What's Your Perspective?

Prompt: What’s an example of a data-driven practice you’ve used?

Brandon J. Cutler Purdue University Associate Dean of Students/Director of Fraternity, Sorority and Cooperative Life

Data can, and should be, a tool that helps you tell your story and advocate for support. The quality, and quantity, of data available through institutional research partners, consultants, and external organizations can help you understand and communicate the strengths, needs and challenges associated with your community. Going beyond traditional data points like GPA, service hours, and philanthropic dollars is essential in 2019. In a resource scarce environment we must demonstrate a significant need along with a potential for return on investment if we hope to secure funding, staff and other resources. Data will help you communicate your needs, identify additional opportunities for growth, and advocate for the resources needed to effectively implement your growth strategies. It takes time and energy to produce meaningful data, but it is an investment in process that pays off over time. At Purdue we utilized data to demonstrate key areas of need for the community. This resulted in the addition of 1.5 staff in our office that directly support alumni engagement and health & safety initiatives, in addition to the development of numerous leadership development and educational programs. Each of which were secured with the help of a wide variety of data points.

Byron Hughes, Ph.D. Virginia Tech Dean of Students

As a younger professional I often hated attempting to condense an impactful learning moment from a conversation, program, or intervention into a finite data point. It felt antithetical to what I had learned about college student development. However, as I have progressed in leadership I have often found that data conveys a story of the human experiences we get to witness and can often be quite compelling. For senior leaders they will often not have the ability to remember every aspect of the fraternity/sorority experience on campus – that’s your job. Yet, they will often be in the position of needing to share that experience with others for the sake of resourcing your efforts, demonstrating its value, or countering a prevailing narrative. You want the senior leaders of your institution to be armed with the proper data that adequately describes your department’s efforts and needs. For example, when a fraternity alumnus is being considered for a major gift, but indicates they would never give to fraternity and sorority life because they believe complaints of obscene behavior by fraternity men are increasing. Yet, you have prepared a talking point for the vice president for advancement that less than 15% of weekly arrests are associated with fraternity men. Or, when a potential donor unfamiliar with fraternities and sororities proclaims that interest in joining is declining, but your vice president for student affairs shares that there has been an average increase of 5%-7% growth in new members for the past five years. Mastering the pertinent data for your fraternity and sorority program allows you to equip senior administrators with accurate information in bite-sized form that conveys a story and more importantly – a need.

Leslie Fasone, Ph.D. Indiana University Acting Assistant Dean for Sorority and Fraternity Life

Data can be overwhelming and scary. You may not know where to start. Seven years ago, I ventured into the field of public health where I learned data drives everything. I had previously dabbled in data when working in sorority and fraternity life, but I became immersed in it while working on my PhD and further incorporated it into my work in higher education. Over the years we’ve used data to guide our bystander intervention programs, including social norm campaigns centered on creating a Culture of Care. We’ve used it to facilitate student discussions that have resulted in studentled recommendations to inform sexual violence prevention and response efforts on campus. We’ve used data to obtain funding to support not only our campus, but also statewide prevention initiatives. It helps us reform and revise programs to better meet student needs and make a case for why additional staff members are needed to serve our students. Here are some ideas that have helped me along the way: • Every conversation and interaction you have with students is data. Use what you learn to guide future conversations and initiatives • Find out what data you already have and if there is data specific to fraternity and sorority students you can access and use • Identify what you still need to know and the avenues for collecting that information, such as through a community or campus-wide survey, focus groups, or by evaluating programs • Review the information you have and identify what trends and themes you see in the community. Identify problems and concerns as well as successes Rinse and repeat. We should always use data to inform our work and should consider every interaction, conversation, and survey an opportunity to collect information from constituents and stakeholders. Let data guide the work you do and you’ll be on the right track for creating tangible, long-lasting change.

Samantha Keltner Gamma Phi Beta Chief Experience Officer

One of my favorite ways to use data in my work is through program design. Most recently, we used data to revise our new member education curriculum. We started by identifying our desired outcomes: high new member retention rates and self-reported positive new member experience. From there we worked backwards. We used existing data we to identify chapters that were already achieving these outcomes. We reviewed their new member education practices and looked for commonalities in their approach. Next, we tried to replicate those practices in our program design and curriculum revision. Constructing the program to replicate these high achieving chapters allowed us to test our hypothesis: practices that had developed intuitively among these groups would increase member retention and positive experience for all chapters. The result? We’re a few years in and we’re seeing positive progress in both areas.