Nina Sausa-Fiske

Excellence in Career Services
CHEP Status: Active
CHEP Awarded: 06/03/2026
Excellence in Campus Operations
CHEP Status: Active
CHEP Awarded: 07/15/2026

Badge Evidence | Completed Courses (4 Hours Each)

This course is designed for campus management and employees at all levels seeking a better understanding of creating a compliant culture in today’s regulatory environment. It summarizes the importance of creating a culture that aligns with regulatory oversight as the cornerstone of an organization. A synopsis is provided on the interwoven relationship of the Triad with emphasis on the Program Integrity rules. This course also explores the "Do’s and Don’ts" for communicating with students throughout their education whether it is during enrollment, financial aid, education or career services. Additionally, specific sections provide management with a more comprehensive review of Program Integrity rules and how they impact faculty and staff interactions with students.
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA or the Buckley Amendment) is a federal law in the United States designed to provide students with access to, and the privacy of, their educational records. The law applies to students in higher education and educational institutions that receive funding under a program administered by the U.S. Department of Education. This course is designed to provide participants with a working knowledge of FERPA guidelines to ensure proper handling of educational records and other institutional requirements.
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.
Establishing, developing, and maintaining employer relationships is a large aspect of a career-services practitioner’s responsibility. This involved process requires insight into your institution, your department, and your industry, as well as an understanding of key strategies that can assist in the building and nurturing of employer relationships. From acquiring industry knowledge to marketing your services and identifying opportunities for long-term employer engagement, this course can assist you in providing a roadmap intended to move you from a potential cold-call relationship to understanding an employer’s perspective on return on investment and gaining effective and long-lasting employer partnerships.
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 unique interview preparation course provides a comprehensive program that helps job seekers turn interviews into offers with a structured and repeatable process. Unlike broadly prescribed interview tips, this course emphasizes actionable, step-by-step training that empowers job seekers to improve their self-awareness, align their strengths with specific employer needs, and persuasively articulate their value. Career professionals will gain frameworks, communication models, and practical resources to implement a full-fledged interview preparation program that enables job seekers to confidently tailor their responses, back them with evidence, and leave a lasting impression in nearly any interview setting. Don't settle for generic advice-equip job seekers with a competitive edge for interview success.
Dive into the essential theories of career development with this foundational course designed for career support professionals. You will explore major career development theories, categorized into distinct themes, and gain a high-level overview of their strengths and limitations. The course emphasizes a holistic approach, encouraging the integration of multiple theories to effectively address the diverse needs of your learners. By learning techniques specific to each type of career theory, you’ll be equipped to put theory into practice. By the end of the course, you’ll have a deeper understanding of career decision-making, planning, and the dynamics that influence learners’ choices and behaviors. Enroll now to enhance your expertise, elevate your practice, and make a lasting impact on your learners’ career journeys.
Derived from the feedback of over 100 institutions, empirical research, and case studies, course participants are presented with specific strategies and best practices that promote graduate employment. This course is for all education professionals seeking to understand the institutional practices that maximize graduate employment outcomes. Because employment outcomes are as much a function of institutional behaviors as they are of student behaviors, this course is based in systems thinking, which challenges participants to examine the interdependent relationship among institutional infrastructure, student career-readiness, and graduate employment rates.
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 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.
To do their job - accomplishing work through others - managers must develop and use persuasion skills rather than simply issue orders. Formal authority no longer gets managers as far as it used to. This course will help you master the art and science behind successful persuasion so you can begin changing others' attitudes, beliefs, or behavior to create win-win solutions.
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.
In this course, you will learn how to manage your career - including how to identify your business interests, professional values, and skills in order to target your most exciting career possibilities.
Financial management can be a daunting task. This course covers the essential concepts of finance, budgeting, forecasting, and planning for non-financial managers.
In this course, you will learn what business processes are, why improving them is essential, and how to carry out a business process improvement (BPI) initiative.
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.
This course shows you how to hire high-quality instructors and orient them to your institution. The skills also apply to hiring staff. It's easy to hire someone to do a job. But it can be difficult to hire the right person. You want instructors who are top notch. They represent your institution and interact with the most people at your campus and particularly your students. This course starts with how to determine exactly what type of people you need as your instructors. Then it shows you how to recruit and hire them. Once hired, you'll learn how to introduce them to the working environment at your institution. By the time you finish this course, you'll be recruiting, hiring, and orienting quality instructors. You'll see results in improved enrollments, student achievement, retention, and completion.
How many times have we said “if we’d only known” as a student walks out the door? No one starts classes planning to fail, but unfortunately problems do arise that present barriers to success. Students are good at identifying these problems blocking their path to success, but they frequently don’t have adequate problem solving and communication skills needed to overcome these problems. This course looks at the effect of stress on attrition, the use of tools to identify and help students at risk, and how to develop an institutional culture that shares responsibility for student success across the entire organization.
Building a program to ensure a smooth "hand off" from Admissions to Faculty is a critical component of student retention. Applicants often develop a strong bond with their admissions representative that ends (from the institution's standpoint) once they begin classes. This online course provides practical ideas on designing an orientation program, first-week-of-class and other retention activities that connect the student with faculty, the college and each other that will help you retain and graduate more students.