Leading from the middle of an institution is a tough role. Managing both up and down while completing student-centered work requires self-reflection, empathy, and intention. Yet it can be accomplished in a transformative way that both honors the individual identities of your team and advances the goals and mission of your institution. Join us for a discussion with Dr. Jenn Duffield as she reflects on how she navigated her role as Assistant Dean of Students & Title IX Coordinator leading a team of eight. Jenn will share how her role evolved over time, as well as the challenges and successes she experienced leading a team. She’ll also highlight the personal work she accomplished that informed her approach to inclusive supervision. We invite you to participate in conversation and share how you are working to develop your own sense of self as a leader and supervisor. We’ll discuss such aspects of leadership as: You’ll walk away from this discussion with an opportunity to reflect upon how you can lead more inclusively, as well as with resources to help you to do so.
As you navigate more complex leadership roles, you will also navigate more contentious issues and conflicts. This makes the relationships you form with your colleagues not only “nice to have,” but essential: there is very little that cannot be accomplished when relationships are strong and built on a foundation of trust and mutual respect. During this discussion, you’ll learn how a President and a CFO built a relationship that propelled the success of their teams, the institution, and helped them both to thrive individually. Carmen Twillie Ambar, President of Oberlin College, and Audra Hoffman Kahr, Executive Vice President of Finance & Administration at Lafayette College, will share how they met, how their relationship evolved, and a few lessons they’ve learned along the way as women leaders in higher education.
The increasingly competitive landscape within higher ed requires department chairs to be dynamic, not passive, in how they respond to challenges and opportunities. This requires you to make important decisions that may impact your department for years to come. As a new department chair, this can feel scary since you’re still learning how to do the job, and you’re likely missing important information to make an informed decision in many scenarios. Join us online for a one-hour discussion in which you’ll get tips for how to assess your department’s history, trends, and strategic position within the college/university. More importantly, we’ll discuss why this information is essential as a new chair. If you’re interested in learning how to fill your knowledge gaps and feel more confident about your decision-making, this discussion is for you. Topics for discussion will likely include the following:
As you look to move into the workplace, it is more important than ever to expand your leadership abilities in order to be successful. Although you will have learned key content and practiced skills like creativity and collaboration in your classes, employers often report that graduates do not possess the level of preparedness in leadership skills needed to be successful in their careers. This course is designed to reinforce and help you to demonstrate your ability to work in increasingly global and collaborative work environments. This course covers the following topics: This course consists of five modules encompassing leadership skills that will benefit you in the workplace. Each module includes several short videos and accompanying workbook prompts and activities, with each designed to take you about 50-75 minutes per module. We recommend pacing them out to one module per week, but you can complete the activities at your own pace!
Fundraising for your academic unit does not happen in a vacuum. You and your dean need to work in concert with campus partners to build a pipeline of prospective donors, identify a case for support, and connect donors’ values and passions to institutional priorities. In this session, we’ll discuss challenges with and ways to improve your dean’s collaborations with central advancement, alumni relations, faculty, and other campus stakeholders.
Time is a limited factor for all. As a department chair, you likely need to delegate tasks or responsibilities to others to ensure that your most important work gets done. However, as workloads have increased over time, you’re also careful not to overwhelm faculty and staff with unnecessary work. You know there’s a way to delegate work so that it promotes the talent development of your team, but it’s not always clear when or how to do it. Join us online for a one-hour discussion where we will explore how to delegate work in a way that prepares faculty and staff for the next step of their careers. Although the conversation will be responsive to the questions asked by the attendees, we anticipate focusing the conversation on how you can delegate in a way that doesn’t feel like it adds to faculty and staff workloads, but that instead helps them to develop their talents for the benefit of the campus community. Come prepared to engage in dialogue, ask questions, and share insights with other department chairs from across the country.
In part three of this discussion series, The Impact of Enhancing Customer Service in Higher Education, learn strategies and techniques that can be used to create a more caring culture on your campus and increase the quality of the student and employee experience.
To successfully cultivate donors, deans need to understand donor psychology and philanthropic propensity. In this session, we’ll discuss how you approach portfolio management and managing prospect information with your dean. You’ll have the opportunity to share best practices and consider new ways to structure your work to achieve the fundraising goals of your academic unit.
Alumni relations professionals have experienced numerous significant changes in recent years. Faced with challenges such as communicating value to other areas of the shop, managing talent and volunteers in a hybrid work environment, interpreting new sources of data and metrics, and continuously adapting strategy to forge more meaningful connections with alumni, many need a space to step back, reflect, and exchange ideas with peers. Join us for an online series to discuss hot topics facing alumni relations professionals just like you. You’ll have space to share pressing concerns, questions, and current practices with others in the field in anticipation of what’s next for the alumni relations profession. Each session will be facilitated by our expert panel: Collectively, they bring 30+ years of experience to the table as leaders/supervisors of alumni relations professionals.
Shifting your role from faculty to department chair also means shifting your mindset from individual contributor to department convener, collaborator, and champion. You are now responsible for your own success, as well as for facilitating the successes of others, including faculty, staff, and students. Your reach extends beyond your department, as well, as you’re now responsible for engaging with donors, community members, accreditors, and the like. As a new chair, you now have commitments to many, and it can be difficult to know when and how to prioritize them. Join us online for a one-hour discussion, where we will explore how to manage the various commitments and responsibilities you have across your organization. Although the conversation will be responsive to the questions asked by the attendees, we anticipate discussing the following themes: Come prepared to engage in dialogue, ask questions, and share insights that can help you and other department chairs to confidently navigate your transition to department leader.
You’ve introduced the idea of enhancing customer service on your campus, you’ve read the latest trends, and have provided training for your team. And now the hard part begins—moving from the idea stage to the sustainable actions that will lead to change, especially when it comes to retention and the student experience. This webcast will share specific and actionable steps to leading lasting culture change around service excellence at your institution. How can you move from offering a service excellence training, to building a true service excellence culture on your campus? This webcast will help you to keep the momentum going.
Faculty-led programs present the most affordable Study Abroad option for all students, many of whom cannot afford to miss a semester of school or the cost of a semester-long program. Faculty-led programs, both domestic and international, can be transformative—not just for students, but also for faculty leaders and host communities. Specifically, these programs can help students and faculty to broaden their world views, which can lead to more holistic and inclusive personal and leadership practices while also having a positive economic and social impact on the host community. While the benefits are numerous, establishing a new program can be a daunting task. During this webcast, we will discuss this process in detail and provide relevant resources to help you to develop a program on your own campus. Joining us are two experts in the art of crafting faculty-led programs:
As higher education leaders face increasing uncertainty and complexity, more and more are turning to executive coaching to develop new strategies, deepen their leadership skillset, and grow and thrive as leaders. Join us for a free webcast discussion to explore some of the most pressing. Dr. Ali O’Malley, organizational psychologist and ICF-certified executive coach, and Dr. Amanda Moore McBride, professor and Dean Emerita of the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver, will discuss timely issues in higher ed and also introduce some coaching tactics and strategies that you can use to begin to address those challenges. Our panel of expert coaches will discuss such topics as:
Most faculty development focuses on early-career faculty under the misguided assumption that mid-career faculty have “figured it out.” Yet mid-career faculty actually report the highest levels of dissatisfaction and are increasingly leaving higher education. Thus, institutions are noting the need to provide more comprehensive support to mid-career faculty but are unsure of how to engage this group of faculty and their unique needs. Join us for a one-hour discussion focused on essential strategies for supporting mid-career faculty. During this time, we will discuss:
Alumni relations professionals have experienced numerous significant changes in recent years. Faced with challenges such as communicating value to other areas of the shop, managing talent and volunteers in a hybrid work environment, interpreting new sources of data and metrics, and continuously adapting strategy to forge more meaningful connections with alumni, many need a space to step back, reflect, and exchange ideas with peers. Join us for an online series to discuss hot topics facing alumni relations professionals just like you. You’ll have space to share pressing concerns, questions, and current practices with others in the field in anticipation of what’s next for the alumni relations profession. Each session will be facilitated by our expert panel: Collectively, they bring 30+ years of experience to the table as leaders/supervisors of alumni relations professionals.
You can’t support your dean in effectively managing their relationships with others if you don’t have a solid relationship with them yourself. In this session, you’ll have the opportunity to identify the strengths and opportunities for improvement within your relationship with your dean, including how you work together to approach donor visits.
Mergers, acquisitions, and closures are a reality for a large number of colleges and universities as the landscape of higher education continues to change. Colleges are seeking to be more competitive than ever. However, successful mergers/acquisitions cannot be only about survival or fixing bad economics; the resulting institution must be stronger as a result. Otherwise, when mergers and acquisitions fail to provide the perceived financial reward, closure is often the only option. Unfortunately, the benefits of scale and competitiveness do not come easily or without risk. Key facts and information must be understood when evaluating, negotiating, and implementing a strategic merger. Further, it’s already too late to prepare once a merger or alliance is actively being pursued. Leaders need to be proactive and understand the landscape so that they can be either opportunistic or strategically positioned to create the best possible outcome for their institution. In this session, we will explore the following topics:
Whether through conflicts in research groups, having to negotiate boundaries around service, or dealing with academic dishonesty in students, faculty can often be confronted with the need for difficult conversations. But even knowing there is a need, it is all too easy to avoid the hard conversations due to overwhelming emotions, discomfort with conflict, or fear of the situation escalating. Preparing for difficult conversations beforehand can therefore help faculty feel more of a sense of control over the situation as well as helping to manage their internal narrative. Join us for a one-hour training on how to prepare for difficult conversations as faculty. Drawing from Anita Kite’s work in Managing Difficult Conversations as Faculty, we will walk through the four precautions in preparation, including: You will have the chance to reflect on how you would respond to some specific scenarios, and to plan for any difficult conversations you may need to have using helpful tips and strategies.
Your personal core values guide the decisions you make, the way you communicate, and how you lead and inspire others. Given this, it’s wise to examine how your values may support or hinder shared governance, so that you understand how your leadership can inspire faculty and staff to engage in the process. Join us for a one-hour discussion where we will explore how your values influence the way you lead within shared governance. Although the conversation will be responsive to the questions asked by the attendees, we anticipate discussing some of the following themes: In what ways do you demonstrate your values within shared governance? When and how do your values help or hinder your leadership within shared governance? Come prepared to engage in dialogue, ask questions, and share insights that can help you and other department chairs confidently navigate shared governance.
The quickly shifting landscape of higher education in recent years, as well as its potential future in years to come, requires that our institutions develop strong and capable leadership at all levels. Identifying and cultivating leaders with the requisite experience and skills that embody effective and inclusive leadership remains one of the most difficult but crucial challenges for today’s leaders to navigate. In a climate where it’s all too easy to fall back on what’s comfortable and risk tolerance is low, it’s more important than ever to think critically about how leaders in higher education are developed—and who is developing them. Among these challenges and considerations, are how to: Join us for this free session, where you’ll hear from our panelists: Neva Specht, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Appalachian State University, and Sarah Zehr Gantz, Senior Assistant Vice President for Academic Initiatives and Policies at the University of Illinois System, as well as your peers in similar positions across the country. You will have a chance to learn and share with fellow attendees and will leave with an enhanced understanding of how leaders are thinking about these challenges at other institutions.
