Current Campus Context: Who Defines Student Success? Power & Policy in Higher Ed

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Who gets to define student success right now? In this episode, we unpack how recent federal actions, state policy proposals, and accountability trends are reshaping higher education. From accreditation and DEI to academic freedom and ROI, we explore how power is shifting—and what student affairs professionals need to understand in this moment.

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Here’s the Story: “Failing at the Finish Line”

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In this episode of Here’s the Story, Jonathan Manz shares a defining moment that challenged his sense of direction and purpose. Through an honest and thoughtful conversation, this episode explores how refusing failure can quietly reshape who we are becoming.

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The Interim Leader’s Playbook

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Interim leadership can be complex for the individual and institution. In this discussion, you'll hear a variety of perspectives on interim roles from different personal, professional, and institutional perspectives. You'll gain a recommendations for leaders and institutions considering interim roles to navigate them as effectively as possible.

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Designing the Environment

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Although plenty of evidence is out there about the impact of the environment on learning, community, belonging, and well-being, designing spaces is often an afterthought. These leaders think about this regularly from very different perspectives. Join this conversation rich with perspectives, new ideas, and great insights.

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Turning Assessment into Meaningful Change

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Turning assessment into meaningful change requires more than collecting data—it requires a plan for action. In this episode of Student Affairs Now, we talk with the authors of Maximizing the Impact of Assessment in Higher Education: Closing the Loop with Change Management about how to move beyond reports and compliance toward sustainable improvement. Together, we explore practical strategies for leading change, building cultures of learning, and using assessment as a lever for equity and student success. Whether you’re leading from the middle or shaping institutional strategy, this conversation offers tools to help close the loop with purpose.

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Current Campus Context: Campus Voting Data, Federal Funding & Loan Caps

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From scrutiny of student voting data and new SAVE Act proposals to proposed graduate loan caps, higher education may be breathing a slight sigh of relief as congressional appropriations rejected the administration’s deepest cuts. Yet this moment of funding stability comes alongside tighter regulation and expanding federal scrutiny. What happens when civic engagement feels politically charged and access to graduate education becomes more constrained? In conversation with Dr. Felecia Commodore and Dr. Crystal Garcia, we explore what these developments signal about institutional autonomy, belonging, and the posture higher education is adopting in 2026.

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Here’s the Story: “Reflecting on the Pictures on the Wall”

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In this episode, a retired housing director reflects on a career spent shaping residential communities—and the people who led them. She speaks candidly about encouraging resident assistants to stay in the field, even as the role has grown more complex, more visible, and more demanding than when she first started. Rather than offering nostalgia, she offers perspective. She acknowledges the challenges today’s professionals face while affirming that the work still matters—and that the field still needs people willing to lead with empathy and steadiness.

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Cultivating Equitable & Inclusive Conversations in Higher Education

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Contributors to the book, Cultivating Equitable and Inclusive Conversations in Higher Education, discuss why inclusion is central to the success of students, institutions, higher education, and society, and how we can do so well at all levels, from the organizational to the individual. They focus on contribution, conversation, holistic perspectives, thriving, sacredness, and habits of mind as we move forward.

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Here’s the Story: “Belonging”

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This episode features a vice president for student affairs who came of age under legal segregation and invites us into a reflective journey shaped by classrooms divided by law, doors opened—or closed—by race, and a quiet resilience that learned how to endure, adapt, and lead. She carries those early lessons forward into the present moment, where the vocabulary has shifted and the statutes look different, but the terrain is still familiar. The names have changed. The debates sound new. Yet the enduring questions remain: who belongs?

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The Hottest Seat on Campus: A Roadmap for Mastering Leadership in College Admissions

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Dr. Angel Pérez’s The Hottest Seat on Campus is both a leadership manual and a call to action for higher education professionals navigating the volatile worlds of admissions and enrollment. In this conversation, we discuss the challenges and pressure as well as the rewards and joys of this role. He focuses on leadership capacities in politics, crisis, storytelling, and self-management, applicable to admissions leadership and beyond.

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