Search Results for: meeting

Responsive General Collection Management: Integrating Stakeholder Input

It may seem difficult to both balance space management in your academic library and continue to cultivate a thriving general collection that meets the needs of 21st century faculty and students. However, strong weeding and storage policies offer an effective way to meet both aims. The key is to move beyond just reviewing circulation data and integrate user input to inform your general collection management. Join us for a webcast that explores how to seamlessly integrate data and user input into your library’s storage and weeding policies. You will leave with five key takeaways and a plan for establishing policies that ensure the viability of your general collection in a way that nurtures the relationship between your library and its most important stakeholders.

Growing and Supporting Online
Programs Internationally

Pursuing international markets in online education can bring in new revenue and a more prestigious global image. However, efficiently expanding these programs to reach or meet an international need in education can be difficult. In order to capitalize on your programs’ competitive advantage, specific processes and support structures must be designed to target and align with the potential market. Join us for an online training where our experienced instructors will discuss the expansion of online programs for international audiences. Using a SWOT Analysis approach, we will discuss the competencies needed to find the right fit for your program and the building of an internal support model to meet the distinctive needs of an international audience.

Disrupting the Status Quo: 5 Counterintuitive Notions for Inspiring Creativity

Posted on by Brady Stanton

Creativity is an essential aspect of human nature, yet many people struggle to embrace it, either from insecurity or fearing its potential unpredictability. While it is tempting to stick to familiar routines that afford the comfort of not dealing with potential failure or uncertainty, there is no room for personal or organizational growth with this mindset. Today, the need to foster creativity that drives innovation and growth in organizations is a highly regarded requirement for leaders. However, simply telling your team to “think outside the box” isn’t exactly inspiring. To quote Ted Lasso, “Takin’ on a challenge is a lot like riding a horse. If you’re comfortable while you’re doing it, you’re probably doing it wrong.” While we all agree that change is scary, what makes creativity so satisfying is the opportunity to see situations from new perspectives. In this article, we will explore five counterintuitive notions that can help to cultivate a creative culture. Embracing creativity is both a challenging and rewarding process. While these examples may appear to be counterintuitive, give them a try and see how they are able to unlock the full potential of your meetings, employees, and organization to help drive innovation. Lean into embracing […]

What Does Collaborative Strategic Planning Actually Look Like? An Informal Case Study

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

A PROCESS THAT WORKSIf the case study below intrigues you, you can learn the 5-phase Collaborative Strategic Planning process that Anoka Ramsey Community College undertook in Pat Sanaghan’s book Strategic Planning: 5 Tough Questions, 5 Proven Answers.Case Study: Anoka Technical College & Anoka Ramsey Community College by Andrew Aspaas, Patrick Sanaghan, Donald Lewis, and Kent Hanson “Collaborative” Strategic Planning (CSP) has a nice ring to it, sounds a little like mom and apple pie, inclusion, and lots of participation. Who wouldn’t want that? In reality, authentic collaboration is a difficult process for leaders to undertake and do well. The challenges of conducting a collaborative planning process are many: you can get lost in too much process, where seemingly endless loops of engagement become confusing and exhausting for stakeholders; in an attempt to be inclusive, way too many people are informally involved in the planning effort, with no real ownership for the outcomes; the process can lose focus quickly, or people become overwhelmed by all the data that is gathered, and sense making becomes almost impossible. In this informal case study we want to show how you can actually conduct a large group collaborative planning meeting with 200+ faculty and ensure […]

Addressing a Changing Landscape in Higher Education Due to COVID-19: Lessons From One Institution for Academic Leaders

Posted on by Brady Stanton

ByAnand R. Marri, Dean and Professor, Teachers College, Ball State University Paaige K. Turner, Dean and Professor, College of Communication, Information, and Media, Ball State University Susana Rivera-Mills, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Ball State University While the COVID-19 pandemic has presented numerous challenges for higher education institutions across the world, it also offers an opportunity to reflect upon how this moment can prepare academic leaders for a changing landscape. The lessons we learned at Ball State University are organized into three areas, those that can take higher education forward into the future, those that are applicable for that moment, and those that did not achieve the intended objectives. Ball State University serves over 22,000 undergraduate and graduate students both on campus and through our numerous online programs. Currently, over one-third of our undergraduate students receive Pell Grants and over 25 percent of our undergraduate students are first-generation college students. The COVID-19 pandemic presented a new set of challenges and exacerbated existing challenges across higher education while providing an opportunity to affirm commitments to institutional values. Beneficence is Ball State’s iconic statue that represents the beneficence and tenacity of the Ball Family and our community. Ball State […]

Tackling the Challenge (and the Stigma) of Student Food Insecurity

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

In 12 years, the number of food pantries on college campuses has grown from 1 to 700. However, due to the cultural stigma of facing hunger, the existence of a food pantry, by itself, does not solve the issue of student food insecurity. In early 2019, the Hope Center reported that up to 45% of today’s higher education students face food insecurity. Many colleges and universities are responding to this alarming number by creating on campus food pantries to meet students’ dietary needs. In 2007, the College and University Food Bank Alliance knew of only one food pantry operating on a college campus. As of October 2019, the Government Accountability Office estimated that this number had grown to more than 700! While this growth is remarkable, the existence of a food pantry does not guarantee that food-insecure students are receiving the assistance that they need. The cultural stigma associated with facing hunger in the United States, of being seen by their peers receiving free food, can discourage students from utilizing on-campus pantries. The fear of stigma leaves administrators tasked with pantry operation with some difficult logistical choices: While conducting research into the many challenges of addressing food insecurity in higher […]

Academic Success Coaching: Keys to an Effective Approach

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

Given voluminous research on the impact of individualized attention on at-risk students’ academic performance and persistence, more institutions are innovating new ways to leverage both peer mentors and professional academic success coaches. To learn more about the second approach (which has not yet been as widely adopted), we reached out to Derek Moore, a key player in the success coach program at Pulaski Technical College. Pulaski has success coaches on seven campuses, and the coaches report to the institution’s dean of enrollment. The program has seen some success, and Moore shared with us some of its key features. Smaller colleges especially, as well as institutions serving nontraditional student populations, may want to take note. Much of the program’s features are replicable, and it is possible to start on a small scale — with just a few coaches and a brief questionnaire to serve as a needs assessment — and then build up over time. Here is one model for providing effective academic success coaching. The Triage Approach Moore outlined for us the thinking behind Pulaski Technical College’s academic success coach program. The program takes a “triage” approach, offering three levels of coaching: The case management approach involves the coach partnering […]

Stewardship and Donor Relations: How to Crash the Party

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

For years, stewardship and donor relations professionals have talked about ways in which to develop a presence at the leadership table. This may mean a standing invitation to sit in at prospect development meetings, event planning meetings, executive briefings or leadership planning meetings. Participating in all of these types of meetings are helpful for several reasons: Whether you are new to the field or a seasoned veteran in the industry, your role as a donor relations and stewardship officer will be viewed very differently across institutions. No matter where your position falls in the overall hierarchy, the reality is that all productive members of a foundation or university advancement team are highly valued, and your executive leadership will respect you and invite to the table if you are able to appropriately demonstrate your value to the organization. So I encourage you to consider how best you and your talents, knowledge and relationships can make an immediate, positive impact on the institution’s stated goals. Be Present It sounds obvious, but make sure you attend and participate in optional team meetings. Know what you have to offer to various conversations and do not hesitate to be vocal when your strengths will be […]

Fundraising Essentials: Perfecting Moves Management Webcast Recording

Get practical ideas and advice on the “art” associated with the science of moves management. Gain the knowledge you need to smoothly move prospects through the donor cycle and upgrade them to the next giving level. Throughout this training, you will learn: The right questions to ask and when to ask them Identifying prospects who need to be upgraded or downgraded How to effectively manage donor meetings to ensure outcomes are met Tactics for moving donors through each stage of the solicitation cycle Considerations for using data to guide strategy

Reaching out to the Town During Campus Expansion

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

There have been several stories in the news lately about colleges with growing enrollments that are planning for campus expansion (including Loyola and New York University), and these stories have highlighted both the importance and challenges of strong town-gown relations during the capital planning process. We asked Mark Beck, director of capital planning at the University System of Maryland for insights into how institutions can more effectively invite town participation in a campus expansion planning effort. Engage Your Community Early and Often “It’s not so much what you do to engage your community, but how you do it.”Mark Beck, U System of Maryland The most important investment you can make is to engage your community as often as possible. Beck suggests that you can’t simply go through the motion of holding meetings and communicating via the web and newsletters. You have to actually listen and engage your community in the planning process. He points to examples of public meetings that he convened early in his career that weren’t successful because the university approached the discussion as an announcement of their plans rather than as a listening opportunity. Beck suggests making the meetings more regular, less formal, and more focused on dialogue. Equally […]

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