Short-Term Engagements

NCII offers content expertise on specific issues, including guided pathways, student financial stability, career connections, rural student success, and middle leadership development. We can also provide support for:

• Making the case for institutional change
• Sourcing and using labor market data to ensure that redesign efforts lead to students’ post-graduation success
• Centering students’ experiences in design and implementation processes
• Determining the return on investment (ROI) of specific approaches

Short-term engagements can include the following services, which can be provided individually or in combination.

• Campus Presentations. We use keynote sessions, town halls, lunch-and-learn gatherings, and/or panel discussions to engage your campus community on key issues related to student success and economic mobility. Of course, this work begins by helping you identify areas of focus and goals for the presentations.
• Case Making. Through facilitated conversations, powerful research, and sharing stories from our work with other colleges, we help you make the case for the action and improvement your campus needs.
• Practitioner Interviews and/or Focus Groups. Based on our experience with on-site visits for the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence finalists, we conduct a series of interviews and/or focus groups with various campus stakeholders to determine your college’s cultural and organizational readiness for change. We also identify strategic priorities to optimize student experiences and improve outcomes equitably.
• Problem Identification and Action Planning. We help your college identify transformation priorities and make an action plan that is integrated with existing college initiatives.
• Student Experience Mapping. Successful reform efforts depend on putting students’ experiences at the forefront of your planning and design. We help your college view your current systems, structures, policies, and/or practices through a student lens and then identify opportunities to better meet students’ needs.

Short-term engagements may also make use of NCII tools, including: 

• NCII Labor Market Insight Report. Through this report, NCII customizes regional labor market data — such as available jobs and salaries in various fields — to show the connection between the college’s improvement work and students’ post-graduation success. We present findings through a conversation supported by easy-to-understand slides. Our approach makes this important data accessible to a range of campus stakeholders and often leads to ongoing discussions as well as deeper dives into the content.
• Student-Facing NCII Career Exploration Maps. These maps — customized with your region’s data — help students, parents, and the campus community better understand job and family-sustaining wage opportunities in your region. We offer one-page overview maps and two-page detailed maps that look at jobs in Health Care, Advanced Manufacturing, Business Administration, Information Technology, and other career fields.
• NCII Student Financial Stability Institutional Self-Assessment. Colleges typically assemble a cross-functional team to complete this self-assessment of practices related to student financial stability. Colleges then identify specific actions and next steps. Planning and additional follow-up can happen during an NCII college visit.

Short-term engagements involve advance planning, a one- or two-day campus visit, and follow-up work. Depending on the level of customized preparation and follow-up desired by the college, the cost is typically $9,000–$20,000.