The Key with Inside Higher Ed

Ep. 147: Voices of Student Success: Connecting Academics and Support Resources for Success

There are a few elements of the student lifecycle in higher education that are unavoidable, one being general education courses. While a majority of college students are unaware of support resources or unlikely to engage with all of them, each student must fulfill common core curriculum.  

For over a decade, the University of Louisville has offered an Oral Communication Success Guide for students in the public speaking general education course. Now a digital resource embedded in learning software, the guide helps connect students’ learning to institutional services and supports.  

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, oral communications faculty member Elyssa Smith and Katherine Taylor, director of the oral communication basic course, outline the process of digitalizing the guide, the benefits for student access and how it breaks down barriers across the institution.  

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. 146: Trust and the College Presidency

People across higher education are calling on college presidents to speak out against the onslaught of threats and funding caught imposed by the Trump administration. But that is just one kind of leadership.

Jorge Burmicky, assistant professor in education leadership and policy studies in the school of education at Howard University, joins Sara Custer, editor in chief at Inside Higher Ed, for this episode of The Key. 

Burmicky's research focuses on the core competencies for the modern presidency and at the very top is trust building. He stresses that the list is ever changing and discusses what competencies would best serve presidents now at such a pivotal moment for higher education.

Read more about Burmicky's work: "The 7 Competencies Presidents Need"

Ep. 145: Voices of Student Success: Putting Mental Health Counselors Where Students Are

Mental health is one of the greatest threats to student persistence and retention in higher education, but providing large-scale preventative and responsive mental health care is a looming challenge for colleges and universities.  

In addition to having sufficient clinicians and trained professionals to support students in need, finding ways to deliver wellness support to students before they’re in crisis is critical. 

One strategy is embedding mental health counselors into student spaces or academic departments. By integrating services into a physical location, such as a student center, clinicians can connect with students in informal and intentional ways, gaining their trust and supporting specific pockets of the campus community.  

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Estevan Garcia, chief wellness officer at Dartmouth College, talks about the root of the youth mental health crisis and some of Dartmouth’s embedded services for student athletes.

Later, hear from Casey Fox, associate director of integrated services from the University of South Carolina, who leads the university’s integrated mental health program, about the benefits of these services for students and community members.  

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. 144: The Policies, People and Surprises of Trump's First 30 Days

In this episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, editor in chief Sara Custer speaks with IHE’s news editor Katherine Knott about the policies, people and surprises from the first 30 days of the second Trump administration.

They discuss the executive orders and actions that could have the most impact on higher ed and what pushback they’ve seen from the sector, as well as the people who Trump has tapped to lead the department. Katherine shares what has surprised her the most in the last month and what she and the IHE reporters will be watching in the next 30 days.

Stay on top of the key developments in federal policy and funding by subscribing to The First 100 Days, IHE’s pop-up newsletter explaining the week’s news out of Washington. Learn more.

Ep. 143: 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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