This year’s newcomers class will be an exciting opportunity for participants to learn from leaders in CFR, network with their peers, and discuss their work, the field, and the future. This panel will encompass the entire timeline of a CFR career path from being a newcomer, building relationships—both external and internal—to how to think about your career trajectory. The panelists represent all facets of CFR leadership and will lead a lively discussion on what brought them to this work, what they love about it, and how they built their careers. We will also share how this field can prepare you for exciting other career opportunities within and without CFR.

Organizations and teams face countless challenges in today’s workplace. From exploring progressive ideas for hiring talent and managing up, to building culture and cultivating wellbeing, the sheer number of team building challenges can be overwhelming! Join us for a 4-hour workshop as we explore the skills and awareness building needed to lead yourself and your team through these opportunities with compassion, efficiency, and even joy. Leading us through this highly interactive workshop will be Ari Mack, an Organizational Development Consultant with Organizational Development & Effectiveness at Cornell University. Ari graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in psychology and specialization in industrial/organizational psychology. He specializes in consulting, executive coaching, and facilitation services in a variety of capacities, including employee engagement, emotional intelligence, leadership development, process improvement, motivation, and strengths development. Ari is passionate about helping individuals learn and grow while creating organizational environments that foster creativity, collaboration, innovation, and wellbeing. He is certified in EQi emotional intelligence assessment, Prosci Change Management, Herrman Braid Dominance Instruments, Arbinger Outward Mindset, NCCI certification in information utilization techniques, and is an Assenter certified executive coach. In this workshop, Ari will anchor the discussion in improving skills for people leaders, and guide us through conversation and exercises focused on: 1. Managing burnout, stress, hybrid/remote team structures 2. Managing Up 3. Innovative recruitment and retention strategies 4. Executive Presence You will gain strategies to increase productivity, enhance operational effectiveness, and align structural and human relations components.

Take this opportunity to connect informally with colleagues from institutions with common interests. Please note lunch is not provided, but feel free to bring your own lunch to enjoy while you reconnect with colleagues! Discussion will be moderated by a representative from your peer institutions. Roundtables include: Big 10 schools, Liberal Arts colleges, 3. Academic Medical Centers, PAC 12 schools, Southeast region schools, schools outside urban areas and economic centers and R2s - High Research Activity

Student protests. Conflicts with donors over priorities. Legislative actions to curb academic freedoms. Nightly reports on censored speech at campuses across the country. If higher education is a bellwether for the issues facing broader American civil society, it can feel as though we are standing on the precipice of division and separation that will soon be impossible to bridge. New pluralism offers one pathway forward to healing our divisions and moving forward in a vibrant multiracial, multigenerational, multifaith democracy (and university!). The New Pluralists Funders Collaborative represents a shared belief, across ideological views, in the value of difference as an essential feature of a healthy democracy, strong university, and effective philanthropy. In this panel session, leaders from the Hewlett Foundation and Stand Together, in conversation with the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, will define pluralism, share the origin story of the New Pluralists as an example of bridging, and give examples of pluralism shapes and is shaped by higher education.

There is a growing need for technology professionals in government, social service, and civil society organizations. These are sectors that have not traditionally been part of the global demand for technology talent, and this trend will strain the technology workforce. Universities are not yet prepared to meet this important need. In recent years, a number of funding organizations, including the Mastercard Impact Fund, Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Schmidt Futures, Siegel Family Endowment, Raikes Foundation have jointly supported New America’s Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN), now comprising 55 universities across the United States and 4 global universities. The purpose of the group is to “grow a new generation of civic-minded technologists and digitally fluent policy leaders,” with the ultimate goal of addressing the inequalities that have come about as the result of technological change. At the same time, we are seeing a record amount of capital fueling the private tech industry as investments in emerging technology companies grow at a faster rate and with more generous early-stage seed funding than ever before. This wave of unprecedented investment promises to remake the infrastructure of how we live, work, and play over the coming decade. This wave should bring with it a wave of public and private funding from governments, corporations, and foundations to create a talent infrastructure to deliver on this growth. PIT-UN and its members are well positioned to leverage these funds in the service of initiatives and programs that are in the service of the greater good. Join our panel for an important conversation about the future of the nascent field of public interest technology and the role of the philanthropic sector in its emergence.

How can we empower faculty to meaningfully participate in the grant process? As a small team in a large university, how can we maximize support for all campus partners while remaining true to the core mission and priorities of our institutions? "Assembling Your Toolkit" will explore the power of resource-building throughout the grant lifecycle, from concept development to post-award and beyond, as well as strategies for managing internal stakeholders with multiple priorities. In the first half of this session, presenters will share their own experiences for managing stakeholders across their institutions, while the second half is designed to be a generative, interactive Q&A where audience members will be invited to raise their own questions and encouraged to brainstorm and share their own strategies for addressing the challenges and opportunities we face in working with internal stakeholders.

Esports/E-gaming has caught fire on Universities across the country and offering competitive space for student gamers has nearly become a “requirement.” Hear from UT Austin and Dell/Alienware leaders on how they collaborated to open UT’s first dedicated Esports space for students over the summer of 2022 and lessons learned along the way. Today, the Alienware Longhorn Esports Lounge is one of the most notable student spaces on campus, giving the Longhorn Gaming team a home, offering highest-end technology for UT’s Game Design and Development Department to teach in, and fostering a tangible bridge between industry and UT.

Want to learn how to identify “big ideas,” maximize funding impact, and accelerate change with the right partners? This panel session, featuring the Medical University of South Carolina’s Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations, The Duke Endowment, and CaroNova, uses real-life examples to illustrate how “big ideas” can be created, amplified and accelerated through academic, foundation, and non-profit partnerships. What are funders looking for in big ideas? And how can CFR professionals and academic leaders attract foundations and non-profits as acceleration and innovating partners? Participants will learn how to take an initial funding concept from idea to execution and develop their own action plan for engaging the right partners and funders. Featuring an interactive Q&A, this session incorporates group brainstorming and strategy development with the goal of increasing funding potential for innovative models.

University-based projects have been finalists and awardees in recent competitions for large grants. What was their experience before, during and after the competition? Would they do it again? We will hear the perspective of a development officer, principal investigators, and the CEO of Lever for Change which manages competitions for individual and institutional donors.

In the United States, we have experienced a racial reckoning since the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Since that summer, there has been increasing interest in redressing past racial wrongs across multiple contexts, including higher education, where it is becoming clear that transformational change is necessary for institutions to meet the needs of all students and to serve as engines of economic mobility. For decades, higher education institutions have sought to become more racially and ethnically diverse through more equitable admissions, financial aid, student supports, instructional improvement, and other practices and policies that address the challenges of helping students succeed in institutions that were not originally designed for their success. Very recently, a coordinated effort has emerged to target higher education institutions that express any explicit commitment to equity, diversity, or belonging for all students. Examples of this include recent debates about AP African Studies classes, widespread disagreement about student loan forgiveness, and the Supreme Court’s decision to take on two cases that could challenge affirmative action policies at Harvard and UNC. Funders who work in this space are forming coalitions and developing strategies to retain the ability to support student success and completion even if doing so will take new forms and will demand flexibility and creativity from institutions and systems of higher education and their leaders. Join us for a conversation about how we can work together to contend with this difficult moment in higher education and learn about how you can be an equity-minded leader on your campus.