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  • Challenge: Student Success, Retention, and Graduationx
  • Tags: Student RecruitmentxStudent Demographicsx

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Conference Presentations,Conference Recordings

Published
June 16, 2025

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Reimagining the Student Experience and Stewarding Campus Resources

Institutions are seeking to improve student experience to support recruitment and retention on campus, but making big impactful moves can be daunting in the midst of overwhelming deferred maintenance needs.
Abstract: Institutions are seeking to improve student experience to support recruitment and retention on campus, but making big impactful moves can be daunting in the midst of overwhelming deferred maintenance needs. Solving for a renewed focus on student wellbeing and resource-strapped environments, we'll share two case studies of transforming the campus experience through strategic investment in capital-constrained environments. This session will outline a path for converting the threats of deferred maintenance numbers into an opportunity to enhance the student experience on campus by providing a tool kit to guide institutions through the planning process.

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$50

Conference Presentations

Published
May 20, 2025

Reimagining the Student Experience and Stewarding Campus Resources

Abstract: Institutions are seeking to improve student experience to support recruitment and retention on campus, but making big impactful moves can be daunting in the midst of overwhelming deferred maintenance needs. Solving for a renewed focus on student wellbeing and resource-strapped environments, we'll share two case studies of transforming the campus experience through strategic investment in capital-constrained environments. This session will outline a path for converting the threats of deferred maintenance numbers into an opportunity to enhance the student experience on campus by providing a tool kit to guide institutions through the planning process.

Member Price:
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Non-Member Price:
$50

Conference Presentations

Published
October 22, 2024

Full STEAM Ahead: Colocating Science, Engineering, and Liberal Arts

Recruitment and retention are increasingly vital as student demographics evolve. New approaches to collaborative planning create keystone spaces on campus that can reinvigorate entire zones and benefit students, faculty, staff, and the bottom line.
Abstract: Recruitment and retention are increasingly vital as student demographics evolve. New approaches to collaborative planning create keystone spaces on campus that can reinvigorate entire zones and benefit students, faculty, staff, and the bottom line. The University of St. Thomas's Schoenecker STEAM Center uniquely combines science and engineering spaces with liberal arts programs and other collaboration space while also enhancing use patterns, gathering points, and campus circulation. We'll share tools and lessons learned to help you navigate the complexities of co-locating disparate functions while accounting for funding capacity and time-of-day use, resulting in efficient, effective spaces that support changing campus demographics.

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Planning for Higher Education Journal

Published
February 14, 2023

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Book Review: The Agile College

How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Changes

From Volume 51 Number 2 | January–March 2023

Abstract: The Agile College: How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Changes
by Nathan D. Grawe
Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore: 2021
298 pages
ISBN: 978-1421440231

Does hope motivate action or complacency? Does crisis induce change or despair? Nathan D. Grawe readily acknowledges this tension in The Agile College, his follow-up book to his 2018 Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education. The latter propelled the inescapable discussion throughout higher education of the looming “demographic cliff.” The Agile College suggests how agile institutions might prevent demography from becoming destiny.

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Planning for Higher Education Journal

Published
December 12, 2022

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Social Mobility and the Graduation Rate Paradox

Can You Advance One and Avoid the Other?

By using a metric-based planning framework, researchers at the University of Texas at El Paso identified areas for institutional intervention to enhance social mobility outcomes.

From Volume 51 Number 1 | October–December 2022

Abstract: Social mobility is an emerging area of focus for higher education institutions. In recent years, we have seen a proliferation of measures related to social mobility produced by publishers, scholars, think tanks, and foundations. However, it is still unclear which social mobility measures to advance, or when to intervene to improve social mobility outcomes. We rely on a century of literature from economics, sociology, and policy analysis to identify an appropriate framework to understand higher education’s contribution to social mobility. Using the metric-based planning framework, we identify areas for institutional intervention to enhance social mobility outcomes.

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Example Plans

Published
February 2, 2022

Example Plan

Private Baccalaureate College (Wisconsin, United States)

This short-duration strategic framework describes goals and very specific action steps to guide the institution through the current, globally tumultuous era.

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Webinar Recordings

Published
April 27, 2021

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The Art and Science of Supporting Adult Learners

Actionable Steps & Strategies

More than ever, nontraditional students and adult learners are making up more and more of the student body at colleges and universities across the country. Learn how to effectively stand out from other institutions who are making mistakes in 10 key areas with the adult learner population.
Abstract: This was a free webinar hosted by CAEL, AASCU, and SCUP.

Students over the age of 25 are the fastest-growing segment in higher education. From 2000 to 2012, the enrollment of students over the age of 25 increased by 35%, and between 2012 and 2019, the share of students over age 25 increased by another 23%.

Even though more adult learners and nontraditional students are enrolling in higher education, many institutional practices do not consider the unique needs of this population. The best adult learner strategies not only increase student satisfaction, they improve enrollment rates and adult degree attainment.

More than ever, nontraditional students and adult learners are making up more and more of the student body at colleges and universities across the country. Institutions can create equitable pathways that can help overcome disparities in adult learning, and better prepare themselves for adult students who have been disconnected from higher education.

Learn how to effectively stand out from other institutions who are making mistakes in 10 key areas with the adult learner population.

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Example Plans

Published
March 5, 2021

Strategic Plan

Private Master’s College or University (Alabama, United States)

The university’s strategic plan details five broad goals with supporting strategies and measures for success. Focus centers on student success and leveraging technology for the 21st-century learning experience.

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Planning for Higher Education Journal

Published
February 9, 2021

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Leveraging Institutional Planning to Benefit Latinx Students

Racially Disaggregated and Actionable Data Improve Community College Transfer Success

How can institutional planners make a difference for underrepresented minority students? Senior administrators at East Los Angeles College addressed inequities in Latinx student transfer rates with data-backed culturally-relevant strategies.

From Volume 49 Number 2 | January–March 2021

Abstract: California Community Colleges, since 2014, have explicitly targeted retention, transfer, and completion outcomes through a mandated planning process supported by newly-allocated fiscal resources. The policy focuses on equity-driven institutional planning that identifies and addresses disparities for specific groups (e.g., Latinx students, foster youths, veterans). This article shares insight from five years of case study research, exploring how senior administrators address Latinx student transfer inequity through new culturally-relevant strategies. Within California, Latinx students comprise the largest share of transfer-aspirants, but they have significantly lower rates of academic success. Key lessons are shared to leverage planning efforts to improve outcomes for underrepresented minority students.

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Trends for Higher Education

Published
March 15, 2016

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