You may also be interested in the first article in this series: “How Data Mining Can Increase Direct Mail Acquisition.” The leaky bucket is a common metaphor in annual giving. Organizations will not retain 100% of donors from year to year. In fact, most institutions have retention rates far below that. Without acquisition work to bring on first-time donors, most of our organizations would flat-line within a short period of time. However, acquisition work is expensive. The best acquisition results usually come from the phonathon program, where conversations can be tailored to the prospect’s interest and have a human touch. Acquisition mailers usually have poor results, but surely there is some low-hanging fruit in your database that would prefer a mailing. (To learn more, read our article on […]

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