Search Results for: meeting

Is Your Spring Admissions Program Effective?

Posted on by 25337pwpadmin@ai_azuread

With approximately 25% of students beginning college at a time other than the fall term (National Student Clearinghouse, 2012), the picture of the new student experience is becoming more fluid every day. Yet, many schools don’t provide customized support to assist with the differing considerations these students face. To ensure that you are investing appropriately in the success of this sizeable (and growing) group, you will need to consider several factors. In a recent online training from Academic Impressions, Chrissy Roth-Francis, director of new student services at UC Berkeley and Keith Lopez, assistant director of transition programs at Colorado State University, suggested best practices for meeting the needs of this special population of students. An Incomplete Picture Given the growing percentage of non-fall/spring admits, constructing programs and evaluating outcomes in a one-size-fits-all approach is obviously painting an incomplete institutional picture. One of the challenges to addressing this, however, is the lack of a centralized repository on resources and best-practice guidance. Roth-Francis makes the case for more focus on these students by highlighting the following areas with room for improvement: It Doesn’t End with Admission: Supporting Spring Admits Effectively While offering spring admissions may increase institutional enrollment numbers, you also need […]

Foundations of Customer Service Video Course

MEMBER-EXCLUSIVE COURSE Foundations of Customer Service Video Course Gain the knowledge and skills you need to provide high quality customer service in the higher education environment. Overview As competition in higher education intensifies, so do prospective students’ appetites for institutions that provide the best education and experience for their tuition dollars. Instilling a culture of service excellence at all levels of an institution can directly enhance enrollment and improve student retention by providing consistency across branding and the student experience. This video course will introduce you to the foundations of customer service in higher education. Our experts have taken best practices from service excellent experts and applied those strategies to the higher education environment. Part 1 of this course focuses on what customer service looks like in the higher education environment and how service excellence connects to student belonging and retention. Part 2 covers five steps of service that you can adopt into your operations and immediately implement at your institution.   Who Should Watch This video course will help managers and frontline staff across enrollment and student services build their higher education customer service knowledge and skills. This course will especially benefit you if you are a: Frontline service […]

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 […]

Checklist: Taking Support for Online Students to the Next Level

Posted on by 25337pwpadmin@ai_azuread

“It’s important… to remember that online is not a type of student, rather, it is a mode of delivery for academic coursework.” Sue Ohrablo, High-Impact Advising The changing reality of our student demographics means that the diverse demands of outside employment, caring for children or dependents, and even commuting to and from campus greatly impact how, when, and if students are able to access the very services we promote as both valuable and essential. We continue to wait behind desks and office doors for students to approach us, often left wondering why more students haven’t simply reached out for help when these myriad of offices exist. The competing demands for our students’ time and attention are not an indication that our students are any less invested or engaged with their learning; it simply yet profoundly means that we need to do better at reaching out to them as a partner in their success rather than wishing or hoping they will access something that may not be easily accessible given their daily lived reality. Of course, it is one thing to understand and yet another to do. What might it look like to better engage and support our online learners? I […]

Engaging Women in Philanthropy: Practical Ways to Shift Our Approach

Posted on by 25337pwpadmin@ai_azuread

Series: Creating the Conditions for Support Everyone is trying to raise more money. Rather than simply suggest the next tactic that can boost giving in the short-term, this series offers a more intensive look at the strategic thinking that drives philanthropic support: Why do donors give? How do institutions strengthen their core and emphasize initiatives worthy of support? How do we align strategic plans, strengths, and advancement strategy to create the conditions for ongoing and sustained support? In this series, distinguished current and past chief advancement officers apply their most innovative and creative thinking to this question. Also in this series:Why Donors Give: It’s Not What You ThinkMore than Dollars: How Many Opportunities are You Missing with Your Alumni?Checklist: Questions the Governing Board Must Ask Before Launching a Campaign by Matthew T. Lambert, William & Mary This article at a glance: It is imperative that we first engage women meaningfully in the life of the university. From there we can develop a strong pipeline of women leaders so that we ultimately see great increases in philanthropy. Our mantra is grow engagement, grow leadership, grow philanthropy. Put simply, nearly half of the nation’s top wealth holders are women, they are the […]

Preparing Students to Lose Their Jobs (And Faculty To Keep Theirs)

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

also by Alan Ritacco (Learn more in the recorded webcast: The Future of Work and the Academy) Abstract: A recent study reveals that young people today could have as many as 16-17 different jobs in 5 industries. As the rate of technological change becomes exponential, the future of work requires adapting to change, recognizing job failure as a norm, and (since we are living longer) a longer career arc in which to experience many different and uniquely distinct careers. Are most institutions of higher education preparing students for this reality? According to the recent report by the Foundation for Young Australians, The New Work Mindset (a study built upon the Future of Work research studies of both the McKinsey Global Institute and the World Economic Forum), young people today could have as many as 16-17 different jobs in 5 industries: And considering that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there are more than 1.5 million involuntary and 3 million voluntary separations per month, the fact is: job loss and job change are a norm. Job change, whether voluntary or involuntary, is part of having a professional career. As higher education professionals, we prepare students for their first professional jobs. We, […]

How You Approach the Last Day of Class is More Important Now Than Ever

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

We’ve never had a term quite like this, and how we close our classes this semester matters. For some students, their classes may have been their most consistent and stable community during this time of rapid change and abrupt isolation. This article offers tips and techniques for approaching the last day of class in ways that provide both closure and connection.  I was chatting – well, zooming actually – with a colleague who felt inclined to skip the final class session, given that students seemed so exhausted. I absolutely understand this inclination, but I suggested otherwise. I was not promoting intentional course closure due to policy or typical good practice, but because this semester is like no other we’ve experienced and students will likely be grateful for that closure. A webinar on trauma-informed pedagogy confirmed my belief in the importance of closure this semester. Let’s consider why. Your class, while inconsistently “delivered,” might have been the only consistent and stable community for students this semester. Many students had to leave their college residences and support networks. For some, the only thing in their lives that stayed the same was your presence, and that of other students in your course. As […]

Strengthening Library/Faculty Partnerships

Posted on by 25337pwpadmin@ai_azuread

Last week, after heated protest from the faculty senate, the Syracuse University Library pulled back from plans to move thousands of books off campus. The tensions at Syracuse University illustrate the importance of communicating with faculty and with academic leaders early and often; as academic libraries continue to grapple with issues of core identity and as they plan to reshape collections, it is critical that library deans and directors find productive ways to involve faculty in the conversations from the start. Charles Forrest, director of the library facilities office at Emory University, offers some tips for launching these conversations. Start Talking Early It is important to establish strong partnerships with faculty champions before the time comes to discuss major changes in the library. If you don’t already have one, Forrest advises, “get a mechanism in place for ongoing dialogue: a library policy committee, a faculty advisory group.” You need to build a core of advocates who understand what the library is facing as an organization and as part of the larger academic institution. Continually look for opportunities to engage new voices from the faculty in dialogue about the role of the academic library at your institution. Get them involved in […]

Stepping Up Orientation for International Students

Posted on by greta@academicimpressions.com

With the number of international students studying in the US up nearly 3 percent last year (contributing $20 billion to the US economy) and with Canadian institutions also seeing gains, creating a seamless arrival-and-welcome process that ensures the success and retention of these students is rapidly becoming a key area of investment for many institutions. At the forefront, the University of Southern California has piloted a process that includes not only an international orientation once students arrive on campus, but also an overseas, summer orientation on-site in Hong Kong to help students from Hong Kong prepare for their arrival in the US. We turned this week to Tom Studdert and Chrissy Roth, the director and associate director of orientation programs at USC, for a few key considerations for other institutions hoping to develop more effective orientation processes for their international students. Here is some of their advice. Planning Considerations “In one sense, an international orientation is no different than a program for domestic students — in that there are certain rights, responsibilities, and expectations that the students should have of us and that we have of them as members of our academic community. Build the orientation around that. You are working […]

Cultivating the Next Generation of Wealth

Posted on by 25337pwpadmin@ai_azuread

We are in the midst of a tsunami of wealth transfer. It is predicted that over the next 50 years, anywhere between 20 and 40 trillion dollars of wealth will pass from parents to their children. This year the federal estate tax exemption is nearly $5.5 million dollars, or roughly $11 million if two parents are leaving funds to a child. To look at it another way, 10% of wealth is changing hands every five years. Millennials are inheriting their wealth at a rate faster than their parents or their grandparents; one third of millionaires under the age of 32 inherited their money. As fundraisers, what are we doing to engage this next generation of wealth? Changing the Way We Cultivate the Donor Pipeline Historically, when did we begin to engage with children of means? Alumni might connect with their alma mater when their children are beginning the admission process. We might approach them when we’re looking to fill a board seat or leadership volunteer role. However, this is usually years after they graduated, a period during which these potential young philanthropists have already established their philanthropic priorities—and you may not be among them. We know that Millennials think about their charitable giving […]

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