Engaging Alumni on Social Media: What Works

Social media strategies for engaging alumni: Read the findings from a survey of 109 professionals at nonprofit colleges and universities who are tasked with engaging alumni on social media. Social media tools provide more opportunities to engage alumni. Yet, pressed for time, alumni relations and annual giving professionals often approach their efforts to engage alumni […]

Presidential Dialogues: Lessons on Effecting Change

10 Lessons on Effecting Change in Higher Education Change is here to stay and it will be more complex, ambiguous, and fast paced than ever before, and presidents are feeling tremendous pressure to significantly reshape their institutions. We wanted the inside story—how do you manage the people, politics, and process of change? For our second event in our series, Presidential Dialogues: Focus on […]

The State of Professional Development in Higher Education: February 2016

Professional development is a strategic asset to an institution, as it is a key engine for increasing the capacity of your team and for bringing in proven strategies from other organizations—allowing you to both avoid “reinventing the wheel” and to revitalize your work with fresh ideas. In late 2015, we surveyed 971 managers and frontline faculty and staff […]

Creating a Faculty Leadership Development Program

Effective faculty leadership development is important because faculty are the main stakeholders in the university who are committed to the core academic and democratic values that underpin higher education in the US. If faculty members are not effective leaders, then higher education at every level is ineffective and does not fully reflect these core values. […]

6 Destructive Myths About Teams in Higher Education

Higher education will face daunting and complex challenges over the next decade, and campuses will need high-performing teams, especially a high-performing senior team, in order to face those challenges. In this paper, Patrick Sanaghan and Jillian Lohndorf expose 6 potentially destructive myths — myths that get in the way of building and nurturing a great team. Come to the Conference “Leading and […]

Presidential Dialogues: The Changing Presidency in Higher Education

College President: An Impossible Job? The president of a college or university stands in the cross-hairs, operating in an environment where the challenges are complex, there are no clear answers and decisions come in all shades of gray. All eyes are on the institution’s chief executive to navigate the strategic dilemmas facing their institutions. And […]

Do the USNWR Rankings Limit Innovation in Higher Education?

Last month I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Ricardo Azziz, former president of Georgia Regents University, about the US News and World Report (USNWR) higher education rankings. The conversation is especially timely as millions of students and parents are knee deep in the college application season this fall. In our conversation we explored […]

Improving Diversity in Higher Education: Beyond the Moral Imperative

Seizing the Moment November 18, 2015. We witnessed a pivotal moment for higher education last week with the resignations of Tim Wolfe, President of the University of Missouri System, and R. Bowen Loftin, Chancellor of the flagship campus in Columbia. Issues of diversity and inclusion have been challenging campuses for years, but I believe we […]

Spotlight on Innovation: Colleges and Universities that are Making a Difference

Emerging Trends: How Colleges Can Operate as Learning Organizations In late 2014, the US Department of Education awarded $75 million in “First in the World” grants to twenty-four colleges and universities, to fund initiatives to improve college access and completion, particularly for lower-income or first-generation students. Since then, we’ve interviewed those leading the First in the World […]

Executive Summary: The Changing Shape of Student Life Facilities

READ THE FULL SERIES 1. Executive Summary: The Changing Shape of Student Life Facilities (this article)2. Financing and Planning Student Life Facilities 3. Best Practices in Student Housing Design Earlier this year, we conducted a study of how institutions are planning for the design and placement of student life facilities over the next 12 months. Our study included: We […]