mortiz0010

When I was a dean of academic affairs at Lansing Community College (MI), we began every yearwith what I thought was a kind of hokey ceremony at the time.  I was a cynical liberal artist at the time grieving for my administrative art and montage of post-pre-avant garde modern - traditional learning symbologies (whatever they are.) The college president Phil Gannon used to start the year with an ingathering of all employees. The usual parade of administrators started it all with our plans for the year and introductions of department chairs who introduced new faculty or staff. Yes, there was a time when colleges actually hired new faculty and staff.  Then he and Ron Dove, the Director of HR would hand out service pins to people. This is what I thought was a bit hokey. To think that a service pin for five years of service would mean anything?  I mean if you want to make people feel appreciated give them more money. Boy was I wrong. If they had handed out chec...

Since last week's post I haves been getting inquiries abut what I mean by mentoring so I decided to discuss it further. Students need to feel they are engaged to and with the college. They need to have their social structure and support systems rebuilt while attending college so they have someone to lean on or go to in times of stress or need. They can go to fellow students for some information such as what professor to never take; what classes will fulfill requirements; which administrator cares about students and will try to help out ; etc. But there are many times when another student can’t help out or provide the support needed in the situation. These are the times when they might have asked a parent what to do but the parents do not understand the system and the school. So, they need a sort of collegiate parent figure – a mentor. There is a reality rites des passage about college. It really does not come with a user’s manual though the FAQ’s recommended to help en...

Sweet Briar’s closing has sent a shock wave through higher education. But it never had to happen. Sweet Briar could have remained open and solvent if it had realized it has a retention problem not an enrollment one. If the college had focused on the students they did recruit and kept them in school they might have done alright Let’s look review some numbers. Sweet Briar had a student population of 723 students with 695 of them full time. They charged tuition of $33,605 per student. That could mean an annualized revenue of $23,458,515 from full time students and another $103,040 for a total of 23,458,515. With an endowment of $85 million added to that annual revenue, they would have had enough money to say in operation if…IF they had retained their students and they could have. As it is they had a 43% attrition rate. That means they were losing almost half of its population each year and had to recruit a new class plus enough students to make up for the attrition. They were losing $10,...