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Missed Opportunities: Why Private Universities Need to Partner with 2-Year Colleges to Create Better Transfer Pathways

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

For many private institutions, community college transfer students represent a viable and untapped opportunity for increased enrollment and tuition revenue. While developing a webcast to share practical strategies for partnering with community colleges to improve student recruitment and student success, I had the opportunity to talk with Mary Hinton, president of the College of Saint Benedict. Hinton, who also authored our recent article “Game On for the Liberal Arts” and participated in the Presidential Dialogues, has a forward-thinking approach and makes an eloquent and compelling case for partnering with two-year institutions – not only to boost enrollment objectives, but to address a growing need in society. Partnering for Better Transfer Pathways: An Interview with Mary Hinton Sarah Seigle. As private colleges look to recruit more transfer students, how would you describe the opportunity you see for four-year private institutions when it comes to partnering more strategically with community colleges? Mary Hinton. As we think about student demographics, and the desire for our institutions to be more inclusive, we know part of that equation will demand thinking beyond our current constituents. Partnering with two-year institutions provides viable opportunities to reach more students; to genuinely exhibit inclusion; and to recognize that for some, access […]

Leveraging Parents as Allies in Student Success

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

by Daniel Fusch (Academic Impressions), interviewing Marjorie Savage (University of Minnesota) While some colleges are seeking positive ways of managing parent involvement throughout the college years, others have established farewell rituals near the start of a student’s first term to deliver the message that parents are expected to let go and step back. These separation programs range from a formal ceremony at Morehouse College to sessions on “Letting Go” during orientation at other institutions. Not Just About Letting Go Although introducing programming to encourage parents to “let go” may be a way to define the separation process for both students and student services staff, this approach (especially if adopted in isolation from a more holistic strategy for parent engagement) precludes opportunities to leverage parents as key resources in promoting the academic and social success of your students. Marjorie Savage, researcher on the topic of parent/college relations and author of the books Not Helicopters but Allies: Partnering with Parents to Better Support Students (Academic Impressions, 2016) and You’re on Your Own (But I’m Here if You Need Me) (Simon & Schuster, 2009), suggests that parents can be an asset to the institution and play a key role in student success — if that role and the […]

Tailoring the RCM Model to What Works For You

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

In an era of public scrutiny and requests for increased financial accountability, higher-ed leaders are looking for ways to show the public that they are addressing the issue of rising college costs. Many have turned to responsibility-centered management (RCM) as a way to reduce costs and encourage financial responsibility within individual academic departments. While many institutional leaders see RCM as a way of decentralizing financial decision-making, allowing vice presidents and deans to take responsibility for their own budgets, they may not realize that certain principles of this financial structure can be tailored to fit the distinct culture of their campus, even without wholesale adoption of an RCM model. The University of Notre Dame recognized how they could adopt some principles from RCM to meet their institutional needs and goals. Here is what they did, and what you can learn from it. Adopting Elements of RCM – Not the Whole Model Linda Kroll, associate vice president for finance at the University of Notre Dame, states that when their institution looked at some of the fundamental elements of the RCM model, university leaders liked that the model allowed for: Distribution of responsibility to unit leaders Creation of a culture that rewards lowering […]

Make Your Threat Assessment Team Effective: Part 1

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

This is the first of two articles offering practical advice on making behavioral intervention teams effective. The second article, which will focus on five pitfalls to avoid, will appear in late August. An abbreviated version of this article appeared in an earlier edition of Higher Ed Impact. August 4, 2011. In today’s difficult economic climate, most institutions of higher education are facing significant reductions in counseling and mental health budgets at a time when the mental health needs of students, faculty, and staff are on the rise. In a recent survey by the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors, 77 percent of counseling center directors indicated that the number of students on campus with severe mental health issues had increased in the past year. And while most available studies focus on student mental health, last year’s shooting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville offers a tragic reminder that faculty and staff may also face mental health issues. We asked Gene Deisinger, deputy chief of police and director of threat management services at Virginia Tech, for his advice on how to establish early behavioral intervention teams or threat assessment teams when challenged to do more with existing resources. Deisinger is both a police […]

Responding to a Bad Employee Engagement Survey: A Call to Action for Higher Education Leaders 

Posted on by Sarah Adams

Employee engagement surveys, if thoughtfully designed, are a powerful tool for understanding the lived experiences of faculty and staff. They can illuminate areas of strength and expose systemic issues that hinder inclusivity, belonging, and engagement. However, too often, leaders in higher education conduct these surveys infrequently, and when the results are less than favorable, they either bury the data or delegate the issue to a committee that produces little meaningful action. This approach not only wastes time and resources but also erodes trust and credibility. If your institution has received poor results from a climate survey, it’s time to take decisive action. But here’s the key: this isn’t a problem for senior leadership to solve alone. The best outcomes come from a dual approach—from transparent leadership from the top down, and from active engagement from the bottom up. Faculty and staff don’t just want to hear the results; they also want a role in shaping the response. When leaders both own the results publicly and empower their teams to develop solutions, they create a stronger, more engaged institution.   Own the Results The first step in responding to a bad climate survey is for leadership to create transparency by owning […]

Adjusting Housing and Dining Operations for the Fall: Ideas from Your Peers

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

Every campus with plans to re-open in the fall is scrambling to adjust campus housing and dining services – but often, we are moving so fast and feeling so isolated that we lose the opportunity to compare notes and brainstorm solutions with our peers, or to learn from what other institutions are trying. That’s why we brought a couple dozen housing and dining services leaders together for a virtual brainstorm session. Here’s some of what they came up with. As a student life professional, you are currently planning how housing and dining operations will adjust in the fall under the “new normal” of COVID-19. Assuming your institution will host students on campus beginning in August, you will soon have to implement plans to keep students and staff safe in these shared spaces. Before moving to the implementation phase, have you stopped to discuss your plans with other housing and dining professionals to ensure the very best options are on the table? On May 20, 2020, leaders in housing and dining from just under two dozen campuses met online to discuss the issues entailed. This virtual workshop was unique in its format and was the first of an ongoing series of […]

Feasibility Checklist: The Science of Bringing New Academic Programs to Life

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

The best ideas in the world can easily fall off the radar unless you have a process in place for evaluating, vetting and bringing them to life. Also in this series: Is it Time to Launch that New Academic Program? The Art and Science of Answering that Question Financial Modeling for New Academic Programs Once you have generated an idea for a new academic program, how do you sustain and implement that idea? As Jim Collins suggests in Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck—Why Some Thrive Despite Them All, organizational ‘luck’ and success can be leveraged by cultivating a discipline around process and metrics.  Indeed, he suggests that this discipline is key for maximizing whatever ‘luck’ might naturally come one’s way. This has certainly been the case at Bay Path University, where we have developed a rigorous process and template for evaluating the feasibility of new program ideas that we use across all divisions of the University. This process has enabled us to remove some of the subjectivity that accompanies new academic program decision making, relying instead on a set of objective key elements and metrics that are applied equally to all new program possibilities. When a new program […]

Financial Modeling for New Academic Programs

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

Also in this series: Is it Time to Launch that New Academic Program? The Art and Science of Answering that Question Feasibility Checklist: The Science of Bringing New Academic Programs to Life Developing a 4-Year Financial Proforma In my previous article, Feasibility Checklist: The Science Behind Bringing New Academic Programs to Life, I discussed the importance of cultivating a discipline around process and metrics to new academic program development and success. Gaining a clear and accurate sense as to what it will take to launch and sustain your new program before you enroll your first student is a critical prerequisite and a helpful exercise for surfacing and testing important assumptions. At Bay Path University, all new academic program proposals must include a four-year financial proforma, which is typically developed jointly by the dean, the chief financial officer, and the provost. Through this process, we invariably surface financial assumptions, strategies and program operational plans or outcomes that when checked more thoroughly prove to be unworkable or in need of revision. For example, in developing a new graduate program a few years ago we discovered that our “creative” approach to structuring the curriculum was not financially viable without some major tweaking. The financial […]

10 Articles Every Leader in Higher Ed Should Read

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

Over the past 7-8 years, Academic Impressions has designed and delivered leadership programs for over a thousand leaders across the higher education landscape. We have had the opportunity to work with academic and administrative leaders as well as presidents and provosts. The learning experiences have been outstanding because almost every participant was curious and interested in learning about leadership, not pontificating about it. One of the protocols we use in every leadership program is the creation of a “learning agenda” that is produced by participants and is a list of highly relevant articles, books, and papers on leadership. The criteria for inclusion on the learning agenda list is that the suggested reading must be something that influenced a participant, made them think differently about how they view leadership, or had a positive and meaningful impact on how they actually lead. Participants populate the list over the course of the 2 or 3-day program. They also provide a 1-minute snapshot about the suggested book or article, with a brief rationale about why their suggestion is worth reading. This article provides an annotated list of some of the strong recommendations from past participants. There is a lot of blather and clutter out there […]

Spotlight on Innovation: A New Take on Developmental Education at Gateway Community and Technical College

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. There has been no shortage of research documenting the extent to which developmental education courses under-serve academically under-prepared students; traditional dev-ed curriculums typically award no college credit yet cost students time and money, while showing dismal persistence rates. In the past couple of years, we have seen a number of colleges and universities undertake innovative and impactful reforms of their developmental education. Gateway Community and Technical College in Florence, KY, is currently engaging in such a reform through its Flexible Learning and Exploration space (FLEXspace) project, which is funded by a $3.4 million First in the World grant. We reached out to Kristen Smitherman, project director; Kerri McKenna, division chair of developmental education and orientation and assistant professor of developmental writing; and Doug Penix, director of learning […]

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