ASCEND Podcast

Dr. Karen McGregor, Executive Director of Student Success at Purdue Global, joins co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby to share her knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! Karen McGregor, Ph. D., serves as Purdue Global’s Executive Director of Student Success. With over 15 years of experience in higher education, McGregor has provi...

Many campuses allow students to withdraw from their institution by simply filling out an online form. Historically this has been our institutional practice as well. We never talked to the withdrawing student or attempted to see what, if anything, we could do to help them stay. We immediately saw that this needed to change.  The first thing we did to improve our process was to hire a staff member w...

Dr. Blake Nemelka, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Clinical Operations at HCA Healthcare's Mountain Division, joins co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby to share her knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! Blake has not been able to get enough education in his life- attending Utah State, Vanderbilt, and Purdue universit...

It is very common for colleges and universities to place holds on students’ accounts as a way to ensure that a student complies with a particular requirement or pays a fee or fine. On our own campus, as well as those that we consult with, we are always perplexed by the large number of holds (financial, registration, etc.) that numerous departments and offices across campus place on students’ accou...

Dr. Jennifer Latino, Senior Director on EAB’s Strategic Advisory Services team, joins co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby to share her knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! Dr. Jennifer Latino is a senior director on EAB’s Strategic Advisory Services team. She spent the first 17 years of her career in higher education in a varie...

The 3rd week of each semester, we administer a survey to all new incoming students. The purpose of this survey is to check in with students to see how they are doing now that orientation is over, classes have begun, and the “honeymoon phase” has started to wear off.  In this episode you will find a list of topics that we seek answers to from our new students. The data we capture from our students...

Carolina Recchi,  the co-founder and co-CEO of EdSights, joins co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby to share her knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! Carolina is the co-founder and co-CEO of EdSights, a company that utilizes artificial intelligence and behavioral science to help students persist. EdSights serves 100+ institution...

Course registration seasons are the time of year where the rubber meets the road. This is when you find out if any of your initiatives to increase persistence and retention efforts have actually worked. Despite the importance of re-registering students, far too many campuses do not treat it with the seriousness that it deserves. Is registration on your campus a primary focus or an afterthought? Do...

Dr. Neil Burton from Clemson University joins co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby to share his knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! Dr. Neil Burton is the Executive Director of the Center for Career and Professional Development at Clemson University.  His educational background includes a B.A. in Journalism from the University...

A simple way to engage students is to create a homegrown bucket list of items each student should do before they graduate. This list provides students with activities to do with others or on their own, both of which help connect the student to your institution. 

Dr. Leslie Webb joins co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby to share her knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! Dr. Leslie Webb brings an equity mindset and a high level of cultural consciousness to her work. Leslie is a relational leader and a steward of place and the student and staff experience. She focuses on helping units evol...

One of the more effective strategies for influencing the culture of an organization is for the leader to create a motto, approach, or concept that the team can rally around. This gives everyone something to think about, ponder on, and be a part of. In the end, it becomes a rallying cry that all desire to be associated with. A perfect example of this concept would be The Disney Way, where every cas...

Peer mentoring programs have become all the rage in higher education. It seems like every campus has implemented a peer mentoring program as the research has shown that peer mentors are one of the best, most cost-efficient things campuses can do to move the needle on retention and completion. However, from our experience working with other campuses, we have found that not all peer mentoring progra...

Dr. Rick Sluder joins co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby to share his knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! Dr. Sluder serves as Vice Provost for Student Success and Dean of University College at Middle Tennessee State University.  He leads MTSU’s Quest for Student Success 2025 , which includes enhancing faculty development, cl...

In most instances, colleges spend a significant amount of time, energy, and resources on recruiting a new student to campus. But how many colleges spend similar time, energy, and resources on recruiting students back each semester? By launching strategic, well-timed, broad recruit-back campaigns, you can remind your students why your university is best suited for them, why you need them, and also...

In addition to demographic data that institutions capture on  students through the application process, we were interested in learning more about students before they arrived on campus each semester. So, we instituted a pre-arrival survey that all incoming students fill out as part of the orientation process. It is important to note that we only ask questions that provide us with actionable data w...

Students are often not the best at placing things in their calendars.  As a result, we implemented a text and email reminder system for all our student appointments.  As a result, we experienced much better attendance and engagement.  Additionally, these we learned it was important to pay attention to those students who do not show up for their appointments. This is often a red flag for other issu...

To further help students prepare for the transition between high school and college, and to be ready to fully engage with our campus culture, schools often prepare and distribute a new student handbook written by students for students.  It often provides a welcome letter from the President, an explanation of  history and traditions, and the essentials to make a smooth transition (i.e. campus map,...

We have received a number of emails from our listeners asking us why we end our podcast with the phrase, "Keep on raging!"  Well, this podcast answers that question.  And, keep on raging!

We have found that institutions that have the greatest success typically have a single person who spends the majority of their job thinking about, worrying about, and holding the campus accountable to the vision, goals, and metrics related to increasing retention and completion rates. Many campuses will add this title or responsibility to someone's existing job without giving them a release o...

In recent years there has been a movement in higher education to shift the role and responsibilities of academic advisors. Gone are the days of a singular focus on serving as course schedulers. Advisors are now being asked to serve as academic advisors, life coaches, career counselors, and so much more. Shifting the roles of our “academic advisors” to “student success advisors” was one of the most...

Because finances are a major barrier for so many students to stay enrolled in college, we recommend that institutions hire a full-time Financial Literacy Specialist whose entire job it is to help students better understand their finances and to help as many students as possible meet the financial demands of higher education. Tune in to Jared and Eric talk about the benefit of starting a Financial...

Because campuses are limited in their resources (time, energy, human capital, etc.) it is important to focus on those students who need us most, when they need us most.  An important strategy for increasing retention rates is to focus on subpopulations of students who historically do not retain at the same rates.  In this episode we talk about which data points could be explored and how this simpl...

How do you get students who do not want to meet with you, or who do not want to get involved, to actually meet with you or get involved? You make them feel needed! In fact, the Dalai Lama recently stated that he "believes man’s biggest need today is the 'need to be needed.' He says the biggest reason for so much misery in the world is a growing number of people feel they are no long...

One of the obstacles we have found with students engaging on campus is that Generation Z students often do not know how to socially interact with their peers in person, break the ice, or even start conversations. After realizing that a significant majority of our incoming students struggle with networking and making friends, we decided to help our incoming students transition from an online world...