Pre-Conference Workshops

Most colleges and universities excel in data collection for regulatory reasons as well as an innate curiosity about the people and processes of education.

But the data brings familiar questions: What does it tell us? How can we be sure? How can we leverage our data to answer the big challenges we face?

Looking back over 15 years of market research in the post-secondary sector, some lessons stand out. In this pre-conference session, Kirk Kelly of CRI will share some lessons about addressing operational challenges:

• The one question you must always answer
• Getting the right fit between a problem and the analytical approach to be able to derive practical results
• Synthesizing results and isolating the changes that will let you move forward.

Together, we will look at some common problems and how the right analytical approach can make a difference. Registrants are invited to share a problem they’re trying to solve or a 20-line sample of anonymized data to extract the meaning. Send your problem or data at least 15 days before the session. If time permits, the anonymous data and the problem(s) to be solved will be presented to the group for discussion and analysis.

Registrants will leave the workshop with a better understanding of how to clearly define a problem so it can be solved, assess whether they can do it with the data they have or if they need more data, and find the right fit between the analytical approach and the problem they want to solve.

As post-secondary institutions work toward inclusive excellence, the growing number of students receiving accommodations should be understood as both a sign of progress and a call for systemic change—not simply as a metric of success or a challenge to manage. Many Strategic Enrolment Management practices continue to privilege neurotypical ways of communicating, navigating systems, learning, and demonstrating readiness, creating avoidable barriers throughout the student journey.

This interactive pre-conference workshop moves beyond a reliance on individual accommodations to examine how neuroinclusive design can be embedded across recruitment, admissions, transition, and retention. Guided by experienced student affairs leaders, participants will use the finalized, research-informed Neuroinclusive SEM Checklist and Action Plan—refined through feedback from Canadian SEM professionals—to audit their own institutional practices in real time.

Through hands-on self-assessment, scenario-based discussion, and collaborative planning, participants will identify ableist and structural barriers at key student touchpoints. They will distinguish between immediate improvements and longer-term systemic redesign, consider promising approaches from the Canadian post-secondary context, and develop a measurable next step tailored to their institution.

Participants will leave with an institution-specific roadmap for creating more accessible, proactive, and relationship-rich enrolment practices that foster neurodivergent student belonging, persistence, and long-term success.

Learning Outcomes

• Audit institutional practices: Use a comprehensive checklist co-developed with Canadian SEM professionals to assess recruitment, admissions, transition, and retention practices through a neuroinclusive lens.
• Identify structural barriers: Recognize policies, communications, processes, and service models that unintentionally privilege neurotypical students or rely too heavily on reactive accommodations.
• Prioritize opportunities for redesign: Identify immediate improvements as well as longer-term opportunities to embed universal design, proactive support, and structural inclusion across the student journey.
• Develop an actionable plan: Translate audit findings into concrete, measurable, and accountable strategies customized to their institutional context.
• Advance student belonging: Apply neuroinclusive principles in ways that support the access, dignity, participation, persistence, and belonging of neurodivergent learners.