A new report out this week from the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions (CMSI) at the University of Pennsylvania outlines several strategies to improve presidential engagement at minority serving institutions (MSIs).
“Presidential Engagement of Students at Minority Serving Institutions” reports findings that as social media use continues to increase, MSI presidents can be innovative in the ways they serve, support and connect with students, alumni and their campus communities.
“For a long time, there hasn’t necessarily been a push for presidents to be that engaged in the day-to-day interaction with students,” said Dr. Marybeth Gasman, the Judy & Howard Berkowitz Professor of Education and director of CMSI. “The interesting thing about social media is that it makes the world so much smaller. You’re able to have access to people that you were never ever able to have access to before. In many ways, it’s made the world between the president and the students smaller.”
CMSI researchers defined presidential student engagement as “the ways in which college presidents intentionally interact with students to increase opportunities; connectedness to the institution; campus climate; and academic success.”
Using a 10-year timeframe for analysis, researchers mined institutional websites, Google Scholar, Google News and social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for signs of public presidential engagement.
The report did not take into account mandatory presidential engagements required for commencement, homecoming or orientation, for instance, or consider private presidential engagements, such as letters of recommendation or one-on-one meetings with students or student organizations.
Three main ways MSI presidents engaged their students publicly were through photo opportunities, service events and social events, the report found.
