The Key with Inside Higher Ed

Ep. 142: Voices of Student Success: A Day Without Classes, Packed with Career

Having successful career outcomes is important for colleges and also for students, but getting students to engage in career services can feel like an uphill battle.

Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania leaders decided to bring careers to students with an event called LVC Success Expo. During this day, LVC cancels classes so students can engage in an all-day career fair or meet with academic support staff to ensure their success in and after college. 

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Tomomi “T” Horning, vice president of college partnerships and strategic initiatives, and Jasmine Bucher, senior director of the Breen Center for Career and Professional Development, discuss the event, campus partnerships and how it contributes to a larger institutional mission.  

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader.  

Read a transcript of the podcast here.

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Ep. 142: An L.A. Community College Begins to Heal

At the beginning of February, the deadly L.A. wildfires were fully contained after burning for nearly a month. A few weeks ago we spoke with colleges in the city whose communities were upturned by the fires. Hundreds of students and staff had lost their homes and thousands more were displaced from evacuation zones. Now that the embers have died out, we wanted to check back in with one college to see how it is managing to rebuild.

In this episode of The Key we speak with Ryan Cornner president of Glendale Community College which serves 24,000 students on a campus about five miles from where the Eaton wildfire burned. Dozens of GCC students and employees lost their homes and many more were displaced for more than a week. The college has expanded its efforts to provide access to basic needs for its students and has recognized that its part-time adjunct faculty need the most support.

 

Hosted by Sara Custer, editor in chief of Inside Higher Ed

 

Ep. 141: Voices of Student Success: Expanding Access to Study Abroad

Study abroad is tied to personal and professional growth for college students, but crossing the border can be an enormous hurdle for some learners or feel unattainable.  

A new initiative at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania seeks to empower and support first-generation and low-income students who are interested in experiential learning and study away through workshops, financial aid and mentorship.  

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Chris Brown, Bucknell’s Andrew Hartman ‘71 & Joseph Fama ‘71 executive director of the Center for Access & Success, talks about the center and how it reduces barriers to student participation in high-impact activities. 

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader.  

Read a transcript of the podcast here.  

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Ep. 140: What IHE's newsroom will be tracking in the first days of the new Trump administration

In the run up to the presidential inauguration on Jan. 20, Inside Higher Ed’s editor-in-chief Sara Custer and news editor Katherine Knott discuss what we know and what we don’t know about president-elect Trump’s policy agenda and how it could affect universities and colleges.

Katherine and Sara discuss what sources are telling IHE reporters about incoming education secretary Linda McMahon and who the key players in the Republican-led Senate and House are. It's anyone's guess what the administration's policy priorities will be, but Katherine shares what she and Inside Higher Ed journalists will be looking for to get a sense of which way the wind might be blowing for higher ed on Capital Hill.

Hosted by Sara Custer, editor-in-chief of Inside Higher Ed.

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Ep. 139: Enrollment Management's AI Future

Highly customized admissions information and processes. Credit transfer evaluations that take minutes, not days or weeks. Precision tuition discounting estimates. Student success interventions informed by data gathered about students before they ever even applied to their institution. These are some of the ways that artificial intelligence is or may soon be improving the enrollment management experience for students, teams and institutions. That’s according to our recent panel discussion with experts Joseph Paris, dean of graduate and professional studies at Delaware Valley University, Naronda C. Wright, president of NAGAP at The Association for Graduate Enrollment Management and associate dean of the Jack N. Averitt College of Graduate Studies at Georgia Southern University, and Claire Brady, president of Glass Half Full Consulting. 

 

The discussion, featured on this episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed's news and analysis podcast, also draws on insights from “Beyond the Hype: Understanding and Unlocking AI’s Potential in Enrollment Management,” a recent special report Inside Higher Ed published on the following: 

• How admissions and enrollment management teams are already deploying AI to assist their work 
• The potential near- and longer-term future of AI in enrollment management
• Best and emerging practices for building data readiness and AI literacy among admissions and enrollment management personnel

 

Download that report, written for Inside Higher Ed by journalist Ben Upton, here. 

Hosted by Colleen Flaherty, senior editor of special content at Inside Higher Ed. 

 

This episode is sponsored by Liaison. 

Ep. 138: Doug Lederman Says Farewell to Inside Higher Ed

In his final days in the newsroom, editor and co-founder of Inside Higher Ed and host of The Key, Doug Lederman, sits down with editor-in-chief Sara Custer to discuss his nearly 40-year career in higher education and what he plans to do next.

Doug talks about his work as a journalist over four decades, including leading Inside Higher Ed for the past 20 years. Doug shares what kept him up at night when he and Scott Jaschik started a new, independent media company in 2003 and the big breaks along the way that helped establish Inside Higher Ed as a trusted source of news for universities and colleges across the country. 

Doug and Sara discuss the future of IHE and how its role to both explain higher education to readers and hold it to account is more critical now than it has ever been.

"I don’t think us journalists would be writing about higher education if we didn’t think it was important,” he says.

Hosted by Sara Custer, editor in chief of Inside Higher Ed. This episode is sponsored by the Gates Foundation.

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Ep. 137: How to Lead With Purpose in Higher Ed

College presidents don’t work in a bubble and there are a multitude of competing priorities jostling for their time and attention on a daily basis. It can be an overwhelming job, but having a guiding purpose behind every decision a president makes, the teams they form and the long-term strategies they develop can help keep leaders on the right track. How do they know which areas deserve their attention and which should be delegated to talented team members? How do they know they are making the right decisions and doing good by their institution? When should they take risks?

In this episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, Donde Plowman, the chancellor at UT Knoxville, Harry Williams the former president of Delaware State University and the current president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall Foundation, and Jonathan Koppell, president of Montclair State University tell an audience at the Student Success US event how they keep their purpose front of mind as they lead their institutions.

They share their experiences of making tough decisions, championing student success to stakeholders, lobbying for greater funding from legislators and striking out on paths unknown with new partners.

Hosted by Sara Custer, editor in chief of Inside Higher Ed. This episode is sponsored by the Gates Foundation.

 

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Ep. 136: Voices of Student Success: GenAI in Teaching and Learning

Over the past two years, generative AI has blazed its way on to college campuses, first in the students’ hands and increasingly in the hands of administrators and instructors to improve campus operations and enrollment management, as well as teaching and learning.

One of the greatest challenges of using generative AI in teaching is providing students with skills without interrupting the process of learning or introducing errors or misinformation. The University of Texas at Austin is in the initial stages of launching a custom GPT model, UT Sage, which serves as a tutor of sorts for students who need help related to a specific course.

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Julie Schell, assistant vice provost of academic technology at UT Austin, shares the inspiration behind the tool, her work with AI in the classroom and teaching the ethics of AI use.

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by KI. Read a transcript of the podcast here.

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Ep. 135: Reasons to Be Optimistic About Student Success Efforts

A recent IHE survey of university and college student success administrators found that they are confident in the quality of education their institution provides and say their college is effective in making student success an institutional priority. There are, however, still many areas where administrators say their institution can improve, with greater effort among faculty being the most common desired action.

This episode of The Key explores the results of our survey and how they compare with what students have told us in other polls. We’ll also hear a case study on how a teaching and learning center is encouraging faculty to be active participants in students’ success. Joining the discussion are Colleen Flaherty, special content editor at Inside Higher Ed, and Trey Conatser, assistant provost for teaching and learning at the University of Kentucky and director of UK’s Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning.

Both discussions paint an overall optimistic picture of how institutions are working to find innovative ways to support their students to stay in college and graduate.

You can read more about our survey findings in our article “Survey: Student Success Administrators Optimistic”.

 

Hosted by Sara Custer, editor in chief of Inside Higher Ed. This episode is sponsored by the Gates Foundation.

 

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Ep. 134: Voices of Student Success: Life Design for Student Success

A growing number of colleges and universities are integrating life design into the student experience to improve student well-being, academic pursuits and future planning beyond graduation. Life design, which originates from the 2016 book Designing Your Life, uses design thinking principles to help guide individuals as they navigate change and transition, ultimately helping them find meaning and purpose in their lives. 

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Adrienne Ausdenmoore, assistant vice president and executive director, Geoffrey H. Radbill Center for College and Life Design at Bowling Green State University, shares how the university is implementing campus-wide changes to integrate life design into the student experience. Later, hear from Stanford University’s James Tarbox, assistant vice provost and executive director of career education, who shares how life design is essential in career services.  

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Student Success Reporter Ashley Mowreader. This episode is sponsored by KI. Read a transcript of the podcast here.  

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