How our spring 2026 rising higher ed leaders fellows are advancing change

Creating an On-Campus Competency-Based Media Program

Heather Polinsky, PhD, Director, School of Communication, Journalism, & Media, Central Michigan University

Current students pursuing our media arts program want more practical, hands-on experience in their media education. Over the past decade, we have seen students skip more classes and drop more assignments and projects, but make time to work in our student media co-curricular activities. Students who take advantage of these co-curricular activities generally go on to secure better post-graduation media employment and careers than those who do not participate.

Shifting to a competency-based education system would allow students to work in practical media operations, earning badges and competencies at their own pace. This system presents challenges, including curriculum redesign, increased faculty and staff needs, and a shift to monthly tuition fees. However, it also offers opportunities, such as year-round operation, improved programming quality, expanding partnership opportunities, and better community engagement. The primary advantage lies in meeting student demand for more experiential learning outside a traditional classroom setting.

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Students First Through Institutional Excellence: Defining Quality Instruction

Allison Brosch, Health Science Dean, State Fair Community College

At State Fair Community College, student feedback revealed concerns about quality of instruction and timely, constructive feedback. Data from the Ruffalo Noel Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory survey highlighted gaps between the importance students placed on instructional quality and their level of satisfaction.

In response, the college asked for student feedback on quality instruction and launched the Students First Quality Instruction Project led by a 16-member cross-functional team. With the help of frameworks from the Aspen Institute and EAB’s Leading Campus Change fellowship, the team developed a shared definition of quality instruction, mission-aligned outcomes, SMART goals, and a phased implementation strategy.

Early results include college-wide faculty collaboration events, professional development initiatives, improved communication structures, and growing faculty engagement and support for the project’s strategic vision of “Students First Through Institutional Excellence.”

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Meso-Level AI Work and Why It Matters

Erin Kempker, Director of the Center for Engaged Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship, Augustana College

Challenge: Augustana College faces a “meso-level” structural gap where top-down governance and bottom-up innovation lack systematic alignment within academic departments. This results in a fragmented landscape where only 35% of departments nationally have written shared AI guidelines, leaving students with inconsistent disciplinary expectations.

Project: The capstone established the AI Department Curriculum Retreat, a pilot program informed by EAB’s AI Literacy framework and Construction Kit for Faculty AI Resources. This initiative provides the resources for departments to transition from isolated approaches toward a coherent stance on technology and its scaffolding in the program curricula.

Early Results: Early indicators show interest from the departments in partnering on the retreats, including Math and Computer Science and English. Expected future benefits include enhanced curriculum relevance that eliminates the instructor-by-instructor approach to AI curriculum development.

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Reorganizing a College Following a Major University-Wide Restructure

Julia McCord Chavez, Dean, Saint Martin’s University

Topic: What is the best way to manage an internal reorganization of departments within a new college of arts, sciences, and education following a major university reorganization?

In my role as dean, this work is essential to setting the stage for revitalizing programs and leveraging synergies across our new set of disciplines. It is also an opportunity to introduce new efficiencies and streamline administrative costs, which benefits the institution as a whole.

Problem: Following reorganization, we had an organizational chart that simply listed all of the programs in our college. We needed a new structure to bring order to our new portfolio of programs.

Demand for particular majors has shifted over time, especially with the introduction of several new majors in the last ten years, requiring a realignment of some academic departments to address uneven workload, consolidate smaller majors, and make more space for rapidly growing programs. Many institutions are grappling with a need to realign programs, as students increasingly focus on career connections.

Solution: Using a consensus-based model, we were successful in finalizing a reorganization plan that was approved by all necessary university committees and the Provost. This new structure moves our college from 12 departments to nine, even though we took on new programs with the university-wide reorganization. This project was achieved within one academic year, as requested by our Provost.

The new structure combines several previous departments: Philosophy merged with Religious Studies, English merged with World Languages, Social Sciences merged with History, and Exercise Science merged with Psychology. This new structure equalizes workload for chairs and will also allow synergies between programs.

In the end, we chose a realignment of programs rather than a radical reorganization. This allowed us to avoid major disruptions. Programs were not changed, budgets were not impacted, and tenure and promotion guidelines remained intact, but the reduction in department chairs does save administrative costs. In addition, the new structure opens up new opportunities for growth and revitalization.

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Assessing Red Rocks Community College Assessment

Russell G. Brodie, PhD, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs and Workforce Innovation, Red Rocks Community College

For my capstone project within the EAB Rising Higher Education Leadership Fellowship Program, I conducted a comprehensive audit and evaluation of Red Rocks Community College’s institutional assessment initiatives, focusing specifically on our academic program review process.

Initially, the audit revealed significant challenges: critical pieces of institutional data appeared incomplete, entirely missing, or deeply misaligned with our strategic goals. However, a pivotal consultation with EAB analysts and contributors transformed my understanding of the problem. Together, we determined that RRCC did not actually suffer from a systemic data collection issue; rather, the underlying roadblock was a breakdown in organizational communication triggered by recent, widespread personnel transitions across departments.

Consequently, my project shifted from a technical data-remediation effort to creating the targeted communication strategies and onboarding frameworks necessary to bridge these informational gaps and revitalize our assessment culture.

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UIW Online: A Scalable Innovation Engine

Leah Alviar, PhD, MA, LPC, Associate Dean, School of Professional Studies, University of the Incarnate Word

Challenge: We want to build a scalable system that accelerates program innovation while keeping academic quality and course integrity intact. Academic processes, fragmented innovation efforts, unclear ownership, and structures that do not always align with modern learner expectations can delay program launches and cause us to miss enrollment opportunities.

Project: We launched UIW Online to centralize online strategy, instructional design, and delivery while creating a more consistent student experience across our colleges. Our goal is to establish clear governance and a standardized innovation pipeline that helps us respond more quickly to learner and employer needs while allowing academic units to retain ownership of the curriculum.

Early Results: UIW Online launched on June 1 with executive sponsorship, and we have begun developing its governance structure and framework. Our six-month roadmap moves from establishing decision authority and piloting cross-college initiatives to refining and scaling the model across the university.

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Improving Transfer Retention Rates

Danika LeDuc, Associate Dean, College of Science, California State University, East Bay

Challenge: My strategic goal was to improve transfer student retention rates at California State University, East Bay.

Project: I reviewed data on transfer retention rates based on many demographic characteristics and the enrollment patterns and BayAdvisor notes to understand which students leave, when, and why. I read pertinent EAB and other literature and had conversations with stakeholders across the University.

Actions: Progress is being made across three areas:

1. Better use of EAB resources, including early alert campaigns for first-semester transfer students; departments updating upper-division success markers; and getting more faculty trained in using BayAdvisor.
2. Faculty and staff advisor workshops to improve program roadmaps and agree upon communication cadence to encourage new transfer student enrollment and persistence.
3. Improved transfer credit evaluation timelines and enrollment processes.

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Highlander Connect: Re-Imagined Student Mentoring at NJIT

Jamy Barton, Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives, Academic Affairs, New Jersey Institute of Technology

Background and Context: NJIT has invested over time in mentoring-related programs across colleges, academic units, student affairs, career development, and alumni engagement. These efforts reflect a shared commitment to student success, career readiness, and community-building. However, these programs were developed largely independently with varying goals, resulting in a mentoring landscape that is fragmented across the spectrum of experience, execution, management, measurement, and scalability.

Program Goal: NJIT will establish a student mentoring program structure, Highlander Connect, that creates an experience that delivers more impactful mentor and mentee engagement, increases participant retention, and yields measurable outcomes.

We will prioritize the following strategies to address this goal:

1. Evaluate existing mentoring activities to streamline and align mentoring resources, leading to reduced duplication and improved scale.
2. Structure mentoring access through a tiered model—self-service, peer and group, and one-to-one engagement—to ensure broad reach without over-reliance on finite human capacity, informed by peer institution models and EAB’s Stepped-Care framework.
3. Establish common success metrics tied to program quality, availability, engagement, retention, and outcomes. Track, report, and analyze for iterative program improvements.
4. Define high-value alumni experiences that drive meaningful participation and impact.
5. Enable sustainable mentoring support through clarified roles and responsibilities and a cohesive set of mentoring tools and training.
6. Seek and use an automated, AI-first solution for all aspects of this program effort.

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Managing the Merge: Leading Change Across Advising & Career Services

Janet Lebeda, Director of Strategic Initiatives and Special Projects, Wayne State College

Challenge: In fall 2025, Wayne State College identified a disconnect between academic advising and career development services that limited students’ ability to connect educational planning with career outcomes. This initiated the merger of these two standalone units into a single integrated office, the Academic and Career Success Center.

The transition required significant organizational changes, including contract non-renewals, the development of new position descriptions, communication, and recruitment of team members. Simultaneously, it was essential to engage and inform campus stakeholders in a way that conveyed the strategic importance of the new center and built support for the transition.

Project: To address these challenges, Wayne State College developed a change management plan to merge these units. Guided by EAB resources including Leading Campus Change, Your Students’ Career Journey Should Start in Their Advisor’s Office, Message Maps, and examples from peer institutions identified by EAB, the project focused on implementing a comprehensive change management strategy, developing communication plans, and creating a training framework for staff.

Early Results: While the merger and creation of the Academic and Career Success Center is not technically effective until July 1, the project established a clear roadmap for implementation, including communication strategies, training plans, and success metrics. Early results have included the filling of all but two vacancies in the seven-person unit, early training sessions, and a communication timeline and plan that included multiple channels and details regarding the merger.

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Attrition in the Pre-Nursing Program at Berkshire Community College

Elaine Whalen, Coordinator of Learning Services, Berkshire Community College

Challenge: Pre-nursing is Berkshire Community College’s largest program and the primary entry point for students entering allied health programs. Our data showed that many students who did not matriculate into nursing left Berkshire entirely, often because of academic, financial, personal, or program-capacity barriers.

Project: We brought together stakeholders from across campus to brainstorm a comprehensive approach to better supporting and retaining pre-nursing students. Our ideas included building a stronger sense of belonging, creating structured study groups, offering skill-building opportunities, showing students different pathways into health care, and increasing their inclusion in nursing activities.

Early Results: The project led to the creation of a cross-campus focus group and task force, along with a timeline for putting these ideas into action. We have started gathering feedback from pre-nursing students and planning a belonging campaign, summer outreach, workshops, study groups, and a health care worker speaker series.

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Reducing DFWs to Increase Student Retention and Success

Joaquin Tadeo, Department Chair, Business and Hospitality Services, New Mexico State University-Doña Ana Community College

Challenge: About half of Doña Ana Community College students are not retained through the three-year completion window, and high DFW rates are a major barrier to retention, program completion, and degree attainment. By retaining more of the students already enrolled, we can also help mitigate the effects of the enrollment cliff.

Project: I analyzed DFW patterns across the Business and Public Services Division and the Business and Hospitality Services Department, looking at course modality and whether courses were taught by full- or part-time faculty. Based on the findings, I proposed increasing full-time faculty instruction, reducing spring hybrid offerings, improving course schedules, training part-time faculty in online teaching, and expanding mentoring, peer coaching, and tutoring referrals.

Early Results: The analysis found higher DFW rates among part-time faculty and in online courses across the division, while hybrid courses had the highest rates within my department. The next steps are to seek additional full-time faculty positions, increase participation in online quality-assurance training, and expand the analysis to better understand student experiences and outcomes.

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Peer Mentoring for Students with Disabilities

Dr. Rachel Graddy, OTD, OTR/L, Assistant Dean and Director, Worcester State University

Challenge: At least 20% of undergraduate students nationally have a disability, yet some students do not connect with accessibility services because of fear, stigma, or a lack of awareness. The transition to college can be especially difficult as students take responsibility for managing their own accommodations, navigating campus resources, and advocating for themselves.

Project: We are developing a peer mentoring program that connects students with disabilities to peers who can help them navigate accommodations, build self-advocacy skills, access resources, and develop a sense of belonging. Mentors will be paired with professional staff and trained in confidentiality, boundaries, referrals, campus resources, and strategies for supporting student success.

Early Results: We have begun creating training materials and are preparing to present the program to senior leadership, identify staff partners, recruit mentors, and explore funding with advancement. Our goal is to train and launch the first cohort of mentors and mentees in fall 2026.

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Creating Efficiencies in DU’s Graduate Marketing Ecosystem

Sarah Foley, Director of Brand Marketing, University Relations, University of Denver

The graduate enrollment marketing function at University of Denver is highly decentralized, with varying levels of autonomy, sophistication, and resources spread across eight graduate schools.

In interviewing marketing and communications leaders from each unit, our goal was to identify:

1. What commonalities can be built upon?
2. What nuances dictate unique approaches?
3. How can central University Relations best provide support?

Based on learnings discovered over the course of these interviews, my main recommendations include addressing the trust deficit that exists between the units and central University Relations; establishing a brand architecture and defined role for University Relations; evolving the graduate enrollment council; and developing a common KPI reporting dashboard with a federated business intelligence structure.

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Enrollment Analytics: Using AI to Drive Enrollment Intelligence

Brandon Gessner, Director of Enrollment Technology, and Yuri Marder, Director of Web and Social Media Marketing, William Paterson University

Enrollment Analytics: Using AI to Drive Enrollment Intelligence is a project developed collaboratively by Brandon Gessner, Enrollment Technology, and Yuri Marder, Web and Social Media Marketing, at William Paterson University.

The project uses AI, specifically Claude, to synthesize multi-source institutional data into actionable recruitment strategy which, if successful, will be used throughout the enrollment cycle. It begins by framing the core challenge: application volume has grown steadily, but yield has declined and a troubling share of accepted students are now choosing no college at all, up from roughly one in seven to nearly one in three over five years.

The solution framework is built in four steps: assembling a data architecture across five sources—admissions and CRM, National Student Clearinghouse, portal engagement, event records, and GA4 web analytics; identifying the behavioral predictors that matter most, including financial aid appointments and multi-event attendance; matching targeted interventions to student segments by probability tier; and using AI to combine, interpret, and visualize recruitment data and prediction models to make those models more comprehensive and more accessible for recruitment strategy.

AI serves as a synthesis and translation layer, connecting siloed data sources, flagging opportunities and priorities for counselor outreach, and giving enrollment and marketing teams a shared language for faster, better decisions throughout the recruitment cycle.

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Rebuilding Rural Enrollment Through Market-Based Recruitment Strategy

Genesis Meaderds Anguiano, EdD, Executive Director of Enrollment Management, Eastern Oregon University

Challenge: Eastern Oregon University grew its applications and admits over the past two years, yet new enrollment stayed flat, moving from 659 students to 656, meaning we were spending more recruitment effort for the same result in a budget-constrained environment.

Project: I analyzed EOU’s application funnel data from fall 2023 through fall 2025 alongside a high school market-share analysis, using EAB’s strategic enrollment management frameworks and advisor support. I built a market-based recruitment and yield strategy that tiers our markets into protect, grow, maintain, and reduce categories, reallocates recruiter time accordingly, and strengthens post-admit yield.

Early Results: The framework gives EOU a repeatable way to focus limited resources where opportunity is greatest and close the post-admit conversion gap, positioning us to move past the enrollment plateau and advance our Ascent 2029 goals.

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Creating a Unified Strategy for Summer and Pre-College Programs

Trevor Lord, Assistant Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, Lawrence University

Challenge: Lawrence University faced a fragmented approach to summer and pre-college programming, limiting growth, brand clarity, and long-term student engagement. The capstone project aimed to unify these offerings under a single strategic framework while accelerating time-to-market and improving enrollment outcomes.

Project: I developed a comprehensive, research-informed strategy grounded in EAB insights, market data, and institutional collaboration. This included forming a cross-functional summer planning committee, conducting faculty and market analysis, and designing a dual-portfolio model: “Ascent” for broad-access programs and “Odyssey” for premium immersive experiences. I also introduced centralized systems such as a unified marketing approach, a Slate registration platform, and new digital channels to reach both students and parents effectively.

Early Results: The initiative produced a “One Lawrence” ecosystem with improved coordination, stronger brand alignment, and scalable program infrastructure. Early outcomes include increased faculty engagement, enhanced marketing reach, and a sustainable foundation for long-term enrollment growth and student pathway development.

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Building Institutional Capacity for Policy and Organizational Change

Saulo DePaula, Associate Dean of Administration and Finance, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Challenge: Higher education institutions regularly face complex operational and organizational challenges that affect multiple schools, colleges, and administrative units. While institutions are often successful at identifying problems and engaging stakeholders, implementation can become inconsistent due to unclear ownership, fragmented communication, competing priorities, and limited capacity to sustain change over time.

Project: This capstone explores how institutions can build stronger implementation capacity for recurring cross-unit challenges. Drawing on conversations with deans, associate deans, and other leaders across UMass Amherst, as well as EAB research on organizational transformation, administrative effectiveness, and change management, the project proposes a framework that emphasizes implementation planning, accountability, communication, continuous improvement, and cross-functional partnership.

Results: The project reframed the challenge from coordination to implementation capacity and identified a scalable institutional model that can support more sustainable organizational change, stronger stewardship, and improved long-term operational effectiveness.

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Anchor: Integrating Expertise into a Responsive, Community-Centered One-Stop Service Hub for Operational Services

Soheyla Salari, Director, Administration and Strategic Integration, Concordia University

Challenge: Concordia University’s operational services sector, spanning Facilities Management, Information Technology, Human Resources, Campus Safety, and Ancillary Services, operates through five disconnected intake systems with no shared coordination layer. Community members navigating multi-unit requests must connect the dots themselves, producing service fragmentation, erosion of institutional trust, and a hidden cost burden that the university can no longer absorb in a context of structural deficit.

Project: This capstone proposes Anchor, an integrated one-stop service hub that creates a unified front door, an orchestrated back end, and a cross-disciplinary resolution mechanism without overhauling existing departmental structures. The proposal draws on EAB’s Shared Services Primer and design guidance, EAB fellowship advisor touchpoints, ScottMadden and Huron Consulting practitioner research, as well as SSON and Deloitte industry analyses to ground both the architectural design and the phased implementation roadmap.

Early Results: Anchor is currently at the proposal stage and has not yet been implemented. If adopted, the expected outcomes include measurably reduced service coordination burden on community members, improved staff role clarity and capacity, and a governance framework that holds service delivery accountable to institutional priorities.

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Enterprise LMS Operations: Exploring Strategies to Optimize an Operational Institutional Approach

Ashley Kurtz, Director of Learning and Talent Development, University of Arizona

Challenge: The university’s enterprise learning management system is co-owned by UITS and HR. While ownership is centralized, the roles, responsibilities, and services within the LMS remain decentralized.

Project: Drawing on EAB research and advisory support, this project explored best practices and alternative structures to improve institutional experience and operational efficiency. Insights from internal data analytics and stakeholder engagement informed the recommendation to adopt either a centralized services model or a federated shared services hybrid model.

Early Results: Presented opportunities and recommendations to leadership, gaining traction and interest in further exploration. Next steps include delivering a current-state and future-state briefing and convening a collaborative follow-up session to drive deeper discussion and alignment.

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Developing Clarity in Governance Policy Documents and Processes

Amy Banes-Berceli, Vice Provost for Academic Operations, Oakland University

Challenge: At Oakland University, shared governance is foundational, but a lack of clearly written academic board policies, shared definitions, and transparent approval processes can create confusion and slow decision-making. Different governance paths for academic and administrative policies also make it difficult to understand what approvals are required and how long each process will take.

Project: We reviewed practices at peer institutions and began developing clearer board policies, shared definitions, a glossary of abbreviations, and governance flowcharts with timelines. We are also creating a curricular governance handbook and implementing Coursedog to consolidate processes and make them easier for faculty and administrators to navigate.

Early Results: A cross-unit policy group has drafted an academic affairs policy framework, and university senate groups have adopted definitions for several key academic terms. By preparing materials earlier and conducting committee reviews simultaneously, we moved one new program from curriculum approval in March to senate approval in early May and consideration by the board of trustees in June.

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Engaging the Most Critical Change-Makers

Dr. Geoffrey Whitebread, MPA Program Director, Gallaudet University

Challenge: Higher education is facing unprecedented change and competition, and we need faculty to experiment, create new curricula, and try new approaches. To make that possible, our faculty systems and organizational culture must better support agility, ingenuity, productivity, and safe experimentation.

Project: I adapted Susan Gooden’s organizational equity model and reviewed 75 documents—including policies, governance materials, administrative messages, and faculty reports—to examine how our institution supports and engages faculty. The analysis identified gaps and led to 12 recommended actions across four areas: work design and operations, accountability and feedback, economic justice, and belonging, appreciation, and purpose.

Early Results: The project produced a framework for strengthening faculty engagement through sustainable workloads, clearer communication, manageable supervision, transparent compensation, and a stronger sense of community. Recommended next steps include revisiting role expectations, improving feedback structures, aligning compensation with faculty work, and creating more opportunities for faculty connection.

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Modernizing Budgeting and Enrollment-Driven Financial Planning in Higher Education

David Lyon, Controller, Jacksonville State University

Challenge: Our university currently has a lack of systematic budgeting and forecasting processes using data-driven drivers to best allocate resources. We currently use an incremental budgeting process and do not have the ability to easily make strategic resource allocation decisions based on drivers linked to university strategy.

Project: Implement a new software solution that expands the functionality of our existing ERP solution and will allow us to decentralize our current budget and resource allocation process, allowing departments across campus to have additional input into our current process. This should also allow us to use various drivers such as enrollment, retention, tuition and fee rates, and others to aid in making decisions.

Early Results: Software implementation is in progress, with a phase-one implementation date set for July 1, 2026, to aid in the next fiscal year budget development process. We have a goal to use this new solution in 2027 to potentially reimagine our current budget allocation process with this new infrastructure.

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Strengthening Academic Program Review (APR) Through Program-Level Cost and Revenue Analysis

Sasha E. Ortiz, PhD, Associate Director of Assessment and Academic Affairs, CUNY Guttman Community College

Challenge: Over the last two years, Guttman Community College added four new academic programs and a workforce development division while operating with decreasing financial resources. Although Academic Program Review includes assessment of student learning and program outcomes, it does not integrate a program-level cost and revenue analysis, limiting the institution’s ability to fully understand program sustainability and resource utilization.

Project: This project developed a program-level instructional cost-revenue model connecting academic activity, enrollment behavior, and instructional cost. The model calculates course-level instructional and direct costs, allocates shared costs proportionally across programs, and compares those costs to instructional revenue generated through annual FTE.

Early Results: The project produced a working instructional and direct-cost model and accompanying Excel-based tool that academic leadership can immediately use to review program-level cost and revenue patterns while a Power BI dashboard and indirect cost methodology are developed. The model is intended to support transparency, planning, and institutional sustainability.

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Cash Flow Reporting Transformation: Providing Real-Time Financial Data and Projections

Nikki Eitle, Associate Controller, Bowling Green State University

Challenge: The university’s cash flow model was manual and labor-intensive, with reporting often lagging 30–45 days after month-end close. With increased economic uncertainty, the demand for real-time decision-making, the need for greater cross-functional collaboration, the value associated with integrating across enterprise data systems, and the emergence of AI and advanced analytics, now is an ideal time to transform the university’s cash flow model.

Project: Drawing on EAB and internal BGSU support, this project transitioned the university’s cash flow reporting from manual, static Excel spreadsheets into a dynamic Power BI cash flow model focused on improving timeliness, automation, and decision-making.

Early Results: Since the beginning of the capstone, we have evolved from a manual, retrospective process into an automated and dynamic model leveraging Power BI, reducing cash flow reporting turnaround from 30 days to near real time. In the future, we hope to explore AI and regression techniques to refine and expand predictive near-term and long-range forecasting.

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Developing a Graduate Assistantship Allocation Model: Opportunities and Challenges

Claudia Petrescu, PhD, Associate Vice President for Graduate Education & Internationalization Initiatives, Illinois State University

Challenge: Illinois State University launched a new budget allocation model in fall 2025 to advance the Excellence by Design 2030 strategic plan. Under this model, the Provost’s Office and the colleges assume expanded strategic, fiduciary, and accountability responsibilities.

Like many institutions, ISU is aligning strategic priorities with fiscal realities through this new budget model. In graduate education, graduate assistantships remain a primary recruitment and retention tool, but they also represent a significant investment. Historically, academic units have relied heavily on assistantships to attract and retain students. Under the previous budget model, graduate assistantship costs were tied primarily to stipends. Under the new model, graduate tuition waivers are also included in the total cost of an assistantship and incorporated into the budget allocation framework.

Project: This capstone project focused on designing a graduate tuition waiver allocation process through the following actions:

• Identify the criteria for budget allocation for fiscal year 2026–27.
• Develop an allocation formula for use by the Provost’s Office in distributing graduate tuition waivers to colleges, and by college deans in allocating them to graduate programs.
• Develop and pilot an institution-level allocation model.

Results: The project has produced meaningful progress toward its core objectives. A pilot allocation model for FY 2026–27 has been implemented based on the identified allocation criteria. The model development process also surfaced broader opportunities to strengthen institutional culture and practice, including the need for continued refinement of both the criteria and allocation formula.

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An Exploratory Analysis of the AI Policies in the Florida Public University System

Nan Yu, PhD, Professor, Nicholson School of Communication and Media, University of Central Florida

This project analyzes the latest AI policies across 12 public universities in Florida. Preliminary findings reveal a clear link between institutional size and policy breadth: larger universities tend to release more comprehensive policies covering research, teaching, and learning.

These policies strike a balanced tone, exploring AI’s transformative potential—such as personalized learning tools and intelligent research aids—while addressing critical risks, including academic integrity violations, data privacy concerns, algorithmic biases, misinformation, and the erosion of students’ critical thinking skills.

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AI Integration Roadmap: A Data-Driven Strategy for Incremental Provostial Office AI Integration

Lina Janas, Senior Director of Strategic Operations, Execution, and Academic Initiatives and Chief of Staff to the Vice Provost, New York University

The Challenge: The New York University Office of Academic Program Review and Doctoral Affairs currently faces a critical operational bottleneck. Tasked with managing a high-stakes portfolio, including accreditation, New York State authorization, multi-state authorization, and academic assessment for the entire university, the team of eight must navigate a constant influx of manual program reviews and policy analyses under rigid external deadlines for the largest private R1 university in the nation.

There is an urgent need to offload routine analysis and documentation to increase efficiency and reduce team burnout, and to meet increasing demands to offset financial uncertainty in academia with appropriate AI-driven operational solutions. This high-volume, manual workload can create fatigue, where the team lacks the bandwidth to integrate the very technologies that could help alleviate some burden.

The Project: This capstone project seeks to develop a comprehensive strategy, ethical framework, and pilot implementation plan for the integration of secure AI, such as Gemini and NotebookLM, within OAPRA operations. The project creates an optional, replicable model for administrative AI adoption.

The initiative involves establishing clear guiding principles for secure data handling and designing specific workflows to automate routine analysis and documentation. This structural shift is designed to help support the office’s mission as customer service-oriented.

Early Results and Success: The Office of Academic Program Review and Doctoral Affairs has achieved a significant cultural milestone in our AI integration journey with the support of the Assistant Vice Provost and NYU Libraries. OAPRA has successfully navigated a transition from initial hesitation toward a proactive environment where team members are increasingly leveraging AI to streamline remedial tasks and daily workflows. Looking ahead, our next phase will focus on scaling these capabilities to handle more intricate departmental demands.

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Building a Holistic Approach for Economic Development

Karinne Bredberg, Director, Office of Innovation, Northern Illinois University

Challenge: My capstone was to take an introspective look at Northern Illinois University’s economic development ecosystem and determine how we as a university can transform our current, disparate approach to economic development into a more holistic, coordinated approach.

Project: Utilizing the Root Cause Analysis and NOISE frameworks, I was able to determine and evaluate positive and negative elements that impact our economic development ecosystem. Together with ecosystem mapping, I was able to create a visual of the institution’s current programs, initiatives, and opportunities in economic development that demonstrates the overlaps, gaps, and bottlenecks and what measures may be taken to mitigate the negative impacts, or root causes.

Early Results: The analyses and ecosystem map allowed me to produce solution-oriented actions for short- and medium-term prescriptive solutions for immediate needs that will prime NIU for a longer-term visionary approach.

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What’s Beneath the Surface: Harrison’s Four Currents Framework for Strategic Planning

Jamael Harrison, PhD, Director for Student Affairs Assessment and Communication, Stockton University

Challenge: Stockton University navigated a major strategic planning transition shaped by institutional change, including the arrival of a new president and executive vice president and chief of staff, evolving leadership structures, and the need to move from plan development to meaningful implementation. The challenge was to ensure that strategic planning did not remain a static, compliance-driven process, but became a living framework that built trust, strengthened communication, clarified direction, and supported shared accountability across divisions.

Project: Harrison’s Four Currents Framework for Strategic Planning offered a way to understand the underlying forces that influenced whether strategic plans succeeded or stalled. The framework identified four currents—Cultural, Political, Structural, and Aspirational—that shaped how people experienced planning, engaged with priorities, and carried strategies into action.

This project applied the framework to Stockton’s strategic planning process by helping leaders distinguish between two critical phases: the development of the plan, including mission, vision, values, priorities, and goals; and the implementation of the plan, including strategies, actions, unit-level ownership, assessment, and accountability.

Early Results: Early work has created clearer language for discussing the dynamics beneath strategic planning, including trust, buy-in, communication, capacity, ownership, and accountability. The framework is helping leaders move beyond simply naming priorities toward building structures for implementation through divisional roadmaps, KPIs, ClearPoint, cross-functional collaboration, and strategic area action planning.

Early results also suggest that implementing the four currents can help Stockton better align institutional aspirations with the cultural, political, and structural realities needed to sustain meaningful change.

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Justification for an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Program

Melissa Dooley, Director of Environmental, Health & Safety, Arkansas State University

Institutions of higher education operate within an increasingly complex and rapidly evolving risk environment. A university‑wide Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) program establishes a coordinated, campus‑level framework to identify, assess, and monitor risks that influence strategic priorities such as student success, research excellence, operational continuity, and campus climate.

This presentation outlines four core principles that drive persistent risk in higher education and demonstrates how the key components of an ERM program directly address these challenges. It also highlights how ERM is being adopted and recognized across peer institutions.

The presentation concludes with a recommended implementation timeline designed to ensure the ERM program is integrated organically into governance and decision‑making processes.

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