ASCEND Podcast

Dr. Gill Hunter from Eastern Kentucky University joins co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby to share his deep knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! Dr. Gill Hunter is Assistant Vice President of Retention and Graduation at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky. Located just east of the Bluegrass of central Kentucky an...

One way to help nudge students is to have a banner (or several banners) hung across campus that has interchangeable signs for particular events (i.e. course registration days, career fairs, etc.) and removable numbers that can create a countdown (days left until the event).

We have found that some Gen Z students may lack essential life skills such as cooking, cleaning, basic home maintenance, and financial literacy due to growing up in a digital age where such skills are less emphasized or learned from traditional sources like parents or home economics classes. With this as a backdrop, we have found that institutions of higher education can play a crucial role in hel...

In season one of the ASCEN D Podcast we outlined strategies for how leaders, managers, and supervisors might go about shifting the organizational culture on a campus. Because this effort is at the core of improving student success we spent more time on this topic in volume 2 of our book and wanted to reshare these strategies in season 2 of our podcast.  Enjoy!

The first few weeks of each semester can be hard for many students. During these first few weeks, new students may feel homesick after they leave their family and home for the first time. Given these realities, and to show our students we are here to support them every step of the way, during the third week of each semester we do apartment walks where we visit the apartments (both on and off campu...

At our institution, our Financial Wellness Office hosts a wide array of events and initiatives throughout the year, but during February, there is a concerted effort to get students financially ready for the next school year.  Tune in to learn more about Financial February!

In this episode we discuss the different aspects of the ASCEND Model -- Affordability, Support, Culture, Engagement, Nudges, and Data. As a result of the implementation of this new model, we saw immediate improvements in retention and completion rates. Tune in to learn more!

In this episode we discuss the following 8 reasons why colleges and universities should focus on retention and student success: a declining national pool of high school graduates;  increased pressures to grow revenues;  a growing call from the public for increased accountability;  the need to close the equity and achievement gaps; the ever-changing generational landscape; an increased desire for f...

It's great to be back for season 2 of the ASCEND Podcast!  Thanks for listening!

In this episode, ASCEND Podcast co-hosts Eric Kirby and Jared Tippets wrap up Season 1 and talk about themes and takeaways from the first season.

For years we have lost students after a semester or two because they said that our campus, or living in our community, was not what they expected. It was either too large for them and they felt overwhelmed, or it was too small and they would rather live in a bigger city. We found this issue to be particularly prevalent among our international and out-of-state students who may not have been able to...

In addition to helping shift the culture on campus in the eyes of our staff and faculty, we also found it important to shift the campus culture in the eyes of the students. Students need to know we care about them and their success. Students need to feel needed, appreciated, and wanted. Students need to feel at home on our campuses. One of the things we have done on our campus to improve student p...

In this episode, Dr. Jared Tippets and Dr. Eric Kirby talk about the importance of creating a culture of accountability.

Happy holidays from Jared and Eric.  Thanks for your support of the ASCEND Podcast.  We're going to take a break for a few weeks and then we'll be back with another episode on January 14.

Students often get the runaround, being bounced from office to office and center to center until they find what they actually need. To stop this nightmare, we created a one-stop shop on campus to better serve our students. This center (The Nest) does not have representatives from all the offices housed within. Instead, it is staffed by peer mentors who know campus inside and out. These peer mentor...

Dr. Steven Girardot from Georgia Institute of Technology joins co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby to share his deep knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! Dr. Steven P. Girardot is the vice provost for undergraduate education at Georgia Tech and has over twenty years of higher education experience and is a proud Tech alumnus, ha...

A key to creating a campus culture around student success, retention, and completion is making sure that everyone knows these are priorities for campus. From experience we have learned that organizations fund those things they value most. Therefore, it is important that we also measure those things we want to fund.  Within higher education, faculty know why they exist. However, student affairs uni...

Dr. Jim Spain from the University of Missouri-Columbia joins co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby to share his deep knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! Dr. Jim Spain earned a BS in Animal Sciences from North Carolina State University and completed his Master of Science and Doctorate in Dairy Science with an emphasis in dairy ca...

There are two broad groups of individuals that can often serve as the ‘canaries in the coal mine’ when it comes to a student’s well-being: faculty and community members (parents, alumni, religious leaders, etc.). In this episode we talk about how it is important to involve these two groups in the retention efforts. Two simple ways to have them help are through early alerts and a Report a Student C...

For this expert session co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby sat down with leaders from National University to capture their knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! In this episode you'll hear from Dr. Mark Milliron (President & CEO), Dr. Angela Baldasare (Deputy Chief of Staff and VP for Strategic Institutional Research &...

Students often struggle getting along with their roommates, which sometimes leads to a desire to return back home.  To increase the likelihood of roommates getting along and ultimately retaining, try pairing them with students who have similar interests, live similar schedules, and enjoy similar living arrangements.  Many campuses already do this via expensive 3rd party software programs.  But, it...

Happy thanksgiving to all our ASCEND Podcast friends and listeners!

A fun way to include faculty in creating a culture of care and concern is to involve them in our retention efforts from the very beginning of the semester. Each year, during our Fall Welcome Week, we split up all our new incoming students into small groups based on similar interests and hobbies. We then carve out some time during our welcome week for these groups of students to enjoy their interes...

Dr. Ed Cabellon from Curry College joins co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby to share his deep knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! With over 26 years in Higher Education, Dr. Ed Cabellon (pronounced "kah-bell-en") currently serves as Vice President of Enrollment Management at Curry College in Milton, MA. Known for hi...

We eliminated our old mandatory on-campus orientation and shifted to online modules and a voluntary system where any student who wants can come to campus to perform a Personalized Visit. Here is how it works. The student visits our Personalized Visit homepage and chooses from numerous options to hand pick exactly what he or she would like to accomplish while on campus (i.e. campus tour, visiting y...