WORKSHOP FOR
SENIOR ADMINISTRATORS
Each year the Lilly Network offers an exceptional opportunity for senior administrators from Network schools to gather and think together about a pressing matter for church-related higher education from broad and ecumenical perspectives. Administrators from a wide spectrum of institutions convene to converse and collaborate about how best to strengthen the church-related character of the schools served by the Lilly Network and to heighten consciousness about the vital importance of attending to mission in all they do.
2025 WORKSHOP DETAILS
The Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities Presents The Twenty-Fifth Annual Workshop for Senior Administrators
FORMATIVE PRACTICES FOR LEADERS IN CHAOTIC TIMES
The 2025 Workshop for Senior Administrators will offer a space for senior administrators at church-related colleges and universities to reflect on the dispositions, attitudes, resources, and practices that enable effective leadership amidst the key challenges facing higher education. The focus of this time together will not be on information but formation in life-giving habits of thought and practice that connect the mission of their institutions to the needs of their vital stakeholders. We hope that this space for reflection and recalibration will help attendees gain insight into the kinds of formative practices that ground resilient leaders as they adapt to the ever-shifting higher education landscape.
The Workshop is offered at no cost to senior administrators at Lilly Network member institutions. Each institution is eligible to register one senior administrator (president, vice president, academic dean, provost, or equivalent). One participant from each school will be reimbursed for travel costs up to $600. Meals and hotel accommodations will also be paid by the Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities. Additional participants from member schools will be waitlisted until the Registration Deadline, September 17, 2025, and will be enrolled as slots become available.
The Workshop will begin with 11:00 am registration on Thursday, October 30 and end by 1:00 pm on Friday, October 31, 2025.
October 30-31, 2025
Sacred Heart University
Fairfield, Connecticut
PLENARY SPEAKERS
Dr. Donna Carroll,
President, Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities
Dr. J. Bradley Creed,
President, Campbell University
If you have questions or concerns about registration:
Email us, or call 219-464-5317.
RECENT WORKSHOPS
The Spiritual and Intellectual Lives of Our Students: What the New Data Show
September 26-27, 2024 Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California
The 2024 Workshop for Senior Administrators offered the opportunity for senior administrators at church-related colleges and universities to consider how their undergraduates understand and experience spiritual and intellectual formation. The centerpiece of the workshop was a report and analysis of a first-of-its kind ecumenical survey of schools in the Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities conducted by Springtide Research Institute in fall 2023. Participants engaged these findings at a strategic level and thought through and discussed how to design curricular, faculty development, religious, and student life programs in response.
2024 WORKSHOP
PLENARY SPEAKERS
Laurie Schreiner, Ph.D.
Professor of Higher Education, Azusa Pacific University
Tricia Bruce, Ph.D.
Director, Springtide Research Institute
Molly A. Schaller, Ph.D.
Associate Dean and Professor of Higher Education, Saint Louis University
2023 WORKSHOP
Fostering Hope in a Polarized Age
October 19-20, 2023
Aquinas College, Grand Rapids, Michigan
The 2023 Workshop for Senior Administrators offered the opportunity for senior administrators at church-related colleges and universities to consider the impact of cultural, political, and social polarization on their campuses and what is needed in campus leadership in this time. The current polarization of our culture, especially as it has linked with religion, has touched higher education over such issues as academic freedom, hiring practices, free speech, DEI initiatives, curricular design, and religious freedom. This polarization has been uniquely felt by stakeholders at church-related institutions because of the way polarization connects to religion. This workshop was meant to help administrators think together about how hope and their own missional resources can help them move forward constructively toward a shared future beyond this time of polarization.
PLENARY SPEAKERS
Dr. Margaret Diddams
Editor, Christian Scholars Review
Principal Consultant at the Diddams Group
Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, CM, Ed.D.
President, Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities
Chancellor of DePaul University
2022 WORKSHOP
Fostering Belonging: Renewing the Conversation about Race and Mission
October 27-28, 2022
Lipscomb University, Nashville, TN
The 2022 Workshop for Senior Administrators offered the opportunity for senior administrators at church-related colleges and universities to engage Dr. Willie James Jennings concerning his critique of the aims and purposes of higher education elucidated in After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2020). We were invited to sit with the critique, think about how it might impact the way we understand our campuses, and then begin to think about how we might respond in a way that invigorates and renews the conversation about race, justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion on our campuses by understanding how they connect to our deepest aims in student formation and Christian mission.
PLENARY SPEAKERS
Dr. Willie James Jennings
Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies, Yale Divinity School
Dr. William Turner
Distinguished Professor of Leadership and Public Service and Counselor to the President, Lipscomb University
Dr. Herbert Medina
Provost, University of Portland
Dr. Susan VanZanten
Senior Research Professor in the Humanities, Christ College, The Honors College of Valparaiso University