Student Housing Matters

How do you design a marketing plan that attracts residents to a particular student housing community? What if you’re responsible for promoting 35 different sites, each with their own unique culture a…

Student housing professionals have faced one challenge after another in 2020. When it comes to residence life, this has not been an ideal year, as the pandemic has kept us from doing most of our trad…

Over the course of 2020, different industries have been impacted in a variety of ways. Today, we take a look at the topic of security – specifically the tracking of the coming and going of people wit…

The conference services team at the University of Washington was looking forward to serving 11,000 overnight guests and facilitating 200 overnight conference sessions this summer. But 2020 had other …

Conferences and summer programs offer institutions an opportunity to generate revenue that can reduce the financial burden placed on students during the academic year. And it’s not just housing – a s…

Serving university students who live off-campus puts Kristen Franklin in a unique position. Yes, she works closely with the highly regarded research institution her residents attend. But her team als…

When the Coronavirus shut down college campuses across the US, most student housing facilities closed as well. But what do you do if the majority of your residents are not from the US and may not hav…

COCM understands the importance of motivating a team and driving engagement during a time of isolation and unfamiliar work environments. In order to determine how residential faculty working on campu…

We all want to work in an environment that somehow feeds our souls. What happens when we encounter a workplace that does the exact opposite? Heidi Yoder began researching workplace bullying within st…

It’s well known that a career in higher education leaves you with many transferable skills. Are those skills useful outside of your workplace? How can we use what we’ve learned working with students …

Rafael Cordwell believes that you don’t choose your profession, your profession chooses you. And in the beginning, Raf resisted a career in student affairs—despite encouragement from more than one of…

Winston Churchill led Britain through both World Wars. But how would he fight the invisible enemy we face today? How might Churchill approach the current situation with Coronavirus?

Dr. Larry P. Arnn…

During her tenure at COCM, Mellissa Taylor quickly became known among students as The Housing Lady. So, what did she learn as the face and voice of student housing at the University of Alabama at Bir…

“Build the bridge as you walk across it. Just find something and try it out and define it. And then over time, it becomes the normal that everybody’s used to—an efficiently run process.” 

In her ten-…

At times, student affairs professionals are hesitant to pursue a role with COCM, thinking that the transition back to a university setting will be challenging. And yet, a number of former Capstone em…

We talk a lot about wellness and work-life balance, but most of us in the world of student housing are just not very good at it. So, how can we learn to prioritize our emotional and spiritual health?…

If you’re looking to make a big change or pursue an extraordinary venture, the first step is to share your intentions and then accept help when it’s offered. This can be challenging for those of us i…

As with most things, the amount of effort, dedication and heart you put into a career in student housing is directly correlated with what you get back. And Jeremy Thompson contends that if you go in …

How can we be elite without being elitist? Dr. Eileen Strempel contends that for an institution of higher learning to be truly great in the 21st century, it must adapt to the changing nature of the s…

How do you find your unicorn job? Heather O’Leary-Agosta argues that rather than getting caught up in titles, it’s more important to consider what you love about your current role and make decisions …