CONFERENCE SESSION SUMMARIES
Continuity in a Crisis: How Liaison Helped Graduate Programs Weather the Challenges of 2020 and Grow Stronger for 2021 Presented by Jillian Baer, Liaison International; Jennifer Chelstrom, Minnesota State University, Mankato; Stacey O’Connor, University of South Dakota; Rick del Rosario, Liaison Reported by Katie Ruetz, Marquette University
The Transition Back to Campus
Supporting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• The transition back to campus is a team effort, with everyone on campus involved in the return to reopen all services for students, faculty, and staff. Many will try to keep some online services available as new processes that work well were developed during the pandemic. Some of these new online processes allowed for additional accessibility for online students and families.
• Due to the pandemic many students experienced hardships. To provide some relief some institutions waived application fees and/or standardized test requirements. They recognized the needs of students and worked to evaluate the equity in application materials to attempt to remain holistic in their review process.
• How do you make this transition work? o Get as many people involved in the process and planning as possible. It is not an easy job, and you need as many people on board as possible.
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Today’s Trends and Tomorrow’s Predictions (deferrals, budget cuts, enrollment trends – how do you do more with less?) • Some institutions encouraged early retirement that provided some budget relief but also resulted in a smaller staff with the same number of responsibilities and expectations.
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P E R S P E C T I V E S
• Institutions continue to rely on their implemented technology (CRM and GradCAS application) to assist in minimizing manual processes. They are also working to reevaluate staff responsibilities if possible, launching new programs, utilizing student employees, etc. • Enrollment related: international student interest has increased due to their presence on GradCAS. Many international students deferred their admission due to the pandemic but hope to return this fall.
Tools of the Trade – What will schools continue to use postpandemic? • I nstitutions believe that many of their tools will remain post-pandemic including GradCAS, Liaison CRM, virtual events, and API tools. n
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