This article is an excerpt from Sue Ohrablo’s acclaimed book High-Impact Advising: A Guide for Academic Advisors, which you can find here. 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 […]
Christie Maier, M.Ed., Associate Director, Transformative LearningUniversity of Kentucky Doing more with less It’s a message many in higher education have received before: “do more, with less.” Whether it’s a need to expand services with no additional funding or an impending budget cut, student support units often must be creative with their program models to meet student demand with limited resources. This was the case for the learning center at the University of Kentucky back in the late 2000s when the drop-in Peer Tutoring Program expanded to support all 100 level math courses, as well as many 100 & 200 level science and business courses. The resulting demand required professional staff to develop a student leadership position to provide supervision and administrative support for the Peer Tutoring Program. Student Program Coordinators (SPC) are undergraduate students who have worked for the learning center in some capacity, often as a peer tutor or front desk staff, for at least a year. These emerging leaders have demonstrated their ability to successfully balance their time, communicate effectively, as well as work on a team and are ready to take on additional responsibilities. SPCs work 20 hours per week and have three primary responsibilities: on-duty […]
Dr. Gore is responsible for negotiating and coordinated efforts to leverage institutional data to inform strategic planning, institutional operations, student success, and growth. In his faculty role, he serves as the Director of graduate programs in School and Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Dr. Gore’s professional interests focus on high school and college student transition and academic and career success. He is currently writing a student success textbook, Connections: Empowerment for College and Career Success. He is interested in how institutions use data to align resources and services to meet the particular needs (or capitalize on the strengths) of their students. Dr. Gore has consulted with over 3 dozen high school districts and colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Gore earned his Ph.D. in 1996 from Loyola University in Chicago IL in the field of Counseling Psychology. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, serves as the editor of the Journal of the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition and has published over 50 articles and book chapters. Dr. Gore was named as a 2013-2014 American Council on Education Fellow and spent this academic year working with the President and Executive Leadership team at Montana State […]
Kurt Thiede has worked in higher education administration for over three decades. His senior management responsibilities have included strategic enrollment planning, student recruitment and admission, student retention, financial aid, marketing communications, student life, intercollegiate athletics, and alumni relations. Viewing enrollment management within the context of the prospect-student-alumni lifecycle, Kurt employs strategies and tactics that establish relational pipelines to build and maintain quality and diverse enrollments at the institutions he has served on staff and as a consultant. He believes in collaborating with an institution’s leadership to create and implement solutions that address needs and interests specific to their situations. Through his commitment to the Community College Pathways (CCP) program, Kurt assists four-year institutions with establishing sustainable partnerships with community colleges; these educational pathways provide access to high-quality education for motivated and deserving students, while helping institutions meet their enrollment and graduation goals. Kurt held leadership appointments for 18 years at Muhlenberg College and nine at Bucknell University. He served as an enrollment consultant to a variety of higher education clients before committing his professional efforts to the CCP initiative.
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 […]
SPOTLIGHT ON INNOVATION SERIES The US Department of Education has awarded multi-million dollar “First in the World” grants to 24 colleges and universities 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. Although the State University of New York at Oswego already has a strong collaboration with area community colleges, SUNY Oswego has noticed a gap in the number of students moving from two-year to four-year schools. In this north-central region of New York, three community colleges and a community organization partnered with SUNY Oswego to narrow that gap. Their goals are to increase retention and completion rates both two-year and four-year institutions, encourage more students to transfer to a four-year institution and complete a bachelor’s degree, and strengthen regional economic development in the process. The hope is that this model will provide a sustainable example of how collaboration, aligned coursework and community support can improve degree attainment on multiple levels. The Transfer Gateways and Completion Program Leaders at […]
NSSE’s 2009 annual report cites low participation in high-impact activities (such as study abroad, service learning, internship, undergraduate research, or senior experience) among transfer students as one measure of engagement and likely persistence. The lowest engagement was from vertical transfers (students who enter four-year institutions from community colleges). In the survey, 62% of native seniors had participated in internships, but only 43% of vertical transfers. Only 7% of vertical transfers participated in study abroad, compared with 20% among native students. Given the low numbers on engagement, we asked Kurt Thiede, vice president for enrollment management at Bucknell University, for his tips on engaging vertical transfer students early and fostering affinity for the institution from the first point of contact. Early Engagement The earlier the engagement, the more likely affinity becomes. Early engagement with prospective vertical transfers from two-year colleges can take a number of forms, from a campus visit day to a summer program. But whether you have the funding for a visit day or a summer program, it is critical to think through what to include in that experience. You will want to expose students to all aspects of life at the university — the career offices, financial aid, academic advising, […]
Lisa Smith has been with the Chemistry Department at North Hennepin Community College since 2008. She has worked on initiatives that include First Year Experience, Closing the Achievement Gap, and most recently became the Institutional Assessment Coordinator. Motivated to improve the student pass rate, Lisa took a successful STEM mentoring model she had worked on at the University of Minnesota and applied it to North Hennepin Community College. The program impacted 93 of 113 students to help them pass general chemistry and biology. It has been a huge success, and she is tweaking the program all the time to meet the needs of the students. She holds a Masters degree in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Minnesota, has completed graduate-level education courses in Course Design for Adult Learners, Assessment, and Learning Theory and Instructional Strategies, as well as participated in a year-long NSF funded program doing Chemical Educational Research. Her most recent accomplishments include publishing an institution-specific First Year Experience textbook, being awarded Educator of the Year from Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, and Innovation of the Year from North Hennepin Community College. Her research interests include the utilization of predictive measures for student success, and the investigation and […]
Phil is an independent consultant to higher education institutions with more than 35 years of experience and service to the higher education community. His areas of emphasis are assisting boards and finance committees in financial strategy, financial planning and metrics, financial reporting processes, and understanding stewardship responsibilities related to donor funds. He has also assisted institutions in their business processes, IT systems, grants management, debt management, and accounting and finance areas. He is a retired partner from KPMG, LLP, having served more than 100 colleges and universities as an auditor and consultant. While at KPMG, LLP, he also served public and private clients in other industries such as real estate, real estate finance, financial institutions, high technology, and manufacturing. He also served for a number of years as Controller at Johns Hopkins University. Having worked with a large number of boards of companies and higher education institutions, he brings perspectives from multiple industries and entity size to his clients. Mr. Tahey has co-authored several editions of Strategic Financial Analysis for Higher Education: Identifying, Measuring & Reporting Financial Risks, which is the source publication for the Composite Financial Index (CFI). He is also a co-author of Bridging the Strategic Gap: Toward […]
John D. Shank is the Head Librarian at Penn State Berks. Prior to his appointment in July 2001, he held positions at Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Montgomery County Community College. He was selected by Library Journal in 2005 as a “Mover and Shaker.” Shank’s responsibilities include teaching, administration, research, and service. He teaches CAS 283 Communication and Information Technology. He has directed numerous grants and projects that have been awarded to over 60 faculty, directly impacting more than 85 courses and 2500 students. These initiatives focus on enhancing the student-centered teaching and learning campus environment. His research interests include the role, use, and impact of instructional technologies in higher education and academic libraries. He has given hundreds of presentations at conferences, meetings, and workshops. Additionally, he has authored and coauthored a book, book chapters, and articles that focus on library and CMS/LMS integration, Learning Objects (Digital Learning Materials), and the development of instructional design librarian positions. Currently, he serves on the editorial review board for Internet Reference Services Quarterly and is the co-founder and Advisory Board Co-Chair of the Blended Librarian On-line Community.
