Conference Program

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• Communication & Coalition Building for Higher Education Advocacy
• Algorithmic Governance? How AI is Reshaping Institutional Norms and Quality Assurance Standards
• Advancing Student Success: Strategic Prioritization for Student Success (Invitation Only)
• Preparing for 2027: A Peer Evaluator Workshop on NWCCU’s New Standards (Invitation Only)

• Navigating the Inflection Point: Board Governance, Financial Viability, and Strategic Consolidation in Higher Education (Presidents/CEOs Only)
• Practical AI Tools for Accreditation: Getting the Most Out of AI at Work
• Measuring What Matters: How Unique Mission Outcomes Demonstrate Distinctive Value
• Getting Ahead of OBBBA’S New AHEAD Regulations: From Compliance to Improvement Insights

Higher education is experiencing a period of rapid upheaval, shaped by changing student needs, workforce expectations, AI, and increasing pressure to demonstrate impact. This keynote focuses on sensemaking—helping institutions understand how these forces connect and what they mean for learners and institutional missions. Drawing on examples from across the sector, the session explores emerging responses, including new approaches to learning, outcomes, and collaboration, and why partnerships with learners, their communities, employers, and policymakers have become central to sustaining quality and relevance. The session places learners at the center of these efforts, and creates space for intentional action rooted in mission, quality, and trust.

With an ever-changing political landscape, there has been an increased focus on higher education and whether there is value in attending a postsecondary institution. Varying approaches to determining the value of academic programs have been presented based on who was sitting in the oval office, and recent efforts by the Trump Administration have piqued the interest, and sparked concerns, of many in the higher education space.   

During this session, we will learn about what is currently happening in the higher education landscape as it relates to actions by the federal government and what these actions might mean for the future of higher education. This insider’s perspective will be valuable in learning both the current and pending actions in the Federal government impacting higher education. 

• NWCCU Annual Meeting of the Membership

• Ask the Liaisons

Credential completion is a foundational component of postsecondary education’s value proposition. The data are clear: to maximize the return on investment from their postsecondary education, students must complete their programs, and states and institutions are critical partners in that effort. As institutions, systems, and states face complex and often competing challenges, including financial and demographic pressures, it is more important than ever to identify and invest in strategies and approaches that best support student success. Drawing on a landscape analysis of Western states, territories, and freely associated states, the presentation will highlight how states are advancing student success through coordinated policy, finance, and data strategies and will provide a practical framework for aligning statewide completion efforts with institutional priorities and resources.

Academic freedom and open expression are under enormous strain at American universities. How did these tensions arise? And how should our institutions help faculty and students converse across their differences? Universities need to foreground instructional quality, which has too often taken a second seat to research. And they need to model the norms of democratic discourse that too many of us seem to have forgotten.