Search Results for: meeting

Higher Education: Your Life May Depend Upon It

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

also by Robert E. Johnson, Ph.D. (Learn more in the recorded webcast: The Future of Work and the Academy) Higher education and the coveted bachelor’s degree was once the essential launch pad to economic stability. Now, it seems it is something more. In to a new report published by Brookings, “Mortality and morbidity in the 21st century,” Princeton professors Anne Case and Angus Deaton explore the patterns and trends that have led to a decline in the life expectancy of middle-aged white people without college degrees since the late 1990s. Spoiler alert: education is the key distinction, and differences in life expectancy do not appear due simply to an economic division. In this paper, we will take a look at the changing landscape of work and what this means for higher education. We’ll look particularly at manufacturing. Note: All segments of our economy are in some form of disruption. Manufacturing is an obvious and easy industry to use as an example as the devastation can be seen and understood. Rising automation and machine intelligence will creep into and replace the knowledge workers with the same voracity with which the physical workers have been supplanted: How We Got Here We lost a […]

What Establishing Alumni X-Teams Can Achieve

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

We need to reshape a 19th-century alumni office to meet the demands of a 21st-century audience. “Alumni associations were rendered obsolete by Facebook and have since been dying a slow death.” “Why get off my couch on a weeknight to connect with fellow alumni from college, one of a dozen institutions to which I have some faint sense of allegiance? “Given the amount of virtual networking to be done, why connect IRL (in real life) at all?” The answer to these loaded questions is the reason my job in alumni relations still exists. We still crave a live networking event, seminar, or raucous public debate. Alumni associations, for hundreds of years the conveners of such events, aren’t going anywhere. But I don’t rest easy, nor should my peers in alumni associations the world round, even those of us at the most elite institutions of higher learning. To meet these demands, we must form “x-teams” – cross-functional teams from various verticals in an organization who share a common goal. X-teams in advancement shops must be students of the marketplace, audience, and the whimsical trends among students, alumni, faculty, and the public. Taking a page from the best tech companies out there, […]

Share This Advice with Your First Generation College Students

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

The first generation college student often feels alone in navigating the processes and procedures of higher education. Here is some advice from staff at Academic Impressions who were first generation themselves. Share this with the students on your campus! by the Staff at Academic Impressions “My interest in higher education is a deeply personal one,” our president at Academic Impressions, Amit Mrig, relates. “My family is here in this country because my father had an opportunity many years ago to come to this country and be afforded a scholarship. He didn’t have any money, any resources to warrant that opportunity other than his intelligence and his hard work. In my mind, that is what the American dream is. Anyone who has the determination, the drive, and the intelligence should have an opportunity to move up the social ladder. The engine that drives that is higher education.” Today, November 8, is #CelebrateFirstGen Day. One of the amazing things about higher education in the U.S. is the doors it opens for families who have never been to college; our hope is that higher education will remain the engine of social mobility in this country. In that spirit, our team shares the following stories […]

What College Leaders Need to Know About Responding Rapidly to a Crisis

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

How do you manage a crisis in a world that expects instant response and immediate communication? Colleges and universities all too often face a series of challenges in responding actively and speedily to a crisis or emergency on or affecting the campus, but they needn’t reinvent the wheel: there are proven models developed in the government and military sectors that can be applied to the higher ed context. To help senior leaders in higher education improve their crisis preparedness, we’ve assembled and interviewed a panel of experts, including Dr. Connie Book, provost and dean at The Citadel; Major General Jim Boozer, US Army (Ret.); and Colonel Cardon Crawford, US Army (Ret.) and Director of Government and Community Affairs at The Citadel. Resources: You can read an interview with this panel in this earlier article. And here — in this article — you can listen to a brief audio interview with Colonel Cardon Crawford about the need for “emergent crisis management,” and how emergency crisis management differs from the crisis communications planning of the past. A transcript of the interview follows. You can also meet Colonel Cardon Crawford and Major General Jim Boozer in person for an in-depth training at the […]

Why Donors Give: It’s Not What You Think

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

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. Next in this series:More than Dollars: How Many Opportunities Are You Missing with Your Alumni?Engaging Women in Philanthropy: Practical Ways to Shift Our ApproachChecklist: Questions the Governing Board Must Ask Before Launching a Campaign Given that annual alumni support nationally has been declining for 22 years and that less than one in ten alumni are currently giving back to their alma maters, it is clear that our core practices and the philosophies that underpin them need to change. In short, we need to elicit more and solicit less. And foremost among the thoughts we should be eliciting is why our alumni give to […]

Investing in Donor Relations for Athletics

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

As our colleges and universities venture to fundraise even more and more dollars, we must not overlook an area of support that brings many donors in our doors early on in their experience with us: athletics. At some institutions, athletic success can equate directly to donors and dollars, and at others it is part of the natural fundraising ebb and flow. With this said, what role does donor relations play in athletics? Now more than ever, athletics fundraisers need to focus on donor relations. Here are four reasons why: Focusing on the donor and their generosity, not on the gift and its amount is central to these efforts. Donor relations can often help bridge the gaps and transition donors from transaction to behavior. Great donor relations can provide meaningful reminders of what motivates our donor base and can incite passion among our fans and supporters. For that reason, coordinating athletics fundraising and central university advancement is crucial to the overall fundraising success of an institution. The key in both areas is the donor. If we keep our focus on donor relations, then the core becomes centralized in a more cohesive fashion. Rather than an “athletics” donor or an “institution” donor, these […]

Is Your Spring Admissions Program Effective?

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

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 […]

Spotlight on Innovation: How Texas A&M – Corpus Christi is Using Online Supplemental Instruction to Boost STEM Student Success

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

SPOTLIGHT ON INNOVATION SERIES The US Department of Education has awarded the multi-million dollar First in the World grant to 24 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. Texas A&M – Corpus Christi already offers face-to-face supplemental instruction (SI) for many barrier STEM classes and has seen it boost retention and graduation. However, the number of students who took advantage of SI remained low in comparison to the number of students in the courses. Students frequently reported they could not attend face-to-face sessions due to schedule conflicts or jobs. Dr. Patricia Spaniol-Mathews, Executive Director for Programs for Academic Student Support, hopes to eliminate that obstacle by piloting an interactive online supplemental instruction program with the $3.3 million First In The World grant.  It is an exciting opportunity because the online option will eliminate schedule barriers, increase the number of students who can benefit from supplemental instruction, and hopefully boost STEM retention and completion rates […]

Spotlight on Innovation: Making the Library Central to Adult Learner Support at The College of New Rochelle

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

SPOTLIGHT ON INNOVATION SERIES The US Department of Education has awarded multi-million dollar “First in the World” grants to 24 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. Faculty at the The College of New Rochelle already know that mentoring and research-rich courses are key for the success of the adult learners in their School of New Resources. Yet when Ana Fontoura, The College of New Rochelle’s Dean of Libraries, was tapped to help improve student success through innovative, collaborative learning strategies, she immediately noticed that the existing research only mentioned academic libraries in a supporting role, if at all. At many institutions, this may present a missed opportunity. After all, the academic library is uniquely positioned to bring together information and research services and provide spaces for learning, mentoring, and collaboration. That moving of the library from the support role to the center of a student success initiative with a focus on undergraduate research […]

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