Academic Restructuring Considerations for Future Transformation and Growth

Academic Restructuring Considerations for Future Transformation and Growth

 

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Learn models and strategies to align and strengthen your academic organizational structure for a changing future.

Well-known market realities compel institutions of higher education to advance their mission by making bold academic alignment decisions. Academic leaders must continually re-evaluate the effectiveness and relevance of their academic programs, structures, and organizational alignment. If they are no longer serving them well, there’s an imperative to reevaluate the organizational model to become a leaner and stronger entity with opportunities for growth.   

Join us for this unique, intimate event that will help you navigate the immense structural and cultural challenges of an academic realignment or restructure project. Whether you are considering academic restructure at the department, college, or institutional level, this program will provide you the knowledge and planning tools to strategically evaluate your situation and identify the right approaches for your unique institutional context. You will learn how to:

  • Identify the key integrated planning areas to reevaluate your academic offerings
  • Assess your current situation and target areas for strategic growth
  • Adapt and tailor existing models, such as: merging schools or departments, converting programs, discontinuing majors and minors, creating program clusters, and more
  • Rethink traditional leadership roles and responsibilities to strengthen decision-making
  • Face and embrace campus culture and conflict amidst constant change

 

Full Day Pre-Conference Workshop: Design Thinking for Academic Innovation

This full day workshop will provide you with the necessary tools and mindset to spur innovation on your campus. The traditional approach in higher education is problem and solution focused. By contrast, the design thinking methodology shifts the approach to open up possibilities, fine-tune options, and zero in on implementation. It also encourages students and faculty to be directly involved in the choices we make as institutions to the industry's most pressing challenges. During this full-day workshop, you will learn:

  • How design thinking is used in higher education specific to academic innovation
  • What the design thinking process looks like with the opportunity to practice each step
  • How to incorporate empathy as a design tool for innovation
  • Strategies and resources to facilitate design thinking exercises on your campus

After experimenting with real issues at hand, you will leave with a prototype of your design thinking exercise for a specific academic innovation on your campus.

 

Who Should Attend

This workshop will benefit high-level academic and executive leadership including:

  • Provosts
  • Presidents
  • Deans
  • Faculty
  • Chancellors
  • System Heads or System Leaders
  • Institutional Planning Professionals
  • Organizational Effectiveness Professionals
  • CFOs
  • Chiefs of Staff

Bring your team and save!

Save over 15% when you register three or more colleagues.

 

CPE Credits Available

Continuing education credits: CPE

Continuing education credits: CPE Credits

Recommended CPE Credits:  15.5 credits for conference + workshop; 9 credits for main conference; 6 credits for pre-conference workshop

Program Field of Study: Specialized Knowledge

Delivery Method: Group-Live

Prerequisites: None

Program Level: Basic

Follow Through With Success Coaching

Have you ever gone to a training only to find that you came back with great ideas but don’t have the time, support, or skills needed to make the changes?

Academic Impressions has produced thousands of trainings and we have learned that utilizing a coach after attending a conference helps provide accountability and bridges the training with the on-the-ground work of getting the job done.

As a result, we are now offering success coaching on select conferences.

  • Purchase this training + 3 one hour follow up success coaching calls
  • Work with an assigned coach who has extensive experience in higher ed.
  • Get individualized support to help you follow through on what you’ve learned.
  • Workshop your plans, run your ideas by someone and get additional help/practice.

To learn more, contact Patricia Sandler at patricia@academicimpressions.com or purchase the Premium Pass with success coaching below.

Agenda

Your registration fee includes full access to all pre-conference workshop sessions and materials, breakfast and lunch on Monday, as well as refreshments and snacks throughout the day.

Day 1 | Pre-Conference Workshop

 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

 

Full Day, Pre-Conference Workshop: Design Thinking for Academic Innovation

This full day workshop will provide you with the necessary tools and mindset to spur innovation on your campus. The traditional approach in higher education focuses on the problem and solution. By contrast, the design thinking methodology shifts the approach to open up possibilities, fine-tune options, and zero in on implementation. It also encourages students and faculty to be directly involved in the choices we make as institutions to the industry's most pressing challenges. During this full-day event, you will learn:

  • How design thinking is used in higher education specific to academic innovation
  • What the design thinking process looks like with the opportunity to practice each step
  • How to incorporate empathy as a design tool for innovation
  • Strategies and resources to facilitate design thinking exercises on your campus

After experimenting with real issues at hand, you will leave with a prototype of your design thinking exercise for a specific academic innovation on your campus.

 


 

Your registration fee includes full access to all conference sessions and materials, access to the networking reception on Tuesday, breakfast and lunch on Wednesday, as well as refreshments and snacks throughout the conference.

Day 2 | Growth and Innovation as an Imperative

8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

 

Opening Remarks and Introductions

You will share expectations and connect with your facilitators and fellow participants through a series of introduction activities. 

 


 

Positioning for Strategic Growth

As institutions are embracing innovation and change, a range of models are emerging to reevaluate the program, school, college, and institutional structure. This brief overview will shed light on the challenges public and private institutions are facing, as well as overall smart growth strategies for strategic alignment. You will learn what it takes to be in a strong position for similar changes at your institution. 

 


 

Integrated Planning while Facing Financial Challenges

This session will highlight an integrated planning process undertaken by two different institutions (one public and one private urban campus) who were facing extreme financial solvency challenges and saw the need for a calculated structural maneuver to continue serving their mission. Through the lens of two seasoned executive leaders, you will learn:

  • How they merged operations in disparate departments and schools
  • Discontinued majors and minors in place of new high-demand programs
  • Created new positions to lead future program development
  • Converted programs to health sciences to fulfill a niche in the region 
  • How they launched the process and avoided or endured backlash from faculty and community 

As they share their process and examples, there will be an opportunity to ask questions and discuss similar challenges you are experiencing on your campus. 

 


 

Current State Assessment

Our experts will facilitate a dynamic and thought-provoking exercise in small groups. You will determine where you are now and your readiness to embark on repositioning your institution with stronger alignment towards your target student populations. 

 


 

Rethinking Your Academic Leadership Structure

We will continue learning about the integrated planning process from the perspective of multiple campus institutions, both public and private. Our experts have taken the traditional organizational model of departments and units and redesigned schools and colleges with faculty cultivating better resource management practices. You will learn strategies and techniques to:

  • Facilitate open dialog needed to rethink the current model
  • Design program clusters and a new reporting structure
  • Create a more equitable balance of faculty workload across growing programs
  • Broaden the perspective of faculty, deans, and program leaders in how they can make a difference
  • Create new positions that cultivate more responsibilities across the board
  • Leverage retirements and otherwise vacant faculty lines to reposition academic units and programs

 


 

Working Session: Aligning Organizational Structures with Organizational Responsibilities

Now that you’ve heard how practitioners have rethought their leadership structure to cultivate additional areas of growth, you will structure your ideas while exploring how these facets play out at your institution. 

 


 

Networking Reception

This informal reception 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 whom you may not have connected with yet.

 


Day 3 | Building it Stronger

8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

 

Panel Discussion: Establishing and Building Campus Community Relationships

Our experts who have overcome significant challenges as they navigated the change process through each phase of restructuring will share their stickiest of moments. Through this open and candid dialogue, you will be able to ask questions and glean important strategies to anticipate and face conflict. 

 


 

Planning a Stronger Future: A Phased Approach

In this final capstone session, you’ll learn the adaptable planning framework for examining your current situation and priorities through in-depth questions and exercises. Our instructor will highlight the phases from analysis to planning to implementation with key milestones throughout. 

 


 

Working Session and Presentations: Action Planning

This working session will provide you time to apply the framework you have just learned to identify your own milestones and action steps you will put into place. Lenses used may be structure, policy, programs, and internal politics and culture. You and your peers will also have an opportunity to share the culmination of your learning.

Speakers

RobBrodnick

Robert Brodnick, Ph.D.

Founder, Sierra Learning Solutions

Rob has worked in the fields of planning, strategy, research, and organizational change and development for over 25 years. He is an expert facilitator of human process from dyads to small groups to large scale retreats and has notable experience with leadership groups, boards, planning bodies, and with strategic and creative solutions.

Read Robert's full bio here.

Corey Cook

Corey Cook

Vice Provost for Academic Programs and Planning, Saint Mary's College of California

Corey Cook, joined Saint Mary's College of California on July 1 as the Vice Provost for Academic Programs and Planning. Prior to that, he served as the founding dean of the School of Public Service and Professor of Political Science at Boise State University.

Read Cory's full bio here.

Czarda

Lawrence D. Czarda

President, Greensboro College

Dr. Czarda is President of Greensboro College in North Carolina. In 2010, Dr. Czarda was selected as the 18th president of the college after a national search. Dr. Czarda has earned a reputation for being an active presence on campus, addressing major issues directly with a commitment to shared governance and transparency.

Read Lawrence's full bio here.

rod-githens-headshot

Rod Githens

Associate Dean for Academic Programs & Innovation, Associate Professor, Leadership & Organization Development, University of the Pacific

Rod currently is focused on helping leaders of all types nurture human and organizational potential. Rod’s professional practice focuses on organizational learning, organization development, strategic planning, and evaluation. Rod facilitated the development and implementation of the school’s strategic plan, Benerd Reimagined, which is resulting in a major academic and organizational transformation.

Read Rod's full bio here.

KarentWhitney

Dr. Karen M. Whitney

President Emerita, Clarion University

Throughout her 40 year career in higher education, Karen has held a variety of executive and leadership positions with increasing levels of responsibility, beginning as a Director and transitioning to Associate Vice President, Vice Chancellor, President, and Chancellor. She is also a nationally recognized organizational and leadership development writer, speaker, consultant, and advisor.

Read Karen's full bio here.

Questions About the Event?

Egstad-Whitney

Whitney Egstad
Program Manager, Academic Impressions

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