Meet the first ever Metaversity Director, Dr. Muhsinah Lateefah Morris. A BS chemistry graduate of the HBCU Clark Atlanta University. She obtained an MS & PhD from the Harvard of the South, Emory University in Biomolecular Chemistry. Dr. Morris has been part of and leading Morehouse’s Metaversity project since the Spring of 2021. She’s won awards for Teaching Excellence at Morehouse College, Best Emerging Technology and Innovation from CBRE, First Place Unconventional Innovation in Industry by T-Mobile, and Educator of the Year for 2022 by STEM Women Atlanta. She resides in McDonough GA with her husband and five sons. One of her sons has autism and she advocates for the entire autism community as a member of the Community Advisory Council and advocacy Ambassadors for Autism Speaks. She’s a VR pioneer in education and is transforming learning globally. She is affectionately known as Dr. M.O.M. (Molder of Minds) by all her students. She continues to mold the minds of educators and students globally in the Metaverse. She is a member of the XR Advisory Council for the XR Association and Futurist Council for Jobs for the Future (JFF). Her goal is to authentically transform the educational system for our future […]
Dr. Carol Anne Constabile-Heming, Professor of German, University of North Texas. Because of the isolation that resulted from the emergency shut down of colleges and universities as a response to the spread of COVID-19 in the spring semester, the sense of community that ordinarily germinates organically on college and university campuses all but vanished. This, coupled with disruption to the operations of scholarly organizations that normally host annual conferences and professional development opportunities, has acted as a barrier to scholarly productivity for many faculty members. This is especially true in the case of women and minoritized faculty who are shouldering the majority of caregiver duties, including caring for sick family members, supervising home schooling, shopping, cleaning, and cooking. In the midst of the often-impossible demands this places on one’s time, energy and focus, scholarly activity—most especially writing—can easily fall to the bottom of the incredibly long task list. Faced with my own uncertainties and concerns about moving my research projects forward, I longed for a way to recreate the serenity of summer. Summer break, for me, typically involves travel to archives in Germany, where I spend a minimum of four weeks concentrated on writing. I knew I was going to […]
At Academic Impressions, we have offered a number of articles and other resources on peer mentoring, and our readers and participants at our events have asked, “Is peer mentoring effective in a niche academic program — such as nursing or aviation — or at a niche institution?” We forwarded this question to a panel of experts on peer mentor programs. This article provides their answers. Included on the panel: Should Niche Programs/Institutions Consider Peer Mentoring? Margie Bader: Students coming into niche institutions or programs have no prior experience to draw on to help them cope with this very new material and practicum. Niche programs are rich in specialized content, which makes them stressful and overwhelming to some students. Mentors can help simplify the process, give tips on how to handle the material, the evaluation process and the needs of the professors. Mentors can also help to give a big picture view of where the students are headed as well as details of how to manage the program in the upcoming semesters. Niche programs also often have a practical component or an internship. Mentors who have successfully completed this part of the program can give valuable tips on how to find […]
READ THE FULL SERIES Earlier this year, we conducted a study of how institutions are planning for the design and placement of student life facilities over the next 12 months. Our study included: We want to take this moment to share our findings with you. They’re intriguing: Finding 1: Student Life Facilities are Being Planned in Tandem We were fascinated to learn that institutions are now thinking about core student facilities in conjunction with one another in ways that we haven’t seen in the past. These are no longer isolated projects. In fact, 40% of institutions are planning all of these facilities in the next two years, and 50% are planning more than one. FROM OUR INTERVIEWS “Recreational facilities, residence halls, the student center: we used to think about these facilities independently, but student needs have forced us to think about them collectively. How can we think creatively about maximizing finite space in conjunction with student improvement goals? How can we create spaces for spontaneous student interaction and organic student programming?”Respondent from a small women’s college in the West Finding 2: Institutions are Continuing to Push for More Intentionality in Design and Placement The survey validated that the push for a […]
Over the past year, there have been a number of think pieces and declarations related to the need to maintain DEI as integral to the success of campuses. While many of these well-written and impactful statements offer a myriad of reasons we continue to need DEI programs, effective approaches to maintain these programs beyond “fight for the right to say/keep DEI” are harder to come by. We demand courageous leadership (as if DEI professionals haven’t always operated with courage) and then we define that courage as the willingness to put out a statement affirming their values and/or affirm that they will continue to say DEI. But if we’re being honest, that has always been the problem we’ve never addressed: allowing DEI to simply be platitudes and virtue signals, as if the words people say in public are always translated into meaningful action. And even when the words are truly courageous, the reality is that courage without a strategy is either ineffective or reckless. As we transition from “fact-checking” to “community notes”, it is imperative that we infuse diverse experiences and perspectives within the overall lived experience. We must help everyone around us think critically about sources of knowledge and the […]
with contributions from Amit Mrig (President, Academic Impressions)and Pat Sanaghan (President, The Sanaghan Group) How Academic Leaders Can Reinvigorate Forecasting and Planning Processes on their Campuses The recent surprise in the US presidential election results suggests that those who do not pay close attention to current trends and possible future events may be unprepared for sudden and impactful changes. This is especially a wake up call for those who are in leadership positions on college and university campuses. In today’s volatile environment, predictions that were once thought unlikely may actually have huge consequences. For example, many thought the call for free public higher education that surfaced several years ago was so unrealistic that it could be discounted. Now several states have enacted laws in that area. How many people predicted MOOCs, or even now have a good sense of their long-term implications? The FLSA executive ruling on overtime, originally due to take effect December 1, was stayed by a federal court. Competition from for-profit educational programs looked like it might be on the wane after the recent federal crackdown, but now the founder of Trump University is the POTUS, so what does that mean for the for-profit sector? How do […]
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 […]
As our article “The Library of the 21st Century” attests, the academic library continues to evolve at a rapid pace, and library administrators across higher education continue to wrestle with the question of how best to adapt their libraries to changing student and other user needs on campus. There is a lot of uncertainty about how best to revitalize the library space so that it becomes — or continues to be — student-centered, flexible, and reflective of the institution’s academic mission. At Academic Impressions, we have engaged hundreds of library directors in conversation — with us and with each other — in our annual library revitalization conference, which we founded in 2007. Recently, we sat down with two directors — Karen Clay (Library Director of Pierce Library at Eastern Oregon University) and Sara Bushong (Dean of University Libraries at Bowling Green State University) — to learn how they continued that conversation on their own campuses after the event, and what approaches they have taken to successfully modernize their own libraries to meet current user needs. In this interview, Clay and Bushong present slideshows of “before and after” photos of their academic libraries, and discuss in detail how they were able to: We […]
Turnover stinks! In December, I released my article “Turnover Stinks: Some Critical Perspective for Admissions Leaders” to help admissions directors shift the way they think about it. Now, looking ahead at the new year, I’d like to offer some advice on how to deal with turnover. While many would say (and I would agree) that the solution to turnover is to pay better and improve the working condition, there are many other things you can do as an admissions leader. Here are a couple of suggestions to help prevent turnover and build a high-impact admissions team. 1. Train Well and Often Training and re-training is critically important to aligning strategy and execution of responsibilities. Training also represents a time and opportunity to get into theory and examination of what you do and what you want done. Yet too often, training is a secondary priority. One might think, “He’ll get it once he does it for a while,” or “They won’t be into it; they have too much experience.” This is the wrong approach. Think of training as an opportunity to: Build time into your annual plan for training for everyone, not just the new members of your staff. In my office, we […]
