Re-opening academic labs for research is critical but fraught with opportunities for confusion, miscommunication, and risk. Representatives from an array of research institutions met recently in an Open Space virtual meeting to discuss solutions. As a research professional in higher education, you are likely thinking about or in the process of relaunching operations after COVID-19 closures. You are coordinating to bring researchers back on campus, establishing guidelines for human subjects and animal research, and organizing communications to your stakeholders. Before you go further, have you considered consulting with others who are in your position or have already taken the next step? On May 21, 2020, leaders in academic research from just under two dozen campuses met online to discuss the issues entailed, using an Open Space format to surface the most critical questions and working collaboratively to produce solutions. This virtual workshop was unique in its format, the second in an ongoing series of Group Collaboration workshops held by Academic Impressions. (You can read about the first in the series here.) The Group Collaboration is a format you don’t usually see in a virtual professional development event; each of our virtual workshops provides an active learning environment where participants can explore […]
Empathy and compassion are critical for high-performing academic leaders, but institutions often undervalue these leadership competencies due to implicit gender bias. Let’s look at how to counter that tendency. This is the second in a series of articles on challenging androcentrism in higher education. by Rosalind Spigel, Organizational Development Consultant and Leadership Coach, Spigel Consulting In this second article, we’ll look at one set of leadership traits we identified earlier in the series: empathy and compassion. We’ll examine: How Empathy and Compassion are Linked to Leadership and Team Performance As the idea of emotional intelligence has become more accepted in the years since Goleman, Boyatzis, and McGee began publishing their research on it, acceptance of empathy and compassion as leadership competencies has also become more common. As a leadership competency, empathy is defined as the ability to: Compassion moves beyond understanding to action, such as acting in someone else’s interest. In the human systems that are our colleges and universities, managing conflict, coordination, and relationships is paramount. Leading with empathy and compassion inspires trust, and trust strengthens relationships at the individual, team, and system levels. We know that addressing conflict with an empathetic skill set — including listening, openness, and understanding — […]
What the blockchain does is get rid of the notion that institutions operate as siloed entities, involving them instead as part of a larger system of data transactions. An exclusive report for our members by Alicia Miranda, Senior Research Analyst, Academic Impressions On average, college students will now attend three or more institutions before receiving a degree. Yet the current system for storing student data is designed and operates on the assumption that students will stay at one place for four years, that they will learn all the qualifications they hope to present as potential future job candidate from that one institution, and that this institution will always be in existence. There are several flaws in that assumption: All three of these circumstances can make it quite difficult for a student to gather their own data when they need it. The current model of higher education is both resilient and persistent; many of the same structures have endured since the middle ages. But as we move through the digital revolution, existing systems are proving inadequate to meet students’ (and others’) needs. Current data sharing causes friction because of the need of an intermediary (in this case, a higher-ed institution). It […]
I partner with leaders to connect deeply with their own values and strengths so they can empower others to move their organizations to the next level of excellence. Sherilyn is Professor Emerita at the University of Washington, a retired academic pediatrician and an ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC) with over 30 years of experience in academic medicine in the U.S. Her deep knowledge of the roles and responsibilities of academic faculty informs her coaching focus and approach. Sherilyn’s areas of coaching expertise include developing leadership skills, optimizing scholarly productivity (including grant writing and manuscript preparation), program development, navigating the promotion process, transitioning to retirement, increasing satisfaction with clinical responsibilities, enhancing teaching abilities and developing long-term career goals. Sherilyn’s coaching approach is person-centered and leverages appreciative inquiry, foundations of contemporary neuroscience and design thinking. She works with clients to identify their core values and individual strengths to co-create a safe space for productive experimentation toward achieving their goals. She is continuously exploring and leveraging concepts and techniques from a wide variety of leadership and coaching fields to meet her client’s needs. Sherilyn has successfully coached mid- and late-career faculty transitioning into new leadership roles, participating in institutional strategic planning, negotiating workplace […]
While executive and administrative leaders have had a longer history of working with coaches, there is growing awareness of the benefit to middle managers in higher education, as well. Mid-level academic leaders are often promoted to leadership positions with limited management experience and without the benefit of training and professional leadership development. Yet mid-level leaders face significant barriers to the use of coaching. To build leadership capacity at the mid level, it’s critical that senior leaders take action to address this coaching gap. To learn more, we turned to David Kiel, who worked for 15 years as a faculty leadership developer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is now a consultant to leadership development programs in higher education. Dr. Kiel has conducted extensive research on coaching in higher education, and the article that follows adapts and reworks material from an article the author published in the Journal of Excellence in College Teaching’s special issue “Coaching and Leadership in Academia,” James Sibley and Susan Robison, Editors, that came out in February 2018. The title of the original article is “In Search of Good Coaching for Mid-Level Faculty Leaders” (The full citation can be found in the reference section at the end of […]
Have you ever opened your email inbox the day after an assignment is due and received an email with the subject line entitled “request for extension of time”? My first thought is “Here we go,” but then I immediately switch my thought process to: “Be objective; my students are adults completing their doctoral degree.” I work with online doctoral students in the school of education for a not-for-profit private university. The average age of our doctoral students is 47 years. These students are adults working in their specialized fields completing their terminal degree to further their professional endeavors. For the most part, they are professionals working full-time, and are married with children ranging from infants to college students to college graduates with families of their own. These individuals are not students in an undergraduate program, fresh out of high school and still deciding “what they want to be when they grow up.” Adult students have many issues in their lives other than completing their doctoral degree. They deal with work deadlines, mortgages and bills, aging parents, sick children, divorces and child custody, to name a few examples. When a doctoral student reaches out to me for help or for a little […]
Available in PDF format only.
Order 10 or more copies and receive a $25 discount on every copy you purchase!
Books are shipped within 7 days of receipt of payment. For immediate receipt of book, order PDF copy.
Marketing graduate degree programs is both an art and a science, and we wanted to take a deep look at who is doing this well — and how they’re doing it. In this series of four articles (you’re reading the fourth), we ask an expert panel four questions to explore the changing landscape of graduate enrollment marketing: We invite you to use these brief articles to start critical conversations on your campus. Additionally, you can explore graduate student recruitment tactics in depth with these same experts at the upcoming Graduate Enrollment Management conference. We hope to see you there! Here are our panelists’ answers to the fourth of the four questions. Q: What Non-Digital Marketing Strategies Have Been Effective? Sarah Seigle, Academic Impressions. Other aspects of a graduate recruitment marketing strategy that we haven’t yet talked about are print communications and recruitment travel—grad school fairs, on-campus events, etc. What role do non-digital strategies such as these currently play in your own graduate recruitment marketing strategy? How heavily should other schools be utilizing these tactics? Julie Gacnik, Creighton University. While the overall investment in print has declined, and has shifted to digital, print will never go away. As for recruitment travel and events, we […]
