Leadership Academy Testimonial

“This was the best day! Take aways included how to organize a meeting, how to respond to new colleagues (resisters, early adopters, etc.), and how to get your voice heard. Also, the conflict styles helped as did concrete strategies to deal with difficult people. I appreciate the underlying theme of principled decision-making. Today’s sessions were also well facilitated – with a mix of information, small group, and whole group discussion.”

Leadership Academy

AACTE’s Leadership Academy is a unique opportunity for deans, department chairs, and other administrators and faculty to enhance their leadership skills, address current issues, and build a professional peer network. At this year’s Leadership Academy, attendees will participate in strategic conversation that will empower you to return to your campus with elevated narratives, best practices, and tactics to deliver across your institution and continue critical discussion with refreshed and innovative perspectives, approaches, and results. Register today and reserve your spot. Book your hotel at the group rate.

Achieve Your Goals
Attendees will engage with higher education thought leaders, expand their network of supportive colleagues and peers, and develop strategies together. This academy will ensure that AACTE deans, department and program chairs, and other academic leaders are prepared to successfully navigate their roles and responsibilities on campus and achieve their goals and vision for the future of educator preparation. 

New Deans Academy
Designed for new deans and department chairs/heads who began service in the past three years (since 2021), this event will provide an important boost to those in the early stages of their new role and provide time to step away from their offices to focus on learning, networking, and strategic directions. This new program will be an opportunity for participants to concentrate on the unique challenges they face, identify potential solutions for issues that our top of mind, and facilitate connections among others serving in similar roles.

Leadership Academy Registration Fees By July 7, 2023 
Member$899
Additional registrants from the same member institution $799
Non-members $1499
New Deans Academy Registration Fees (must be registered for the Leadership Academy)
Member $199
Non-members$499

All cancellation and refund requests must be submitted in writing no later than the final registration deadline of the event in questions to receive a refund. Cancellation requests received after the registration deadline will not be eligible for a refund, unless documentation is presented to prove the individual registrant was unable to travel. A $150 administrative fee will be deducted for each cancellation request for full price events and deducted from the refund. A $50 administrative fee will be deducted for each cancellation request for student price events and deducted from the refund. All refunds are processed after the event date. Cancellation and refund requests should be submitted to the AACTE Membership Department at membership@aacte.org or 1602 L Street NW Suite 601, Washington DC 20036. 

Preliminary Leadership Academy Schedule

AACTE (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education) Core Values:

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion   ||   Quality and Impact    ||   Inquiry and Innovation

The AACTE Leadership Academy is a collection of keynotes, conversations, and panels that focus on leadership competencies that are critical for success. In addition, this interactive curriculum will present a number of opportunities to prepare leaders for a variety of issues and situations they are facing within the higher education environment. Throughout this week-long experience, attendees will repeatedly tap into their shared strength of purpose–reflecting on why they are doing this work and drawing energy and wisdom from each other.

Academy faculty and speakers

Sunday, July 30
5:00 - 6:00 p.m.Networking activity
6:00 - 8:00 p.m.Opening Reception
Monday, July 31
8:00 a.m.Breakfast
Core Value: Inquiry and Innovation
9:00 - 10:30 a.m.Welcome and Opening Session: Leading Innovation and Change in today’s higher education environment
• Innovation feels exciting – but it is easy to lose steam after the initial inspiration.
• Change feels hard and we need to help people be ready for it.
• What does innovation and change mean?
• What are the disrupters that we need to pay attention to?
• When do we change?
• When do we innovate to create something new? This sets the stage for the morning.
• How do we innovate when we do not have time or money?
• What if people produce crazy ideas?
• How do we manage change fatigue?
10:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.Breakouts by role/peer group
12:00 – 1:30 p.m.Networking Lunch
Core Value: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
1:30 – 3:00 p.m.From Equity Talk to Equity Walk through a field filled with landmines
This is not your university’s DEI training. Colleges of teacher education have an imperative to have a workforce that looks like their students and to build an educator workforce that looks like the school community. How do you recruit/cultivate those faculty and ensure that they are successful within the academy? How do you recruit those students and find opportunities to provide them with an understanding of the barriers to their success? Which tools do you need to go back to campus to change the systems?
3:45 – 5:00 p.m.Breakout by Peer Group
• Deans
• Associate Deans and Department Heads
• Department Heads, Chairs and Program Directors
7:00 p.m.Dinner on your own or join the group going to the Colorado Rockies baseball game
Tuesday, August 1
8:00 a.m.Breakfast
Core Value: Quality and Impact
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.Strategic Finance
Deans Associate Deans, Department Chairs and Program Directors
Making the most of University Budget ModelsGrant Writing
Fundraising and External Support Navigating University Budgeting
The budget sessions are designed as workshops where participants bring their budgets with them, pose two or three questions, and have the chance to work with a CFO or dean to advance their understanding and strategies related to their questions. Similarly, to prepare for the grant writing and external support conversations, participants bring a one-page description of a project they would like to seek funding for and are guided through the initial efforts to seek those funds.
12:00 – 1:30 p.m. Networking Lunch
Core Value: Inquiry and Innovation
1:30 – 4:30 p.m.Partnerships, Collaboration, and External Relations
Breakout for Deans
• Legislators
• Districts
• Regional Employers
Breakouts for Associate Deans, Department Chairs and Program Directors
• Working with your school partners
• Working with other departments and offices on campus
7:00 p.m.Dinner on own
Wednesday, August 2
8:00 a.m.Breakfast
Core Value: Quality and Impact
Event Format: Two concurrent tracks each with common core workshop sessions with breakout by area of interest and skill development.
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Track 1: Fundamentals of Effective Communication
Breakout groups including a case clinic to practice communication focused on
• Crisis communication
• Communication in the era of social media
• Effective Internal Communication
Or
Track 2: Fundamental Interpersonal SkillsPotential Speakers and facilitators
Breakout groups including a case clinic to practice and discuss the following topics:
• Managing Up
• Conflict Management
12:00 p.m.Networking Lunch
Core Value: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Event Format: Concurrent case studies; attendees will share with the whole group; return to group and discuss how to talk with constituents about the other issue.
1:30 - 2:30 p.m.DEI Inside and out: Case Studies in Micro-aggression and Censorship
Censorship: How do I talk to my external constituencies and navigate instruction given what is going on in my state legislature? Develop a case study for the group to work on that is based on current or recent events.

Micro-aggression: Students report being singled out for sitting together or a new faculty member is bearing the additional load of being sought out by marginalized students or you witness a colleague being marginalized and talked over at meeting.
2:45 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.Presentation of case studies
3:45 – 4:30 p.m.Flip: return to groups to work on the implications of one or the other.
Censorship groups discuss how to talk to the legislator about the real impact of microaggressions. Micro-aggression group discusses how to help students and faculty process and respond to the public discourse around censorship.
6:00 p.m.Dinner on own
8:00 p.m.Fireside Chat
Thursday, August 3
8:00 a.m.Breakfast
Core Value: Inquiry and Innovation
Event Format: Campus Visit
9:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.Campus Visit
12:30 - 2:00 p.m.Lunch on your own
Core Value: Inquiry and Innovation
2:00 - 5:00 p.m.Action Workshops: Participants can select one of four workshops to expand their skills with essential process tools that can be used to engage key stakeholders in the design of new initiatives and programs. During these workshops, participants will learn the fundamentals of these approaches and get access to toolkits and templates to use in the design of planning productive and engaging meetings or retreats.
• strategic doing
• design thinking
• appreciative inquiry
• accountability in a “fail fast” environment

New Deans Academy
Thursday, August 3
6:30 p.m.Reception
7:30 p.m.Dinner
8:00 p.m.Panel: Something you want to know but were afraid to ask. A conversation with sitting deans.
Friday, August 4
8:00 a.m.Breakfast
8:30 a.m.Dos and Don’ts in Your First 180 days: Three deans speak from behind the curtain about something they did that went wrong and something they either did that went right or wished they had done. A host facilitates a David Letterman-type conversation with each guest after her/his dos and don’ts scenario.
9:45 – 11:45 a.m.Small Group Coaching: Assessing, Building and Developing Your Team
12:00 – 1:30 p.m.Lunch: Understanding Critical Contexts
• National, State and Local Government and Economics
• The Higher Ed Landscape
• Institutional Mission, Priorities, and Finances
• Student Profiles and Well-being
1:45 – 3:15 p.m.Establishing the Relationships that are Critical to Your Success


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