Search Results for: meeting

What the Chief of Staff Needs to Do on Day One

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

In this series, we’ve talked about how the chief of staff can operate as an effective liaison, what qualities presidents desire in the chief of staff, and where new chiefs of staff could look for resources. Now, in our fifth article, we want to ask: What does the new chief of staff need to do, their first day, first week, first month on the job? In this series of articles, experienced chiefs of staff offer critical advice on managing the chief of staff role. We will share their answers to questions such as these: Contributors to this series include: We hope you will enjoy the series and share each article with your peers. If you find these articles useful, please consider attending and learning from these and other experts at these virtual trainings: Today, here is the fifth installment in our series: 5. What Does the New Chief of Staff Need to Know? Academic Impressions. The four of you have served as chiefs of staff. What is one specific piece of critical advice you would offer to a new COS? Chris Romano, Ramapo College. Relationships are everything in this role. An effective chief of staff must spend his/her time among the campus and […]

The Chief of Staff and the Presidential Transition

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

In this series, we’ve talked about how the chief of staff can operate as an effective liaison, what qualities presidents desire in the chief of staff, and where new chiefs of staff could look for resources. Now, in our seventh article, we want to ask: How does the chief of staff’s role change during a presidential transition, and what key steps does a chief of staff need to take? In this series of articles, experienced chiefs of staff offer critical advice on managing the chief of staff role. We will share their answers to questions such as these: Contributors to this series include: We hope you will enjoy the series and share each article with your peers. If you find these articles useful, please consider attending and learning from these and other experts at these virtual trainings: Today, here is the seventh installment in our series: 7. What Steps Does the Chief of Staff Need to Take During a Presidential Transition? Academic Impressions. What are one to two key steps chiefs of staff must take in order to best serve their institution during presidential transitions? What sometimes gets missed? Karen Whitney, President Emeritus, Clarion University. To best serve the institution during a […]

You May Be Excluding Some of Your Most Loyal Donors From Recognition

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

Over the last decade, many colleges and universities have launched programs intended to encourage annual giving through the recognition of donor loyalty. In every case that I can think of, these societies are recognizing consecutive giving, which makes sense—we want people to give every year. I am a long-time fan of the loyalty society and the value it can add to a program as part of a comprehensive donor retention strategy but that’s not what this article is about. This article is about what might be missing from the equation. By defining loyalty as consecutive giving, we are in fact, excluding some of our most loyal donors from recognition. Most likely, many of your major donors have not made gifts each year, and while philosophically, we strive to create a culture that promotes annual giving among our top donors, the reality is that there will always be some who don’t give every year. I am not talking about the once-a-decade donor but about the donors that give almost every year. If someone is a seven-figure donor who occasionally misses a year between major contributions, are we serving the best interests of our institutions by not recognizing them as loyal? 3 Ways to […]

Why Honor Rolls of Donors are a Waste of Time

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

In her new book The 4 Pillars of Donor Relations, Lynne Wester of Donor Relations Guru® helps you rethink donor relations practices and offers specific tips for more powerful acknowledgements, stewardship and impact reporting, recognition, and donor engagement. Get this comprehensive guide to donor relations for your shop today, and transform the way you steward, recognize, and engage your donors. The article that follows is an excerpt from Lynne’s book. In all my time in donor relations, I have never heard of a donor who gave an organization a million dollar gift because their name was in a textual list of donors. Yet I must get asked at least once a week what I think of honor rolls and their place in donor recognition and stewardship. I think they have no useful purpose, they provide opportunities to make costly mistakes, they are a huge waste of human resources, time, money, and they are otherwise foolish. Why Honor Rolls Don’t Provide Any Benefit Time and time again, we have asked donors what they want and how they want to be recognized, and the three things that appear most often in their answers are: Donors want handwritten notes from students. They want to meet those that […]

Checklist: Preparing Adjunct Faculty to Teach Online

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

Department chairs and program directors are busy people, and orienting adjunct faculty may not be top of mind. But adjuncts who are teaching online for the first time need support and information to hit the ground running. Here is a quick checklist of items to cover with first-time online instructors. by Teresa Focarile, Boise State University(who also wrote: “Adjunct Faculty: A Department Chair’s Guide to Orienting New Instructors“) Many institutions are expanding their online course offerings, and using adjunct faculty to do so. While these faculty members are often teaching from a master course and therefore are not responsible for developing the class, there is still important information about teaching online that needs to be shared with these new instructors in order for them to be effective online teachers, and to ensure they understand the expectations for teaching in your program (Larcara, 2011). Checklist Some items on this checklist might already be in place. For example, most institutions have a team that can get adjunct faculty up to speed on the functionality of the Learning Management System (LMS). In addition, many institutions have developed trainings (sometimes mandatory) for faculty who teach online. But if your institution does not have those kinds […]

Rethinking the President’s Role in Fundraising

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

Because your institution’s president is uniquely positioned to scan the horizon and help develop and communicate a vision of the future to prospective donors, his or her role in fundraising entails far more than just making connections and making the ask. In his recent monograph “Fundraising for Presidents: A Guide,” Jim Langley, president and founder of Langley Innovations and past vice president for advancement at Georgetown University, contends that the president’s primary role in fundraising is not to ask for money but to create the conditions that attract significant philanthropic investments. We followed up with Jim Langley this week to learn more. FUNDRAISING FOR PRESIDENTS: A GUIDE Jim Langley’s monograph offers a forward-thinking look at: Slow Persistence, Not Rapid Persuasion We asked Langley for the key thing presidents need to know about philanthropy. In response, Langley noted a fact that is relatively well-known but infrequently (or inconsistently) acted upon. “Fundraising,” he cautions, “is often depicted as a short-term if not transactional phenomenon, while the research on philanthropic patterns suggests that fundraising needs to be long-term in its focus.” Citing research on donor trends and behaviors, Langley notes that: Langley uses this data to issue a reminder to institutional leaders that […]

6 Questions Advancement Leaders Need to Ask New Presidents

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

Quickly establishing a rapport with a new president is of immense importance to an advancement leader. If a shared sense of purpose and a framework of collaboration are established between the two of you in the first month of a new presidency, the institution can soar to new heights. But if this groundwork isn’t established, missteps and misunderstandings can accrue and result in heightened tension, mistrust, and, ultimately, turnover in advancement leadership.Advancement leaders can help establish that rapport by asking their new presidents some very strategic questions. The Right Questions to Ask These questions include: 1. Who were your mentors or the leaders who inspired you? What in particular did you admire most about them? Why this is the right question:The answer will provide you real insight into the president’s leadership style and allow you to mesh your style with his or hers. 2. What information would be most helpful for my staff and I to bring back as we interact with alumni, parents and other key constituents? Are there questions that you would like us to be asking these constituents on your behalf? Why this is the right question:This question will help the new president understand that advancement can be […]

How the University of North Florida Integrated Academic and Student Affairs

Posted on by Shawn Herbert

By Daniel Moon, Associate Provost and Professor, University of North Florida Higher education institutions are facing pressure to increase student success measures and become more efficient. Each of these can present significant challenges for universities but having to solve both challenges simultaneously can be daunting. The COVID-19 pandemic has only served to add layers of complexity and urgency to this challenging puzzle. A potentially powerful mechanism for addressing this challenge is integrating Academic Affairs and Student Affairs into one cohesive unit. Doing so at the University of North Florida has contributed to all-time high retention and graduation rates, and yielded more than $2 million in savings and reallocation. The challenges we faced Higher education is focused on student success now more than ever, with unprecedented layers of accountability to students, parents, boards, and others (e.g. see Kelchen, 2018). This accountability is increasingly tied to a university’s bottom line. For example, most states have a performance-based funding mechanism that explicitly ties funding to student success measures. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the challenges that students face in pursuit of their degree, making this problem even more urgent for universities to solve. Significant shifts in improving student success measures require a more […]

This is How We Need to Rethink the Work of Student Affairs

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

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 student demographics — is that the students feel […]

One Big Mistake New Presidents Make

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

A presidential transition can be a fragile time for any campus; expectations are high and so is the stress level. Almost everyone wants the new president to be successful and create a new beginning for the institution. The transition process can be a minefield of challenges and opportunities, and a new president must navigate both of these carefully and strategically. Several years ago, we co-authored a book, Presidential Transitions: It’s Not Just the Position, It’s the Transition (Praeger, 2008). In the process, we talked with scores of presidents about their own transitions, and they were surprisingly open to discussing the good, the bad and the ugly parts of their journey. We have continued these conversations with a whole new set of presidents, and once again, have learned a lot. Many Presidencies Derail in their First 3 Years In the continually changing world of higher education, what happens at the micro level when there is leadership transition in the campus presidency has a disproportionate impact. That is to say that the higher ed world is shifting and issues loom large, the pace is lightning fast, and the learning curve is steep. All too often, presidencies derail before they have barely begun. Frequently, presidencies […]

Loading survey...