PROGRAMMING UPDATE

The past year has brought a number of changes to HERS programs, and the year ahead will see a few more. These adjustments are part of ongoing efforts at HERS to adapt and adjust based on the feedback and needs of our participants, so that we can continue to offer a range of programming topics and formats that best support our constituents.

HLI Returns to In-Person, Emphasizes Equity-Minded Leadership

In 2022, HERS saw an exciting return to in-person delivery of our signature program, the HERS Leadership Institute (HLI). The HLI curriculum has also evolved to emphasize equityminded leadership. We know that if HERS is going to achieve the vision of transforming higher education articulated in HERS’s new strategic plan, we need to equip emerging leaders with both the skills necessary to identify structural barriers in our institutions, and effective strategies for inspiring collaborative efforts to remove them.

New Locations

For summer 2023, we will be hosting one cohort of the HLI at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts in June, and another HLI at the University of Denver in Colorado in July. We are looking forward to hosting our 20232024 weekend version of the HLI in a retreat-like setting on the Airlie property, pictured on the facing page, just outside of the D.C. area.

Planning for Your Next Step?

HERS continues to partner with Academic Search to offer the popular Next Stages Next Steps to experienced woman-identified leaders preparing to launch an executive-level higher ed job search. This program is typically offered in August and, this year, we also began offering an inperson winter version of the program in January. Due to the overwhelming positive feedback we’ve received, we will continue to offer this program in both August (Midwest) and January (Southeast) on an annual basis.

New Programs for Aspiring Leaders

In addition to serving mid- to executive-level leaders through established programs like the HLI and Next Stages Next Steps, we have recently expanded our offerings to serve new and aspiring administrative leaders. Aspiring Administrators Bootcamp was piloted last fall and we are actively recruiting for our spring iteration of this new program, which will include five virtual sessions followed by an individual coaching session for each participant. This interactive program provides faculty and staff who have recently assumed an administrative role with the tools and skills necessary to manage and lead with confidence. Participants learn strategies for managing direct and indirect reports, inheriting or building a team, motivating and supervising performance, and navigating conflict related to organizational culture and interpersonal dynamics.

Centering Racial Equity

We have continued the HERS EquityMinded Leadership Series with a new focus during this academic year on centering racial equity. Participants walk away from the four virtual workshops with a racial equity action plan that they can finalize and implement with the help of colleagues at their respective institutions. All participants receive an e-copy of the book From Equity Talk to Equity Walk (McNair, Bensimon, & MalcolmPiqueux) and one of our facilitators is none other than Dr. Tia Brown McNair, coauthor of this foundational text.

Now Offering: Executive Coaching

Due to increasing inquiries regarding affordable coaching opportunities for senior leaders, this year we launched the inaugural Executive Coaching Circles Program in partnership with Academic Search. This program offers woman-identified senior leaders a circle of up to seven peers who have similar roles and responsibilities at other institutions. Each circle is facilitated by a trained executive coach who offers confidential, strengths-based coaching and engages principles of peer coaching and mentorship. The circles meet virtually for two hours, eight times over the course of a semester (about twice per month). Our pilot program is currently underway and we are planning to launch a fall version of this program later this year.

Free Programs for Alums

Finally, we are launching some free programmatic opportunities for HERS alums like the wildly popular “Alums Meets Authors,” of which we held the first virtual session at the end of January. The first session featured Dr. Marjorie Hass leading a discussion about her book, A Leadership Guide for Women in Higher Education. We were so pleased to see so many of you participate in this first session, and received great feedback on the program. Stay tuned for more opportunities like this in the future!

What makes HERS leadership development programs unique?

HERS leadership programs continue to distinguish themselves from others in two important ways:

1) We focus on the experiences and expertise of woman-identified higher education professionals and this is reflected in our program curricula as well as in the strong, nationwide professional network we work to build and nurture for our alums.

2) We center questions of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nationality, ability, religion, and other salient categories of identity when examining leadership trajectories, models of leadership, and perceptions of leaders(hip). We begin with the premise that structural inequities in our society and within our institutions affect us differently based on identities that we claim and those that others attribute to us. We understand that the identities we hold can greatly impact our opportunities to lead, how we lead, and others’ perceptions of our leadership.

In HERS professional development programs, discussion of social categories of identity are never secondary, never an afterthought, never an endnote, nor an appendix. Explorations of the connections between identity, structural inequities, and leadership are integral to HERS program curricula and such exploration is critical work for leaders who seek to transform higher education.