AASCU’s 2021 Academic Affairs Summer Meeting will ask timely and relevant questions about managing and leading the post-2020 university. How has 2020 changed higher education permanently? What have we learned? What aspects of our work do we need to restore to
where we were before 2020? How do we need to adapt to the new reality? What must be fundamentally reinvented?
The program will be shaped by issues our members consider most relevant and pressing. The topics below are being posed across higher education and will shape the meeting’s facilitated discussions and concurrent sessions:
- Planning: How we rethink institutional planning; envision a sustainable future; move past “survival mode” to innovate; plan in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment; and revisit pre-2020 strategic plans
- Budget: Managing an unpredictable budget, ensuring cuts are made equitably, implementing alternative budget models, monitoring academic program costs, and communicating budget cuts in the context of shared governance
- Student Success/Enrollment: Addressing immediate student needs and the disproportionate toll the pandemic has taken on students and employees of color, supporting our Asian students in the time of anti-Asian attacks, preparing to lead and facilitate crucial conversations
about race, and keeping college accessible and affordable
- Curriculum/Pedagogy: Rethinking pedagogy as a response to the pandemic, ensuring offerings align with regional workforce needs, addressing changes in attitudes toward remote learning, adapting curricula to student interests, and communicating academic program
closures
- External Constituents: Strategically investing federal dollars from COVID-19 relief; assessing implications of changing federal policies and initiatives; adapting to post-2020 changes in state laws; responding to demands from students, parents,
and other constituents; and serving as stewards of place
- Faculty and Staff: Adapting tenure and promotion policies, accommodating flexible work arrangements, supporting faculty in the transition to remote learning, and helping students and employees recover from the “social recession”
Who Should Attend
The meeting has sessions targeted to the needs of these roles:
- Provosts
- Chief student affairs officers
- Assistant and associate provosts
- Assistant and associate vice presidents
- Student success personnel
- Directors
- Deans
- Assistant and associate deans
- Department chairs
- Program coordinators
- Faculty leaders
Pre-conference Workshop Information
Pre-conference workshops on Wednesday, July 21, will give attendees the opportunity to discuss pressing topics such as academic program evaluation, supporting adult learners, and interpreting and acting on student success data. These optional workshops are open to
conference attendees at no additional cost. When completing your conference registration, please select the workshops you would like to attend.
If you have completed your conference
registration, and you would like to attend one of these workshops, please
contact AASCU's meeting registrar, Felicia
Durham, for assistance.
12–2 p.m. ET
Academic Program
Evaluation Strategy: Using Data on Markets and Margins to Inform Program
Decisions and Predict Their Effects
Program decisions are critical to your students, faculty, and mission. This master class will demonstrate data, methodologies, tools, and processes to help decision-makers craft a data-informed, strategic program portfolio. Facilitators will demonstrate how to use
predictive analytics to model the impact of changes to the program portfolio on future enrollment, student body demographics, and institutional finances.
Facilitators:
Bob Atkins, CEO and founder, Gray Associates
William Massey, professor emeritus and former vice president for business & finance, Stanford University
Melissa Morriss-Olson, provost emerita; founding director, Center for Higher Ed Leadership and Innovative Practice and Higher Ed Leadership and Organizational Studies; and distinguished professor of Higher Education Leadership, Bay Path University (Mass.)
The Art and Science of Supporting Adult Learners: Actionable Steps &
Strategies
Students over the age of 25 are the fastest-growing segment in higher education. However, many institutional practices do not consider the unique needs of this population. Institutions can create equitable pathways that can help overcome disparities
in adult learning and better prepare themselves for adult students who have been disconnected from higher education. Learn how to effectively stand out from other institutions who are making mistakes in 10 key areas with the adult learner population.
Facilitators:
Scott
Campbell, vice president, partnership development, CAEL
Barry Nickerson, director, initiatives, CAEL
Darrin Theriault, director of testing services & university prior learning assessment coordinator, Kennesaw State University (Ga.)
2:30–4:30 p.m. ET
Benchmarking
to Improve Equitable Student Success
The process of benchmarking can be used to explore student outcomes for various populations, assess whether an institution is making sufficient progress on student success goals, and/or inform student success strategies. Join AASCU's Academic Innovation and Transformation
staff to learn about the value of benchmarking and participate in hands-on practice to benchmark federal student success data.
Facilitator:
Bao Le, director, data analytics & impact, AASCU
Building for Tomorrow’s
Students: How Colleges and Universities Are Preparing for the Decade Ahead
How are colleges and universities rethinking
the journey from enrollment to graduation and beyond? The pandemic taught us
much about how we must reorient our support services around holistic student
needs, not our preexisting organizational structures and practices. During this
session, EAB experts will discuss what we’ve learned over the last
year and what needs to change in regard to data, enrollment demographics, and
student usage of self-service tools.
Facilitators:
Michael Al-Megdad, associate director, Product Positioning, EAB
Mike Saxvik, senior director, sales engineer, EAB
Brian Schueler, senior analyst, EAB Strategic Research, EAB
Ed Venit, managing director, EAB
LaToya White, senior director, EAB
Danielle Yardy, director, product marketing, EAB