Writing external review letters for faculty’s tenure and promotion cases is a vital piece of service to the profession. But guidelines around them can be unclear and vague. If you’ve been asked to write an external review letter, and you’re unsure of how to start, this course will help. How It Works This course incorporates written resources, labeled by topic. To view the resources in a topic, click on the topic heading. If you’re completely new to writing external review letters, it may make the most sense to go through the topics in order. If you’ve written letters before, you may want to jump to topics that are most applicable to you in the moment.
This webinar will explore how to cultivate a data-informed culture within your institution, empowering you to make strategic and impactful academic program decisions. Learn to leverage valuable data sources—including student demand, employment trends, and competitive analysis—to gain a comprehensive understanding of program effectiveness and make informed choices about whether to start, stop, or grow programs. Learn how to implement a “leading from the middle” approach that encourages leaders to be program evaluation software users who frequently gather data insights to inform critical program decisions. We’ll examine how to use program economics to uncover hidden costs, optimize resources, and ensure program sustainability. We’ll delve into practical strategies for building a strong foundation of data literacy and explore why a phased approach, starting with foundational concepts, can lead to greater success. Join us to gain valuable insights and practical strategies for leading from the middle, empowering stakeholders to make data-informed academic program decisions that drive institutional success. Key takeaways:
Le leadership est l’une des choses les plus difficiles à définir et pourtant, nous sommes capables de reconnaître instinctivement une bonne expérience de leadership lorsque nous en sommes témoins. Le bon leadership est difficile à définir entre autres parce qu’il peut prendre plusieurs formes.
Deans across higher education are tackling some of the biggest challenges yet. Take, for instance, declining student enrollments (and the reduced budgets that follow) and the low levels of faculty morale and engagement (which, in turn, lead to high turnover). Let’s face it—these are big problems that take a village to solve. And yet, you probably feel like the responsibility to remedy these challenges falls largely on your shoulders. So how can you convene others across your college to become part of the village that can help you to tackle these challenges? Watch this recording of a live event where you’ll learn how you can elicit the best thinking in your unit. This training includes a simulated activity which will demonstrate how you can design and facilitate a collaborative and interactive meeting or brainstorming session with your team. You’ll walk away with a detailed facilitation guide and tips for how to implement this practice on your campus. If you’re looking for ways to reinvigorate your meetings and workshops, this training is for you!
In your early career, you don’t always have a lot of control over your schedule, and you may not get direction on how to manage a long-term project. Professionals who are open to working with the schedules of others while also advocating for their needs and setting their own schedules can develop reputations as team players and top performers. In this session, we’ll discuss how you can manage your time in an environment where you don’t always have choices over what you work on. This event is part of Developing Leadership Skills in Your Early Career to help you build leadership skills as an early leader. Learn more about the series, how it works, when the other sessions will occur, and who it was designed for.
As students move through higher education and into the workforce, it is more important than ever for them to develop an understanding of who they are as leaders. Help your students deepen their self-awareness, apply what they’ve learned in and out of the classroom to interviews and their future employment, and develop the skills to communicate effectively about their leadership strengths and areas for improvement using the Five Paths to Leadership® Self-Assessment. Join us to learn more about how this assessment can benefit your students, from classrooms to student employment to extracurricular activities! You’ll hear from Academic Impressions practitioners and partners who have applied the Five Paths to Leadership® to a student context. You’ll also receive a toolkit and case studies to help guide your work with students around the assessment.
Your early career is a time for a great deal of learning, and you often encounter so many new things that it can be overwhelming. Professionals who learn quickly where they can take initiative and build a sense of curiosity in their work really stand out in their organizations. In this session, we’ll explore how you can build your sense of initiative even with limited knowledge.
Artificial intelligence is transforming the way we work, but how can you leverage its potential to enhance alumni support and commencement activities without risking your institution’s reputation or data security? Join 42Chat for an insightful webcast where we’ll break down the essentials of curated vs. generative AI, share practical use cases tailored to higher education, and arm you with critical questions to ask your AI providers. With over seven years of experience in conversational AI, 42Chat has partnered with organizations to create secure, innovative solutions that drive engagement and streamline operations. This session is your chance to learn how to safely harness AI to better connect with alumni and improve the commencement experience—all while keeping your data and brand protected. Don’t miss it!
The Georgetown University Office of Advancement Leadership Program supports advancement senior leaders to develop skills to engage in values-based actions and decision making within our advancement context and when engaging with campus partners and valued constituents outside of the institution. From February to June 2025, this inaugural cohort of will engage in four in-person sessions designed to foster and strengthen OA’s identified leadership principles—act with integrity; courageous, trustworthy, and effective communication; accountability and resiliency; and care for the whole person. Between sessions, the cohort will have the opportunity to practice applying what is learned and explore additional leadership development through supplemental resources. Agenda topics are subject to change based on ongoing collaboration between Georgetown and Academic Impressions. Please revisit this page for updated pre-work and other information in advance of each session. March 17-18, 2025 (Rescheduled from February 12-13, 2025) To prepare for this session: 1. If you have not already done so, please complete The Five Paths to Leadership® Self-Assessment – Academic Impressions This assessment sheds light on your strengths and potential blind spots by examining five key forms of intelligence including intellectual, emotional, intuitive, action, and reflective. The assessment will help you understand ways of achieving greater balance […]
In the ever-evolving landscape of annual giving, the recent shift away from the APR metric has opened unprecedented opportunities for your organization. If you’re new to annual giving or looking to revitalize your approach, this session is your gateway to becoming the transformative force your organization needs. When it comes to your data, annual giving programs are a powerhouse. Discover how to leverage them to not only enhance donor engagement but also to forge meaningful partnerships across campus and refine your engagement and stewardship strategies. Join us for this virtual conference recording to unlock the full potential of your annual giving program and set a new standard for success. This session promises to equip you with the insights and tools to: Don’t miss the chance to transform your approach and make a lasting impact.
As the enrollment cliff looms, institutional leaders must act with urgency and innovation. With over ten institutions in New York State closing since mid-2023, including The College of Saint Rose and Wells College, the message is clear: no institution is immune. Join us for a critical webcast exploring how senior leaders can strategically differentiate their institutions and prioritize retention through exceptional customer service. This session, designed specifically for presidents and senior leadership teams, will focus on practical strategies to enhance student belonging and retention by improving the overall student experience. We will discuss how leaders can harness the power of exceptional customer service to make students feel valued, supported, and engaged. From creating personalized connections to addressing micro-inconveniences on campus, these approaches will help transform student satisfaction into long-term loyalty. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain actionable insights and start building a more resilient future for your institution. Register now for free! Are you interested in diving deeper into how institutional leaders can help use service excellence to address the enrollment cliff? Read more from Heath Boice-Pardee in his recent article, Customer Service and Navigating the Enrollment Cliff: Strategic Insights for Institutional Leaders.
Agenda topics are subject to change based on ongoing collaboration between IUI and Academic Impressions. Please revisit this page for updated pre-work and other information in advance of each session. January 31, 2025 (3:30pm-5:00pm ET) | Bringing Intention into Your Career Advancement Many academics approach the midcareer stage without a clear vision of what’s next in their career, and their decision-making about which roles and responsibilities to take on is often more opportunistic than intentional. This often leaves them ill-equipped for the demands of these roles or feeling a misalignment between how they spend their time and their professional aspirations. In this meeting, you will reflect on the roles you currently hold, their alignment with your core values, and the implications for identifying next steps in your career. Recommended Trainings: Now What? Navigating The Mid-Career Journey: This program will help you to design an intentional and strategic pathway through your mid-career by guiding you through reflection activities that help you take stock of where you are now, and where you want to go. Crafting Your Mid-Career and Beyond as Faculty: Learn more about the process of career crafting and the different types of crafting techniques (e.g., task crafting, relational crafting, cognitive […]
In your early career, you may not have a lot of power to enact changes or drive the direction of your projects. However, knowing how to advocate for what you need in your professional life and managing your relationship with your supervisor can help you better achieve your goals. In this session, we’ll walk through how to work with your manager effectively and champion your interests diplomatically.
During your early career, you may feel pressure to make career decisions that don’t align with your personal or professional goals. Being able to set and maintain your boundaries and knowing when to be more flexible with them can help you achieve your ideal career trajectory without sacrificing too much. In this session, we’ll discuss how to set your boundaries based on your personal and professional goals, and how to maintain those boundaries while balancing competing priorities.
Who you are as a person and who you are as a professional can be similar but not exactly the same. As you navigate different organizations, you’ll encounter a wide range of professional norms and standards, and you’ll have to decide how you can fit in with your organizational culture and how you may want to make different choices. In this session, we’ll explore what you want your professional persona to be, and how you can make choices that support developing and maintaining that persona. We recommend coming to this session having taken a personal assessment to better understand your leadership style. One option to take ahead of time is Academic Impressions’ Five Paths to Leadership® self-assessment. You could also attend the debrief session in August or September to deepen your self-awareness. This event is part of Developing Leadership Skills in Your Early Career to help you build leadership skills as an early leader. Learn more about the series, how it works, when the other sessions will occur, and who it was designed for.
Your leadership philosophy encompasses your core values and beliefs that frame how you make decisions. Although you may not see yourself as a leader in your early career, building your leadership philosophy from the start of your professional life can help set you up to make intentional choices about your career trajectory. In this session, you’ll examine your personal leadership style, along with your values and goals, to come up with what you want from your journey as a leader and a professional. We recommend coming to this session having taken a personal assessment to better understand your leadership style. One option to take ahead of time is Academic Impressions’ Five Paths to Leadership® self-assessment. You could also attend an upcoming results debrief session to deepen your self-awareness. This event is part of Developing Leadership Skills in Your Early Career to help you build leadership skills as an early leader. Learn more about the series, how it works, when the other sessions will occur, and who it was designed for.
Young alumni constitute one of your most influential and important alumni groups. If your shop can engage them while they are still students, and further inspire a habit of giving soon after they graduate, the likelihood that they will become committed alumni volunteers and major or lifelong donors increases significantly. As such, it’s crucial to have a robust and meaningful young alumni program, since it can often translate to greater long-term financial health for your institution. Join us online to learn how to intentionally engage young alumni from the time they are students through 10 years post-graduation. This virtual conference is a must if your institution wants to establish strong, lifelong relationships with its newest alumni, in which our expert speakers bring a track record of young alumni engagement and inspiration. Take part in this two-day event to gain useful, practical content that will teach you how to:
Come join us to learn about the immense power of artificial intelligence and how it can be harnessed to your school’s advantage. If you’re looking to make informed decisions about which academic programs to stop, start, or grow, this event is for you. Specifically, you’ll explore how artificial intelligence can help you to:
Influencing your Provost and other senior leaders is a key function of your role as academic dean. It’s your responsibility to provide input and perspective on decisions that will shape your unit—as well as the entire institution. As leadership transitions become more commonplace in higher education, it becomes more difficult to know how to effectively influence “up.” Not only are you learning how to navigate newfound relationships, you’re also responding to emerging strategic plans and changing unit-level priorities. Some days, it may feel like everything is a moving target. In this environment, where everyone is experiencing a higher level of stress, and where attention is split in so many different directions, it can feel difficult to know how to develop trust and credibility with your senior leaders. Join us online and learn how you can better engage with, support, and influence senior leaders such as your Provost. Using the Five Paths to Leadership® as our framework, you’ll learn how to: This workshop will give you an opportunity to reflect on an existing relationship you have with a senior leader, and we’ll then share tips and strategies you can apply to that relationship to nurture trust. We’ve also designed this training […]
Visionary leadership in higher education is essential for driving innovation, creating inclusive culture, and advancing the institutional mission. Unfortunately, there are many reasons why we often focus on the urgent and immediate rather than the big picture—like entrenched traditions, complex governance structures, budget constraints, short-term pressures, resistance to change, external influences, and the need to balance diverse stakeholder interests. Join us for an interactive discussion with President Shari McMahan of Eastern Washington University to hear how she has developed a visionary approach to leadership along with the lessons she’s learned in the process. This one-hour discussion offers a space to engage in open dialogue, ask questions, and learn from one another in a supportive and inclusive environment. Explore how you can cultivate visionary leadership in higher education, navigate challenges, and leverage your unique strengths to drive positive change and innovation within your institution. President McMahan will share strategies and personal lessons learned for how to: Ultimately, you’ll walk away with a renewed commitment to yourself, your values, and the importance of leading consistently.
