Pre-Conference Workshops

*Note: This pre-conference session is being offered in two parts. While delegates may participate in one part or the other, learning outcomes can be best achieved when participating in both sessions.

Over the past seven years, organizations across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors responded in myriad ways to the call to address barriers to widening access and inclusion in society. In that time, some organizations hired people into roles across senior leadership, management, and services to meet the needs of people with diverse and intersecting social identities. Some organizations established strategies and plans to address equity, diversity, and inclusion, while also balancing commitments to Truth and Reconciliation. Some organizations hired more employees and engaged more ‘customers’ from equity [deserving] groups to ensure that their products and services were reaching further into the margins of communities and societies.

In the time since, critics claim that nominal progress has been made. Many individuals who were hired as ‘EDI leaders’, or who were designated to provide targeted services, or to engage across equity-related product and service lines, were members of the same communities organizations sought to engage. However, attrition in these designated roles is on the rise, and organizational leaders are wondering what went wrong.

Part of the answer to that question relies on understanding the ways various leadership approaches can better support and guide organizational change. Arguably, the greatest responsibility to advance Indigenization, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Anti-racism (I-IDEAA) in organizations and communities must be shared across organizations. . In this sense, the success of I-IDEAA initiatives depends on individual leadership (un)learning that serves as a powerful entry point to influence and affect change in their organizations and communities as well as developing models of leadership that shift us away from an onus on members of equity-deserving communities to individually lead the necessary organizational change. The work, in other words, needs to be undertaken in an ongoing process of leadership praxis that integrates self, leader, organization, and practice into a new approach to leading organizational change in post-secondary education.

Focus & Learning Outcomes:

• Participants will focus on themselves as leaders
• Discover models of educational leadership and explore their relevance to I-IDEAA in post-secondary education
• Examine and evaluate where the intersection of personal and professional values surfaces tensions for leadership practice
• Examine and express their leadership self-concept as it relates to I-IDEAA to articulate a personal I-IDEAA leadership statement

Niche marketing helps to build your brand, reputation, and competitive edge. Finding and engaging with niche markets means your team will find it easier to reach prospective students, nurture Prospects, building quality relationships, and ultimately recruit the right applicants to your programs.

This session will provide tips for successful niche marketing using storytelling and a unique case study to highlight how to find and learn about your niche market, and make your market’s niche your own, and it will provide tips for developing and delivering content and campaigns.

Perhaps most importantly, attendees will be able to determine how to find their own niche in higher education marketing and to write their own story to effectively connect with their identified audience.

The case study describes the marketing and communications work that supported the launch of the Queen’s Certificate in Mohawk Language and Culture, which is offered by the Faculty of Arts and Science in partnership with Tsi Tyónnheht Onkwawén:na (TTO) Language and Cultural Centre and delivered in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory.

Learning Outcomes

• Finding your niche market: Learn how to find and get to know your niche market and understand that it is about marketing to a unique culture with unique needs that you can become a part of by building relationships.
• Sustaining relationships: Hear tips for building relationships with partners, explore the difference between maintaining and sustaining them, and how you can leverage relationships and influencers in your marketing.
• Choosing channels: Explore why you should use your niche market’s channels for promotion and advertising, from print and radio to websites, event calendars, and social media, and discover why you should prioritize supporting influencers in spreading the word.
• Creating content: Learn why you should involve your partners and influencers in continuous content creation and have them vet your content, so it reflects and resonates with your niche market and tells a story.
• Finding your niche: Consider your career and career advancement and explore how niche marketing can help you to tell a different story and make you stand out from the crowd, which will build your reputation and make you more memorable and marketable, to advance your career in higher education marketing.

There is no doubt that Canadian colleges and universities turn to Strategic Enrolment Management (SEM) for managing student enrolment. However, if you and your team do not truly understand what SEM is and the importance of looking at the institution as a whole rather than in parts, are you contributing effectively?

It's time to take your day-to-day institutional lens off and uncover how every role within your institution intersects and truly supports organizational success.

In this interactive session, participants will learn and discuss the basics of systems thinking and how institutions can introduce and support the implementation of an enrolment management ecosystem at their institutions.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the core concepts and objectives of SEM
• The role of SEM on campus
• How your work and role fit into the SEM ecosystem
• Potential ways to structure your business for SEM success
• Tools to effectively implement SEM