55 Higher Education and Social Media Ideas! #55HigherEd from the SxSWEdu Conference!

In March, I was very fortunate to attend the SxSWEdu conference in Austin, TX. I attended sessions hosted by the TAMU system, the Gates Foundation, and several university colleagues from other institutions. This year marks my second year of attendance and I have to tout that this is the best year so far!

This year, we presented a session titled, "#55HigherEd Ideas and Resources" and we had participants from high schools, community colleges, universities, foundations, and associations. The ideas presented in the session were recorded via Twitter and via a Google Document!

Here's our tagboard from the session (the tweets): http://tgb.io/55HigherEd/219916

Here are my notes from the audience members attending the session!

1 - Reaching Current Undergraduate Students via Social Media

- Create a hashtag for recruiting students and engaging other departments to communicate with them.

- Place your twitter handle on your email signature line.

- Create professional groups for like-minded students on Facebook.

2 - Recruiting and Retaining Faculty and Staff on Social Media

- Create secondary social media posts of positions to recruit faculty and staff (without publishing on higher education.)

- Focus on faculty and staff members's secondary interests (what they like to do outside of the typical workday).

- Post a video about the staff environment and the benefits/ How they match 401Ks. Two weeks off during Christmas break.

- Utilize Flickr accounts, seeing the attire of the workplace.

- Focus on Faculty Student Success Stories - Faculty will have a different focus.

3 - Student Engagement and Social Media

- Post Lists Focused on Your Community (i.e. - Things to do in Alpine - Going out to the Sul Ross Campaign (students and their parents)).

- Form a Twitter Debate - Two teams. Limited numbers of tweets.Number of favorites within a certain time frame.

4 - University Recruitment and Social Media

- Create Buzzfeed-like videos focused on your university. For example, the top 10 reasons why you should join the teacher education program.

- Connect with Community Colleges via the University Account

5 - The University Classroom and Social Media

- Insert a Twitter Widget on Blackboard

- Creating Instagram account for your department.

- Remember to be more proactive with social media listening.

- Have a social media policy on your syllabus.

- Create expectations of social media posts. Twitter and instagram. Tagboard. Giving students a visual for students and other.

- Post student group projects to LinkedIn. Becoming references to one another.

- Have Pop-Up Sessions from One Class Session to the Next - Group work and generating ideas. Great for problem based learning. Ideas would come through and everyone would have everyone's idea. Other classes could add to that.

6 - University Marketing on Social Media

- Push for a social page on the website to list all of the university's social media accounts.

- Engage the internal departments.

- Ask students how they discovered your university.

- Practice social media listening. Create a search focused on your college or university's name.

- Find student social media ambassadors for your university. They will be the ambassadors to start the #besomebody

Next Year!

When the call for sessions is available, I will definitely submit another session (Vote for the @TSMRI Session)! This was one of the best conferences this year and I hope that I will continue to connect with my colleagues from other institutions and foundations throughout the year.

In June, we will start our #55HigherEd chat on Wednesdays in June at 8pm on Twitter! Join us! 

Sincerely - @drjtedwardsTSU

A List of Faculty Issues in Higher Education: A Great Resource for University Administrators and Faculty

As a tenured-faculty member, I am always excited about mentoring new faculty (especially women and new faculty of color). This mentoring relationship is always great for me because I had such wonderful mentors (both faculty and staff) when persisting through the tenure-track process.

This mentoring relationship is very important for tenure-track and tenured faculty who are seeking to become a full-professor. (This is another journey through which I am persisting right now.) Tenure-track and tenured-faculty (especially women and faculty of color) encounter along the journey towards their goals:

Here are some of the current issues and resources for individuals tied to faculty affairs roles at universities and colleges in the United States:

Current Issues focused on Faculty Affairs:

- The growing number of women and people of color in faculty positions.

- Faculty and work-life balance.

- Stopping the tenure clock for faculty who are pregnant or who are new or adoptive mothers (or fathers).

- Faculty retirement and retirement plans.

- Faculty workplace flexibility.

- Faculty involvement on universities committees and work groups.

- Faculty compensation and merit pay.

- Faculty workload (balancing researching, teaching and service).

- Part-time and adjunct faculty workload.

- Faculty Orientation

- Faculty Training 

- Faculty and External Fundraising and Grantsmanship Activities

- Faculty Recognition

- Faculty Recruitment and Retention

- Faculty Workplace Satisfaction

Faculty Affairs Resources:

- Faculty Issues: A Resource by the American Council on Education

- Giving "Voice to Faculty"

- Policy Matters" Faculty Trends and Issues (A Resource from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities - AASCU)

- Analyses of Faculty Issues

- Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (A Resource from Harvard's Graduate School of Education)

- Common New Faculty Issues and Solutions (Rochester Institute of Technology)

Please feel free to tweet, share, and comment below! Let me know if I missed something from the list!

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

@drjtedwards

Student Success Seminars for Student Success and Retention

I am always on the lookout for new student success programs and services that would benefit universities in Texas. Each week, I receive a notification when a new program or service is featured in the press and this one really caught my eye!

The article "Student Success Seminars Aim to Motivate Students" is focused on student success seminars (not just workshops) focusing on different interventions to help students succeed in their coursework and in their life at the university. This is a neat approach focused on the "total student" both in their academic life and in their extra curricular life.

These are some of the topics featured in their series: App Academy, Chill Out, and my favorite "Finish in Four: 640 Days". This is absolutely a neat, informational approach for universities that I look forward to replicating!

Sincerely,

@drjtedwards

Call for Attendees and Proposals - Cisco College Core Curriculum Conference (C5)

Here's a neat opportunity from Texas-based Cisco College!

Cisco College Core Curriculum Conference (C5)

  

Cisco College will again host a conference in the Spring of 2015 dedicated to faculty members and their classrooms, providing educators with a chance to come together and share successful teaching strategies.

 

The Cisco College Core Curriculum Conference is pleased to invite proposals that illustrate best classroom practices and innovative teaching techniques related to the following areas:

 Critical Thinking

 Communication Skills

 Empirical & Quantitative Skills

 Teamwork

 Social Responsibility

 Personal Responsibility

 Assessing the (New) Core

The conference will be held May 21 & 22, 2015, at Cisco College’s Abilene Educational Center in Abilene, Texas. 

The goal of the conference is to provide faculty members with as many learning opportunities as possible to expand their knowledge of teaching techniques. Although faculty members from all public two-year and four-year institutions are welcome to attend, the conference will focus on the special budgetary restrictions and practical needs of faculty at community colleges in Texas.

Conference flyer and registration form are attached.

--

Debra Slaton

Chair, Dev. Studies & Education

Cisco College

101 College Heights

Cisco, TX  76437

254-442-5187 Cisco       325-794-4505 Abilene

Fax:  254-442-5100/Attention: Debra Slaton

Dream  big......work hard!!

The Smart Choice for Your Future!                   

What Does Your #HigherEd Handwriting Say About You?

I am a HEAVY writer and my print is bold and wide. Look at the infographic listed below. How do you think the faculty, staff, students, administrators, and staff perceive your writing? Perceptions exist, but it is always great to know about potential perceptions ahead of time.

Sincerely - @drjtedwardsTSU

Repackaging Your Web Content for Reaching Target Student Groups - 6 Steps for Effectively Packing Content You Already Have (Ruffalo Noel-Levitz)

One aspect of higher education for which I have recently developed an interest is recruitment of target student groups (and their parents) and social media/new media content marketing. 

The Ruffalo Noel-Levitz blog posted an article titled, "Content Marketing for Higher Education: Six Steps for Effectively Packaging Content You Already Have". These six steps are generally listed on the graphic listed above, but each of them make sense for the higher education environment.

The process seems rigid, but again I am not responsible for content marketing. Each step made sense and I cannot wait to modify this process for our retention model (internal content marketing) for our current students!

Enjoy! - @drjtedwards

A List of Commonly Utilized Communication Theories - Plus My Favorites!

I am always on the lookout for great communication theories to incorporate in my classes (graduate and undergraduate communication classes). Here are some of my favorites:

Attribution Theory

Cognitive Dissonance

Communication Privacy Management Theory

Constructivism

Expectancy Violations Theory

Face Negotiation Theory

Phenomenology

Social Judgment Theory

Uncertainty Reduction Theory

Here's a list of all of the Communication Theories from the "A First Look at Communication Theory" book - http://www.afirstlook.com/edition_7/theory_list.

Sincerely - @drjtedwardsTSU

#NASPA15 Revisited - Capturing the Real Time Moments from the Conference!

I always like to revisit the tweets that I posted to the @drjtedwardsTSU account during a conference. This is my first time to create a Storify from my tweets and I am excited to have this archive of my posts. 

I also made these great Quote Cards to capture neat ideas from the conference. Please feel free to use them! Enjoy the posts listed in the Storify at the end of this post. 

Please contribute any comments and ideas below!

Sincerely - @drjtedwardsTSU

Shining Examples for Student Retention at Institutions at Higher Education - "P+P=R is the basic formula for student retention" (Ruffalo Noel Levitz)

The "P+P=R is the basic formula for student retention" is a great article by Ruffalo Noel-Levitz focused on one of my favorite subjects retention. I will admit progression and persistence are two of the most difficult items to address because I believe it is all about student GRIT. 

The article provides examples from other campuses that implemented several efforts to impact student retention based on progression and persistence.

Enjoy! - @drjtedwards

#NASPA15 - Conference Recap: Connected, Communicated, Converted, and Convinced (+BookClubs)

This week, I was fortunate to attend and present at the NASPA (Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education) Conference and I had such a great time learning about new concepts in higher education/student affairs. This includes: Yik Yak, Title 9, assisting student parents, marketing to new college students and their parents, and the importance of THINKING BIG!

Book Clubs in Student Affairs - Neat Concept!

One of the sessions that I loved the most was the "book club session" focused on student affairs publications and other publications in the leadership field. This session really inspired me to "think outside of the box" because it is incredibly hard to read an assigned/required book within a specific time frame and then report the important findings (and my reflections) to my accountability group (book club). 

This book club enabled me to think about creating a journal clubs or reading e-books from the library databases without having to add an expense to our university accounts or the book club participants' personal accounts. I will write a few additional ideas about the higher education book club concept in a few days.

Connecting with Past Colleagues

Through NASPA, I was able to connect with one of my former supervisors from Stephen F. Austin State University (SFASU) and connect with MANY colleagues from TACUSPA (Texas Association of College and Student Personnel Administrators). These connections are always valuable for me, because I made a point to remain in contact with my student affairs colleagues even when I left the student affairs field and became a member of the faculty. You NEVER know how your career path will take twists and turns!

Communicating with Others via Twitter and Instagram

During conferences, especially a large scale conference (for example, NASPA had 7,000+ participants) it is important to connect with other attendees via the conference backchannel on Twitter. This is valuable because I believe a rich conversation exists on the conference hashtag (before, during, and after the conference). Also, through the conference backchannel, participants can form relationships and participate in "meet ups" during the conference (to take the virtual conversation to the virtual environment). It is always amazing to meet someone who recognizes you from Twitter.

Converted My Mind About Blogging

I attended the "Blogging Bravely" session on March 23, 2015 at 8:30 am and this session featured many of the premier student affairs bloggers - @paulgordonbrown @MarciKWalton @reneepdowdy  @josieahlquist. This was a great session, because it caused me to re-examine my blogging goals.

I had a hard time finding my blogging voice in my new role. It was incredibly easy to blog about

teaching techniques, but it is difficult to blog about a hybrid role (academic affairs and student life functions). It is very difficult to find a which topics appeal to your audience! 

Convinced Me to Publish Articles on Academic Affairs and Student Affairs Partnerships

Also, I usually publish in Communication Journals and speak at communication conferences, but I will definitely have to modify my venues and outlets to publish on bridging the gap between academic affairs and student affairs at institutions of higher education. I am actually energized and I hope to publish an article in the near future!

As you can see, I had a great time. It was great writing this brief blog post, because this post functioned a great reflection piece for me. Energized! Back to work!

Sincerely - @drjtedwardsTSU

REGISTER NOW – FREE WEBINAR: Counseling and Advising Men of Color in the Community College (February 12, 2015)

I absolutely love free webinars (especially those that do not require a product endorsement). This webinar is from the Minority Male Community College Collaborative and it is focused on "Counseling and Advising Strategies" Advancing Success for Men of Color in the Community College". The webinar will be held on February 12th at 11am Pacific Time. I discovered this webinar around a month ago through a tweet.

Here's more information - http://interwork.sdsu.edu/sp/m2c3/2014/11/07/free-webinar/

Why I Am Interested...
Yes, I work for a four-year institution in Texas, but I have community college roots. I attended Panola College for dual credit courses while in high school and I attended my first year at a community college before transferring to Stephen F. Austin State University. Amazing experience! Without my community college experience while in high school, I would not have been as successful in attaining my four-year degree. I am strong advocate of dual credit courses.

Benefits of the Webinar
I think this webinar will definitely benefit professionals who are in the trenches teaching and advising students who are from underrepresented populations (and who are male). Feel free to write comments here!

Sincerely - @drjtedwardsTSU

Out-of-the-Box Ideas for Motivating College Students During Midterms and Finals

Two of my favorite times of the semester are midterms and finals. Odd, right? These are the two times students usually hear about their progress within a course (although I provide feedback more often).

To help students succeed during these key times, our area provides Midterm and Finals activities and programs for students to connect with their academic-sides! Everyone has one (or two) - perhaps a major and a minor).

While planning for the week, I have several Pinterest boards and an amazing committee. Also, we search for ideas on the web to gain insight into other university's approaches to these important time periods.

Binghamton University's Dean of Students's office connects with a wealth of offices across their campus to provide students with incentives for studying!

Here are some of their approaches:

- free group fitness classes

- therapy dogs

- chair massages

- donuts with the Dean (we have not tried this year, but sounds like a great idea)!

- one of the neatest aspects of the event is the REACH vehicle - a mobile approach to providing students with healthy tips and giveways. Here's some more information about the pink car - the mobile solution! Take a look - http://www.binghamton.edu/health/education/

- the sleep kits include sleep masks and other items you would need for a night of rest

Sincerely - @drjtedwardsTSU

2014 Open Doors Report - Institute of International Education

One of the areas that I work with on a daily basis is the International Programs area. I am a strong advocate of study abroad programs and I am always looking for innovative ways to help all students experience a study abroad program. In addition, when students chose to study in the United States this experience enriches the international student's life and GREATLY IMPACTS the students located at the university.

One report that I continue to monitor is the Open Doors report. Here's the link to the latest report:

Sincerely - @drjtedwardsTSU

10 Top Ways for Professors to Plan for the Spring Semester

The spring semesters are always filled with the promise of surpassing your goals for the fall semester. Will this spring be different for you? What do you plan to do differently?

Here are some tried and true items that I have to complete before I begin teaching classes.

1 - Look at the syllabus from last spring to see which aspects I would like to change for this semester.

2 - Update the dates on the syllabus.

3 - Figure out HOW I would like to communicate with the students this semester - Google Plus, Twitter, or Facebook (or all three)?

4 - Add the students's names to my Gradekeeper App for attendance and participation purposes.

5 - Update the Blackboard course structure to reflect the goals for this year's course. For example, if I would like for the students to achieve the learning outcomes for the course in a different way, I need to update the discussion questions, Twitter chat questions, etc.

6 - Contact individuals in the communication and social media industries for Twitter chat engagements to enable students to communicate with professionals working in the industry.

7 - Modify the syllabus on Google Documents. I always place my syllabus on Google documents to make sure it is easy to modify for the following semesters. Also, my students do not have to worry about purchasing and/or downloading any software to interact with different aspects of the course.

8 - Contact the students to introduce myself!

9 - Rest before the semester begins!

10 - Prep my office! I need a great ambiance before the semester starts!

Last, but not least... BREATHE!!! It will be a great semester!

Here's my post from the beginning of last semester!

http://www.millennialprofessor.com/2014/08/7-easy-ways-for-professors-to-prepare.html

Sincerely - @drjtedwardsTSU

Making the Switch from Teaching Undergraduate Students to Teaching Graduate Students

During the past few years, this millennial's life has been filled with CHANGE! New baby, new job, and NOW a change in teaching. Starting this month, I will teach my first graduate course. In the past, I've taught independent study graduate courses, but I am looking forward to teaching my first full group of graduate students.

This spring, the course will focus on social media technology and how it can be utilized in the work context. I hope to have several guest speakers (bloggers and other individuals from the industry) and to engage with the students in various interactive experiences (it is an online course). I definitely plan to utilize Google Communities and a few Twitter chats.

I definitely think that I would like to incorporate an "applicable" research project to create a finished product (perhaps an e-book), but I am still thinking about the possibilities.

Ideas are much appreciated!

Sincerely - @drjtedwardsTSU

3 Millennial Goals for the New Year: Writing, Dreaming Creatively, and Traveling with Family

Usually, I write long, drawn out New Year's Resolutions, but this year I resolve to only have THREE resolutions!

#1 - Write at least one blog post or at least one page of my manuscripts per day.

#2 - Think beyond the possible. Usually, I am an extremely linear thinker, but I need to think more creatively to solve everyday problems for work and home.

#3 - Travel with my family. My daughter is a toddler and I love to expose her to new and innovative things! Her daycare teaches her a wealth of skills, but I attempt to supplement on the weekends and during the evenings. Follow our adventures here: http://www.weekendscount.com/

Suggestions are appreciated and valued! Please keep me accountable!

Sincerely - @drjtedwardsTSU