ïAACRAO Spotlight interviews are published twice weekly before major professional development meetings. They feature our conversations with industry experts, highlighting key issues and promoting sessions and workshops at the upcoming conference.
Below you'll find brief summaries of two recent Q-and-As with links to the full interviews.
Develop an Action Plan for Adult Student Success (& please take this survey)
A "flipped" conference session on research-based strategies for adult student enrollment and success. The workshop will be presented by Dave Jarrat, Vice President for Marketing, InsideTrack; and Wendy Kilgore, Director of Research and Managing Consultant from AACRAO. During this innovative session, Dave Jarrat will use findings from InsideTrack research as the basis for a group discussion of key factors that influence enrollment and persistence among post-traditional students. Workshop participants will also work in teams to develop clear action plans for turning what they've learned from the session into action.
Session: Fresh, Actionable Perspectives on Post-Traditional Student Enrollment and Success
Date: 11/12/2013
Time: 2:15 PM - 3:45 PM
Room: Boulevard B
Whether or not you are attending the SEM conference, we invite you to complete this brief survey by Friday, November 1. The results will be used in the session. It should take no more than 5 minutes.
The Basics of Strategic Planning
In today’s world of new student trends and data tools, it’s easy to get distracted from the basic fundamentals of strategic planning. This often results in pursuing low-priority strategic goals and failing to reach the most important ones crucial to your institution’s message and goals.
“We need to get back to basics,” said Robert Wilkinson, Associate Vice Chancellor at Indiana University - Purdue University - Fort Wayne. “And that’s what this session is - Strategic Planning 101.”
Wilkinson and Ange Peterson, Associate Vice President at University of Central Florida, are on a mission to reintroduce the basics at the AACRAO SEM Conference. Peterson and Wilkinson have over 25 years of experience working together on strategic planning at their institutions. They will share their no-nonsense, basic approach to strategic planning and attendees will leave the session with a set of worksheets for strategic planning at their institutions.
Read on for AACRAO’s conversation with Wilkinson.
Data Analysis so Easy Even a Dean Can Do It
Community colleges are often pressured to make significant enrollment and administrative decisions on a tight budget. Through data analytics tools, institutions are more capable of making decisions attentive to what is actually going on at campuses.
At Eastern Iowa Community Colleges, a new data tool ensures ready access to clear and understandable data. EICCezdata grew from a partnership agreement with a business intelligence company. The data tool aimed to deliver effective and user-friendly data in a timely manner. EICCezdata strengthened EICC’s culture of data-driven decisions by making the decision process more efficient and accessible to administrative staff.
Read on for AACRAO's conversation with Erin Snyder, Associate Director for Enrollment Management at Eastern Iowa Community Colleges.