As a special guest at our Student Retention Mini-Con back in April 2021, Dr. Murrell introduced Re-Envisioning Student Engagement as a place to explore the innovations, best practices and discussions energizing the transition to a Post-Pandemic campus.
With this first episode–a much shorter introduction to what would later become more fleshed-out roundtable presentations–Dr. Murrell explored the topic of Disruptive Innovation and how the Pandemic presents a moment of great opportunity for those universities brave enough to seize it.
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Episode 2 came along during national protests to end racial violence for African Americans, outcries following incidents of anti-Asian hate crimes and a rise of hate groups on college campuses.
In response, Dr. Murrell took this opportunity to address Collaborative Learning, inclusivity and how diversity can’t truly thrive without both.
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We didn’t record a video of this presentation but Dr. Murrell included her key takeaways in a post on our blog.
If you tune into the Re-Envisioning Student Engagement series to the end, you’ll see a common theme Audrey comes back to again and again: big data DOES NOT equal good data. Big data practices can often lead to destructive and non-inclusive decision-making that can hinder student success outcomes.
Since this is such a critical topic, Dr. Murrell enlisted a little help in the form of Claye Greene. Claye is the founder and CEO of Tech Blue, a management and IT services consulting firm in Pittsburgh and Washington D.C.
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An often-bemoaned casualty of the COVID pandemic is the threat or outright destruction of global educational experiences. From Study Abroad programs to global affairs education to internship placements, colleges and universities were forced to shut themselves off from the world.
With this disruption came the creation of online learning and virtual internship programs. But these can’t replace global education on their own. And while the return of global education will likely come, the question remains: what should global education look like on a post-pandemic campus?
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This episode, Dr. Murrell welcomed Dr. Amelia J. Dietrich. Amelia is Director for Research and Resources at The Forum on Education Abroad & Managing Editor at Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad.
The partnership between colleges and employers has long been seen as a win-win. Educational institutions can offer students an education that makes them as employable as possible in the current market. And employers leverage this early exposure as a way to bolster their talent pipelines.
The COVID Pandemic disrupted the nature of the workplace and re-ordered priorities on career placement, career readiness competency and more. To better understand these disruptions, there’s never been a better time to invest in employer relationships and commit to career readiness throughout the student experience.
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This episode, Dr. Murrell welcomed Chris Meaner, Director Of Career Development at the University of Pittsburgh College of Business Administration.
Because Episode 5’s topic and guest were so popular, we decided to stay on the topic of external network engagement to focus on another powerful tool in fostering student success: Alumni Engagement.
Research shows that students who connect with alumni for recruitment, early socialization, mentoring, career advice and long-term networking have a stronger connection to their college or university and report greater long-term satisfaction with their educational experience. This is especially true for undergraduate minority and first-generation students.
So how can your school get started building and supporting the types of Alumni relationships most impactful on student success?
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In this episode, Dr. Murrell welcomed back Chris Meaner, Director Of Career Development at the University of Pittsburgh College of Business Administration and added Pitt Business Director of Alumni Relations Amy McCloskey.
While we all know that mentoring matters, it can be easy to overlook it. The right mentor can fuel student engagement, provide career clarity, nurture individual identity and promote overall well-being.
This episode unpacked the different types of mentorship, the research on how mentoring correlates to student success, ways to find the right mentor and best practices for mentorship.
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The importance of cultural competence and inclusion is an essential part of any diversity and equity effort.
This episode focused on the role of experiential learning approaches in developing cultural competence among students, faculty and staff.
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On college campuses and amongst students, representation includes a strong pipeline of women and female-identifying leaders.
Dr. Murrell was joined by Crystal McCormick Ware, Chief Diversity Officer and Senior Advisor to the President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Duquense University, for a special Women’s History Month discussion about the opportunities and barriers for developing women in the higher ed space.
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This episode discussed the important role financial literacy plays in student engagement, wellness, and success.
With finances being one of the most common reasons students drop out of college and a top stressor for 18-24-year-old adults, it offered high-impact strategies for helping students take control of their financial literacy.
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Student resilience is directly correlated with positive outcomes, more engagement and the ability to handle challenges.
This timely episode looked at the most effective tools, coping mechanisms and strategies to help students become more resilient in college and in life beyond graduation.
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Dr. Murrell, joined by guest speaker, Dr. Amelia Parnell, Vice President for Research and Policy at NASPA, took a deep dive into the latest trends in co-curricular learning, from developing competency frameworks to scalable co-curricular experiences.
This episode tied together the concepts, strategies and research of the previous 11 episodes, to help administrators make a plan for the future of co-curricular development on their campus.
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