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. 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 leadership development. December 3, 2026 – Holiday Celebration Networking Event January 14, 2027 – The […]
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 […]
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.
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.
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 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.
Welcome to Josh’s a little ai series, where he’s going to share tips, tricks, and new ways of approaching our work.
General description of the course
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
Across higher education today, institutions are placing more emphasis on, and investing in, training leaders on data-informed decision-making as a way to make smarter budget decisions. In this webinar, we’ll share a case study from Utah Valley University, which received a state legislative mandate that required them to cut $8.9 million from “underperforming programs” and redirect it to “high-yield programs” in just three years. Utah Valley University turned their challenge for budget reallocation into an opportunity that enhanced institutional resilience and competitive edge. The case study offers translatable and practical lessons on how you can apply data-informed decision-making to:
Overview: Welcome to the inaugural UNLV Chairs’ Leadership Development Program. We’re delighted that you’ve chosen to spend your spring semester with us to explore and enhance your leadership. Whether you’re a new, current or aspiring chair, this program will help you:
This mini-module is a start to help you enhance your customer service skills including working with difficult customers, as well as how to effectively de-escalate challenging situations. The videos on the course page will take you about an hour to review. Some lessons in the mini-module reference a Learning Journal, and we have created this workbook just for you to help you apply what you learn directly to your day-to-day work on-campus.
This is a raw recording and will be updated as soon as possible with an edited version. Mid-career is often a turning point for faculty—some aspects of the work still spark joy and fulfillment, while others feel draining or disconnected from what matters most. This webcast will invite you to pause and reflect: Through guided reflection and examples, you’ll explore how these questions can open the door to intentional career planning. You’ll also get a preview of our Mid-Career Moves course, which provides a step-by-step framework for creating a career plan that aligns with your values and goals. Join us to discover how clarifying what brings you joy—and what doesn’t—can be the starting point for mapping a sustainable and meaningful next stage in your career.
