Concurrent Sessions 6

Concurrent Sessions 6 | Tuesday, October 6 – 1:00-2:00 p.m.

BENEFIT ENROLLMENT TO OPTIMIZATION: STRENGTHENING THE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

Learn how a cross-functional HR team boosted employee engagement across the benefits lifecycle, from enrollment to life events. Leave with ideas for communicating benefits clearly, collaborating effectively with benefits providers, and ensuring programs meet organizational needs while supporting an informed, engaged employee experience.

Learning Objectives:

• • Understand what engagement-centered benefits design looks like in practice.
  • Recognize how HR directly influences employee engagement related to benefits.
  • Outline how one-on-one benefits planning sessions strengthen benefit usage through life changes.

Julie Petti, Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Human Resources; Yolanda Caldwell, Ed.D., Director, Inclusive Leadership and Organizational Development; Michael Consorte, Director of University-Wide Benefits; Ben Seymour, Director of Human Resources, all of State University of New York System Office

BEYOND THE WELCOME MAT: OPENING THE DOOR TO INTEGRATING NEW LEADERS

This session will address how HR can be a strategic partner in overcoming the hurdles of senior leadership transitions. Moving beyond orientation, presenters will discuss ways to onboard and support new leaders using actionable tools that accelerate integration, enhance stability and make succession management manageable.

Learning Objectives:

• • Learn how to build a roadmap for executive leadership integration.
  • Explore strategies to secure stakeholder buy-in.
  • Identify tools that contribute to stability in leadership transitions.

Jennifer Derry, Assistant Vice President, Human Resources; Dan Kaufman, Director of Talent Development; Emily Marbot, Director, Talent Management for Advancement, all of Villanova University

COMMUNITY COLLEGES AS EMPLOYERS OF CHOICE

Community colleges are navigating unprecedented workforce challenges — tight labor markets, wage pressure, rising benefit costs and increasing employee expectations — while remaining mission-driven and operating within constrained resources. In this environment, being an employer of choice means consistently focusing on the factors that have been shown to have the most impact on recruitment, engagement and retention. Policies and practices must align with the institutional mission, workforce needs and market realities and be supported by clear communication, education and ongoing support. This interactive session will explore how pay, recognition and career advancement can be strategically aligned to strengthen the employee value proposition. Rather than focusing on individual programs in isolation, this session will challenge you to think holistically about how your institution’s policies and practices show up in the lived employee experience. You’ll engage in guided discussions with your community college peers to learn about others’ experiences, share what has worked or not worked at your institution, and generate ideas for moving to the next level in becoming an employer of choice.

Jackie Bichsel, Ph.D., Associate Vice President of Research, CUPA-HR; Carol Mercer, Vice President; Andrea Averill, Senior Consultant; Lauren Price, Associate Consultant, all of Segal

GROW YOUR OWN: FILLING TALENT GAPS WITH INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

Attend this panel discussion to learn more about three internal development programs created by Rowan University to address leadership readiness, supervisory effectiveness and critical skilled trades shortages.

Learning Objectives:

• • Learn how development programs can address leadership pipelines, supervisory capability and trades roles.
  • Understand how the CUPA-HR Learning Framework can be used as a design tool to structure internal development programs.
  • Apply practical strategies and lessons learned from three real-world university programs.

Scott Agostini, Senior Director, Human Resource Operations; Jeremy Trowsdale, Director of Organizational Development; Nichole Fessenden, Organizational Development Program Lead; Christina Klemp, HR Business Partner – Facilities, all of Rowan University

HUMAN RESOURCES ORGANIZATION DESIGN: ALIGNING CULTURE, STRATEGY AND DATA

In this session, two CHROs will describe how they have approached HR organizational and departmental design. Hear how they built support among senior leaders to build the business case for modernizing HR design to meet the needs of their institutions.

Learning Objectives: 

• • Learn how to effectively leverage key data to build a business case for HR departmental redesign.
  • Discover how to create communication strategies with university leadership to build and sustain support for HR.
  • Understand more fully how to align HR design to empower employees.

Bill Dial, Associate Vice President, Human Resources, New Mexico State University; Ann-Marie Musto, Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief HR Officer, University of California-Santa Barbara

IN-HOUSE EXECUTIVE SEARCH IN HIGHER ED: THE WHAT, WHY AND HOW STORIES

Higher education faces growing financial pressures, and yet research has shown that higher ed is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on search firms. In this panel discussion, higher ed HR leaders will talk about the key challenges, structure, governance and benefits of in-house executive searches and share lessons from their institutions’ models.

Learning Objectives:

• • Develop a greater understanding of the value of in-house executive search.
  • Understand some of the models that have been successful and why.
  • Identify key decision points, readiness factors and practical steps for establishing an in-house team.

Bridget Hough, Director of Academic and Executive Search, and Caitlin Hargadon, Senior Executive Search Consultant, both of University of California-Los Angeles; James Kao, Assistant Director, University of California-Berkeley; Scott Murray, Director of Executive Search, University of North Carolina System Office

LEADSTRONG: BUILDING A SCALABLE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

This session will explore Columbus State’s LeadSTRONG program, which delivers accessible leadership development aligned with institutional culture. The program equips higher ed leaders with shared skills to navigate change, drive performance, manage employee relations and foster collaboration in a scalable, human-centered model.

Learning Objectives: 

• • Identify the key components of a scalable leadership development framework for higher education.
  • Apply practical strategies to align a leadership program with strategic priorities.
  • Use tools, templates and engagement methods that reinforce long-term behavior change.

Julie LaSusa, Chief Organizational Development Officer, and Kristen Treadway, Associate Vice President/Chief HR Officer, both of Columbus State Community College

PLANNING FOR WHAT’S NEXT: A HUMAN-CENTERED APPROACH TO AI AND THE WORKFORCE

This session will explore HR’s role in leading human-centered workforce planning in the age of AI and will highlight how HR can help their organization rethink work, guide reskilling and support leaders through change while keeping people at the center.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand HR’s role in workforce planning in the age of AI.
• Identify HR strategies for reskilling and role redesign.
• Learn how to apply tools to lead workforce planning conversations.

Melissa Nash, Assistant Chancellor for Talent and Technology, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

RESTORATIVE PRACTICES AND HR: SHARED GOALS, DISTINCT ROLES, BETTER WORKPLACES

HR and restorative practitioners share common goals: reducing harm, fostering accountability and enhancing workplace culture — yet their approaches to achieving these aims differ. This session will examine areas of overlap, highlight key distinctions and offer practical strategies for successful collaboration between the two areas.

Learning Objectives: 

• • Clarify the common objectives and unique responsibilities of HR and restorative practitioners.
  • Distinguish appropriate situations for restorative practices, HR procedures or a combined approach.
  • Formulate practical strategies for collaborating effectively and identifying clear boundaries between roles.

Wendy Smith, Conflict Resolution Specialist and Mediator, Tulane University