In this episode, ASCEND Podcast co-hosts Eric Kirby and Jared Tippets wrap up Season 1 and talk about themes and takeaways from the first season ..read more

For years we have lost students after a semester or two because they said that our campus, or living in our community, was not what they expected. It was either too large for them and they felt overwhelmed, or it was too small and they would rather live in a bigger city. We found this issue to be particularly prevalent among our international and out-of-state students who may not have been able to visit campus as part of their application process. To combat this issue, we created a bunch of short videos to introduce students to life on our campus and in our community; these work to dispel myt ..read more

In addition to helping shift the culture on campus in the eyes of our staff and faculty, we also found it important to shift the campus culture in the eyes of the students. Students need to know we care about them and their success. Students need to feel needed, appreciated, and wanted. Students need to feel at home on our campuses. One of the things we have done on our campus to improve student perceptions of our campus was to do a complete facelift and rebranding within our student center. We moved student-facing and student services offices (e.g. Multicultural Center, International Student ..read more

In this episode, Dr. Jared Tippets and Dr. Eric Kirby talk about the importance of creating a culture of accountability ..read more

Happy holidays from Jared and Eric.  Thanks for your support of the ASCEND Podcast.  We're going to take a break for a few weeks and then we'll be back with another episode on January 14 ..read more

Students often get the runaround, being bounced from office to office and center to center until they find what they actually need. To stop this nightmare, we created a one-stop shop on campus to better serve our students. This center (The Nest) does not have representatives from all the offices housed within. Instead, it is staffed by peer mentors who know campus inside and out. These peer mentors know where to take students to get the help they need and which offices provide specific information and assistance. Now students know they just have to visit one office to get the information and h ..read more

Dr. Steven Girardot from Georgia Institute of Technology joins co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby to share his deep knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! Dr. Steven P. Girardot is the vice provost for undergraduate education at Georgia Tech and has over twenty years of higher education experience and is a proud Tech alumnus, having earned both a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and an M.S. in Chemistry from Georgia Tech. He completed his doctorate in Chemistry at Emory University and a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in E ..read more

A key to creating a campus culture around student success, retention, and completion is making sure that everyone knows these are priorities for campus. From experience we have learned that organizations fund those things they value most. Therefore, it is important that we also measure those things we want to fund.  Within higher education, faculty know why they exist. However, student affairs units do not always know why they exist or in many cases have forgotten why they exist on campus. Far too many student affairs units believe their purpose on campus is to house students, plan fun e ..read more

Dr. Jim Spain from the University of Missouri-Columbia joins co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby to share his deep knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! Dr. Jim Spain earned a BS in Animal Sciences from North Carolina State University and completed his Master of Science and Doctorate in Dairy Science with an emphasis in dairy cattle nutrition at Virginia Tech.  He joined the University of Missouri as an Extension Dairy Specialist in 1990. He has given 300+ invited talks on dairy cattle nutrition/management (MO, 35 stat ..read more

For this expert session co-hosts Jared Tippets and Eric Kirby sat down with leaders from National University to capture their knowledge, wisdom, and insights on how campuses can increase their retention and student success efforts! In this episode you'll hear from Dr. Mark Milliron (President & CEO), Dr. Angela Baldasare (Deputy Chief of Staff and VP for Strategic Institutional Research & Planning), and Sarah Ball (AVP, Learner Experience ..read more