How to use the new AUDIO EMBED tool on Adobe

SPECIAL, special thanks to Sue and Joan for experimenting with this, to Katherine for agreeing to purchase it, to Colin for arranging it, and to Dame Sue Gordon, STAR of our little "How To" video! The idea is that rather than writing a long email to a student, which might not get read, or could be misunderstood, an audio note is more personal to the student, and 66% faster for you. (Remember the session on Asynchronous Audio Feedback off the SLOAN-C conference site? It's still up there!)

My piece is up on Internshipratings.com!

From one blog to another . . . here's my two cents on "What to do when you leave your internship."

$16 Million for Grad Internships in Ontario

Canada is putting its money where its interns are. The Charlatan reports that "Accellerate Ontario is a graduate research internship program that is designed to build strong connections between industry and research." These unpaid internships offer transportation and research costs at $15,000 each for the four month graduate research internships.

Photo by Eric Wüstenhagen titled, "Superbokehtheorie"

Lies my Applicant Told Me: 50% of Hiring Managers Found Fibs

Your applicant wasn't really a member of the Kennedy clan or a professional basketball player, and those vaguely familiar work samples he submitted . . . were YOURS! Yes, although only 5% of applicants admit to embellishing their credentials, MarketWatch reported that 50% of the hiring managers in a CareerBuilder.com survey have come across lies, untruths, misstatements, and whoppers. (So, that 5% must really be getting around!) Common lies were:

• Embellished responsibilities 38%


• Skill set 18%


• Dates of employment 12%


• Academic degree 10%


• Companies worked for 7%


• Job title 5%

Click here to see the best whoppers.

Photo from AP Photo by Chitose Suzuki of Marilee Jones, former MIT Admissions Dean who resigned after admitting to fabrications on her resume

Green Applicants Far Exceed Green Lobbying Slots

Though "Young lobbyists dream green," this Politico piece summarizes the huge interest students have in environmental advocacy internships, and how there just aren't enough slots to go around! The ratio of internship applicants to slots at Greenpeace was almost 10:1. Students are still willing to work for free, being so passionate about the cause, then organizations can avoid lobbying restrictions. Ben Adley and Erika Lovely wrote:

Young activists say they have several advantages over older lobbyists, including being able to connect with younger Hill staff members.“Members and older staffers are willing to, in the words of a character in ‘Clueless,’ ‘take a chance on an unknown kid,’” said Jennifer Pugh, a Washington lobbyist who leads the Young Leadership Network of the American League of Lobbyists. “You still have to prove that you’re competent, of course. But I find that a lot of folks in Washington remember starting out and are happy to listen to what you have to say and give you a break.

Photo by Matt Redmond

Less Is More: More programming = Lower attendance

This is very counter intuitive, but in looking at the number of events we've had each academic year, and the total attendance we've had at events each year. More events DID NOT equal more outreach. For example, for 2003/4 and 2005/6, our events increased by 34%, but our attendance dropped 21.5%. Last year, we were 58% ahead in terms of number of events from 2004/5, and our attendance was 3% lower.

Why? It could be that too many events send mixed messages to students. They only have so much time and can't decide where to go. Different events compete with each other for students' attention. And it's hard to develop a coherent marketing campaign with so many programs happening all the time.

So we have permission to consolidate, and we have permission to say, "no." When others make requests for a specific program, let's ask what their learning objectives are, and see what the best way to meet those might be. And let's focus on quality, not quantity. Remember, we are most appreciated for our appointments!

Photo by !anaughty!

AU Mentioned in Article on College Greening

In an article today on College Greening, Jura Koncius notes, "Nebraska Hall, American University's first eco-friendly dorm . . . reopened last year after renovations that included non-toxic, low-VOC paint, chemical-free Marmoleum flooring and Energy Star appliances.

(Photo illustration by Mark Finkenstaedt for The Washington Post)

Woe to Wall Street Interns?

This CNBC story begins, "Imagine being a summer intern at a company that was getting slammed by huge losses, laying off hundreds of workers and even subject to rumors about its survival . . ." This doesn't seem to be the best time to be a Wall Street intern, but "neither Merrill Lynch nor Goldman Sachs has considered lowering or eliminating intern pay as a cost-cutting measure . . . the benefit of exposing bright college students to your business significantly outweighs the cost of a first-year salary, off which most Wall Street interns’ pay is based." (Really? Does Merrill Lynch pay their interns? THAT'S news!)

Photo by epicharmus

Need a Career Change? (I hope not!) Advice from Christine Hassler

Truly, I hope none of us is contemplating a change right now. But there was a decent piece in the Huffington Post that you might want to use for graduate students and alumni stuck in a rut while trying to switch careers.

Photo by Dave Gingrich

Happy Hour: 4% Regret singing Karaoke

CareerBuilder's story on Happy Hours is a nice piece and what folks tend to do and what strategies folks can use that can work for them. My favorite was to think of the Happy Hour venue as the "branch office" to help keep behavior in check.

Photo by Les Chatfield

Satellite Radio Merger Approved

Here's the scoop: the official vote will be this Friday, but the last FCC commissioner has announced that she will vote in favor of the XM/Sirius merger. Will consumers lose out? What about our students? Headquarters will be out of New York (hello, NYC Trip?) but operations will be maintained here.

Matt Genebach's Public History Promo!

See what Matt did out of a three hour presentation by this year's batch of Public History graduate internships and practicums. Kudos to Kathy Franz, one of our CC favorite faculty!

Already Gone - Article in Chronicle of Higher Education about professor disenchanted with his students.....

Professor writes about mediocre students and his 'escape' through listening to music.

This is a bit dark...but interesting, nevertheless.

Harvard Economist pays students to go to school

I am watching the CNN series on Black in America. They profile this economist, Roland Fryer, extensively.

Millennials, Web 2.0, on your Summer Reading List

(As if any of us had time left to read this summer,) Politico contributors Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry have a few recommendations that through geared for political junkies, may be of interest to us in terms of our students and our technology. For instance, they write,

“Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube and the Future of American Politics," makes a cogent case that we are on the cusp of a “civic generation” and that this demographic and cultural tide will favor progressive Democrats who offer a new way of solving society’s problems. One of those young activists, Michael Connery, makes the same case in his compelling call to arms, “Youth to Power: How Today’s Young Voters Are Building Tomorrow’s Progressive Majority."

They also push their own book, “Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age,” which has political minds speculating on how our founding fathers may have used a tool like the internet. Best of all, it's available as a free download!

And for any books that aren't free, I highly suggest the search engine, campusi.com!

Photo by André Mouraux

Advice on Advising!

20% is a small but significant number, and this group's perception that we are not personalizing appointments may be due to our own lack of self-promotion. We may want to remember to articulate that we want the appointment to meet their specific, personalized needs.

What we know from "After the Appointment":
* 80% had a positive experience
* 93.5% acted on our advice
* 30% used Optimal Resume to prepare before their appointment
* 20% felt they had a negative experience, mostly due to lack of personalization, redundant information or what they felt were uninformative appointments

Colleague Tips:
* "Wait a minute" on the resume - ask a few questions first to get a sense of the person
* Process
1. Why the student is here (confirm graduation date)
2. Review what the student has done so far (and because they may not really know the tools)
3. Move forward with recommendations
4. ACT (apologies, Minna, I forget what this stands for, but I remember it's basically praise before critiquing)
5. Next steps
6. Write up your notes (so another advisor can be personalized, knowing what you've done!
* Send them to online resources and tools for things that aren't personalized
* When exploring AUCW, really demonstrate the scope of the tool and how students can personalize it for themselves!

What we can also do to promote our personalized approach:
* Set up the appointment, "We have 30/45 minutes, what can I do for you today?"
* End the appointment, "Have I answered all your questions?" and "To move forward . . . " or "I'd like more time with you," if another session is prudent

BLOCKS to a personalized appointment:
* CUBICLES: students are shocked to find such an open environment where they can't be open themselves (and that's when the appointments turn rote)
* Our own automatic spiels
* Lack of knowledge on Federal government which leads to reliance on Travis and Chris H
* Hard to know it all

Other ideas:
* Drive students to OptimalResume BEFORE the appointment! (Web messages? Strengthen email reminder message in this regard?)
* Use laptops when we do drop in advising all over campus so we can demonstrate (not just reference) our site, AUCW, InCircle, etc.
* Remind students to update their profiles - they expect the system to do it for them, and it can't

OMT Presentation: Plate Priorities

Take a look at what OMT has going on. Kudos to the team for an outstanding job or organization and communicating to us what they need to do and when. Feedback and questions to them are welcomed, I'm sure. You should be able to view the slide show right here.

Photo by Just Nora

New Media: Updates on Facebook, XM/Sirius, and GOP

There are two articles today on changes with Facebook. The first in The Washington Post covers complaints on the new design as harder to navigate. The second is from the AP and discusses how the 41/2 year old social networking site will do more to promote applications it thinks are "great" while banning abusive applications.

The Washington Post is also reporting that a merger between XM and Sirius is closer, despite yesterday's report of the second "no" vote. Apparently Deborah Taylor Tate is leaning a little more towards approval. And now the stations have agreed to paying $19.7 million in fines. That should help.

There's also an a piece in Politico on the GOP loosing the new-media war.

Photo of Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg by Brian Solis, http://www.briansolis.com/, bub.blicio.us.

More Colleges Subsidizing Internships

Here's a summary from the Student Loan Blog of the article that even mentions that although AU doesn't pay students for their internships, they do offer room and board for Native American students. It's taken from The Chronicle's article of July 18.

2 to 2 on XM/Sirius Merger!

ABC reports that it's down to Republican FCC Commissioner, Deborah Taylor Tate, to make the deciding vote. Stay tuned! A "no" means a loss of terrific internships for all our students.

Image from Associated Press