What Lucky Charms Can Teach You About Higher Ed Policy
If the easy solution is a quiet departure from the thing that made your institution worth attending in the first place, you need to understand reality. And the tricky part is that the easy choice might be easy to rationalize. It’s just a unicorn! They’re magical, and magic is kind of like luck, right? Who will even notice? It's just removing the thesis requirement because it scares off potential students. It's not even that important.
When Your Favorite Airline Stops Feeling Like Itself: A Lesson in Mission Drift for Higher Ed
I still fly Southwest occasionally. Old habits. But I'd be lying if I said the experience feels the same. And that's the thing about trust; it's much easier to lose than to rebuild. Once a loyal stakeholder starts wondering whether an institution was really built for them, winning that confidence back costs far more than it would have taken to keep it in the first place.
Dust Off Your Documentation: A Spring Cleaning Guide
Reactive maintenance is how you end up with an academic catalog that references a dean who left two years ago and a student handbook that contradicts your syllabus. A little proactive attention goes a long way, and late winter (which, again, we’re rebranding as Early Spring) is a great time to do it before the end-of-semester chaos kicks in and everyone's bandwidth evaporates.
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.
State Authorization in Higher Ed: Strategy Over Stress
Ask any institutional leader about their least favorite compliance task, and there’s a good chance “state authorization” will come up. Much like “root canal” or “surprise tax audit”, “state authorization” is one of those phrases that inspires dread, confusion, and the unshakeable feeling that you’ve forgotten something. But what if we told you it doesn’t have to be that way? With the right mindset, state authorization can shift from a stress-inducing obligation to a strategic advantage.
8 Things No One Tells You About Accreditation (But We Will)
Whether you’re a seasoned administrator or someone who got voluntold to help with the self-study, understanding how accreditation actually works and what it really means for your institution is crucial. And while there’s no shortage of formal definitions and policy handbooks out there, there’s a lot that tends to go unsaid. That’s where we come in. Today, we're sharing 8 things no one tells you about accreditation (but we absolutely will).