As a CHP leader, you have the responsibility to actively take part in the CHP community and support your fellow peers to engage or contribute in some way. It’s certainly no easy task!
The following LinkedIn article “The Battle for the Middle: Higher Ed’s New 20-60-20 Rule” by Sean Carson addresses a few strategies to help reach out to more students and increase levels of engagement.
As you read, be sure to keep the following questions in mind:
- What do CHP students value?
- How can the new 20-60-20 rule be applied to CHP programs and activities?
- What changes (big or small) can be made to engage the middle 60% of students in the CHP community?
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Have you ever heard of the 80-20 rule? This rule has famously been used in business for years to explain some simple yet true customer interactions. In fact, this rule has also been used to describe a school’s student body: 20% are engaged and 80% are disengaged. My thoughts below will present a new ratio that can be used by institutions to flip the 80-20 upside down and reach up to 80% of their student body being engaged.
Instead of two student groupings, a school’s student body can be separated into three groups that signify a student’s level of engagement.
TOP: 20% are actively engaged
MIDDLE: 60% are socially influenced (to the top or bottom)
BOTTOM: 20% are intentionally disengaged (have no desire to participate despite proper incentives)
The top 20% means that these students will be engaged throughout the year. They make an effort to become engaged and will find and attend your events and workshops no matter what technology is in place at the school.
It is all about culture: Most schools believe that 80% of their students fall into the intentionally disengaged bucket but that is simply not true. There is approximately 60% of the student body that can be influenced to become engaged, if done right. These students are pulled from both ends of the spectrum but there is typically very little influencing them to become engaged. Unfortunately, this usually means the pull is one sided and these students end up becoming intentionally disengaged which can turn into a culture problem for an institution.
The bottom 20% are incredibly tough to motivate and sometimes will not go to an event even if you paid them an hourly wage to do so. This disengagement negatively influences the middle 60% of your students, its sets the wrong example and ultimately convinces more and more students to disengage overtime.
So how can we combat this and target a school’s middle 60% of students so that they are positively influenced to participate? There are few simple changes that can be made to help you socially influence your students to become more engaged:
1) Engagement = Development
2) Create a Community of Awareness
3) Internal and External Stakeholder Support
When I say that engagement equals development I mean that there should be something in it for the students. My version of engagement does not mean going to your school’s Justin Bieber concert or to an ice cream party. I am referring to engagement in career and co-curricular learning experiences. These experiences have been proven to help students build important soft skills and competencies that employers value and hire for.
Creating a community of awareness means that when a student says, “No one goes to those workshops and events.” There is clear evidence that students actually are going to those workshops and events. Make it apparent to your student body that students are going and students are developing professional skills by doing so. You can make this information public and also communicate to students which competencies were being developed at a certain activity. Doing this on mobile allows for better and more personalized accessibility for your middle 60% of students.
Internal stakeholders include department chairs and your career center. Getting their buy in goes a long way in helping you to influence your middle 60% of students. They can send out congratulatory emails to acknowledge students for doing a great job. External stakeholders include employer partners and community partners. You may run a fundraiser for a local charity. Employers may come in and hold workshops to help students develop personally. The more employers value your student development, the more your students will.
Conclusion:
80% of a school’s students can become engaged. A school can influence their middle 60% of students to become engaged by making a few small changes to their offerings. To be effective, engagement needs to add value for the student (development) and that value needs to be clearly articulated and realized by students.
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/battle-middle-higher-eds-new-20-60-20-rule-sean-carson/
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