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What’s Keeping Deans Up at Night: A Free Webcast for Academic Leaders

FREE WEBCAST What’s Keeping Deans Up at Night: A Free Webcast for Academic Leaders Recorded on: June 8, 2022 Learn the pressing issues that are on the minds of Deans—as well as their most common hopes and plans for moving forward. Out of all of the academic leaders in higher education, Deans are arguably the ones who are closest to the challenges and potential solutions of higher ed. Some of the most pressing challenges keeping deans up at night include: changing student demographics and the impending demographic cliff, how to ensure academic rigor and accessibility, faculty and staff morale and equity, and waning funding from traditional revenue sources. Join us for this free webcast to hear from two deans representing, respectively, a public, land-grant research institution as well as a small, private liberal arts college as they share their perspectives on what is keeping them up at night—as well as the practices they hope will enable their colleges and institutions to be successful in a more equitable and agile higher-ed landscape. Our speakers will discuss and invite peer insights on such topics as: Maintaining a vibrant campus culture—and how that challenge has changed in light of the pandemic. Recruiting and […]

Persistent Tension in Academic Leadership and How to Make it Productive

Posted on by bradystanton@ai_azuread

Leadership is hard Let’s face it, leadership is hard and exhausting. Leadership was hard before the Covid-19 pandemic, and the additional complexities that leaders have been facing over the past year have been significant. Leaders at all levels are increasingly finding themselves making more decisions more quickly, with more significance, and with less information. The risks we are managing have increased. Our teams are looking to us for vision and guidance while we manage all of this new complexity and challenge. And we are doing all of this while working at our kitchen tables and in virtual meetings. We have had to acquire a whole new set of skills to lead in a remote or hybrid environment literally overnight. Leading teams and managing ourselves during these conditions is not for the faint hearted and it necessitates that we build our toolkit to tackle leadership in new ways. Now we are starting to look to the future with hope and optimism, knowing that some things will never return to the way they were before the pandemic. They can’t, and in many ways, they shouldn’t. Acknowledging and validating that the work of leading is hard right now (and really always was) is […]

4 Strategies for Closing the Coaching Gap for Mid-Level Academic Leaders

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

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 […]

What’s Next for Data-Informed SEM?

Posted on by 25337pwpadmin@ai_azuread

More institutions are using small and big data sources across the prospective and current student lifecycle to inform key decisions related to enrollment and retention. To take a look at how Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) is changing and to get ideas for how institutions can better leverage their data, we reached out to a panel of three prominent experts: These three, joined by Laura Jensen (associate provost for planning and effectiveness at Colorado State University), will also be discussing this topic in more depth at our upcoming conference Effectively Leveraging Data in Enrollment Management. Here is what they shared with us today. What Advances are We Making? What are the Opportunities? Sarah Seigle. Real-time data and analytics have become more important across all stages of the student lifecycle. Looking at three of the biggest functions of a strategic enrollment management plan—student recruitment, financial aid, and retention—where have you seen many institutions make recent advances in incorporating data into their decision-making? John Dysart. I have seen more colleges bring analytics into financial aid. In recent years, financial aid leveraging has become nearly commonplace. It seems that the majority of colleges and universities are now using some type of leveraging formula, awarding grid or preferential […]

Anticipating the Future: Following the Lead of Community Colleges

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

The world of work is changing rapidly, creating new pressures and new opportunities for higher education. It’s critical that university leaders act as conveners, assembling representatives of local industry, nonprofits, and community to do the tough work of anticipating the future for their region—both the threats and the opportunities. Some community colleges have been doing this extremely well, and other institutions can learn from their example. The Challenge Before Us The world now sits on the precipice of a fourth industrial revolution, defined by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital, and biological worlds. Technological breakthroughs in processing power, artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and more will fundamentally change the way in which we live, work, and interact. Such technologies are poised to destroy millions of current jobs while creating entirely new ones. The stakes are high: researchers at the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute have predicted a 50% chance that machines will be capable of taking over all human jobs in 120 years. The implications for higher education are staggering. Beyond the job losses, millions of new jobs will simultaneously be created. In fact, it’s […]

Forging the Future: Five Considerations for Developing Leaders at Your Institution 

Posted on by bradystanton@ai_azuread

Many have written, studied, and offered advice on the skills higher education leaders need to be successful, and in the wake of COVID-19, some of the needs have shifted and some have reached a fever pitch. Burnout, enrollment declines, artificial intelligence, and political and cultural polarization are just some of the external factors a leader needs to navigate. Internally, there are staffing and salary freezes, politics, racialized hierarchies, and tenure battles – it’s no wonder many institutions are struggling with recruiting and retaining key faculty and staff1.  Although employees have many reasons for leaving their jobs, one stands out. From April 2021 – April 2022, a McKinsey survey2 showed that the top reason for quitting a previous job is a lack of career development opportunities and advancement, outranking inadequate compensation. These results closely mirror those from a Pew Research Center survey3, which found lack of opportunities for advancement tied with inadequate pay as the reasons people quit. So, while there are multiple factors associated with driving employees away, it is telling that lack of growth within the organization ranks so highly.  It’s a message that’s beginning to resonate in higher education. Institutions and departments are beginning to recognize the need […]

Why Good is Still the Enemy of Great for Most Colleges and Universities

Posted on by 25337pwpadmin@ai_azuread

Series: Costs Down, Quality Up Historically, initiatives to improve quality have also meant added cost—smaller class sizes, more faculty who conduct research, etc.—but this is no longer a sustainable model for all institutions. What are the innovations that can actually drive the cost to educate a student lower while driving critical outcomes like student success and completion higher? This series offers provocative questions that challenge the cost-quality paradigm and the old ways of managing institutional strategy and growth. Why Good is Still the Enemy of Great for Most Colleges and Universities Many small private colleges and universities knowingly or unknowingly are what could be called high-risk institutions. They lack huge endowments, a large reservoir of student demand, significant differentiation in the market, and high brand value. Many of these institutions are either implementing or contemplating a significant innovation and change strategy to address challenges related to a declining value proposition, a lack of differentiation, budgetary problems, and/or the development of new programs and markets that provide enrollment and revenue lifting power. These are the colleges and universities that most need to utilize a data-driven and evidence-based approach to culture, process and change. It is possible to turn the threats they face into […]

Tips for Engaging Campus Partners in Recruitment Activities

Engaging Campus Partners in Recruitment Activities You can’t expect people to participate in something they don’t understand. Be strategic in how you communicate with stakeholders so they have a clear image of what you’re trying to achieve and how they can help.   As an admissions professional, it can be tough to get academic leaders, faculty, and other campus partners to readily participate in key recruitment touch points with prospective students and families. They might not think it’s their job, they might perceive recruitment activities like sales, or they may simply feel too busy. In this lesson, we’ll spotlight how 3 large public institutions have found creative solutions for bringing campus partners into the fold while generating meaningful participation for their recruitment events. Kennesaw State University [h5p id=”52″] University of North Georgia [h5p id=”55″] University of Texas at Arlington [h5p id=”58″] 5 Tips for Engaging Campus Partners in Recruitment Activities 1. Make Participation Easy Expand   Make participation easy to get more involvement from your campus partners. Examples for making participation easy include: Providing campus partners with simple strategies for participating like waving and saying hi to visiting students. Sending departments the contact information of perspective students so they can […]

Fundraising After a Disaster: Learning from the Christchurch Earthquakes

Posted on by 25337pwpadmin@ai_azuread

Ashlyn Sowell: During my recent leave from Gettysburg College, I travelled to Christchurch to speak to the Educate Plus New Zealand local chapter.  I was quite moved by the challenges that my international colleagues face in fundraising after the devastating 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. One woman said to me, “I know we are supposed to have 50% of the money in hand before we start construction on a new building, but we don’t have any buildings!” I followed up with Naomi Wilde, the Community Relations and Development Coordinator at St. Andrew’s College, an independent school, with one question. Her response led to a great deal of valuable information for all of us, and her responses are very worth considering as you look at crisis planning and post-crisis fundraising at your own institution. When I asked her, “What has been the biggest challenge in fundraising since the earthquakes?” she answered: “The biggest challenge is probably building the case for support for your own institution, because of course you’re not the only institution affected, and your donors, especially those that live locally, are deeply affected too, and there are so many unanswered financial questions. The Case for Support needs to clearly mark your […]

Advancement/Academic Partnerships: Using a Team Science Model to Fund Research

Posted on by 25337pwpadmin@ai_azuread

A SERIES ON INNOVATIONS IN FUNDING ACADEMIC RESEARCH Ed Mason, president of EMNR & Associates, is writing this series to assist academic leaders in finding creative strategies to merge public/private funding for existing and new research initiatives. Mason has studied an array of collaborative partnerships between the two offices most focused on external funding (the development office and research & grants), and he will be sharing some of the models he has observed, as well as directions for the future. We hope you will join us for this innovative series: In the traditional model for funding academic research at universities, multiple offices and departments interact with faculty in the administration of grants and gifts from external donors. Commonly, these offices do not interact frequently or communicate effectively with each other, which tends to create a “silo” effect. By moving instead to a team science model for defining and funding research initiatives, you will: What is Team Science, and What Does it Mean to Researchers and Development Officers? Team science is a proven model that creates partnerships between researchers, advancement professionals, and other key stakeholders at your institution. It involves developing strong collaborative teams who will be able to compete and successfully procure funding for high-priority research […]

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