• Learn how to design, recruit, and engage volunteer boards effectively, ensuring that their work aligns with your institutional priorities. 
• Discover techniques to improve board meeting formats and agendas, fostering productive discussions and active participation. 
• Evaluate and cultivate a positive board culture, promoting collaboration and effective governance. 
• Create a personalized board strategy to enable immediate implementation when you return to your institution. 

Are you ready to take your design thinking skills to the next level? Join us for a transformative two-day experience at Virginia Commonwealth University, where you’ll master the techniques of design thinking facilitation. The conference—a collaboration between Academic Impressions and VCU’s da Vinci Center—will equip you with the tools to inspire innovation, design dynamic sessions, and make a real impact within your organization.

This program is designed to empower leaders, facilitators, and educators by providing hands-on learning, real-time feedback, and practical action plans. Whether you’re new to design thinking or looking to expand your expertise, this event offers everything you need to lead with confidence.

More details about the specific event schedules for each day can be found by clicking Learn More and Register, but session descriptions encompassing both days follow below:   

Defining Board Purpose and Roles
We’ll kick off this event with a conversation around how boards in higher education have evolved and how they should best be utilized across different institutional contexts. We’ll review how to translate your board’s purpose into meaningful responsibilities and productive relationships with staff, and you’ll be able to discuss your board’s unique purpose and roles, as well as any challenges you may experience in defining them.  

Developing an Intentional Board Culture
A healthy board culture is essential for a board to be able to effectively execute its strategy and accomplish its goals. We‘ll discuss the role of your executive committee in setting and maintaining board culture. We’ll also provide examples of effective board cultures and ways to evaluate current culture. We’ll discuss the importance of positive leadership, team building, and professional development, as well as active engagement, working through conflict, and continuous cultural improvement.  

Evaluating Board Governance and Operations
Structure should reflect a board’s purpose, roles, responsibilities, and process. Unfortunately, committees, policies, and bylaws are often created on an ad hoc basis and/or not updated regularly. We’ll discuss how to create or revise your own structure to make it reflective of your mission and will also address how to implement that structure most effectively. You’ll then have time to work in small groups to note key issues or changes you are considering related to bylaws or other policy. 

Setting Board Strategy  
With your board’s purpose set and member responsibilities defined, the next step is to begin developing your strategy. We’ll address how to cooperatively define long- and short-term strategies that align with those of professional staff, and we’ll discuss how to ensure your board’s support for the work. We’ll then review how to move from strategy to implementation to position your board for maximum effectiveness.  

A Talent Management Framework for Your Board: Identification, Recruitment, and Development of Board Members  
Identifying ideal board members from your pool of alumni leaders requires cooperation from all areas within advancement and the board. This session will focus on best practices for selecting and recruiting productive, dedicated board members—including how to convert board members from other volunteer programs. Knowing that succession planning can be tricky to navigate, we’ll talk through building a leadership pipeline, paying particular attention to board composition. You’ll also have the opportunity to discuss how to approach diversifying your board representation.  

A Talent Management Framework for Your Board: Onboarding, Training, and Development   
Bringing new board members up to speed, while integrating them into the existing membership, is essential to managing turnover effectively. We’ll walk you through how to onboard and educate both your board leadership and your new members, and we’ll also provide tips for training them for their roles on the board.  

Cultivating a Productive Board  
There is nothing more frustrating than a board that fails to accomplish its goals. Here, we’ll explore how to keep your board productive and engaged. You’ll work with peers to consider different format and agenda options for board meetings and committee meeting cadence, as well as how to apply the best options to your meetings to make them more productive. In addition, we’ll consider how to sustain momentum between full board meetings as well as how to incorporate technology to maintain communication during those times.  

Creating a Board Strategy Road Map  
In small groups, we’ll discuss key takeaways from the conference and identify three to four actionable strategies that will enhance your board’s effectiveness and member engagement.  Discussion groups will be curated based on board type, to facilitate peer-to-peer dialogue that can help you to develop your action plan.  

Academic Impressions conferences provide the opportunity for quality conversations and relationship-building through both formal and informal networking opportunities in an intimate setting. Our in-depth and hands-on approach to learning provides you with actionable takeaways.

Learn More About the Academic Impressions Conference Experience ➞