EAB Virtual Strategy Forum—Chiefs of Staff

EAB convenes presidents, chancellors, chiefs of staff, and strategy executives in higher education once a quarter to share ‘top of mind’ challenges on campus with a cohort of peers and discuss EAB’s latest strategic research with our experts. Participants help shape and inform the agenda for each session via quick polling, allowing live analysis of institutional practices around enrollment, DEI, faculty engagement, the student experience, and more.

Sessions

Join our first Virtual Strategy Forums to learn more from EAB experts and peers about emerging approaches to strategy—and prevent your next strategic plan from “sitting on the shelf.”

Sessions are limited to chiefs of staff and vice presidents, strategy reporting to the president. Registration for this session is limited to one attendee per institution.

September 15, 2022: Dynamic Strategy

This Virtual Strategy Forum focused on moving beyond traditional strategic planning practices to embrace true institutional agility and dial-moving execution—an approach we’ve named “Dynamic Strategy.”

Most strategic plans fail to meaningfully inflect strategy (making clear choices to achieve discrete goals) nor enmesh planning into every day financial and operational practices on campus in light of the lofty aspirations articulated.

Dynamic Strategy incorporates rigorous external market scanning, design thinking aimed at the true preferences of students, faculty, staff, donors, and funders, prioritization discipline to narrow goal-setting focus, budgetary support of key initiatives, and ongoing measurement and evaluation around objectives.

December 1, 2022: The War for Talent

This virtual gathering focused on talent and human capital challenges in higher education. EAB experts will share our analysis of the pandemic’s effect on staffing, productivity, pay, and morale across each division on campus and share lessons learned from leading institutions in recruiting and retaining top talent. Attendees will then participate in a facilitated exercise to identify and refine their institution’s employee-facing value propositions (we must differentiate from our competitors not only to attract students, but to attract faculty and staff as well!).

March 9, 2023

Join EAB enrollment expert Madeleine Rhyneer to discuss what the latest application, yield, and survey data suggest for the near-term future of undergraduate enrollment. While the short and mid-term prospects for many institutions are concerning as we enter the demographic decline, we will share up-to-the-minute trends and advice about how to address challenges in the market. EAB’s most recent insights from student and parent surveys illuminate how prospects are researching colleges, where they go to get their information, and what matters most to them as they choose where to apply and enroll. We look forward to the questions and conversation that this information will generate!

June 15, 2023: Creating a Compelling Employee Value Proposition

In an increasingly national post-pandemic employment market, how do we compete in the war for top-tier talent? As institutions with deep pockets and private-sector employers begin to lure our best professionals away, we must articulate a new strategy for building the jobs and culture that can withstand these new pressures.

Join peers and EAB experts for a discussion about how leading organizations (in both the private sector and higher education) attract and retain talent through the development of a robust employee value proposition (EVP).

Typical job descriptions, career portals, and recruitment practices in higher education often assume a willingness on the part of candidates to sacrifice salary potential, upward mobility, and a dynamic culture to be part of a traditional campus community. In this session, we’ll highlight the biggest mistakes institutions make in developing a cohesive employee value proposition and introduce a new workshop offering designed to aid cabinets in combining tangible and intangible benefits to catch of the attention of the best candidates for every job on campus.

• Thursday, June 15, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time