Showcase: Examples of Mobile Technology Used for Teaching and Learning

With students bringing smartphones and tablets to campus — and expecting to access information and course content via mobile devices — it continues to be urgent for faculty developers and instructional technologists to explore the affordances of these devices and the opportunities for using them to enhance teaching and learning. In our past article, “Piloting […]

Why It’s More Critical than Ever to Cultivate the Middle of Your Giving Pyramid

In Academic Impressions’ recent free webcast Rethinking Campaign and Major Gift Strategies, we put together a snapshot of data culled from a series of recent surveys and reports. While many institutions responded a fear years ago to the recession by focusing increasingly on cultivating top donors, the snapshot we presented documents the extent to which […]

Seeing Success in Space Optimization

In a July 2012 survey of facilities managers in higher education, Academic Impressions found that 73% of facilities managers cite optimizing space utilization as either “high priority” or “highest priority” among initiatives for the next year. When asked about challenges faced in achieving this, facilities managers expressed concern over buy-in, both from senior leadership (for […]

Enrolling and Retaining First-Generation Students: 3 Things You Need to Know

As demand for college education rises among lower-income families amid a troubled economy, and as the pressure mounts on completion rates, more institutions are beginning to assess their strategies for recruiting and retaining first-gen students. We’ve addressed the issue before in Higher Ed Impact, offering tips from various experts in enrollment management. This week, we […]

Copyright, Fair Use, and Electronic Materials: Three Tips

Recent intellectual property rights lawsuits against institutions of higher education — such as the lawsuit over video streaming at UCLA or the lawsuit against Georgia State University over e-reserves — make two things clear: how little is understood on campus about what “fair use” entails, and how critical it is to plan for risk mitigation as […]

Summer Bridge Programs: Impact and Tips for Success

Amid growing pressure on student retention and completion rates, much of the current research on factors in student success emphasizes both the importance of early intervention with at-risk students and increased attention to obstacles that confront students in the first weeks of their first term, including academic underpreparedness and the transition from the rigor, study […]

Your Institution’s Value Proposition: Affordability or Employability?

A few years ago, we interviewed W. Kent Barnds at Augustana College because we noticed his college had an especially proactive plan for talking with applicants, admits, and their families about both the value of attending that specific institution and about the return on their investment. While the national conversation about completion and outcomes has […]

Supporting the Work of the Campaign

Once the campaign planning committee has identified exemplars among your faculty, staff, and students, who can speak to the opportunities this campaign could fund for your institution, the next critical step is to prepare venues and vehicles for those ambassadors of your institution to tell their stories. For advice, we turned to Santa Ono, provost […]

Collaborative Planning for the Campaign

The previous article made the point that a whole-campus campaign leads to a successful campaign. It follows that the campaign planning or steering needs to seek input from the whole campus, as well as external stakeholders (business leaders and key donors). If the campaign goals are set in a conversation that only involves a few […]

Funding Campus Priorities: A Whole-Campus Effort

In This Issue August 2012. As the higher education landscape becomes increasingly competitive, and as both the challenges and the opportunities facing your institution become increasingly complex, it’s critical that the goal-setting and the work of raising funds to finance the pursuit of your institution’s mission become an enterprise-wide endeavor, not just a function of the […]