Dean's Blog-1

Changing the Game for Transfer Students

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 21:42:43 +0000

Changing the Game for Transfer Students Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/17/2019 - 15:42

5 Ways Your Business School Can Help Transfer Students Succeed

Transfer students make up a substantive number—around 38%—of all students currently pursuing a college degree. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s most recent Transfer and Mobility report, more than one million first-time freshmen in 2011 transferred to a different institution within six years. With new data like these about transfer student populations, many colleges and universities are paying closer attention to this long-overlooked group of prospects. They are also admitting more transfer students than ever before; the University of California system accepted a record number of transfer students for the 2019–2020 academic year. Likewise, transfer students make up nearly 10% of the student population at the Leeds School of Business. Currently, 422 of the school’s 3,800+ undergraduate population are transfer students.

However, the transfer process often poses challenges for students, from loss of credits to additional years added to degree completion, which makes a smooth transition to a new institution imperative to their success. So how can four-year colleges and universities ensure that this population thrives at their schools? Here are a few tips to help ease this process for both students and their home institutions:

Tip #1: Organize transfer-specific open houses and orientations
One way that Leeds has helped transfer students succeed is by offering an orientation program focused solely on them. This gives individuals who are in the same situation the opportunity to meet, learn the layout of the building and the location of their advisor’s office, and meet faculty members and current students of the program.

Lance Duffin, an advisor for transfer students at Leeds, says that the biggest factor that helps their orientation program ensure success is by “creating a cohort of students. They get to know each other, they learn names, build study groups and begin to network.” Duffin says these types of early connections are invaluable to the success of the transfer students with whom he works.
Penn encourages a strong transfer community on campus starting with personal attention given in the admissions process. Historically, the school has held open house events tailored to transfer students and has a Transfer Student Organization that runs a mentoring program pairing new transfer students with previous transfers.

Other schools have begun offering transfers the opportunity to register and enroll at events for prospective and newly admitted students. In a process called instant decision days, students can meet with an admissions counselor and get their admission decision on the same day. Offering this opportunity for transfer students can help simplify an otherwise complicated transfer process.

Tip #2: Appoint staff that specialize in transfer student recruitment and advisement
��ɫ��Ƶ and recruitment teams should do their homework on this demographic; reasons cited for why these students enrolled in two-year colleges first are very different from the reasons first-years enroll in four-year institutions. According to Inside Higher Ed, a recent survey from the National Research Center for College & University ��ɫ��Ƶ breaks the transfer students into the following types of decision makers: Cost Saver, the Local Explorer, the Academic Improver and the Late Bloomer. Strategies to recruit these students should speak to these underlying motivations.

Duffin describes his position as a support to incoming transfer students. “I’m here to help students understand their transfer evaluations and to help them be strategic before they get here,” he says. That approach saves students time by not wasting credits they earned at other schools. He further suggests that schools “relegate funds and staff to commit time and energy directly to these students.”

At the Leeds School of Business, they have advisors devoted solely to transfer students, and students are required to meet one-on-one with their advisor before they can register for classes. According to Duffin, “Finding ways to bring [transfer] students in for face-to-face time is crucial.”

Tip #3: Make information about transfer credits easily accessible
A 2017 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the majority of transfer students lost, on average, 37% of their credits. One way to help these students avoid the obstacle of losing significant credits is by making detailed information about your curriculum accessible on your website. Ensure this information is up-to-date and as detailed as possible. Create custom content with logistics and details and make certain that content paints a realistic picture of what life is like at your school for a transfer student.

The GAO’s report demonstrates findings similar to many other studies: Both two- and four-year institutions do a poor job—or fail completely—at providing clear program maps for students to follow online. With a subpar user experience without proper guidance, students may take the wrong classes or be missing key credits they need. As the number of high school students who are searching for colleges on mobile platforms also grows, schools need to pay attention to the digital experience they’re providing all prospective students.

Tip #4: Partner with community colleges
Research shows that articulation agreements—partnerships—with community colleges that explain and align the credits needed for a specific program or degree are one of the biggest factors in transfer student success. With agreements in place, students can save significant money on tuition because they will not be repeating credits or having to “start over” once they arrive at your school. California’s community college system serves so many students, the state has created a strong articulation system called the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) with their two state university systems, the California State University and University of California systems.

Some institutions have taken a completely different approach to address and simplify the issue of non-transferrable credits by becoming a member of the Interstate Passport program. Member schools offer students lower-division general education credits as a block of credits to transfer with, eliminating the need for each course to be individually accepted and potentially rejected. Thus, if you attend a school that is a member of the program and transfer to a school that is also a member of the program, you can avoid the inconvenience, cost and time of the traditional transfer experience.

Tip #5: Provide scholarships for transfer students
The New York Times has described the cost of college and the financial aid process as serious barriers for transfer students, many of whom are low-income. A vertical transfer from a two-year school to a four-year school offers underrepresented students a more financially viable option for completing their degrees; although, universities have typically not offered the same scholarships and grants to transfer students as they have to first-time, first-year students.

Partial scholarships, work-study programs and other financial aid can also make a difference for many students considering a move to your school. By addressing cost concerns at the beginning of their time with your school, you can alleviate many of the major hurdles that prevent transfer students from succeeding in your programs.

By prioritizing efforts to recruit and admit transfers as well as support their transition from one school to another, colleges and universities have a lot to gain. In addition to helping a college’s yield, transfer students bring schools additional revenue. They also provide an additional opportunity to diversify the student population with students who have a wide breadth of academic and life experience to share with their peers. The key is communicating transfers’ importance in your institution’s strategic planning and ensuring the resources necessary to support their success are provided for, which includes considering their wellness, residential living (if applicable), extracurricular activities and other aspects that contribute to a positive college experience.

Turning the corner
It’s no surprise that the high cost of today’s higher education and student debt present a huge barrier for anyone considering college. In response, some states have passed legislation to make community college free, most recently California, whose community colleges make up the largest system of higher education in the United States, with 2.1 million students. New York was the first state to make college tuition free for two and four-year colleges (i.e., a State University and City University of New York), followed by Oregon. Tennessee, Maryland and Rhode Island also have policies in place that cover tuition at community colleges for students who meet state-specific criteria. Looking forward, the more two-year institutions become increasingly accessible and more affordable, the more colleges and universities will want to be prepared for an uptick in the number of transfer applicants in the near future.

Traditional

White

Aligning Donor Passion and Institutional Need

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 19:59:53 +0000

Aligning Donor Passion and Institutional Need Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/16/2019 - 13:59

Strategies that promote synergy between donor interests and university priorities.

Philanthropy has been a valuable resource for American higher education that dates back centuries. Today, public higher education advancement teams are more important than ever in achieving support from constituents to achieve their institutions’ goals, as public funding for these institutions has declined in recent years. Advancement professionals in particular face the challenge of communicating to donors and stakeholders the importance and purpose of universities, as well as the wider positive impact they have on the society.

So, with a growing need for donor-based funding in an increasingly competitive environment, how does advancement balance the dean’s strategic priorities with donors’ interests?

The answer differs based on a variety of factors particular to the institution type, but the following best practices may provide insight for higher education advancement professionals who are working to maximize the impact of philanthropic gifts for all parties involved.

1. Take a donor-centric approach focused on passion and impact.
According to Trisha McKean, assistant dean for advancement at the Leeds School of Business at the ��ɫ��Ƶ, “Begin the conversation with a potential donor by learning about their values, treasured memories, and aspirations for the future,” she says. “With this personal understanding, you can then engage in a conversation around the impact the potential donor would like to have before introducing specific funding needs. If someone sees a dollar figure first, they may not be able to be as thoughtful or personal about the impact they want to have. Once you understand their passion, then translate it into a case for why and how philanthropy would be impactful in this area.”

2. Master the art of conversation.
Gail Perry, an international fundraising consultant, suggests using conversational questions to inspire your donor and build interest, in order to open up a pathway to the ask. It’s not necessarily a funding or school priority that development officers need to make the first connection to, but ultimately, cultivation begins with an open discussion that will allow them to relate the interests and passions of a donor to a school priority and a funding need.

3. Be an empathic listener.
Realize that many donors often do not have a specific priority in mind that they’re looking to support beyond “higher education” or “the needs of the school.” Advancement professionals should be focused on listening to what donors want and helping them make that gift in the area(s) they show the most interest.

4. Balance between informing and sharing success.
Donors, just like all faculty and staff, want to be part of a winning team. McKean suggests sharing recent school successes that are aligned with donors’ interest and talking through how their support would enable greater achievement will further the giving conversation in a productive way. This tactic provides information to the donor about what great things are happening at the school, while also speaking to the potential success the donor would share in, if they choose to give.

5. Build strong relationships with faculty.
Faculty and staff members can be significant and effective partners in the fundraising efforts for an institution. Facilitating relationships with the faculty and advancement professionals that are based on mutual respect and appreciation will optimize success. Faculty can often connect advancement professionals with potential donors with whom they’ve interacted with (e.g., at a conference or through their own work in industry). Advancement can similarly connect faculty members with business leaders who can add real-world expertise and insight to the academic work of the faculty. Additionally, faculty and advancement can work collaboratively to spearhead new programs and initiatives that connects the faculty member’s expertise with a donor’s interest.

6. Utilize general, broader communications to prospective donors to convey school priorities.
Strategically communicate broad topics with a vision of how donors could have an impact if they wanted to support the school in those areas. For example, a school’s magazine may highlight topics that are important funding priorities for the institution, such as the importance of gender parity. That article can then be shared with a donor in such a way that demonstrates your awareness of their interests and values, while supporting an important initiative for the school. For example, an advancement officer might say, “I know you’ve been talking about this. This is really important for us. I hope you enjoy the magazine.” This is a soft, personalized touch that can have big impact.

7. Make the most of your time.
According to McKean, “Time is a nonrenewable resource. Once you know the passion areas of a potential donor, don’t be afraid to ask directly about their willingness to financially invest. Understand that the ask is often just one step in a longer conversation and relationship that ultimately will yield financial support for the institution.” If a person is not willing to engage in a conversation about philanthropy, one must assess whether time is better spent on other opportunities.

8. Create a process for managing gift acceptance that aligns with the institution’s academic independence.
A recent presentation on balancing university priorities with donor intent at the 2019 Audicon, a higher education summit, focused on the importance of higher education institutions having policies in place for gift acceptance. The presenters emphasized the importance of advancing the values and mission of the school at all stages of philanthropic cultivation and stewardship, in order to prevent accepting gifts that, for example, could take you off mission and potentially end up costing your school money or calling academic integrity into question.

When talking to people about their giving, advancement professionals must have confidence in their organization’s ability to impact what they say it will. That starts internally with dean leadership, followed by building strong relationships between advancement, procurement and budgeting staff. This allows advancement professionals the ability to communicate to donors that 100% of their gift will be used for its intended purpose.

At the end of the day, successful philanthropy is underscored by the respect and trust advancement officers have created with both internal stakeholders and external philanthropists. Although the approach to obtaining philanthropic gifts may differ by institution, by the individual advancement officer, and the certain types of gifts donors want to make, both the needs of the school and impact the donor desires to make must be considered in cultivation and throughout stewardship processes.

Traditional

White

Creating a Culture of Respect

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 21:22:05 +0000

Creating a Culture of Respect Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/10/2019 - 15:22

Elevating the relationship between tenure-track and non-track faculty.

Over the past few decades, academic tenure in North America has experienced a significant shift. Across the United States in particular, post-secondary institutions are employing non-tenure-track faculty in greater numbers than ever before. Depending on the particular institution, these faculty may be on full time, multi-year contracts or paid per course and this category may include instructors, adjuncts, postdocs, TAs, clinical faculty, part-timers or lecturers.

According to data from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), nearly three-quarters of faculty at U.S. post-secondary institutions today are non-tenure track. Reasons for the increase in the non-tenure-track faculty across institutions can be linked to budget shortfalls, statewide politics, last-minute increases in enrollments, inability to garner approval for new tenure-track positions and departmental changes in hiring practices.

Consequently, the classification comes with consequences.

Though all non-tenure-track and tenure-track faculty teach, the two groups’ roles and responsibilities can be quite different. This can cause tensions at some institutions. Some potential reasons, according to the executive summary of “Non-Tenure-Track Faculty in Higher Education: Theories and Tensions,” point to the fact that hiring, reappointment, compensation, benefits, work responsibilities, governance, and promotion of non-tenure-track faculty are often left out of and inconsistently carried out in many institutions’ overall faculty plans. These disparities can create challenges in a school’s culture; for example, it’s not uncommon to hear non-tenure-track faculty express that they feel like “second class citizens” in comparison to tenure-track faculty.

How can we bridge the divide?

Roughly 60% of the classes at the Leeds School of Business at the ��ɫ��Ƶ are taught by non-tenure-track faculty, and they are absolutely integral to everything the business school is doing. Leeds Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research John G. Lynch, Jr. works to ensure both tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty are able to succeed in their respective roles. Central to his position is the facilitation of conversations among faculty, helping them to understand what's happening more broadly at Leeds, e.g. program delivery and school-wide initiatives, and encouraging collaboration and inclusion.

Lynch shares his perspective on cultural challenges and offers solutions for navigating these internal issues.

How do you approach the relationship across different kinds of faculty?

JL: Most important, we believe the key to a good faculty culture is fostering mutual respect.

Respect is a glue for faculty, and any perceived disrespect is corrosive. Leeds has some outstanding faculty in both the tenure-track and non-tenure-track ranks, and we believe they both have unique and relevant expertise, which they can share with and learn from each other. In addition, Leeds recognizes true teaching accomplishment just as we do outstanding research accomplishment, and we reinforce a shared sense of purpose and identity as one faculty team.

Here are a couple of examples:

One division started a summer teaching workshop series that drew tenure-track faculty, non-tenure-track faculty and doctoral student participants. Folks in that group took turns leading discussion on shared concerns in teaching and improving our craft.
A second example is two of our most accomplished non-tenure-track faculty approached the dean with a suggestion to host a distinguished speaker series featuring leading researchers who study the science of effective teaching. [Leeds’] Dean Matusik instantly said, “What a great idea,” and it has proved to be that. Everyone on the faculty appreciates the leadership and initiative of these two colleagues in creating this new “Teaching Excellence” speaker series.

We’ve found these events have been well attended by both tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty and have significantly improved our teaching.

How can business schools create a respectful climate among their faculty?

JL: Everyone has to understand what others are bringing to the party. The non-tenure-track faculty must understand why the tenure-track faculty’s research is critical to advancing our understanding of emerging problems in business, how it benefits society, and to a lesser extent, how their research influences the institution’s programmatic rankings.

On the other hand, the tenure-track faculty need to understand how important the teaching and contributions of the non-tenure-track faculty are to the school’s success. Some of our full-time non-tenure-track faculty have had distinguished business careers and have insights that should inform our research and what we teach in the classroom.

What’s more, in many institutions leadership roles go almost entirely to tenure-track faculty. Dean Matusik has tried to find ways we can offer full-time non-tenure-track faculty opportunities not just to teach but to play important leadership roles, for example as a faculty director of a program, associate division chair, or the head of a critical school committee. We also include both tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty in the co-leadership of many school initiatives that draw upon an individual’s particular area of expertise—from academia and industry alike. That is an area in which we’ve seen non-tenure-track faculty excel.

Business schools may want to consider asking for more leadership from their non-tenure-track faculty.

Traditional

White

How 2 Schools Are Transforming Their MBA Experience to Meet 21st Century Markets

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 21:18:26 +0000

How 2 Schools Are Transforming Their MBA Experience to Meet 21st Century Markets Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 04/05/2019 - 15:18

In today’s uber-competitive MBA landscape, business schools are challenged not only to stay relevant to the evolving nature of the business world but also keep pace with the shifting needs of MBA candidates and employers. According to the Graduate Management Admission Council’s recent market intelligence, the top curriculum “must-haves” desired by prospective full-time MBA students include strategy, leadership/change management, and general management, with data analytics, corporate finance, and operations management not far behind. What’s more, these prospective students plan on supplementary opportunities to enrich their MBA experience, and internships are among the most desired co-curricular activities. In short, schools need to ensure they are innovative in these key areas in order to continue to attract top candidates to their programs.

Two business schools, the Leeds School of Business at the ��ɫ��Ƶ and Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, are meeting this challenge head-on. Both have recently redesigned their full-time MBA core curriculum, which will move their programs boldly forward in alignment with the changing graduate education marketplace and today’s rapidly evolving business world.

We spoke with Lori Seward, faculty director of Leeds’ MBA Program, and Anil Makhija, dean of the Fisher College of Business, to learn more about the updates their schools made to their MBA curriculum and the key insights gained in the process.

Leeds School of Business: How would you describe the key elements/highlights of your redesigned MBA core curriculum?

Lori Seward: The key changes in our program that roll out this fall center on several key areas. We ramped up the leadership and collaboration skills we help students develop and created more extensive quantitative course content to take students from start to finish—in terms of identifying a challenge and then applying data and analyses to address that challenge. We amplified how we teach students about the social and ethical contexts of business and are delivering more extensive communication training, which is increasingly critical in our data-intensive business world.

To give you a few examples of what this looks like, our new curriculum has leadership courses that bookend the core: One focuses on leading teams, and the other on discovering the leadership traits unique to each individual student. Students start out with the team component, and after a year of being in the program, they take a follow-up course that helps them discover exactly what type of leadership style they have. We also offer advanced electives related to leadership for students who are especially passionate about developing their leadership skills, and we encourage our students to get involved with leadership activities outside of the classroom while they are at the Leeds School.

With regard to business analytics, our students will now take an introductory statistics course prior to the start of the program—in our orientation pre-term—and then move into a data analytics course that covers sophisticated software such as R. After their core courses, they can take additional advanced data analytics courses; we’re able to leverage our MS in Business Analytics program to offer an extensive set of choices for our students in this area.

We’re also reevaluating the elective courses we offer to ensure that we offer options in areas in which we’ve got strengths, i.e. within our faculty and the Boulder business community. To that end, we are better leveraging 1-1/2-credit courses to expose students to focused topics, such as a new course we’re rolling out on leadership in a high-growth venture and one on sales management. We’re also leveraging experiential learning activities inside and outside of the classroom, especially in areas like entrepreneurship, our natural and organics industry, and real estate, all of which are booming fields in our region.

Anil Makhija: The key changes to our Full-Time MBA program can be summarized using the acronym PIE. These changes leverage our strong functional education, our abilities and our past experiences to deliver a student experience that is Personalized, Integrated and Experiential.

The redesigned MBA will be personalized to each student through assessment, coaching and unique pathways. … [including] access to advice on academics, mentoring regarding career choices, and coaching to improve personal skills. The pathways—flexible course sequences—are designed to personalize the program to match students’ interests and cut across functional areas.

The redesigned MBA will be integrated, with faculty teaching in the core curriculum working together to integrate the curriculum and offer co-taught material. It will also provide ample access to experiential learning: The curriculum is expanded to offer domestic or international experiential learning opportunities with for-profit or nonprofit organizations. Some of these opportunities are required and others optional. For example, during the first year, students are required to participate in our Business Lab, where they work on-site with local firms addressing an actual business problem. Students are also required to work on a social impact project.

LSOB: What was the biggest challenge(s) you faced in the process?

AM: There were a few challenges associated with the redesign. First was understanding the needs of tomorrow, be it from the perspective of employers or students, in a world with rapidly changing business and demographics. A significant effort was spent conducting research from multiple sources, summarizing findings and incorporating them into the redesign.

A large emphasis was placed on bringing faculty together to work on the redesign and to promote their buy-in to the proposed changes. A redesign has many different moving parts, and when changes in curriculum are needed, they can affect nearly every faculty member at the college.

Lastly, we worked to try to maintain proper communication throughout the redesign process among our stakeholders, including faculty, staff, corporate partners and our alumni.

LS: In general, we did a lot of prework on this. Our Dean tasked different faculty groups in investigating these areas and making suggestions on what we thought would be the best changes to the program. That process itself was important for several reasons. One was to get faculty buy-in, particularly from those faculty who developed the existing MBA courses. As the Faculty Director, getting the faculty to agree with the curriculum changes was my number one goal. And in the end, I believe the faculty as a whole feel that the core is the best it can be given their differing perspectives.

We also prioritized learning about the current MBA curriculum landscape and understanding what the trends are in this space. We wanted to ensure that we were offering a competitive curriculum while also highlighting our faculty’s world-class expertise. For example, entrepreneurial studies are quite popular right now; and we have entrepreneurial faculty experts who work with our Deming Center for Entrepreneurship to offer a host of entrepreneurial activities—and a new High Growth Venture Fellowship for MBAs. In turn, we’ve attracted many students who are interested in this area of study and were recently named #10 in Entrepreneurship by Bloomberg.

What prompted you to tackle this endeavor?

LS: The impetus was a series of roundtables our dean had with key business leaders and influencers. She posed the question: What does the future of business look like in your field, and what will it take to lead in that future? Those insights, along with feedback from our students and faculty and an assessment of the competitive landscape, formed the foundation for the changes we made. We then built out our orientation; added content to take our students from data to decisions; included more experiential learning opportunities inside and outside of the classroom to tie us to our stellar business community; and developed more extensive training in leadership, collaboration and communication. Together, these changes are creating next-generation business leaders.

One of the things we know is important with an MBA program is the connections that students tap into while they’re here—from their classmates and alumni of our program to our business community. In fact, in all the conversations we have with alumni of our program, they rank connections and access to the community as key benefits. And that starts in the beginning with orientation.

Also, a unique aspect of our business community is that it is rife with scale-ups or what we refer to as “high growth ventures.” These are firms that have made it past the start-up stage and are growing rapidly, creating many jobs and opportunities. These firms have sophisticated business needs, such as building out their financial models, raising funds, professionalizing their organization, scaling operations and making critical sourcing decisions. They are also highly desirable places to work; those working in these firms can see the impact of their work and grow their career opportunities alongside the growth of the firm. As we reshaped our curriculum, we did so with an eye toward preparing our students to being highly effective in scaling and growing firms.

AM: The competitive nature of the Full-Time MBA market compels business schools to be innovative with their programs and to be responsive to changes in market demand. In recent years, prospective students demonstrated interest in personal growth and in experiential learning opportunities. For example, participation in our optional Global Applied Projects program has doubled in the last few years.

Additionally, regardless of the current market environment, a revision of our Full-Time MBA program was due as part of our standard efforts toward continuous improvement.

What do you want employers to think of when they see a resume from your MBA graduates?

AM: We want our MBA graduates to be viewed as future leaders, functionally and in their organizations. Employers should see that our graduates have a solid foundation of business skills, functional expertise in their area of specialization, business analytics skills and are polished in key soft skills, including critical thinking and the ability to relate to others and work in teams.

LS: We want employers to view our graduates as forward-looking leaders who are making an important economic and social impact from day one. They should have the fortitude to overcome any challenge they face when they re-enter the business world after graduation. By equipping our graduates with a toolkit that is relevant to their employer’s business, we expect they will say, “Wow, this person can help our company move forward.”

According to a 2018 report from the Association of International Graduate ��ɫ��Ƶ Consultants, MBA candidates cite access to a strong network—especially those looking at entering small firms and startups—and job opportunities, often specific to location, among the most influential factors in choosing an MBA program. In other words, today’s students are realizing the need to own their future. And they want a program that allows them the flexibility to customize their trajectory to meet personal, professional and financial goals. Bottom line: Prospective candidates’ expectations for MBA programs have evolved, and those schools who are the most relevant and applicable curriculum are going to be the ones that stand out.

Traditional

White

4 Smart Ideas for Addressing the Mental Health Crisis on Campus

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 19:52:05 +0000

4 Smart Ideas for Addressing the Mental Health Crisis on Campus Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 04/05/2019 - 13:52

In the past year, three out of five college students felt “overwhelming anxiety,” and two out of five students were “too depressed to function,” according to a recent survey by the American College Health Association. It is clear that for some of our country’s 21 million college students, the pressures of school, finances, social relationships and planning for the future present serious challenges to their emotional health and well-being.

At the ��ɫ��Ƶ, Chancellor Philip DeStefano recently voiced concern over the state of student mental health: “Demand for mental health services on college campuses is on the rise, including at ��ɫ��Ƶ. Since 2013, we have seen a 40 percent increase in demand for counseling services, which is in line with campuses nationwide…We cannot stand by and let this happen.”

As higher education institutions rethink their support mechanisms for students with mental health concerns, innovative initiatives are being implemented, including four stand-out approaches:

1. Use technology

Colorado State University helped develop an app to reach students who are reluctant to seek help. YOU at College gives students information on how to recognize mental health problems and access resources on campus. The app isn’t presented as a mental health tool; instead, the emphasis is on academic success and well-being, with mental health as one component of the whole.

For example, a student may not visit the platform thinking they have a mental health issue, but when they search for advice on how to get better sleep, they will find information about stress and anxiety and be directed to resources on campus that can help. Since its successful launch at Colorado State, 20 other universities have launched the app, with high usage rates and positive results.

2. Tap into student enterprises

Student leaders nationwide are taking mental health awareness into their own hands by creating programs that fill the gaps in traditional mental health support on campus.

Chloe Camp at Emory University is president of Emory Dark Arts, an advocacy group committed to destigmatizing mental illness through art, performance and personal stories. In directing its signature Mental Health and Well-Being art showcases, she hopes to eradicate stigma at a cultural level and shed light on mental health issues.

At the University of California Los Angeles, sophomore student Cat Wang is developing a mental health chatbot for students: a holistic platform that consolidates on-campus mental health resources, offers basic conversational counseling and provides emergency contact numbers for mental health crises.

Olivia Lubarsky of Towson University founded the #OwnYourRoar campaign to unite mental health and athletics, with the goal to increase mental health awareness, prevent suicide and normalize mental illness. As president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, she aims to increase mental wellness resources within athletics departments and for students across campus.

3. Integrate it into the curriculum

Leeds School of Business at the ��ɫ��Ƶ is leveraging its research in workplace mental wellness to infuse mental health into the core business curriculum. Working closely with the National Mental Health Innovation Center (NMHIC) at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus, Leeds teaches business students, from freshmen to MBAs, how to recognize and manage mental health problems in themselves and in the workplace.

They acquire a theoretical understanding of stress and well-being, supplemented with practical, hands-on techniques for maintaining their own mental health. As students work their way through the curriculum, they progress from understanding others’ mental health to managing those with mental health issues to creating a culture that supports employees’ physical and mental health.

4. Make it easy to get help

At the University of Sioux Falls, students can send a message to a free crisis texting hotline, Text4Hope. Answered by a crisis response agency, students receive immediate support and resources. Text4Hope decreases their fear of judgement and offers a confidential channel for them to access in addition to university counseling centers.

Cornell University provides walk-in counseling a few hours each day. The initiative, called Let’s Talk, offers drop-in sessions on a first-come, first-served basis—ideal for students who need help addressing a specific problem right away.

In addition to increasing staff at campus counseling centers, universities are going a step further to implement inspired initiatives for the support, prevention and awareness of mental health problems in students. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Leading Causes of Death Report in 2016, the suicide rate among young adults, ages 15–24, has tripled since the 1950s, and suicide is currently the second leading cause of death among college students. It is imperative that we continue to seek new and innovative solutions for young people who find themselves overwhelmed in a society of increased speed, complex change and exploding technology.

Traditional

White

5 Creative Ways Top Business Schools Plug Into Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 19:31:23 +0000

5 Creative Ways Top Business Schools Plug Into Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/28/2019 - 13:31

Over the last decade, there has been an explosion of interest across business schools in entrepreneurial courses and experiences to help students who aspire to start their own ventures and prepare the next generation of business leaders with a toolkit that enables them to solve the challenges of tomorrow.

To that end, business schools are creating mechanisms to provide seed funding for student ventures, pairing up students with mentors in the entrepreneurship community, creating experiences that promote a “bias towards action,” and greater comfort with failing and redirection in the relatively safe environment of the campus experience, and launching venture planning competitions to give students hands-on experience.

When you mine your entrepreneurial community, you open the door to myriad opportunities for creative programming.

Here are five ways to leverage your entrepreneurial ecosystem:

Create an accelerator. Many business schools across the country have launched their own accelerator programs for students with strong ideas who make it through their venture planning competition. Stanford Graduate School of Business offers the Stanford Venture Studio, which provides a co-working space and tools for ideation, prototyping and experimentation. Most valuable is its connection to Stanford’s entrepreneurial community of alumni, investors and industry partners, who guide MBA students through each stage of their venture. Others such as University of Colorado’s Catalyze CU program and University of Utah’s Foundry at Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute provide other models that help students with the process of launch by connecting them to expertise across campus and in the entrepreneurial community.
Leverage entrepreneurial expertise. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania taps its ecosystem with the Entrepreneur in Residence Program, in which MBA students can meet one-on-one with successful alumni entrepreneurs for advice on their startup idea. Another take on this idea is Global Entrepreneurs in Residence at Leeds School of Business at the ��ɫ��Ƶ, which brings in high-powered entrepreneurs from around the world to give students a global mindset and give the local entrepreneurial community an opportunity to create long-lasting relationships with global entrepreneurs turning ideas into action.
Integrate dedicated coaching. At Leeds, MBA students manage the Deming Center Venture Fund, where they source, analyze and invest in local ventures under the guidance of venture capitalists and angel investors. Likewise, Leeds MBAs compete in the Venture Capital Investment Competition, where students assess startups as potential investments. The key to the success of this event is the direct coaching student teams receive from local venture capitalists.
Develop a win-win opportunity. Haas School of Business manages the Haas Venture Fellows program, in which participating venture capital firms receive help with research and due diligence from Haas students, and students get hands-on venture capital experience.
Groom MBA talent to scale up influential firms of the future. Leeds recently launched a High Growth Venture Fellowship, which provides paid internships at local high-growth companies, curated coursework, project work with local accelerators, and unlimited and unfettered access to mentors at high-growth startups for invaluable guidance on the industry—not to mention access to a powerful network of entrepreneurs.

To meet student demand for cutting-edge training in entrepreneurship, business schools are finding innovative ways to think beyond the classroom. We can elevate students’ educational and professional experience when we leverage game-changing business innovation and talent that live in our own backyard. Also, the opportunities to leverage assets in the community means that universities do not need to do everything for themselves. Building bridges allows the campus to take advantage of all that is going on in their surrounding entrepreneurial ecosystem and elevates both the school and the community.

Traditional

White

Trending Up: The Challenge Posed by Low Graduation Rates and U.S. Universities’ Innovative Responses to Raise Them

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Mar 2019 20:21:06 +0000

Trending Up: The Challenge Posed by Low Graduation Rates and U.S. Universities’ Innovative Responses to Raise Them Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 03/27/2019 - 14:21

As many of us would agree, four years is often the generally accepted amount of time we associate with college. Families and students start thinking about and saving for a college education, and yet more often than not, those who persist through graduation take upwards of six to eight years. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, just 58 percent of students who started a 4-year degree in the fall of 2012 had earned that degree by the 6-year mark.

However, those additional years add up to real costs, in both time and money, for college students and their families. Low 4-year graduation rates also present a complex issue for universities to address, as this is an important factor that prospective students and parents consider when deciding which colleges to apply to and attend. This issue may be especially salient at public universities where state legislatures are increasingly concerned about affordability and escalating student debt. Graduation rates can also impact state funding for some public universities because of performance-based funding systems.

Graph Source: National Student Clearinghouse Research Center Report PDF

Turning the tides

According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the higher the graduation rates, the more ROI the state sees from its contributions to higher education and financial aid. Now on their second initiative to raise graduation rates in the last 10 years, the California State University (CSU) system has made strides across its campuses but still has much more work to be done. In 2018, 4-year graduation rates still varied widely across the system, ranging from 9.5 percent at Cal State Los Angeles to 52.5 percent at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

The CSU system’s latest 2025 Graduation Initiative will build on their 2015 campaign to raise 4-year graduation rates. According to Jeff Gold, the CSU assistant vice chancellor for student success, their goals are based on student bodies’ socio-economic profiles and comparisons to similar institutions nationwide. Appropriately, CSU’s strategies highlight student engagement and inclusion in campus culture, and they are employing high-impact practices such as first-year seminars and learning communities, summer bridge programs, peer mentoring, and increased student services like advising and counseling.

Individualizing approaches for success

The Leeds School of Business at the ��ɫ��Ƶ was facing a dilemma posed by its own 55 percent 4-year graduation rate in 2011. The school tackled the problem head-on with a four-part strategic solution: changes to advising; curriculum updates; better employing technology; and one-on-one, personalized outreach. The result: Leeds raised its 4-year graduation rate by more than 15 percent in three years—up to 71 percent for first-year, full-time students in 2018—the highest on ��ɫ��Ƶ’s campus. The one-on-one outreach was a critical component of this success, particularly because some students did not have the awareness that they were veering off-course.

The University of Texas at Austin shares a similar story. UT’s Class of 2018 marked the highest 4-year graduation rate yet at 69.8 percent, after a goal was set in 2012 to focus on increasing graduation rates from 52 to 70 percent. Their process: launch new programs aimed at student success and use fresh approaches to analyze student data. Timely graduation has opened up space for more incoming freshmen as well. The University of South Florida tackled a low graduation rate from several angles, including academic aptitude requirements for freshmen and sophomores, increased interactions promoted between students and faculty members, and increased counseling services to serve growing mental health needs.

A new era of technology

Until recently outreach and interventions with students for schools has been largely manual and time-intensive. The Leeds School has customized and optimized Salesforc e for tracking varied student data and setting up key milestones and alerts when a student is getting off track. Leeds is currently moving toward a decentralized approach that empowers advisors to utilize the advanced functionality of Salesforce, so they can maximize their time in monitoring and connecting with their students. Arizona State University Tempe also uses an in-house program to monitor students called eAdvisor that automatically sets up appointments with advisors when triggered that a student is struggling.

Statistical tools are being used at a number of schools to raise their graduation rates. Georgia State University has had particular success employing predictive analytics designed to figure out which students are ready for college and how to ensure they graduate. The software provides academic advisors with tools to identify students at “risk” of, for example, underperforming in a class, and they can track all interactions with the hundreds of students they advise in a comprehensive dashboard. In 2018, Georgia State’s 6-year graduation rate was 55 percent, up from 7 percent before they initiated the program in 2011.

The University of Maryland system is also using analytics to generate a “pathway” from freshman year to graduation, which is translated to a personalized plan for each student. Some schools within Maryland’s system also contract with independent analytics companies to track student success and identify factors that might impede students from degree completion.

Coming together for a common goal

A more recent trend is rising among universities trying to raise graduation rates: collaboration. More than 100 research universities in the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities formed a coalition that aims to improve graduation rates by hundreds of thousands by 2025. Participating schools will work in groups to develop high-impact practices and share key data amongst themselves, ultimately creating a toolkit for other institutions of all types. The groups will “work collaboratively to drive agreed-upon degree completion and student success efforts on campus,” according to the APLU’s initiative timeline, such as adaptive courseware and proactive advising.

A similar collective approach to increasing student success was employed by the University Innovation Alliance. Formed in 2014, this group of 11 public research universities from across the U.S. teamed up in an entrepreneurial effort to share data and resources to increase the number and diversity of graduates at their respective schools. Their projects include using adaptive-learning techniques, predictive analytics, pre-college student outreach and targeted support for students, aimed to graduate 68,000 more students by 2025.

Every additional semester it takes to graduate increases the cost of a degree and holds students back from the earning potential they would have in the marketplace. And in a time when the increasingly high cost of college is negatively affecting the public’s confidence in higher education, an increase in 4-year graduation rates is a positive step toward regaining trust in the system. More importantly, it serves as evidence that universities are working for their students’ success. “Good enough is never good enough,” said Kelli Stevens, director of Undergraduate Affairs at Leeds. “There is always more we can do to launch these students into their next phase of life with momentum and success.” And as demonstrated by the scope and variety of efforts put forth by these universities, students’ persistence to graduation is everyone’s overarching goal.

Traditional

White

How Business Schools Can Offer a “Purple” Solution to Shrinking Public Support of Higher Ed

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 17:37:47 +0000

How Business Schools Can Offer a “Purple” Solution to Shrinking Public Support of Higher Ed Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/28/2019 - 10:37

A recent poll from Gallup indicates a sharp decline of confidence in U.S. colleges and universities among U.S. adults. The decline is strongest among Republicans, whose confidence level dropped by 17 percent. Similarly, a Pew Research Center survey found last year that six-in-ten Americans believe higher education in the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction. Republicans in particular are concerned about a liberal bias and expressed concern that professors bring political and social views into the classroom. Constituents from both parties are worried about rising costs—as well as tuition being too expensive. We posit that business schools have a unique opportunity to reverse this trend of skepticism and dissatisfaction. First: a deeper look into the drivers.

Rising Cost of Education

According to statistics from the College Board, average cost of tuition outpaced the rate of inflation by more than 3 percent in 2018, continuing a trend that has been troubling for decades. Coupled with recent headlines that paint multimillion-dollar projects on campuses as “extravagant spending,” the reputation and value of colleges and universities are in question. And as public support declines, so has state and local funding, which only grew “modestly” in 2018, as states struggle to provide funding for public institutions that meets the cost per student.

Concerns Over a Liberal Bias

Political conservatives are concerned that left-leaning faculty are pushing a liberal agenda in the classroom, and in fact, a study published by the National Association of Scholars in 2018 demonstrates that political affiliation of tenured faculty is left-leaning. Furthermore, 86 percent of college presidents agree that the perception of a liberal bias harms the public’s—and in particular, Republicans’—views of colleges. For public institutions especially, this is a problem, as voters and political leaders can negatively impact funding.

Are business schools at public universities uniquely positioned to help? Two trailblazers weigh in.

Public business schools should recognize these trends as an opportunity to enter the conversation. We are in the unique position of being located in the heart of “liberal academia,” while also grounded in a traditionally conservative discipline of business. Business schools have the opportunity to be a “purple” solution to perceptions of political bias on campus by educating students about ideas such as free market economies traditionally associated with conservative ideology. They can also provide programming that brings value to traditionally conservative areas, like rural communities and small towns, and start to change perceptions about the value that higher education brings to the broader community and economy.

Dr. Sharon Matusik and Dr. Idie Kesner, two forward-thinking leaders at public universities, are also the first women to lead their business schools. Both know a bit about breaking down barriers and changing public perceptions. And they have made big strides in building the reputation of their respective business schools: Matusik as dean of the Leeds School of Business at the ��ɫ��Ƶ and Kesner as dean of the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

Leeds School of Business: Is there a unique role business schools can play in ameliorating partisanship, especially as it relates to higher education and higher education funding?

Sharon Matusik: As entities whose very purpose is to equip students with the skills to work in and influence global business, and therefore, the economy, business schools can use their strengths as a way to positively impact the public lack of confidence in higher education from within and potentially attract more funding by garnering bipartisan support in their activities.

Idie Kesner: Rather than venture into public discourse about the issue of partisanship, we have relied more on actions. For example, our university has engaged in extensive community service and outreach (both students and faculty) in an effort to show how our business school contributes to state and local communities.

At the university level, this manifests itself in a large-scale program in economic development for rural communities (i.e. the 11 economically underdeveloped counties surrounding our city), and it also includes work on university-defined “grand challenges” regarding issues such as the opioid epidemic and environmental sustainability.

SM: Likewise, ��ɫ��Ƶ is working to better highlight outreach activities of the business school related to economic development. At Leeds, we offer such programs around entrepreneurship throughout rural Colorado to help small-town residents improve existing small businesses or become inspired to start something new. This gives people the tools to address opportunities in their own community, while at the same time improving their own economic well-being. We also provide programs such as free tax preparation for low income families in our community. These initiatives are a way to communicate our school’s value to legislators and taxpayers, regardless of their political affiliations.

LSOB: Do you think business schools can bridge a partisan decline in confidence of higher education?

IK: I hope business schools can contribute positively to building confidence in higher education. The Kelley School is certainly trying, but it’s difficult for individual schools to do on their own. One possibility is for business school deans to work together, finding ways we can contribute to joint communications in which we share what business schools are doing to make an impact at the national, regional and local levels.

SM: Business schools are inherently well suited to generate market solutions to socioeconomic and environmental issues that affect everyone. Leeds teaches students-as-future-business-leaders that it’s entirely possible to have a very successful for-profit firm that also creates social value. We have many successful graduates who are making a positive impact in the world through their business ventures, and faculty whose research on topics such as the role entrepreneurial ventures in addressing environmental challenges shows how economic and social value creation can go hand in hand. At a foundational level, we are teaching our students how to create jobs and enhance economic vitality over the course of their careers, something important to everyone. And by also identifying the positive impacts businesses have on the community, we can do a better job of illustrating the value of (business) higher education to all across the political spectrum.

I do agree with Dr. Kesner. Joining forces with other business schools can help us activate bipartisan constituents throughout this great nation.

When you consider all the practical applications, resources and tools that business schools have to offer, there is much to be optimistic about. Business schools are in position to not only impart real world skills that add meaningful value to a college degree—which both conservatives and liberals can agree on—but they can also help rebuild the public’s confidence in higher education from the inside. Together, business schools can be an even greater force for change, politics notwithstanding.

Traditional

White

Using Technology to Optimize the Student Experience

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 16:57:29 +0000

Using Technology to Optimize the Student Experience Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/28/2019 - 09:57

Tracking data on students can be challenging. Various groups, from recruiting to advising to career development, may use their own tracking systems ranging from Excel spreadsheets, emails and anecdotal information; and these different methods do not interconnect. As a result, the student experience can be disjointed, and valuable opportunities to holistically curate that experience can be missed. The potential solution ranges from hiring more individuals to aggregate data or turning to technology for help.

The Leeds School of Business chose a technological solution and launched a customized, school-wide rollout of Salesforce to improve student satisfaction and work towards our recruitment, retention and placement goals.

Advancing operations and analytics

The strategic implementation of Salesforce had a profound impact on day-to-day operations throughout the Leeds School. We went from disaggregated information across 25 areas in our school (including recruitment, advising, career development, student-facing centers and academic departments) to one centralized location for tracking academic progress, event attendance, email communications, on-campus experiences, club participation and scholarships received.

Leeds now provides a personalized student experience and can correlate student retention, job placement and student satisfaction to key touch points like visits to career advisors, attendance at job fairs and program involvement.

The result: Over the past five years, students became 11 percent more engaged with academic advising and 73 percent more engaged with career advising. In addition, responses to placement surveys increased by 53 percent, and the school reported a 90+ percent placement rate for four years straight.

“Student expectations are changing. They’re used to using technology to create highly personalized experiences, and expect their experiences with higher education to be similar. They value a personalized, on-demand system that helps them navigate their experience from the time when they are a prospective student, all the way through how they engage as alumni,” says Rob Acker, CEO of Salesforce.org, which focuses on delivering world-class technology to nonprofits and higher education customers.

Empowering a community

Not only did the student experience improve, but school-wide implementation of Salesforce impacted collaboration, communication and satisfaction among faculty, staff, corporate partners and employers.

Faculty

Annual evaluations and summer-pay tracking are now streamlined, improving faculty satisfaction and saving staff considerable time and effort.

Staff

Salesforce simplifies the process for sending targeted recruitment communications, allowing staff to perform more focused strategic outreach. In addition, sending targeted emails to our graduating students encourages higher response rates to placement surveys, which contributes to our high overall placement rate and the underlying knowledge rate (i.e., we know what 98.4 percent of our students are doing after graduation) associated with that placement rate.

Leeds saves an estimated 400 personnel hours per year through automated workflows and greater efficiencies in otherwise time-consuming tasks. In addition, the tech team estimates that Salesforce’s reporting mechanisms save staff an additional 100 hours per year.

Corporate Partners

Before Salesforce, our corporate partners experienced uncoordinated communications and relationships with various departments at Leeds. Once school-wide corporate interactions came together in Salesforce, external constituents enjoyed a more strategic and unified engagement with our school.

Three Best Practices

While Salesforce is widely used in higher education, optimizing it for a school’s unique needs is not a straightforward undertaking. Through trial and error, Leeds developed three best practices that led to 90 percent user adoption and 100 percent customer satisfaction.

Maximize Salesforce’s built-in functionality. The in-house technical team leveraged Salesforce’s out-of-the-box functionality without using custom code, making the solution sustainable, scalable and inexpensive compared to other custom-developed solutions.
Create an internal team to manage the software long-term. During implementation, Leeds transitioned from reliance on a consultant to the internal expertise of its tech team—enabling them to provide in-house expertise, support and trainings.
Develop a plan for governance with buy-in from internal stakeholders. With dean-level sponsorship, plus a standards committee, a governance model proved to be critical to sustainable success.

Over five years, the implementation of Salesforce has improved recruitment, retention and overall satisfaction—ultimately transforming the student experience and that of the Leeds community. In fact, the Leeds School ranked in BusinessWeek’s Top 20 Schools for Student Satisfaction and Salaries, which can be attributed, in part, to the success of the Salesforce implementation.

Looking forward, Leeds hopes to use predictive analytics to properly staff courses and forecast three years of teaching needs, and continues to evaluate how best to leverage Salesforce for strategic marketing, advising and recruitment.

Traditional

White

In all Fairness: Creating a Transparent Methodology for Faculty Performance Assessment

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 17:54:43 +0000

In all Fairness: Creating a Transparent Methodology for Faculty Performance Assessment Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 11/15/2018 - 10:54

In routine annual faculty performance evaluations, normalizing these evaluations across different academic fields can be challenging. Leeds School of Business at the ��ɫ��Ƶ uses academic analytics to do this and as a result has built trust among faculty by creating a transparent methodology for assessing performance. A key component of this methodology is to compare faculty to others in their own field rather than comparing them to others in the same business school but in different fields. This approach encouraged buy-in and satisfaction with what is often a divisive process.

The root of the problem
Consider that it may be less common to get published in an “A” publication in a four-year window in Field A than in Field B. How should you rate a Field A faculty member in comparison to a Field B faculty member who each have one “A” publication in that window? If similar standards apply to both faculty members, and they are given the same rating, it is arguably unfair to faculty in Field A. However, if the Field A faculty member arbitrarily receives a rating of 5 on a 5-point scale, and the Field B faculty member receives a 4, the Field B faculty member may resent those in Field A and feel like they are given preferential treatment. It is a lose-lose situation.

A new methodology
The solution centers on comparing performance not to other units within a school but rather to a faculty member’s peer set in their own field. Knowing that fields differ in frequency of publication and citation, Leeds developed “field-specific rulers” that show where quantitative productivity markers put a faculty member in the distribution of their own field. This process first identifies the schools and their tenure-track scholars to use in comparisons and for identifying appropriate metrics. (Leeds uses two metrics. The first takes the average productivity within three publication “buckets”: “A” publications¹ journals, Financial Times journals, and a custom list of additional A journals developed by each area. The second metric examines citations to papers published in the last five years in any outlet.) The next step determines what article (or citation) counts represent the 10th, 20th, … 90th percentile in each field. And last, the rulers are applied in faculty’s annual evaluations of research.

Importantly, Leeds assumes this is a starting point for faculty evaluations and empowers the academic units for each field to use their judgment when addressing metrics that over- or understate a person’s record. For example, an individual’s rating may exceed what the ruler suggests due to a prestigious award for a paper, or a solo-authored publication. An individual’s ratings can deviate from the ruler result based on qualitative considerations, but any academic unit should, in aggregate, be appropriately comparable to another based on the results of the quantitative data. This means that, by and large, those in the 90th percentile in Field A receive the same overall rating in research as those in the 90th percentile in Field B. The bottom line: by creating a starting place for research evaluations that is objectively based on an individual’s field peer set, each unit and each faculty member will clearly understand this component of their performance.

Has it worked?
Despite some initial concern about whether numbers supplanted judgment, the implementation of this methodology was a success. To support the effort toward transparency, Leeds produced an analysis that illustrated the units that gave the most 5s for research (and 4s, 3’s, etc.) and shared it with the field units to demonstrate their use of similar standards, even if some units wound up with more 5s. As shown in the figure below, Field C and Field E gave 70%+ ratings of 5, while Field B gave only 35% ratings of 5. The analysis showed that those fields giving out higher ratings had higher Median Composite averages than other fields (for faculty members who earned a 5 rating).

It is important to emphasize that the ruler provides evaluators only a starting point for assessments. But that starting point is a fair, objective and transparent tool. Under this system, both faculty members and field unit leaders clearly comprehend the performance evaluation process and can build a culture of trust based upon increased transparency in their units.

¹ For “A” publications, we use the University of Texas – Dallas list since it is a widely available list that is broadly accepted by many as a good indicator of top “A” publications.

*This article is based on Leeds’ presentation to the Council of Chinese American Deans and Presidents at the 2018 Fall Forum in Miami, Florida.

Traditional

White