College students with books smiling to camera over grey wall, having break
Mission and Philosophy

The Departmental Gestalt: Fostering Student Major Identity and Program Pride 

This article first appeared in Academic Leader on September 4, 2020 © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. Like many others in the trenches of academia, we’ve chaired, taught, and advised in a small, understaffed, underfunded, and oversubscribed program. While other understaffed and oversubscribed departments limped along, ours notably thrived, resulting in strong...
Computer and desk on a keyboard
Program and Course Assessment

Reconceptualizing the Peer Review Process for Online Courses 

Over the past two decades, academic deans, directors, and faculty have struggled to develop an effective peer review process for online courses. Most institutional review processes begin and end with the Quality Matters (QM) standard, the most widely accepted quality standard in the field of online education. But while QM...
University building with outside trees
Recruitment, Retention

Effective Strategies for Increasing Undergraduate Student Enrollment 

In a recent Academic Leader article, we outlined the need for colleges and universities to increase their efforts in undergraduate student recruiting in order to remain fiscally secure in an environment where the student pool is shrinking. The top public and private universities and colleges will continue to prosper on account of...