Course Category: Free for All-Inclusive Members

Engaging Meaningfully with First-Generation Graduate Students to Increase Retention

While institutions today are getting better at recognizing that first-generation undergraduate students face additional barriers in navigating college, they still often expect first-generation graduate students to know how to overcome those barriers. Yet first-gen graduate students can still experience a variety of unique challenges – both personal and academic – that create additional roadblocks to their success. For instance, many first-gen graduate students may face a lack of understanding from family members while also having to navigate building social capital with faculty in an entirely different way. As graduate enrollment increases, faculty and staff working with graduate students can best support those students by understanding the additional challenges first-gen graduate students face. Join us for a 90-minute virtual training on what to consider in working with and mentoring first-generation graduate students. Our expert, Dr. Zaragosa “Mito” Diaz-Espinoza, will help you to recognize the struggles faced by first-gen graduate students in navigating such hurdles as a changing family life, the transition to graduate school, resource constraints at institutions, and making academic and professional decisions. You will have time to share what you yourself found challenging during graduate school and reflect on how that might be compounded for first-gen students. You will […]

Culturally Responsive Customer Service: A Holistic Approach to Student Retention

Service excellence requires an ethic of care and cultural sensitivity that recognizes students’ strengths and unique backgrounds to allow you to meet them where they are. Combining these two approaches into a culturally responsive customer service initiative allows an institution to provide holistic support throughout students’ academic journey, which in turn has a direct impact on retention, persistence, and overall student success. Leading this training are our subject matter experts, Dr. Jessica Lauritsen from Hennepin Technical College and Ivan Lui from The Brooklyn Bridge Alliance for Youth (BBA), who are experienced in successfully implementing a culturally responsive customer service initiative to increase student completion and persistence. Here, they will share their learnings and practical tips for how you can get started with: Understanding initial research on your institution’s student persistence and completion. Assessing the readiness of your institution and its leadership capacity for such an initiative. Using a “serving students” lens to reframe the conversation around intercultural development and cultural competency. Building a sustainable service excellence and retention initiative.

Intentionally Build Your Executive Presence

Executive presence is an amalgamation of your emotional, aesthetic, and communication behaviors, and it influences your ability to successfully grow as a leader. While your accomplishments, expertise, and experience are the bedrock of your career, building skills to enhance your executive presence can further support your professional reputation and growth. This workshop will help you to identify strategies to enhance three facets of your executive presence and build them into your daily routine. Through a mix of reflection, discussion, and content delivery, we’ll explore questions like: How do you navigate challenging situations, considering your internal emotional response as well as how you express those emotions outwardly? Does your communication style—both verbal and written—convey both your expertise and your emotional intelligence? Do your actions align with the leadership qualities you wish others to experience when working with you?

Writing Workshop for Advancement

Writing Workshop for Advancement November 1 – November 2, 2022 Strengthen the voice and consistency of your communications to donors and alumni. EVENT INFORMATION ENSURE YOUR TECHNOLOGY IS READY This workshop is intentionally designed to allow for maximum learning, connections, and engagement. We advise the following in order to participate fully: Audio & Visual Needs

A Masterclass in Discovery Work

Discovery work is an essential part of the fundraising process because it’s your first access point to learning how to optimize a potential donor’s philanthropic interest. Refining your approach and strategy is a great way to continue gaining confidence in your ability to be conversational as a fundraiser. The ability to ask insightful questions that keep prospects and donors talking and sharing will ultimately lead you to align your donor with the best possible opportunity for their philanthropy goals. Join us in this online training to deepen your skillset around discovery work and improve upon your first impression as a representative of your organization. Go into donor conversations equipped with the right questions to ask that will build trust and enable you get to know your donors more intimately.

Advancing Your DEI Strategy Across Viewpoints

Leaders of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are continually charged with spearheading initiatives that require them to navigate critical conversations with stakeholders who may have divergent or even radically different views and opinions than their own. In some cases, these views can run counter to the goals of the initiative at hand. In these possibly contentious spaces of dialogue, you might wonder how you can: Employ effective communication strategies to maximize participation from all parties involved; Model the process of becoming partners and encourage open and honest dialogue; or Work to flip the lens by engaging key supporters and minimizing negative voices. This one-day virtual training is designed to help leaders who are advancing equity and inclusion efforts on their campus to better identify and apply effective communication strategies to move conversations forward. The workshop will help you to keep your work “values-focused” by avoiding pitfalls and demonstrating how to lead openly and courageously.

Enhancing Your Personal and Professional Resilience

There remains a common misconception in our society that resilience is the ability to keep going at all costs. We lead busy lives and push ourselves to the brink of exhaustion in service of “resilience.” But in actuality, true resilience is created when we are able to pause, recharge, and generate the optimism and belief in our abilities that we need to sustain long-term and lead happier, more fulfilling lives. This video course will teach you how to use self-advocacy and intentional reflection to enhance resiliency across key aspects of your personal and professional life. Higher-ed professionals at all levels who would like to improve the quality of their relationships with themselves, others, and the various projects and day-to-day tasks in their lives will benefit from this course.

Faculty Performance & Conduct: Reframing the Conversation

Faculty conduct has significant implications for the overall morale and climate in a department, division, and institution. Faculty conduct can contribute positively to the success of students, colleagues, and the department. However, faculty conduct issues can impede individual faculty success, as well as the success of others, and disproportionately impact underrepresented groups in academia. Oftentimes, faculty conduct issues go undocumented and/or are never formally addressed, thus passively condoning the continuation of problematic behavior. Faculty affairs and academic leaders responsible for addressing faculty conduct issues need training and the proper infrastructure in order to implement consistent policies and practices that prevent the occurrence of problematic faculty conduct as soon as it starts. Join us for this interactive training about creating an institutional infrastructure for addressing faculty conduct that is consistent, clear, and supportive for those who need to address these issues. You will walk away from this training with valuable tips, tools, and strategies that support faculty accountability.

Micro-credentials and Badges in Higher Education

Micro-credentials and Badges in Higher Education October 12 – 13, 2022 Explore useful strategies for developing and advancing micro-credentialing and badging initiatives and programs at your institution.  EVENT INFORMATION ENSURE YOUR TECHNOLOGY IS READY This workshop is intentionally designed to allow for maximum learning, connections, and engagement. We advise the following in order to participate fully: Audio & Visual Needs

Securing Transformational Gifts: A Conversation About Engaging Principal Gift Donors

Securing a principal gift can have an immense impact on the way an institution is able to meet its mission and serve students effectively. However, identifying and cultivating relationships with potential principal gift donors takes patience, intentionality, and compromise. In this useful question-and-answer virtual webcast, our expert instructor, Mitchell Spearman, will call upon his experiences working with philanthropic families who shared transformational gifts with institutions across the country. By engaging with participants and sharing his own insight and advice, Spearman will help advancement professionals to understand how to more effectively approach engaging principal gift donors and their families to secure transformational gifts. As a participant, you will have the opportunity to submit your questions in advance and we will do our best to incorporate these questions into the live event.

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