Tag: Jobs

  • Fewer College Staff Say They’ll Likely Seek New Jobs in 2025

    Fewer College Staff Say They’ll Likely Seek New Jobs in 2025

    Nearly 3,800 respondents took the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources Higher Education Employee Retention Survey.

    About a quarter of nonfaculty higher ed employees told an April survey that they were likely or very likely to look for new jobs in the next year—a drop from the third of such workers who indicated in 2023 they would go job hunting.

    The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources released this week the results of its latest Higher Education Employee Retention Survey, which had nearly 3,800 respondents, 96 percent of whom said they’re full-time employees and 75 percent of whom said they’re overtime-exempt workers. The respondents hailed from 505 different colleges and universities.

    Greater rates of nonsupervisors, men and employees of color reported they were seeking to change jobs compared to their counterparts. And, out of the various types of offices—such as academic affairs and admissions, enrollment and financial aid—the CUPA-HR report says “external affairs appears to be the most stable area, with nearly two-thirds (62%) of employees indicating they are unlikely or very unlikely to look for a new job.”

    Employees who are eyeing new jobs aren’t necessarily seeking to leave academe, or even their current employers. Around 72 percent of those who said they intend to job hunt said they plan to look at other colleges or universities. Nearly half want to explore new roles at their current institutions. The same share plan to look at non–higher ed nonprofits, while 60 percent are eyeing private, for-profit companies. (Respondents who say they are job hunting could pick multiple options.)

    Why are they seeking new jobs? Around 70 percent ranked higher pay in their top three reasons for leaving, a far higher percentage than any other impetus. The next most common reason was seeking promotion, at 39 percent, followed by desiring a different workplace culture and reducing stress, each around 33 percent. Then came remote work opportunities, at 28 percent, and job security concerns, at 26 percent.

    Job security concern “was particularly pronounced among employees in research and sponsored programs/institutional research,” the report says.

    Despite employees’ wishes for more money, the report says feelings of belonging and of purpose in work, along with senses of being valued by others at work and engaged with work, “are stronger predictors of retention than is the perception of fair pay.”

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  • Why Students Participate in Dual Enrollment

    Why Students Participate in Dual Enrollment

    Over the past three years, the number of high school students taking college courses has increased more than 20 percent, making them a growing share of all undergraduates, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

    Dual enrollment can help high school students get a head start on their college degree. In addition to expediting the amount of time it takes to complete a two- or four-year degree, concurrent-enrollment courses may be cheaper or subsidized for high school students, reducing the costs associated with a college degree.

    A recent study by Tyton Partners investigates why students participate in dual enrollment and how the experience shapes their perceptions of college.

    Students say: A majority of surveyed students participating in dual enrollment were high school seniors (76 percent); 24 percent were juniors.

    Most high schoolers took only one or two college courses (58 percent); just 19 percent were enrolled in four or more. While one-third of students took courses online, two-thirds attended in person at a local college.

    The primary motivation for students to engage in dual enrollment was to get ahead on college credits and reduce tuition costs (51 percent). One in five students said they were looking for more advanced coursework.

    The data also pointed to dual enrollment’s role as a pipeline to higher education. Three in five students said they strongly agree with the statement “My dual-enrollment experience is preparing me for college,” and a similar share indicated they feel like they belong at their college.

    Dual-enrollment students worry about affordability in higher education; one in five said they do not feel they have the resources to pay for college. Research shows that dually enrolled students are more likely to receive grants and scholarships when they attend college, compared to their peers who are not concurrently enrolled.

    Over half of dual-enrollment students said the experience made them more motivated to attend college (57 percent), while one-third said their interest in higher education remained unchanged; 6 percent said the experience was a turnoff that made them less interested in college.

    One notable trend was that dual-enrollment participants who later enrolled in college full-time were more likely to pursue natural and physical sciences compared to the general undergraduate population. Thirty-seven percent of current college students who had taken college courses while in high school said they were studying natural and physical sciences, compared to 29 percent of their peers without concurrent-enrollment credits. Conversely, non-dual-enrollment students elected humanities and social science majors at higher rates (37 percent) than their dual-enrollment peers (31 percent).

    “While this may reflect the interests of students who opt into dual enrollment, it also highlights the potential of dual enrollment pathways to attract and support learners aiming for more technical or science-focused careers,” according to the report.

    Looking ahead: More colleges have implemented or expanded dual-enrollment offerings since 2020, in part to reverse flagging enrollment numbers, but also to expand access to higher education. However, equity gaps still persist in terms of who is aware of or participating in concurrent enrollment.

    In a survey of academic advisers and administrators, 45 percent of respondents said they expect their institution to increase resources for dual enrollment support over the next three years.

    College staff and leaders identified college transition programs (28 percent) and academic planning tailored to future degree pathways (28 percent) as the most impactful supports for dual-enrollment students.

    We bet your colleague would like this article, too. Send them this link to subscribe to our newsletter on Student Success.

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  • ASU Police Reportedly Assisted DHS With Arrest

    ASU Police Reportedly Assisted DHS With Arrest

    yongyuan/iStock/Getty Images

    Arizona State University police assisted in arranging the violent arrest of a staff member by Department of Homeland Security officials earlier this week, The Phoenix New Times reported.

    The ASU chapter of the National Lawyers Guild alleged in an Instagram post that ASU police officer James Quigley arranged a meeting with a staff member, who was not named, “under the pretense of discussing a ‘concern’ about a social media post.” After a brief meeting, the employee was then arrested by multiple plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, according to the group.

    A purported video of the encounter was later posted on X. The video shows several men with badges, one of whom identifies himself as “a special agent with Homeland Security” twisting an individual’s wrist before kneeing him in the back. In the video, the arrested individual, who is the employee in question, according to the post, asks, “What did I do?” as he is arrested.

    The employee was later released, according to the newspaper. 

    In the aftermath of the arrest, the ASU chapter of the National Lawyers Guild called on the university and President Michael Crow to publicly denounce the incident, end all cooperation with ICE and enact policies “to prevent future targeting and harm” to community members.

    “ASU must protest the safety and dignity of its staff and students—not partner with agencies that terrorize them,” the organization wrote online.

    ASU spokesperson Jerry Gonzalez told Inside Higher Ed that the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security had questioned an employee after receiving an anonymous tip.

    “In order to remain informed about a matter involving an ASU employee, an ASU police officer accompanied a DHS investigator to a meeting with the employee at a coffee shop off campus,” Gonzalez wrote.

    He confirmed that the employee was later released.

    (This article has been updated with a comment from ASU.)



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  • McMahon Calls for Improving Efficiency, Civilizing Discourse

    McMahon Calls for Improving Efficiency, Civilizing Discourse

    McMahon said the department’s plan to move career and technical education programs to the Labor Department is one way to show that other agencies can run Education Department programs more efficiently.

    Connor McLaren for the Ronald Reagan Institute

    Washington, D.C.—Education Secretary Linda McMahon made clear at a series of policy summits this week that while she remains committed to one day shuttering her department, there’s still much work left to be done.

    “You don’t just shut off the lights and walk out the door if you are trying to return education to the states,” McMahon said at one event Wednesday, adding that offices like Civil Rights and Federal Student Aid can’t simply be eliminated. “Really, what we’re trying to do is to show how we can move different parts of the Department of Education to show that they can be more efficient operating in other agencies.”

    Throughout her remarks at both events—the Education Law and Policy Conference hosted by the Federalist Society and the Defense of Freedom Institute on Wednesday and the Reagan Institute Summit on Education on Thursday—the secretary stressed that a key way to test this concept is by moving workforce development programs to the Department of Labor.

    “Let’s be sure that we are not moving hastily, but that we are taking the right steps at the right pace for success,” McMahon told the Federalist Society audience. “And if we show that this is an incredibly efficient and effective way to manage these programs, it is my hope that Congress will look at that and approve these moves.”

    However, some advocates for students, institutional lobbyists, Democrats in Congress and left-leaning policy analysts have taken issue with the plan to move adult, career and technical education programs to the Labor Department, arguing that it’s illegal and will create more headaches for the providers who rely on the money.

    Regardless, the Trump administration is moving forward with its plans. ED signed an interagency agreement with the Department of Labor earlier this spring and has more recently moved many of its staff members to the DOL office. (Funding for the salaries of these employees and the programs they lead, however, will still come from the Education Department budget.)

    On Thursday at the Reagan Institute, McMahon noted that the combined staff is working on a new learning and employment report as well as a “skills wallet” that will help show employers what students have learned and students what employers are looking for.

    “It’s an exciting time in labor development in that country, but it’s a challenge and a real responsibility for us to not get stuck,” she said.

    Aside from career and technical education and some of her other priorities, such as cracking down on alleged campus antisemitism and racial preferencing, much of the conversation both days was centered around the recent shooting of conservative figurehead Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University and how to prevent political violence on campus.

    McMahon was quick to describe the Turning Point USA president’s death as a travesty and to charge colleges with the responsibility of promoting more healthy civic discourse. At both events, she cited Kirk himself as a prime example of what such debate looks like, saying that while his approach was at times “aggressive,” he was always “very polite” and “civil.”

    “He wasn’t antagonistic, but he was challenging. And there’s a clever art to being able to do that,” she said. “I don’t think that we show our students how to do that enough.”

    Thursday, she denounced the faculty, staff and students who appeared to have been apathetic toward or allegedly celebrated Kirk’s death, building upon comments she made in a social media video earlier this week. But just as she suggested condemning certain individuals for crossing an “ethical line,” she added that “if you shut down the speech of one side to allow the freedom of speech for another, you’d have actually compromised the entire principle, and that we cannot have.”

    She closed on Thursday by urging educators to foster their students’ compassion.

    “We’ve lost a little of our humanity,” she said. “Let’s make sure we grab that back in peace and show it through leadership.”

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  • Education Dept. Opens Up FAFSA Beta Test to All

    Education Dept. Opens Up FAFSA Beta Test to All

    The full version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid is scheduled to launch Oct. 1.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | SimoneN/iStock/Getty Images

    All students can now access a beta version of the 2026–27 Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the Department of Education announced Wednesday.

    The grant application platform won’t officially launch until Oct. 1, the congressionally mandated FAFSA launch deadline, but for the 12 days between now and then, students and families can start their application by participating in the test model.

    “We’re using this time to monitor a limited number of FAFSA submissions to ensure our systems are performing as expected,” the department’s Federal Student Aid website explains. “This is a common practice in website and software development.”

    The first round of beta testing was opened to a limited number of students in early August. Students who submit their form during the test will only have to submit it once, the department website states.    

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  • Texas A&M President Steps Down Under Pressure

    Texas A&M President Steps Down Under Pressure

    Texas A&M University president Mark Welsh stepped down abruptly Thursday under mounting pressure from state lawmakers over how he handled a recent incident in which a student clashed with a professor over a lesson on gender identity, prompting him to dismiss the instructor.

    Earlier this month, Welsh fired Melissa McCoul, who taught English, after a student taking her children’s literature class objected to the professor’s statement that there are more than two genders. Welsh also removed two administrators from their duties because they “approved plans to continue teaching course content that was not consistent” with the course’s description, he said.

    The incident prompted fury from state lawmakers, some of whom called on the Texas A&M Board of Regents to terminate Welsh. But on Thursday, system officials announced he had resigned.

    The case also raised serious questions about academic freedom at Texas A&M and prompted pushback from faculty members who argued that McCoul’s termination was unnecessary and unjust. The American Association of University Professors also released a statement arguing that the “firings set a dangerous new precedent for partisan interference in Texas higher education.”

    Welsh’s resignation is effective Friday at 5 p.m., system officials noted in a statement.

    “President Welsh is a man of honor who has led Texas A&M with selfless dedication. We are grateful for his service and contributions,” Texas A&M system chancellor Glenn Hegar, a former GOP lawmaker, said in a statement Thursday. “At the same time, we agree that now is the right moment to make a change and to position Texas A&M for continued excellence in the years ahead.” 

    Others took a victory lap, including Brian Harrison, a Republican lawmaker and Texas A&M alum who has accused the university of funding “leftist [diversity, equity and inclusion] and transgender indoctrination.”

    Last week Harrison posted a video that the student had taken of her confrontation with McCoul, in which the student claims that teaching material related to gender identity and transgender people is illegal and violates one of President Trump’s executive orders, which are not laws. Harrison called for the board to fire Welsh and other senior officials. 

    “WE DID IT! TEXAS A&M PRESIDENT IS OUT!!” Harrison wrote on social media Thursday, adding that “as the first elected official to call for him to be fired, this news is welcome, although overdue.”

    Several other Republican lawmakers also publicly expressed support for firing Welsh.

    Welsh’s resignation comes despite the backing of notable faculty members, such as Texas A&M’s Executive Committee of the University Distinguished Professors, who wrote a letter of support for the president to the Board of Regents ahead of Thursday’s meeting.

    Welsh, a four-star general who served as chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, was previously dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service before he was initially tapped as interim president in July 2023 when his predecessor, Kathy Banks, resigned following a hiring scandal. Welsh was named to the job on a permanent basis in December 2023.

    Welsh’s exit now means the last two Texas A&M presidents have been felled by scandal and neither lasted more than two years in the job.

    Texas A&M did not immediately name an interim upon announcing Welsh’s resignation, but system officials noted in a statement that it will appoint someone to the position “in the coming days” and “initiate a national search for a permanent president” following Welsh’s resignation.

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  • Fixed Tuition

    Fixed Tuition

    A few days ago, someone mentioned how nice it would be if students could have their tuition level held steady after enrollment, so they could plan. It got me thinking.

    The usual version of that proposal assumes that students enroll full-time at a given tuition level, then sail through, full-time, unimpeded, until their on-time graduation. The benefit to the students (and their families) is obvious, both in terms of absolute amounts of money and in terms of predictability. As a parent who has been paying out-of-state tuition since 2019, I get the appeal.

    Of course, the rest of the economy doesn’t freeze costs for years at a time, and college employees live in that economy. So annual tuition increases would still have to happen, but they could only be inflicted upon new students. In any given year, freshmen would pay more than sophomores, who would pay more than juniors and so on. The first year that happened, the increase for freshmen would have to be pretty dramatic to ensure that future years would generate enough revenue. Or, theoretically, states could make up the difference.

    That doesn’t seem likely.

    For example, Pennsylvania hasn’t even passed its budget yet for this year. You know, the one that we’re several months into. Uncertainty rolls downhill; asking us to guarantee years in advance when we don’t even have this year’s figure yet isn’t realistic. In its defense, the state is dealing with a federal funding situation that could be described as mercurial. Higher ed funding at the state level competes with other priorities, such as the state versions of Medicaid.

    Now, if the promise of fixed tuition led to a more rational federal budgeting process …

    OK, OK. Seriously, though, using variable revenues to cover fixed costs is a dangerous game. Very elite private schools often have the option of using endowment returns to provide predictable operating funds, which, in turn, could lead to more predictable tuition charges. But those of us at the mercy of annual (and frequently late) state allocations don’t have that option.

    Even allowing for all of that, though, I can’t help but wonder about the student that the model assumes. It’s essentially the IPEDS model: first-time, full-time, degree-seeking, supported by family. In the community college world, that describes a small minority of the student body.

    Here, students move into and out of full-time status from semester to semester. Sometimes life happens and they step out for a bit (or longer), then decide to return years later. They usually work for pay, often full-time, while they’re taking classes. Stop-start patterns of enrollment make predictable tuition harder to define. They also necessarily lead to higher increases for those who come back, since the entire increase for any given year is visited upon new students, rather than being spread evenly across classes.

    Free community college would have solved this, of course, by setting a figure of zero and leaving it there. As long as operating support increased with costs, that would be sustainable, and it’s admirably simple. But that doesn’t appear to be on the table at the federal level, and states can’t deficit spend during recessions, which is usually when demand for other services increases and tax revenues drop.

    If we could set public funding in a way that covers fixed costs, leaving only the variable costs to be covered by tuition, then there could be a real possibility for a (clearly defined) tuition freeze. Or at least the levels would be low enough that annual increases wouldn’t hurt so much. Until that happens, though, it’s just untenable. As a parent, that bothers me, but the blame should be placed where it actually belongs.

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  • How Witnessing Violence Impacts Brain Development (opinion)

    How Witnessing Violence Impacts Brain Development (opinion)

    On Sept. 10, a public lecture at Utah Valley University became the site of a nightmare when the political commentator Charlie Kirk was killed before thousands of students. Whatever one thinks of Kirk’s politics, the trauma endured by those young witnesses will last far longer than the news cycle. For adolescents, such moments do not fade when the cameras leave. They etch themselves into the brain—literally. Witnessing violence, even indirectly, negatively impacts brain development.

    At the University of Southern California’s Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education (CANDLE), our colleagues recently studied how violence exposure shapes young people. Again and again, the evidence is stark: When adolescents witness or hear about violence in their communities, their developing brains bear the burden. The anterior cingulate cortex—a region critical for processing stress and pain, emotional regulation, motivation, learning, and social connection—has a greater decrease in gray-matter volume in adolescents exposed to more community violence. This pattern of gray-matter volume decrease has been seen in ground troops deployed to war and in people affected by post-traumatic stress disorder. It has been linked to anxiety, depression and difficulty sustaining attention.

    Yet neuroscience also points to a path forward. Our newest research, published this year in the Journal of Research on Adolescence, offers a striking counterpoint: Adolescents are not passive victims of their environments. They have within them the capacity to buffer these harms, within themselves and within society. That capacity is what we call transcendent thinking.

    Transcendent thinking is the ability to move beyond the immediate details of an event and consider the complexities that characterize a diverse society, to explore perspectives that differ or conflict with one’s own and to contemplate the bigger picture: What does this mean for me, for my community, for justice and fairness? When teenagers reflect in these ways, they are not escaping reality but engaging it more deeply. They are searching for meaning, considering multiple perspectives and placing their experience in a larger human story. This, in turn, helps them imagine how things might be different, and how they might contribute to the change.

    In our study of 55 urban adolescents, those who more frequently engaged in transcendent reflection about social issues showed a greater increase in gray-matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex two years later—the very brain region seen to be most vulnerable to violence exposure. In other words, transcendent thinking didn’t erase the negative effects, but it appeared to give young people’s brains some scaffolding to adapt and heal.

    This has profound implications for how we respond to political and community violence. The instinct, understandably, is to shield young people from harsh realities. But shielding won’t work. Adolescents are already encountering violence—whether on the street, online or in lecture halls. What they need are the tools to make sense of it, to weave their experiences into narratives of purpose and agency rather than despair. And for this, they need curiosity about the experiences of others and safe opportunities to think across difference.

    Fortunately, transcendent thinking is not rarefied or inaccessible. It is something every young person can do and likely already does spontaneously. The challenge is to nurture it deliberately and thoughtfully. Schools and colleges can make space for students to grapple with complex social issues and to connect classroom learning with ethical and civic questions. Families and communities can invite adolescents into intergenerational storytelling, where young people see how others have wrestled with hardship and injustice. Education that emphasizes civic reasoning and dialogue can strengthen not only academic outcomes but also neurological resilience and long-term well-being.

    This is both a scientific and a civic imperative. Neuroscience is showing us that meaning making changes the brain. We need support for educators to find ways to translate that science into daily practices that help young people transform tragedy into purpose. Our vision is to illuminate the capacities that empower adolescents to question their and others’ beliefs, to engage across difference, to imagine futures and work to create the world they want to live in.

    The tragedy at Utah Valley University underscores how high the stakes have become. America’s young people are coming of age amid rising polarization and public acts of violence. We cannot protect them or shield them from it, but we can equip them to counter its developmental impacts.

    Transcendent thinking is not a cure-all. But it is a proven developmental asset that can buffer the effects of witnessing community violence on the brain. It is also a civic skill we urgently need: the ability to see beyond the present conflicts and tragedies to the larger questions of justice, community and meaning.

    If we want to safeguard both adolescent development and democratic life, we must equip schools, colleges, families and communities with the tools to cultivate transcendent thinking.

    Mary Helen Immordino-Yang is the Fahmy and Donna Attallah Professor of Humanistic Psychology and a professor of education, psychology and neuroscience at the University of Southern California and founding director of the USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education.

    Kori Street is executive director of USC CANDLE.

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  • Angel Pérez Book Outlines Advice for Admissions Leaders

    Angel Pérez Book Outlines Advice for Admissions Leaders

    It’s a trying time to be an admissions dean.

    More than two years after the Supreme Court ruled that colleges and universities could no longer consider race in admissions decisions, the Trump administration has launched a crusade to ensure institutions are abiding by that decision. Government officials have demanded colleges submit detailed data on the racial makeup of their admitted students, cast suspicion on so-called proxies for race in the admissions process and required some universities to reform their admissions practices—without specifying what, exactly, needed changing. (The administration has also used the decision as justification to call for the cancellation of other diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, from scholarships to student lounges.)

    Then again, according to Angel Pérez, a longtime admissions dean and the CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, it’s never not a trying time to be an admissions dean.

    Hence the title of his forthcoming book, The Hottest Seat on Campus (Harvard Education Press), which he admits freely to have borrowed, albeit subconsciously, from a 2014 Chronicle of Higher Education feature. Admissions deans are incredibly visible, he said in a recent interview with Inside Higher Ed; their failures and successes are known to all—and have consequences well beyond their own offices.

    Now, as these leaders grapple with the new challenges the Trump administration has brought—and as the first day of NACAC’s annual conference kicks off in Columbus, Ohio—Pérez hopes his book, which is built upon interviews with dozens of admissions leaders from across the country, will prove an important resource for others struggling to navigate the hot seat. Inside Higher Ed spoke with him over the phone about his advice for admissions deans and the changing landscape of higher education.

    The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

    Q: I wanted to start off by asking about your personal story. What made you interested in holding an admissions role yourself?

    A: I think my story is actually very typical of most people who go into the admissions profession. I still call myself an accidental admissions dean—this is not what I was supposed to be doing for a living.

    So many people go into the admissions profession by actually being involved on their college campus, as was I. I was involved in student activities, I was a residence hall director, 
I dabbled in tour guiding.
 The dean of students at Skidmore [College], Dean Joe Tolliver, who has now retired but is still very active in student affairs, said to me, “You’d be really great in higher education. You should consider a job in higher education.” And to be honest, I didn’t think that those were real jobs, on a college campus. So, I didn’t take it very seriously until someone in the admissions office, Roslyn Estrada, said to me, “Angel, there’s going to be an opening in the admissions office. You should apply. You’d be really good.”

    And eventually I said yes to applying because I thought I would go and do that for one year until I found a real job. And many, many years later, here I am, and [I am] delighted that I took that calling.

    So, it was really the taps on the shoulders. But I will say—it’s one of the reasons I’ve written the book—that I think we need to change that paradigm and I think we need to change that pathway. I want to create much more intentional pathways into the profession and I want to create much more intentional pathways into leadership.

    Q: What would that look like? Do you guys have any initiatives currently underway that are trying to create more intentional pathways?

    A: [NACAC has] launched a program called NEXT, where we work with admissions counselors who are one to three years in to basically help them understand what growth in the profession can look like, what a pathway can look like.


    The second thing is that, thanks to the support of Strada Education Foundation, we are actually going to be launching a brand new dean’s fellowship, starting in 2026. This is in order to support brand-new deans who are moving into these chairs and cultivate them into leadership. In the book, in the spirit of me being the accidental dean, I write about the fact that one day I was the director of admissions, and the next day, my boss retired and said to me, “The president would like to speak to you.” And then, all of a sudden, I was the vice president for enrollment, and my job was so fundamentally different. That happens to so many people—it’s kind of like sink or swim. What we want to do at NACAC in the future is create much more intentional leadership growth for deans.

    One thing that I aspire to do—we’re not there yet; I’m still looking for the funding—is actually to create a program where those tour guides on college campuses and student interviewers, I would like to actually create a NACAC fellowship for them to learn about what it’s like to go into the profession, to give them a mentor as they’re applying for their first job out of college, into the admissions profession, and then make them a part of the NACAC community.

    Q: I enjoyed the section of the book where you were talking about admissions deans as storytellers. Could you describe how that storyteller role differs from others on campus and also how effective storytelling translates to outcomes for the admissions office?

    A: I always have believed that that admissions deans are chief storytellers of an institution. The reason I say that is because they have such a large constituency. They’re not just telling stories on their campus; they’re also telling the story of the institution outside of campus, right? They’re talking to high school counselors. They’re talking to students. They’re talking to people like you, for example, in the media who are trying to understand the complex admissions world that we have built.

    What I have seen in my experience is that so many admissions deans fail in the role because they did not embrace the role of storytelling. A big part of their job is to actually educate the community about the challenges of enrollment, to educate the community about the fact that enrollment is all about trade-offs; in the environment that we’re living in, everybody’s not going to get what they want on campus.

    Q: You describe navigating admissions during COVID-19 and the bungled FAFSA rollout of 2024. What takeaways from those two events have stuck with you going forward?

    A: These are really the messages that I took away from the teams that I interviewed. One is, during both of those crises—but I would argue any crisis—the importance of communication. I mean, we were just talking about storytelling, right? The importance of bringing your staff along, your constituents, making sure that people are feeling informed, even during incredible uncertainty.
 We’re living that again right now, so the book is very timely.

    I think the other thing that stands out for me—something that, again, was highlighted through these amazing deans I interviewed in the book—is the importance of building teams and making sure that you rely on those team members and not carry the weight of leading in crisis by yourself. I think the leaders who crashed and burned during COVID, during the FAFSA debacle and during all of the different crises that we face, these are individuals who try to do it all by themselves. The reality of the matter is none of us can do it by ourselves. If you can put together a really diverse team who thinks differently, who complements each other in different diverse ways, you’re going to be set up for a lot more success. And obviously empowering them is going to be a big part of that as well.

    Q: On a similar note, this book was written before the series of crises that we’re going through with the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education. Is there any piece of advice you would add to the book if you could about navigating this current moment?

    A: I think so much of the advice [in the book] actually is very much translatable to what’s happening today. The difference is, the level of change is coming so much faster than ever before, even faster than COVID, even faster than FAFSA, because every day the Trump administration could say something that fundamentally upends how we do our work. I think that’s what’s different.

    So if I could have a whole other chapter in the book, I would actually focus on how to lead in an era of uncertainty, and the skill sets that you need, personal and professional, to actually navigate change that’s coming faster than ever.

    One of the quotes [that] I use in every presentation I do right now is from Justin Trudeau, and this quote just blows me away. He said it at the World Economic Forum: “The pace of change has never been this fast and it will never be this slow again.” To me, that is our new reality. And so I think I would focus a lot on, how do you keep organizations stable when the news cycle is changing every single day?

    The other thing that I would focus on is actually how to be unresponsive. What I mean by that is oftentimes we’re so wired to jump at the crisis of the day. One of the things the dean said to me really recently last week was “You know what? Every time news comes out now, I just sit and I wait, because it might be different tomorrow.” And so there’s also this skill set that I think people need to build of not overreacting when the news cycle is breaking every single day. It’s tough. We’re living in tough times.

    Q: If you could go back in time to when you were first starting in admissions, what is one piece of advice that you would give yourself, either from the book or just off the dome?

    A: I think I would say to myself, “Enjoy this moment.” And the reason I would say that is because so many young admissions counselors are so eager to rise in the ranks very quickly. As you saw in the book, I talk about it: The faster you rise up the ranks, it becomes a lot messier and murkier and sometimes painful. As a dean, there were many more days that I longed for the simplicity of being on the road, recruiting students, spending my days in high schools and then going back home and reading applications from kids all over the world. It was such a beautiful job with not a ton of pressure.

    But then, obviously, I was an eager beaver, and I climbed the ranks actually very quickly;
 I became a dean in my early 30s. I now wish that I had said to myself, “Slow down, enjoy this moment, and don’t be too quick to rise, because those pressures are going to be very, very different.”

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  • AI Chatbot Provides Resources for Student Support

    AI Chatbot Provides Resources for Student Support

    As generative AI tools become more common, a growing number of young people turn first to chatbots when they have questions. A survey by the Associated Press found that among AI users, 70 percent of young Americans use the tools to search for information.

    For colleges and universities, this presents a new opportunity to reach students with curated, institution-specific resources via chatbots.

    In the most recent episode of Voices of Student Success, Jeanette Powers, executive director of the student hub at Western New England University, discusses the university’s chatbot, Spirit, powered by EdSights, and how the technology helps staff intervene when students are in distress.

    An edited version of the podcast appears below.

    Q: Can you give us the backstory—how Spirit got to campus and what need you all were looking to fulfill?

    A: Sure, Western New England, we are the Golden Bears, and our mascot’s name is Spirit. So, Spirit is behind the scenes of our chatbot.

    In the year 2023–24, we were trying to look at ways that we could get student voices at the center of what we’re doing. The Western New England philosophy and kind of core values really is about student-centered learning and support. We wanted to try to find a way to engage students earlier than our typical reporting systems come out, and we really wanted to hear the student voice.

    Over the course of the year, we did some research and [looked] at different AI platforms that would provide some resources for us. And we landed on EdSights, which is an amazing company that has helped us really bring Spirit to life, where students are using the chatbot on a regular basis to get questions answered, to get resources to know where to go on campus and to also give us information so that we can better support them. We really wanted our chatbot to be reflective of our community, which is why we use our mascot as kind of behind the scenes to reach out to students.

    Q: Yeah, it probably seems a little less scary to talk to your mascot than maybe an anonymous administrator.

    A: Exactly, especially for our first-year students. When they’re coming on campus, they’ve met the mascot at many open house services and orientation, so they have that connection right away.

    Q: You mentioned that this was a semirecent addition to your campus. For some people, AI can still be kind of scary. Was there a campus culture around AI? Or, how would you describe the landscape at WNE when it comes to embracing AI or having skepticism around using AI, especially in a student-facing way like this?

    A: AI is so new, and it’s changing rapidly. Western New England has really embraced it. I think one of the biggest things that we looked at was just to make sure that there’s a human side to this AI system. And that’s, I think, one of the most powerful pieces about our AI chatbot … yes, it’s a chatbot, but we also have human helpers, myself and a colleague, who are monitoring and able to reach out to students when there’s any concern.

    There’s a lot of systems in place, I think, to protect students. If there’s something going on or they share something with the chatbot, we’re here to help, and we let them know that there are humans behind the chatbot. I think that was probably one of the wider concerns before we started, was, how do we make sure we don’t miss anything that might be reported to a chatbot?

    It really also helps with managing time. Students can ask the chatbot questions about WNE 24-7. The student hub, we’re open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., but then we’re not around on the weekends and at night. Students still have questions at that time, so they can reach out [to Spirit]. It’s an extension of the Student Hub. We’ve really been able to get students resources and information right away.

    That’s been really helpful for them to know where to go and who to connect with. A lot of our first-year students are the main users, but all of our students are using the chatbot. The system’s been really great to be able to support students and get information from them but also give them information.

    Q: I wonder if you can talk us through how you all customized it to make it campus-specific and really ensure that students know what’s available to them and how this is their community and their college experience?

    A: That’s so key, because it’s not an external chatbot—it’s not ChatGPT, where you can google how to do your homework. I’ve had students ask [Spirit], “Help me with this math problem,” and Spirit’s like, “I’m really sorry, but I can’t do that.” It’s really an internal system, and students only have access to it because they are students, and we give them information directly there.

    What we did with the program is the company sets you up with, here are the main questions that this chatbot typically gets, and then we back-feed it with all this information. Each department took a look at these questions, so we filled it all in. It’s called the knowledge base. In the knowledge base, we have all these different things, like, when are things open? Who to contact about this? All sorts of options that students can get.

    One piece is students use it almost like a Siri or Alexa, where you get that quick answer. We really wanted to meet students where they were and wanted to make sure that, you know, it was real-time information for them.

    We have really filled it with all information about Western New England that they can access and get information right away. So that’s the one piece of the chatbot that’s really powerful. It helps save time, keep students from having to wait in line or make appointments, and then it directs them in the right place.

    The other piece of the chatbot, which is really a more powerful piece that this individual chatbot has, is a proactive approach. We have a system that the company has developed, based on research, [with] certain questions we ask students throughout the year.

    Depending on the time of the year, what’s going on, we may be asking them about academics, financial, personal wellness and health, mental health, as well as engagement on campus. When we ask those questions, we’re hearing the student’s voice right away. Those questions start early; in early September we have the first questions going out. Typically, you may get a report from faculty or staff almost midsemester. We’re getting it really early so that we can intervene right away.

    Intervening is that human helper side. We have that chatbot who’s going to be there to answer your questions. But when the chatbot reaches out, make sure you respond, because now as a staff, we can say, this group of students, or these individual students, need something more, and how can we connect with them? It really enhances the relationship.

    I think sometimes there’s a fear that AI takes away from a relationship, but it truly enhances the relationship, because once a student is willing to talk to the chatbot, they’re more likely to talk to the staff who reaches out to them because of what they said to the chatbot.

    Q: When you are setting up those prompts, looking at those early alerts or things that you might want to know from students, what are you all asking and what have you found is important to identify early on?

    A: The first question that goes out is “How do you feel so far about the term?” Students respond with numbers: one, great, two, neutral, three, not so great. And then the chatbot will follow up if it’s neutral or not so great: Why? Is it finances? Is it belonging and connections, academics? Then the students respond there. If students are willing to keep chatting, Spirit will ask, why, can you give any more information?

    So last year was the first year that we really implemented it for a full year, and that first question is so powerful because myself and my colleague were able to jump in right away and connect with students, specifically first-year students who in this first two or three weeks of classes are feeling stuck and lost and not quite sure how to move forward.

    That’s been really powerful, because not only are they telling us they need help, they’re telling us why they need help and in what direction, and then our job is to reach out and say, “Thanks so much for connecting with Spirit. Now here we are. What can we do to help? Come on in and meet us in the Student Hub, and then we can help you navigate the various offices on campus.”

    Q: We’re seeing more students reach out to these third-party services online, trying to look for help and support. Now you all are providing a service for them that is safe, secure and run by staff members who are really looking for their best interests and trying to make sure that they get plugged in and that they don’t stay online.

    A: That’s really important. I think the biggest thing is putting it out there and saying, “Here’s how I’m feeling, who’s going to do anything about it?” And knowing that there’s staff that are going to get you connected if students are feeling like they are not involved on campus—we have so many different clubs and organizations, and just having that conversation with a staff member of, like, what’s your interest? We have a club for that. Or, we have a professor who is an expert in this field, and it really helps us tailor and personalize the student experience. That’s information we wouldn’t know otherwise.

    As educators, we get a ton of information about students, and we don’t always get that student voice, and that’s what this system does. It allows us to get the voice and allows us to get it early. And we do have that safeguard in place, where students may be having struggles, but they get resources right away, and there are alert systems set up on the back end, so if there are any issues, faculty and staff are able to respond.

    Q: What kind of data have you all looked at when it comes to understanding the student experience as a whole? Have there been any insights or trends that have surprised you or driven change on campus?

    A: The data is fascinating. I think the biggest thing for looking at this data is, yes, you can do the individual outreach and the individual support, but we can look across the board. We can look at first-generation students. We can look at athletes. We can look at first-year students versus seniors. So there’s a lot of data based on what we have in the system.

    Over the past 12 months, we’ve had 17,000 texts back and forth between Spirit and the students, which is phenomenal. We have a 98 percent opt-in rate. So students get a text from Spirit in the beginning of the year, and they can opt out, but 98 percent of students are using it. During the year, our engagement fluctuates between 64 and 70 percent.

    The other thing we’ve been able to see, and this is more recent … is we have a higher retention rate for students who are engaged with the chatbot than students who aren’t. So just recently, we’re getting this report from EdSights that 90.6 percent of students who actually engage in the chatbot persisted from fall 2024 to fall 2025. The difference was 75.3 percent who didn’t engage persisted. We are seeing a growth.

    I think the reason that that’s so important is because retention and persistence are all about connection and belonging and feeling like you have someone, even if it’s a chatbot, who is connecting with you and making sure that you’re feeling [like] a valued member of our campus community.

    We’ve been able to connect with hundreds of students that we may not have been able to connect with or [who we] didn’t even know were struggling because of this chatbot.

    We did a huge marketing campaign last year to really get students to use it. This fall, we have the largest freshman class we’ve ever had, and so encouraging them to use this chatbot as a resource has been amazing.

    I did a comparison to last year where the first week of classes, we didn’t ask any questions in the first week, but we make it available if students have questions. In the first week of classes last year [fall 2024], students asked 72 questions, or 72 texts to Spirit. This year, in the first year of classes, it was 849.

    Q: Wow.

    A: So students are using the chatbot. Now, it’s the second year, so we’ve got returning students who also are engaged and understand what it’s all about. It’s showing that students have those questions. Think about all the different questions they got answered that they may not have either went somewhere to get it answered or time didn’t allow them to have it answered.

    They’re not going to get perfect answers, either. They may ask a question and the chatbot may say, “I’m not sure I exactly know that answer, but here’s who on campus will,” and it gives them the website. It gives them the contact, it gives them the phone number, so if the chatbot doesn’t know the exact answer, it gives them resources right away, so that they can then follow up on their own.

    Q: When it comes to staff capacity, have you seen any impact on the amount of redundant emails students are sending?

    A: I think that’s been really helpful, because students can ask the chatbot right away. The other amazing piece about this tool that we’re using is that we can add information pretty quickly. For example, we have a student involvement fair that’s coming up tomorrow, and I had a student ask me a question. I’m like, “Well, let’s ask the chatbot.” And it wasn’t in [the information base]. So I was like, “Well, you’re probably not the only student [with this question].”

    So I went in and I added it on the back end, and then I said, “All right, let’s try it again.” Five minutes later, he got the answer for the question from the chatbot.

    The system is set up so that we can customize it. There are over 500 questions with answers in the system. We went over those this summer to make sure they’re accurate. We use some of the common language, like, instead of dining hall, you know, we said “D Hall”; we added the common language that students are using, so that the chatbot is even smarter and students are going to get responses even quicker.

    I do think it saved time, and hopefully it keeps that redundancy away, because if a student’s going to get an answer, they’re going to tell their classmate or their roommate or their peer, “Hey, just ask [Spirit]” or “Let’s ask together,” and again, save time on the end of the staff. That frees up those little questions to delve into some other things that may be meatier that they would need to deal with for students.

    Q: For a peer at a different institution who’s considering implementing a chatbot or experimenting with their own, what lessons have you learned or what advice would you give?

    A: The biggest thing I can think of is you have to put in the time and the effort to build the back end. You can add questions really easily, but if you don’t have that robust answer back in the system, it doesn’t give students what they need, or it gives them an OK answer, and they’re less likely to use the chatbot again.

    I think the time and the energy you put into the back end and the setup is really important before launching, so that you ensure that students are getting the most accurate information and the simplest. We’re trying to save them from having to google the answer or go onto the website to find it.

    I think the other thing is not every student is going to respond, and that’s OK. We have a 98 percent opt-in rate, which means that people are getting those messages from Spirit. That doesn’t mean they’re always responding when we reach out to them. Your engagement is going to be lower than your opt-in, because sometimes students are just going to ignore the text, and that’s OK.

    We hope that if they need to respond, or in that moment, that the question that’s coming to them, whether it’s about academics or if they’re struggling with finances, or are they homesick? All these questions that we ask, if they need to respond, we hope that they respond. Just being aware that not every student is going to use it as a tool. Some students will use the chatbot more than they want to come see you.

    We’ve reached out to students after they get flagged on our system, and sometimes they ignore us. And so just making sure you have another way to check in on that student or bring them up at a meeting, so that you can say, “I’ve reached out, and the student isn’t coming back and wanting to meet with me,” and that’s OK. Are they still using the chatbot? They still have resources, and they’re getting that information.

    I think the biggest thing that we’re trying to improve and move into this year, in our second year of implementation, is, how do we make this data more relevant and shareable to our institution as a whole? This past year, the data has really been sitting within Student Life … Let’s make that available to faculty and staff so that they can get a sense of what our students are feeling and how can maybe I change or implement something that’s going to help. As well as sharing with our student leadership so that students get a sense of how people are feeling. That’s our next step.

    We’re still going to do the individual outreach and the whole group support and programming. But how do we use this data now as a larger institution that really wants to focus in on student support?

    Q: You mentioned a little bit about what’s next, but is there anything else on the horizon that we should know about as you all move into year two of Spirit?

    A: I think the biggest thing is really emphasizing the blended AI-human interaction. The system gives us a number of risk factors and measures how students are doing, and we want to use that information as a proactive approach to support students. Whether it’s programming for specific needs or for specific groups of students, whatever it may be to get proactive, so that we know, in a sense, what students are doing and what their needs are.

    The other thing we’re going to see over the next year or two is hopefully we’ll start to see some trends and patterns of how students are responding. Going into year two, I assume that we’re going to have some similar responses. But who knows? Every class is different and every year is different, so trying to see, what are some trends? We can use that data to be proactive and plan what students may need, before they even know they need it, in a way. Using this information and making it actionable so it’s not just data that’s sitting in a system is so important to us.

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