Newswise — One university president has been known to yodel in the campus coffeehouse. Another wrote a three-page email to students " on a Keats ode.
Finding creative ways to connect with their student bodies is becoming a priority for some university and college presidents, partly as a means of boosting student retention, a key success measure in the college rankings game.
Enrollment management consultant Jim Black of the University of North Carolina at Greensborough says getting the CEO personally involved in retention efforts is crucial, showing faculty and administrators that an institution is doing more than paying lip service to its retention program, a common problem.
Some examples of presidents who go the extra mile:--University of Vermont president Daniel Mark Fogel, a literary scholar who founded the Henry James Review, is teaching a four-credit course on modernist poetry this fall. Fogel recently spent a Sunday writing a three-page email to his class on Keats' Ode to a Nightingale.--The president of Schreiner University in Kerrville, Tex., Tim Summerlin, teaches a freshman seminar class each fall, participates in the Student Senate's town hall meetings, and greets students and parents each new year by yodeling, Jimmie Rodgers style, in the campus coffeehouse. --Hobart and Smith president Mark Gearan, former communications director in the Clinton White House, is team-teaching a course on presidential elections.--President Lu Hardin of the University of Central Arkansas teaches a poli sci class and occasionally fills in as the school's men's and women's golf coach.
"I'm getting to know these students in a much deeper and richer way than the traditional coffee-with-the-president sessions," said Fogel of his stint as an English professor, a role he played for many years at Louisiana State University before coming to Vermont. "I hope that's of benefit to them; I know it's of benefit to me."
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