Many leaders strive to create an inclusive environment for their employees, but this can be difficult to achieve without first taking time to understand how our own identity can impact our ability to engage in effective and supportive dialogue with a diverse team. Through this training’s experiential activities and small-group discussion, participants who are leading teams will gain a better sense of their own identities and how power, privilege, and oppression interplay with these established identities and those around them. Participants will also learn and practice active listening, suspending judgment, leaning into discomfort, and using empathy as ways to be more culturally sensitive and responsive within work and academic environments—ultimately, emphasizing respect for different lived experiences overall.
Before assuming a formal leadership position, gaining key leadership skills can set faculty up for a marked increase in leadership success while avoiding the burden of learning new skills while taking on a new role. Instead, you can proactively prepare for leadership positions while also learning skills and concepts that benefit your current role. This training has been designed for faculty who wish to prepare for academic leadership positions in the future, or who simply desire the skills to better navigate the formal and informal roles that go along with teaching, research, and service. In the second part of this training, you will be introduced to practical frameworks that provide a basis for understanding the skills and concepts necessary for a leadership role. We will focus on the following three domains of competency: Individual and group decision making: The quality of our decisions strongly influences our academic environment. Understanding what decision-making models and techniques should be used—and when, and how—enables leaders to better support and guide groups in their own decision making. Strategic thinking and doing: Whereas strategic planning is usually a time-consuming activity typically accomplished every 5 years, strategic thinking and doing, on the other hand, is essential to […]
Maximizing philanthropic opportunities is the underlying objective of every advancement shop. A fundamental part of ensuring this objective is achieved comes from broad engagement with major donors—which involves strategic communications and connections from various units and stakeholders on campus. To ensure that communication efforts with major donors are well organized, having information on who is engaging these donors (and why, and when) is crucial to securing a major gift. By establishing an institutional engagement council that is spearheaded by advancement, your shop will manage and grow deeper relationships with major donors more effectively by calculating the right moments for connecting with them. Join us for this important online training to learn how you can make the case to establish and execute a successful university engagement council for your campus.
As the number of first-generation college students increases at the undergraduate level, it is more important than ever to have support systems and resources in place. As you try out new interventions for your first-generation students, having feedback and hearing from others in similar positions will help you to assess and refine your approach. Join us for a one-hour discussion on both what has worked and what challenges you have encountered in working with first-generation students. Our expert—Daphne Rankin, PhD—will guide you through conversation about what interventions have worked for you in the past, what interventions you are looking to stage next, and what challenges you yourself have encountered in your work with first-generation students. You will also have the opportunity to share resources and connections with your peers and brainstorm next steps for overcoming current or future roadblocks.
Donor participation has been decreasing over the previous two decades. Identifying a strategy that reverses this trend has been a challenge for many institutions. This problem is complicated and not easily defined; yet evidence points to root causes such as a decrease in trust of higher education or how communication practices have fundamentally changed over this time, resulting in how institutional information is consumed by alumni. By focusing on deep engagement that is participatory, purposeful, and recurring, Muhlenberg College has developed a model that has improved their donor participation rate, moving them into the top 100 institutions for alumni giving. Join us online to learn the steps you can take to improve your alumni participation rate by focusing on the quality of your communication efforts, the essence of your alumni community, and the systemic changes you can make in your annual fundraising strategy.
Teams often have members from many different backgrounds, and leaders with empathy and humility are better able to bridge cultural divides and create a shared sense of community. Join us for a 1-hour discussion to strategize how to develop that sense of community on your team, regardless of each team member’s background. You’ll have the opportunity to further explore themes from Building Stronger Teams with Empathy and Humility for Leaders and to connect with leaders across higher education who are facing similar challenges.
Many leaders encounter team members with toxic or narcissistic traits, and those team members can wreck a team dynamic if left unchecked. Join us for a 1-hour discussion to strategize how to address difficult team members from a place of humility and empathy. You’ll have the opportunity to further explore themes from Building Stronger Teams with Empathy and Humility for Leaders and to connect with leaders across higher education who are facing similar challenges.
Leaders with empathy and humility have a better understanding of self and are able to cultivate those traits in others. Join us for a 1-hour discussion session where we will talk about how empathy and humility can help you be a confident leader, and how you can avoid being too empathic or humble as a leader. You’ll have the opportunity to further explore themes from Building Stronger Teams with Empathy and Humility for Leaders and to connect with leaders across higher education who are facing similar challenges.
The Covid-19 pandemic laid bare issues with retention, psychological safety, and a sense of belonging that leaders in higher education must face on their own teams. Faculty and staff thrive on strong teams with a positive, productive culture, and leaders who are empathic and humble create a team culture where it is possible to undo toxic traits, bridge cultural divides, and increase employee retention. Join us for an interactive, 3-hour virtual training to help leaders learn how to build practical skills and better demonstrate humility and empathy toward their team members. During the training, we will cover: What is humility, and how can you use a humble mindset to build empathy? Why should you want to have humility and empathy as a leader? Practical applications of empathetic, humble leadership
We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to show up, keep going, and perform. It’s easy to lose sight of the simple moments of joy and substance in our everyday lives. Through this video course, you will develop a daily mindfulness practice that enables you to pause, connect more deeply with what’s going on around you, and stay grounded in the present moment. Comprised of simple techniques that make use of all your senses—thought, sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, and feeling—you will come away with a variety of mindfulness methods that you can easily integrate into your busy everyday life. Higher ed professionals at all levels who are seeking more intention, purpose, and connection will benefit from this course. This course is valued at $595, but is free for members.
