Support Black Women Leaders by Influencing Organizational Culture

Higher ed leaders seeking to diversify their institutions at all levels are not always aware of the additional work Black women leaders must undertake to forge community, navigate implicit role expectations, and find their voice—all within an institutional culture that often renders them invisible. In most cases, a culture-shift must occur before we can truly support an individual. Please join us for this interactive virtual workshop, where our expert, Dr. Lisa Scott, Vice President of Institutional Equity and Inclusion and Student Success at Luther College and DEI and Leadership Consultant, will address both levels of support. In this training you will: build awareness of the experiences of Black women in administrative leadership by reflecting on the research data. reflect on intentional steps you can take to change your organizational culture. learn strategies to strengthen the leadership capacity of Black women and begin to diminish some of the invisible and inequitable loads they often carry.

Conflict Management

Instructor Jeanne A.K. Hey, Ph.D.Dean EmeritaUniversity of New England Course Highlights 1 hr, 27 mins of video instruction Downloadable resources Course Details Released 6/22/2021 In this workshop, you will learn strategies to help you manage and resolve a variety of conflicts within your department and institution. You will be introduced to practical tools that can be used to 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 We Want to Hear From You! Please take a few minutes to fill out a short survey letting us know about your experience with this course.

Reimagine and Build a More Equitable Workplace Culture

Academic leaders spent most of 2020 pivoting and responding to emergent needs. As the dust settles, with reopening on the horizon, it is now time to stop pivoting and start building for a more sustainable future. Instead of reacting to issues surrounding wellness and equity, we can now rebuild a workplace community that deliberately centers faculty and staff equity, health, and wellness. In this workshop you will learn how the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work conducted a wellness check with their faculty and staff to reimagine their operations, academic affairs, and external engagements to foster equity, health, and wellness. Using their case study, you will consider what is unique to your context, discipline, and divisional structure and then begin to draft steps for a ground-up evaluation to learn more about your team’s needs. We will explore the scaffolding needed to reach your aspirational state, and our expert Dr. Amanda McBride, Dean of the Graduate School of Social Work at University of Denver will share some of the possibilities and best practices from her experience.

Disrupting Academic Bullying

Academic bullying can manifest in a number of ways including intimidation, humiliation, belittlement, embarrassment, and undermining another’s authority. No matter how it manifests, academic bullying not only harms the individuals involved, but erodes trust, collaboration, and creativity between colleagues and throughout the community. Join us for an interactive virtual training to learn how to name and disrupt academic bullying. You will learn to identify specific harmful behaviors and gain strategies for effectively responding to instances of academic bullying in the moment. Our expert instructor Bryan Hanson, Ombudsperson at The Graduate School at Virginia Tech, will then lead a discussion about steps faculty and academic leaders can take to proactively prevent academic bullying in the first place. What is Academic Bullying? Academic bullying can include intimidation, humiliation, belittlement, embarrassment and undermining one’s authority. It may also look like behaviors or comments that indicate disregard of one’s concerns, ignore contributions, or minimize one’s efforts. The recurrence of these behaviors in an already high-stress environment may cause distress leading to long-term psychological harm.

DEI & Inclusive Leadership

Effective leadership is inclusive leadership. Academic Impressions creates psychologically safe environments for training and discussion around diversity, equity, and inclusion. We know these topics can induce anxiety for some and passion for others. That is why we engage subject-matter experts who are knowledgeable, honest, and approachable when considering topics that many of us were raised to never discuss. Academic Impressions continues to build trust in the DEI space because, in addition to having facilitators who are thoroughly vetted, we also place a priority on making sure our presenters believe what we believe: that learning about inclusivity should feel like an enhancement to your skillset, not a punishment for “bad” behavior. We aim to help higher education leaders, regardless of level or positional authority, expand their awareness and skillset around diversity, equity and inclusion.

Growing and Shaping Your Academic Program Portfolio in a Post-COVID Era

As we begin to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, we find ourselves operating in a higher education environment that is fundamentally changed. Challenges such as declining revenue and enrollments were accelerated by the pandemic, and many institutions have suffered real short-term financial and operational setbacks in the shift to remote learning. In an aim to stay competitive and continue to move their institutions forward against this complex backdrop, academic leaders are now focusing on questions like the following: What are the most important considerations when thinking about academic program growth? How are others innovating and thinking differently about their academic program mix? How has the pandemic changed processes and decision-making around academic programs at other institutions? What are other institutions currently doing that is resonating within the marketplace and what are they planning? Join us online for a 90-minute panel discussion to explore these and other related questions. Through structured dialogue with our panelists and your peers, you’ll leave with new ideas and a better understanding of how other leaders are growing and shaping their academic program portfolios in a post-COVID era.

Balancing Short-Term Realities with Long-Term Opportunities: Higher Ed Leadership in a Post-COVID Era

As colleges and universities across the country prepare to reopen fully in the fall, higher ed leaders find themselves faced with a difficult task. On one hand, they must have a short-term focus on guiding faculty, staff, and students through reopening to ensure everyone feels safe and supported throughout the process. On the other, they must not lose sight of the opportunities for innovation and out-of-the-box thinking that this moment also presents. How can institutional leaders operate effectively in both of these realities at the same time? What strategies are other leaders using to maintain short-term focus without losing sight of bigger picture opportunities? As colleges and universities across the country prepare to reopen fully in the fall, higher ed leaders find themselves faced with a difficult task. On one hand, they must have a short-term focus on guiding faculty, staff, and students through reopening to ensure everyone feels safe and supported throughout the process. On the other, they must not lose sight of the opportunities for innovation and out-of-the-box thinking that this moment also presents. How can institutional leaders operate effectively in both of these realities at the same time? What strategies are other leaders using to maintain short-term […]

Space Matters: Designing STEM Learning Environments that Foster Inclusion and Student Success

Contemporary pedagogies, curricula, and cultures that promote inclusion and student success in STEM require consideration of the physical environments that support them. In this session, you and your peers will examine the elements of 21st century STEM learning environments and the strategies employed to bring key stakeholders and resources together to successfully execute a STEM facilities project. Both new construction and renovation projects will be considered. Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, where physical distancing protocols added new constraints to the utilization of STEM learning spaces, will be shared.

Reopening Campus: Building Student Community Amid COVID Restrictions

As more institutions announce their reopening plans for fall 2021, Student Affairs leaders are faced with a challenge: How might building community among undergraduate students look different when campuses reopen amid shifting COVID-19 safety restrictions? Join us online for a 2-hour, highly interactive discussion and brainstorming session around this topic, focusing in on three key areas of Student Life: Orientation, Housing, and Student Activities. Our facilitators will share how their campuses are approaching their planning while navigating state, local, and institutional COVID-19 guidelines. You will actively participate in large and small group discussions framed around questions such as: How might these critical areas of student life look different as restrictions loosen? What creative new approaches can we take to build community in this new, post-COVID-19 context? How can we address isolation while also encouraging COVID-safe behaviors among students? What steps can we take now to enable quick pivots if a campus outbreak occurs? What positive practices have come out of the pandemic that we will want to continue moving forward? We recognize that institutions are grappling with different elements of student community building depending upon their institutional type, size, state regulations, and a variety of other factors. Our aim for […]

Distributed Leadership: Building Trust and Community

Distributed leadership allows for the suggestions and concerns of all stakeholders to be heard and counted in a way that is not purely representative, but fully inclusive. Instead of decisions coming from the top with minimal transparency, they will be based on what the stakeholders have to bring to the table throughout the process before decisions are made. Many organizations have a vertical approval process, whereby the senior positions maintain the most vital information and decision-making power, which limits trust and engagement due to lack of transparency in the process. In today’s complex and ever-changing world, there’s often a need to share the decision-making responsibilities across the organization so that you can build trust and community while also inspiring the best thinking from the people who will be most impacted by the decisions. Distributed leadership is one such way to build this capacity in your leadership on change. Join us online to learn the skillsets and work through sample scenarios that you will need to start implementing distributed leadership in small and meaningful ways. You will walk away with tips and strategies for how to: Know when and how to effectively practice distributed leadership based on your leadership experience, role, […]