2024-2025 Advanced Program Information

National conferences offer an excellent opportunity to meet other academic leaders and hear how campuses nationwide are tackling challenges in the always-shifting landscape of higher-ed leadership and administration. In order to encourage program attendees to attend conferences like this, every participant in this program receives a $2500 travel stipend for leadership-related travel. The travel stipend supports attendance at a professional conference, leadership training, or a comparable event related to the goals of the grant. These funds are not intended to support research-related travel. Below, we have listed some sample non-disciplinary conferences that would satisfy the stipulations. These are all great opportunities, but they are not the only options to use these funds. 

Once you make a plan to use your Travel Stipend, feel free to check with Assistant Director Diana Marginean (dmarginean@fivecolleges.edu) to confirm that it qualifies if it is not among the conferences listed below. And, because we like to learn from and keep track of participant experiences, we will ask everyone to write up a short paragraph describing your planned or completed travel for our records at the end of the program. 

Council of Colleges of Arts & Sciences (CCAS) 

Association of Public & Land Grant Universities (APLU) 

New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) 

College Board Higher Ed Colloquium (CBHED)

American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) 

American Conference of Academic Deans (ACAD) 

Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NASPA) 

National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE) 

AAC&U Conference on Learning and Student Success (AAC&U) 

AAC&U 2025 Forum on Transformational Leadership (AAC&U)

Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) 

International Council for Arts Deans (ICFAD) 

National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE) 

Annual Faculty Affairs Retreat (AFAR)

Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) 

 

 

Please note, grant project staff often attend several of these each year. If you intend on attending any of these conferences and meetings, please let us know. We will connect participants and staff who plan to attend the same conference.

*The travel stipend is to be used by June 30, 2025.

Purpose - No program will cover everything you need to know, and your individual mentors should fill in the gaps and offer you more specific feedback and support. This relationship should help you reflect on topics and challenges that are specific to your current position, goals, and trajectory. Finally, we hope this program and the mentors will help you build trusted relationships in your field or beyond your campus.

Choosing a Mentor - Mentors should come from outside your home institution and can include anyone from the Five Colleges member campuses or from any national and international academic institution. In the event that you want to advocate for a leader or administrator from your own institution to serve as your mentor, please reach out to the Principal Investigator (Sarah Pfatteicher) or Faculty Director (Pawan Dhingra) to discuss this choice. Mentors should have experience with a position that resonates with your current trajectory and goals, but they do not need to align perfectly. Before selecting a mentor, we recommend thinking about what you need mentoring on – perhaps you are looking for a role model, feedback, strategy discussions, building connections, overcoming specific challenges, etc. The NCFDD Mentor Map offers one structure to brainstorm how you might build a network of mentors and where this program and mentor could fit in. 

Before contacting a potential mentor, you will be asked to fill out a survey with your choice of preferred mentors. Please note that your mentor must be able to work in the United States and fill out a W-9 form for reimbursement. The  BAL Leadership Team will review your choices and provide additional recommendations or feedback. After you receive confirmation from the  Leadership Team, you can then formally invite your mentor to partner with you in this exciting mentoring opportunity. Our Team will also reach out to your mentor to finalize the mentorship agreement. 

Meeting with your Mentor - We recommend contacting your mentor after you have received the feedback form and scheduling an initial meeting with them anytime after our daylong retreat on September 13th. Meetings thereafter should take place monthly during the school year for a total of at least 9 meetings. Mentors are compensated $5,000 at the end of the year for their role in this program. In order to receive this compensation and participate in this aspect of the program, Mentors must be able to complete a U.S. Form W-9 or be non-US citizens providing mentoring from outside the U.S.A. Should you need to find a new mentor partway through the year, your mentor will receive partial compensation. We hope and expect this to be a high-touch and impactful relationship.

Preparing for Mentor Meetings - Before each meeting participant-faculty should provide an agenda of what they want to discuss. Afterward, notes or reflections on the conversation will help you build the next month’s agenda and keep the conversation going. In these meetings, keep in mind that mentors serve specific goals. For instance, some might be about learning the job and others might be about balancing leadership work with being a parent. Be sure you keep in mind the reason you picked your mentor as you structure your meetings and goals. 

Questions? Please reach out to Diana Marginean (dmarginean@fivecolleges.edu).

Our attendance policy is designed to ensure that all participants are fully engaged in our professional development program. We also realize that 'life happens' and unforeseen events arise that must be attended to. For the Advanced program, short meetings count as one absence, while long meetings (4+ hours) count as two absences. Participants are expected to make up the first and second missed sessions.Details on the make-up process will be shared after the start of the program with all participants. Because the stipend for this program is meant as compensation for your engagement with this program, any absences beyond that will reduce the amount of your stipend, regardless of the reason.