Improving Faculty of Color Retention Efforts in Your Department

Many faculty members of color report bullying, harassment, invalidation, and exclusion by their colleagues and supervisors. To further perpetuate the toxicity, their personal experiences are often ignored or explained away, preventing meaningful change. As a result, faculty of color are often forced to leave their institutions to seek their own change, which can, in turn, negatively impact the sense of belonging for your students of color. With recruitment efforts halted due to budget cuts, you cannot afford this attrition. Now is the time to focus and improve your retention practices. Join us online for this three-hour workshop where you will learn how to take a proactive approach to your retention practices aimed at faculty of color. Our expert speakers will present the latest research explaining why retention efforts for faculty of color fall short. In addition, they will share best practices for utilizing and influencing your relationships, processes, and policies to your advantage to improve and sustain your efforts across the institution. You will spend time examining your own institutional data to understand systemic or department-level issues causing higher levels of attrition for your faculty of color.

The Value of Relevance During Cross-Examination in Title IX Hearings

The new Title IX regulations bring about two changes related to the live Title IX hearing process: Join us online for a four-hour virtual training designed to increase your comfort level with the cross-examination process. Our expert faculty will first provide context for the new rule and help you review your own process so that you can determine how well aligned you are with the new regulations. You will then learn cross-examination questioning techniques, allowing you to better develop your own set of questions related to witness credibility. Since relevancy can be tricky, you will practice the art and science of it through a case study, using a fact pattern designed to help you identify if questions are relevant or not. Our instructor will also guide you through a discussion of rape shield questions, which are now permitted in two limited ways during a live hearing.

Engaging International Alumni in a Virtual World

Institutions have seen a significant increase in their engagement with international alumni since the beginning of COVID-19. This increase can be attributed to programming that was adapted from primarily in-person to exclusively digital and alumni’s desire to connect over their shared experience of the pandemic. Now more than ever, institutions need to accelerate the development of their virtual programming, global brand ambassadors, and discovery visits to ensure international alumni can continue to be meaningfully engaged. How have recent changes impacted your international alumni engagement strategy? Are you leveraging the best thinking out there to maximize the contributions of this important alumni group? In this discussion-based virtual training guided by two experts, you will share with your peers and learn from their successes and lessons learned. Together, we will identify the emerging best practices in: Digital programing for international alumni Brand ambassador development Discovery visits

Taking Large-Scale Recruitment Events Online

As we face declining enrollments and a pandemic that limits in-person events, many enrollment and admissions professionals are struggling to adjust the traditional tactics they have used to recruit more students. Though most institutions rely on face-to-face recruitment events, the COVID-19 pandemic is challenging us to strategically shift to hosting virtual events instead. This program will prepare you for the specific challenges you are likely to face when you move your large-scale recruitment and yield events online. Our program will highlight the work of Barbara Loftus, Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Rutgers University – New Brunswick, who had 24 days to convert an Admitted Student Open House that had approximately 19,000 attendees last year to an online format. Join us for this two-hour virtual training that will enable you to: Shift your planning processes for the online environment Craft or solidify plans for your own upcoming virtual recruitment events Gain ideas from your peers across the country

Building Resilience During and After the Pandemic

Overview Our current working conditions mean we are juggling rapidly changing directives from work while also trying to manage a new normal at home. How do you maintain your professional resilience when faced with surmounting challenges or, even worse, layoffs? How do we keep these setbacks from becoming defeating messages we internalize? These 90-minute virtual sessions will give you an opportunity to delve deeper into the content and workshop ways to integrate what you’re learning into your practice. Session 1: Creating an Inner Coach Stronger than Your Inner Critic Join us online to learn how you can start developing your alternative voice – your inner coach – in order to silence your inner critic and become a more effective leader. You will learn the multiple origins of the inner critic, learn techniques for counteracting its effect and how to shift from negative thought patterns to thoughts of greater self-support, resilience and self-confidence.” Session 2: Professional Resilience Resilience is not something you’re born with; it’s a skill you can build. Join us virtually to discover how to break negative patterns of behavior and reset the way you respond to roadblocks. Our expert will introduce you to the three-step ABC Model, which […]

Authentic Fundraising in a Virtual World (Virtual Workshop)

As a frontline fundraiser, you have likely honed your “fundraising voice” over time. You have learned to embody crucial tenets such as integrity, listening, and humility in ways that feel authentic and purposeful. As you continue adapting to a virtual workflow, have you considered whether your fundraising voice is deeply rooted in handshakes or face-to-face meetings? Have you felt less “yourself” while fundraising virtually? Join us online for an in-depth virtual training where our experts will help you adapt your fundraising practices to the online environment and become more successful. Our panel will help you determine key tenets of your own unique voice as a frontline fundraiser. Through small group roleplays, you will learn how to leverage these characteristics, and you’ll leave the training with clear next steps for fundraising more authentically in a virtual world.

Manage Your Emotional Labor in the Workplace

Emotional labor is the process of regulating your emotions and putting others’ needs before your own during interactions with students, colleagues, and superiors in order to deliver high quality work. It can be difficult to detect – and even more challenging to manage – especially in environments that prioritize human connection, which includes most jobs in higher education. Expending high-level emotional labor over extended periods of time can lead to burn out, permanent exhaustion, and, at times, turnover. Join us for a 2.5-hour virtual training where you can start building a toolkit for scaling down your emotional labor and using it on your own terms. You will first explore how emotional labor manifests for you and what challenges you have managing it. Next, Dr. Gardner will offer four strategies to help you overcome those challenges so that you can start making emotional labor work FOR you, not against you. Lastly, you will brainstorm ways you can reduce your emotional effort so that you can leave this training feeling empowered to be your unapologetic self.

Cultivating a Professional and Engaging Persona on Your Video Calls (Virtual Workshop)

As a result of COVID-19, almost all the interactions you have with your students, alumni, colleagues, and donors are now through webcam in virtual meetings. Environmental factors such as poor lighting and background movement can become distractions and have implications on the level of engagement and potential for relationship building. Your body language and eye contact play an important role too as they can either facilitate meaningful communication or hinder it. Join us online for an interactive training where you will learn best practices for creating a professional and engaging persona during a video call. Our expert instructor will demonstrate simple tips and strategies for improving the quality of your physical surroundings and your presentation style during video calls. We will discuss how to: Place your laptop in the right position to maximize your lighting and appropriately frame yourself on screen Choose a background that does not offend or disturb others Reduce unnecessary movement to minimize distractions Maintain appropriate eye contact and body language that resonates with others online We have deliberately designed this training to go beyond the stock tips and strategies you’ll find online. You will have the opportunity to turn on your camera so that you can […]

Improving Faculty Evaluations: A Training for Department Chairs

Faculty evaluations are one of the most challenging aspects of serving as a department chair. Emotions run high, performance rubrics aren’t always clear, and both parties may become defensive and react more than they listen. Still, these conversations don’t have to be difficult, and they don’t have to take a negative tone. They key is to develop an evaluation process that establishes clear goals, uses objective data to assess those goals, and allows you to treat performance-related issues before your annual meeting. Join us online to learn how to make your next faculty evaluation session easier and more productive by implementing four key steps: Goal Setting and Communication Using and Applying Evaluation Data Phrasing Comments Appropriately Delivering Feedback

Recruiting, Training, and Engaging Alumni Volunteers in a Digital World (Virtual Workshop)

Instructor Clarybel Peguero, Ed.D.Senior Director for Volunteer EngagementDuke Alumni Association, Duke University   Parks SmithDirector of Strategic OperationsVirginia Commonwealth University Course Highlights 1hr 11m of video instruction Downloadable resources Course Details Released 9/1/2020 Learning OutcomeAfter participating in this online training, you will be able to apply best practices in digital alumni volunteer recruitment, training, and engagement.  OverviewAlumni volunteers are immensely valuable to institutions in both their service and giving power. They tend to give 10 times more than non-volunteers. However, COVID-19 has flipped the script on how we recruit and engage alumni volunteers. In-person offerings are no longer an option. Instead, we’ve been forced into the digital world and have had to adjust in order to remain successful.   In this highly interactive virtual training, guided by our experts, you will share with your peers what you have learned since we’ve entered this new reality. Together we will identify emerging best practices in digital volunteer recruitment, training, and engagement, in order to better understand how to retain alumni volunteers.  Who Should AttendThis program is specifically designed for alumni relations professionals who manage volunteers and are looking to learn and share best practices on how to recruit, train, and engage alumni volunteers in a virtual world.   Agenda  Landscape of Alumni Volunteer Engagement Most institution’s volunteer engagement approach has transformed overnight due to COVID-19, with shops needing to drastically change the way they manage recruitment, […]