Continuing to support student mental health needs in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic is critical. Stress and anxiety are high, and current circumstances are causing hardship for many. Student affairs leaders and counseling center directors are operating as best they can in this environment, while simultaneously navigating rapidly-evolving institutional responses and balancing their own well-being. Join us for this webcast recording where we facilitate a conversation with Kelly Wesener-Michael, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs & Dean of Students at Northern Illinois University, and Kristen Gray, Director of Counseling & Psychological Services at Hope College. In this open discussion space with our experts and your peers, we shared strategies, current approaches, and decision points related to the following items:
In order to meet your campaign goals, it is essential to ensure you have the proper staffing levels, particularly for frontline fundraisers. In this program, our expert facilitator will provide practical tips for staffing, training, and supporting your frontline fundraisers as you ramp up for a comprehensive campaign. Throughout this webcast, you will learn to: Strategically align your team’s talent with the vision of your campaign Use benchmarking with peer and aspirant institutions to provide insights for staffing needs and patterns Gain insights around the tactics and strategies necessary to hire and on-board new fundraising staff to ensure campaign success.
We oversee an undergraduate program consisting of approximately 2700 students in a typical college of business at a large, public land-grant institution. Being a business school, we constantly look for ways to adapt to the changing environment and to find opportunities to make our operations more efficient and effective. Applying these basic business principles to academia is becoming more necessary in an environment of declining student populations and increasing costs. The Covid-19 pandemic caused a major disruption in the way academia operates, and such disruptions often lead to fundamental changes in the environment in which an organization exists. Those that adapt quickly have an opportunity to take advantage of these changes, but those that assume things will “return to normal” are often left behind. You don’t want to be the shop renting videotapes in the era of the internet, and you don’t want to be the school focusing primarily on classes held in brick-and-mortar facilities when many of your students have spent a year taking courses online. We were certain that the disruptions caused by the pandemic, especially a year of almost fully online instruction, would lead to changes in the educational desires of our student population, and that identifying […]
In an era in which half the post-secondary institutions in the U.S. are facing enrollment declines, performance assessment and continuous improvement in admissions has never been more critical. Even those institutions with strong enrollments, experienced staff, and strong market position need to take the performance assessment process seriously. Why You Need to Do it Right Many of those who have worked with me over the course of the past 20 years will tell you I take performance assessment seriously. I believe one of the most important roles of a leader is to honestly, constructively and actively assesses performance of those who form the team. However, like most leaders, I had to learn how to assess performance, think carefully and adapt. Everyone has a different approach to performance assessment, and some will reject the notion that such assessments even have value. Those who cannot find value in this process,—or choose a superficial method like simply judging by the numbers, or having an annual conversation to ask “how’s it going”—are missing out on what can be a rewarding and integral part of effective talent development. It’s a leader’s job to mentor and develop talent. My master’s thesis focused on the performance assessment […]
Learn how to better focus your budgeting process to engage finance and academic leaders in the research, design, and implementation of a budget model. We will highlight phases of an academic leadership engagement plan for authentic collaboration. Following this webcast, you will be better prepared to: Structure your budget timeline to allow for collaboration Provide training and support for committee members and leadership Build guiding principles to ensure the budget meets your strategic priorities Use visual displays to build consensus and improve transparency Create a continuous improvement feedback cycle for ongoing monitoring This program is designed for financial and academic leaders who are considering a new or improved budget model within their department and/or institution.
With mental health issues and suicide rates on the rise on college campuses, most counseling centers don’t have the resources to meet the needs of their students. Join us online to learn how Georgia Tech and the University of Alabama are mitigating this by training and engaging ALL staff to recognize when students need intervention and support. Both universities have adopted the Zero Suicide model – a framework used within healthcare to prevent and eliminate suicide. As the first expert to translate and implement this model into higher ed, Dr. Ruperto Perez will describe the model and give you advice on how you can design and implement a Zero Suicide Initiative on your campus.
This article continues a series focused on Creating an Innovative Institutional Mindset. More articles will follow. The previous article in this series is: Creative thinking skills are more important than ever if we are to deal with the vast and complex array of challenges facing many colleges and universities. In my last article I discussed the difficulty of creating and nurturing innovation within an academic organization. In my experience, the forces for preserving the status quo are especially powerful within academic organizations and are institutionalized in ways that make change very difficult. Moreover, those who are well positioned and authorized by role and formal authority to lead change are often weighed down with workloads and responsibilities that can kill the creative impulse. Perhaps it is no wonder that, according to a national study, the average tenure of a chief academic officer or provost is only 4.7 years, compared to the significantly longer 8.5 average tenure of all college presidents. According to this same study, the top frustrations for chief academic officers include lack of resources, difficulty cultivating leadership in others, curmudgeonly faculty, campus infighting, and unresponsive campus governance structures. Only 31% of respondents view ‘leading change and fostering innovation’ as job priorities; […]
With an uptick in issues between institutions and major donors, staying current on philanthropic naming issues is more important than ever. Having sound naming policies will help you protect your institution’s reputation and bottom line. Join us online for a two-part webcast series that will help you adjust your naming plans and policies to account for today’s complex and dynamic environment. Session 1 will share considerations for valuing your opportunities that will help you validate your approaches. Session 2 will help you update your naming policies to ensure that you meet the needs of both the donor and the institution.
Innovation spaces are giving students an opportunity to merge the classroom, their future careers, and entrepreneurial spirit all into one place. As colleges assess how to attract and retain students, these spaces foster the creative and collaborative culture of today, while forging a connection between industry and academia. In this training, you will learn how to begin defining your institution’s own innovation space. Our expert instructor from The Garage at Northwestern University will share strategies on how to begin the process, including pictures and examples. Institutions with smaller budgets or a more limited scope will also receive advice on how to scale these strategies to meet their individual needs.
Dr. Melanie Hulbert currently serves as the Sr. Executive Director of Academic Equity and Student Support at University of Alaska Anchorage. Prior to this she served as the VIce Provost for Student Success and Dean of the Honor’s College. Melanie has spent the past 20 years in higher ed as a professor of sociology and in several executive level administrative positions. She cares deeply about student success and believes that it is our role, as leaders, to create academic pathways that are equitable and tailored to each unique student’s aspirations. “Student success isn’t just a buzz word in higher education, it is a fundamental commitment to holistically meeting students where they are in their academic journey.”
