2020 Academic Leadership Academy

Campus Project Abstracts

Asbury University, WKCTC, and SKCTC Kim Brockman, Kate Senn, and Sherry Youngquist

BCTC, Greg Feeney, Campus Liaison Michelle Carter, Aaron Gay, and Bruce Manley

Underrepresented Minorities in a Time of Crisis: Underrepresented Minorities (URM) in a time of crisis. This will include how a lack of access to internet connectivity, childcare, basic resources, and etc. could impact retention, passing grades, and even educational morale of URM students. The project will not only focus on the effect that a crisis like COVID-19 can have on student success, but our group will also brainstorm ways and methods to assist students during a crisis. This type of analysis cannot only be used and implemented immediately, but it can also prepare us and BCTC as a whole for future crises.

Berea College, Scott Steele, Campus Liaison Wendy R. Williams

The Power of Education to Disrupt Scarcity Among Low-income College Students: While education is known to create mobility in pay and job quality, college education also results in greater health and opportunities. Low-income students particularly benefit from education, yet only a small amount attend college, and many college students still struggle to meet their basic needs. The current research focused on how colleges can act as an intervention in low-income students' experiences of housing, food, and healthcare scarcity.

Centre College: Marcia R. Crowe, Campus Liaison Katherine Andrews and Beth Morgan

Gathering Student Input to Develop Learning Commons: Centre College is launching an integrated “Learning Commons” (CLC), which seeks to maximize the academic success and personal growth of all students through collaborative relationships among the College’s academic programs and support services. Katherine Andrews and Beth Morgan worked to augment the strategic planning of the CLC by gathering our students’ perceptions of need, through development and dissemination of a student survey regarding the spaces and services that students felt were important for their academic growth. Survey results were analyzed and conveyed to the director and design team, in concert with a re-design of the library facilities, to inform planning of programs and resources.

Eastern Kentucky University, Gill Hunter, Campus Liaison
John Brent, James Kirby Easterling, Jaime Henning, Dana Howell, Stephen Richter

Engaging Students in their Major or Discipline Post-COVID: This project sought to better understand how departments and programs across campus plan to engage students in their major or discipline, given the current online and modified on-campus environment. Engagement was defined for this survey as ways to create community and a sense of belonging among students as it relates to membership in student organizations, and ways to recruit and retain students into the organization. Data was gathered using surveys, and resources for engaging students will be distributed to campus stakeholders.

Georgetown University, John Davis, Campus Liaison Hanna Kroskie

Efforts to Improve Philanthropic Engagement with Young Alumni: Currently, Georgetown College struggles to build a philanthropic relationship towards the college within the young alumni community. This community includes graduates from the last decade. Georgetown College’s project explores the barrier of philanthropic giving in young alumni and implements a philanthropy program that begins when students are freshmen and continues through ten years post-graduation. Facilitation of this program will occur through the Development Office and in consultation with the college’s Alumni Board.

Kentucky State University, Sonia Sanders, Campus Liaison

Elise Borne, Pernella Deams, Wendy Dixie, Tymon Graham, Lauren Graves, Erica Gray, James Harris, and Jamie Tutt

First Year Experience:

Midway University, Carrie Christensen, Campus Liaison Jeffery Summers and Erin Teves

A Day In The Life: Midway University strategic plan has provided us with a unique opportunity to explore a Day in the Life of managing information and how this effects all departments across campus. We want to do a project on cross training and setting up standard operating procedure documentation within departments. We feel this is important to maintain business processes and continuity especially during a time like COVID.

Morehead State University, Sherif Rashad, Campus Liaison

Julia Finch, Jeanine Justice, Chris Schroeder, Bo Shi

A Better Stronger Community – A Collegial Campus: As stated in the title, the proposed project aims at strengthening:

• ·  Cross-disciplinary cooperation on campus

• ·  Synergy between academia and the community where the university serves

  The ultimate goal is to have students and faculty members with different specialties work together and help to resolve current issues in the community that MSU serves. Retrospectively, the community offers the platform where students and faculty members may implement innovative ideas practically. Existing issues in the community are considered every year and the one which is deemed to be most pressing and feasible for a solution will be the theme of an annual or biennial symposium.

  Students across disciplines may team up to propose possible resolutions and compete for the best proposal as voted on by faculty members. A

  fellowship may be designated to finance the implementation of the winning proposal.

  Murray State University, Robin Zhang, Campus Liaison Teresa Clark, Amelia Dodd, Kristie Guffey, Ashley Ireland, Robin Zhang Collaborators: Jennifer Cline, Charley Allen-Dunn, Jeremy McKeel

  Resilient Racers: We will publish a web site dedicated to Murray State University faculty, staff, students, alumni, and groups of individuals, who have exhibited the Racer spirit during the pandemic. The web site will include stories of outstanding and creative service to others that exemplify the values of the three stars on our Murray State shield: hope, endeavor and achievement. The stories will be accompanied by photos and videos. Call for nominations has been distributed and nominations are due Sep 15. We will select nominees, put together the stories and publish them by early November.

  Northern Kentucky University, Ande Durojaiye, Campus Liaison

  Michael Hatton, Jennifer Kinsley, Jaclyn Perrmann-Graham, Frank Robinson, Ryan Salzman, Kara Thompson

  Alumni Engagement: Best Practices: Alumni Engagement is of ever increasing importance in the current higher education environment. While there is a heavy focus on how to engage alumni and retain engagement over longer periods of time, consensus lacks on the most effective best practices. Our project is targeted at identifying alumni engagement practices throughout campus at Northern Kentucky University. We will be providing colleges/departments with a tangible tool that can be utilized to help strengthen and improve alumni practices on a micro and macro level.

A student organization may serve as the liaison communicating

with the community which will be served.

University of the Cumberlands, Daniel Kanyam, Campus Liaison Daniel Kanyam and Sarah Adkins

Proposal for a Master of Science in Finance program: Despite the increasing sophistication of financial products and complex financial choices confronting the world today, financial literacy among Americans has been dropping over the years. According to a study from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Investor Education Foundation (FINRA Foundation), Americans’ financial literacy rate has decreased from 42% to 34% between 2009 and 2018. The study also found that “the key indicators of financial capability are no longer improving in step with the economy.” (FINRA, 2019). In light of the above, the University of the Cumberlands (UC) seeks to initiate a Master of Science in Finance program. The proposed Master of Science program in Finance presents a unique opportunity for the University of the Cumberlands to provide leadership on this critical issue by weaving financial literacy programs into the fabric of their campus communities to facilitate the integration of a new generation of informed citizens into the American economy.

University of Kentucky, Chana Akins, Campus Liaison

Debra A. Bourne, L. Sebastian Bryson, Susan Cantrell, Sylvie Garneau-Tsodikova, Ahmad Kutkut, Chris Matocha, Rebekah Radtke, and Chris Sass

Western Kentucky University, Rob Hale, Campus Liaison

Fred DeGraves, Patricia Desrosiers, Richard Dressler, Holli Drummond, and Kevin Williams

New Administrator Handbook for Western Kentucky University: Our team is assembling a reference handbook for new Department Chairs/Department Heads/Directors at Western Kentucky University that will include basic information about curriculum matters, budgeting, philanthropy and alumni relations, grants and contracts, and other key areas of interest to those who are new to administrative roles. The goal is to create a relatively brief document that outlines key information and provides hyperlinks to official websites with more detailed information available.