Reinvigorate Your Meetings and Workshops: A Training for Deans

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 […]

The Art of Influencing Up as Academic Dean 

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 […]

ENCORE + Live Q&A: The Role of Philanthropic Conversations in Families

Transferring values, not just dollars, is the essence of philanthropic conversations in families. These conversations rarely occur with families who have the actual capacity to give, however. Whether your alumnus identifies as middle-class or is part of a family with a long-storied history with your institution, cultivating conversation among their closest familial ties is often […]

Encore: Keys to a Successful Relationship Between Deans and Development Officers

Philanthropy is critical to helping institutions meet their academic missions, and at its core, it is all about building and maintaining relationships. Although fundraising is just one of the myriad responsibilities overseen by an academic dean, the development officer is a key partner in assisting the dean in achieving those fundraising goals. To find success […]

Encore: Recruiting, Training, and Engaging Alumni Volunteers in a Digital Environment

Alumni volunteers are immensely valuable to institutions in both their service and giving power— they tend to give 10 times more than non-volunteers. However, since the pandemic, the script has flipped on how we recruit and engage alumni volunteers through digital channels. In-person volunteer opportunities continue to foster alumni engagement, but with digital opportunities growing […]