The Coach Behind the Medal: What the Winter Olympics Can Teach Higher Ed About Academic Advising
Behind every Olympic medalist is someone (a coach, a mentor, a scout) who saw something in them before they saw it in themselves. Someone who understood the sport deeply enough to recognize raw potential and knew how to cultivate it into world-class performance. In higher education, we call those people academic advisors. And the quality of that advising can mean the difference between a student who thrives and one who never finds their footing.
Rubrics That Stick the Landing: Lessons from Olympic Scoring
When the inevitable challenge arrives, the meticulous, defensible standards embedded in your rubrics will be the most effective advocates for student achievement, faculty equity, and the integrity of your degrees. A well-designed rubric provides the most effective mechanism for achieving transparency, protecting instructional consistency, and affirming academic standards. Let's break down what that looks like, Olympic style.
It's a Wonderful Life (in Compliance)
You're filing reports, chasing down documentation, explaining state authorization requirements to people who would rather talk about literally anything else, and making sure the institution doesn't accidentally enroll students from states where you're not authorized to operate. It's not glamorous. And on the hard days, it's easy to wonder: Does any of this actually matter? It does. More than you know.
Do You Need a Mock Site Visit? (Yes.)
We want your mock site visit to end in applause (metaphorically—though, hey, if an evaluator does clap, let it happen). A mock visit is your best bet for making that happen. Before the reviewers arrive, give yourself the gift of a dress rehearsal. Find the weak spots while you can still fix them. Discover your star performers before the stakes are real. And walk into your site visit with the kind of confidence that only comes from having already done it once.
Room at the Table: Giving Thanks for Strange Sides
The beauty of Thanksgiving, or any holiday, isn’t in the delicious dishes (the ones that actually make sense), it’s in the people who bring them. Friends. Family. Neighbors. New faces who become familiar ones. When we pull up chairs, set extra plates, and welcome everyone as they are, something incredible happens. We have the chance to engage in richer conversations, even if we don’t always agree.
How Not to Write a Syllabus (and What to Do Instead)
The syllabus isn’t your annual report. It’s not a compliance memo. And it’s definitely not a legal deposition written in passive voice. It’s a guide for your students (actual human beings), many of whom are trying to make sense of a new class, a new semester, and, in some cases, a whole new life direction.