NASPA M. Ben Hogan Small Colleges and Universities Institute

Hop aboard the city’s most enthralling Boston sightseeing excursion, Old Town Trolley Tours of Boston and see over 100 points of interest! Enjoy the enclosed double-decker height views while protected from the elements. Board the traditional orange and green trolleys steps from Emerson’s campus and get ready for an opportunity to hop on and off 18 stops that will satisfy every taste and interest! This is a great way to see the city and relive Boston history! You may purchase lunch on your own at any of the stops.

Cost: Hop-on-hop-off trolley tour ticket ($45 currently - subject to change) purchased by you prior to the Institute. (If you would like to stay on campus on the evening of June 24 in order to participate in this outing, please be sure to include the early arrival lodging and breakfast option with your institute registration.)

Join fellow institute participants for a private guided tour of one of Boston's cultural gems! A Venetian palace in the middle of Boston, Gardner's home is now a museum displaying her impressive, eclectic, and significant collection of European, American, and Asian art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. Visitors can stroll or rest in a spectacular skylit courtyard filled with plants and flowers. In 1990, thirteen of the museum's works were stolen; the crime remains unsolved and the works have not been recovered. You may purchase lunch on your own at the cafe on site or in the surrounding area. What's included:

• Transportation to and from the museum

• Museum admission

• Guided tour (approximately one hour long)

Cost: $20 payable when registering for the institute and outing. (If you would like to stay on campus on the evening of June 24 in order to participate in this outing, please be sure to include the early arrival lodging and breakfast option with your institute registration.)

Please join us to meet other first-time institute attendees. This is a casual opportunity to get to know other first-time attendees and meet the institute planning committee. An integral part of this institute is the connections that you will make that will last long after you leave the institute. We look forward to seeing you.

Immediately following the Institute Opening Reception, please join us for another SCUI tradition, the Institute Opening Dinner. Institute co-chairs Fran’Cee Brown-McClure and Domanic Thomas will offer a welcome, and NASPA President Kevin Kruger will deliver remarks during dinner. 

Post-Pandemic Higher Education – Where are the challenges and the opportunities?

As higher education emerges from the pandemic, it is clear that many of the short-term impacts experienced during the pandemic are here to stay. These new factors and longer-term trends that were in place before the pandemic are resulting in a series of unprecedented challenges for higher education. But within these challenges are significant opportunities as well. Dr Kruger will explore both potential barriers and new possibilities for the future of student affairs in this fast-paced interactive program.

Kathryn Nash, Partner, Lathrop GPM

The Title IX landscape continues to change. Since the Dear Colleague Letter in 2011 and subsequent guidance from the Office for Civil Rights and the Department of Education, colleges and universities have taken steps to ensure compliance. The Trump administration issued new regulations and we are expecting more changes from the Biden Administration. This session will provide practical insight on how to comply with the various changes in the past few years and further review emerging practices in Title IX.  

In this session, we will discuss the current adaptation and strive for the following outcomes:

• Attendees will be able to describe the finalized adaptation of Title IX protocols

• Attendees will be able to compare and contrast the finalized adaptation of Title IX protocols with practices at their home institution

• Attendees will be able to discuss emerging practices in the Title IX landscape

Daniel G. Lugo, President, Queens University of Charlotte

Vincent Rougeau, College of the Holy Cross

Mary Beth Cooper, Springfield College

Richard Lapidus, Fitchburg State

The challenges facing higher education institutions and their leaders have never been greater than they are today. Intense public scrutiny and questions about the value of college, demands for racial equity and inclusion, rapidly changing student demographics and attendant needs, diminishing resources, and enrollment fluctuations – to name a few – are among the many challenges facing campus leaders at most institutions and in amplified ways at small colleges and universities. The global COVID-19 pandemic has certainly exacerbated these challenges and created new ones such as the seismic crisis in mental health and what some have dubbed the “pandemic shuffle” of staff leaving higher education in favor of positions with greater flexibility and opportunities for remote work.

During this session, NASPA President Kevin Kruger will facilitate a conversation with four small college presidents about these challenges and others and their strategies for moving their institutions forward during such perilous times. The discussion will also invite presidential perspectives about prolonged residual effects of COVID-19, college closures and mergers and how student affairs divisions impact and support their presidential priorities for their institutions.

Anne Phibbs, Founder and President, Strategic Diversity Initiatives  

For many who care about advancing equity and social justice in all areas of their lives, the past few years have brought tremendous challenges. While U.S. society grows increasingly diverse and complex, our social and political discourse grows more polarized, less nuanced, and frighteningly hostile. From navigating the science - and politics - of the Covid pandemic to answering the resounding calls (once again) for racial justice, and from balancing free speech with equity in our online spaces to addressing the needs of our nonbinary community members, we are living through a profound social and cultural moment. Continuing to build inclusive and equitable institutions, in the face of so many challenges, will require not just allies and advocates, but leaders and risk-takers. And these leaders must come to the work prepared, not just intellectually but emotionally as well. In this practically focused presentation, we will explore how the framework of “emotional intelligence” has much to offer those of us doing the work of diversity, inclusion, and social justice.

Sarah Lipson, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Law Policy and Management

Domanic Thomas, Vice Chancellor of Enrollment and Student Affairs, Washington State University-Vancouver 

COVID, economic uncertainty, and calls for racial justice have added to the mounting mental health concerns of our students.  While counseling centers play an integral role in addressing the resulting depression, anxiety, and loneliness, we cannot staff our way out of this problem.  Dr. Sarah Lipson, Associate Director of the Healthy Minds Network and Boston University Faculty will lead this session.  The session is intended to provide a mental health landscape, practices and procedural considerations, and how student affairs professionals can work “upstream” with campus partners to assist.  Come prepared to share your ideas, strategies, questions, and successes around these efforts.

Christopher Medley, Director of Housing and Residential Services, Fitchburg State University

Paul Brown, Director of Campus Experience, Roompact

Smita Ruzicka, Vice President, Middlebury College

Ellen Heffernan, President, Spelman and Johnson

The world of work is changing, and higher education is not immune. Factors like energy around racial justice, COVID impacts, demographic shifts, mental health focus for both employees and students, generational workplace dissonance, and the great resignation are promoting seismic shifts. This session offers a panel with insight from several lenses - a member of the NASPA Task Force for the Future of Student Affairs, a director of a functional area that is a nexus of all these factors, and a student-focused expert in a higher ed-adjacent role. Several themes will be explored by both the panelists and the participants.

We have spent the past couple of days learning with and from each other about a myriad of topics. This institute is about action. Let's take some time to process what we have learned and discuss the ways that we will take back our learning to our various campuses.