Needed another 24 hours?

An extra pair of hands? A clone?

Wanted to be in two places at once? Time to have more direct contact with students or other constituents?

Yearned for a senior student affairs colleague who could listen confidentially and make achieving your goals a little easier, more timely, more fun?

The President of a highly selective national liberal arts institution needed to determine the direction for student affairs leadership at the institution before creating a job description and initiating a search. We interviewed all members of the department, staff members from other departments who interacted with student affairs, influential faculty members, and students. We recommended a direction that was implemented.

Three faculty members, at different institutions, were asked to assume temporary duties as chief student affairs officers. We connected them to other institutions where faculty members had become student affairs officers, for advice and counseling and understanding of the transition from faculty to administrator. We also served as back-up to them during those critical first years, on legal, disciplinary, and crisis management issues.

In two institutions, the President and, in one case, the internal Executive Vice President, and the other, the chair of the Board, asked Project Partnerships to help assess the direction of departments with long entrenched senior leadership. In both cases, Project Partnerships provided confidential assessment, sensitive advice, and change occurred without incident.

The President of an institution conducting a search for a new chief student affairs officer had little confidence in the (relatively junior) members of the department to “sell” the institution to potential candidates. We served as the student affairs host in interviews and campus visits.

The President of a highly selective national liberal arts institution considered hiring a national firm to conduct the search for a chief student affairs officer. We demonstrated to him and the senior members of the search committee much more understanding of the institution and greater knowledge of the field of potential candidates. We completed the search by hiring a sitting chief student affairs officer at a prestigious competitive institution, one who said he would not have applied if we had not contacted him.

The President of a highly selective national liberal arts institution was too busy to conduct screenings and reference checking on a senior-level search. We conducted telephone interviews and reference checks, including those with Presidents of competitive institutions, and predicted successfully semi-finalist and finalist candidates.

The Vice President of Human Resources of a nationally-ranked college was aware of significant weaknesses in the Director-level members of a student affairs department undergoing a search for a new chief student affairs officer. In order to defer hiring of direct reports until the new CSAO was identified, we coached, mentored, and substituted for the problem employees until the new CSAO arrived several months later.

The chief student affairs officer of an institution planning a new campus center resigned just as the initial architectural plans were presented. The President of the institution asked us to serve as the student affairs voice for the new building through the project development stage.

The President of a rural two-year college was having difficulty attracting student affairs professionals to open positions, and retaining them once hired. We brainstormed with the President to identify types of persons who would be attracted to the college and the area.

An institution was conducting its reaccreditation self-study during a period of student affairs transition. The faculty chair of the self-study had little confidence in the student affairs section of the report, and hired us to work with the department to complete the self-study, recommend assessment methods, review intra-department materials for support and documentation, and write the report.

The new CEO of a nonprofit needed a temporary replacement for a director-level position. We covered the position so easily and successfully that no replacement was sought for almost three years, and other needs of the organization were addressed first.

The Executive Director of a nonprofit was having problems with a small group of board members. Using board member experience for several nonprofit organizations, we provided coaching in how to address the group and its individual members.

The Vice President for Admissions at a highly selective national liberal arts institution needed an Associate Director of Admissions for Multicultural Recruitment. This position was critical to the institution, and hard to find: multicultural recruitment is a fairly new field and few persons have as much experience as the institution needed. Project Partnerships researched, contacted, and recruited a number of seasoned professionals, and helped the institution attract a seasoned professional.