Join fellow Faculty Affairs leaders to explore strategies for retaining faculty and helping them thrive at your institution.
Overview
Four years after the pandemic rocked the foundation of higher education, many faculty affairs leaders continue to struggle to retain faculty. Academic Impressions’ Faculty Retention Survey points to three main factors that contribute to retention, higher job satisfaction, and lower levels of burnout among faculty: a sense of belonging, growth and workload, and support for professional development. Creating the conditions for these factors requires faculty affairs leaders to examine:
- Equity across workload, promotion, and compensation.
- Faculty’s agency and leadership in decision-making.
- How faculty are recognized and rewarded.
- Departmental community and culture.
Join us for our semiannual Faculty Affairs Summit to explore a variety of proven approaches to support faculty retention. We’ll look at strategies you can use to move the needle on faculty climate and create the conditions necessary to retain faculty and help them to thrive and grow at your institution.
Who Should Attend
This summit is broadly applicable to Faculty Affairs and faculty development leaders at both the central and unit levels. Both VP/AVP and Dean/Associate Dean-level leaders charged with Faculty Affairs and/or faculty development will benefit.
Agenda
Day 1
Welcome: The Current State of Faculty Retention
To set the stage for the conversation, we will share findings from our 2022 Faculty Retention Survey. You will then discuss the implications of the survey results with your peers as they pertain to the morale, engagement, and retention of faculty both broadly and within your unique institutional context.
Creating a Culture of Belonging
Belonging is a key component of retention, but it requires intentional cultivation. For this session, our Head of Practice for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Dr. Sandra Miles, will overview strategies and techniques for creating the conditions for belonging, including navigating conflict and frustrations in the workplace. You will learn how to practice intentional engagement, versus moving past uncomfortable scenarios, to arrive at a place where you can actively take part in solution-oriented conversations even when they are uncomfortable.
Reflection and Group Discussion
By this point in the summit, we will have started to unpack some of the key factors in faculty retention. Now, you will reflect on and situate those factors within your institutional context. This session will be part individual reflection and part discussion among the group.
The Role of Equity Across Workload, Promotion, and Compensation in Faculty Retention
What rights and responsibilities do Faculty Affairs leaders have in addressing workload equity? This session will look at how Faculty Affairs leaders can balance listening, understanding, and negotiating with data to make informed decisions around workload equity. Dr. Debbie Thorne, Senior Vice Provost at Texas State University, will outline key indicators to help you strategically evaluate where you have influence and what kind of impact you can make.
Retaining & Supporting Faculty of Color
Drawing on years of research, Dr. Raquel Wright-Mair, Associate Professor of Higher Education at Rowan University, will overview how you can move your institution from merely recruiting faculty of color to retaining and supporting faculty of color and their long-term success. Topics such as revaluating the tenure and promotion process, redefining success, supporting faculty engaging in equity agendas, and institutionalizing well-being and mentoring will be explored.
Speaker Panel & Group Discussion
We will conclude Day 1 with a speaker panel to explore emerging questions, patterns, and ideas, and we’ll also connect your reflections from the morning with the afternoon sessions.
Networking Reception
This informal reception hosted by HireEd Careers, Academic Impressions’ diversity-focused job board, is your chance to decompress, have some refreshments on us, and expand your network of connections. Our programs are intentionally designed for smaller groups, so this is a great time to catch up with attendees and speakers with whom you may not have connected yet.
Day 2
Faculty Agency and Recovering from Burnout
The pandemic brought faculty burnout to the forefront of higher education. Now, a few years out from the pandemic, how does the conversation around faculty burnout need to shift? In this session, Dr. Dana Veron, Associate Provost for Faculty Development at the University of Delaware, will explore how to make these shifts to help faculty recover from burnout and find their agency within the institution.
Closing: What Next?
To conclude our time together, our Assistant Director of Coaching, Dr. Corinne Nicolas, will guide you through a reflection and planning process that will allow you to take what you have learned from the summit and put it into action at your institution.
Location
Academic Impressions’ Denver-based office
5299 DTC Blvd, Suite 1400
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
