Certified Higher Education Professional

Effective communication skills are essential in every aspect of life - especially in our work with students. This course provides a foundational understanding of all forms of communication and offers new techniques to improve admissions performance. In addition, a communication hierarchy provides participants with an advanced understanding of rapport building and connecting with today's students.

Whether your admissions personnel work exclusively by telephone or use the phone for setting a face-to-face appointment, they need a tool kit of powerful telephone techniques to be successful in working with students. This course provides best practices for both inbound and outbound calls. Admissions professionals learn how to project professionalism and a positive attitude in their telephone personality and identify methods for conducting effective and appropriate calls.

Success in helping students begins with "connecting" in a meaningful way. These connections are formed through our ability to understand generational experiences and preferences in communication. Additionally, a better understanding of ourselves helps us connect with students. This course explores how to work better together by using common collaborative principles and improving teamwork.

Let's face it, today's students have a plethora of information at their fingertips; but can they truly understand in a meaningful way all that your school has to offer? This course takes product knowledge and presentation skills to a higher level with enhanced tools and techniques to improve your "sales" skills. Additionally, advanced methods for presenting the attributes and benefits of your institution will be explored, along with successfully addressing challenges and resources.
In this course, we will examine the fundamentals of value, benefits, and worth. In addition, we will utilize techniques and tools to prepare and present the value of your institution. Finally, we will review tips and best practices to maximize your value presentation. Once you have completed the course and activities, you will be prepared and ready to best serve your students and school with your value presentations.

The most successful admissions professionals are those who maintain a positive attitude and energy, but maintaining that positivity each and every day can be tough. This course focuses on the importance of understanding and building your personal attitude and energy to maximize your effectiveness. You will have the opportunity to assess your attitude and energy and manage these elements to maximize your performance. In this course, we will examine the fundamentals of attitude and energy and understand why they are so important to your success. In addition, we will utilize assessments to look at your current attitude and energy levels. Finally, we will review tips and best practices to enhance your energy and attitude output. Once you have completed the course and activities, you will be prepared and ready to best serve your students and school by maximizing your personal attitude and energy.

Today's admissions professionals need expanded methods to adapt to where the prospective student is in the decision-making process. Whether you work with students online, face-to-face, or a little of both, adding variety will help you successfully connect with your students. In this course, you will discover ways to improve your connections with prospective students, best practices for inbound and outbound communication, how to address challenges in the moment, and methods for effective follow-up that improve your effectiveness as an admissions professional.

Questioning and listening are essential elements of communication - especially when working with students. This course provides an in-depth understanding of the purpose of skillful listening, and how this is necessary to be the most effective in your position. In addition, this course provides an in-depth understanding of the purpose and types of meaningful questions. You'll be introduced to the fundamentals of both questioning and listening, as well as new tools and techniques to help you refine your questioning and listening skills.

The purpose of this course is to improve the relationship and dynamics between the admissions representative and prospective students to ensure an educational goal is soundly met. The relationship cycle, the importance of relationships, and the process of finalizing the enrollment are discussed. The goal of this course is to help develop a better understanding of the topic and produce tangible resources to help implement plans, strategies, and ideas at your school. In addition to lecture videos, links to possible resources, and assessments, you will be able to utilize the Journal and Learning Activities.

This course is designed for employees of all roles and levels at institutions that participate in federal financial aid programs. The course provides an awareness of prohibited acts which could adversely impact operations, and covers the requirements which must be adhered to in order to maintain good standing with state* and federal regulations as outlined in the Program Integrity rules. Emphasis is on areas of misrepresentation related to advertising and recruitment activities, interactions with prospective students and appropriate communication of disclosures and other publications. *This course currently covers the regulations for the following states: AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, IL, IN, KS, LA, MA, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NM, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA. Course participants can select specific state(s) at the beginning of the course to customize the training content to their state.

A well-designed career services program does more than help learners land jobs; it drives learner success, builds employer trust, and strengthens your institution’s reputation. In this course, you’ll learn how to create a career services program from inception with approaches that are practical, scalable, and deeply impactful. Whether you’re a team of one or leading a growing department, you’ll discover strategies to deliver personalized support, build strong community connections, and align your work with today’s hiring realities. Discover a clear framework for designing, improving, and leading a career services operation that works, without requiring a big budget or constant reinvention. By the end, you’ll be equipped to help your institution stand out as a trusted source of job-ready talent.

In this course, you will be given tools to help your students find the job that's right for them, present themselves impressively on paper, and interview with ease. This course is designed so you can successfully support your students in four phases of their job search: doing a targeted job search, writing a powerful resume and cover letter, presenting professionally, and developing effective interview skills.

Social media is critical tool for career services professionals to interact with and reach their constituent groups yet many career professionals aren't aware of how to develop a purposeful social media strategy. Without a social media strategy, career services departments risk losing relevance with their audience, and they also lose the opportunity of harnessing social media to achieve department goals. This course describes the phases of planning and implementing a social media strategy for your career services department. Each module is based on the fundamental steps of preparing a comprehensive and measurable plan to achieve the goals of the career services department.

Educational institutions have opportunities to create unique alumni associations which will look and feel more like alumni communities. This course will show you how you can create active alumni communities to increase enrollment, retention and placement for your entire institution. You will learn how to provide your alumni with valuable services and how to seek their help to enhance your educational programs and career services, as well as marketing and admissions. From getting started to setting up an alumni data base management system and determining the institution's return on investment, this course provides you with operational strategies for establishing an effective alumni association.

Although job developing requires a mix of critical skills, many career advisors are forced to learn them through the "sink or swim" method. They're often asked to immediately make a specific number of cold-calls daily. They learn that "job developing" is synonymous with cold-calling. It isn't. This course covers how to properly prepare for job developing, how to prospect, prioritize employer contact, and communicate with employers to address objections, get job orders, manage them to completion, and continuously engage employers and candidates to develop long-term partnerships. Job developing should be more comprehensive than a simple list of employers to cold-call.

In today's world where jobs are posted online, matching algorithms screen digital résumés, and recruiters source candidates online, students must market themselves online. Writing a résumé and cover letter alone is no longer an adequate skill set for career seekers to successfully find and secure employment as well as manage, advance, and transition their career throughout life. Students must know how to digitally market themselves, and 21st century career advisors must know how to advise them. This course will help you advise students on developing digital career-marketing strategies for career success.

Veterans bring a wealth of experience, discipline, and resilience to the civilian workforce, but translating military service into career success can be challenging. This course equips career professionals with the knowledge, tools, and confidence to support veterans in navigating their career transition with clarity and purpose. You’ll learn how to recognize the unique strengths and needs of veterans, translate military skills into civilian language, and guide learners through common obstacles like identity shifts, skill translation, and workplace reintegration. Discover effective coaching strategies, employer engagement approaches, and veteran-specific resources that elevate your support and expand opportunities for those who served. Enroll now and become a champion for veteran career success.

Help students ace the interview with successful tactics to showcase their qualities and make them the best fit for the job. A career management specialist will be able to master the appropriate actions for students to take before, during, and after the interview. These tactics can then be implemented in a career management class or during the preparations for prospective job interviews. The goal of this course is to help develop a better understanding of the topic and produce tangible resources to help implement plans, strategies, and ideas at your school. In addition to lecture videos, resource links, and assessments, you will be able to utilize Journal and Learning Activities, which will continue to be useful after successful completion of the course.

This course will provide an overview of career readiness including information and activities that may be incorporated into your courses. This course, which forms Part I of a two-part series, provides details about four specific career readiness skills: critical thinking/problem solving, verbal/written communications, teamwork/collaboration, and information technology applications. Additional thoughts and resources will also be provided to allow you to consider multiple ways to assist students in developing these skills in your courses.

This course will provide a brief review of career readiness and provide additional skills to incorporate into your courses. This course is Part II of a two (2) part series of courses. Therefore, this course will provide details about four (4) additional specific career readiness skills. These skills include leadership, professionalism/work ethic, career management, and global/multicultural fluency. Further thoughts and resources will also be provided to allow instructors to consider additional ways to incorporate these skills into their courses.

Virtual reality (VR) lessons can be implemented in all subject areas, and this course is designed to get teachers thinking about how it can be used in their classrooms. VR can be a nice addition to the teaching toolkit, but some resources, including hardware, will be needed. In this course we use the Meta Quest 2 headset by Oculus, but the results will be similar if different headsets are used. Various software applications will be shared that teachers can acquire for little or no cost.

This introductory course covers the essential roles of a teacher and the competencies required to be a successful instructor in an educational institution. Proven techniques and strategies for planning and preparation are presented and discussed. In addition, the course offers effective methods for conducting the first class meeting and delivering course content. This course provides a solid foundation for new instructors and serves as an excellent refresher for more experienced instructors.

The instructor is the real key to student retention at any educational institution. Instructors must keep focused on student motivation and retention each and every day of class. Developing strategies for retaining students throughout the entire training sequence is both complex and rewarding. All instructors should have the goal of seeing all of their students successfully complete their class. This course helps you reach that goal by helping you to understand your students and use proven motivation and retention techniques to keep them enrolled and engaged in the learning process.

This course shows instructors how to develop a comprehensive approach to effective and efficient instruction. From preparation for the classroom to selection of instructional delivery methods, the course provides effective ways of planning instruction to help instructors keep the content focused and the students engaged. We also cover the steps to set up a complete evaluation system that will work in all settings.

This course provides methodologies and examples to help instructors increase content retention and application by students in need of support. The course starts by covering the skills needed by instructors to be clear communicators. We then discuss ways instructors can become effective in monitoring students and using student groups as learning tools. The course concludes by covering techniques and strategies to instruct diverse learners, including learners with disabilities.

This course will inform you of how careful lesson planning can help to ensure increased student engagement. Proper lesson planning will enable you to teach effectively and efficiently, and ultimately help students meet learning objectives. The information in this course will provide the framework for instructional development enabling you to properly structure a detailed, well thought-out lesson plan.

This course is intended to offer a practical explanation of how an instructor’s behaviors and choices can influence the motivation of students. It is not intended to be a theoretical or academic treatise about motivation. Module 1 offers useful tips that may help instructors to motivate students. Students’ security and autonomy are described as they influence motivation during instruction, questioning, activities, and evaluations. This is followed by a discussion of how motivation can be improved by enhancing students' sense of autonomy when making assignments, selecting instructional methods, implementing classroom procedures, and developing evaluations. In Module 2, intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are defined and compared. Finally, a variety of "miscellaneous motivators" are offered for instructors to consider.

The purpose of this course is to provide instructors with a very basic introduction to the concepts of soft skills and emotional intelligence (EQ). It is designed especially for new instructors in career schools who have little or no training in educational techniques and who are unfamiliar with the basics of emotional intelligence. The course provides a comparison of hard and soft skills, including people skills and workplace behaviors. Ten important soft skills are discussed in detail and the relationship between EQ and soft skills is explained. The course concludes with tips and suggestions to help instructors enhance their soft skills and EQ.

The classroom in an educational institution is often more than just chairs, books, and a white board. Frequently the learning takes place in a lab or shop environment, where the traditional rules of classroom management and teaching may not always apply. This course covers the instructional techniques necessary for the non-traditional classroom, including strategies for teaching to each student's individual learning style. In addition, this course describes strategies for assessing student progress. Safety guidelines and considerations for specific lab and shop environments are identified.

As opportunities for education become more prevalent, educational institutions must compete to increase, or even maintain, their student enrollment levels. More and more institutions are adopting the strategy of treating students like customers in order to be successful. This course will review the characteristics of adult learners and determine the reasons adult students leave the institution. It will discuss the concept of interacting with students as though they are customers and how the students-as-customers concept relates to the instructor and the classroom. This course will also describe the methods and techniques of effective communication. Included are guidelines and techniques for advising and mentoring students.

This course will provide you with basic information to teach in a virtual learning environment and understand the importance of organizing course content. You will learn about the important role technology tools play in teaching and organizing an online course. You will also learn the difference between synchronous and asynchronous learning. As the components of each are discussed, you will further identify appropriate methods, develop guidelines, organize content, and establish a pattern of teaching for each method.

This course will provide you with a basic overview of designing and implementing asynchronous, self-directed online courses effectively. It will review the differences between synchronous and asynchronous online courses. Traditional components of face-to-face courses such as readings, written assignments, and discussions work well in the asynchronous online class environment, but what happens to laboratory assignments and applications? Can they fit into the online course model? Courses which need a lab component, especially the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) courses, may seem impossible to complete in the online environment. Practical examples of effective online lab situations will be provided in this module. This will assist in promoting student engagement and increasing the student's learning potential.

This course provides a blueprint for running an effective financial aid office in an educational institution. You will learn to optimize the performance of your financial aid office with a minimum of waste, expense, and unnecessary effort. The course covers the cornerstones of an efficient financial aid office: timeliness, accuracy and customer service. You will also be advised of pitfalls to avoid in the realm of Title IV compliance. You will learn the key points to building an effective business office processing procedure. Reports and notifications required by the Department of Education are also explained. In addition, you will be given pointers on preparation for the annual Student Financial Aid (SFA) compliance audit and alerted to the most common triggers for Department of Education Program Reviews.

This course offers proven-successful techniques that ultimately prevent student loan delinquencies and defaults. Because there is not one miracle that reduces the chance of student loan defaults, this compilation of ideas and practices collectively greatly reduces those risks by giving ownership of the loan responsibilities to the students who benefit from them. By integrating effective borrower education and interaction from the day your students walk through your front door, your students will embrace the state of mind needed to give them lifetime accountability for their Federal Student Loans obligations.

This course is designed for the financial aid representative who is familiar with the financial aid process, and the campus manager seeking to learn more. The course provides a detailed review of the FAFSA to ISIR/SAR application process, concentrating especially on the technical aspects of the process beyond timeliness and accuracy. The importance of documenting verification and clearing comment codes will be explored, in addition to your role in using professional judgment.

With a seemingly endless stream of new laws and regulations, institutions have become burdened with ensuring they are compliant, while continuing to give great customer service to their students and families and all while achieving larger institutional goals. The role of the Financial Aid Office in compliance cannot be underestimated, but the Director of Financial Aid cannot ensure compliance in a vacuum. This course is designed to examine the fundamentals of law and regulation, and of the enforcement process. More importantly, this course provides tools for School Directors, Chief Financial Officers, Enrollment Managers, and Financial Aid staff to develop and build compliant practices that don't interfere with effective operations, customer service or institutional goals.

This course will help participants to interpret the many rules and regulations that are required by educational institutions offering Title IV funding. It will aid in preparing management and faculty in recognizing that compliance is the responsibility of the entire institution and is not just the job of the Financial Aid Office. Course content will also aid the individual in building a "culture of compliance" which will encourage teamwork and secure the cooperation of others on campus.

This course explores the critical differences between management and leadership. Participants will be introduced to definitions and myths about each area as well as how management and leadership must coexist for an organization to operate effectively. Participants will explore their own management/leadership tendencies through exercises to see leadership and management in action.

Not everyone is suited for, or desires, a leadership position. One of the first steps to being an effective leader is to understand the desire to lead in the first place. Participants will explore their motivation to lead and develop a deeper understanding of their leader style(s).

To improve your impact and effectiveness as a leader, you must not only understand the role of a leader, but you must also take into consideration the followers and the situation. This course defines leadership impact and explores the interactional framework for leadership.

The higher education industry provides a wealth of opportunities and challenges for those seeking leadership positions. In this course, participants will gain a deeper understanding of the higher education sector and themselves. The importance of higher education institutions will be explored along with developing a personal leadership legacy.

Get ready to add a number of skills to your toolkit as you develop as a leader! This course focuses on increased self-awareness in communication styles and learning; developing deeper understanding through empathic listening; and motivating through innovation.

This course provides you with a framework to put your self-discovery and learning into a workable plan to further develop your leadership skills. A step-by-step process is offered to help you create a meaningful Personal Leadership Development Plan (PLDP) complete with the development of SMART Goals and advice from some of today's leaders in the higher education sector.

Feedback is an essential component of the communication process. In this course, you will learn when and how to give effective positive or corrective feedback, how to offer feedback upward, and how to receive feedback.

This course will show you how to discuss and resolve difficult interactions in the workplace - whether with employees, peers, bosses, or even suppliers and customers.

What will your institution look like in five years? Growth takes change and the commitment of the stakeholders in your organization. A five-year plan is essential for any owner or director of an educational institution, no matter how long they have been in the business. It includes various elements such as your enrollment goals for all programs, plans for new programs, new profit center potential, fees and all financial aid opportunities, enhancement of student services, faculty and staff planning, marketing and development strategies, and planning for physical space to support your expansion goals. Also, development plans are often needed to satisfy licensing and accreditation requirements. This course covers the essential components and techniques involved in developing a comprehensive five-year plan. We will show you an effective step-by-step planning process that involves the participation of representatives from your institution including staff, instructors, students, graduates, and the employers who hire your graduates. The process encourages participants to share their knowledge and ideas, and everyone who participates in the process ultimately becomes a stakeholder in making the plan work. The course includes planning worksheets that you can download and use to help you develop your institution’s five-year plan.

Educational institutions need to be aware of emerging employment opportunities in new and expanding fields if they are going to continue to attract students. Most licensing and accrediting agencies ask an institution for some form of feasibility study when submitting new program-add applications. The research involved in this step often requires proof of need for the program, number of anticipated job openings, and input from employers. This course outlines ways to collect data to make an effective decision and show regulatory agencies proof of employment opportunities. Step-by-step directions are included to assist institution staff in conducting effective research and preparation of curriculum to meet employer specifications.

Vital advisory and governing boards create additional opportunities to enhance operations within an educational institution. Well-prepared board members engaged in appropriate and timely activities can make a substantial contribution to operational, financial and management success. Creating, managing and maintaining effective advisory and governing boards can be a demanding yet rewarding process. Board members have to be identified, recruited, and trained to be effective and to understand their role as individual contributors and as members of a group of advisors. To gain maximum leverage from a board, members must also remain motivated and retain a concentrated focus on the institution's mission, purpose and goals. This course will provide a blueprint, with accompanying checklists, for establishing and maintaining effective advisory and governing boards in an educational institution.

Owners and directors of educational institutions are always looking for the magical ingredients to improve student retention. There are at least six easy-to-implement retention strategies that can make a difference in whether a student graduates or drops out. These include efficient admissions procedures, great orientation programs, effective mentoring, student friendly classroom involvement, fabulous graduations, and successful placement. Upon completion of this course, participants will have specific easy-to-implement retention strategies to put in place for every area of their institution.

This course is a collection of ideas and best practices drawn from the implementation of enrollment growth strategies at over 300 educational institutions nationwide. The course is based on a highly successful in-service training program offered by Dr. Joe Pace, Managing Partner of The Pacific Institute and includes video delivery of Pace's presentations. Filled with practical tips and suggestions, the course also discusses the application of current research results on human behavior and organizational culture to enhance student enrollment and retention. This is a unique course that will dramatically change your perspective on institutional effectiveness.

Gerald Cameron

Badge Evidence | Completed Courses (4 Hours Each)

CHEP in Teaching

CHEP in Online Teaching

CHEP in Admissions

CHEP in Career Services

CHEP in Campus Operations

CHEP in Leadership