When Susan Stuebner became president of Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire in 2016, she faced a $4 million operating loss and a projected $2.6 million deficit for the following year. Stuebner made significant changes: She cut five majors, laid off employees and, in one of her first moves, initiated financial training for the board of […]

While direct mail and phone remain strong methods of courting donors, advancement offices face the reality that younger alumni may not even have a landline or use a checkbook. More than 1 in 5 online donations were made on a mobile device in 2017, according to research from the Blackbaud Institute for Philanthropic Impact. In […]

Governors State University in Illinois opened in the 1970s as one of a handful of two-year “upper division” schools for students finishing their degrees. It quickly proved unsustainable as far as attracting students and providing a complete education experience. In Leading Academic Change: Vision, Strategy, Transformation (2018, Stylus Publishers), the university’s president, Elaine Maimon, discusses […]

Every semester, hundreds of freshmen at Champlain College in Vermont gather in a campus meeting room to play the "Game of Life." It's not the traditional board game. Instead, this event simulates financial decisions students will make after graduation. Each student is assigned a salary based on their major and then turned loose in a […]