Office Hours With EAB

EAB’s Brooke Thayer joins Matt Mustard to talk about how schools are managing student mental health crises. The two urge university leaders to reexamine everything from student outreach to how counseling centers are staffed to whether campus security is using the right de-escalation techniques. Matt and Brooke also discuss the importance of developing differentiated response models to keep student...

Kent State University’s Ted McKown joins EAB’s Allison Akalonu and Matt Sheldon to explore better ways to engage, recruit, and support incoming transfer students. The three urge schools to invest in transfer advisors, website improvements, and auxiliary services designed to help transfer students build engagement with staff and other students even before they arrive on your campus. Finally, they i...

EAB’s Madeleine Rhyneer and Ed Venit discuss the impact of the staffing crisis on student advising. The two urge student success leaders to use the current crisis as an impetus to adopt a more technology-forward approach to strengthen early warning systems and use time devoted to one-on-one student advising sessions to greater effect. Ed and Madeleine also offer a preview of CONNECTED22, the premi...

University of Rochester Dean of Admissions, Robert Alexander, joins EAB’s Madeleine Rhyneer to discuss the impact of staffing challenges on admissions teams. Madeleine and Rob point out the dangers to institutions that ignore staff demands for greater flexibility. They also share ways to balance upward pressure on compensation with the need to focus on the core functions your teams have the capaci...

EAB recently acquired Concourse Global and announced an expansion of the Greenlight Match program the two companies have been collaborating on for the past year. Greenlight Match flips the script on the traditional college application process by enabling underserved students to connect with and receive offers of admission and financial aid from participating local colleges—without completing a for...

In an interview that originally aired in April 2022, Inside Higher Ed Editor Scott Jaschik highlights the news stories he believes will have an outsized impact on higher education in the months and years to come. Jaschik is joined on the podcast by Carla Hickman, whose take on these issues is informed by her role as head of EAB’s Research division. The two explore issues ranging from the massive c...

EAB’s Tara Zirkel, Kayla Laughton, and Joshua Ddamulira share findings from their listening tour of more than 20 community college presidents to uncover the best ways to help Black and Latino men persist and succeed at community colleges. The three review statistics that underscore the challenge and isolate five top strategies to help you make significant improvement. They also discuss ways to ove...

EAB’s Madeleine Rhyneer and Michael Koppenheffer share findings from EAB’s newest survey of parents and guardians of prospective college applicants. The survey helps pinpoint parent preferences around the types and timing of communication they most appreciate from colleges, as well as the top concerns they have about the college search process. Michael and Madeleine share tips for institutions loo...

EAB’s Earl Sires and Mike Laracy examine the “digital sprawl” problem that plagues many college campuses and discuss tips and tools for cutting through all that complexity. Rather than relying on overworked programmers and statisticians, the two urge campus leaders to use an education data platform to tame the sprawl and facilitate direct access to the data by those tasked with making strategic de...

Joel Spiess explains how the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee uses retention grants to close equity gaps and offers tips on how other institutions can establish similar programs.

EAB’s Lilia Shea and Lauren Edmonds examine factors limiting the growth of undergraduate and graduate-level nursing programs despite strong demand. The two urge leaders to build partnerships with regional healthcare providers as a way to supplement faculty ranks and help secure clinical placements for students. They also discuss the value of recruiting future instructors from among the student bod...

Allison Akalonu joins Matt Sheldon to discuss ways to fix the broken transfer system. The two point to data showing the precipitous decline in transfer enrollments and explore ways to identify and fix institutional barriers that frustrate students and cause them to look elsewhere for a more receptive landing spot. They also offer guidance on better ways to engage students at every stage of the tra...

Dr. Brian Reed and Zach Rossmiller from the University of Montana join EAB’s Pavani Reddy to discuss a new initiative their institution has launched to help Native American students succeed. The three discuss initial learnings from the project, dubbed “Data for Student Equity,” which is funded in part by a grant from the Gates Foundation. The project enables university leaders to access and analyz...

EAB’s Brooke Thayer is joined by Dr. Janet Greenwood who leads an executive search firm that works primarily with higher education institutions. The two discuss the talent management “whiplash” that higher education leaders experienced as they moved from a cost-containment mindset at the outset of the pandemic to today’s full-on battle to retain and attract employees. Dr. Greenwood touches on ever...

The California-based organization, A2MEND, was recently awarded $1.1M to expand their student mentoring program across the state’s 116 community colleges. Dr. Edward Bush and Dr. Abdilmalik Buul, both representing A2MEND, talk to EAB’s Meacie Fairfax about how institutions can create the conditions where Black students, and Black male students in particular, are more likely to succeed both in and...

EAB’s Sally Amoruso hosts a wide-ranging discussion with influential Arizona State University President, Michael Crow. The two discuss the role of technology in helping institutions serve more students and the value of challenging the kind of antiquated thinking that pervades higher education. Dr. Crow also reminds university leaders that their institution should not be judged by how many students...

Keith Ramsdell, VP of Enrollment Management and Marketing at Ashland University and a NAGAP Board member, joins EAB’s Pam Royall to discuss the findings of a new joint survey of graduate admissions leaders. The two highlight things that institutions should be doing differently to recruit students and staff, including giving staff greater flexibility and diversifying their graduate program portfoli...

Northern Arizona University President José Luis Cruz Rivera talks to EAB’s Tom Sugar about creative approaches to narrowing the college access and affordability gap. Under Dr. Cruz Rivera’s leadership, NAU is redoubling its efforts to enroll students from historically underserved populations across the state. NAU also announced plans recently to offer a tuition-free college education for every Ari...

Pam Royall joins Madeleine Rhyneer to examine findings from EAB’s most recent survey of first-year college students. The two discuss what the survey tells us about overall student satisfaction with the college experience and about the impacts of test-optional policies on application activity. They also highlight survey findings that show parents have greater influence over their children’s college...

EAB’s Meacie Fairfax hosts a conversation with Melissa Burwell, Executive Director for Student Success at Carthage College, about the potential risks of using student alerts as a one-size-fits-all blunt instrument. The two discuss Carthage’s rollout of their early alert system to faculty, advisors, care units, and staff, and the adjustments they made based on analysis of data that showed significa...

Graduate enrollments across 2020 and 2021 grew at the fastest rates in nearly a decade. However, roughly one-third of institutions experienced declines. EAB’s Will Lamb and Brian Schueler dig into the data to highlight the degree offerings, formats, and pricing models driving much of that growth. Will and Brian touch on the explosive enrollment growth among Black and minority graduate students, wh...

EAB’s Hersh Steinberg welcomes two of the top recruiters in the nation who specialize in placing higher education leaders. Jay Lemons from Academic Search, Inc. and Kenneth Kring from Korn Ferry share their thoughts on ways to improve succession planning and on the pros and cons of bringing in a change agent from the outside. They also offer tips on ways to honor the shared governance model withou...

Black Male Student Success Audio Blog by EAB

EAB’s Sally Amoruso hosts a conversation with James Kvaal, President Biden’s Under Secretary of Education. The two discuss the need for greater federal support of HBCUs, proposals for convincing more high school graduates to pursue higher education, and the impact of free community college programs. Mr. Kvaal also touches on a range of administration proposals for reducing student debt and making...

Each spring, EAB shares with partner institutions the company’s latest research on the most urgent threats and opportunities across the higher education marketplace. EAB’s Larisa Hussak and Brian Schueler share key takeaways from that research. Topics include strategies for attracting and retaining talent amidst the great resignation, tips on how to compete in the growing (but hyper-competitive) g...