A Letter from Dr. Karen Riley

Good morning Regis, 

As you know, I typically begin these letters with a light-hearted statement about the weather or recent events on campus.  Today’s edition, however, begins with recognizing the citizens of a country that is currently being invaded.  Today our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Ukraine. What we have witnessed during the past couple of weeks is truly unfathomable. I ask that we as members of the global academic community hold a special place in our hearts for the universities, faculty, staff and students who can no longer engage in the activities that we find so important and rewarding.  Thoughts of learning, research, creative expression have been replaced with fear and quests for safety.   We stand with the people of Ukraine and will continue to look for ways to support them and will share these opportunities with all of you.

Thank you to those of you who have already volunteered your time to help with our strategic planning process. I was recently reading an article in the Chronicle about the impact of the Great Resignation and its impact on faculty and staff.  The article noted real issues of fatigue and predictable disengagement, contrasted by the fact that now more than ever we need staff, students and faculty to ask hard questions, to challenge the status quo, to pushback on policies and practices that have been ineffective and to move forward with a shared sense of purpose, advancing collaborative and critical goals.  We have an opportunity to shape the future of the university through this strategic planning process and it will require all of us to both listen and share openly, to act and to pause deliberatively, to grow and let go of things that we can no longer maintain.  These tensions are typical in times of transition and will require intentional collegiality and care for one another and I look forward to engaging in this process in this manner with all of you.

Finally, we are continuing our Student Thriving initiatives.  A book that I read recently entitled Recruiting and Retaining Students in a Challenging Market used a case study model to share effective practices in supporting students.  I found the format intriguing and many of the ideas very simple and yet powerful.  As such I thought we would hold a space in the Digest for us to share effective practices.  These can be things that you have used in your engagement with students, something that you have read, or something that you have learned from another institution.  Please send things to provost@regis.edu and we will share as space allows here in the Digest. I found the below excerpt particularly moving and it reminded me of interactions that I had witnessed on several occasions across Regis. Life can be challenging  and sometimes it is a small gesture that makes a big impact.  

“Some [Universities] are turning to coaching programs that teach faculty and staff members how to make students feel more connected to their campuses and less intimidated by the bureaucracy they might encounter. The Caring Campus Initiative is one such effort. Run by the Institute for Evidence-Based Change (IEBC), a nonprofit focused on student success, it provides coaching to faculty and staff members at 66 community colleges. Faculty are encouraged to interact with students by name, meet them one on one early in the term, create easy-to-understand course structures, and monitor students closely. When colleges develop retention efforts, they tend to focus heavily on the interactions between professors and students, but nonacademic staff members in offices such as financial aid, student enrollment, and public safety can play key roles in helping students feel cared for. The Caring Campus Initiative “is a collegewide effort,” says Brad C. Phillips, president and chief executive officer of IEBC. “When there’s a retention specialist or department, everyone thinks it isn’t their problem because someone else is assigned to it.” One behavior the program encourages is that whenever [faculty] and staff members are within 10 feet of a student, they smile, greet the student, and ask if there’s anything they can help with. Ron Kluth, a locksmith at Riverside City College, says that after attending a training session, he decided to step in when he saw a student crying in frustration because she couldn’t get a parking meter to work. When she told him she was panicked about being late for her final exam, Kluth helped her get her sticker and then drove her across campus to the exam site. “To this day, as I go about campus, if I see someone who looks like they’re turned around, I stop and ask if they need help,” Kluth says. The program helped him realize, he says, that “even though I’m just part of the maintenance department, I’m there for the students and not just to do my job.” The program also encourages employees to take a warm, personal approach when referring a student to another department. Rather than just passing along a phone number, staff members are instructed to also call the receiving office, make the connection on the student’s behalf, and ask the office to contact the student. That helps prevent students from being bounced from office to office.” 

Thank you for everything. I continue to value your companionship on this journey and your partnership as we move forward.

Karen