Since this program focuses on leadership effectiveness and not just on the nuts and bolts of running your college, we invite academic Deans of all experience levels to attend. If you’re looking to grow both your relationships and your influence across your college or institution, this conference is for you.

Your registration fee includes full access to all conference sessions and materials, breakfast, lunch, and access to the networking reception on Wednesday, breakfast and lunch on Thursday, as well as refreshments and snacks throughout the conference.

DAY ONE: Wednesday, May 29, 2024
8:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. MT (Local time in Denver, CO)
Registration and Continental Breakfast (included with registration)
8:30 – 9:00 a.m.

Welcome and Introductions 
9:00 – 9:15 a.m.

Understanding Your Leadership Approach: The “Five Paths” Self Assessment
9:15 – 10:45 a.m.
Self-awareness is at the heart of effective leadership. This session guides you through a leadership assessment called The Five Paths to Leadership℠ Self-Assessment, which allows you to understand your strengths and natural tendencies when it comes to your leadership. The assessment can be helpful in deepening self-awareness, as well as in helping you to adapt your style to meet the needs of others, including faculty, chairs and provosts.

Morning Break 
10:45 – 11:00 a.m. 

Using the “Five Paths” to Create Effective Collaborations and Meetings
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Top-down leadership doesn’t work in the academy. Leaders must have a collaborative stance to be effective, but collaboration isn’t simply bringing people together and hoping that good things happen. In this session, we’ll explore the specific principles and strategies that effective leaders follow to ensure that all voices are heard and the work moves forward.

Lunch 
12:00 – 1:00 p.m.  

Navigating Conflict: Getting to Win-Win Outcomes
1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
Resolving conflict within your unit can be tricky. Your unit’s leadership team, faculty, and staff often have competing interests. The issues may feel personal and high-stakes for all involved. It’s not always clear how to move forward in a way that allows all parties to feel heard and respected.

Afternoon Break 
2:30 – 2:45 p.m.  

Building Connections with Lego Serious Play: An Experiential Process for Reflective Dialogue
2:45 – 4:00 p.m.
Lego Serious Play is an experiential process designed for use with adults to prompt dialogue and encourage reflection. To help you to get creative and expand your mindset using the approachable medium of play, our facilitator will lead you through a series of structured exercises.

Q&A and Day One Wrap-up
4:00 – 4:30 p.m. 
Here, you will have the opportunity to ask any questions related to the topics covered on Day One.

Networking Reception
4:30 – 5:30 p.m.  
This informal reception is your chance to decompress, have some refreshments on us, and expand your network of connections. Our programs are intentionally designed for smaller groups, so this is a great time to catch up with attendees and speakers whom you may not have connected with yet.

DAY TWO: Tuesday, May 30, 2024
8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. MT (Local time in Denver, CO)
Continental Breakfast  
8:30 – 9:00 a.m. 

Recap of Day One’s Lessons Learned
9:00 – 9:15 a.m.  
We’ll begin Day Two with a quick reflection and recap of the key takeaways from the first day.

Leading Change through Collaboration
9:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.  
This session will explore the benefits of collaborative leadership and how it can be used to enhance decision making, problem solving, and innovation. Specifically, we’ll explore the role of collaborative leadership in leading change, building effective communication, and strengthening trust and teamwork.

A 15-minute break will be built into this session.

Lunch  
12:00 – 1:00 p.m. 

Empowering Your Department Chairs: What They Want You to Know
1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
Your charge as Dean is to build a productive and happy work culture. But you can’t do that alone. Your department chairs play a vital role in realizing this goal, so it’s important that you empower them to do this work effectively. And it’s also important that you create the conditions to allow them to be successful. In this session, we’ll highlight some of the common feedback and insights we’ve learned from working with thousands of department chairs. If you’re interested in learning what department chairs want, and you need to feel supported and empowered, this session is for you.

Afternoon Break 
2:30 – 2:45 p.m. 

Bringing It All Together
2:45 – 3:45 p.m. 
As we bring the two-day program to a close, we’ll recap key insights gained during the conference, and you’ll identify specific actions you can apply to your everyday leadership choices when you return to campus.

Evaluation & Closing Remarks 
3:45 – 4:00 p.m. 

Attend any three in-person conferences for $5,000 for Members ($5,500 for Non-Members) – or $1,667 dollars per registration for Members ($1,833 for Non-Members) – with a Conference 3-Pack. There’s no one way to use your 3-Pack!

• Send 3 people to the same conference
• Send 3 individuals to different conferences
• Experience 3 different conferences yourself

Learn More

The Brown Palace Hotel and Spa

321 17th Street

Denver, CO 80202

Phone: 303-297-3111

A discounted room rate of $219/night is available if you book your room with this link before May 7, 2024.