5 Mistakes Too Many Institutions Make in the RFP Process

A NEW SERIES ON RFPs, CAPITAL PLANNING, AND PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS This is the first in a series of articles by Neil Calfee. Currently the principal of NPC Group, specializing in the creation and negotiation of public/private Partnerships, Neil Calfee previously served as Arizona State University’s director of real estate development. He has over 15 years of experience in development and management of complex development projects involving partnerships between government entities and the private sector. This article reviews 5 mistakes institutions commonly make in writing an RFP document. Calfee’s next article will review 5 frequent mistakes made in the solicitation and evaluation of responses once the RFP has been issued. You may also be interested in his recorded training, “Creating Financial Expectations in the Housing RFP Process.” So you want to issue an RFP for a campus capital project, how hard can that be? Quite easy, actually. But simply getting an offering on the street and administering a successful RFP process that brings you a quality development are two different things entirely. Here are 5 things that many institutions miss in their RFP processes: 5 mistakes that can cause annoyance at best or can completely derail the effort at worst. Mistake 1: […]

Four Tips for Training Annual Fund Phonathon Callers

Despite how critical the phonathon can be to the annual fund, student callers are often given minimum training — or training that doesn’t set them up well to succeed in soliciting donor support for the institution. To learn some tips from past and present managers of highly effective phonathon programs, we turned this week to Jessica Cloud, who administers a comprehensive annual giving program for the University of Southern Mississippi Foundation, and Albert Melfo, director of annual giving at Kent State University. Cloud and Melfo suggest these four tips for training callers: Cultivate the Larger Perspective “Focus on the process, focus on the technique,” Melfo advises. “Don’t get hung up on the details; talk about the big picture. Devote training time to discussing what philanthropy is, its role within the organization, what it means to be nonprofit — why we need to raise money. Give the students the big picture case for giving. Help them understand why we do this and why they should feel okay talking with others about why we need their support.” “Help your callers understand the real case for support, the reason we ask. The more we can help our student ambassadors internalize that and speak […]

How One Institution is Monetizing its Physical Assets

The Ohio State University recently monetized their parking operation — which OSU identified as a campus asset that was non-mission critical — and secured $400 million, most of which OSU invested in its endowment. As other institutions seek to counterbalance increasingly depleted revenue streams, OSU provides a key example of how to identify assets that are ideal for monetization. To learn more about the thinking behind OSU’s recent transition, we interviewed Michael Papadakis, Ohio State University’s treasurer, and Sarah Blouch, president of CampusParc LLP, an entity formed to manage university parking concessions—including the transaction recently closed at The Ohio State University. AI: What do institutions need to keep in mind when looking to monetize physical assets? “Typically in the past,” Papadakis notes, “when a service is needed, we have tended to think that we can provide that service better than anyone else. Our instinct is to want everything customized to our particular needs and culture. So the trend in the past was to bring everything in-house. That’s very counter-intuitive; it’s very different from how the corporate world looks at this.” “There are some things that it may not make sense for us to do in-house, and where it may be […]

Make Your Veterans Resources Center Effective

The New York Times this week ran a thoughtful feature following one military veteran’s transition from the battlefield to campus life. This and other recent articles on veteran students reveal that: Don Pfeffer, director of the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs, Higher Education Veterans Programs, and Jayne Lokken, a professor and counselor at St. Cloud State University, offer tactics for setting up your veterans center so as to maximize its effectiveness in helping veterans achieve success. Provide the Right Space “There needs to be a space on campus that veterans can call their own, where there are people who can talk their language and share similar experiences, and particularly where it is safe for veterans to vent their frustrations.”Don Pfeffer, Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs Pfeffer suggests that if veteran students who are new to campus have a ready opportunity to vent around other veterans who may have already worked through the situation they are facing, this can resolve many issues that could potentially become more explosive. “This is a group-focused, self-regulated process. This is the best kind of therapy, conversations among peers.” Lokken adds, “This should be a relaxing place, where they don’t have to argue about war and […]

6 Things Presidents and Chancellors MUST Do to Prepare for a Crisis

INTERVIEWS WITH PRESIDENTS AND CHANCELLORS This article was adapted from interviews conducted during the course of preparation for chapter 3, authored by Cindy Lawson, in Managing the Unthinkable, Crisis Preparation and Response for Campus Leaders, edited by Gretchen M. Bataille and Diana I. Cordova, Stylus Publishing, LLC. 2014. Throughout my long career in public relations both at a Fortune 500 company and at five different higher education institutions, I have had the privilege of working with some great presidents and chancellors.  Together, we faced a number of crises, including a tuberculosis scare, a chemical lab mishap, a natural gas explosion, fires, electrocutions, kidnapping, active shooters, bomb scares, rapes, plane crashes, multiple deaths resulting from car crashes, tropical storms and hurricanes, drownings, suicides, murders…and many more. With each crisis came lessons learned – for individual responders, for the president/chancellor and for the institution as a whole. I interviewed several of those (now ex-) presidents and chancellors about the various crises each experienced.  I asked them what advice they would give other presidents and chancellors in terms of preparing for any type of crisis. Following are their, and my, top six suggestions: For more ideas and suggestions for senior leaders during and after […]

How One Institution is Taking an Accelerated, Synchronous Approach to Online Developmental Education

Here’s how Rasmussen College has increased its developmental education pass rates by double digits while decreasing the number and percentage of students who require remedial coursework. FROM RASMUSSEN COLLEGE DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION STUDENTS: “I am one who hated math because I couldn’t understand it. I came into this class with the attitude that I was going to fail and have to retake the class. I am so amazed that my average is in the 90s and I have even gotten a score of 100 on a test! I really amazed myself! Just take plenty of notes so that you can go back and look at examples and see how to do the problems.” “The demonstrations really help. There is still a lot I don’t get, but with these videos I am beginning to understand.” Driven by faculty-based action research, redesigned residential and online courses, and changes to placement testing, Rasmussen College has increased its developmental education pass rates by double digits while decreasing the number and percentage of students who require remedial coursework. Like many institutions of higher education, Rasmussen College prioritizes developmental education given its impact on new-student experience, graduation, and overall institutional health. In 2012, the college committed to an […]

Student Success and Retention in the Time of Coronavirus

We know many of our faculty have had a big transition to make, as institutions have moved courses online rapidly in response to COVID-19—but it’s a huge transition for many of our students, too, especially those who have never taken an online course or who have limited access to the Internet now that campus is closed. What are some ways we can help students succeed and persist when plunged into this new world? On March 25, over 900 higher-ed professionals from institutions all over North America attended one of our free COVID-19 Critical Response webcasts. It was an opportunity to hear from a leading expert on student retention—and to share ideas among their peers, hearing what other institutions are doing and what you could be doing. You can sign up to get the webcast recording (and chat transcript) here, or explore our rapidly growing COVID-19 Critical Response series—some of which are free for everyone, while others are free for our members. COVID-19 has forced institutions to pivot and adapt in unprecedented ways. If you’re like most, you are laser-focused on your own campus responses and have been craving a space to connect with others, ask questions, and share ideas with […]

Integrating E-Portfolios into Your Assessment Strategy

Trent Batson, executive director of The Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL), stirred some controversy this week with an article entitled “The Testing Straitjacket,” in which he advocates for privileging e-portfolios over legacy testing as a primary tool for assessing student learning, arguing that e-portfolios, which “encourage students to use their collection of evidence as a strong developmental practice, and fully recognize the value of student discovery,” are the more effective assessment tool to evaluate the type of learning needed in the twenty-first century. While many educators do not see such an either-or proposition, interest in the use of the electronic portfolio is growing. However, while older methods of testing have a set of attested practices, the e-portfolio is a much more recent innovation in learning assessment, and many institutions are less sure where to look for effective models and best practices. Tracy Penny Light, assistant professor at the University of Waterloo, a leading e-portfolio researcher and co-author (with Helen Chen at the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning) of the book Electronic Portfolios and Student Success, offers several steps for integrating e-portfolios into your assessment strategy. Ensure Your Assessment Strategy is Aligned with Your Outcomes “The problem we […]