The workshop will be led by Nancy Hoffman, Senior Advisor at Jobs for the Future, Donna Hunt, Program Coordinator of the Mandel Foundation Humanities to Career Pilot at Lorain County Community College (OH), Molly Phelps, Director of the Humanities to Career Program at Bunker Hill Community College (PA), and Nicole Evans, Mandel Grant Program Director at Northern Virginia Community College.

The Mandel Foundation-funded Humanities to Career pilot project is grounded in the belief that a humanities education is an asset in preparation for a wide variety of professional careers, but that power is only unleashed when campus leaders and faculty commit to integrating career preparation into humanities studies. This workshop explains strategies the Mandel leaders have put in place to help humanities faculty understand the labor market and prepare them to take the lead in designing microcredentials and badges that address durable or professional skills that employers seek. The workshop also addresses the wide range of work-based learning opportunities that suit humanities students.  The workshop will also explore making pathways connections for two-year Humanities/Liberal Arts graduates to four-year HLA programs.  The workshop is intended for cross-campus teams of at least 2 people.

Registration Deadline: Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Learn more and register.

To advance equitable postsecondary outcomes, higher education institutions must adopt intentional strategies that address the unique barriers adult learners face. These learners, particularly those from low-income communities, often navigate complex life circumstances, including financial constraints, family responsibilities, and limited access to clear, actionable information about college pathways. AIR’s research demonstrates that adult learners’ decisions to (re)enroll are not made in isolation. Family, community, and workplace networks play an important role in shaping their choices, as do institutional signals that adult learners belong in college and can make education work with their lives. Institutional practices that align with the realities of learners’ lives, recognize prior learning, and provide targeted supports, such as tailored advising and financial aid navigation, are a key part of better supporting adult learners and advancing equitable outcomes.

Learn more and register by November 14.

Register here for this webinar.  There is no fee for individuals at Yes We Must Coalition member schools; there is a $35 per individual fee for non-member attendees.  All are invited to attend!

Date and Time: October 23, 2:00–3:30 PM

Tom Mortenson has been a student of higher education finance, generally, and college affordability, in particular, for more than 50 years.  His career includes employment at the University of Minnesota, Illinois Board of Higher Education, Illinois State Scholarship Commission, and ACT.  For more than 25 years he has been a senior scholar at The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. His work has exposed and challenged public policy choices that have produced the sharp decline in opportunity for higher education, and these data were a powerful motivation for the founding of the Yes We Must Coalition in 2012.

Date and Time: October 28, 2021, 12:30-1:30 PM

Register.

As a group of four member schools (Coker University, Ferrum College, Mercy College, and Saint Elizabeth University) in collaboration with Yes We Must approach the fifth year of a multi-million dollar NSF STEM grant — Institutional Collaboration to Recruit, Retain, and Graduate Low-Income Students in Biology (STEM Scholars in Biology [SSB]) (NSF 1742366) – we want to share valuable lessons alongside best practices with all Yes We Must members and Friends.

On Thursday, September 23, and Thursday, November 4, from 4:00 – 5:30 pm ET the Principal Investigators for the grant will describe the success, as well as challenges, of developing and implementing independently the same set of interventions and shared activities, a collaborative endeavor that has made community-building – internally and across institutions — a central outcome and affected notable increases in student retention, academic performance, and students’ sense of belonging.

The September 23 meeting will describe this work and the November 4 meeting will offer the opportunity to explore how this grant may have application to other campuses and grant proposals and be responsive to specific areas of interest requested by the September 23 participants.

Please SAVE THESE DATES and REGISTER NOW for the September 23 gathering in Zoom.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Our discussion will be led by colleagues at member-school College Unbound, whose mission is in part to serve students who face the barriers of current or previous incarceration which gives them particular insight.  This conversation is open to all administrators, faculty, and staff at your school or organization who have interest in advancing justice.

Register here. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

After using data for the past 30 years to argue for the need to double the Pell grant, Tom’s current analysis suggests that will not be enough. Join us for a look at the data and for discussion about Beyond Doubling Pell.

Date and Time: April 15, 2021, 02:00 PM

Register here.

Topic: Professionalizing Student On-Campus Employment Experiences
Date: Monday, March 23, 2020
Time: 4:00-5:00 pm ET
To Register go to: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8n4OneebRcaFFBMwhrsc1g

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Date and Time: February 28, 2020, 1 PM

Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4Wb_fHQTR6aqDMmw8vD0tQ

Date:  Friday, January 31, 2020

Time:  1-2:30 pm

Description:  We live in a world of increasing trauma, whether created by nature (fires, floods, earthquakes) or by individuals (shootings, suicides, family dysfunction, addictions).  We carry our trauma with us and many students in college, arguably one in two, has experienced trauma in their lives and will display trauma symptomology moving forward.  Trauma symptomology affects learning outcomes as well as psycho-social and physical well-being. Colleges and their faculty/staff would benefit from becoming trauma responsive on the micro and macro levels, enabling improved retention, academic progression and graduation rates. This webinar will provide at least 10 concrete strategies that colleges and those who work within them can deploy, all grounded in theory, to provide a more trauma responsive environment for their students (regardless of their age and stage).  There will be hands on activities that webinar participants can try during the webinar as well as opportunities for questions and discussion.

Presenter: Karen Gross, a former college president, is currently an author and educator specializing in trauma. Her forthcoming book, Trauma Does Not Stop at the School Door, will be released in June 2020.

Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_wAazeGLKRxaGgphxtvmMBQ

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

When: Sept. 27, 2019, 01:00 PM

To register in advance for this webinar, click here.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

To register in advance for this webinar.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

We know that data should drive decision-making regarding the success of our low-income students, but we also know that not all of the individual schools in our Coalition have the resources to efficiently collect, analyze and apply the information available in ways most likely to promote student success. To address that issue, 19 members of the YWM Coalition have collaborated to design, execute and analyze data using a longitudinal design focusing on key variables known to be associated with student persistence and retention. The resulting data are allowing us to make comparisons across and within institutions.

This webinar is the fourth in a series that showcases the practices of those institutions that had comparatively strong outcomes with regard to particular sub populations of students. Presenters from Coker College (SC), Muskingum University (OH), and Trocaire College (NY) will describe the strategies they feel have led to the comparatively high levels of persistence and retention of  transfer students who entered their institutions in 2015 and 2016.

To register in advance for this webinar go to: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xnc5qRRQT3Cp39lk39v9zA

fter registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

We know that data should drive decision-making regarding the success of our low-income students, but we also know that not all of the individual schools in our Coalition have the resources to efficiently collect, analyze and apply the information available in ways most likely to promote student success. To address that issue, 19 members of the YWM Coalition have collaborated to design, execute and analyze data using a longitudinal design focusing on key variables known to be associated with student persistence and retention. The resulting data are allowing us to make comparisons across and within institutions.

This webinar is the third in a series that showcases the practices of those institutions that had comparatively strong outcomes with regard to particular sub populations of students. Presenters from Keuka College (NY) and Union College (KY) will describe the strategies that they feel have led to the comparatively high levels of persistence and retention they are achieving with student athletes who entered in 2015 and 2016.

 To register in advance for this webinar.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. Recordings and accompanying slides of past webinars are available on the YWM Website (yeswemustcoalition.org). 

We know that data should drive decision-making regarding the success of our low-income students, but we also know that not all of the individual schools in our Coalition have the resources to efficiently collect, analyze and apply the information available in ways most likely to promote student success. To address that issue, 19 members of the YWM Coalition have collaborated to design, execute and analyze data using a longitudinal design focusing on key variables known to be associated with student persistence and retention. The resulting data are allowing us to make comparisons across and within institutions.

This webinar is the second in a series that showcase the practices of those institutions that had comparatively strong outcomes with regard to particular sub populations of students. Presenters from Heritage University (WA), Robert Morris University (IL), and Union College (KY) will describe the strategies that they feel have led to the comparatively high levels of retention they are achieving with Hispanic men who entered in 2015 and 2016.

Register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/469eb352e2f8a3008c34be5db4a05ad8

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Strategies that Promote Success among First-Year African-American Males
February 15, 2019 at 1:00 PM Eastern Time

We know that data should drive decision making regarding the success of our low-income students, but we also know that not all of the individual schools in our Coalition have the resources to efficiently collect, analyze and apply the information available in ways most likely to promote student success. To address that issue, 19 members of the YWM Coalition have collaborated to design, execute and analyze data using a longitudinal design focusing on key variables known to be associated with student persistence and retention. The resulting data are allowing us to make comparisons across and within institutions.

This webinar is the first in a series that will showcase the practices of those institutions that had comparatively strong outcomes with regard to particular sub populations of students. Presenters from Coker College, Calumet College of St. Joseph, and Mercy College will describe the strategies that they feel have led to the comparatively high levels of retention they are achieving with African-American men who entered in 2015 and 2016, measured as the percentage of students enrolling in the third semester and the number of credits earned.

Register in advance for this webinar through Zoom
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_u8YwaaKRQaiXV6niik5GfA

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

A pilot effort in 2017 involved focus groups conducted at eight Yes We Must Coalition (YWMC) institutions with 55 graduating Pell-eligible students. The results made it clear that students had important insights to offer. Based on these results, the 2018 project was undertaken to develop a larger sample of students drawn from more institutions in order to increase our understanding of commonly experienced challenges and what might be done to make the journeys of low-income students quicker, less costly, and/or less at-risk for interruption and non-completion. We hope the individual and cumulative data from the focus groups will be useful in informing institutional assumptions and policies, including the nature, accessibility and timing of interventions and resources.

Project Overview

The YWMC Student Feedback Project 2018 was launched in the spring of 2017 with a call for volunteer institutions and the identification of focus group facilitators from each of the participating schools. Virtual workshops to review best practices for focus group facilitators were conducted by YWMC staff and enriched by the participation of three experienced facilitators from the pilot program. Recruitment of Pell-eligible seniors began in early 2018 with a goal of developing samples that were representative of the student body at each institution. Focus groups were conducted between February and April, with sessions lasting 60–90 minutes. Participating students received a $25 stipend, generally in the form of credit at the campus bookstore or a gift card for use at a local retail store. Consent forms and student demographic pro les were collected at each session, with each student assigned an identifying number. Sessions were audio-taped, but students identified themselves only by number when speaking so as to retain anonymity. Institutions used commercial services (either Trint.com or Rev.com) to transcribe the tapes, copies of which were sent to Nia Chester, YWMC Program Manager, whose content analysis provides the basis for the results described in this report.

Read the report here: https://yeswemustcoalition.org/site/assets/files/1119/listening_to_students_booklet-web.pdf

https://yeswemustcoalition.org/site/assets/files/1108/high_impact_practices_booklet_2018-web.pdf