Running Bird Ed Ops, LLC

Education Operations - Minus the Chaos

Let’s face it: higher ed professionals wear too many hats — and some of them just don’t fit. That’s where Running Bird comes in. We help college and university offices and departments understand, manage, and streamline their behind-the-scenes operations so on-campus teams can focus on what they do best: supporting students.

Whether it’s optimizing tech that’s in-use, untangling a stubborn process, or tackling that project that’s been on your to-do list forever - we bring fresh eyes, an operations and systems mindset, and a wealth of relevant experience to the table. It also helps that we love reading those emails you’ve been avoiding from your software vendor about the changes in the latest new release and we speak fluent spreadsheet.

SET IT UP RIGHT

Thinking about moving to a new career services system?

Wanting to launch a new course or program?

Considering an organizational change in your office or department?

Let’s talk up front and strategize about how to plan and execute for success

How Can Running Bird Help?

FIX WHAT’S BROKEN

Trying to figure out why your data isn’t synching correctly across the places you need it?

Find yourself saying ‘yeah, I don’t know why it does that’ regarding critical systems?

Do your processes result in varying outcomes when consistency is the goal?

Share the things that are making your job harder and let us work on designing solutions that will help you get the most from your systems and processes

MAKE IT RUN SMOOTHLY

Tired of that ‘starting from scratch’ feeling at the beginning of every academic year?

Is training and on-boarding new staff members a consistent pain point?

Is ‘who does what and when?’ an on-going question in your regular meetings?

We can help with process documentation, writing standard operation procedures, leveraging project management platforms, and more to help your entire office keep their energy and talents focused on doing the work to engage with your students

Not everything we do involves a system, but if your needs call for it, we’re very familiar with:

Student Information Systems: Banner, Jenzabar

LMS Platforms: Canvas, Blackboard, Schoology, Moodle

Career Services Systems: Handshake, Symplicity

Survey Tools: Qualtrics, JotForm, Google Forms

Project Management: Monday.com, Microsoft Project, and more

File/Document Management: Google Suite, Microsoft Office Suite, SharePoint

Communication Tools: Slack, Zoom, Teams, Google Meet

… and if your situation would benefit for something not on this list - we may know it and we can definitely learn it!

A few examples of our work:

New Course Setup and Support:

Set up and launched two new courses in Canvas LMS and supported initial launch through instructor support and making needed changes as needs arose

Jenzabar -> Handshake Data Sync:

Coordinated with campus IT to set up daily data sync between the Jenzabar student information system and the Handshake career service system - including on-going monitoring, troubleshooting as needed, and enhancements when desired

Internship Program Documentation:

Created comprehensive Google Docs/Sheets documentation to capture all aspects of the program to provide a single source of knowledge for information, communications, and tasks pertaining to the program

First Destination Survey Design and Support

Designed and administered all aspects of the First Destination Survey in multiple platforms

Cost savings and funding/expertise opportunity identification

Reviewed institution-wide spending records (ledger and credit card) to identify opportunities for spend reduction/optimization such as duplicate subscriptions and purchases from non-preferred vendors

Researched and summarized opportunities for funding and expertise from federal, state, local, and corporate sources - provided support for application and administration to pursue selected opportunities

Ready to Chat?

Reach out - let’s talk about your needs so we can offer you solutions!