Sessions

Courageous care combines deep kindness with honest truth-telling, and involves engaging in civil, respectful dialogue about challenging topics while maintaining unwavering commitment to learning and student success. Leading with courage and care requires making difficult ethical decisions that prioritize student and educator well-being, even when these choices are uncomfortable or unpopular. And, it calls for exploring powerful possibilities for collaboration across institutional silos and leveraging digital innovation to enhance human connection.

In this session, courageous and caring leaders will share their perspectives on leadership that authentically prioritizes student and educator learning, well-being, belonging, and success. Panelists will seek to inspire forum participants to leadership futures that reimagine campus cultures and structures and promote shared stewardship of vibrant and transformational educational experiences.

Academic leaders are increasingly expected to articulate the value of their work and engage external audiences, often without clear frameworks for partnering with marketing and advancement colleagues. This interactive session offers leaders space to strengthen how they lead, communicate, and influence across their institutions. 

Drawing on experience in institutional advancement, marketing, and communications, the presenters will clarify how these functions support institutional mission and explore how collaborative partnerships can amplify academic priorities and impact. Participants will work through a practical framework for translating academic vision, goals, and successes into compelling narratives that invite engagement, collaboration, and support.

By the end of the session, participants will leave with:

• A clearer understanding of how marketing and advancement functions support institutional mission and leadership priorities
• A practical framework for communicating program value, outcomes, and impact in ways that invite partnership and investment
• Concrete strategies for being effective partners and clients to marketing and advancement professionals as they advance in academic leadership

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the strategic, operational, and academic core of higher education. Institutions that empower their teams with AI will outperform those that don’t—yet many remain stuck in pilots without a comprehensive plan. This session shares a practical framework for an AI-empowered cabinet—aligning presidents, provosts, enrollment, student success, finance/operations, IT, and advancement around a responsible, institution-wide roadmap. Participants leave with a short list of next steps to move from experimentation to scalable impact, prepared for both the now and the next.

The Obama Foundation seeks to build an active democratic culture where people are equipped and motivated to make change in the communities where they live, work, and play. The foundation created the Hope to Action Values Framework as a set of values that anyone, anywhere, can put into play to build trust, activate participation, and expand opportunity in their community. Within this session, the presenters will introduce Hope to Action Values and encourage higher education leaders to put these values into action.

By the end of the session, participants will leave with:

• An understanding of Hope to Action Values
• A practical framework and examples for implementing values-based and change-oriented leadership
• Inspiration to empower and connect people to change their world

Higher education has become a flashpoint in political discourse; its curricula have been scrutinized, its values questioned, its funding reduced, and its autonomy circumscribed. Alongside these escalating challenges, public trust in higher education has plummeted. In response, AAC&U launched Advancing Public Trust in Higher Education (APT), a major new initiative to promote the democratic mission of higher education by strengthening public trust. APT aims to unite higher education, business, and civil society leaders around a shared purpose, communicate the value of a college education in compelling ways, and highlight liberal education as central to preparing students for a healthy democracy.

APT is built around leaders and the work of leadership. That work includes providing support, training, and resources for college and university leaders to guide their institutions through today’s uniquely challenging landscape; crafting messages and opportunities to convey higher education’s value to a skeptical public; and organizing efforts and spaces that promote and defend liberal education. Within this session, APT co-leaders will share the aims of APT and engage attendees in conversation on practical strategies for rebuilding public trust.