January 18, 2013. “Missed Opportunities” Interviewing a range of experts in the use of mobile technologies in enrollment, teaching and learning, and alumni relations during the closing months of 2012, we found consensus on several points: Many institutions still limit their use of mobile technologies to replicate what they already do or provide through other, […]
Given increasing competition, shifts in student enrollment, and reduced resource levels, it’s critical that colleges and universities recruit and retain the students who are most likely to succeed at their institutions. By transitioning from a risk-based model for predicting student enrollment and retention to a success-based model, you can look across the student life cycle […]
As more institutions consider offering Massive Open Online Courses (or MOOCs), we wanted to investigate what impact these open-enrollment online courses might have on copyright compliance issues for faculty in higher education. To learn more, we turned to copyright and fair use policy experts Steven McDonald, general counsel for the Rhode Island School of Design […]
Through a series of surveys and interviews with advising directors across North America, Academic Impressions has identified a number of frequently missed opportunities that prevent institutions from maximizing the effectiveness of academic advising to improve student retention and academic success. The following are among the most significant: Developmental Advising: Empowering the Student In developmental advising, […]
With continuously changing regulations and compliance standards, financial aid offices sometimes find it difficult to balance legal obligations and customer needs. Gettysburg College recently undertook a restructuring of its financial aid office and dramatically improved customer service without adding additional staff members or making significant changes to the budget. We turned to Chris Gormley, Gettysburg’s […]
Often you hear that “the phonathon is dead”; perceived barriers to bringing in dollars through your phonathon include fewer alumni owning phones, fewer alumni answering the phone, and the difficulty of maintaining an accurate database of cell numbers. Yet a small number of institutions have seen some significant success in approaching their phonathon effort in […]
To develop a stronger donor pipeline, the key is to start earlier. However, institutions attempting to raise giving rates for young alumni are often rebuffed. In a study of the attitudes of young alumni conducted in 2010, the Engagement Strategies Group confirmed that the majority of young alumni are reluctant to give due to high […]
Early alert programs have been emerging on college campuses for the last 10 years to varying degrees of success. Too often after the initial startup, many early alert programs fail to fully meet their designed purpose of identifying and reaching out to academically at-risk students — in part because these programs are often focused on […]
For most shops, the past several years have been a financial roller coaster for annual giving numbers. As annual giving recovers momentum this year, now is the right time to invest time and energy in planning for the long term. One of the most critical lessons that can be learned from the past few years […]
Social media and mobile technologies offer low-cost opportunities to increase the impact of your alumni events, because you can extend the reach of your current efforts to online alumni communities such as a Facebook alumni group or Twitter feed. Andrew Gossen, senior director for social media strategy for alumni affairs and development at Cornell University, […]
