Search Results for: meeting

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.

Retaining and Rewarding High-Performing Faculty

Posted on by Greta Bell

The news is filled with accounts of extended pay freezes and tightened departmental budgets. More than ever, it is crucial to identify creative, meaningful, and low-cost ways to reward and retain high-performing faculty. Mary Coussons-Read, professor of psychology and acting chair of the department of physics at the University of Colorado Denver, reviews low-cost practices that can make a difference. Rethink Performance Rewards “Don’t get so caught up in the trees that you don’t see the forest,” Coussons-Read warns. “The forest is the need to help your faculty feel good about the work they do. There are many trees you can shake besides the salary adjustment tree.” While rewarding performance will rarely be free of cost, you can consider a variety of low-cost and one-time expenses that allow you to appreciate faculty. The difficulty of a salary increase is that it is a permanent addition to the ongoing budget.  There are many options for rewarding performance for which that is not the case. Look for one-time expenses. Beyond salary increases, you can recognize faculty achievements and, at the same time, use those achievements to encourage a high-performing faculty culture by: Making the most of your faculty awards competition Inviting high-performing […]

Connecting Values to the Gift: Strategies to Incorporate Families into Your Fundraising Goals

The donor’s legacy and philanthropic goals need to be carried on through their gift to your institution. Before a formal proposal is presented, or prior to a meeting that focuses on outlining the gift agreement, you need to connect the donor family’s values to your institutional goals. This process begins by aligning family engagement strategies into your institutional fundraising goals. Join us in this third installment of our Family Giving Series to potentially unlock millions of dollars in giving by building upon your approach to cultivation and stewardship with your most loyal and engaged families. By drilling into the core value of what a family holds dear, you will be able to continue deep philanthropic partnerships with donor families for generations to come.

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

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:

Academic Advising’s Role in Change Implementation

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

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, […]

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

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

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

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

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 […]

Practical Advice for Dealing with Difficult Faculty Colleagues

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

Most college faculty behave in a professional manner, take their responsibilities seriously, work hard at their jobs, and value their relationships with colleagues.  In fact, a recent survey found that college professors are the fifth most satisfied group of employees in the U.S, following pediatricians, singers, aircraft assemblers, and professional fire fighters.  The flexibility and ability to control one’s time and tasks makes the career very rewarding. Unfortunately, a few faculty members don’t fit this profile.  They may treat colleagues, staff or students with rudeness or harassment, may shirk their teaching, research or service obligations, and may make life generally difficult for their department chairs, deans, and departmental colleagues.  If such a “difficult colleague” has tenure, many academics shrug and say there is nothing to be done.  That could not be farther from the truth! Tenure is designed to protect academic freedom, not bad behavior. Academic freedom clearly gives faculty members the right to conduct research and teach as they choose, within the bounds of professionalism and institutional requirements for curricular content.  But academic freedom also brings responsibilities—to behave with respect toward colleagues and students, to refrain from harassment or discrimination, and to use care in speaking out as a […]

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.

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