7 Ways Advisors Can More Effectively Engage Online Students

Online students are at significant risk for attrition as they experience isolation and a sense of disconnect from the institution, as well as find themselves lacking resources and information. Advisors can greatly impact students’ perceptions of their online experience by providing ongoing support and information to students. Advising online students can be challenging, however, as […]

Checklist: What You May Not Know About FERPA and Advancement

by Casey Hudson (Academic Impressions) Advancement professionals sometimes hear that FERPA does not apply to advancement records. However, as advancement services expert Alan Hejnal cautions in his online training on the topic, this is only somewhat true. According to FERPA regulations, “Records that only contain information about an individual after he or she is no […]

5 Tips for Improving International Alumni Data

Today, international alumni relations looks and feels: Successful programs require leadership support, designated staff management, volunteer engagement and resources such as budgets and updated data. With current databases, our efforts are only as good as the information we have — or the information we are getting today. How are we tracking international alumni? Does this […]

The Worth Claim: How to “Sell” Your College’s Value

Whether we like it or not, admissions counselors are increasingly thought of as a college’s sales force. Yet I don’t completely understand why many of my colleagues in admissions bristle at the idea of being a “salesperson.” After all, we are charged with generating awareness, building and managing relationships, and “closing the deal” with interested […]

4 Lessons Learned from Campaign Volunteers at Gettysburg College

THE SUCCESS AT GETTYSBURG COLLEGE This article is the first in a series by Ashlyn Sowell, Gettysburg’s associate vice president and campaign director. Here, Sowell reviews 4 lessons about campaign communications and volunteer management that she and her team at Gettysburg learned — from their volunteers. “Leveraging these key lessons,” Sowell adds, “we have successfully […]

Why Honor Rolls of Donors are a Waste of Time

In her new book The 4 Pillars of Donor Relations, Lynne Wester of Donor Relations Guru® helps you rethink donor relations practices and offers specific tips for more powerful acknowledgements, stewardship and impact reporting, recognition, and donor engagement. Get this comprehensive guide to donor relations for your shop today, and transform the way you steward, recognize, and engage your […]

How One Institution Ensured its Crisis Management Plan Didn’t Just Sit on the Shelf

The University of Wyoming’s emergency preparedness plan has become a template for plans at other Wyoming institutions and state agencies—including Casper College, which used emergency protocols based on the University of Wyoming’s in responding to a tragic crossbow shooting incident on campus in December 2012. In a recent conversation with Academic Impressions, Mark Collins, the […]

The 5 Forms of Support Your Adjunct Faculty Need

According to the Pullias Center for Higher Education, roughly half of higher education faculty are part-time employees. Increased reliance on contingent faculty has led many institutions to internally audit the level of support and the faculty development opportunities they offer to adjuncts. In a recent online training from Academic Impressions — “Supporting and Developing Adjunct […]

Innovative Practices in Higher-Ed Leadership Development

The external search is engrained in the culture of higher education, but this is already beginning to change as an aging workforce forces institutional leaders to address issues of succession planning and leadership development. Across the country institutions are starting or increasing their investments in in-house leadership development programs. This paper reviews 3 innovative practices […]

The Best Questions Gift Officers Can Ask to Move Prospects Toward Solicitation

Knowing how to turn a discussion with a prospect toward a specific gift commitment requires intuition and skill. It is a matter of timing that requires us to know where each prospect is in the philanthropic decision-making cycle. This we know: From the time we begin the philanthropic dialogue with a prospect until she or […]