Supporting mid-level and senior leaders as they prepare for the future of higher education and the next steps in their careers. Jennifer is an executive coach and trusted advisor who helps higher education leaders and their teams cultivate the mindset and skill set needed to thrive in an ever-changing world. Drawing from nearly 20 years of progressive leadership experience in higher education, she brings deep institutional knowledge to her coaching practice, specializing in cultivating the critical competencies that enable leaders to break down institutional silos, forge powerful collaborations, and create flourishing organizational cultures. Jennifer has held a variety of leadership positions in academic and student affairs throughout her career, including program director, department chair, and assistant dean. She currently serves as a director of strategic initiatives where she works closely with the provost on developing and coordinating high-priority strategic planning initiatives. Her coaching practice focuses primarily on chairs, deans, provosts, and vice presidents who are leading institutional change while advancing their own career trajectories. Jennifer’s approach combines evidence-based frameworks with practical communication strategies, ensuring leaders can effectively navigate complex challenges while building sustainable success. Jennifer has coached hundreds of leaders across institutional types, from R1 universities to community colleges, including […]
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A pilot project at Farmingdale State College is engaging both freshmen and transfer students in undergraduate research. Here are the details. SPOTLIGHT ON INNOVATION SERIES The US Department of Education has awarded multi-million dollar “First in the World” grants to 18 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. This was the second year of the First in the World grants. You can read our interviews with the 24 institutions that received 2014 grants here. Officials at Farmingdale State College, State University of New York, hope to boost degree completion of at-risk students by engaging them actively in undergraduate research. Their new project, “Creating Research Opportunities for Students,” will use their $2.9 million 2015 First in the World grant to mentor and prepare students for research and then offer a hands-on research experience with a faculty mentor, conducted both on- and off-campus. They project that the initiative will increase their four-year graduation rate by 20%. Familiar […]
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 […]
Lori is the ninth President of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and the first female president in the Texas Tech University System. She joined TTUHSC in 1987, and has held multiple leadership positions during her tenure with the university, including Dean of the School of Health Professions and Provost and Chief Academic Officer. Lori led TTUHSC through an unprecedented global health pandemic. This required the transition of all on-campus academic instruction to online and a workforce of more than 5,000 on six campuses to remote operations. During this time, the university’s team members led collaborative efforts to produce personal protective equipment for its front-line health care team and providers across the region. They also played vital roles statewide in supplying viral transport medium for COVID-19 testing and conducting a national study on convalescent serum as a treatment option for the disease. As President of TTUHSC, Lori oversees a complex, multi-campus institution with Lubbock as the administrative center, and with regional campuses at Abilene, Amarillo, Dallas, Midland, and Odessa. TTUHSC is committed to regionalized, educational experiences provided across six schools that deliver quality education, research, patient care, and community service programs to meet the health care needs of West Texas, […]
At many institutions, the limited resources for external relations have been redirected to grow the office’s fund-raising capacity. Communications professionals, with jobs lost and budgets cut, watch two dynamics: the growth of decentralized communications and the growth of a sister office, development – both occurring at their perceived expense. And yet both demand more public relations and marketing support than ever as campaigns commonly reach the hundreds of thousands to billions of dollars. When not driven by an integrated strategy, decentralized communicators often message independently and can leave the central office scrambling to provide back-up support or clean up confusion. This is not a small issue. It is monumental and a problem that can be made better, if everyone understands that they are not silos, but integral agents in making their universities more successful and their students’ experiences more valuable. The successful advancement offices that are rebuilding, refocusing and recalibrating, are following five steps to deepen the relationships between development, alumni relations, and marcom. 1. Define the mission of public relations and marketing. Marketing’s sister offices have defined missions. Alumni relations serves alumni. Development raises private funds. But what is the mission of communications? Communications offices get pulled in multiple […]
This is a time of great transition in higher education. A gradual decrease in undergraduate enrollments has prompted colleges to focus on increasing retention and graduation rates as a means for stabilizing revenue and marketing for recruitment. At four-year colleges, faculty advisement has historically been limited to course planning, although more recent trends—initiated first by community colleges—have used professional advisors to offer wider-ranging services aimed at improving student success. The establishment of retention centers has played a significant role in reducing attrition, while allowing faculty to continue in their traditional role of ensuring their advisees meet graduation requirements. Changing student demographics and perspectives about college bring with them new challenges. The current generation has struggled through COVID and battled the mental health difficulties that accompanied the pandemic as well as the world around them. Students and parents now have new expectations of colleges and their roles in preparing students for a career. Those expectations include helping students to identify a career path, support for academic preparation, and larger roles in assisting students to find placement post-graduation. Families and students assume that faculty will also assist students with stress and mental health issues (a good thing as according to national surveys, […]
In my last post, I wrote about how admissions works, although the lesson, perhaps, is that the term “admissions office” means very different things at different institutions. And while it’s still true that we in admissions and enrollment management all agree on one thing—that if a student never applies, they won’t enroll—it’s also true that the final step in the process is the processing and delivery of financial aid. A caveat: This is hard to grasp on the first pass—if it sometimes does not seem to make sense, that just means you probably understand it better than you think you do. I recommend paper, a pencil, and some note-taking to get you through this. It’s going to be challenging to navigate. About 15 years ago, I started gauging the age of my audience during presentations by putting an image on the screen. It’s the floorboard of an automobile, showing part of the brake and floormat for some context. You’re likely to notice the bright red carpet before you notice something else that doesn’t look quite right: To the left of the brake is a silver button, a little bigger than a quarter. I ask the audience members to raise their […]
In January, we shared three effective models for more holistic corporate engagement. This is the second article in our series on corporate engagement in higher education. While partnering faculty members with companies seeking research partnerships is increasingly attractive to colleges and universities, faculty may approach the new partnerships cautiously. Building effective corporate and faculty partnerships requires you to address potential challenges early — ideally before a contract is in place! We spent time interviewing institutions with successful corporate engagement strategies. Here is a review of the challenges, steps to take in addressing them, and key considerations for aligning corporate and faculty interests proactively and responsibly. 3 Critical Challenges 1. Building Faculty Trust and Buy-in At Kansas State’s Office of Corporate Engagement, Director Richard Potter explains that one of their biggest challenges has been to change how faculty partner with corporations, and to build trust in the university’s vision for a holistic approach to corporate relations. They have been asking faculty and departments to share information about existing partnerships with companies, but some have been reluctant to compromise those relationships. At California State University Fullerton, the challenge has been to build faculty relationships with the CSU Foundation, which was established in […]
The transfer credit evaluation process is one that touches many different stakeholders. The registrar’s office is where the heart of the action happens, but the way credit is articulated has far-reaching implications for the admissions office, department chairs, and academic advisors as well. Because all of these entities have such a stake, it can be tricky for registrars to manage policy changes and gain the buy-in needed to streamline their transfer credit evaluation processes. Two Success Stories at CSU Kelley Brundage, associate registrar at Colorado State University, has worked in transfer credit evaluation for over 20 years and has led two major streamlining initiatives at CSU. The first large-scale streamlining initiative occurred when Kelley was a new hire at the university. As she entered into her new leadership role as associate registrar, she was advised that the overall perception of the registrar’s office was, on the whole, a negative one: other Departments viewed her office as inflexible and unlikely to compromise, and as a result, the efficiency of the transfer credit evaluation process was suffering. Kelley immediately began taking steps to turn the perception of her office around and gain allies throughout the institution. The second streamlining initiative that Kelley […]
