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Develop the Leaders Your Institution Depends On Academic Impressions Membership is your institution’s strategic tool for growing confident, capable leaders—from first-time supervisors to senior teams driving institutional strategy. Invest in Your Team Why Institutions Choose Academic Impressions Membership Whether you’re investing in a small team or scaling leadership development campus-wide, Academic Impressions Membership offers a flexible, strategic way to grow leadership at every level. Supervisors gain tools to manage with clarity and confidence Chairs strengthen their ability to lead through influence Mid- and senior-level leaders grow in strategic thinking, collaboration, and communication Leaders at every level develop shared skills, language, and practices that build stronger teams With resources designed specifically for higher education professionals, membership supports both individual growth and institutional priorities—so your people become stronger leaders, and your teams become more aligned, resilient, and effective. Where Membership Makes an Impact Strengthen Everyday Leadership Skills Across Campus Whether formal or informal, leadership happens in daily moments—supervising others, giving feedback, running meetings, or managing conflict. See More Expand Membership helps individuals at all levels: Motivate and coach team members Deliver constructive feedback that builds trust Run meetings that move work forward Resolve conflict with confidence and care Build self-awareness using The […]
I support faculty and leaders in crafting a clear vision, navigating conflict, and building buy-in—empowering them to manage change, align their purpose with personal growth, and drive meaningful success on their campuses. With over two decades of experience across small regional universities and large public and private R1 institutions, Kevin has navigated the challenges of leadership at every level, serving as a faculty member, assistant chair, research coordinator, director, and dean. Throughout his career, he has focused on coaching and leadership development to cultivate the skills needed to drive change and serve others. As a classically trained musician, Kevin brings a unique perspective to leadership and change management, emphasizing the power of creativity and teamwork in driving progress. The soft skills he honed as an artist—discipline, collaboration, adaptability, connection, and creative problem-solving—help him navigate the complexities of higher education, from managing diverse teams to guiding institutions through organizational change. Kevin is a certified coach through the International Coaching Federation and partners with academic leaders to tackle their most pressing challenges: Through coaching, Kevin helps his clients uncover roadblocks, embrace new perspectives, and move toward their goals. He believes in a collaborative process that fosters self-discovery and empowerment, enabling leaders to […]
ON-CAMPUS WORKSHOP Customer Service in Higher Education: Certification Training View Video Transcript Expand There is so much value to having the whole team, as well as all the departments, all together for an on-campus workshop. That’s somewhere where from the very beginning everyone understands what is customer service? How do we define it? So that way there’s not other people left behind going, “Well, I thought customer service meant just the customer is always right.” We can dispel that outdated, antiquated, should-never-be-said-again myth all in one statement in the very beginning. That way we can build on that with the core competencies, the case studies, the different things that we teach them together. That way they can also say, “Hey, this would work for us,” and, “That might not.” Right then and there the facilitators and I can work with that group to say, “Well, let’s come up with a different way that service excellence would be more applicable for your university.” It may be a little different than the group we just worked with the last month. I think the biggest benefit of an on-campus workshop is when the entire department or an entire team is together hearing the […]
Empowering leaders and executives to successfully navigate change by turning challenges into opportunities, and to ascend the leadership ladder by providing unique perspectives to problem solving and personal branding. Christie Chung, PhD, is an Executive Director (aka CEO or Dean) of a multidisciplinary institute at an R1 University. Apart from this executive role, she has also served as Associate Provost, Associate Dean, and many other key Chair and leadership positions at both R1 and liberals arts college settings. Christie has over 1.5 decades of experience as a cognitive psychology faculty and researcher, is a TEDx speaker, and an accomplished author in cognitive aging and cross-cultural cognition. Christie also has extensive experience in navigating complex institutional changes, especially ones involving institutional restructuring and mergers. In her coaching practice, Christie empowers leaders and executives to turn challenges into opportunities for growth and advancement. Christie is skilled in personal branding principles, which are critical as leaders position themselves for job opportunities and promotions. Christie inspires academics to impact the world through their leadership while championing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion/Antiracism/Belonging (DEIAB) principles. Christie has experience in supervising programs and grant-funded initiatives, fundraising, mediating conflict, and has been a key leader in supporting the campus community […]
Drawing on current research on high-performing leadership teams both within and outside of higher education, Pat Sanaghan, president of The Sanaghan Group and author of Collaborative Leadership in Action (2011) and the forthcoming book, How to Actually Build an Exceptional Team (2013), has identified 10 differentiators of exceptional teams, 10 qualities that enable teams to rise to and perform at high levels consistently. Of the 10, Sanaghan points to trust as the most important quality that differentiates high-performing teams in higher education. “In a high-trust environment,” Sanaghan remarked in an interview with Academic Impressions, “you can do many things even with limited resources. But if you have low trust, even with high resources you can’t get much done. To build trust, you need transparency with information — especially around financial realities, decision-making roles, and process.” Higher education is by its nature a collaborative and people-driven enterprise — yet often, too little investment is made to improve the professionals within the institution work together. As the speed of change accelerates and higher-ed’s operating environment grows more complex, those institutions that will remain competitive and thrive will be those characterized by high-performing teams across all parts and levels of the organization. The High-Trust Environment […]
Building Stronger Teams with Empathy and Humility as a Leader A TRAINING AND DISCUSSION SERIES Recorded On July 18, 2022 | July 25, 2022 | August 1, 2022 | August 8, 2022 Overview Leaders set the tone for the team but too often don’t focus on developing the traits necessary to create environments where their team can thrive. If a leader focuses only on what specific tasks the team has completed or what goals each member of the team has accomplished, members of the team can feel like cogs in a machine. Though it may seem counterintuitive, leaders who display humility and empathy for their team members are still able to get the important work done. And by supporting their team more effectively, these leaders are better able to retain their employees. Join us for a training and discussion series on how you can become a humbler and more empathetic leader—and why doing so does not conflict with what it means to be a leader. You will walk away with a better understanding of how to integrate empathy and humility in your day-to-day leadership work and how to cultivate those traits on your team. How It Works […]
Introduction As a higher education leader for almost 20 years and a former department chair for ten, I have witnessed time and time again how the right department leader can animate an academic program. As John C. Maxwell once said, “The reality is that 99 percent of all leadership occurs not from the top, but from the middle of an organization.” Sitting at the nexus of the student body, the faculty, and the administration, department chairs are poised to provide crucial leadership in the effort to help students progress toward graduation and their institutions toward transformation. Despite their important positioning, department chairs are rarely taught how to lead nor are they typically rewarded for good leadership. Nearly 50,000 currently serve as department chairs in the United States with about a quarter of them being replaced each year (Gmlech and Buller, 2015). And yet only 3.3 percent of department chairs came to their positions with formal coursework in the administrative skills they need (Cipiano and Riccardi, 2012). While challenges facing higher education grow in intensity and become more complex, many department chairs enter the role woefully unprepared for the challenges that await them. The convergence of interconnected crises in recent years—including […]
Helping academic leaders focus on the stuff that really matters. Work less, work more effectively, experience more joy. Carina Vocisano, PhD has extensive experience in creating change as an academic leadership coach. She draws on evidence-based approaches to leadership coaching including mindfulness-based stress reduction, positive psychology, and organizational psychology. A core assumption of Carina’s approach to leadership coaching is that positive emotional experiences provide academic leaders with important resources they need in order to confront the challenges they encounter at work. Thus, her approach to coaching focuses equally on strategies for accomplishing goals, and on helping clients to increase the joy and fulfillment they experience while achieving their goals. Carina uses positive psychology for team building and applied stress management to prevent and combat burnout among academic leaders, and the people they supervise. Through close collaboration, academic leaders find ways to change their approach to work, so that they spend less time working and are more effective during the time they devote to their work. Carina works with leaders towards maximal engagement while working, and expanded opportunities for personal and professional growth, overall. Carina addresses all the interconnected facets of life in the coaching relationships including personal relationships, physical health, […]
A small but growing number of colleges and universities have been adopting restorative justice (RJ) processes as an alternative (in some cases) to traditional, sanctions-focused student conduct proceedings. Taking an RJ approach requires a philosophical shift for the student conduct office – it entails new sets of questions for student conduct hearings and an alert ear for cases in which there is the possibility to restore harm that’s been done, rather than simply (or only) penalize. If a hearing indicates that restorative justice may be possible and desirable, RJ processes usually proceed to individual pre-conference meetings held with the offender and those harmed in the incident. Ultimately, if all parties are willing, the issue is dealt with through a group conference with trained facilitators. The goal of the conference is to arrive at a mutual understanding of the harm caused and a mutual agreement for how the harm will be repaired. To learn more about how to make a restorative justice program most successful, we interviewed two officials from Colorado State University, which has frequently been recognized for its restorative justice and other student conduct programs. The two officials are Paul Osincup and Melissa Emerson, the associate and assistant directors […]
