October 2, 2022

Certainty

As antidote to the chaos the pandemic brought to every aspect of people's lives, schools this year should focus on certainty, on hitting all the key dates, on communicating succinctly, and on providing generous lead time. This, along with helping all constituencies feel connected and cared for, should be the heart of schools' retention strategy for students and faculty. Conditional bonuses, ambiguous or error-ridden messages, institutional changes announced after re-enrollment contracts have been collected, sluggish conflict resolution, all will trigger the gut-twisting panic and dread that we all felt daily during the pandemic. We urge schools to examine closely the logistics surrounding the timing of enrollment and employment contracts with this in mind. Many schools found that the dynamics of wait lists changed significantly last year. Likewise, any ambiguity or shoddiness surrounding the logistics of employee contracts have the potential to tip hesitant faculty over the wrong edge and to put the school in a late hiring situation in an already thin candidate market.