Translating Your Student Development Services for Online Students (Webcast Recording)

As online student enrollment grows, it is critical to ensure that you are creating an engaging support environment. Current models in student affairs are primarily oriented around face-to-face, brick and mortar institutions and interactions. This webinar will give you the information you need to help you create a pathway to transition your most important student services to meet the unconventional needs of online students. Toolkit for Translating Your Services In addition to your webcast registration, you will receive a resource packet to help you as you transition student development services online, including: Articles Institutional examples Case studies

Academic Advising’s Role in Change Implementation

READ THE WHOLE SERIES:Developing a High-Performing and Productive Advising Department In this series, “Developing a High-Performing and Productive Advising Department,” I’ve discussed strategies for identifying, assessing, and meeting student, staff, and advisors’ needs. Now I will discuss strategies for positively impacting departmental, college, and university-wide systems and contributing to the effective implementation of change. Be a Voice in Decision Making Institutions vary as to how they deliver academic advising and where the function resides. Sometimes it is housed in student affairs, sometimes in academic affairs within colleges and departments, and other times there is a cross-over or shared responsibility between academic and student affairs. No matter where advising is situated, academic advising is just one small part of a larger unit. If advising is housed within student affairs, there is a challenge contributing to academic decision-making, as the role of the advising department is often thought to be limited to implementing and communicating academic decisions to students. Even when the academic advising unit is located within academic affairs, there is a risk of being considered a limited support service role and thus being excluded from decision-making and change implementation. Let’s examine the implementation of a new curriculum as an example. Typically, […]

Encore and Live Q&A: Portfolio Prioritization: Maximizing Opportunities for Your Donor Pipeline

A portfolio is the engine that drives a gift officer’s work and sets them up for future success. However, for new or seasoned professionals alike, opportunities to look at your portfolio with a different viewpoint can be highly beneficial as you seek to understand your portfolio data and prioritize donor relationships. Additionally, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, institutions are facing a reset moment with their portfolios as they are able to travel again to meet donors in person. Join us for a re-airing of the training that took place in April 2022. You will learn how to identify key data points in your portfolio which you can then use to cultivate relationships with your donors and chart a path for success in your own portfolio management.  

Integrating Social Media into Your Solicitation Communications Plan

Now more than ever, it’s imperative to incorporate social media into your annual giving solicitation communications plans to meet donors where they are every day – online. Join us for a webcast that will walk you through how to successfully integrate social media into annual giving and curate a seamless donor experience across solicitation channels. Our expert instructor, Karalee Harhaji, will come ready to share her experiences across two institutions, Georgetown University and Catholic University, each with varying budgets and knowledge in making the move to social media. Regardless of what your current practices are, you will have the chance to visualize how you can craft an improved plan moving forward.

4 Things Academic Deans Can Do to Connect Majors and Minors with Careers

In my previous article with AI (“4 Things Academic Deans Can Do to Help Students Succeed After Graduation,” in August 2015), I offered advice on how academic deans and career professionals can collaborate to improve student career mentoring. In this follow-up article, I would like to offer four curricular strategies that can immediately improve student career prospects, by connecting more clearly what a student studies and what they aspire to do after college. Four strategies to make this happen: 1. Work directly with admissions to break the myth that specific majors lead to specific jobs. I have often found myself speaking to groups of prospective students and their parents immediately after an admissions director has literally drawn lines between specific majors and particular jobs. “If you want to be an A you should consider majoring in X,” s/he would exclaim, much to my chagrin. Parents especially like this equation, while students who are often not sure of what ‘they want to be’ usually find it uncomfortable. My subsequent presentation forcefully (and politely) breaks this myth by focusing on three simple notions: WHAT TO DO: Develop a small team that includes an academic dean, an admissions director and a career services director […]

Advising: 3 Ways to Take the Conversation Beyond Registration

This article is an excerpt from Sue Ohrablo’s acclaimed book High-Impact Advising: A Guide for Academic Advisors After an academic year begins, advisors can start to breathe a little easier once most of the fires have been put out, questions have been answered, schedule adjustments have been made, and students are mostly settled into their classes. The anxiety that accompanies long, fast-paced days may begin to dissipate. During this time, advisors are left scratching their heads, asking themselves, “Why can’t these students register themselves?”; “Why does this student continue to check with me even though I already gave her the information?”; and, even, on the worst days, “What is wrong with these students?” As things calm down during this period, I encourage advisors to reflect on the nature of student needs, and reconsider the dynamics involved in the student experience and the role of the academic advisor. As an advisor, there are several factors you can address to reduce a student’s continued reliance on you. These are: 1. Readiness Developmental advising involves taking a holistic approach to advising and forming partnerships with students. Students will most likely not expect to engage in a developmental advising relationship, as they often view the advisor as […]

Managing Difficult Colleagues

Difficult colleagues come in many forms: A colleague who hijacks a meeting by dominating the conversation A leader who is overly critical of others’ ideas A project team member who leaves the work for you or takes credit for your work Confronting these difficult colleagues can feel overwhelming. How will they react? Will they hold a grudge? How do you manage authority? Join us online and learn how to communicate with and influence your difficult colleagues. You’ll learn how to target specific strategies to seven unique personality types, and you’ll leave with advice on how to respond in the moment and afterwards.

Understanding the Impact of Stress on Your Leadership Style

Academic Impressions’ Five Paths to Leadership® Assessment has been leveraged in our leadership programs for years; thousands of leaders in higher ed have benefited from this dynamic model exploring how one’s leadership styles manifest under normal circumstances and how they change under stress. Having a deeper understanding of your own leadership styles in varying situations increases your self-awareness, enhances your emotional quotient, allows you to more effectively plan, communicate, strategize, and ultimately, lead. Join us to learn what your own leadership styles are, how they might change under stress, and how this can apply to your team. During the workshop, we’ll walk through:

Partnering with Faculty in Grateful Patient Fundraising: Elements of a Training Guide

Faculty and development professionals must share a commitment to philanthropy in order for a grateful patient fundraising (GPFR) program to be successful. Building trust, respect, and rapport is best accomplished through a strategic process that involves educating and training medical faculty partners. When your medical faculty understands the “why,” the “how,” and the “what” of your GPFR program, it is often much easier to engage grateful patients and successfully close gifts. This training will discuss the essential elements of a training guide that development professionals should consider in their initial meetings with faculty as they begin a partnership in GPFR. Join us in this useful online training to deepen your capability as a gift officer in academic medicine and learn ways to successfully achieve buy-in from your medical faculty partners.

Improving Faculty Evaluations: A Training for Department Chairs

Faculty evaluations are one of the most challenging aspects of serving as a department chair. Emotions run high, performance rubrics aren’t always clear, and both parties may become defensive and react more than they listen. Still, these conversations don’t have to be difficult, and they don’t have to take a negative tone. They key is to develop an evaluation process that establishes clear goals, uses objective data to assess those goals, and allows you to treat performance-related issues before your annual meeting. Join us online to learn how to make your next faculty evaluation session easier and more productive by implementing four key steps: Goal Setting and Communication Using and Applying Evaluation Data Phrasing Comments Appropriately Delivering Feedback