Five Easy Ways to Remain Connected to the Office While You Are on Vacation

When you are on vacation in higher education, sometimes your role requires you to remain connected to the office (especially during the beginning or end of the budget cycle OR if an important decision is occurring on campus).

Remaining connected during vacation is a characteristic of some individuals in my generation (the millennial generation), especially entrepreneurs and educators. However, I want to emphasize that these tips are mostly for millennials and for members of the millennial generation.. 

Here are some steps to remain connected with the office while enjoying vacation with your family/friends.

1 - Wake Up Before Everyone Else and Grab a Cup of Coffee and Your Laptop/Tablet to Answer Emails or to Write a Portion of a Research Manuscript

2 - Consider Only Replying to Email Messages During the Early Morning and Late Afternoon

3 - Let Your Family and Your Office Know about Your Work/Life Boundaries During the Week

Sometimes your child has to know that you will complete the puzzle with her after you complete a conference call with the office (and sometimes vice-versa - after you finish your trek through Sea World). Not that this actually happened by the way. :) 

4 - Pack an Anker Charger to Remain Connected to Power Throughout the Day

5 - Consider Providing an Auto-response for InBound Email

This will help the senders realize that you will respond during certain times of the day while you are on vacation.

Deadlines used to run my life. This year, I've decided to prioritize everything in my life to truly LIVE life at home and at work.

If something is pertinent, it will definitely be pulled on to my lifeboat (the few items that I can truly focused on per day). However, if an item requires a lot of thought and emotional processing, these items definitely float to the top of the water, but I do not pull these items on my lifeboat. Items that do not require or demand my immediate attention are in a net below the surface. These items can be pulled to the water's surface at anytime, but do not have to obstruct my daily views of the journey ahead.

1 - Family

2 - Action Items from My Immediate Supervisor (even while on vacation)

3 - Telephone Calls and Conversations from my team (even while on vacation)

4 - Emails or Tweets from Students

5 - Emails or Tweets from Others

This metaphor enables me to segment my prioritizes while maintaining my daily schedule.

How do you prioritize your to do list? Let me know!

J. Edwards

Why Is Important to Understand Barriers Experienced by College Students

At the beginning of each academic year, I am always energized when I see the faces and new fashions of the incoming students (and returning students). In fact, these students are joining us after having various summer experiences with their lives at home, working for local businesses, interning out of state, studying abroad, summer school, and much more!

In fact, during this past week, I've been watching various videos from NBC News (on Hulu) focused on the Freshman Experience. Here are some of my favorites. I think each administrator, faculty member, staff members, and even members from the external campus community should watch one or more of these videos to gain a glimpse into some aspects lives of the students who are joining their campus community.

Which one is your favorite video? List it in the comment section listed below:

Video - I have always been intrigued by roommate selection at colleges and universities across the country. Do you know how roommates are selected by most higher education institutions?



Video - Most colleges and university students played one or more sports in high school, but then they transition to college and are not as engaged with their health and wellness. This means that the likelihood of students gaining weight is very high. Do you know that the average weight gained by college students during their first years of college is 15 pounds? Find out more...



Video - Student debt is one of the most crushing reminders that students have when they are happy and jubilant after reaching the requirements of their degree. This means that we will need to offer continued financial support and education for students once they graduate from college. Find out why...



These are simple videos, but they are great reminders of the celebrations and perils that college students experience as they graduate. What did the videos miss?

Interested in a specific student success topic or do you need a speaker for an upcoming conference? Contact me via direct message on Twitter or join our Student Success Communication and Technology Institute on Facebook!

Thanks for visiting! 

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Higher Education Speaker and Researcher

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My Research Interests: Customer Service and Social Media, Higher Education Retention, and Millennials at Work

Using the Education Advisory Board's Navigate Platform to Impact Student Success and Retention

If your campus utilizes the Education Advisory Board's Navigate platform (formerly the Student Success Collaborative), you are extremely lucky. This platform enables faculty, staff, and students to engage electronically with one another. From a Communication Professor's perspective, it is important for me to emphasize that the Student Success Collaborative (Navigate) is one of the most easy student success technology platforms to navigate (no pun intended) for faculty and staff. 


The Student Success Collaborative (Navigate) is an innovative student success technology platform that can enable campuses to provide outreach to students and faculty, measure this outreach, and to make evidence-based decisions about the emerging data. For campuses who want to connect with their students and benchmark the results, the Education Advisory Board's Navigate platform is one of the best technologies for your campus.

Retention, Student Success, Student Success Collaborative, Education Advisory Board, Navigate, How to Use EAB, Retention, 60X30TX, Higher Education, Student Affairs, Student Services

Here's a comparison between the features of Navigate and the Starfish platform:

Starfish	EAB (Navigate)
	We Can Form Appointment Campaigns
We Can Send Email to Students	We Can Send Email to Students
	We Can See a Realistic Preview for Each Student
	We Can See the Public Notes for Each Student
	We Can Perform Advanced Searches and Analytics
Faculty Log-In to Refer Their Students to Early Alert	Faculty Never Have to Log-On to Refer Their Students
Create Your Own Cohort	Create Your Own Cohort
Student’s Picture is Displayed	Student’s Picture is Displayed
	We Can View Midterm Grades and Final Grades

I am eager to discover the newly updated features of the Starfish platform again and I welcome the opportunity to discover this with another campus who wants to invite me as a student success technology consultant.

If your campus is considering how they can integrate a new student success technology for their students, faculty, and staff, please contact me and I will be happy to help. Student success has been why research field for the past 15 years and I am excited about the new technology innovations that are occurring in the higher education field.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Higher Education Speaker and Researcher

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Free Report - Institutions' Use of Data and Analytics for Student Success

https://www.naspa.org/images/uploads/main/DATA2018_DOWNLOAD.pdf

If you love higher education technology and data analytics as much as I do, you will love this report from NASPA (The National Association of Student Personnel Administrators), Educause, and the Association for Institutional Research. This report was written by Amelia Parnell, Darlena Jones, Alexis Wesaw, and D. Christopher Brooks.

The report contains the following:

Executive Summary

Discussion of Findings

Part I: Types of Student Success Data Projects

Part II: Structures in Place

Part III: Level of Coordination

Part IV: Programs, Interventions, and Outcomes

Implications and Recommendations

References

The report also includes a methodology, additional resources, and acknowledgements.

Here are the recommendations from the study:

Recommendation 1: Identify and expand institutionally appropriate roles for IR, IT, and student affairs.

Recommendation 2: Transcend or remove certain organizational silos to improve communication across all position levels.

Recommendation 3: Prioritize measuring student outcomes.

Recommendation 4: Increase the use of qualitative data, especially from students.

My reflection: This report was great and included many institutions. However, as a higher education researcher and former higher education administrator, I think the report would benefit greatly from numerous reflections from higher education adminstrators.

For example, the first recommendation highlights the expansion of institutionally appropriate roles, but most institutions have very limited budgets that cannot accommodate the expansion of positions or add additional responsibilities to roles.

Also, I recommend that institutions provide a set of guidelines for effective communication with students (for student retention efforts), but I am not a proponent of large communication committees or councils. The formation of these groups can slow down progress for retention. Sometimes these councils that usually consist of individuals from institutional research, institutional technology, student affairs, enrollment management, and academic affairs and exist to control the distribution of messages to students.

Also, I wanted to share this infographic that I created about Student Success Technology.

Read the report, view the infographic and digest the information. Feel free to write about the report during the comment box! I would love to read it!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Higher Education Speaker and Researcher

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Three Student Success Action Items for Student Success Collaborative and Navigate Professionals!

If your campus utilizes the Student Success Collaborative (Navigate) platform, consider yourself to be extremely lucky! We had a few awesome training sessions at my university and I was incredibly lucky to facilitate these sessions for the faculty, staff, and students at my university and also Texas A&M University's advising team.

We had several sessions that focused on the features of the Navigate platform. Yes, I know that the Education Advisory Board company will continue to update the platform, but the basic components of the platform will remain the same (I hope). The components are easy for the faculty, staff, and students to navigate, but these important individuals at the university also need special reminders about the key clicks they need to make to "make things happen" on the platform.

So, here are three things that faculty, staff, and students at higher education institutions (colleges and universities) need to know in order to effectively navigate the platforms.

Action Item 1 - How to Boost Your Student Success Collaborative Campaign (2-3 Days After Sending the Invitation)

Action Item 2 - How to Schedule an Advising Appointment on EAB Navigate (formerly the Student Success Collaborative)

Action Item 3 - How to Create Tutoring Appointments on EAB Navigate (formerly the Student Success Collaborative)

Enjoy these three action items and please let me know if you have any questions. I will be happy to help! My contact information is listed below.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Higher Education Speaker and Researcher

My Social Media Channels!
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Transition Week - First-Time in College Tips for Freshmen Students

When the beginning of the year starts at Tarleton State University, many first-time in college students comprise the newest class of students at the university. Since 2012, the university as offered a unique interactive learning experience for these new students.

This experience is Transition Week and it engages almost 1,500 students each fall semester. The students persist through a very organized schedule to learn about campus resources, the location of their classes, and they have a change to get to know their class peers before the rest of the students come back to campus (you know those - sophomores, juniors, and seniors). 

During this week, we also have a first-year convocation which simulates an actual graduation ceremony for new first-time in college students. Here's a glimpse into the ceremony.

Unfortunately, some students are not able to attend the sessions as a result of attending national guard boot camp or finishing up a college class at a local community college. The students receive transition week credit for attending the classes and they have to complete the Online Transition Week components.

So, I created an alternative way to complete the online components through Blackboard Modules. Here's the overview of the Blackboard Module course:

Enjoy the content! Please feel free to ask me questions about the Online Transition Week. 

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Higher Education Speaker and Researcher

My Social Media Channels!
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Creating an Engaging Retention Resource for College Students

Can you believe it? The beginning of the fall semester is here and I am VERY excited about meeting the new students. Over the summer, I was tasked with creating an engaging powerpoint for freshmen students who were transitioning to Tarleton State University.

I did not want to create anything that was a mere power point, but I wanted to add some color, music, and movement to the presentation. Here's the list of Top 10 Study Resources for Tarleton Students:

Top 10 Study Resources for Tarleton Students

1 - Attend Study Skills Sessions

2 - Get to Know Your Advisor

3 - Attend Your Professor's Office Hours

4 - Go to Class On-Time

5 - Make a Tutoring Appointment

6 - Attending ARC-C Sessions (Formerly Supplemental Instruction)

7 - Pick Up a FREE Planner from Student Success

8 - Take the Learning Styles Assessment (LASSI)

9 - Form Study Groups with Students in Your Classes

10 - Check Out the Math Clinic

Also, Check Out the Writing Center and the Science Clinic.

Questions? Contact Student Success - 968-9480 Remember to Eat Healthy Food!

Also, here's another student success video that was embedded on the Blackboard Course:

Here's a Quick Video for first-year students focused on "Module 4 - Learning How to Learn/Study Skills/Support Services (Math Clinic, Writing Center, Tutoring, SI, Library, Blackboard)". This is the best week for first-year students (freshmen) at Tarleton).

Please let me know some additional ways that this format or the content of the video can be used by different areas. I am excited!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Higher Education Speaker and Researcher

My Social Media Channels!
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Linking Essential Learning Outcomes and Marketable Skills in Texas

Linking Essential Learning Outcomes and Marketable Skills in Texas

Linking Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, American Association of Colleges and Universities (Liberal Education and America’s Promise), and the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE Outcomes)

***Created by @LEAPTexas Fellow - @drjtedwards***

THECB Core Curriculum	LEAP Learning Outcomes	NACE Job Outlook
Critical Thinking (CT)	Info. Literacy VALUE Integrative Learning VALUE Problem Solving VALUE	Problem Solving (4) Technical Skills (10)
Communication Skills (COM)	Oral Communication VALUE Written Communication VALUE	Leadership (1) Written Communication (3) Oral Communication (5)
Empirical and Quantitative Skills (EQS)	Reading Rubric VALUE Quantitative Literacy VALUE	Analytical/Quantitative (8)
Teamwork (TW)	Teamwork VALUE	Ability to Work in a Team (2)
Social Responsibility (SR)	Intercultural Knowledge VALUE Civic Responsibility VALUE	Strong Work Ethic (6) Initiative (7) Flexibility/Adaptability (9)
Personal Responsibility (PR)	Ethical Reasoning VALUE Lifelong Learning VALUE

Source: Job Outlook 2016, National Association of Colleges and Employers

Direct Link to the Content - https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRgv-KLjoM2GBXj9JVax-Hp9U3xrZ5ALIFeXTyDCK0AavEP6uzcdZUdAc4Kq7gK5vgw5rlmJfZRk8eO/pub


Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards

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Telling Your Student Success Technology and Retention Story - Crafting Press Releases and Making YouTube Videos

Today, I am preparing for our first Student Success and Retention Technology Meetup! I am very excited and I am including an interactive session focused on how to tell your How to Tell Your Student Success Technology/Retention Story.

I decided to include artifacts of our Student Success Technology/Retention story at Tarleton State University. Here are some examples...

October 24, 2016
Tarleton uses programs to retain students (Crystal Ogbuehi)

October 19, 2017
Tarleton raises bar in graduation, retention rates for regional A&M schools

November 1, 2017

Tarleton using cell phones, text messages to retain, motivate students

November 15, 2017
Tarleton academic advisor receives national award (By TSU Media Relations)

The Tarleton SSMI Youtube Channel Featuring "How to Videos"
https://www.youtube.com/user/TarletonSSMI

If you would like to partner on a Student Success Technology project with Tarleton, please let me know!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards

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Congratulations to the The Paul P. Fidler Research Grant Winner - National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition

This year, I worked with a team of individuals from my university to write a grant focused on the experiences of senior-year college students who are seeking post-graduation employment. Unfortunately, the proposal was not funded, but I am excited to see the results from the other researchers who submitted proposals!

The winner of the Paul P. Fidler grant from the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition was Mauriell Amechi of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His study titled “Our Stories (Un)Told: Community Cultural Wealth and the College-Going Experiences of Transitioning Youth in Foster Care". His study will “address barriers associated with college choice and enrollment for populations in foster care.” We look forward to his exemplary research and the contributions he will make to the knowledge base on students in transition. Congratulations! I cannot wait to hear more about your research!

The other finalists for the 2017-2018 Fidler Grant were:
Linda DeAngelo of the University of Pittsburgh: “Self-efficacy in the transition into and through the first college year for women engineering students”

Ryan Hudes of Seton Hall University and Katherine Aquino of Manhattan College: “Student-College Matching Tendencies and Mobility for Students Transferring Within Four-year Institutions”

Cindy Ann Kilgo and Lauren Bennett of the University of Alabama: “Examining TRANSition: An Overview of Inclusive Practices to Support Transgender Students’ Success in College”

Kim McAloney of Oregon State University: “What am I Doing Here?!: An FYE Course in which first generation college students study first generation college students”

We received some great feedback about the grant and we cannot wait to revise!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards

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