shanda ivory & the best acronym in higher ed

The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) serves more than high school and college counselors who help students and families navigate the admissions process.

Shanda Ivory, NACAC’s director of communications, joins us this week to discuss how the pandemic might permanently change college recruiting. Will the days of college fairs in convention centers with thousands of students ever come back? Is it such a bad thing if they don’t?

We explore those questions and talk about how admissions professionals can strike a balance between not getting stuck and the status quo and not going after every new trend that comes along.

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bill zimmerman & looking on the bright side

Bill Zimmerman, an instructor in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State and host of the Happy Valley Hustle podcast, returns to the show to discuss his experience with a year of remote learning and how he hopes education will look different as schools fully come back in person this fall. He talks about how he managed — or sometimes didn’t manage — Zoom fatigue for his students and for himself and how the time in remote learning might strengthen the desire for in-person connections inside and outside the classroom.

Bill is an eternal optimist, and that sentiment really comes through in this conversation. We also talk about running and how it helps focus our minds that are constantly distracted by our inboxes and social media notifications. 

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#heweb19 & the return of the golden nuggets

What’s better than actually going to the HighEdWeb Conference? Recording an episode with your friends that actually went! At least that’s what Lougan is telling himself this week as he welcomes Jackie and Jon-Stephen back to the show along with new guest Alaina Wiens. We chat about what it’s like running social media for the conference, and the various presentations they gave. We also talk about the “golden nuggets” they are taking back home this year. 

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jason mollica & there are no shelves for lightsabers

Jason Mollica is a professorial lecturer at American University’s School of Communication where he teaches all about social media and social media analytics. Jason is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of experience as a journalist, news producer and PR professional. On the show, Jason talks about his syllabuses (syllabi?) and how they were created, as well as an awesome certification opportunity for his students. Jason and Lougan nerd out about Marvel, Star Wars and sports. Jackie talks about the Bills. Everyone agrees that being happy in your job is the most important thing.

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alex williams & the disappearing silos

ForAlex Williams with reindeer antlers episode 77 we welcome Alex Williams, Senior Program Manager at Technolutions, better recognized as Slate. We chat about the New England states, with the snow on its way. Even though Alex doesn’t work on a campus, he jokes that he’s surrounded by higher education, living a stone’s throw from Yale in New Haven, CT. His passion for enrollment management stems from his involvement in admissions in undergrad, and even though he was working in an unrelated field, he worked to found #EMChat on Twitter – a dedicated chat to breaking down silos in higher education in regards to enrollment management. Alex gives us a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to maintain this weekly chat.

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jon-stephen stansel & the power that’s inside

maxresdefaultEpisode 67 brings back Jon-Stephen Stansel the Social Media Coordinator at Texas State University, and we talk about Pokemon GO, exclusively. We chat about how campuses can use this new app, and how Jackie, Lougan, and Jon-Stephen are doing on their own journeys to be the very best.

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