Hayley Blackburn, Advising Strategist, leaves UNC effective July 15, 2022.
Blackburn accepted a faculty position at UCCS, Colorado Springs
UNC: Student Academic Success announced that Dr. Hayley Blackburn has resigned from her position as Advising and Student Success Strategist. A transition plan is in place to cover the responsibilities of Academic Review and for advisor training and development beginning July 15 through September. The division hopes to hire a replacement by early Fall 2022.
"I came to UNC in 2019 with a goal to help students. That goal quickly changed into a vision of helping the campus community feel connected and access information,” commented Blackburn on her departure. “I was privileged to work on innovative projects such as founding the Student Success Resource Center in HSS, launching central training products with Student Academic Success, and integrating universal design into my JMS classrooms. I do believe that UNC has a foundation to grow alongside the Greeley community."
Blackburn’s core responsibilities will be managed by several SAS staff in the interim of a new hire. Please contact the parties as needed for support:
- Call to Adventure, Newsletters, and Advising Training: Katie Mason
- General Academic Review and Probation Inquiries: probation@unco.edu or the student’s assigned probation advisor in the college
- Website updates and Social Media collaborations: Katie Mason or DM @unco_success on Instagram
Several aspects of the Advising Services will be paused until the new hire is in place: limited Listen and Learns, limited access to new advising tools, and limited updates to NV Chatbot. A copy of all the documents in the Advising Hub are posted in the NV Team under Files. Please expect disruptions to links and downloads on the Advising Hub connected to OneDrive. You will lose access to 2021 meeting recordings, but the Quick Bite Blog posts will remain published.
Student Academic Success will host a Cookie Drop In on Thursday, July 14 from 10-Noon for Blackburn. You are welcome to pop in her office. You can also stay in touch or connect with her on LinkedIn or Instagram.
About Dr. HB: Hayley started at UNC in 2019 as a Success Coach in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. She was finishing her doctoral degree from Colorado State University but was eager to experience other sides of higher education. Shortly after passing her prelims (November 2019) college, and the world, changed. During the pandemic, Blackburn was elevated to Lead Coach of the Student Success Resource Center and helped hire several new advisors into the community. In February 2021, she moved to Student Academic Success to support all professional advisors on campus with training, encouragement, and support. In October 2021, she passed her defense and earned her PhD in Public Communication and Technology (Journalism/Public Relations). Blackburn was nominated for Staff of the Year in 2021/2022 and received several student-facing recognitions. She is most proud of her team working on Digital Content, including unco_success on Instagram that reached over 70,000 accounts in the first six months. She also loves the Call to Adventure themed advisor training portal, which brought game-design thinking and fun into on-demand professional development. It was her immense pleasure to play hero-support to the UNC community. And if you start to miss her—you can find videos all over the Student Academic Success YouTube Channel that she created in pursuit of her original goal: help UNC be students-first.
