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, […]
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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, […]
I help leaders in higher education navigate change with clarity and confidence — offering a trusted space to quiet self-doubt, recalibrate and lead from solid ground. “I stopped second-guessing myself and started making decisions I could stand behind. Beth helped me build confidence in my role and prepare for what’s next.” My work focuses on helping leaders navigate transitions, manage the stressors of institutional change, and clarify their next steps. I create a reflective and supportive space where you can think clearly, reconnect to your strengths, and lead with a steadier sense of self. What we might work on: I’ve spent decades working at the intersection of leadership and psychology, balancing private psychotherapy practice with executive coaching and consulting. I became a coach after seeing how many talented leaders struggle silently during transitions — not because they lack ability, but because they lack the internal support needed to meet external demands with confidence. My work is grounded in training as a clinical psychologist and organizational development specialist, with degrees from Columbia, Cal State Hayward, and Temple University. I’ve taught at undergraduate and graduate levels and have published on what I call “leadership consciousness.” Outside of work, music keeps me grounded: […]
In November 2011, Academic Impressions surveyed colleges and universities on their practices in assessing academic advisors. 73 institutions responded, and of those who responded, 57 percent employ both faculty and professional advisors, 24 percent use only faculty advisors, and 19 percent use only professional advisors. The aggregated results from the survey reveal some significant issues. When asked what methods they were using to assess the effectiveness of academic advising, respondents indicated: Note that 21 percent – over one fifth – of respondents have no system in place for assessing advising. And though 63 percent are collecting student evaluations, a far smaller percentage are using the data they collect to provide training or other concrete efforts to improve the quality of academic advising: Most institutions are collecting some evaluative data, but few institutions are using that data to improve advising programs and practices. In fact, 61% of institutions surveyed do not use assessment data to reward and recognize effective advising, and nearly half do not use it to inform training for academic or faculty advisors. Lisa Wexler, conference director with Academic Impressions, notes that this disparity in results suggests that what data is being collected is likely not being used to […]
By Sue Ohrablo, Ed.D.
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by Daniel Fusch and Caleb Tegtmeier (Academic Impressions) The challenges facing our students and our institutions are more complex than in the past, and no single, siloed office can address these challenges adequately. That’s why some institutions have been forming student affairs innovation hubs to bring together a more diverse crew of creative minds from across campus and put them to work on improving the student experience. One of these institutions is Seattle University, and we recently interviewed Seattle U’s vice president for student development, Michele C. Murray, Ph.D., and Seattle U’s assistant vice president for student development, Monica Nixon, Ed.D. Rethinking Our Work Murray and Nixon suggest that the one-stop shop approach to serving specific student demographics (such as transfer students, for instance) has several flaws. When Seattle University set up an office to serve its transfer students, Murray notes, “the great thing was that we had one full-time staff person completely committed to those transfer students. The downside was that the transfer students felt siloed. They weren’t introduced to the fullness of the student experience, and that issue was replicated across multiple student populations.” “Another unintended consequence of the siloed way of using one-stop shop areas to serve specific […]
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 […]
