‘Now is the time to reimagine how colleges connect with – and better serve – today’s students’

Lumina Foundation is challenging stakeholders to create opportunity by transforming the admissions process

September 6, 2023

There have been accelerated declines in college enrollment since the pandemic. According to the National Student Clearinghouse, completion of bachelor’s degrees has fallen for the first time in 10 years – down by 1.6%.

Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation states, “Now is the time to fundamentally reimagine admissions, enrollment, and financial aid systems to serve today’s students better.” To that end, Lumina is challenging stakeholders to come up with solutions to support potential students by simplifying the admissions process.

“COVID, changing testing policies, and the Supreme Court’s recent rulings on admissions practices are causing once-in-a-generation upheaval within college admissions,” says Melanie Heath, Lumina’s strategy director, in a statement.

“These conditions create an opportunity for rethinking admissions. Now is the time to reimagine how colleges connect with – and better serve – today’s students.”

Through The Great Admissions Redesign, Lumina will be accepting applications from:

State agencies and quasi-public organizations
State systems of higher education that include public bachelor’s-granting universities or colleges
A group of three or more public or private nonprofit institutions that includes at least one public or private bachelor’s-granting institution.

Lumina will select potential grantees to submit full grant proposals based on their ability to demonstrate “a clear outline of how the proposed project will increase college opportunities for students of color, students from low-income families, and first-generation students.” Additionally, offer a “clear explanation of how the project will reduce complexity in admissions and enrollment processes.” And demonstrate innovation by explaining “the extent to which the project reimagines how students are admitted and enrolled.”

Lumina will be awarding various grants totaling nearly $3 million to institutions that are in the early development stages of redesigning their admissions, enrollment, and financial aid processes – as well as those that have already done existing work in these areas.

The initial submissions for The Great Admissions Redesig n are due by October 6 at 11:59 p.m. EDT. An informational webina r for interested stakeholders is scheduled for September 12 at 12:00 p.m. EDT. Registration is required.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.