Event Category: Free For All-Inclusive

Where Two or Three Gather Together: A New Perspective on Effective Team Collaboration

Team, committee, and group-based work abounds in higher education. But many struggle to collaborate effectively in these settings because not everyone comes to the table with the same understanding, expectation, and collaboration style. While teams are often designed to bring together different voices and perspectives, most leaders default to a singular approach to teamwork that works well for some, but that also causes frustration, withdrawal, or conflict for others.   In this event, we’ll use the Five Paths to Leadership℠ as a framework to introduce the four different collaboration styles that are at play within any given team. We’ll walk you through a detailed explanation of each path and provide tactics that leaders and team members alike can use to approach collaboration and group-based work more effectively. You will leave with a more nuanced understanding of the collaboration types that yield the best results based on the outcomes you are trying to achieve, rather than defaulting to one style based on comfort or personal preference.  

Respectfully and Confidently Engage in Difficult Conversations: A Dialogue Workshop Series for Advancement Professionals  

As an advancement professional, you engage with alumni, volunteers, donors, and colleagues from different backgrounds, lived experiences, and perspectives. At times, you may receive unsolicited or angry opinions about institutional decisions, or inquiries about national and global news or events as they unfold. These comments or questions can sometimes be polarizing and catch you off guard. For some of us, our natural tendency in these situations is to shut down, disengage, and become defensive. However, a critical requirement of the relationship cultivation process with internal and external constituents is staying present in these challenging moments and allowing the conversation to continue despite political, religious, or social differences. It is also just as critical to know when to exit these conversations safely and professionally, depending on the intensity of the situation and/or other factors.  Join us for this four-part online workshop series, where you’ll learn how to respond professionally to difficult conversations with alumni, volunteers, donors, and colleagues. In community with other Advancement professionals across the nation, you will learn simple yet powerful techniques and practices to help you to stay present in difficult dialogues. The workshop series will also give you an opportunity to practice having difficult conversations through a variety of […]

Recognizing and Celebrating Faculty and Staff:  A Panel Conversation

Faculty and staff morale is at an all-time low across most institutions in higher education, and this puts your department or unit at risk of increasing levels of burnout, decreased productivity and, ultimately, higher turnover. One way you can start to make a difference is by fostering a work environment where praise, appreciation, and gratitude are front and center. Join a panel of academic leaders and discover tips, strategies, and new methods for how you can provide praise and recognition that is meaningful, authentic, and consistent. We recognize that the needs of faculty and staff vary across disciplines and career levels, and we know that your team is likely working in a hybrid environment, so we’ll make sure you walk away with a variety of ways for you to better celebrate the accomplishments, effort, and energy of your faculty and staff.

Feedback as a Faculty (Re)Engagement Strategy 

Both affirmative and constructive one-on-one feedback are critical to faculty talent development.  Feedback that is appropriate for the career level (assistant, associate, professor) provides clarity, direction, goal alignment and motivation, all of which are required to successfully navigate today’s higher education landscape filled with complexity and uncertainty. Feedback, when delivered effectively, can promote creativity, productivity, learning and growth, job satisfaction, and, ultimately, retention through faculty career stages. However, with quitting (both quiet and loud) so prevalent—and current faculty morale so low—providing feedback to faculty can feel high-risk. You don’t want to alienate faculty any further.    Join us online for a two-hour workshop in which we’ll practice the art of providing feedback to faculty in an effort to both develop their talent and re-engage them. We’ll begin the workshop with a short lesson on the most critical components of effective feedback (i.e., timing and consistency, as well as delivery method, mode, and tone) and how they may be influenced by generational differences. You’ll then have time with your peers to practice giving feedback using your new skills. If you’re looking to grow your skills and comfort in giving feedback, this workshop is for you! 

Optimize Your Fundraising Efforts Through Generative Artificial Intelligence

What would you do with an extra 4 hours in your work week?  In recent years, large for-profit businesses have been using artificial intelligence to win over consumer interest, despite a highly competitive market. Given the rise of more competitor “noise” in the eyes and ears of your alumni or donors, you may have been wondering how artificial intelligence can improve or enhance your own fundraising efforts. Or perhaps you have already experimented with artificial intelligence tools but are curious to learn about additional opportunities—or maybe you’d like to discuss and address barriers that you have faced when using these kinds of programs yourself.  Whether you are new to artificial intelligence or a seasoned user, we invite you to join us online to learn the difference between predictive versus generative artificial intelligence, and how these tools can be easily incorporated into your current fundraising strategy. You will learn the added value that these tools can bring to your daily work in advancement, including how they can help to free up your time so that you can spend it in high-quality, interactive conversations, instead. This two-hour session is intentionally designed to provide both a lecture on artificial intelligence, as well as […]

A 5-Step Framework for Women Navigating Life Transitions

Maternity leave. Job reorganization or restructuring. A role or career change. Experiencing a loss. Retirement. Each of these transitions, whether personal or professional, comes with its own unique set of challenges—challenges that can upend the way you move through your daily life as a woman leader. Learning how to navigate these kinds of changes in your personal and professional life can create a work environment where empathy is extended to both you and to others.   During this session, you’ll be introduced to the SNAP to Impact framework developed by our speaker, Dr. Krista Klein. This framework will weave together the following five key steps to help you learn strategies for navigating personal and professional transitions in community with other women higher educational professionals: 

Supervision Certificate Program – June 3 Cohort

Often in higher education, individuals move into a supervisory role without the necessary tools and skills to be successful. Particularly in today’s challenging environments, effective supervision is key to building an effective culture where each individual can contribute to team success. Join us online for a four-week cohort based program leveraging both asynchronous and synchronous learning specifically designed for higher education supervisors who are new to their roles, looking to deepen their skills, or for those who aspire to supervisor roles.

Supervision Certificate Program – April 1 Cohort

All too often in higher education, individuals move into a supervisory role without the necessary tools and skills to be successful. Particularly in today’s challenging environments, effective supervision is key to building an equally effective culture where each individual can contribute to team success. Join us online for a four-week bootcamp specifically designed for higher education supervisors who are new to their roles or looking to deepen their skills.

Self-Awareness as Your Superpower: A Certificate Program for Department Chairs (July Cohort)

Self-awareness lies at the heart of effective leadership. A self-aware department chair understands why they lead the way they do because they study their own attitudes, behaviors, and motives. However, the most effective department chairs also practice “other-awareness,” which means that they study the impact of their attitudes, behaviors, and motives on others. And this can be your superpower, because it increases your effectiveness in developing meaningful relationships with your stakeholders, including your dean, faculty, staff, and students.  Join us for a four-week certificate program designed to help you build your self-awareness superpower.  Throughout this course, you’ll explore:    As a final activity, you will create a personalized definition of leadership—something that communicates who you are as a leader—and you’ll discuss with your peers how you can apply it to a current leadership challenge you’re facing now.   

Donor-Centric Stewardship: A Partnership with Annual Giving and Donor Relations 

It is no surprise that advancement shops are experiencing increasingly greater external philanthropic competition, which can lead to declining donor interest and investment in your institution over time. Therefore, it is imperative that annual giving staff consider revising or updating their donor acquisition and retention strategies to better serve the changing needs and desires of their donors. Having a well-defined stewardship plan for annual giving donors not only sustains your donor interest, it also creates an opportunity for internal collaboration that may not have existed before.  The annual giving and donor relations staff at Old Dominion University (ODU) identified and seized upon such an opportunity.  They came together to consolidate their stewardship efforts, and as a result, they have:  Join us at this online event to hear how these two teams came together and to learn how you can collaborate in similar ways on your own campus.  

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