Author: Greta Bell

Helping Veteran Students Succeed

April 14, 2011. Veteran students represent a growing demographic of college students, and that demographic is likely to grow further as more military members return to the states from the overseas wars in the Iraq and Afghanistan, seeking college degrees and transitions into the civilian workforce. Yet veterans (and military students in general) face unique challenges in the transition from combat to the classroom, and colleges and universities face continuing challenges in supporting veteran students and integrating them effectively into the campus community. Two challenges in particular stand out: Many veterans continue to feel isolated on college campuses Many veterans face confusion over their GI Bill benefits Both of these challenges impact the likelihood of retention and degree completion. The first is an obstacle to securing peer support that would improve academic performance, and the second is a barrier to the financial viability of degree completion. An article in USA Today this week highlighted some of the measures colleges are taking to make their campuses “military-friendly” — measures such as peer mentoring programs, special orientation sessions, and establishing veterans centers on campus. To learn more about where colleges can see the greatest impact on academic performance and retention for veteran […]

Recruiting Students: Five Tips for Making the Most of Facebook

April 14, 2011. In our January – February 2011 edition of Higher Ed Impact: Monthly Diagnostic, which identified opportunities for using social media to move the needle on key objectives in student recruitment, student engagement, and fundraising, we highlighted the ethnographic research of danah boyd (sic), a social media researcher with Microsoft Research New England and a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Among other findings, boyd noted that young adults use Facebook not to build or expand their personal or professional network (as, for example, adults in their 20s and 30s use LinkedIn), but to connect with their pre-existing network of friends and social contacts. This has implications for how institutions leverage Facebook for recruiting. A lot of institutions have invested in posting large amounts of content to Facebook pages that are designed to interest prospective students in the campus community, invite them to subscribe, and build networks of prospects and applicants. More efficient and effective uses of Facebook, however, use smaller amounts of very targeted content to get prospects conversing with their current network about the institution, sharing information, or completing specific tasks. To learn more about how institutions can make the most out […]

Student Success: A Team Effort

Our Member Exclusive report Tackling the Retention Challenge: Defining and Delivering a Unique Student Experience emphasizes the importance of achieving a broad alignment of academic and student support services, rather than trusting to isolated, one-off retention initiatives. Yet there are often organizational and cultural barriers that keep efforts within student affairs and academic affairs separated and siloed. This week, we asked James Cook, co-editor (with Christopher Lewis) of the book Student and Academic Affairs Collaboration: The Divine Comity (NASPA, 2007) and past vice president of student services at Laramie County Community College, to identify some of the most difficult and pervasive barriers to effective partnerships across these divisions. Cook also suggests some tips for breaking down those barriers. What Gets in the Way Cook notes five barriers that represent the most significant — and difficult to address — obstacles to effective coordination of academic and student support services: Organizational structure — these functions typically report to separate vice presidents Residual antipathy between some student services professionals and some faculty (there are still faculty who view student services professionals as “the party people” who hold pizza events for students; there are still some student services professionals who stereotype faculty, seeing them […]

The President’s Role in Crisis Recovery

The media this week featured the work of Brandeis University’s new president, Frederick Lawrence, who is tasked with guiding Brandeis through its recovery from both a financial crisis and a reputation crisis. In his three-month tenure at the institution, Lawrence has spent one-third of his time on the road, visiting with donors, alumni, and other stakeholders, and considering new plans for the much-disputed Rose Museum. What the case of Brandeis illustrates is the critical role that an institution’s president has to play during the recovery phase of a crisis. As the public face of the university, the president will be looked to for leadership, transparency, and for clear answers about the details of the situation and the institution’s future. To gain a better understanding of the steps a president needs to take during this sensitive period, we turned to Cindy Lawson, assistant to the chancellor for marketing and communications at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Inadequate Responses First, certain responses, Lawson warns, are entirely inadequate. These include: Deciding not to talk about the crisis — especially with the media — in hopes that the situation will “go away” Failing to take responsibility for the crisis In the first case, […]

Planning and Budgeting in a Low-Trust Environment

At a 2011 Academic Impressions conference on “Integrated Strategic Planning and Resource Allocation” (San Antonio, January 2011), 50 presidents, provosts, chief finance officers, and other members of senior leadership teams from an array of public and private institutions were asked about the key issues and barriers they saw to making a planning and budgeting process effective — and ensuring its implementation. Thirty-seven of the attendees (nearly 75 percent) cited low trust as one of their primary obstacles. Two of the presenters at the AI conference — Larry Goldstein, president of Campus Strategies, LLC, and Pat Sanaghan, president of The Sanaghan Group — have offered to comment on the issue and offer practical steps for strategic planning in a low-trust environment. Commitment from the Top Goldstein and Sanaghan: First, the president and the cabinet must make a public commitment to creating and implementing an inclusive, participative, and transparent planning process. This applies just as much — and possibly more — to the resource allocation process. Plans are one thing, but trust becomes especially critical when money and other resources (positions, space, etc.) are at stake. Without taking steps to cultivate institutional trust, a president simply cannot lead. In a low-trust environment, […]

Marketing Your Academic Programs

Amid increased calls for public accountability, public debates that measure the academic quality of an institution according to specific outcomes (such as completion rates), and increased competition for students between peer institutions, there is a need for rethinking the way you market your institution’s academic strengths — and specific academic programs. Increasingly, prospective students and parents want to hear evidence that your institution will help further their educational, career, and life goals, and want to know how the academic experience your institution offers will help them achieve success differently than the academic experience offered at other institutions. This week we asked Bob Sevier, senior vice president of strategy at STAMATS, to discuss with us his approach to promoting the academic strengths of an institution. What Doesn’t Work First, Sevier warns that many institutions still discuss their academic quality in terms that members of the institution may assign value to, but that prospective students and parents do not. It’s important not to rely on historic indicators of quality, such as the size of your library collections or the endowment dollars per student. “In order to measure quality meaningfully from the prospective student’s perspective,” Sevier suggests, “you need to look at the […]

Getting Started in International Fundraising

With the balance of wealth shifting overseas — and with more colleges and universities increasing their international enrollment — international fundraising is likely to play an increasingly larger role in development at North American institutions. An editorial this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education noted some of the complexities of reaching out to overseas alumni. To learn how institutions can get started in such an effort, we interviewed Gretchen Dobson, senior associate director for alumni relations at Tufts University. Dobson, who participates in a significant overseas fundraising effort at Tufts, and who will have a book on international alumni relations appearing later this year, recommends several steps that make all the difference in launching an effective effort: Craft a story that will be compelling to your international alumni Get a “data dump” of past informal agreements and memorandums of understanding between your institution and individuals or entities in the target region Develop an advisory committee of international alumni representing the target region Seek strategic partnerships with internal and external allies INTERNATIONAL FUNDRAISING TAX AND LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS: UK, INDIA, AND HONG KONG Legal and tax hurdles can stop the most well-planned international effort before it has even started. Join us […]

Increasing Adult Student Enrollment

With the current pressure on completion rates and the growing demand for higher education from a non-traditional “adult” demographic (a diverse, heterogenous demographic, comprising working mothers, career-aged adults seeking a career change or a safe harbor amid a troubled economy, military veterans, and adults of all ages returning to complete a degree), more colleges and universities across the US are devoting more attention to the recruitment and retention of adult students. Because enrollment policies and practices have long been tailored to traditional-aged students (especially at four-year institutions), efforts to recruit and enroll adults offer special challenges. We reached out to Mike Barzacchini, director of marketing services for Harper College, who has seen considerable success in this area, for advice on how institutions can increase their enrollment of adult students. Increasing Inquiries from Adults First, Barzacchini suggests a two-pronged approach to generating leads: Mine your historical data to identify past stop-outs and other cohorts that have shown interest in a degree at your institution Create an adult-friendly website Stop-outs are those who did not attain their degree — not for reasons of low academic performance, but because of the intervention of life circumstances. An audit of your records can tell you […]

Alumni Career Services on a Budget

Published in 2011. As advancement officers strive to maintain the health of the annual fund in a season of donor uncertainty, articles such as this recent feature in the Calgary Herald point to a growing awareness among North American colleges and universities of the need to engage alumni early (even before they graduate), and a trend in institutions offering more high-demand services in order to remain connected with alumni after graduation and demonstrate the institution’s interest in a long-term and mutually beneficial relationship. We turned this week to Julie Hays Bartimus, vice president of the alumni career center for the University of Illinois Alumni Association, to learn more about how academic institutions can offer meaningful career services for alumni — on a limited budget. Based on lessons learned from the progress at the University of Illinois, Bartimus offers an array of tips for resourcing key career services initiatives: Facilitating professional networking among young alumni Expanding the educational programming you can offer Ramping up to offer one-on-one career counseling services Facilitating Alumni Networking “The greatest stated need of alumni,” Bartimus remarks, “is for us to help them identify job opportunities. But in reality, the job board is not the most effective […]

Going Solar: What Colleges Need to Know

One campus sustainability trend emerging in early 2011 is that more institutions are considering larger solar installations. To cite a few major examples from the past few weeks, the University of Maryland at College Park recently announced its plans to install more than 2,600 solar panels on buildings across campus, and Princeton has announced plans to install a solar field featuring 16,500 panels on 27 acres of campus-owned land. To assist other colleges and universities that are considering whether to add solar installations (either small or large), we turned this week to Jon Pietruszkiewicz, senior project manager for renewable energy and energy efficiency at Black & Veatch, to learn more about: How the solar market is changing What questions institutions need to address as they consider investments in solar energy Trends in the Costs of Solar Power Pietruszkiewicz notes that as recently as two or three years ago, the payback period on rooftop solar installations for institutions of higher education was uncertain or long enough to make it difficult for many colleges and universities to justify return on investment. However, two factors have contributed to making solar power much more affordable for colleges and universities: A swift decline in the […]

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