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Essential Leadership Skills for Department Chairs 

Leading as an academic department chair is difficult under the best of circumstances. You must balance the competing interests of faculty and administration and stretch limited resources, all while maintaining your own scholarship and teaching loads. Add to this the uncertainty and complexity of leading through an ever-changing higher ed landscape, and it becomes clear that the current environment can test even the most seasoned leaders.  Join us in person for this essential two-day conference designed specifically to help academic department chairs discover or reconnect with the most effective ways to lead in a variety of situations and circumstances. On day one, you’ll begin by reflecting on your approach to leadership, where you’ll explore ways to enhance your overall leadership effectiveness. You’ll also examine how your position of influence can support and enable the engagement, collaboration, and, ultimately, the success of your faculty and staff. The focus for day two will be to explore one of the trickiest topics a leader must face—conflict—where you’ll practice tools and strategies that will allow you to navigate that conflict with greater confidence and ease.  To preserve an intimate and productive experience, this conference is capped at 30 attendees. 

Essential Leadership Skills for Department Chairs 

Leading as an academic department chair is a challenging role, requiring the navigation of competing priorities, resource constraints, and an evolving higher education landscape. This two-day, in-person workshop is designed to equip department chairs with practical strategies to lead effectively. On day one, participants will reflect on their leadership approach, focusing on enhancing influence, engagement, and collaboration. Day two will address managing conflict, offering tools and techniques to handle challenging situations with confidence and ease. 

Developing a Comprehensive Retention Plan 

Join us for this longstanding, must-attend conference to develop a campus-wide retention plan that ties your mission, data, and programming together in a unified approach. Our expert speakers will share their latest insights as we continue to navigate the effects of the pandemic and changing student demographics. Whether you have a retention plan already in place or are just getting started, during this conference you will outline and build an improved retention plan under the guidance of our experts.   You will leave the conference with the ability to approach retention holistically by:  

An Introspective Look at Higher Ed Leadership’s Impact on Trust, Morale, and Retention

Political interference, campus protests, demographic cliff(s), rising costs, and campus closures are all contributing to the public’s declining trust in higher education. But it’s not just the public. Respected and “star” faculty and administrators are also losing faith and continue to show signs of disenchantment, anxiety, and mistrust. In fact, 57% of faculty and staff said they were likely to leave their position next year, and 42% reported clinical symptoms of burnout.   Our reflexive reaction in the face of such numbers is often to externalize the blame, but there are proven strategies to combat the very real impact to faculty and staff morale, trust, and engagement. It’s time to stop looking through the window to the outside for answers and start looking in the mirror.  Join us as we showcase five proven strategies that leaders at all levels can employ to improve job satisfaction, build trust, and positively change the trajectory for many faculty and staff—and for the institution itself.  

Optimizing Your Fundraising Strategy: A Summit for Presidents and Advancement Vice Presidents

As a president, you play a critical role in creating the institutional conditions that attract significant and sustained philanthropic investments. Some of the questions you may be asking as you seek to define your unique institutional narrative for donors are:  It’s easiest to answer these questions when you have established a clear delineation of responsibilities with other key leaders at your institution, so that you can work toward achieving both long-term and short-term advancement objectives even in the face of competing, persistent responsibilities.  Join us at this summit with your board chair and chief advancement officer to understand how changing philanthropic realities are impacting your alumni and donor engagement. You will learn how to use this information to articulate priorities that resonate with donors, improve your interactions with them, and engage your campus community in generating projects that solve critical problems—and in which philanthropically inclined donors will be keen to invest.  Whether you, your board chair, or your chief advancement officer are new to your roles, or whether you are an established team thinking about developing an institutional strategic plan or comprehensive campaign, this summit will give you the tools to optimize your fundraising potential and create a lasting philanthropic […]

Fundraising for Deans and Academic Leaders 

As a dean, you hold numerous responsibilities, and fundraising is likely a critical part of your portfolio. You are probably also finding the philanthropic landscape more competitive than ever, as donors are becoming more selective with their giving. To be a successful fundraiser, it is important to understand how to align your interests with those of donors seeking to make significant societal differences.  Join us for this one-and-a-half-day interactive conference, led by renowned university advancement consultant Jim Langley. Jim will help you to learn how to more effectively listen to prospective donors and align their personal values with the goals of your academic unit. Through group discussions and activities, you will:  Join us at this conference to unlock new philanthropic strategies within your academic unit! 

Customer Service Skills Training: Certification for Higher Education Professionals

Instilling a culture of service excellence at all levels of an institution is more important than ever. It creates a sense of community amongst faculty, staff, and students, which makes your campus a great place to be. Join us for this in-person conference where you will start taking steps to create or improve the culture of customer service in your unit. Whether you’re a frontline staff member wanting to make a positive difference with customers directly or a team leader trying to change the service culture in your unit, you’ll benefit from this conference as you: About the CertificationAcademic Impressions is the only provider of customer service certification in the higher education industry. Whether you’re seeking certification for yourself, or you want to get your entire team certified, you’ll be setting yourself apart from the rest. Being certified in customer service means that you’re the gold standard in service excellence, which improves your institution’s reputation and instills confidence in students and parents alike. To obtain the certification, you or your team will need to attend the conference and complete an online exam post-conference. 

Customer Service Skills Training: Certification for Higher Education Professionals

As competition in higher education intensifies, so do the appetites of prospective students for institutions that provide the best education and experience for their tuition dollars. Instilling a culture of service excellence at all levels of an institution can directly enhance enrollment and improve student retention. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an undeniable impact on both the student and employee experience. And with the pending enrollment cliff, institutions will need to retain students at a higher rate, making service excellence more important than ever before.  Join us for this virtual learning experience developed for higher education frontline customer service professionals and those who supervise them. Through interactive and small-group activities, you will dive into:  You will leave this training with increased confidence in your customer service skills and a greater ability to handle a wide variety of service scenarios.   Watch our expert faculty talk about why getting customer service right is key in higher education:  

Customer Service Skills Training: Certification for Higher Education Professionals

As competition in higher education intensifies, so do the appetites of prospective students for institutions that provide the best education and experience for their tuition dollars. Instilling a culture of service excellence at all levels of an institution can directly enhance enrollment and improve student retention. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an undeniable impact on both the student and employee experience. And with the pending enrollment cliff, institutions will need to retain students at a higher rate, making service excellence more important than ever before.  Join us for this virtual learning experience developed for higher education frontline customer service professionals and those who supervise them. Through interactive and small-group activities, you will dive into:  You will leave this training with increased confidence in your customer service skills and a greater ability to handle a wide variety of service scenarios.   Watch our expert faculty talk about why getting customer service right is key in higher education:  

Overcoming the 5 Key Challenges to Sustaining a Positive Culture of Service Excellence

You’ve embraced the idea of enhancing customer service on your campus, you’ve provided training for your team, and now the hard part begins—maintaining momentum! This free webcast will discuss five key challenges to sustaining a culture of service and how you can overcome them. The five challenges are:  Join us for this virtual learning experience developed for higher education professionals who lead service efforts and supervise leaders on the frontline. Whether you are just beginning a customer service initiative or your efforts have lost steam, gain the insight you need to build momentum and increase customer satisfaction!  Watch our expert faculty talk about why getting customer service right is key in higher education: