Course Category: Free for All-Inclusive Members

Encore and Live Q&A: Bridging the Process Gap for Major Gifts Between Advancement Services and Frontline Fundraising

When your institution receives a major gift, whether in the form of one single gift or through a multi-year pledge, it is important to manage that gift accurately. This includes placing the gift in its appropriate account on campus, ensuring that pledge reminders are sent out and payment secured in a timely manner, and that the donation is used according to donor intent. However, when frontline fundraisers introduce new gifts, the institutional destination and purpose of the gift can get lost in translation as it makes its way to advancement services for processing. Therefore, it is vital to ensure that the processes between advancement services and frontline fundraising are sound, and that communication is consistent to prevent circumstances that can lead to loss in revenue, missed pledges, or money spent incorrectly.   Join us for this online training to learn how the University of Utah created a new position to specifically address these common problems within advancement. This session will help your shop to identify and scale your current process by adopting some of Utah’s best practices to better streamline communication across these two areas. 

Aligning Your Work with Your Goals as Career Faculty

Faculty not on the tenure track are seeking career development and leadership opportunities relevant to their unique career paths. While they share similar responsibilities as tenure-track faculty, they also face being overburdened with undervalued academic work, such as administrative and service work, that may not advance their careers and professional goals. In our video course, Becoming Part of the Great Aspiration: A Career Development Workshop for Alt-ac Faculty, Dr. Gypsy Denzine introduces the idea of “professional equity,” which includes your knowledge and expertise as well as your professional network and reputation. In this live addendum to the course, Dr. Denzine will walk you through how you can build your professional equity as a non-tenure-track faculty member by being strategic about the tasks you choose, so that they align with your values and career goals.

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

In 2017, The Workplace Bullying Institute found that women experience the majority of abusive conduct at work. We are sadly all too familiar with the stereotypical sexist discrimination and harassment perpetuated within higher education, but what does it mean when it looks slightly different—when women experience gendered bullying and harassment by other women? In their 2020 work, Navigating the Gendered Labyrinths and Managing the Mean Girls and Queen Bees within the Academy, Locke and Hayes found that women in higher education experience a number of challenges when working with other women, including but not limited to: gaslighting, emotional abuse, withheld support or mentoring, and microaggressions. In this training, our experts will take this research a step further and lead a discussion on the importance of considering intersectional identities in the experience of bullying. Through research, case studies, and the lived experiences of the presenters, attendees will have the opportunity to explore this topic and identify the types of behaviors that could limit or prevent the growth of women who lead in higher education.

Developing and Supporting Identity-Based Alumni Affinity Groups

As student demographics in higher education continue to shift, and as institutions continue to develop new initiatives focused on equity, inclusion, and belonging, it is more important than ever to build a pathway for diverse students to become engaged alumni. Identity-based alumni affinity groups can foster ties between prospective and current students and alumni, strengthen a diverse volunteer pipeline, and increase giving. They can also offer alumni a continued or newfound sense of belonging as well as opportunities for advocacy.   Join us for this virtual training to learn how to develop and support identity-based alumni affinity groups. We will share examples, strategies, and reflection points for starting and sustaining these groups. In this virtual conference, you will consider: Historical legacies of the inclusion/exclusion of diverse students and alumni in higher education and at your own institution. What is communicated by a group name, and how to choose names that best serve your alumni. How to use a phased approach to establish identity-based alumni affinity groups. Ways to support group missions through communication, events, and other engagement.

Maximize Your Public Speaking by Overcoming Your Discomfort

Communication is a critical skill for leaders. And as challenges facing higher education today grow more complex and communication methods more diverse, the need to feel confident in your ability to speak publicly is more essential than ever.   Join us for a virtual training uniquely designed to help you understand, and move through, your discomfort with public speaking by exploring these topics in depth:   Want to Take Your Learning Further? Interested in learning more and applying the learning from this training? Register for the Public Speaking Bootcamp: A Hands-On Approach to Developing and Delivering Effective Communication. You will learn how to prepare, practice, and perform a speech and also identify what to do if things do not go as planned. Intentionally Designed Online Learning Our virtual trainings go far beyond just replicating PowerPoint presentations online: these experiences are intentionally designed to give you the kind of robust and dynamic learning experience you’ve come to expect from Academic Impressions. These trainings provide you with an active learning environment and an online space where you can explore ideas, get inspired by what your peers are doing, and understand the range of possibilities around a certain topic. You will leave these sessions with […]

Celebrating Success as First-Generation Faculty: A Time for Discussion

Navigating faculty life and culture can be challenging for anyone, regardless of their background. To be successful, faculty need to understand the subculture of higher education, know how to network and navigate politics on campus and in their discipline, and be able to advocate for themselves and set boundaries effectively. But for first-generation faculty members, there can be additional barriers in confronting the hidden curriculum and trying to successfully manage research, teaching, and service. Not to mention the fact that first-gen faculty members are often best suited to support first-gen students in their journey through college, which can add unofficial service time to their calendars. Join us for a one-hour facilitated discussion about thriving as a first-gen faculty member. You will have the opportunity to: Hear from our speakers about their journey through college, graduate school, and faculty life. Discuss ways to celebrate successes, support students, and maintain the boundaries needed to be successful as faculty. Network with other first-gen faculty members from different institutions.

Building Agency in Your Mid-Career as Faculty

As faculty move through their mid-career stage, there are numerous directions open to them for their future. Associate professors, both tenured and on the career track, can choose to focus more directly on their research, experiment with new teaching techniques, or focus on building skills to move into leadership positions. However, given all of these directions, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed at the mid-career stage. Additionally, outside pressures like service work, teaching requirements, and competing goals and priorities can make mid-career faculty feel like they have no say over their future. Building skills exemplified by leaders with agency can therefore help mid-career faculty to better manage their career journey and overall well-being. Join us for this interactive virtual training on the basics of building agency in your mid-career. Our speakers, Dr. Daryl Van Tongeren and Dr. Cié Gee, will walk you through skills that make up agency, like self-awareness of control, flexibility, psychological stability, and ownership of your role. You will learn how to build those skills in your own career—and what those skills can lead to.

Building a Transformative Mindset on Your Team

Institutions currently face a changing student demographic, increased student disengagement, and the Great Resignation, and their old methods of operating may no longer allow them to be successful in a changing higher education landscape. As institutions look to boost or maintain student enrollment and retention, as well as to retain their faculty and staff, breaking free of habitual practices and acting decisively are more important than ever. However, enacting transformative change at your institution requires your team to be creative and to make bold decisions. How do you create an environment where your team feels empowered to think innovatively and act quickly? Join us for a virtual training to learn how to create an environment that allows for transformation. Our expert speaker Glenn Davis will walk you through building a transformative mindset on your team and creating leaders who are empowered to act decisively. You will also see how the unintended consequences of letting those act who often know students best can lead to more innovative solutions.

Securing the Gift: Making the Ask with Confidence

Gift officers can sometimes feel uncomfortable making the ask for a variety of reasons, and the anxiety they can produce may be felt and mirrored by donors, leading to a “no.” However, not making the ask can lead to missed opportunities and a loss of momentum with key prospects. A successful ask comes down to the relationship you’ve built with the donor, being clear about your role and intent, and a strong solicitation strategy that leads up to this moment. This approach requires knowing your prospect well: understanding their giving history, what motivates them to give, and the relationships they’ve built with the different stakeholders at your institution. Join this session to gain insights on how to strategically approach a prospect you have in mind to make the ask. When done right, this moment in a donor relationship should come organically with the assurance that the answer will be a yes—and if it is not, that the relationship will remain on solid ground, and you will get another opportunity to make an ask in the future.

Improving Your Donor Pipeline Through Academic Leader and Advancement Collaboration

Enhancing collaboration among alumni engagement, annual giving, and academic leaders is a strategic priority for many institutions. By engaging deans and academic leaders intentionally and early in the fundraising cycle, advancement professionals can help their academic colleagues see themselves within philanthropic work. Perhaps more importantly, this partnership can also provide alumni and donors with clear opportunities to realize the impact of their relationship investments. In this virtual training, you will learn how to determine what meaningful engagement by academic leaders can look like to support building your pipeline and improve alumni and donor engagement. You will analyze your institutional culture and context to effectively establish a partnership between your advancement shop and academic leaders. Participants will walk away with useful ideas to strategically engage alumni and donors.

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