Sponsored by TIAA
Boxed lunches will be provided for all Institute participants.
Roundtable discussion groups will provide opportunities to gain practical advice from colleagues. Discussion facilitators will be experienced colleagues with insight to offer on each topic.
Academic Recovery Practices for Student Success
What policies and practices are CIC institutions putting in place to “catch” and support students, especially first-year and first-generation students, who are struggling to make the transition to college or to recover from a challenging start? Participants are invited to exchange information and to seek advice about programs and other strategies that promote student academic success and persistence to graduation.
Tynisha Willingham, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Chief Academic Officer, Mary Baldwin University
Building Relationships with HBCUs to Promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Lane College, one of seven HBCUs in Tennessee, has partnered with a majority-white university on innovative diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, including joint courses co-taught by faculty members from both institutions and a grant-funded faculty development program on culturally sensitive pedagogy. Lane’s chief academic officer will facilitate a conversation about the process of building the relationship, obstacles that were overcome, and the mutual benefits that have resulted. Participants are invited to ask questions and seek advice about how to develop similar partnerships.
Daryll Coleman, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Lane College
CIC-TEP: A Benefit to Support Your Employees and Their Families
Help your employees and their families meet their educational goals by participating in CIC-TEP. Learn about how this benefit program works and how your employees can receive free tuition for their spouses and children at select institutions. With more than 400 participating schools, CIC-TEP can play an important role in recruiting and retaining talented employees who share your commitment to independent higher education.
Faith Brown, Tuition Exchange and Programs Manager, CIC
Jo Ellen Parker, Senior Vice President, CIC
Dealing with Faculty and Staff Burnout
Faculty and staff burnout remains a pressing issue on many college and university campuses. How are senior leaders at CIC institutions addressing the problem? What new policies and programs are being enacted to help faculty and staff members prioritize self-care and restore work-life balance? Participants in this conversation will address these questions and share effective practices for creating a campus culture of support.
Danette Ifert Johnson, Provost, Kalamazoo College
Federal Grant Support for Expanding Recruitment and Strengthening Retention: A Review of Opportunities for 2023
Student enrollment and retention are at the top of mind for executive leadership at small and mid-sized liberal arts colleges, most of whom depend on tuition revenue as essential to their financial sustainability. McAllister & Quinn has identified the key federal grants in 2023 that fund recruitment and retention initiatives on college campuses. Their team will share intelligence on recommendations from federal funding sources that include the National Science Foundation, Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Department of Education.
Frank Boyd, Vice President, McAllister & Quinn
Jessica Gerrity, Senior Vice President, McAllister & Quinn
Foster a Culture of Belonging, Campus-wide: CIC’s new “BELONG” Community
CIC and the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) recently launched “BELONG: The CIC & ACUE Inclusive Learning Community.” This new network—exclusive to CIC—responds to members’ desire to strengthen campus cultures with inclusive practices. BELONG members will have the opportunity to credential both faculty and staff through ACUE’s new offering “Fostering a Culture of Belonging.” This course, with related webinars and other resources, prepares professors and non-instructors to manage potential biases, address imposter phenomenon and stereotype threat, and reduce microaggressions among other practical approaches. CIC developed this initiative in recognition of ACUE’s national leadership on effective college instruction. Students taught by ACUE-certified faculty learn more, complete more courses, and retain in greater number, with greater equity by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, national studies show. Join representatives from ACUE and CIC as they lead a conversation about this new course and network and share opportunities for member institutions to get involved.
Bacari K. Brown, Partnership Development Director, ACUE
Laurie Pendleton, Executive Director, Curriculum and Assessment, ACUE
How Institutions Use Data to Drive Enrollment
Data and its analysis allow campus leaders to better collaborate on decisions that help future-proof their institutions. For many tuition-dependent colleges and universities, keeping enrollment numbers up is crucial to their sustainability. Leaders often need to answer questions like, “How do I increase enrollment of the best-fit students?” “How are prospects progressing through the funnel?” and “What actions increase conversion rates?” Using data to answer these questions helps create recruitment strategies that enable institutions to increase net revenue and surpass enrollment goals. Join leaders from Berry College and Jenzabar for a roundtable discussion of how data drives enrollment.
Andrew Bressette, Vice President of Enrollment Management, Berry College
Jaime Moquin, Vice President of Engagement and Customer Success, Jenzabar
International Student Recruitment and Enrollment as Meaningful Intervention Strategy
As the enrollment downturn continues to affect America’s higher education sector, institutions must reiterate and promote their brand in an ever-competing landscape domestically and abroad. Working with independent agents is one path. Staffing up with local and international expertise is another but what’s cost effective and is there a middle ground toward improving enrollments with a more affordable and scalable approach? This discussion will focus on practical ways to plan and implement international strategy at your institution whether you are approaching this for the first time or just looking for an approach to augment your current success.
Darrin Francis, Director of Northern American Partnerships, Cialfo
Knowledge for Freedom: Building Inspiring Humanities Programs for Underserved High School Students
How can CIC member institutions engage underserved high school students in their local communities through rich humanities teaching? The Knowledge for Freedom program, funded by the Teagle Foundation, supports programs at liberal arts institutions that invite underserved high school students to college to study humanity’s deepest questions about leading lives of purpose and civic responsibility. These high school students come into residence on a college campus, where they experience the intensity of a seminar-sized discussion taught by college professors focused on major works of philosophy and literature. Over the following year, while applying to college as high school seniors, the students engage in civic initiatives inspired by the recognition that their lives are interconnected with the lives of others. In this roundtable discussion, participants will learn from leaders of a Knowledge for Freedom program at a CIC member institution about the process of designing these programs and their achievements so far.
Matthew Spring, Director of Academic Success and First Gen Initiatives, University of Dallas
José Espericueta, Associate Professor of Spanish and Chair, Department of Modern Languages, University of Dallas
Pioneering Chief Officers as Change Agents
Susquehanna’s CAO and CEMO, who are the first persons of color in their respective roles at their university, will share insights from their experiences as institutional change agents, including how they set priorities, navigated minefields, and assessed progress on goals. They look forward to hearing the perspectives of other pioneering chief officers about their campus challenges and lessons learned about how to advance meaningful change.
D.J. Menifee, Vice President for Enrollment, Susquehanna University
Dave Ramsaran, Provost and Dean of Faculty, Susquehanna University
Student-Centered Resources for Improving Undergraduate Success
Student success depends upon a multitude of factors, but chief among them are the institutional resources that students experience directly. By devoting adequate human and financial resources to student-centered programming, academic institutions can improve their capacity to attain retention and graduation goals. Join this roundtable to discuss how programs focused on mentoring, internships, and students’ specific interests and cohorts (athletics, community engagement, or the arts) have made a real difference in helping students succeed. This session will also provide an opportunity to learn about new ways of financing this kind of programming through grants administered by CIC’s Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE).
David S. Cunningham, Director of NetVUE, CIC
Remylin Bruder, Provost, Rochester University (MI)
Supporting Historically Underrepresented Students through OER
With grant support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, CIC recently published a report on the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) at CIC member institutions. The report, Access and Innovation: The Use of OER at Smaller Independent Colleges and Universities to Support Historically Underrepresented Students
, provides a snapshot of the OER landscape in this sector. Featuring case studies of minority-serving institutions who have developed robust use of OER on their campuses, the report illustrates several ways that integrating OER into the curriculum can be a successful strategy to support institutional goals. The facilitator will share insights from the report on the use of OER at these institutions, and participants are invited to discuss their experiences and raise questions about implementing OER at their own institutions.
Annika Many, Principal, edBridge Partners, LLC
Understanding Today’s Graduate and Online Student: Seizing Opportunities for Enrollment and Revenue Growth
As the graduate and online markets evolve, campuses face new challenges and complexities bringing new programs to life, onboarding and integrating new tech, increasing activity and measuring engagement, and proving ROI from marketing and admissions investments. In this roundtable session, RNL’s chief academic officer explores how program and course design choices, utilizing sound pedagogical practices, innovative technologies, and authentic assessments will maximize students’ engagement and performance.
Cherron Hoppes, Chief Academic Officer, RNL