Search Results for: meeting

The Urgent Care Model as a Solution for Higher Ed Counseling Centers

Giving every student an assessment and 50-minute counseling session is no longer sustainable given the high volume of students needing mental health services. You are likely looking for new ways of delivering quality care to meet your students’ needs and manage your resources. Join us online to learn how the Urgent Care Model may be one possible solution for your counseling center. Dr. Will Meek from Brown University, creator of the model, will guide you through its key components and share tips for how you can implement the model on your campus. We will share a counselor’s typical daily schedule in the Urgent Care Model to illustrate how quality care is delivered to various students.

Ghostwriting for the President: 3 Techniques to Capture Their Voice

Posted on by Brady Stanton

“Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter.”– Jane Austen, Persuasion A decade ago, when I was getting started in the legal department at Missouri State University, one of our campuses became embroiled in a turf dispute with another educational institution. Stakeholders from both institutions met to explore collaborative options. The stakeholder meeting was wholly unsuccessful. In a last attempt to avoid an inevitable clash, our general counsel asked me to draft a message from our president to the other institution’s president (along with staff at the state department of higher education) advising them to stand down. Before drafting the letter, I met with the president and the other stakeholders who had attended the meeting. From their perspective, the offers made at the meeting were comically unreasonable. We felt disrespected and grossly undervalued. Based on those conversations, I decided the letter should be professional, but aggressive and decisive. I also decided the letter should be short and concise to convey our strength and confidence. I drafted a scathing letter, designed to evoke a negative reaction. The letter: No apologies. No sugarcoating. No counteroffer. No offers to meet again. I nervously delivered the letter to my president. He read […]

Makerspaces and Academic Incubators: Giving Innovation on Campus a Home

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

Listening recently to Melissa Kaufman, executive director of The Garage at Northwestern University (which incubated 147 start-ups in its first year), and David G. Broz and Todd Heiser, principals for Gensler, speak about academic incubators at our recent webcast (you can obtain a recording here), I was especially struck by the research showing the hunger for entrepreneurship among today’s traditional-aged college students: This generation of students has an entrepreneurial and creative spirit. We just need to create the spaces—innovation centers, makerspaces, academic incubators—that foster their learning and growth as young entrepreneurs. Illustrating this, Kaufman describes the culture of Northwestern University before the institution converted a parking garage into The Garage, a central incubator for the campus: “Students were incubating in their dorm rooms, in their homes; faculty were connecting in classrooms and lab spaces. But there was no one space where all these people could connect. We needed a space where they could work on their schedule, that would be available 24/7 and where they could meet creative entrepreneurs from elsewhere on campus. We needed to give innovation on campus a home.” What is an academic incubator? “We want to help students develop an entrepreneurial toolkit, but I don’t believe you can […]

Navigating a virtual provost search during the pandemic

Posted on by Brady Stanton

The below piece tells the story of Cal State Fullerton’s experience conducting a provost search virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic. The story is written from two perspectives: the first from the institution’s Vice President of Human Resources, Diversity, and Inclusion and Search Committee Chair; and the second from the now sitting provost. By sharing their experience, the article authors hope other institutions that find themselves embarking on a search in this continued virtual environment can gain ideas that positively impact the process. Perspective #1: David Forgues, Search Committee Chair and Vice President of Human Resources, Diversity, and Inclusion Pre-pandemic: Starting a provost search When our interim president was made permanent by the board in May of 2019, high on his list of priorities was to search for and appoint a new provost. Three interim provosts had served in the position since the last permanent provost departed. As we moved into fall and kicked off the search, we had no idea what was in store. We planned for this search along the normal cycle with groundwork to be completed in fall and advertising and recruitment over winter break and into the start of the spring semester. That would set us up […]

Taking the Campaign Beyond Campus Events: A Case Study

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

The University of the Virgin Islands (an HBCU with campuses on St. Thomas and St. Croix US Virgin Islands) saw their alumni giving rate increase from 13% to 42% in the past year during the institution’s “50 for 50 Campaign” celebrating UVI’s 50th anniversary. What is especially noteworthy about this jump in giving rate is how UVI did it: rather than relying heavily on reunion, other on-campus events, or even alumni events in other locations to boost giving rate, UVI reached out to alumni at 30 local community events and festivals throughout the year. Rather than just bring alumni back to UVI, their annual giving and alumni affairs staff and volunteers went out into the community to find their alumni — where their alumni were already gathering. Intrigued by UVI’s ambitious (and effective) alumni outreach, we interviewed Linda Smith, UVI’s director of annual giving and alumni affairs, and Nanyamka Farrelly, UVI’s public relations officer, to learn more about UVI’s approach in the past year. Here is what they shared with us. Academic Impressions (AI): Linda, Nanyamka, thank you for joining me for this conversation. I am fascinated by your approach. What did your participation at these community events look like? […]

Parking Garage Advising: How Florida Atlantic is Test Driving a New Approach to Advising Commuter Students

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

by Lisa Cook, Academic Impressions Why We’re Taking a Close Look at FAU Florida Atlantic University has piloted several innovative strategies for providing students more timely advising and support. In fall 2014, FAU’s University Advising Services office started a resident hall outreach but struggled to come up with a plan to reach out to commuter students, who frequently attend part-time and only in the evening due to work and family commitments. Historically, all university offices closed at 5, which posed an additional challenge to reaching out to students with full-time jobs. The reality is that commuter students, who are often part-time, take longer to graduate, making outreach to that population especially critical. We talked with Joe Murray, director of University Advising Services, to learn more about the initiative. Taking Advising to the Parking Garage The idea to reach out to commuter students was the brainchild of Florida Atlantic University academic coach and advisor Jennifer Coisson, who herself had once been a commuter student and knew that commuter students often miss out on campus support services. Yet outreach to these students is difficult because FAU doesn’t have commuter lounges or any one spot on campus where commuter students congregate. Except the […]

The One Issue That’s Bigger than the Demographic Cliff

Posted on by Brady Stanton

At a workshop I ran recently, I asked the participants to answer the question, “What’s one thing I know about leadership?” when they were introducing themselves. One of the participants, a brilliant researcher who directs three different centers, stated very plainly: “In higher education, you are always promoted into a job for which you have no training.” His comment wasn’t delivered with any cynicism—he was at the training voluntarily for precisely that reason. He wanted to learn more about leadership.  Over the last three years, I’ve worked with more than 75 groups on various college campuses at all levels—from Chairs, all the way up to Presidents and their senior teams. And I find that this exact same phenomenon exists at every single level. There are only two differences: The higher up in the institution, the less likely leaders are to admit that they need help; and the consequences of ineffective leadership are exponentially greater—even greater than the demographic cliff.   Higher education is unique in this way—most other people-driven businesses invest heavily in leadership. Higher ed, instead, has been slow to see the value. Instead, we prefer to prioritize a narrow definition of success—with high-impact publications, grant development, starting new programs, […]

Upping the Ante on Recreation Facilities for Your Campus

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

Campus recreation facilities have evolved into hubs for student academic, social, and physical engagement. Institutions as diverse as the University of Alabama, Macalester College, the University of Wisconsin – River Falls, and DePauw University have taken very intentional approaches to designing their recreation facilities in ways that contribute to an improved quality of life for their campus communities. This week, we interviewed George Brown, the executive director of recreation at the University of Alabama. In the podcast below, Brown discusses how his campus has utilized the trends of modern recreation facility design in an on-campus facility that will meet both current and future student needs — and how this effort will help his institution continue to take positive strides in enrolling and retaining students. Podcast: An Interview with George Brown, University of Alabama Key Questions to Ask Your Design Team To ensure a recreation facility that meets student needs, George Brown recommends asking the following questions during the design process: See Upcoming Facilities Events

Hiring and Onboarding Diverse Talent: Where are the Gaps?

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

Recruiting and retaining diverse faculty and staff talent must be a key priority for colleges and universities. However, hiring diverse and high-performing talent can be challenging due to limited resources, perspective, and commitment. To dig deeper into some of the challenges, we reached out to a panel of three experts: We asked each panelist to discuss the gaps they see in how institutions are hiring and onboarding diverse talent. What are most institutions not thinking about? What should they be thinking about? Here are their answers: Liz Ortiz, DePaul University. The gap that I see is: Why do our intentions not match our results? If I had a room full of search chairs and I asked, “Is diversity important in your searches?” — the answer would be yes. Yet the results we see are often the same hire after hire with little to no diversity in the final selection. Often we hear it is a pipeline problem or a competition problem as qualified candidates are highly sought after and therefore out of reach. However, it could be a systems problem that is recreating the same results over and over again. In my experience, there are several factors that can lead to […]

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