Archives: Courses
The Leadership Investment Higher Ed Can’t Keep Deferring
The conversations happening in higher education right now are mostly about external pressure: enrollment, funding, political scrutiny. But the 2025 Academic Impressions Professional Development Survey points to something unfolding closer to home. Two-thirds of current higher education leaders have held their roles for five years or less. More than one in five employees feel like outsiders in their own units. And leaders, on average, are growing more confident in their own effectiveness at precisely the moment when their employees are becoming less so. This isn’t a crisis of talent. It’s a crisis of support, investment, and honest feedback. In this free webcast, Academic Impressions CEO Amit Mrig and Chief Strategy Officer Beth Rotach walk through the five key findings from our 2025 Professional Development Survey, drawing on responses from 1,974 higher education professionals across all 50 states. You’ll come away with: Higher education has always shown belief in developing people. The 2025 data suggests that it’s time for higher education to apply that belief more seriously to its own leadership. Learn more about the 2025 Professional Development Survey before attending.
University of North Texas: School Director and Department Chair Orientation
Click the Express Register button to gain access to the recording (this will be free with your membership – make sure you are logged in!) Click the link in the table of contents below to view the recording from Academic Impressions’ session on September 14, 2026. Then, use the buttons to your right to access resources for department chairs/school directors, Sophia, and Leadership Insights.
The University of North Carolina System Mid-Level Leaders Institute
The Mid-Level Leaders Institute is a year-long, cohort-based program for mid-level advancement professionals across the UNC System institutions. We kickoff in September in Raleigh to set a foundation for our time together. From here we will have six 90-minute virtual sessions between October and April. The institute concludes with an in-person capstone in May 2027, more details to come. Your virtual session topics will be announced soon! Calendar invitations and Zoom links will come directly from Yianna Kappas, Learning and Development Manager at Academic Impressions. Virtual Sessions: October 2026 – April 2027. All times Eastern Session Date Topic Session 1 October 8, 2026 | 9:00 am To be announced Session 2 November 12, 2026 | 9:00 am To be announced Session 3 December 10, 2026 | 9:00 am To be announced Session 4 February 2027 To be announced Session 5 March 2027 To be announced Session 6 April 2027 To be announced Capstone May 2027 To be announced
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Old Dominion University Academic Affairs Leadership Academy
September 10, 2026 – Academic Affairs Leadership Academy Program Kick-Off 9:00am – 4:00pm (Breakfast and Lunch Provided) October 1, 2026 – The Anatomy of Trust Trust is at the heart of leadership; you cannot lead those who do not trust you. Covey says we move at the speed of trust—when trust is high, people give you the benefit of the doubt, they find your meaning, they are willing to take a chance. When trust is low, they challenge you every step of the way, they misinterpret you, they assume the worst. It’s our job as leaders to build and cultivate trust—both interpersonally and also among and between the team. In this session, we’ll explore the topic of trust building. Specifically, we’ll explore the following: November 5, 2026 – The Power of Delegation You will learn how to use delegation as a strategic leadership tool to empower your team, manage your own workload more effectively, and create a more sustainable leadership practice. By entrusting others with meaningful responsibilities, you can focus on advancing departmental goals, reduce burnout, and model trust in your faculty and staff. Ultimately, this approach strengthens the department and institution by fostering a culture of growth, innovation, and […]
Boise State University Academic Leadership Council 2026-2027
This self-directed program gives you a dedicated space to focus on your role as a leader of an academic department. This program will help you develop a deeper sense of who you are as a leader, deliver and receive feedback in a professional way, manage conflict effectively, delegate with the intention of building leadership capacity across your faculty and staff, and design meetings that improve the quality of the experience for everyone in the room. How It Works This program is asynchronous and self-paced, designed to fit alongside your ALC meeting schedule. As a Boise State participant, you will gain access to: Each course pairs with a corresponding ALC session, so you can bring your reflections into conversation with colleagues across campus. Meeting Dates Below are the meeting dates where you’ll be discussing each topic.
LSU Academy for Scholars as Leaders ’26-’27
Kick-Off Workshop – August 6-7, 2026 This workshop will take place in person beginning at 9am on August 6. September 18, 2026 – The Anatomy of Trust – Kristin Sosnowsky Trust is at the heart of leadership; you cannot lead those who do not trust you. Covey says we move at the speed of trust—when trust is high, people give you the benefit of the doubt, they find your meaning, they are willing to take a chance. When trust is low, they challenge you every step of the way, they misinterpret you, they assume the worst. It’s our job as leaders to build and cultivate trust—both interpersonally and also among and between the team. Post-session Reflection Activity: Write down one small step you’re willing to take this semester to delegate and trust more intentionally in your research group or lab. October 16, 2026 – The Secret to Great Feedback – Jane Cassidy Giving feedback to other faculty or staff in a way that is both direct and respectful is challenging—even for seasoned leaders—especially when the conversation is difficult. Most of us figure it out the hard way by fumbling, softening what we meant to say, or confusing the message. In […]
Effective Meeting Design Using the Five Paths to Leadership®
Take this opportunity to rethink how your meetings are designed by exploring the hidden expectations and preferences people bring to the table. Using the Five Paths to Leadership® model as a framework, you’ll reflect on your current meeting practices, collaborate in small groups to design your “ideal meeting,” and share insights that highlight different leadership strengths and needs. Together, we’ll surface practical ways to make your meetings more inclusive, engaging, and productive.
Getting Comfortable with Uncomfortable Supervisory Conversations
Having difficult conversations is unavoidable—it’s also vital to being an effective supervisor. This session is designed to give you practical tools and boost your confidence, ensuring that you can approach these moments with clarity and composure, and leading to better outcomes for both your direct reports and the entire organization. This session is a component of the Advanced Supervision Certificate, but you are not required to be a part of a current or past cohort to attend this program. If you haven’t considered the Advanced Supervision Certificate, we invite you to check it out.
Put Your Mask on Before Assisting Others: Taking Care of Yourself
We’ve all heard the standard airline advice to secure your own oxygen mask before assisting others, and this rule applies to supervision, as well. If you’re running on empty, you can’t fully lead your direct reports. In this session, we’ll shift our focus from self-care as a perk, to self-care as essential maintenance—as a necessary task to keep you functioning as a capable leader. We’ll share practical ways to recharge and lead with clarity and resilience. This session is a component of the Advanced Supervision Certificate, but you are not required to be a part of a current or past cohort to attend this program. If you haven’t considered the Advanced Supervision Certificate, we invite you to check it out.
The Five Paths and the Sage
The Sage path in The Five Paths to Leadership® is fundamentally about integration and balance—it’s the practice that helps you to access all the other paths with intention and wisdom. This session will expand upon your knowledge of how the Sage helps with self-awareness, reflection, and adaptive leadership, transforming the shadow into wisdom and leading under pressure.
Diagnosing Employee Performance Issues Worksheet
A Little ai
Welcome to Josh’s a little ai series, where he’s going to share tips, tricks, and new ways of approaching our work.
MGO Toolkit Mock Up
General description of the course
Designing Effective Meetings: Your Guide as a Department Chair
This course equips Department Chairs with practical tools to transform meetings from routine obligations into purposeful, productive experiences. You’ll learn to design intentional agendas, build psychological safety, and use facilitation strategies that ensure that all voices are heard. The course also introduces decision-making models and the Five Paths to Leadership® framework to help you adapt your approach to different team dynamics. You’ll leave with a reflective practice for continuously improving how you lead meetings that move their departments forward.
University of Alabama Service Excellence Course
Session 1 — Foundations of Service Excellence Objectives: Establish shared understanding of service excellence; introduce university-specific context and expectations. Pre-work: Session 2 — Service Excellence Competencies & Skills Objectives:Build practical interpersonal skills to improve clarity, rapport, and trust. Pre-work: Session 3 — De-Escalating Difficult Situations Objectives:Prepare staff to handle complaints, difficult interactions, and high-pressure moments. Solidify learning and drive long-term behavioral change. Pre-work:
The Power of Delegation as a Department Chair
This course invites Department Chairs to use delegation as a strategic leadership tool to empower your team, manage your own workload more effectively, and create more sustainable leadership practices. By entrusting others with meaningful responsibilities, you can focus on advancing departmental goals, reducing burnout, and modeling trust for your faculty and staff. Ultimately, this approach strengthens the department and institution by fostering a culture of growth, innovation, and leadership development.
Leading Through Conflict: A Department Chair’s Guide
This course helps department Chairs understand why conflict is a normal and unavoidable part of academic leadership—especially given the tensions of leading peers, balancing faculty and administrative expectations, and working within resource constraints. The course walks you through the major types of conflict you are likely to encounter, including task, relationship, values-based, process, and status conflicts, so that you can respond with greater clarity and confidence. It also reframes conflict as a valuable source of information, teaching you to look beneath surface positions to uncover the interests and needs driving difficult situations. Through practical frameworks and reflection, you’ll build skills in diagnosing conflict by examining factors such as self-awareness, trust, communication style, and collaboration tendencies.
Using the Five Paths to Leadership® to Deliver Feedback That Motivates
You probably already know that giving feedback to your colleagues is a beneficial thing to do. But it’s also one of the trickiest things to get right. How many times have you delivered feedback to one colleague and it goes well, and then you deliver feedback to someone else, and it goes awry? The truth is, you cannot use a cookie-cutter approach to giving feedback. The way you communicate feedback needs to be tailored to the person receiving it, so that you can motivate them to put the feedback into action. Join us to explore how you can use the Five Paths to Leadership® model to adapt the way you communicate feedback so that it really resonates with the person receiving it.