The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) is a nonprofit, voluntary, professional association that relies on its membership to provide content, leadership, feedback, and financial support. The association promotes the well-being and advancement of professionals in the higher education community by engaging…

AACRAO Research completed five 60-Second Surveys and four comprehensive reports. Other research-supported work included: supporting the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation credit mobility learning portfolio, partnering with NACUBO to create a joint statement on the use of administrative and student success holds, and supporting WICHE in their work…

Jeff von Munkwitz-Smith retired from Boston University in 2015 where he was Assistant Vice President and University Registrar. He is a Past President of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO), served as Editor-in-Chief of "College and University" from 2014-2020, and is currently a Senior…

This is a conversation with Connie F. Cooke, Director, Financial Aid, State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo State and Sharon F. Cramer, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor, Emerita, SUNY Buffalo State. They started working together twenty years ago when they began to implement a new student information system for the university. The SABRE…

The higher education landscape is changing rapidly, and with nationwide trends of declining enrollment, colleges and universities are faced with the challenging task of understanding what that means for them. In the state of Missouri, two- and four-year institutions have experienced decreases in enrollment, with an overall decrease of 9 percent…

In today's financially strained higher education landscape, the student services infrastructure is often supported by fewer staff, less money, less experience, and less knowledge. Gone are the days when higher education staff professionals acquired the necessary education pieces, apprenticed in positions, and waited patiently for promotions. Most…

The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) examined nine research areas of interest to its members in 2017. Six took the form of 60-Second Surveys; one was a career profile; another examined community college completion initiatives including student attitudes about community college; and one was completed in…

Mentorship is a critical and necessary practice in the journey of a leader. However, there is a dark side of mentorship that includes misaligned expectations and general negative consequences. In higher education, as with any industry, those who have attained leadership roles are not always models to be followed. It is important for mentees and…

Mentoring in higher education takes many forms--faculty to student, student to student, and faculty to faculty (Phillips and Dennison 2015). Usually, we think of programs involving student mentoring as those aimed at student success, and, thus, as improving retention. This article posits that faculty-to-faculty mentoring programs also have an…

Author Randall Langston feels that mentoring should never be viewed as a chore but rather a dynamic and transformational opportunity to impact a student's life. Often, the legacy that some people leave is the professional relationships they have forged with others. In fact, it's not unusual to hear keynote and other conference presentations in…

The author has been blessed with great mentors throughout her career. When she was invited to participate in the Leadership University of Mary Washington (UMW), a mentoring program at her institution, she did not hesitate to say yes. In this article, the author shares her reflections on mentoring.

In this article, the author examines her experiences as a mentee at an academic institution. She has had time to look back at some of what her mentor did in mentoring, and now appreciates how novel and successful some of his approaches were. She shares them in this article because she thinks her experience is evidence that broadening the…

Increasingly, college students struggle to find translatable meaning in their college experiences. Following a program of study and dabbling in a few extra-curricular experiences proves to be enough to graduate, but somehow some students fail to thrive in all areas of well-being once they are at work. If this disconnect is rooted to a lack of…

One of the most common terms in postsecondary education is "mentoring." Nearly all colleges and universities offer some type of mentoring. Sometimes mentoring is focused on certain students, such as at-risk first-year students, student-athletes, or honors program students. A number of institutions provide mentoring for new faculty and…

In higher education, as in many professions, employees new to their positions are advised to seek a mentor--an experienced individual who knows the profession and the academy and is invested in his or her mentee's success. Mentoring has long been recognized as an effective method for enabling new employees to develop the knowledge, skills,…