Archives: Courses

Essential Skills for Supervisors

All too often in higher education, individuals move into a supervisory role without the necessary tools and skills to be successful. Particularly in today’s challenging environment, effective and proactive supervision is key to building a high-performing culture where each individual contributes to team success. This video course—specifically designed for higher ed supervisors who are new to their roles or looking to deepen their skills—is designed to provide a foundational understanding of the most critical aspects of supervision, including: Creating a vision framework for your team Performance management strategies How to navigate conflict in a productive way Effective coaching techniques to help you develop your direct reports After watching the course, you will leave with greater confidence about what effective supervision entails, along with a host of practical tools you can apply right away to better support individual, team, and organizational goals.

Strengthening the Relationship Between Development and Alumni Relations Teams

Development and alumni relations teams make different yet equally important contributions to meeting institutional advancement goals. However, it can be difficult for these teams to focus on their relationships with one another when they are also focused on meeting different metrics and responding to the various needs of donors and alumni. Taking time to establish a communication plan or strategy for both alumni relations and development teams can be a real challenge amidst the day-to-day upkeep of meeting obligations and competing priorities. Additionally, knowing how to apply this communication strategy to working with other internal campus partners, like academic units, is just as important given their key roles in stewarding volunteers and donors for both units. Join us for this one-day virtual event designed specifically for alumni relations and development teams who would like to strengthen their internal working relationships to improve their success with fundraising, alumni engagement, and other advancement initiatives.

Designing a New Faculty Mentor Program: A Bootcamp for Faculty Leaders

Designing a New Faculty Mentor Program: A Bootcamp for Faculty Leaders June 8 – July 6, 2023 | 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. ET Individual Sessions: June 8, 15, 22, 29, & July 6, 2023 Important Links Contact Moira Killoran to learn more. Welcome! This is your “one-stop shop” for all of the course materials and instructions you will need to guide you through the bootcamp. A couple of important notes to get you started: All course materials can be found in the “Access Course Materials” tab to the left. Any course materials you will need to prepare for the live sessions, including copies of slides, the Faculty Mentor Program Plan Template, and assignments, will be made available at the beginning of the week or sooner. Additional materials generated during the live sessions will be added by the end of the week. Your Course Syllabus will be updated and posted weekly as you progress through the program. The syllabus will contain specific instructions for what needs to be completed before, during, or after each session. Please review the syllabus at the beginning and end of every week to ensure that you are completing all required work at the right time. You […]

Developing an Intentional Self-Care Practice

Despite engaging in regular self-care rituals like bubble baths, yoga retreats, and having drinks with friends, many of us feel constantly tired, stressed, and on the brink of burnout. It begs the question: are the self-care rituals we’re currently observing helping us or hurting us? Are we engaging in surface-level “socially acceptable” self-care practices, or are we truly thinking about what self-care means to us and how to integrate it intentionally into our everyday lives? Designed for higher ed professionals at all levels, this video course is designed to help you to reflect on and upgrade your current self-care practices. Through an examination of six pillars of self-care—nutrition, exercise, sleep, mindfulness, healthy relationships, and mental health—you will assess your current practice and identify ways to improve and integrate it more seamlessly into your everyday life.

Impact of Repeal: Institutional Responses to the Dobbs Decision

The Supreme Court decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned the longstanding right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade in 1973, and colleges are now faced with determining if and how to respond to the needs expressed by students, faculty, and staff. This program will examine the public responses by several institutions through case studies to better help surface the factors that campuses may need to consider as they determine their approach to this topic.

Evaluating, Managing and Optimizing the Academic Portfolio

Evaluating, Managing and Optimizing the Academic Portfolio October 18 – 20, 2022 | 12:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET Learn to evaluate your academic programs more effectively within the framework of mission, academic standards, markets, and margins. Welcome to your course page for your virtual conference! We’ll be adding links to meeting rooms, schedules, social media, and course materials as they become available. Make sure to check back as it gets closer to your conference! EVENT INFORMATION ENSURE YOUR TECHNOLOGY IS READY This workshop is intentionally designed to allow for maximum learning, connections, and engagement. We advise the following in order to participate fully: Audio & Visual Needs

Reimagining the Faculty Mid-Career Stage: Reenergize Your Research and Find New Pathways

The mid-career stage for faculty is often characterized as a time of stagnation, burnout, and lack of clarity. Getting to this point has likely taken significant effort and you may no longer benefit from institutionally sponsored support, all while having new service and leadership responsibilities become part of your workload. Despite these challenges, the mid-career stage does not have to be marked by frustration and lack of productivity. To look at this period from a different vantage point, you’ve made a lot of progress, learned who you are as an academic, and have a wealth of new skills and knowledge to employ. In this two-hour training, you will start to change the narrative around your mid-career juncture from stale routine to fresh opportunity. Our subject-matter expert will provide tips for gaining clarity, lay out different options you can pursue, and provide tools to use in re-envisioning and planning your research and scholarship work going forward.

Chief Strategy Officer Roundtable: A Cohort-Based Series for VPs of Strategy

Chief Strategy Officer Roundtable: A Cohort-Based Series for VPs of Strategy January 31 – March 14, 2023 In-Person and Virtual Sessions To facilitate community and trust-building among the cohort from the start, the roundtable will kick off with a full-day in-person strategy session in Denver, Colorado on Tuesday, January 31. Six weekly, hour-long virtual sessions will follow, running from early February through the middle of March culminating with a personalized 1-on-1 session for each participant with the roundtable instructor to apply all your learning to your unique institutional needs.   Session 1 (In-person): Tuesday January 31 9: 00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. MT (local time in Denver, CO)   Virtual Sessions | 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. ET February 7, 14, 21, 28, March 7, 14 Weeks of March 14th and March 20th You will have the chance to sign up for an optional 30-minute 1:1 session with the instructor to discuss individualized questions related to roundtable topics or your own career path. Login Starting On: February 7, 2023 at 12:00 p.m. ET JOIN ZOOM MEETING Full Event Information VIEW EVENT PAGE Including: Agenda Overview Speaker Bios Prepare for the Workshop This workshop is intentionally designed to allow for maximum learning, […]

Integrating Guided Pathways and Learning Communities to Enhance Student Retention

Many institutions have turned to guided pathways to increase retention and generate momentum for a degree path among their students. Other institutions, meanwhile, have offered learning communities (LCs) for years, in the form of residential LCs, linked-course communities, residential colleges or coordinated studies programs, as a way to develop a sense of community and foster collaboration between faculty and students. However, few institutions truly integrate the two to create a degree path that intersects learning community coursework with core and major curriculum while extending learning beyond the classroom. As students increasingly question the value of a college degree, using both strategies in tandem can show students how their entire college journey contributes to their future goals. Join us for an interactive two-hour virtual training on integrating guided pathways and learning communities as a way to boost student engagement and retention. Our accomplished speakers, Dr. Richie Gebauer and Dr. Michelle Filling-Brown from Cabrini University, will guide you through establishing a shared purpose that drives the integration of guided pathways and learning community efforts while also addressing challenges that may arise in the marriage of these initiatives. You will further learn why integrating the two can work in your institution’s favor and […]

Positioning Your Leadership Annual Giving Program for Continued Success

As you work to strengthen your leadership annual giving program, it is imperative to build internal partnerships that will support and complement your work. These sessions will therefore focus on building relationships with internal partners and enhancing connections between your leadership annual giving efforts and your entire advancement team. You will learn how to quantify and present your program to upper-level management in a way that best positions your program for additional investments and support. Our expert instructor will help you to prioritize your efforts and design a long-term plan for maximizing your program’s effectiveness.

Considering Communication and Stewardship in Leadership Annual Giving

Communicating the purpose of your leadership annual giving program should be a thoughtful and strategic process to build both donor loyalty as well as your donor pipeline. This session will help you to define specific communications and stewardship strategies for your leadership annual donors. Our expert instructor will also offer ways to build effective communication strategies that outline and emphasize the importance of leadership giving. Particular attention will be paid to young alumni, social media, and making a compelling case for support. You will also learn how to build an impactful stewardship program to ensure that you not only retain your leadership donors, but also retain and upgrade them successfully.

Developing Essential Fundraising Skills for Leadership Annual Giving

To be an effective leadership annual giving officer, you must gain the skills for achieving and managing personal visits. First, you’ll learn how to set goals and metrics, then you’ll learn to identify the necessary legwork to cultivate donors for this type of solicitation. Our expert instructor will focus on teaching the fundraising skills necessary for obtaining donor visits, ensuring that visits are productive, and creating a culture that promotes buy-in from those future major donors. There will also be roleplay opportunities to help you put the content into practice.

Identifying Your Leadership Annual Giving Goals and Pipeline

A leadership annual giving program will not succeed unless it is strategically aligned with your overall annual giving program. Having a clear vision and plan for optimizing your leadership giving program is essential, and this training will help you to understand how leadership giving can—and should—work to deepen donor relationships and help you to exceed your annual giving goals. In this training, you will explore different leadership annual giving recognition clubs and society models, and also learn about the methodology of giving structures and how to determine alternate models of recognition. You will identify the individuals you should be soliciting as leadership annual donors and learn how to manage each donor effectively in order to match their interests to their highest potential.

Strategies to Strengthen Transfer Student Enrollment and Success

Strategies to Strengthen Transfer Student Enrollment and Success November 1-3, 2022 Learn the immediate steps you can take to improve your transfer student pathways and retention. EVENT INFORMATION ENSURE YOUR TECHNOLOGY IS READY This workshop is intentionally designed to allow for maximum learning, connections, and engagement. We advise the following in order to participate fully: Audio & Visual Needs

Managing Difficult Faculty and Staff: A Bootcamp for Leaders

Managing Difficult Faculty and Staff April 5 – 26, 2023 Individual Sessions Dates: April 5, 12, 19, 26, 2023 Important Links Contact Moira Killoran to learn more. Welcome! This bootcamp will teach you how to intervene and correct problematic performance and behavior within your team. Over the course of four weeks, our expert instructor will walk you through a four step, increasingly authoritative model that is intended to engage, set expectations, communicate consequences, and minimize the ill effect of bad behaviors on others. You will also be able to workshop strategies with your peers and discuss real challenges that you are facing. If you have any questions, please contact Sarah Adams, Learning and Development Manager at AI. Mark Your Calendars Session 1 | Engagement  April 5, 2023 | 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. ET  Session 2 | Management  April 12, 2023 | 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. ET  Session 3 | Enforcement  April 19, 2023 | 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. ET  Session 4 | Marginalization  April 26, 2023 | 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. ET  Ensure Your Technology is Ready This workshop is intentionally designed to allow for maximum learning, connections, and engagement. We advise the following in order to participate fully: Audio & Visual Needs

Using Neuroscience to Engage Your Team Through Change: A Training for Supervisors

Currently within higher ed, we are experiencing significant, rapid and frequent changes. “Change” is no longer a temporary state of being — it’s become a continuous part of our everyday operations. It should be no surprise these days, therefore, that we may often experience our teams resisting or burning out from constant change. As a supervisor, this can be especially challenging since your role is to motivate, empower, and retain your talent. The bad news is that we’re all hard-wired to resist change at a neurological level because our brains subconsciously perceive any change as threatening. The good news is that, with new insight, you can leverage change as an opportunity to engage or re-engage your team. Join us online to learn how neuroscience — specifically, the SCARF model — can improve the way you communicate and engage with your team during changes big and small. You’ll learn how to recognize behaviors that signal that your direct reports are feeling threatened by change, and we’ll also discuss why that happens. More importantly, we’ll examine ways you can respond and modify your own behaviors to create a psychologically safe environment — one where you minimize perceived danger and maximize reward.

Create Meaningful Volunteer Opportunities for your Major Donors

Leadership volunteers can help to advance your institutional goals not only through their major gifts, but through their ambassadorship as advocates of the mission you convey, and by opening access to opportunities as well as leveraging expertise and input that only they can provide. However, if you don’t have a defined objective on what these volunteers can help you to accomplish as part of your fundraising strategy, you won’t have the momentum required to achieve the fundraising outcomes your organization desires. Layering a leadership volunteer’s time and effort into a capital campaign or major initiative is accomplished by developing an engagement plan that aligns their core passion with your fundraising goals. Once you have them on board, creating a meaningful experience worthy of their time can then lead to lifelong engagement and sustained success. Join us at this live event and learn how to approach and manage leadership volunteer recruitment and sustainable engagement for major donors while cultivating these relationships as a central part of your fundraising strategies.

Key Considerations for Strengthening Prospect Management and Gift Officer Collaboration

The relationship between prospect managers and gift officers is critical for portfolio optimization in advancement shops. It is the responsibility of advancement leaders to assess and strengthen collaboration between these roles in order to have a high-performance team that is able to strategically engage with donors. Join us as Cheryl Cerny, Associate Vice President for Advancement Operations and Campaign Director at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, discusses how empowering prospect management and fundraising staff and using strategic questioning throughout the donor cycle can have a positive impact on your donor relations experience. By reflecting on relevant examples and engaging in small-group discussion, you will walk away from this training with useful ideas and strategies for strengthening this important collaborative relationship in your shop.   Who Should Attend This training is designed for advancement staff who directly or indirectly supervise gift officers and/or prospect management staff, or those with direct supervision of a donor relations team. If you are an advancement leader who is hoping to empower gift officers and prospect managers to help them achieve the best in their work, this training is for you.

Using Storytelling to Bolster Unrestricted Giving

Unrestricted funds are an asset to meeting institutional needs, but they are not always easy to acquire based on donor understanding or personal interests. Successfully soliciting unrestricted gifts requires advancement professionals to know how these funds will positively impact the university experience for a variety of constituents and how to tell those stories in ways that will inspire donors to give. Join us for this interactive virtual training to learn how Kim Bowden, Vice President of Annual Giving at Georgia Tech, leads the Roll Call team in using storytelling to meet fundraising goals for their unrestricted annual fund. You will identify campus relationships that can help you to better understand how unrestricted gifts are used, consider your donor audience and what types of stories may resonate within it, and leave with storytelling ideas that will bolster your unrestricted giving.

Taking a Student-Centered Approach to the Probation Process

One of the biggest potential roadblocks in a student’s college career is being put on academic probation. The probation process can feel defeating and overwhelming to students, and when it happens, they may choose to leave the institution altogether rather than navigating the challenge. However, the probation process does not have to seem punitive, and it can ultimately lead to students feeling more empowered to succeed as long as they feel they are supported and given the tools to navigate the process. Join us for a 90-minute virtual training on reimagining the academic probation process in order to take a more student-centered approach. Our expert speakers, Laura Donaldson and Samantha Nielsen, will walk you through the creation and implementation of a probation process program in Dietrich College of Humanities & Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. This voluntary process centers the student experience by allowing advisors and students to create individualized plans to help the student get off probation successfully, while also addressing the non-academic barriers students encounter that may have contributed to their academic struggles. Laura and Samantha will share several valuable resources and considerations to keep in mind when starting a program of your own, as well as […]

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