Crafting and Maintaining Your Career Vision: A Workshop for Early-Career Faculty

Early career faculty are pulled in numerous, often competing directions during their first years on the job. Consequently, many end up surrendering their long-term goals and aspirations at the expense of short-term demands. Whether volunteering for numerous committees, taking on more student mentees, and/or trying to jumpstart research, it can be easy to lose sight of bigger goals and how they align to a career plan. Establishing a career vision early on, that early career faculty can return to again and again, is crucial in making strategic decisions. Join us online for an interactive workshop where you will develop an intentional and strategic career plan to help you focus on the big picture and seize opportunities that align with your goals. In this workshop, we will provide you with a wealth of useful examples from different types of academic paths and institutions. Whether you are on a traditional promotion and tenure journey or have other aspirations, you will walk away from this training with a career map you can return to and revise time and time again.  

Leading as a Native American Leader in Higher Education

“Native Americans are too often imagined rather than understood.” This statement sums up the experience that many Native Americans have at their respective colleges and universities. While Native Americans are acknowledged in concept, they are not often discussed in concrete, specific terms, especially as it relates to leadership. But there are a growing number of Native Americans who occupy leadership roles in higher education, and the unique perspectives they bring—which influence and shape the way they approach their leadership—deserve to be more specifically recognized and celebrated. Join us online for an open discussion about the interplay between Native American heritage and leadership in higher education. You’ll be given intentional space to share your own experiences and self-perceptions with others who also identify as Native American leaders, and will come away with specific strategies for how traditional Native American values and beliefs can serve you in modern-day leadership opportunities.

Effective Leadership: An Introduction to Key Academic Leadership Skills & Competencies for Faculty

Many faculty are seeking ways to prepare for leadership positions in a time-effective manner, and to learn leadership skills and concepts that can be useful in their everyday faculty lives. 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 this training, you will be introduced to a practical framework that provides a basis for understanding the skills and concepts necessary for a leadership role. We will focus on the following three domains of competency: Developing Organizational Awareness: Leaders must develop an understanding of the environment in which they operate, including the various power structures at play and how decisions get made. Managing Others: Providing effective oversight while developing other faculty and staff is crucial to ensuring performance, productivity, and professional behavior. Influencing & Leading Change: Leading change and learning how to influence others are essential skills for leadership success in today’s environment. You will leave with a greater understanding of these topics along with 2-3 skills or concepts you can implement right away around each one.  

Identifying and Communicating the ROI of External Partnerships

External partners like local businesses or corporate sponsors can make a significant impact on your college or department’s financial management strategy and long-term sustainability. Partnerships can help you to create new revenue streams, promote cost savings, and/or provide resources and unique experiences for your students and faculty that your department or college may be lacking. But how do you as an academic leader identify the right partnership that meets both institutions’ needs, and—more importantly—how do you communicate your vision for the partnership in a way that reflects mutual benefit? Join us for an online workshop that will help you to strategize ways to effectively cultivate and communicate the value of external partnerships for your college or department. You’ll be introduced to a variety of successful external partnerships as inspiration for what’s possible, and will practice strategizing, crafting and communicating a compelling value proposition for various types of partnerships.  

Use Indigenous Storytelling Techniques to Help Facilitate Conversations on Racial Equity

In traditional indigenous storytelling, it is common for a group of people to come together, sit in a circle, and share personal stories around a specific theme or topic. These story circles serve to build community and celebrate culture through information transmission. They also allow for equanimity and provide a way to see the similar in the diverse. In this way, story circles can be used as an equalizer and a way to find common ground around critical and sensitive topics like race. Join us at this live online event to learn more about how you can use indigenous storytelling methods on your campus to facilitate courageous conversations. You’ll learn how storytelling can: Encourage creative questions Act as a catalyst for reflection Ensure all voices are heard Provide valuable practice in reacting and responding to difficult conversations You will come away better equipped to help others share their own stories while also learning from the stories of others.

The Ins and Outs of Publishing Your Scholarly Work: A Training for Faculty Researchers

The reasons to publish your scholarly work range from practical to noble. Whether it be to advance your career, position yourself to receive extramural funding, advance your field, or achieve status and recognition, publishing makes you an important player in your discipline and is a prerequisite to achieving tenure. This training will provide an overview on publishing including why you should publish, where to publish, how to develop a strategy that is in line with your overall career aspirations, and how to accept that initial manuscript rejection is part of the process and use it to your advantage.  

Improving Campus Collaboration for Effective Parent and Family Giving

From the moment a student signs their letter of intent to the day they graduate, parents of undergraduate students typically have a 4-year window to give to your institution. Your development strategy for parent and family giving needs to be strong and should be a collaboration between student affairs, enrollment management and alumni relations. When communication to parents across these divisions is aligned, it can foster an environment of engagement that leads to more giving. Join us online to learn how the parent and family giving model at the University of California San Diego fosters a collaborative environment that leads to effective and impactful parent and family giving. Our expert instructor will also discuss: The variety of programming that parents and families can contribute to, from student organizations to on-campus activities. How to use data to identify parents and families most likely to become development prospects and volunteers. Stewardship strategies that keep parents informed and engaged throughout their giving lifecycle.  

Recruiting, Training, and Engaging Alumni Volunteers in a Digital Environment

Instructors Clarybel Peguero, Ed.D.Assistant Vice President, Multicultural Advancement,Alumni Engagement & Development OfficeDuke University Parks SmithSenior Director, Marketing Strategy,Development and Alumni RelationsVirginia Commonwealth University Course Highlights 1 hr, 8 mins of video instruction Downloadable resources Course Details Released 2/1/2022 Alumni volunteers are immensely valuable to institutions in both their service and giving power— they tend to give 10 times more than non-volunteers. However, due to this current reality, the script has flipped over on how we recruit and engage alumni volunteers and being able to do so successfully through digital channels. In-person volunteer opportunities continue to foster alumni engagement, but with more digital opportunities we must continue to learn best practices from one another to remain successful Our expert panelists will guide you, as you share what you are learning when digitally engaging your alumni volunteers. Together we will identify emerging best practices regarding volunteer recruitment, training, and engagement that leads to the retention of your most dedicated alumni. You will leave this training with the best current practices to engage your volunteers during this pandemic and beyond. We Want to Hear From You! Please take a few minutes to fill out a short survey letting us know about your experience […]

Create a More Inclusive Experience for your LGBTQIA+ Alumni

One of the fastest growing demographics on college campuses and in alumni populations is the LGBTQIA+ community who are expressing a greater variety of gender and sexuality than ever before. This breakthrough in social acceptance of how your alumni identify themselves requires institutions to rethink an engagement approach that has been honed over decades for a population that has largely identified as cisgender and heterosexual. Understanding the nuances of gender and sexuality of your alumni is key to creating an inclusive and welcoming environment. Join us online to learn, discuss, and share how institutions are positioning themselves to engage their LGBTQIA+ alumni community. During this training, you will learn about: Data on who the LGBTQIA+ community is on college campuses What gender means now and how that impacts strategic engagement How to create an inclusive and welcoming environment in alumni programming Promising practices for LGBTQIA+ engagement and advocacy by staff and volunteer-led alumni organizations

Ethical Considerations for Screening Donors to Protect Institutional Reputation

How much risk is your institution willing to take upon receiving a gift? This question is one that every advancement shop should answer or, at minimum, have discussed with their team members to devise a plan that mitigates liability. With an institution’s reputation being an intangible asset based upon the public’s trust and support, damage to this carefully managed image can result in legal complications and ultimately, the loss of fundraising revenue. As a result, part of your role as a major gift officer is to protect your institution’s reputation through strategic screening of potential donors and their gifts. Join us online to learn how Yale University recommends how you can position yourself in donor conversations to uncover potential risks to your institution. In this training, you will learn ethical considerations behind big gifts by learning about Yale’s reputational risk methodology and how to thoroughly screen donors for risk throughout the fundraising lifecycle. Participants will explore case studies that help you practice identifying risk in donor conversations and apply the tools provided in the training to these kinds of conversations.