Archives

Build a Team Culture that Embraces Conflict as Productive and Positive

Conflict can be positive and productive when each other’s differences are respected and understood. Overview For many, conflict has negative connotations and is something to be feared or avoided. This reaction may arise because conflict often results from differences in values, culture, and bias. Knowing how to respectfully navigate those differences can be difficult, especially when important relationships are at stake. As a leader, there are ways you can foster an environment and create a team culture that embraces differences and resolves conflict in a positive and productive manner. Join us online to learn how to shift your team’s attitudes and culture around conflict from negative to positive. The process begins with team-building activities that provide your team an opportunity to better assess, understand and respect each other’s styles, attitudes and behaviors around conflict resolution. But the true culture shift happens when you follow through and incorporate those insights into your team’s daily operations and leadership practice. This training is designed to be highly interactive and will allow you to brainstorm and share ways you can help your team be more productive in their own work and with each other.  Additional recommended training As a companion to this training, we […]

Reimagine and Build a More Equitable Workplace Culture

Cultivate a workplace that centers on faculty and staff equity, health, and wellness.  Overview Academic leaders spent most of 2020 pivoting and responding to emergent needs. As the dust settles, with reopening on the horizon, it is now time to stop pivoting and start building for a more sustainable future. Instead of reacting to issues surrounding wellness and equity, we can now rebuild a workplace community that deliberately centers faculty and staff equity, health, and wellness.    In this workshop you will learn how the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work conducted a wellness check with their faculty and staff to reimagine their operations, academic affairs, and external engagements to foster equity, health, and wellness. Using their case study, you will consider what is unique to your context, discipline, and divisional structure and then begin to draft steps for a ground-up evaluation to learn more about your team’s needs. We will explore the scaffolding needed to reach your aspirational state, and our expert Dr. Amanda McBride, Dean of the Graduate School of Social Work at University of Denver will share some of the possibilities and best practices from her experience.    Who Should Attend This training is best suited for Deans and Chairs who want to envision a more sustainable work environment grounded in equity, health, and wellness for their faculty and staff. Provosts, […]

Balancing Short-Term Realities with Long-Term Opportunities: Higher Ed Leadership in a Post-COVID Era

Join us to explore the delicate balance of urgent short-term needs against the opportunity for innovation. Overview As colleges and universities across the country prepare to reopen fully in the fall, higher ed leaders find themselves faced with a difficult task. On one hand, they must have a short-term focus on guiding faculty, staff, and students through reopening to ensure everyone feels safe and supported throughout the process. On the other, they must not lose sight of the opportunities for innovation and out-of-the-box thinking that this moment also presents. How can institutional leaders operate effectively in both of these realities at the same time? What strategies are other leaders using to maintain short-term focus without losing sight of bigger picture opportunities?    Join us for a 75-minute panel discussion to explore these and other related questions. The Provost, Vice President of Human Resources, Diversity, and Inclusion, and Chief Information Officer at CSU Fullerton will describe a bottom-up, participatory approach to reopening planning that brings faculty and staff along in the process while also building the trust, excitement, and community necessary for creativity and bigger picture thinking long-term.      Who Should Attend This discussion is suitable for higher ed leaders at all levels on both the academic and […]

Space Matters: Designing STEM Learning Environments that Foster Inclusion and Student Success

Explore how your STEM facility project can improve student learning, retention, and success. Overview Contemporary pedagogies, curricula, and cultures that promote inclusion and student success in STEM require consideration of the physical environments that support them. In this session, you and your peers will examine the elements of 21st century STEM learning environments and the strategies employed to bring key stakeholders and resources together to successfully execute a STEM facilities project. Both new construction and renovation projects will be considered. Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, where physical distancing protocols added new constraints to the utilization of STEM learning spaces, will be shared.   Who Should Attend STEM academic administrators and teams working to implement renovation or new construction projects for STEM learning environments will benefit from this training. The Academic Impressions Online Learning Experience Intentionally DesignedOnline Learning Our virtual trainings go far beyond just replicating PowerPoint presentations online: these experiences are intentionally designed to give you the kind of robust and dynamic learning experience you’ve come to expect from Academic Impressions. These trainings provide you with an active learning environment and an online space where you can explore ideas, get inspired by what your peers are doing, and understand […]

Reopening Campus: Building Student Community Amid COVID Restrictions

How can you build community while navigating ever-changing COVID-19 guidelines? Overview As more institutions announce their reopening plans for fall 2021, Student Affairs leaders are faced with a challenge: How might building community among undergraduate students look different when campuses reopen amid shifting COVID-19 safety restrictions?  Join us online for a 2-hour, highly interactive discussion and brainstorming session around this topic, focusing in on three key areas of Student Life: Orientation, Housing, and Student Activities. Our facilitators will share how their campuses are approaching their planning while navigating state, local, and institutional COVID-19 guidelines. You will actively participate in large and small group discussions framed around questions such as:     How might these critical areas of student life look different as restrictions loosen?  What creative new approaches can we take to build community in this new, post-COVID-19 context?  How can we address isolation while also encouraging COVID-safe behaviors among students?  What steps can we take now to enable quick pivots if a campus outbreak occurs?  What positive practices have come out of the pandemic that we will want to continue moving forward?  We recognize that institutions are grappling with different elements of student community building depending upon their institutional type, size, state regulations, and a variety of other factors. Our aim for the session will be to build a network of peers to share challenges, successes, and strategies around community building in this new, shifting context and work together to curate […]

Advancement Thought Leadership Series

As a valued member of Academic Impressions, we invite you to join us for the Advancement Thought Leadership Series.

Join us online for an exclusive four-part discussion series on these timely topics in advancement. This series is designed to help make connections with colleagues across the globe and enhance your learning. In each session, we will discuss and share learns, ideas, and thoughts around the identified topic.

Our facilitators, Britt Iwaszkiw and Roshaon Tytar, with Academic Impressions, will help you and your peers explore these topics in greater detail and identify resources to support your goals and initiatives.

Prepare for the Advancement Thought Leadership Series

1) We look forward to talking about:

Session 1 | Workforce Development
June 22, 2021, 1:30 – 2:30 pm ET

Session 2 | Donor Relations
July 27, 2021, 1:30 – 2:30 pm ET

Session 3 |Advancement Centered Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
August 24, 2021, 1:30 – 2:30 pm ET

Session 4 | Hybrid Fundraising Conversation (In-Person and Digital Engagement)
September 28, 2021, 1:30 – 2:30 pm ET

2) Plan to participate in discussion, learns, and brainstorming! We will not be offering formal presentations during the meetings.

Fundraising for Department Chairs

At its core, fundraising is storytelling. How effectively you tell your story, who you choose to tell your story to, and how you demonstrate the impact of fundraising dollars once raised will ultimately determine your success as a fundraiser. The good news is you are already doing much of this work by advocating internally at the Dean and Provost level for your students, faculty, and programs. This video course is designed to help you broaden those skills and refine your message externally to alumni, donors, and community members. You will learn how to approach fundraising for your department in a strategic and meaningful way by learning how to: Explore your institution’s fundraising operations and structure, so that you can better understand your role and ways to partner with others. Identify and articulate the most emergent needs for your department in a way that aligns with donors’ interests. Plan for and navigate through the five stages of the solicitation cycle to cultivate long-lasting relationships with donors. The principles of fundraising shared in this course can be implemented by any department chair who is interested in growing their expertise in cultivating relationships with donors. Whether you are solely responsible for fundraising or […]

Distributed Leadership: Building Trust and Community

Give those who will be impacted by a decision or change the ability to provide input, enabling more trust on your team. Distributed leadership allows for the suggestions and concerns of all stakeholders to be heard and counted in a way that is not purely representative, but fully inclusive. Instead of decisions coming from the top with minimal transparency, they will be based on what the stakeholders have to bring to the table throughout the process before decisions are made. Overview Many organizations have a vertical approval process, whereby the senior positions maintain the most vital information and decision-making power, which limits trust and engagement due to lack of transparency in the process. In today’s complex and ever-changing world, there’s often a need to share the decision-making responsibilities across the organization so that you can build trust and community while also inspiring the best thinking from the people who will be most impacted by the decisions. Distributed leadership is one such way to build this capacity in your leadership on change. Join us online to learn the skillsets and work through sample scenarios that you will need to start implementing distributed leadership in small and meaningful ways. You will walk […]