Friday, June 8, 2018

Review: Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs Conference 2018

As I've done in the past, I like to blog about conferences/training I've attended because 1) I think it might be useful to others and 2) it serves as a sort of note taking system for me. I get sick of all my paper notes everywhere and this way, I can make sure I hold on to these "notes" long after my physical notes have been lost or tossed.

This conference is for the 30th annual conference for the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs. They are an accrediting body for business schools who help schools like Tarleton to identify problem areas and create policies, procedures, and other solutions to insure that continuous process improvements are in place. This is my first time here but I can tell you that this one stacks up well in terms of the usefulness of the sessions.

Record Graduate Growth Rates through Faculty Led Recruitment by Dr. Griffin and Dr. Adams

This was an interesting and relevant presentation for me. As an outgoing department chair and an incoming associate dean, increasing enrollments becomes a bigger priority for not only my discipline, but now the entire college. So, how do we do that? Well, they had what I think are some good suggestions.  The reality is that it is a tough market right now. There are forces in place that are driving down graduate enrollments. This has led some school to eliminate their graduate programs. These enrollment trends have had far reaching effects. For example, reduced state appropriations, increased competition with for-profit institutions, etc. Their literature review revealed that there is a lack of articulated student recruitment plans, that the majority of faculty view recruitment as part of their job despite the fact that they also feel they are not required to engage in recruitment, that there is little in the literature the highlights the systematic process that directly involves faculty in graduate recruitment, and that there is no tangible empirical evidence in the literature that shows the impact of graduate faculty-led student recruitment.

The goal behind their research was to identify some best practices in faculty involved recruitment. Before their efforts, their two graduate programs had flat enrollments for several years.
  1. Streamline internal processes: This was interesting and one I need to look into at Tarleton. They were finding that they would have applicants being processed for 70 some odd days, waiting for all the appropriate paperwork to arrive before granting admission into their programs. What they were finding is that students would leave, searching for other institutions due to the delays. Rather, they suggested granting conditional acceptance pending all appropriate documentation. In this way, future students would begin to identify and gain access to the university and its resources more quickly with the hope that they would cease their shopping around for other universities/programs due to the delays.
  2. They also instituted a 4+1 program whereby students could earn credit towards their undergraduate degree taking graduate courses that could then also be applied towards their graduate degree if admitted into the graduate program. Students are required to take a full load of 12 hours of graduate and undergraduate courses, maintain a 3.0 and have completed at least 60 hours toward their degree. This helps to jump start students towards their graduate degree.
  3. They send email blasts to undergraduate students twice a year by department to promote their graduate programs and twice a year to promote their 4+1 options. They also send email blasts out to graduate students to promote sequential degree options twice a year as well as to post course announcements in the LMS to promote sequential degree options. Lastly for graduate students, they post and email reminders to register for upcoming terms each term, five times per year. For undergraduate alumni, they send out emails to promote their graduate programs twice yearly. For graduate alumni, they send email blasts to promote their sequential degree options twice a year. Finally, for industry professionals, they present at regional and national conferences that highlight aspects of the graduate program (average 3 times per year), network at professional organization functions (average once per quarter), and share notable improvements and accomplishments with the graduate programs to advisory board member and scholars/practitioners (each term, 5 times per year). They also promote their graduate programs to those professional groups through email blasts twice per year and promote access to education (A2E) to build corporate partnerships.
This was a very useful session and I came away with several ideas that as department head, I would definitely try with my department. As the incoming associate dean, I will expand this to include the entire college. Oh, BTW, another idea they pitched was the need for drops to be processed in such a way that instructors had to approve the drop. In this way, instructors had the opportunity to evaluate a student's progress and help student's determine the best course of action as to whether or not to drop a course. We could do this but I would still want them to go through advising to make sure that others things that might be impacted, like financial aid, are considered as well.

Innovative Retention: Developing Faculty for Student Success by Ms. Myers and Ms. Friesen

Using the Composite Persistence Model (Ravai, 2003) as a guide, they talked about opportunities to retain students. They talked about the need to train faculty to identify opportunities to help retain students.
  • For example, they had a professor who refused to really participate in student retention activities but, that whenever a story about a student was in the paper, would cut out the article and share that article with her student. In effect, she was creating a positive result, thus, increasing student retention without her even realizing it. Once this was shared with her, she increased her efforts to increase student retention in this manner. Essentially, cheering on students for their accomplishment (in and outside of class) in front of their peers has a positive effect on retention.
  • Another way to "engage" students in to post pictures of them and faculty in class, student organizations, and other activities on the walls and on social media. This helps to create a "legacy" for students who sometimes find themselves looking for themselves in the pictures.
  • Help students understand the jargon/language of the discipline. Things like LIFO/FIFO, SWOT, Elevator Speech, etc. Help them understand the language of their discipline early on so they do not get lost and out of place as they advance.
  • Treat your LMS as a gathering place. Hold virtual office hours and include synchronous session to help increase student engagement. Give an assignment where students must come by your office to chat for a bit. This helps to reduce their anxiety about coming to see their instructors.
  • One of the most interesting things I heard came as kind of an afterthought discussion between the presenters and audience. Periodically, faculty miss a class for whatever reason. One of the deans stated that they were going to use that as an opportunity to engage students in terms of talking to them about the resources they have on campus for studying, help with financial aid, issues with instructors, etc. I see this as a real gold mine and I think, given some forethought, could allow me to engage students in the college and help put a face on the administration and help students gain more perspective into the college, its processes, and hopefully, make them feel like more of the process themselves. I could ask them for example, what they like about the teaching styles, courses they like/don't like, what they wish were offered, etc. I could use it as an opportunity to discuss the importance of participating in student organizations, career services, etc. 

Aspiring Dean's Dinner

This was pretty good. Perhaps not as detailed as I would want but I definitely came away with a few nuggets. I was aware that the dean's role has been changing and is largely external and has a fund-raising component to it now. Turns out that really depends on the institution. But, if fund raising is in the job description, attend the CASE Conference. They evidently do all kinds of training on fund raising. Another important aspect is creating boards for funds raising and obtaining guidance. They recommended AACSB training for this which I thought was interesting. Overall, it was a good, enlightening dinner.

The Impact of Systematic Processes: Their Role in ACBSP Accreditation by 

This one was pretty interesting. Unfortunately, due to demand, we moved rooms which set the presentation back and then, due to technical difficulties, it was delayed even further. But, once it got going, it was quite interesting. They discussed taking the Baldridge approach to improving their accreditation processes. Then, they start to go through the new ACBSP standards. They overlap considerably with AACSB, though certainly, specific are different. Unfortunately, I had to leave before they were finished in order to attend the next even...which turned out to be a bust.

To be honest, then I attended several sessions that day that really did not pan out. They were focused on community colleges or were focused on other issues that simply do not impact my institution. The following day however, had several good sessions again though.

Student Retention: Strategies that Work in the College Setting by Dr. Augustine A Boakye

Student attrition might be high due to:

  • Inadequate orientation
  • Poor curriculum development
  • Implementation of assessments
  • Poor advisement and guidance
  • Inadequate preparation and low self-motivation
  • Personal tragedies such as health, death in family, etc.
  • Work related issues
  • Too much workload
  • Financial problems
  • Fear of failing
  • Dissatisfaction with professor's approach
Faculty are the first line of defense in student retention. He advocated for what he called the EES Progressive Retention Model:
  • Encourage from Day 1
  • Engage students both in and outside of class regularly
  • Show students you care through email when they have issues
He stressed that it was important that instructors agree and promote the mission to retain students. He also argued for hiring a participation, retention, and completion coordinator. Make sure students have access to textbooks from day 1. Finally, he stressed that administrators such as chairs, assistant/associate deans, and dean periodically visit classrooms to put a face on the administration for students and help ease any anxiety they might have regarding administrators.

Student Recruitment, Retention, and Reward: Sharing Best Practices by Dr. Cooper

There is an employee life cycle which also applies to students:

  1. Attraction
  2. Recruitment
  3. Onboarding
  4. Development
  5. Retention
  6. Separation
We need to practice the four E's:
  • Engagement
  • Experiment (challenge)
  • Enthusiasm/Energy (Passion)
  • Empowerment
Recruitment:
  • Faculty/Student Interactions: Emails, Listening, Mentorship
  • Retention: Classroom Management, List objectives and Check Off as Complete, Clear Course Expectations, Vary teaching techniques
  • Reward: Grades, Feedback, Inclusion, Incentive, Job Applications

Recruiting, Retaining, and Mentoring MBA Learners with Customized Skill Development by Dr. Craig Lien

According to the World Economic Forum, the top "skills' organizations are desiring from students are not some of those "hard skills" that are so often taught. Rather, they are:



Five Keys to Successful Student Retention in the Online Environment by Dr. Tony Lyons and Dr. Natalie Walker of Colorado Technical Institute

This was one of the best sessions I attended. They broke their strategy up into five facets:
  • Engaging Faculty: Emotional intelligence, Reaching out to failing students, High levels of student "touch" points

  • Electrifying Technologies: Adaptive Technology (CCKF Adaptive Learning, McGraw Hill, Pearson, etc), mobile aps, mobile ready, faculty/student texting

  • Innovative Curriculum and Learning Strategies

  • Just-In-Time Student "touch": Coach students up and use in-class surveys to identify students needs during the semester rather than waiting until the end.

  • Informative Metrics: Early alerts. This was a big one for me. Blackboard has some of these capabilities already built in. I simply have not mastered them...yet. I am very proficient when it comes to technology in general and really, pretty much so with Blackboard specifically. This is just not an area that I have place much emphases on just yet. Looks like it is time to do so.
Another point that I thought was interesting was the suggestion of scheduling early courses with the very best, most personable, engaging faculty to help attract and engage students. Schedule the tougher professors for more advanced courses where students will have much more invested in their programs and thus, will be more motivated to perform, despite the difficulties of the content in advanced classes.

From Information to Immesion: Bringing the MBA to Life in the Recruiting Process by Dr. Wieser, Fittipalli, and Thomas

Use a blog to incorporate success stories about faculty and students. Include stories about why students pursue their degree, graduate life, career development, capstone experiences, as well as faculty topics. Promote these through your social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Get students involved in order to do and create content. For me personally, I am think graduate assistant, student assistant, intern, etc to help me do this.

Allow students to "sample" classes. They allow prospective students to attend a class or two and actually participate during group activities. They:
  1. Advertise the sampel classes and require that prospects register so the know who, when, and where they will have prospects in their class(es)
  2. They follow up sample class with emails and/or phone calls.
  3. They offer 2-4 sample classes per semester
80% of those who attend a sample class end up enrolling in their program. Consider creating a sampel Blackboard shell for prospective students.










That was about it. On the whole it was not bad. It was pretty spotty. Some sessions really were not that great while others were spot on, well done, and relevant. Perhaps most important was not so much this specific conference but rather, the spirit of self-reflection with an eye on continuous improvement. That was a clear message here and one that I took to heart.

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