As an enrollment manager or a vice president of academic affairs, or even a leader in student affairs, you might think, “Why should I care about gathering data from our current student population? That’s Institutional Research’s job.” But if you care about the health of your institution, if you care about keeping your students enrolled to graduation and if you care about showing your students you care about them as individuals, then regularly assessing student motivation and student satisfaction is an activity that should be on your radar. Intentionally using that data to improve the lives of your students and to identify key challenges for the college should be a priority for every member of the institutional leadership team.
You may know that assessing student satisfaction is important, but you need to get others on board on campus.
“If the WHY is powerful, the HOW is easy.” –Jim Rohn
Student-level data: Motivational assessments
Understanding what students need to be successful as they first enter your institution is a powerful way to begin building connections and showing students you care about them. Providing them with the services that they say they want and need to be successful will put you in the best position to serve students in the way they want to be served. In the recently published 2025 National First-Year Students and Their Motivation to Complete College Report, we identified the top 10 requests for support by incoming first-year students, based on the nearly 62,000 responses to the College Student Inventory in the fall of 2024:
Among first-year students’ top ten requests for assistance, we found themes of connection and belonging, career assistance, academic support, and financial guidance. These top 10 have remained fairly consistent over the last few years.
When campuses are aware of what incoming students need in the aggregate, institutional resources can be targeted to support these services. And when campuses, specifically advisors, know what individual students have self-identified as desired areas of support, guidance can be provided directly to the students most in need of and most receptive to receiving assistance.
While campuses can see a 1% improvement in student retention within the first year of implementing a motivational assessment, we have found that campuses that are assessing student motivation on a consistent basis over multiple years are most likely to see retention levels improve.(We recognize that motivation data alone doesn’t lead to improved retention, but the student-level data is an important component of institutional retention efforts.) The impact of consistently assessing student motivation with the RNL Retention Management System (RMS):
Data based on a February 2025 RNL review of reported retention rates 2015-2024 in IPEDS for client institutions using one or more of the instruments in the RNL Retention Management System.
The bottom line on why you should care about assessing individual student motivation
Asking students as they enter your institution what they need shows that you care about their experience. Using that data to build relationships between advisors and students lays the foundation of one of the most important connections students can have with your institution. Guiding students to the specific service or support they seek puts you in the best position to engage your students in meaningful ways. Ultimately, serving your students in the ways they need will make your institution more likely to retain those students.
What are the needs, challenges, and priorities for first-year college students? Find out in the National First-Year Students and Their Motivation to Complete College Report. You will learn their attitudes on finishing college, top areas of assistance, desire for career assistance, and more.
Knowing what students value across all class levels at your institution can provide the student voice in your data-informed decision-making efforts. Assessing student satisfaction is another way to show students you care about them, their experience with you, and what matters to them. Aligning your resources with student-identified priorities will reflect a student-centered environment where individuals may be more likely to want to stay.
Student satisfaction data from across your student population can inform and guide your institutional efforts in multiple ways:
Student success and retention activities: Identifying your top priorities for response so you are working on high-importance, low-satisfaction areas from the student perspective.
Strategic planning: Incorporate the student voice into your long-term planning efforts to stay aligned with where they want to see you make investments.
Accreditation: Document your progress year over year as part of a continuous improvement process to show your regional accreditor that you are paying attention and responding to students (and not just when it is time for re-affirmation!).
Recruitment: Highlight your high-importance, high-satisfaction strengths to attract students who will care about what you can offer.
To assist institutions with building the case for student satisfaction assessment on their campuses, we have developed two brief videos (under two minutes each), one talking about why assess satisfaction and why work with RNL specifically. My colleague Shannon Cook also hosted a 30-minute webinar that is available on demand to dive deeper into the why and how of assessing student satisfaction.
Satisfaction data provides valuable perspectives for every department on campus, identifying areas to celebrate and areas to invest more time, energy, and resources. Campuses that respond to what their students care about have reported seeing satisfaction levels increase and graduation rates improve. Most institutions we work with assess student satisfaction at least once every two or three years and then use the intervening months to explore the data through demographic subpopulations and conversations on campus, take action in high-priority areas, and communicate back with students about what has been done based on the student feedback. These ongoing cycles put institutions in the best position to create a culture of institutional improvement based on the student voice.
Student motivation and satisfaction assessments are effective practices
The impact of assessing student motivation and student satisfaction on institutional graduation rates has been documented with numerous studies over the years.
It is important to be aware that just gathering the data will not magically help you retain students. It is the first step in the process, following these ABCs:
Assess the needs with student and institutional level data collection
Build a high impact completion plan to engage students from pre-enrollment to retention to graduation, taking action based on what students say
Connect students to campus resources that best match their needs and will increase their likelihood to persist and complete and Communicate about what you are doing and why as improvements are made.
Contact me if you would like to learn more about assessing student motivation and student satisfaction on your campus.
Have you ever felt the weight of being overworked and underpaid? Do you find yourself questioning your value in your workplace? Are you contemplating exploring new employment opportunities in the near future? If these thoughts resonate, knowing you are not alone in this journey is important. Many of your peers share these concerns.
The CUPA-HR 2023 Higher Education Employee Retention Survey (ERS) is not just a study; it’s a comprehensive collection of your experiences and opinions. It gathered data from 4,783 higher education employees across 539 institutions, including administrators, professionals, and non-exempt staff from various departments. This survey is valuable for understanding the job satisfaction and retention challenges you and your peers face in higher education (Bichsel et al., 2023).
The 2023 survey asked questions in the following areas:
Likelihood of looking for other employment opportunities in the near future
Reasons for looking for other employment
Remote work policies and opportunities
Work performed beyond normal hours and duties (overwork)
Satisfaction with benefits
Well-being and satisfaction with the job environment
Retention incentives experienced in the past year
Challenges for supervisors
Demographic questions on gender, race/ethnicity, and age
Characteristics of the employee’s position (Bichsel et al., 2023)
The survey’s analyses provided critical insights into the proportion of our higher education workforce at risk of leaving, the reasons why employees are considering other job opportunities, and the underlying factors contributing to their desire to leave. These findings are crucial in addressing our shared concerns. (Bichsel et al., 2023)
The survey results are as follows: one-third (33%) of higher ed employees are very likely or likely to look for new employment opportunities in the next year, which is unchanged from last year. This indicates that retention remains a significant and urgent challenge in higher ed. The area with the most acute retention challenge is student affairs, where 39% of employees surveyed say they are likely or very likely to look for other employment opportunities within the next year (Bichsel et al., 2023)
*A graph of reasons employees are seeking new opportunities was obtained from CUPA-HR’s 2023 survey data. (Bichsel et al., 2023)
A notable aspect of dissatisfaction revolves around their institution’s support for their professional growth. Almost half of employees (44%) express disagreement when asked whether they have opportunities for advancement at their institution, and around one-third (34%) disagree that their institution invests in their career development. Moreover, more than one-fourth of respondents (28%) disagree that their institution’s leaders show they care about their mental health and well-being. (Bichsel et al., 2023)
According to CUPA-HR research and key findings for 2023-2024, across higher education, employees are still paid less in inflation-adjusted dollars than in 2019-20 (pre-pandemic). (CUPA, 2024)
*A screenshot of a graph of Annual Pay Increases by Position Type was obtained from CUPA-HR research and key findings for 2023-2024. (CUPA, 2024)
In a well-run organization, these nuts and bolts that shape compensation are routinely checked and updated to stay competitive and achieve strategic goals. However, for many colleges, compensation practices have become the ‘deferred maintenance’ of the human resources world. This term refers to the practice of postponing necessary maintenance, often due to a need for more funds or resources. In the context of compensation, these practices must be regularly reviewed and updated, leading to issues such as stagnant salaries, late paychecks, inaccurate titles, and confusion over how pay is pegged to performance. (McClure, 2024)
Despite the availability of rich data backed by years of research, institutions are still mainly lagging in implementing standard-raised pay scales, resulting in higher attrition levels.
The survey’s findings are a call to action. Senior management and leadership must approach the situation holistically and use the data to implement a solution swiftly. This is crucial to prevent the loss of trained, qualified, and high-performing employees, a loss that higher educational institutions cannot afford!
Ranjitha Rao is the Budget/Financial Analyst Manager at the College of Nursing at Texas Woman’s University. She is dedicated to supporting academic and administrative goals through financial oversight. As an active member of the TWU Staff Council, she fosters a spirit of unified community among staff members and provides opportunities for their democratic representation. Through her involvement in the Staff Council, she promotes a positive and collaborative work environment and serves as a representative advisory member, presenting recommendations to university leadership. Ranjitha is also committed to fostering healthy workspaces, ensuring faculty, staff, and students thrive in a supportive and productive environment. Ranjitha holds a background in engineering and is currently a Ph.D. student focusing on leadership in higher education. She also holds a Master’s in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Accounting and Management. Additionally, as an adjunct, Ranjitha has taught first-year incoming classes, focusing on curriculum and strategic success, to help students transition smoothly into their academic journeys, along with accounting and healthcare administration classes for undergraduates. Ranjitha’s research interests include competency-based education, workforce development, leadership, management, and financial well-being in higher education.In her free time, Ranjitha enjoys exploring financial trends, participating in community events, and contributing to initiatives that promote financial literacy and education.
Student retention remains one of the biggest challenges in higher education, with dropout rates continuing to concern institutions worldwide. For colleges and universities today, student retention in higher education has evolved into something far more holistic than it once was.
Recent data underscore the scope of the problem: roughly one in four undergraduates will leave college without completing a degree. For example, data from the Australian Department of Education shows that nearly 25% of higher education students who began in 2017 had not completed their programs by 2022. The United States reports a comparable figure, with NCES data showing first-year retention rates for full-time undergraduates averaging around 75% to 78%, indicating an attrition rate of approximately 22–25%.
Our targeted email marketing services can help you attract and enroll more students.
Discover how we can enhance your recruitment strategy today!
Behind these statistics are myriad reasons. Financial pressures, mental health struggles, and a lingering sense of disconnection (exacerbated by post-pandemic-era remote learning) are among the top factors driving students to leave.
This early departure is not just a personal setback for students (many of whom incur debt without obtaining a credential) but also a serious concern for universities. Every student lost represents a missed opportunity to fulfill someone’s potential and a significant cost to the institution in lost tuition and wasted recruitment efforts. It’s no surprise, then, that in 2024/25 the conversation around student success has zeroed in on retention, keeping those first-year students engaged to graduation.
Amid these challenges, colleges and universities are exploring new ways to support students beyond the classroom. Interestingly, one of the most powerful tools is quite ordinary: email. While often associated with marketing departments or alumni fundraising, email communication has proven to be an unsung hero in student retention strategies. Done right, regular digital touchpoints – from welcome emails and deadline reminders to check-ins and newsletters – can nurture a sense of belonging and keep students from “falling through the cracks.” This blog post explains how.
What Is the Meaning of Student Retention?
Student retention refers to an institution’s ability to keep students enrolled continuously, usually from one academic term to the next, until they complete their program. Retention in higher education means the same as student retention, but in the context of colleges and universities. It typically refers to the percentage of students who return each year and progress toward graduation. It’s often measured as the inverse of dropout or attrition rates and serves as a key indicator of institutional effectiveness and student satisfaction.
But while the metric is important, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Retention intersects with numerous aspects of the student experience, including:
Academic preparedness and performance
Emotional and mental well-being
Financial stability and support
Social integration and sense of belonging
Clarity around future goals and career pathways
In short, high retention signals that a school is providing the tools and environment students need to thrive. Low retention often suggests systemic gaps that need attention, whether in support services, communication, or curricular alignment.
When schools understand the deeper “why” behind retention patterns, they can begin building strategies to support students in more intentional and effective ways.
Why Do Some Students Stay and Others Leave?
Understanding college student retention means examining both barriers and motivators that influence whether a student chooses to continue or withdraw. Here are some of the most common reasons students make that decision:
1. Academic Challenges
A student who feels unprepared for their coursework or overwhelmed by expectations may quickly disengage. This can be especially true for first-generation students or those entering a competitive academic environment without sufficient support.
What helps: Proactive emails that demystify academic expectations, offer success tips, and highlight tutoring resources early in the term can make a real difference.
Example:At the vocational education level, Oconee Fall Line Technical College (OFTC) in Georgia provides a good example of communication-driven retention support. OFTC employs dedicated Retention Specialists who monitor student progress and intervene when issues arise.
Using an internal early-alert system, the college flags at-risk students (such as those with irregular attendance or missing assignments) and initiates proactive outreach. Retention staff then reach out to students, often via college email or phone, to check in and connect them with help. This includes emailing a student about available tutoring when they struggle academically, or discussing solutions if a student is considering withdrawal.
2. Lack of Community or Belonging
The feeling of being “invisible” on campus can be just as impactful as academic performance. Students who don’t feel they belong are significantly more likely to leave, particularly during their first year.
What helps: Targeted emails that invite students to join clubs, attend welcome events, or connect with peers can foster a stronger sense of connection.
Example:AAPS circulates an official newsletter to share recent happenings in the pharmaceutical field and celebrate student achievements. Students consent to having their names and photos featured in these newsletters. This practice personalizes communications and recognizes student accomplishments. This targeted content helps build a sense of community and keeps current students motivated to persist in their programs.
Source: AAPS
3. Financial Stress
Tuition fees, housing costs, and daily expenses can make the college experience financially unsustainable for many students. Some may not even know what aid or resources are available.
What helps: Email reminders about scholarships, payment plans, emergency aid, or financial counseling empower students to seek help before small issues become major obstacles.
Example: In London, City, University of London runs City Cares, a dedicated support programme for vulnerable student groups – including those estranged from family, or young adult caregivers. A key element of City Cares is consistent personal communication: staff send regular check-in emails and updates to these students to see how they are doing and offer help.
Students in the program have a designated staff contact whom they can reach by email or phone for one-to-one support. City Cares also provides practical resources like bursaries, housing assistance, and priority access to opportunities, all communicated through targeted outreach.
4. Unclear Career Direction
Students who lose sight of how their studies connect to real-world opportunities often lose motivation. Without a sense of purpose, continuing can feel pointless.
What helps: Emails that highlight internship opportunities, alumni career paths, and academic-to-career connections help students stay focused and inspired.
5. Personal and Mental Health Struggles
From stress and anxiety to family emergencies or health issues, life challenges can derail even the most motivated students.
What helps: Compassionate, well-timed emails from student services that highlight wellness resources, counseling services, and peer support groups remind students they are not alone.
Example: DCC uses digital content to address student well-being, which is crucial for retention. A blog post on the college’s site, shared via email and social media, discussed how emotional well-being impacts learning, noting that a student’s mental health influences “focus, engagement, social interactions, and overall academic success.” By openly guiding mental health, DCC shows students and parents that the college cares about more than academics.
In each of these cases, the common thread is communication. When institutions deliver the right messages at the right moments, they can provide reassurance, guidance, and pathways forward, all of which contribute to stronger retention outcomes.
How Email Marketing Supports the Entire Student Journey
Email marketing is not just about promotion. In the context of higher education, it is a structured communication framework that allows institutions to be consistently present for their students, especially when automated and segmented based on academic year, behavior, or demographic indicators.
The first year is foundational. It’s where impressions are formed, habits are developed, and questions abound.
Effective first-year campaigns include:
A welcome series that introduces campus leaders, outlines what to expect, and provides a friendly tone of engagement
Resource emails such as “How to Book Time With an Academic Advisor” or “Top Study Spots on Campus”
Surveys and wellness check-ins asking students how they’re doing and connecting them to specific supports based on their responses
Invitations to student orientation events, campus fairs, and mentorship programs
This early outreach reduces anxiety and builds a relationship of trust. When students know they can expect relevant, useful information in their inbox, they are more likely to engage with their institution in meaningful ways.
Example: John Cabot University (JCU) has made student retention a priority through robust student services and outreach. The university’s communications team uses segmented email lists to target different student groups – first-year degree seekers, study-abroad students, etc.
Upon arrival, all first-year students receive a series of orientation emails with tips on navigating campus life in Rome, introductions to support offices (counseling, academic advising), and invitations to community-building events. This email nurturing continues throughout the year. JCU’s focus on student engagement reflects its ongoing commitment to retention, with email outreach playing a key role in fostering community and support.
Sophomore and Junior Years: Momentum and Direction
The second and third years of college can be challenging. Students may experience mid-degree fatigue, uncertainty about their major, or a lack of motivation.
Email campaigns that support these years often focus on:
Important academic milestones, such as major declarations, registration deadlines, or capstone requirements
Career development, including internship announcements, networking events, or resume-building resources
Personal development opportunities, like study abroad, research assistantships, or leadership training
Wellness and retention-focused campaigns that flag disengaged students and prompt follow-up from advisors.
By continuing to communicate thoughtfully during this middle phase, institutions can ensure students maintain their momentum and receive targeted interventions before problems escalate.
Example:Southern Methodist University’s (SMU) Office of Student Success & Retention created the “Don’t Ghost SMU” initiative to re-engage students who stop attending without formally taking a leave. Each term, the university identifies “ghosters” – undergraduates who are neither enrolled for the coming term nor on an official leave of absence. The retention team then reaches out to these students three times via email and text message to ask about their plans and encourage them to re-enroll. Students who respond and decide to return are provided with one-on-one support to facilitate their re-entry.
Students approaching graduation often face a new set of stressors—final projects, job applications, and the pressure of “what comes next.” At this point, communication becomes about both support and celebration.
Senior-focused email strategies may include:
Step-by-step graduation guides that include deadlines for forms, fees, and ceremonies
Invitations to career prep workshops, mock interviews, or job search bootcamps
Highlight reels of student accomplishments or alumni stories to boost morale and confidence
Communications from deans or student leaders congratulating seniors and offering final words of encouragement
Example: NeuAge’s digital content provides career advice and skill-building tips as part of the institution’s ongoing commitment to graduates’ success. NeuAge also promotes free online workshops and webinars (often via LinkedIn and email) led by industry experts, giving current students and recent grads extra opportunities to network and upskill.
Best Practices for Retention-Focused Email Campaigns
If your institution wants to maximize the impact of email on student retention, consider the following best practices:
1. Segment Thoughtfully
A one-size-fits-all email won’t resonate across a diverse student body. Tailor content based on class year, academic discipline, or unique identifiers like international status or first-generation background. The more relevant the message, the more likely it will be read and acted on.
2. Use Automation With Intention
Automated emails shouldn’t feel robotic. Use your CRM to trigger messages based on behavior (like missed assignments or low engagement), but personalize them with the student’s name and relevant links or contacts. Automation should make the student feel seen, not surveilled.
3. Focus on Value
Each email should offer something of clear value: a helpful tip, a timely reminder, a story that inspires. Avoid sending messages just to fill space in a calendar. If the email doesn’t help the student succeed, it probably shouldn’t be sent.
Example: ENSR (a Swiss international school) maintains high transparency with parents through regular digital bulletins. The school posts and emails information on upcoming events. For instance, parents receive notices about scheduled parent-teacher meetings, ski trips, and even windsurfing camp well in advance. ENSR’s online parent info page archives these communications, noting what was sent when.
Track engagement data: open rates, click-throughs, and unsubscribes, and use this to inform future messaging. If a subject line isn’t working or a campaign doesn’t drive traffic, revise your approach. Feedback and responsiveness are key to any long-term strategy.
5. Collaborate Across Departments
Retention is not the sole responsibility of academic advising or marketing. Develop integrated campaigns that align messaging across departments, including career services, financial aid, and student wellness, so students receive cohesive, coordinated communication.
Why Email Marketing Belongs in Your Retention Strategy
Email marketing offers something uniquely powerful: it meets students where they already are, with messages that can be scheduled, targeted, and personalized at scale. When done well, it brings a human touch to institutional processes, building relationships that motivate students to stay engaged.
More than a tool for reminders or promotions, email can:
Prevent students from slipping through the cracks
Foster emotional connection and institutional pride
Reinforce the idea that success is not only expected, but supported
Ultimately, when students feel informed, included, and inspired, they are more likely to persist through challenges and complete their degrees. And that’s the heart of any successful retention strategy. Would you like to work on effective strategies for greater Higher Ed Student Retention?
Our targeted email marketing services can help you attract and enroll more students.
Discover how we can enhance your recruitment strategy today!
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What is the meaning of student retention?
Answer: Student retention refers to an institution’s ability to keep students enrolled continuously, usually from one academic term to the next, until they complete their program. Retention in higher education means the same as student retention, but in the context of colleges and universities.
Question: What is retention in higher education?
Answer: Retention in higher education means the same as student retention, but in the context of colleges and universities. It typically refers to the percentage of students who return each year and progress toward graduation. High retention in higher ed indicates that students are staying enrolled and on track to finish their degrees.
Question: What are the reasons for student retention?
Answer: Students are more likely to be retained (stay in school) when key needs are met. Common reasons for strong student retention include effective academic support (so students don’t fall behind), a sense of belonging on campus (feeling connected to peers and the school), financial stability or aid (relieving tuition stress), and clear personal motivation or goals (seeing the value of their degree). Essentially, when students feel supported academically, socially, and financially – and they believe their education will benefit them – they are far more likely to stay through graduation.
“Did you hear that another team member, someone we all knew and worked with, quit today?” said a colleague. “Isn’t this the third one since last month? What is happening in that department?” was my counter question, echoing the concerns of many in the office. Have you ever experienced a similar situation at your workplace and wondered what caused this sudden voluntary attrition? Was it a competitor higher education institution stealing trained resources, or was there a sudden need for higher salaries due to the current economic factors, etc.? After a week, a LinkedIn post mentioned, “… it was time to move forward, as I had hit a breaking point. Quitting is the first step towards finding a healthy workplace!”
Research has consistently shown that women are more susceptible to workplace incivility than men. However, this trend can be mitigated when the direct supervisor demonstrates ethical leadership (Young et al., 2021). This finding offers a glimmer of hope, suggesting that a change in leadership could significantly influence employee morale. Is the stress of adapting to a new management at work a contributing factor? Or is it a case of leadership failing to adjust to the existing culture? Or is it due to incivility in the workplace? These are the questions that keep on occurring.
My experience working at an institution primarily for women has sparked my curiosity and deepened my concern. I often pondered whether these departures were triggered by a sudden event or a long-standing issue that had been suppressed. This connection to the topic has driven me to delve into the reasons behind abrupt job resignations among women in public organizations and the need to understand their impact on resources, policies, etc., in higher education.
What is Workplace Incivility?
According to the research of Tolkerson, Holm, Bäckström, and Schad, numerous factors contribute to the perpetuation of workplace incivility, including the importance of organizational aspects and experiencing incivility from others. Workplace incivility has been defined as “…low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect. Uncivil behaviors are characteristically rude and discourteous, displaying a lack of regard for others” (Torkelson et al., 2016).
In her Harvard Business Review article, Christine Porath, professor of management at Georgetown University, wrote that most leaders need to recognize tangible costs. “Through a poll of 800 managers and employees in 17 industries, we learned how people’s reactions play out.” Among workers who have been on the receiving end of incivility:
48% intentionally decreased their work effort.
47% intentionally decreased the time spent at work.
38% intentionally decreased the quality of their work.
80% lost work time worrying about the incident.
63% lost work time avoiding the offender.
66% said that their performance declined.
78% said that their commitment to the organization declined.
12% said they left their job because of the uncivil treatment.
25% admitted to taking their frustration out on customers.” (Porath & Pearson, 2013)
In a webinar on AACN, Addressing the Harmful Effects of Gaslighting in Academic Nursing, Cynthia Clark, founder of Civility Matters, Professor Emeritus at Boise State University, and award-winning professor, scholar, and author who has done extensive research on workplace incivility, discussed “Gaslighting in Academia” (Profile of Dr. Cynthia Clark). This intrigued my curiosity and inspired me to explore this topic.
What is Gaslighting?
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that involves making someone doubt their reality, memory, or perception. It can occur in various contexts, such as interpersonal relationships, politics, media, and workplaces. Gaslighting can have serious adverse effects on the mental health and well-being of the victims, such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, confusion, and loss of trust (Sarkis, 2018).
Gaslighting and Workplace Incivility in Higher Education
While workplace incivility is a broader term that refers to any rude, disrespectful, or aggressive behavior that violates the norms of mutual respect and professionalism, Gaslighting can be considered a specific and extreme form of workplace incivility that involves not only disrespecting or harming the target but also manipulating their sense of reality and identity (Clark, 2024). Individuals or groups can perpetrate gaslighting, which can be intentional or unintentional, depending on the motives, awareness, and power dynamics of the actors involved. Gaslighting can be manifested in various ways, such as lying, denying, withholding, trivializing, blaming, or gaslighting by proxy (Sarkis, 2018). Gaslighting can occur in multiple contexts, but it is especially harmful in the workplace, undermining employees’ trust, confidence, and performance (Clark, 2024).
In higher education, gaslighting can occur when faculty, staff, or students are subjected to subtle or overt harassment, discrimination, bullying, or abuse by their colleagues, supervisors, or peers. For example, a faculty member may be gaslighted by their administrators who constantly undermine their achievements, question their competence, or deny them opportunities for promotion or recognition. A staff member may be gaslighted by their co-workers who spread rumors, exclude them from social events, or sabotage their work. A student may be gaslighted by their instructor who belittles their contributions, ignores their requests, or grades them unfairly. These examples illustrate how gaslighting can create a hostile, toxic, and unhealthy work environment in higher education institutions (Clark, 2024).
Inefficient Workplaces
Incivility adds to faculty/administrator stress levels, erodes self-esteem, damages relationships, threatens workplace safety and quality of life, and negatively impacts faculty recruitment, retention, and job satisfaction. Therefore, creating and sustaining communities of civility is imperative for all academic work environments (Clark et al., 2021). Gaslighting can have severe and lasting effects on the psychological, emotional, and physical health of the targets, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dissociation, chronic pain, and suicidal ideation (Stern, 2018).
Nation’s Current Workplace Landscape
According to the Surgeon General’s Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being, one of the Current Priorities of the U.S. Surgeon General is “Workplace Well-Being.” The survey suggested that 76% of U.S. workers reported at least one symptom of a mental health condition, 84% of respondents said their workplace conditions had contributed to at least one mental health challenge, and 81% of workers reported that they would be looking for workplaces that support mental health in the future (Written Document on Workplace WellBeing.2022). To support workplace wellbeing, creating a plan with the following five essential components can help reimagine workplaces as engines of wellbeing.
The five essentials of the framework are:
Connection and Community
Opportunities for Growth (Written Document on Workplace WellBeing.2022)
Recommendations
Regular assessments are needed, and the data needs to be studied at higher educational institutions. HR, Compliance, and Ethics Policies should include examples to increase awareness of various levels of incivility. Before quitting, employees should be aware of the available options and use forums to discuss examples to be self-aware. Providing periodic surveys and reviews, updating training based on feedback and current issues for employees at higher education on HR policies, the Code of Ethics, and faculty ombudsmen can help prevent and address gaslighting and other workplace incivility.
When employees quit, it is no longer uncommon to suddenly walk out of the door without a courtesy notice period or transition report of their current responsibilities. While employers are concerned about employee performance and evaluations for merit raises, retention, etc., they should be publicly ranked based on their performance towards employees working in government and non-profit organizations. We have all heard the phrase “Treat others just as you want to be treated!”, but are we all implementing it at our workplaces?
Ranjitha Rao is the Budget/Financial Analyst Manager at the College of Nursing at Texas Woman’s University. She is dedicated to supporting academic and administrative goals through financial oversight. As an active member of the TWU Staff Council, she fosters a spirit of unified community among staff members and provides opportunities for their democratic representation. Through her involvement in the Staff Council, she promotes a positive and collaborative work environment and serves as a representative advisory member, presenting recommendations to university leadership. Ranjitha is also committed to fostering healthy workspaces, ensuring faculty, staff, and students thrive in a supportive and productive environment. Ranjitha holds a background in engineering and is currently a Ph.D. student focusing on leadership in higher education. She also holds a Master’s in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Accounting and Management. Additionally, as an adjunct, Ranjitha has taught first-year incoming classes, focusing on curriculum and strategic success, to help students transition smoothly into their academic journeys, along with accounting and healthcare administration classes for undergraduates. Ranjitha’s research interests include competency-based education, workforce development, leadership, management, and financial well-being in higher education.In her free time, Ranjitha enjoys exploring financial trends, participating in community events, and contributing to initiatives that promote financial literacy and education.
Clark, C. M., & Fey, M. K. (2019). Fostering Civility in Learning Conversations: Introducing the PAAIL Communication Strategy.10.1097/NNE.0000000000000731
Clark, C. (2019). Combining Cognitive Rehearsal, Simulation, and Evidence-Based Scripting to Address Incivility.10.1097/NNE.0000000000000563
Clark, C. , Landis, T. & Barbosa-Leiker, C. (2021). National Study on Faculty and Administrators’ Perceptions of Civility and Incivility in Nursing Education. Nurse Educator, 46 (5), 276-283. doi: 10.1097/NNE.0000000000000948
Torkelson, E., Holm, K., Bäckström, M., & Schad, E. (2016). Factors contributing to the perpetration of workplace incivility: the importance of organizational aspects and experiencing incivility from others. Work & Stress, 30(2), 115-131. 10.1080/02678373.2016.1175524
Young, K. A., Hassan, S., & Hatmaker, D. M. (2021). Towards understanding workplace incivility: gender, ethical leadership and personal control. Public Management Review, 23(1), 31-52. 10.1080/14719037.2019.1665701
“Did you hear that another team member, someone we all knew and worked with, quit today?” said a colleague. “Isn’t this the third one since last month? What is happening in that department?” was my counter question, echoing the concerns of many in the office. Have you ever experienced a similar situation at your workplace and wondered what caused this sudden voluntary attrition? Was it a competitor higher education institution stealing trained resources, or was there a sudden need for higher salaries due to the current economic factors, etc.? After a week, a LinkedIn post mentioned, “… it was time to move forward, as I had hit a breaking point. Quitting is the first step towards finding a healthy workplace!”
Research has consistently shown that women are more susceptible to workplace incivility than men. However, this trend can be mitigated when the direct supervisor demonstrates ethical leadership (Young et al., 2021). This finding offers a glimmer of hope, suggesting that a change in leadership could significantly influence employee morale. Is the stress of adapting to a new management at work a contributing factor? Or is it a case of leadership failing to adjust to the existing culture? Or is it due to incivility in the workplace? These are the questions that keep on occurring.
My experience working at an institution primarily for women has sparked my curiosity and deepened my concern. I often pondered whether these departures were triggered by a sudden event or a long-standing issue that had been suppressed. This connection to the topic has driven me to delve into the reasons behind abrupt job resignations among women in public organizations and the need to understand their impact on resources, policies, etc., in higher education.
What is Workplace Incivility?
According to the research of Tolkerson, Holm, Bäckström, and Schad, numerous factors contribute to the perpetuation of workplace incivility, including the importance of organizational aspects and experiencing incivility from others. Workplace incivility has been defined as “…low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect. Uncivil behaviors are characteristically rude and discourteous, displaying a lack of regard for others” (Torkelson et al., 2016).
In her Harvard Business Review article, Christine Porath, professor of management at Georgetown University, wrote that most leaders need to recognize tangible costs. “Through a poll of 800 managers and employees in 17 industries, we learned how people’s reactions play out.” Among workers who have been on the receiving end of incivility:
48% intentionally decreased their work effort.
47% intentionally decreased the time spent at work.
38% intentionally decreased the quality of their work.
80% lost work time worrying about the incident.
63% lost work time avoiding the offender.
66% said that their performance declined.
78% said that their commitment to the organization declined.
12% said they left their job because of the uncivil treatment.
25% admitted to taking their frustration out on customers.” (Porath & Pearson, 2013)
In a webinar on AACN, Addressing the Harmful Effects of Gaslighting in Academic Nursing, Cynthia Clark, founder of Civility Matters, Professor Emeritus at Boise State University, and award-winning professor, scholar, and author who has done extensive research on workplace incivility, discussed “Gaslighting in Academia” (Profile of Dr. Cynthia Clark). This intrigued my curiosity and inspired me to explore this topic.
What is Gaslighting?
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that involves making someone doubt their reality, memory, or perception. It can occur in various contexts, such as interpersonal relationships, politics, media, and workplaces. Gaslighting can have serious adverse effects on the mental health and well-being of the victims, such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, confusion, and loss of trust (Sarkis, 2018).
Gaslighting and Workplace Incivility in Higher Education
While workplace incivility is a broader term that refers to any rude, disrespectful, or aggressive behavior that violates the norms of mutual respect and professionalism, Gaslighting can be considered a specific and extreme form of workplace incivility that involves not only disrespecting or harming the target but also manipulating their sense of reality and identity (Clark, 2024). Individuals or groups can perpetrate gaslighting, which can be intentional or unintentional, depending on the motives, awareness, and power dynamics of the actors involved. Gaslighting can be manifested in various ways, such as lying, denying, withholding, trivializing, blaming, or gaslighting by proxy (Sarkis, 2018). Gaslighting can occur in multiple contexts, but it is especially harmful in the workplace, undermining employees’ trust, confidence, and performance (Clark, 2024).
In higher education, gaslighting can occur when faculty, staff, or students are subjected to subtle or overt harassment, discrimination, bullying, or abuse by their colleagues, supervisors, or peers. For example, a faculty member may be gaslighted by their administrators who constantly undermine their achievements, question their competence, or deny them opportunities for promotion or recognition. A staff member may be gaslighted by their co-workers who spread rumors, exclude them from social events, or sabotage their work. A student may be gaslighted by their instructor who belittles their contributions, ignores their requests, or grades them unfairly. These examples illustrate how gaslighting can create a hostile, toxic, and unhealthy work environment in higher education institutions (Clark, 2024).
Inefficient Workplaces
Incivility adds to faculty/administrator stress levels, erodes self-esteem, damages relationships, threatens workplace safety and quality of life, and negatively impacts faculty recruitment, retention, and job satisfaction. Therefore, creating and sustaining communities of civility is imperative for all academic work environments (Clark et al., 2021). Gaslighting can have severe and lasting effects on the psychological, emotional, and physical health of the targets, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dissociation, chronic pain, and suicidal ideation (Stern, 2018).
Nation’s Current Workplace Landscape
According to the Surgeon General’s Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being, one of the Current Priorities of the U.S. Surgeon General is “Workplace Well-Being.” The survey suggested that 76% of U.S. workers reported at least one symptom of a mental health condition, 84% of respondents said their workplace conditions had contributed to at least one mental health challenge, and 81% of workers reported that they would be looking for workplaces that support mental health in the future (Written Document on Workplace WellBeing.2022). To support workplace wellbeing, creating a plan with the following five essential components can help reimagine workplaces as engines of wellbeing.
The five essentials of the framework are:
Connection and Community
Opportunities for Growth (Written Document on Workplace WellBeing.2022)
Recommendations
Regular assessments are needed, and the data needs to be studied at higher educational institutions. HR, Compliance, and Ethics Policies should include examples to increase awareness of various levels of incivility. Before quitting, employees should be aware of the available options and use forums to discuss examples to be self-aware. Providing periodic surveys and reviews, updating training based on feedback and current issues for employees at higher education on HR policies, the Code of Ethics, and faculty ombudsmen can help prevent and address gaslighting and other workplace incivility.
When employees quit, it is no longer uncommon to suddenly walk out of the door without a courtesy notice period or transition report of their current responsibilities. While employers are concerned about employee performance and evaluations for merit raises, retention, etc., they should be publicly ranked based on their performance towards employees working in government and non-profit organizations. We have all heard the phrase “Treat others just as you want to be treated!”, but are we all implementing it at our workplaces?
Ranjitha Rao is the Budget/Financial Analyst Manager at the College of Nursing at Texas Woman’s University. She is dedicated to supporting academic and administrative goals through financial oversight. As an active member of the TWU Staff Council, she fosters a spirit of unified community among staff members and provides opportunities for their democratic representation. Through her involvement in the Staff Council, she promotes a positive and collaborative work environment and serves as a representative advisory member, presenting recommendations to university leadership. Ranjitha is also committed to fostering healthy workspaces, ensuring faculty, staff, and students thrive in a supportive and productive environment. Ranjitha holds a background in engineering and is currently a Ph.D. student focusing on leadership in higher education. She also holds a Master’s in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Accounting and Management. Additionally, as an adjunct, Ranjitha has taught first-year incoming classes, focusing on curriculum and strategic success, to help students transition smoothly into their academic journeys, along with accounting and healthcare administration classes for undergraduates. Ranjitha’s research interests include competency-based education, workforce development, leadership, management, and financial well-being in higher education.In her free time, Ranjitha enjoys exploring financial trends, participating in community events, and contributing to initiatives that promote financial literacy and education.
Clark, C. M., & Fey, M. K. (2019). Fostering Civility in Learning Conversations: Introducing the PAAIL Communication Strategy.10.1097/NNE.0000000000000731
Clark, C. (2019). Combining Cognitive Rehearsal, Simulation, and Evidence-Based Scripting to Address Incivility.10.1097/NNE.0000000000000563
Clark, C. , Landis, T. & Barbosa-Leiker, C. (2021). National Study on Faculty and Administrators’ Perceptions of Civility and Incivility in Nursing Education. Nurse Educator, 46 (5), 276-283. doi: 10.1097/NNE.0000000000000948
Torkelson, E., Holm, K., Bäckström, M., & Schad, E. (2016). Factors contributing to the perpetration of workplace incivility: the importance of organizational aspects and experiencing incivility from others. Work & Stress, 30(2), 115-131. 10.1080/02678373.2016.1175524
Young, K. A., Hassan, S., & Hatmaker, D. M. (2021). Towards understanding workplace incivility: gender, ethical leadership and personal control. Public Management Review, 23(1), 31-52. 10.1080/14719037.2019.1665701
Texas teachers may be increasingly fed up with their job, but they’re still staying in school.
State data shows Texas public school educators continue to return to the classroom at somewhat similar rates as years past, despite multiple surveys showing the large majority of them have contemplated quitting the profession.
While teacher turnover has slightly increased over the past decade, state data show there hasn’t been a large exodus of experienced teachers. In fact, the average years of experience for Texas public school teachers hasn’t notably changed since 2014-15, nor has the share of first-year teachers hired by districts.
The numbers run counter to years of warnings that Texas teachers are primed to bolt en masse out of frustration with the job. At the same time, Texas does still face widespread issues with morale, as well as big challenges in finding certified teachers and filling several types of positions, including special education educators and bilingual teachers.
Steady hands in schools
While much has changed in Texas classrooms over the decade, students continue to be educated by mostly veteran teachers. The average tenure for Texas teachers has held steady during that stretch, ranging from 10.9 to 11.2 years of experience.
The state did see a slight dip in the share of first-year teachers — who, on average, have less positive impact on student achievement than other educators — during the late 2010s, then a slight uptick over the past few years. Still, novice teachers account for fewer than 1-in-10 Texas educators.
A small rise in turnover
Teacher turnover, a measure of how many educators don’t return to teach in the same district each year, has ticked higher since the pandemic. While it once hovered near 16 percent, it’s reached roughly 20 percent over the past two years.
Ultimately, a 4 percentage point difference equates to about 15,000 more teachers who aren’t returning to a classroom in their district. However, state data shows teachers of all experience levels are leaving at similar rates.
Still stressed
Teachers might be sticking with their jobs, but that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it.
A 2024 poll of 1,100 Texas teachers by the Charles Butt Foundation, an Austin-based education advocacy nonprofit, found nearly four-fifths of educators surveyed had seriously considered quitting the profession in the past year. Pay, quality of campus leadership and a sense of feeling valued ranked among the biggest factors in whether teachers had considered quitting.
Texas education leaders also are worried about the state’s ability to retain teachers and hire tough-to-fill positions. A state panel convened by the Texas Education Agency examined the issues and made numerous recommendations in 2023, though few of its proposals have been put into action.
Two years after Arizona State University replaced all of its introductory biology labs with virtual reality labs, the university’s rising tide of STEM majors are getting better overall grades and persisting longer in their programs, according to the results of a longitudinal study released Monday.
Education-technology experts say the white paper from ASU’s EdPlus Action Lab affirms the university’s recent investment in virtual reality education and shows how virtual reality can be an effective tool to nurture complex reasoning skills in the age of generative artificial intelligence. Additionally, the research indicates that virtual learning could help narrowing historic achievement and workforce gaps in the STEM fields.
“They’re not just executing recipe-like science labs—they’re in the immersive world exploring and working through expertly designed lab assignments that connect to the VR story,” said Annie Hale, executive director at the EdPlus Action Lab and lead author of the paper. “And that’s leading to real, measurable gains in learning and persistence in STEM.”
Since fall 2022, aspiring scientists, doctors, engineers and other STEM majors at ASU have been required to pair their Bio 181 and Bio 182 lectures with a series of 15-minute virtual reality lab sessions in a 3-D intergalactic wildlife sanctuary, where dinosaur-like creatures are on the brink of extinction. Students create field scientist avatars and traverse the virtual world to collect samples and data before returning to the classroom to analyze their findings and use real-world biological principles to save the creatures.
When ASU first piloted the course in spring 2022, a randomized study of about 500 students showed virtual reality’s initial promise in alleviating the historically high attrition rates—especially for low-income, female and nonwhite students—in introductory STEM classes that have long plagued ASU and universities nationwide. Students in the virtual reality lab group were 1.7 times more likely to score between 90 percent and 100 percent on their lab assignments compared to students in the conventional lab group.
While those results indicated early success of the concept, some experts told Inside Higher Ed at the time that they were interested in seeing long-term outcomes before categorizing it as a “settled piece of pedagogy.”
Hale had a similar idea.
“After we saw great results from that trial, I wondered if it was just a semester effect,” she said. “Pedagogical adjustments can boost ABC rates and student satisfaction, but it doesn’t always have long-term implications.”
To answer that question, Hale and her research team developed a two-year longitudinal study that tracked more than 4,000 students’ learning outcomes in the two-course introductory biology lab sequence between fall 2022—when ASU began requiring all STEM majors to take the virtual reality biology labs—and spring 2024.
They found that students who took the virtual reality biology lab, on average, improved their final course mark by one-quarter of a grade between Bio 181 and Bio 182. Compared to students who took those two courses between 2018 and 2022—prior to the introduction of virtual reality—students in the virtual reality cohort also scored one-quarter of a letter grade higher in advanced biology courses, including general and molecular genetics.
Results of the study also showed that students who took the virtual reality lab were more likely than their peers to remain STEM majors, and that they consistently performed well on all lab assignments regardless of their high school preparation levels, income, race, ethnicity or gender.
Researchers also conducted pre- and post-class student surveys, interviews, and classroom observations to inform their findings, which revealed strong and lasting emotional investment in the high-stakes narrative of saving the creatures in the intergalactic wildlife sanctuary.
“Students come out crying because the story line is so interesting and engaging,” Hale said. “In a world where science curriculum can be boring, hard or a lot of math, the [story] motivates them when the quantitative aspects are challenging. They want to solve it because they want to know what happens next.”
‘Ability to Feel Successful’
Virtual reality has a decades-old presence in the education-technology world, but educators often deploy it tangentially, through one-time experiences that aren’t critical to passing a particular course. Although some of those efforts have yielded anecdotal and small-scale evidence that virtual reality can boost student engagement, the latest data on the technology’s incorporation into biology labs offers more robust, large-scale proof that ASU’s broader investments in virtual reality education are already paying off.
In 2020, the university partnered with the technology and entertainment company Dreamscape Immersive—a virtual reality company with ties to notable Hollywood productions, such as WarGames and Men in Black—to create Dreamscape Learn. Over the past five years, the company has developed numerous virtual reality courses for ASU and more than a dozen other K-12 and higher education institutions across numerous disciplines, including art history, chemistry and astronomy.
But ASU’s traditional introductory biology courses were among Dreamscape Learn’s first endeavors, as it aligned with the university’s push to broaden participation in STEM fields.
Numerous studies have identified such courses as some of the biggest barriers to completing a STEM degree and landing a well-paying job, especially for students who didn’t complete a rigorous biology course in high school.
In typical biology labs, “students are asked to design experiments and hypotheses, but they haven’t actually been taught the skills to do that,” said John VandenBrooks, a zoology professor and ASU’s associate dean of immersive learning, who helped design the virtual reality labs. “For students who come in with a strong background, that’s easier for them to engage with. But other students who haven’t had that same experience really struggle … They feel behind already.”
Leveling the playing field through novel problem-solving is what motivated him to ground the curriculum in a fictional universe.
“Nobody has solved the problems in the intergalactic wildlife sanctuary,” VandenBrooks said. “It gives them a foundation and the ability to feel successful early on in their higher education career and be able to continue on.”
Making ‘Meaning Out of Complexity’
But virtual reality isn’t about making these fundamental STEM courses any less rigorous, but rather teaching students transferable critical thinking skills, those involved with the courses say.
“One of the advantages of making these fictional narratives is that we can develop the story in such a way so that students have to deploy very specific skills at a very specific time to solve that problem,” VandenBrooks said. “That creates a very clear learning progression that goes across this entire curriculum and that really benefits students in their skill development versus giving them a series of labs or assignments that are related but don’t necessarily have as clear of a progression.”
And having those complex reasoning skills are what the droves of STEM majors who want to work in the medical field, for instance, will need to succeed in their careers.
“The key to being a good doctor is knowing what’s abnormal in the normal,” said VandenBrooks, who previously worked at Midwestern University, a private medical school with locations in Arizona and Illinois. “When things are easy, you can use an algorithm, but when things aren’t, you have to do all of this problem-solving. That’s the doctor you want when things are really going wrong, and that’s what we’re trying to train students for.”
Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab at the education graduate school, who did not participate in any aspect of ASU’s study, said education research can benefit from studies with large sample sizes to affirm prior studies on virtual reality in education.
In general, immersive learning experiences “reduce barriers to people believing they can succeed in the realm of science,” he said. “If you’re someone who’s been told your whole life that you don’t fit the mold of a typical scientist—because of your income, race, gender or ethnicity—VR provides learners the agency to see themselves as scientists.”
Although the study demonstrates how that theory is already at work in ASU’s virtual reality biology labs, it may not be a feasible approach for every college and university.
According to Josh Reibel, CEO of Dreamscape Learn, implementing the virtual reality education system (which includes software fees and the one-time costs of installing an immersive classroom called a pod) costs “mid–five figures to low six figures,” depending on the size of the school and the scale of the curricular offerings.
In March 2022, The Arizona Republic reported that ASU had at that point invested $5 million in “philanthropic investment for development” to build out a virtual reality biology lab.
If an institution can afford it, virtual reality also offers a strategy for teaching students to think beyond memorization and regurgitations in the age of generative artificial intelligence.
“The more you can use AI to transmit facts, the more pressure there is on higher education to do more than just transmit facts,” Reibel said. “That helps educators see that the real problem to be solved isn’t how to populate students’ notebooks with more information, it’s how to get them to lean in to wanting to do more work.”
Chris Dede, a senior research fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education and a learning technology expert, said that though the gains presented in ASU’s study are relatively “modest,” they are “significant” nonetheless.
“It’s showing that it’s reasonable to develop other things based on similar approaches,” he said. “If humans are trained simply on knowing a bunch of facts and doing well on psychometric tests, they’re going to lose to AI in the workplace, because they’re doing what AI does well rather than what people do well.”
And what people do well, he said, “is make meaning out of complexity by pulling together different things they know about the world and developing hypotheses about what’s going on in the environment, which is not something AI can do, because it doesn’t understand the world.”
College administrators wear many hats to ensure their institutions thrive. Stakeholders expect them to be visionaries, budget stewards, tech experts, and student champions. However, wearing too many hats can hinder the ability to meet more strategic and forward-thinking institutional demands, effectively diluting leadership capacity and outcomes.
How can administrators remove some of those hats without losing control or spending more?
How can they guide their institutions to achieve better outcomes with fewer resources?
At the 2024 Collegis Education Summit, keynote speaker Dr. John Smith-Coppes, president of Joyce University, shared his advice for achieving higher ed excellence amid market paradigms, shifting learner expectations, and capacity constraints.
“Embrace your institutional superpower and then partner for expertise. You have to know what you are really good at, but also where you might need help. Having the bravery to objectively look at the brutal facts can take you from good to great. Keep this in mind: Your institution is perfectly designed to get the outcomes it’s getting.”
-Dr. John Smith-Coppes, President of Joyce University
Dr. Smith-Coppes is right. If you’re not getting the results you want, you have to shine a light on the operation and consider what adjustments or changes will better position your institution for desired outcomes.
To echo Dr. Smith-Coppes and answer the earlier questions, working with a strategic partner who has deep expertise in higher education shared services and can manage certain responsibilities more efficiently can get your institution closer to turning aspiration into reality. A true partnership is not about simply outsourcing tasks. Rather, it’s a strategic way to gain access to specialized knowledge, proven methodologies, and scalable resources, all while enabling administrators to focus on their core areas of expertise.
Mounting challenges facing higher ed leaders
When I talk to administrators, the conversation inevitably turns to the challenge of doing more with less. They consistently grapple with four key issues:
Budget Cuts: Funding is uncertain or shrinking, forcing them to rethink the allocation of resources.
Advancing Technology: Technology is rapidly evolving, leaving administrators to scramble after the next advancement or emerging capability.
Socioeconomic Pressures: With some questioning the value of postsecondary education, relevant programs with affordable tuition have never been more critical.
Employee Turnover: Retaining top talent is difficult, leaving critical gaps.
But none of these issues surprise us. On the contrary, Collegis Education has partnered with numerous public and private institutions of varying sizes and levels of brand recognition to address these challenges, uncovering advantageous pathways toward more sustainable and fruitful operations.
The results speak for themselves. Administrators gain more time to leverage their core strengths to elevate their institution’s mission and educational outcomes while actualizing a variety of clear benefits. Here is what Collegis Education continues to deliver for our shared-service partners.
Seven ways shared services in higher education deliver results
Institutions that leverage shared services experience benefits in a variety of key areas. Explore some of the most significant advantages:
1. Improved financial stability
Predictability and optimization are the key words here. With our solutions for technology management, enrollment management, and student services, institutions know exactly what to budget every year. At the same time, we find cost savings by getting a better return on technology investments, strategically decommissioning redundancies, and renegotiating contracts.
2. Enhanced operational efficiency
Is there a better way to reach an institution’s goals more efficiently? More often than not, the answer is yes. We help bring these opportunities to the surface by fully assessing the school’s infrastructure, technology, processes, and other operating procedures. This assessment denotes areas of excellence and points of failure as well as identifies where lag or waste exists. With these insights, we can identify and prioritize emerging opportunities to drive improvement. All this informs a multiyear roadmap that guides higher ed leaders on how to thoughtfully implement changes that engage key stakeholders to accelerate the change management cycle.
3. Objective perspective & best practices
We bring a unique perspective to our recommendations based on our work with other schools while protecting each school’s anonymity and uniqueness. This helps give you a baseline of how your school performs when compared to similar ones. Are you leading or lagging? As an unbiased third party, we offer fresh ideas backed by the knowledge of the results they have produced. It’s a great way to eliminate the “but this is how we’ve always done it” objection and gain buy-in from internal staff.
4. Risk mitigation & accountability
There’s rarely a higher ed situation we haven’t already dealt with at another institution. Our partners benefit from this experience, allowing them to proactively avoid operational and technical risks. They also benefit tremendously from having a partner who holds themselves accountable to quantifiable outcomes measured by agreed-upon service level agreements (SLAs). Together, these provide a lot of peace of mind when it comes to issues like cybersecurity, compliance, disaster recovery, and business continuity.
5. Specialized expertise without the overhead
Hiring and retaining experienced staff is challenging enough. Finding people with skill sets to leverage evolving technology capabilities like artificial intelligence (AI) is a whole other story. That’s why our partners rely on Collegis to provide the expertise that’s hard to find. We’re software-agnostic and implement solutions that are in the school’s best interest from a financial, operational, and strategic perspective without the need for full-time employees to manage them.
6. Data-enabled decision making with full transparency
Data at most institutions is stored in siloes, with limited stewardship and governance over its quality and consistency. However, many of the “data” solutions in the market today are complicated and difficult to implement and support.
This is why we built Connected Core, a scalable higher education industry cloud solution that integrates siloed data sets, systems, and applications to enable institutional intelligence. This proven approach and methodology for collecting, connecting, and activating institutional data eliminates data doubt and gives leaders the confidence to make quickly make strategic decisions with confidence.
7. Focus on core mission & educational outcomes
By outsourcing some functions, administrators can redirect resources and energy to what truly matters: student success. By reducing the number of hats they wear, leaders can instead focus on using the tools they have on hand to manage strategic initiatives that drive institutional growth.
Strategic delegation to yield better outcomes
Some leaders fear losing control through outsourcing, and rightfully so. Too many vendors tout “partnership” when, in fact, they are trying to build an unhealthy dependency that is not mutually beneficial.
That’s just not us. It fundamentally goes against our values and who we are as a company.
Our partnerships are built on collaboration and shared governance. Institutions set priorities, and all actions follow clear assessments, implementation plans, and progress reviews. Our partners gain greater control over technology, enrollment, and budgets. Control isn’t lost, but visibility and accountability are gained.
Shared-services models allow administrators to confidently offload specific responsibilities. Leveraging external expertise amplifies your internal strengths and empowers your leaders to focus on building and maintaining a thriving campus community.
But the first step is starting the conversation with the right partner.
Innovation Starts Here
Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.
Every semester, a student hoping to “earn their desired grade” approaches me at the last minute, asking to make up all their missed assignments. I have a standard missed due date policy, 1) let me know (communication) and 2) get it done in a week (extended deadline). The students requesting to stockpile assignments at the end of the semester usually had not completed the assignment at all or had not completed the assignment even with an extended deadline. Basically, they hadn’t even tried to complete assignments. It wasn’t like they had completed it at 12:01 am and it was due at 11:59 pm.
That being said, I do wonder, Why not grant a student’s request to get it (the class) all done at once? You know the requests: “I know this already. Isn’t there a test I can take so I don’t have to sit through the class?” or “I am sure I can get all these assignments done before finals week.” It makes sense that if a student can pass all the assessments, they should pass the class. So why not just complete all the assessments at the same time?
Would these students who were absent from most of the class or hadn’t done any of the assignments on their due dates pass the class with a C or better? Probably. So why enforce due dates at all. Why shouldn’t a professor simply allow a student to complete all the assignments before final grades are due without regard to timing?
The caveat in this “all at once” scenario is that a successful grade is wrongly associated with learning. If a student completes all the assignments in a few days during the semester, then assessments are the sole criteria used to define successful learning. However, the truth is that learning means much more than successfully navigating a certain percentage of the assignments.
In my reality, most students could use their previous knowledge to muddle through the assessments of an introductory course at an accelerated pace. Let’s view the situation from the perspective of a student. They have after all been in school for the last 13 years and they have become really good at taking quizzes and exams and writing essays with thesis statements. My pre- and post-quiz data for the course reveals this. At the beginning of the semester without warning, I ask a group of anxious, ill-prepared students to (within a limited and unreasonable amount of time) answer 20 questions about a topic that they haven’t even considered before walking into the room. The questions are a sampling of the final exam. The average on the pre-quiz hovers at about 50%. Given more time and a couple of days to study and contemplate, most of these students would pass the pre-quiz, and in essence, have the knowledge required to pass the final exam.
Nevertheless, is completing all the assessments what defines learning the contents of a course? Should a student be allowed to stockpile all the assignments and get credit for them as long as they get them done before the final grades are due. In my humble opinion, absolutely not, and it’s not for the classic soft skills reason. Of course, deadlines help students to navigate the world, (e.g. being responsible). After all, the professor is required to turn in final grades by a deadline.
That said, to me, deadlines are important because people (not just students) learn best when information is spaced out or interleaved (Birnbaum et al., 2013; Samani and Pan, 2021). In order to retrieve something from memory, you need time to learn it. Retrieving information is when you know something without having to look it up—like your name and phone number or all the lyrics of your favorite song. This type of learning requires time—spaced learning. You need to learn it, forget it, be asked about it, refresh it, forget it, be asked about it, refresh it and then if you’re lucky you can retrieve it (Feng et al., 2019; Kobayashi, 2022). This is considered spaced learning and is why deadlines are so important.
Due dates provide the structure for spaced learning and learning that is more substantive. Much to the chagrin of the student who wants to “get it all done at once,” this isn’t the way to learn retrievable material. Retrieving information is what allows you to progress to the next set of information and then progress to creativity and eventually creation. Assessments play a crucial role, but true learning doesn’t come from merely completing them. Instead, it happens through active participation in class, where students engage with the material and are consistently challenged by the professor to recall and apply previous lessons.
As professors, we should enforce due dates to give students the time to learn content in a meaningful and retrievable way. But maybe, just maybe, we can do it with a spoon full of sugar.
Adriana J. LaGier is an American Cell Biologist, whose main area of research is active learning and mechanobiology. She is a professor of biology at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, specializing in teaching undergraduate level general biology and cell biology courses.
References
Birnbaum, Monica S., Nate Kornell, Elizabeth Ligon Bjork, and Robert A. Bjork. 2013. “Why Interleaving Enhances Inductive Learning: The Roles of Discrimination and Retrieval.” Memory & Cognition 41 (3): 392–402. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-012-0272-7.
Feng, Kanyin, Xiao Zhao, Jing Liu, Ying Cai, Zhifang Ye, Chuansheng Chen, and Gui Xue. 2019. “Spaced Learning Enhances Episodic Memory by Increasing Neural Pattern Similarity Across Repetitions.” The Journal of Neuroscience 39 (27): 5351–60. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNeurosci.2741-18.2019.
Kobayashi, Keiichi. 2022. “The Retrieval Practice Hypothesis in Research on Learning by Teaching: Current Status and Challenges.” Frontiers in Psychology 13 (May):842668. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.842668.
Samani, Joshua, and Steven C. Pan. 2021. “Interleaved Practice Enhances Memory and Problem-Solving Ability in Undergraduate Physics.” NPJ Science of Learning 6 (November):32. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-021-00110-x.
Every semester, a student hoping to “earn their desired grade” approaches me at the last minute, asking to make up all their missed assignments. I have a standard missed due date policy, 1) let me know (communication) and 2) get it done in a week (extended deadline). The students requesting to stockpile assignments at the end of the semester usually had not completed the assignment at all or had not completed the assignment even with an extended deadline. Basically, they hadn’t even tried to complete assignments. It wasn’t like they had completed it at 12:01 am and it was due at 11:59 pm.
That being said, I do wonder, Why not grant a student’s request to get it (the class) all done at once? You know the requests: “I know this already. Isn’t there a test I can take so I don’t have to sit through the class?” or “I am sure I can get all these assignments done before finals week.” It makes sense that if a student can pass all the assessments, they should pass the class. So why not just complete all the assessments at the same time?
Would these students who were absent from most of the class or hadn’t done any of the assignments on their due dates pass the class with a C or better? Probably. So why enforce due dates at all. Why shouldn’t a professor simply allow a student to complete all the assignments before final grades are due without regard to timing?
The caveat in this “all at once” scenario is that a successful grade is wrongly associated with learning. If a student completes all the assignments in a few days during the semester, then assessments are the sole criteria used to define successful learning. However, the truth is that learning means much more than successfully navigating a certain percentage of the assignments.
In my reality, most students could use their previous knowledge to muddle through the assessments of an introductory course at an accelerated pace. Let’s view the situation from the perspective of a student. They have after all been in school for the last 13 years and they have become really good at taking quizzes and exams and writing essays with thesis statements. My pre- and post-quiz data for the course reveals this. At the beginning of the semester without warning, I ask a group of anxious, ill-prepared students to (within a limited and unreasonable amount of time) answer 20 questions about a topic that they haven’t even considered before walking into the room. The questions are a sampling of the final exam. The average on the pre-quiz hovers at about 50%. Given more time and a couple of days to study and contemplate, most of these students would pass the pre-quiz, and in essence, have the knowledge required to pass the final exam.
Nevertheless, is completing all the assessments what defines learning the contents of a course? Should a student be allowed to stockpile all the assignments and get credit for them as long as they get them done before the final grades are due. In my humble opinion, absolutely not, and it’s not for the classic soft skills reason. Of course, deadlines help students to navigate the world, (e.g. being responsible). After all, the professor is required to turn in final grades by a deadline.
That said, to me, deadlines are important because people (not just students) learn best when information is spaced out or interleaved (Birnbaum et al., 2013; Samani and Pan, 2021). In order to retrieve something from memory, you need time to learn it. Retrieving information is when you know something without having to look it up—like your name and phone number or all the lyrics of your favorite song. This type of learning requires time—spaced learning. You need to learn it, forget it, be asked about it, refresh it, forget it, be asked about it, refresh it and then if you’re lucky you can retrieve it (Feng et al., 2019; Kobayashi, 2022). This is considered spaced learning and is why deadlines are so important.
Due dates provide the structure for spaced learning and learning that is more substantive. Much to the chagrin of the student who wants to “get it all done at once,” this isn’t the way to learn retrievable material. Retrieving information is what allows you to progress to the next set of information and then progress to creativity and eventually creation. Assessments play a crucial role, but true learning doesn’t come from merely completing them. Instead, it happens through active participation in class, where students engage with the material and are consistently challenged by the professor to recall and apply previous lessons.
As professors, we should enforce due dates to give students the time to learn content in a meaningful and retrievable way. But maybe, just maybe, we can do it with a spoon full of sugar.
Adriana J. LaGier is an American Cell Biologist, whose main area of research is active learning and mechanobiology. She is a professor of biology at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, specializing in teaching undergraduate level general biology and cell biology courses.
References
Birnbaum, Monica S., Nate Kornell, Elizabeth Ligon Bjork, and Robert A. Bjork. 2013. “Why Interleaving Enhances Inductive Learning: The Roles of Discrimination and Retrieval.” Memory & Cognition 41 (3): 392–402. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-012-0272-7.
Feng, Kanyin, Xiao Zhao, Jing Liu, Ying Cai, Zhifang Ye, Chuansheng Chen, and Gui Xue. 2019. “Spaced Learning Enhances Episodic Memory by Increasing Neural Pattern Similarity Across Repetitions.” The Journal of Neuroscience 39 (27): 5351–60. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNeurosci.2741-18.2019.
Kobayashi, Keiichi. 2022. “The Retrieval Practice Hypothesis in Research on Learning by Teaching: Current Status and Challenges.” Frontiers in Psychology 13 (May):842668. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.842668.
Samani, Joshua, and Steven C. Pan. 2021. “Interleaved Practice Enhances Memory and Problem-Solving Ability in Undergraduate Physics.” NPJ Science of Learning 6 (November):32. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-021-00110-x.
