Cultural Intelligence: A Training for Higher Ed Leaders

To operate effectively in today’s higher ed environment, leaders must continuously broaden their own lens of cultural understanding. Leaders are constantly interacting with people who are members of a wide variety of cultures. Their ability to connect authentically across differences—and to make each individual feel like they belong and are respected for the unique perspective they bring–is essential to leadership success. But knowing how to do this is not intuitive nor straightforward. It requires you to engage in ongoing reflection and skill-building around: How culture shows up in your workplace and day-to-day interactions Why it’s so important to pay attention to and continue to learn about culture How to incorporate forward-thinking actions into your leadership practice Join us for a training that will create space for you as a leader to reflect on how and why culture is relevant to your work. You will learn specific actions you can take—both “small picture” in real-time and at a larger strategic level—to build cultural intelligence and center the importance of culture in your organizational and interpersonal leadership. Through this training, you will learn how to demonstrate your commitment to belonging and inclusion through the ongoing practice of cultural intelligence.

Working with Institutional Data for Student Retention

Data can be is a powerful tool for understanding attrition and creating student success programs. Student affairs and enrollment professionals often yearn for access to data, but when they do have access, they may struggle with distilling the information they need, using data effectively, and working with others to ask the right questions. This virtual workshop is strongly recommended to Developing a Comprehensive Retention Plan attendees outside of Institutional Research who would like to learn how to: Recognize data points that can be used to measure factors associated with retention. Examine patterns in retention data. Create research questions that better communicate your data needs and program outcomes with institutional partners, leadership, and other stakeholders.

Crafting Your Mid-Career and Beyond as Faculty

The mid-career years – often characterized by being at the associate professor level – can be both the most rewarding and the most challenging time in a faculty member’s career. Once you reach the mid-career phase, not only does institutional support and guidance around career advancement tend to decrease, but your pathway forward can seem unclear. For faculty of color and women faculty, the research also shows that higher expectations around service and mentoring during the mid-career years can slow career advancement. These factors make the mid-career an important crossroads where you could aim to become a full professor, aspire for a leadership role, or carve out a different path. Getting there requires intentional self-reflection and proactive steps. Otherwise, you may find yourself being pulled in too many directions or following someone else’s priorities for your career. Join this training to learn more about: The opportunities and challenges faced by mid-career faculty and why so many associate professors feel lost or languishing in their careers. The process of career crafting and the different types of crafting techniques (e.g., task crafting, relational crafting, cognitive crafting). Why design thinking is a useful framework for crafting your mid-career. How to make purposeful career […]

Conflict Management: A Practical Workshop for Leaders

In this workshop, you will learn strategies to help you manage and resolve various conflicts within your department and institution. You will be introduced to practical tools that address conflict in its earliest stages before it becomes a formal dispute. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to resolving conflicts. That’s why our expert instructor will present numerous scenarios and discuss the use of framing, facilitation, and other dispute-resolution tools to help you: Improve and sustain a healthy working environment Build rapport among colleagues Increase faculty and staff morale

Planning Your Hybrid Homecoming

Homecoming is every institution’s largest event bringing together current students, alumni, and donors. Last year, many institutions canceled or postponed homecoming due to COVID-19. This year, many institutions are not only planning on having them, but for the first time, they will be hybrid. Join us online to learn, discuss, and share best practices for planning and executing a hybrid homecoming so that your events this year are the most inclusive yet.  During this training, you’ll get tips for how to: Identify the technical and personnel requirements needed for a successful hybrid homecoming Identify resources and best practices you already have in place Prepare your staff and volunteers Pivot your plans in the moment to be responsive to any change in plans

Improving Promotion and Tenure Reviews by Using a Deliberative Decision-Making Model

By participating in promotion and tenure reviews, faculty make the most consequential decisions they will ever have to engage in on behalf of their colleagues. Without adequate training and preparation, departments often have a reputation of unfair decisions, power dynamics, and lack of transparency that taint the process going forward and impact culture and morale. Among the many challenges in re-envisioning what this process could look like is that expectations are often vague. Women and people of color tend to go up for P&T less and at slower rates than their white, male colleagues, and what is considered “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory” in one unit could mean something different in another. As part of a broader largescale initiative aimed at improving department culture and climate, The University of Denver sought to change how they deliberated on key decisions, and in doing so, had the opportunity to influence climate, perception of colleagues, and overall satisfaction. Their approach was to utilize deliberative decision making (DDM) as a tool by which to train their faculty at large on their role as reviewers to ensure that everyone had an equal opportunity to influence a decision and that everyone believed that the decision that was made […]

Leading from a First-generation or Immigrant Background in Higher Ed: A Discussion Forum

All too often, first-generation and immigrant leaders in higher education feel they must assimilate to “standard” forms of leadership, which are historically grounded in white, heteronormative, male-centric experiences and stereotypes. But leading from a first-generation or immigrant background carries with it unique insights and perspectives that are advantages to be celebrated and leveraged in leadership. Join us online for a conversation about the interplay between cultural heritage and leadership. Our subject matter expert, a first-generation Asian-American woman leader currently serving as a community college President, will share some of the barriers she has come up against in her journey and how she eventually came to embrace them as advantages in her leadership. You’ll be given intentional space to discuss your own experiences and self-perceptions with others who identify as first-generation or immigrant leaders and will come away with specific strategies for how you can in turn leverage your unique cultural heritage to lead more authentically and effectively.

Recruit & Retain Diverse Faculty through Cluster Hiring and Mutual Mentorship

Many institutions have expressed a commitment to addressing social inequity in its multiple forms as part of their strategic plans. One way this commitment is being implemented at many colleges and universities is through efforts to recruit and retain a more diverse faculty. Cluster hiring is one powerful strategy that can help with these efforts. But institutional transformation is a long-term commitment, and a cluster-hiring initiative must be supported to be successful and sustainable. This training will unpack how cluster hiring is a point of entry to recruiting and retaining a more diverse faculty and how mutual mentorship is a path to sustainable institutional and individual success. Join us online to learn how Dr. Elizabeth Chilton, Provost and Executive Vice President for the Washington State University system, led three successful faculty cluster-hiring initiatives and supported them with a mutual mentorship model. Her leadership set the stage for a long-term impact on faculty diversity and retention, along with the broader climate and culture of the unit and, ultimately, the institution.

Reimagining Relationship Building for Major Gift Officers

During the pandemic, many institutions had a banner fiscal year because of an unanticipated amount of major gifts. This has proven to advancement leaders that the major gift officer role can be done successfully remotely. As a result, now that institutions are returning to in-person work, albeit with greater flexibility than before, it is time to apply the best of what was learned from virtual engagement work and incorporate it into the traditional model – redefining the role of the major gift officer. Join us online to discuss how to make smart choices related to how you build relationships with your major donors using a combination of traditional and virtual strategies. This training will be led by Rebekkah Brown, Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations at Muhlenberg College and P. Kevin Williamson, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Major Gifts and Constituent Giving at North Carolina A&T. You will engage in conversations with your peers on how: Discovery work has changed by becoming more efficient Closing and documenting gifts are being done electronically Travel schedules can be made more strategic

How to Use an Inclusive ROI Approach for Program Prioritization

Currently, academic leaders are rethinking their programs to meet the realities of student demands in a post-Covid environment. Some universities have sunset entire departments and programs, while others have taken programs hybrid or fully online. What is right for your division? And how do you gain faculty buy-in for the tough decisions you need to make? It is important to remember that programs are not solely measured by their monetary value; this makes program prioritization a challenging task that requires an inclusive, holistic approach tailored to the realities of each institution. Join us online to learn how to standardize the process of assessing the return on investment (ROI) of your programs across your division. Hear from our expert, Kelly Ball, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies, as she demonstrates how to develop an inclusive ROI approach that accounts for mission, margin, and market. Participants will learn how to lead faculty and other stakeholders through this complex and necessary process, resulting in academic prioritization plans that create a resilient curriculum.