Twenty five leaders in higher education auxiliaries attended the second year of the Senior Leadership Forum held at the McIntire School of Commerce. This executive education program, incorporating customized leadership training included a case study specifically tying certain dimensions of leadership such as culture, decision-making, and stakeholders, to the real-world example of the recently launched Newcomb Hall Student Center Renovation and Dining Hall Expansion projects.
Attendees arrived Wednesday evening for dinner in Pavilion VII of the historic University of Virginia Lawn, located on the Central Grounds of “Mr. Jefferson’s University.” When the University was founded by Thomas Jefferson, students lived in single-occupancy rooms, with faculty living in connected Pavilion residencies, a tradition that continues today. After a welcome from Gerry Starsia, Ph.D., Senior Associate Dean for Administration at McIntire and the Forum program coordinator, and Dr. Bob Hassmiller, CEO of NACAS, attendees spent time networking with each other on auxiliary trends and challenges facing higher education today.
Thursday morning opened with a stirring keynote from Leonard Sandridge, Special Advisor to the President, University of Virginia, on "Higher Education Auxiliary Enterprises: Challenges and Opportunities." That set the stage for sessions over the next few days on Leadership; Critical Thinking for Auxiliary Leaders; Marketing, specifically influencing customer satisfaction and loyalty in the marketing of services; and Strategy, specifically aligning philosophy and strategic service vision.
On Friday afternoon, attendees experienced a hard-hat tour of the Newcomb Hall Student Center, led by key stakeholders in the project profiled in the case study. This made the Saturday capstone session even more compelling, as the group delved into the original and final timelines/costs, how a fluid lineup of stakeholders were managed over an extended period of time, how institutional culture and politics influenced project management, how enrollment planning was integrated–or not–into the plans, and how multiple units within the university such as Business Operations and Student Affairs worked together to develop the project currently underway. Mr. Tom Newton, a partner in Renaissance Leadership, spent the final sixty minutes connecting the tools and techniques presented by the faculty, to each participant’s job.
Attendees departed on Saturday afternoon with enthusiastic new contacts to network with, each having experienced similar challenges and opportunities in the field of auxiliaries and higher education. Thanks to the NACAS Education Foundation, and our hosts at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia, it seems NACAS has once again met the Professional Development goal of providing to our most experienced members the opportunity to learn from world class academic faculty, with intentional, real-world links from theory to practice, all in the intimate setting of NACAS Institute programs.