DEI and Inclusive Leadership

DEI & Inclusive Leadership

Learning to lead inclusively is a crucial enhancement of your leadership skillset.

Effective leadership is inclusive leadership. Academic Impressions creates psychologically safe environments for training and discussion around diversity, equity, and inclusion. We know these topics can induce anxiety for some and passion for others. That is why we engage subject-matter experts who are knowledgeable, honest, and approachable when considering topics that many of us were raised to never discuss.

Academic Impressions continues to build trust in the DEI space because, in addition to having facilitators who are thoroughly vetted, we also place a priority on making sure our presenters believe what we believe: that learning about inclusivity should feel like an enhancement to your skillset, not a punishment for “bad” behavior. We aim to help higher education leaders, regardless of level or positional authority, expand their awareness and skillset around diversity, equity and inclusion.

Provide access to everyone at your institution through:

Inclusive Leadership Certificate Program: Build Your Skills and Self-Awareness

Included in Membership

Weekly learning delivered directly to you—in bite-sized lessons.

Great for Teams or Individuals

Time Commitment:
Average of 2.5 Hours a Week for 4 weeks

Earn an Academic Impressions Digital Badge

Our Inclusive Leadership Certificate Program: Build Your Skills and Self-Awareness is designed to take you on a deep dive into self-awareness and personal development to help you to become a more inclusive leader. Consume our curriculum over the course of 4 weeks. Each week you’ll have an average of 2.5 hours of work that can be completed on-demand. The course will also include two live sessions.

  • Get a weekly email with on-demand videos and activities that can be completed on your lunch break over the course of the week.
  • Attend two live sessions to apply your learning and engage in dialogue with peers from around the country. These sessions will be recorded and available on-demand for those who can’t attend live.
  • Earn a certificate of completion.

Register now! Choose from cohorts that start on June 3, 2024.

Certificate Program Curriculum

Week #1: How do you lead? Reflecting on how you show up as a leader.| LIVE SESSION – You will have the opportunity to examine and analyze the results from The Five Paths to Leadership℠ Self-Assessment to identify your unique leadership strengths under normal circumstances, as well as under stress. Join us live on Friday to discuss a variety of ways you can be inclusive of those who lead differently from you.

Week #2: What has shaped your approach to leadership? Unpacking your experience. – a leader, it’s important to understand how your identities and experiences can shape your approach to leadership. This week, you’ll explore concepts related to your social identities and lived experiences that can help you to unpack why you see the world the way you do—and apply this knowledge to be a more inclusive leader.

Week #3: What makes leading inclusively difficult? Taking stock of your inclusive leadership skills, managing internal discomfort, and developing cultural humility. – Being a leader takes work. Being an inclusive leader takes work and a commitment to continuous learning, improvement, and growth. This week, we’ll focus on the self-work required to be a more inclusive leader.

Week #4: How will you lead going forward? Drafting your inclusive leadership philosophy. | LIVE SESSION – How can you use your privilege to be a more inclusive leader? How might you practice authentic allyship and engage in cultural humility as a leader? In this final week, we’ll continue to reflect on these themes during our final week, when we meet to create our personal inclusive leadership philosophies. Join us for the final live session to wrap up the course.

Short-Form Learning

Included in Membership

Our programming is designed to meet the DEI needs of individual faculty and staff, departments and units, or entire campuses – wherever they may be on their journey. Explore training and development in the DEI space that is credible and presented in a straightforward and accessible way:

Expand Your Skills and Self-Awareness

Foundational resources designed to help you define terminology, increase awareness, better understand the nuances and complexities associated with various social identities and to grow your skill and comfort level when discussing issues around diversity, equity, and inclusion.

See Trainings ⟶

Build More Inclusive and Equitable Teams

Elevate your and/or your team’s comfort level and interpersonal communication skills to effectively engage in dialogue across racial differences and to lead and create intentionally equitable environments.

See Trainings ⟶

Create an Inclusive Campus

Resources for leaders and champions of DEI efforts who wish to use their sphere of influence to effect lasting change around diversity, equity, and inclusion at the system level. Learn how to best support the success of leaders from historically marginalized backgrounds.

See Trainings ⟶

Expand Your Skills and Self-Awareness to Lead More Inclusively

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LIVE WEBCAST

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable: Engaging in Dialogue About Freedom, Favoritism, and Fairness

July 10, 2024 | September 24, 2024 | January 29, 2025

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MINI COURSES

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 101: A 10-Day Foundational Program

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MINI COURSES

White Privilege and Allyship: A 5-Day Advanced Program

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MINI COURSES

Gender Identity and Gender Bias: A 5-Day Advanced Program

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Women's hands in the air

VIRTUAL TRAINING RECORDING

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable: Engaging in Dialogue About Race and Bias

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EDUCATIONAL SERIES

Engaging in Racial Inequity Dialogue

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Build More Inclusive and Equitable Teams

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FREE WEBCAST RECORDING

Courageous Gardening: Equity Minded Leadership in Higher Education

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WEBCAST RECORDING

Reflections on Inclusive Supervision as an Assistant Dean of Students

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Faculty member supporting students

ON-DEMAND SERIES

Building Bridges: Understanding and Supporting Faculty, Staff, and Students Across Generations

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VIRTUAL TRAINING RECORDING

Inclusive Leadership: Understand Your Intersecting Identities to Better Serve Others

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WEBCAST RECORDING

Creating Equitable and Inclusive Meetings

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Create An Inclusive Campus

AFFECT SYSTEMIC CHANGE

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VIRTUAL TRAINING RECORDING

Freedom of Speech, Academic Freedom, and DEI: A Complicated Relationship

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VIRTUAL TRAINING RECORDING

Managing Change as an Inclusive Leader

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Inclusion written on chalkboard

COURSE

Inclusive Hiring Best Practices: Removing Barriers and Mitigating Search Committee Bias

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Campus

WEBCAST RECORDING

Developing Intentional Strategies to Improve Campus Climate: A Discussion Space

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VIRTUAL TRAINING RECORDING

Create a Culture of Cross-Campus Open Dialogue

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SUPPORT THE SUCCESS OF LEADERS FROM HISTORICALLY MARGINALIZED BACKGROUNDS

Pride flag

TWO-PART TRAINING RECORDING

LGBTQ Leader Success

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Professional business woman

TWO-PART TRAINING RECORDING

Supporting Latinx Leadership

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Woman leader

LEARNING HUB

Women’s Leadership: Professional Development for Women and Allies

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Woman leadership hero

VIRTUAL TRAINING RECORDING

Support Black Women Leaders by Influencing Organizational Culture

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Women's hands in the air

VIRTUAL TRAINING RECORDING

Perspectives from Underrepresented Women in Higher Ed Leadership

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Women’s Leadership: Professional Development for Women and Allies

See all of our Women’s Leadership resources: Women’s Leadership: Professional Development for Women and Allies

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VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

Women’s Leadership Success in Higher Education

July 30 - 31, 2024 | September 9 - 10, 2024

Learn More ⟶

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WORKSHOP SERIES

Actualize Your Purpose: A Workshop Series on Improving Your Well-Being

Part 1: September 17, 2024
Part 2: April 9, 2024 | December 3, 2024

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Business Woman

WEBCAST RECORDING

Building and Sustaining Key Relationships: A Conversation with Executive Women Leaders

Learn More ⟶

Sad young student sitting in the hall.

VIRTUAL TRAINING RECORDING

You Can’t Sit with Us: Exploring the Impact of Mean Girls and Bullying in Higher Education

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VIRTUAL TRAINING RECORDING

When Fear is Holding You Back: A Framework to Support Career Aspirations and Self-Efficacy

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Get These Trainings and More with Membership

Save up to $1,500 on Membership
Join before June 30, 2024

What is Membership with Academic Impressions?

Membership with Academic Impressions is the most comprehensive online professional development subscription specifically designed for staff and faculty in higher education. Our resources support leaders, staff, and faculty at all levels with trainings on leadership development, personal development, and job-specific skills.

Join hundreds of member institutions and use this year to make professional development a regular occurrence instead of a once-a-year annual meeting.

What Does Membership Include?

Access to a continuously expanding library of live online trainings, designed to be practical, discussion-based, and highly experiential

Unlimited anytime, anywhere access to on-demand trainings and resources that you can engage with on your own time from the convenience of your workspace

New trainings every week, designed to respond to the latest needs of the higher ed community

$250 discount on multi-week cohort-based bootcamps and in-person conferences

Customize the Topics for Your Division or Institution

Discounted with Membership

Great for Teams - Tailored to meet needs of campus

Can be in person, virtual, or blended

Training can stand alone or be used to supplement existing programs

Academic Impressions works with dozens of institutions to customize training based on the unique needs of your team, division, or institution. We take a flexible and collaborative approach in how we design each learning experience, working closely with our institutional partners to customize the program based on the unique goals and context of your team and the participants.

Our approach allows us to align the scope, focus, format, and content to directly speak to an institution’s climate survey, strategic plan, or DEI initiative. Custom programs can integrate in-person or virtual workshops, working time with teams, as well as assessments, coaching, and more.

Customize and bring a workshop on one of these topics to your team:

  • Privilege as a Bridge, Not a Barrier
  • Conflict Management Through a DEI Lens
  • Implicit Bias: What You Don’t Know Might Hurt Someone
  • Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable: Engaging in Dialogue About Race and Bias

Northeastern University – Case Study

Northeastern University had a vision to take groundbreaking steps in becoming an inclusive institution. One of their first campus-wide initiatives was to create easily-accessible anti-racist training and resources available to all 40,000+ students, staff, and faculty. Academic Impressions and Northeastern partnered to co-create dynamic online educational modules, which included custom scenarios from Northeastern community members’ campus experiences, relevant representation, and DEI expertise from the Northeastern community. The partnership was a co-creative combination of experience and expertise in diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as learning design and delivery. As a result, over 50,000 faculty, staff, and students have participated in anti-racist training.

Flagship Programs

Discounted with Membership

Re-connect to learning and re-connect to colleagues. Cornerstones of our programs include:

  • Intimate, workshop-style events with personalized attention.
  • Needs-driven and thoughtfully planned trainings with practical outcomes.
  • Action plans and next steps to use upon returning to campus.
  • Carefully-vetted instructors that are also practitioners in the field.
  • Learner-centric events designed for interaction and collaboration.
  • A small-scale opportunity to truly connect with colleagues in the same position at other institutions.
Academic Impressions conference group image of women

IN-PERSON CONFERENCE

Executive-Level Leadership: An Institute for Advanced Women Leaders in Higher Education

July 15 - 17, 2024 | Denver, CO

Deepen your leadership skillset and build community with a powerful network of women leaders.

Learn More ⟶

Mentor working with faculty member

IN-PERSON CONFERENCE

Building a Culture of Mentoring at Your Institution

October 7 - 8, 2024 | Eugene, OR

Learn how mentoring can transform institutional culture and increase student, staff, and faculty success.

Learn More ⟶

Questions?

Paladino-Meg

Meghan Paladino
Director of Institutional Partnerships,
Academic Impressions