ALI Residential Program

The Academic Leadership Institute, which is a collaboration between Earl Lewis as Founding Director of the Center for Social Solutions at the University of Michigan, and Dwight A. McBride, Senior Advisor to the Chancellor at Washington University, will convene established and rising academic leaders in the summer of 2024 to achieve these goals:

• Create a space in which diversity, equity, access, and inclusion are foundational values.
• Build a space of affirmation in which participants can move quickly to a place of professional intimacy and collaboration around shared values and vision for higher education.
• Provide a safe space for sharing fears, challenges, successes, hopes, and ambitions.Spark a leadership movement that centers on talent cultivation, networking, and sourcing.Initiate a space for career development and for survival.
• Generate a shared vision for transforming higher education and developing individuals who are capable of making this change.
• Develop leaders who will shape the future of American democracy.
• Offer a solution for the current lack of qualified leaders who excel in diversity, equity and inclusion. 
• This network of leaders will be a go-to for every search firm and institutional committee.
• Build a cadre of mentors.
• Work not just to elevate individuals, but to transform institutions. 

At our two curriculum planning meetings held at Emory University and the University ofMichigan in 2019, we discussed the myriad of issues that face administrative leaders ofcolor, in particular the number of institutional barriers that make it challenging to createchange at colleges and universities. We noted that when taking on leadership roles,administrators of color must have a unique understanding of how change happenswithin institutions of higher education and at the same time, naming and navigatingbarriers to change.

 
The curriculum of the ALI will include a focus on the following broad content areas that are critical for aspiring university leaders, particularly presidents and provosts, to understand and manage:

• Institutional change and transformation
• Personal identity vs. institutional identity
• Institutional/organizational culture
• Best practices for self-care
• Business and finance
• Development and fundraising
• Governance (Board, Senates)
• The Search Procress (Preparation, Contract Negotiations)
• Academic enterprise
• General Counsel
• Crisis Management