Sparking collaborative transformation for mid-level college leaders

Whether a college serves 5,000 students or 50,000, strong leadership is an essential part of the institution’s success. Effective leaders develop a college’s shared vision, align resources, motivate people, and hold constituents accountable for educational, workforce, and community outcomes.

For this reason, Achieving the Dream (ATD) identifies leadership commitment as one of the seven essential capacities to foster a student- and community-centered culture that promotes student success. But strong leadership occurs at many organizational levels: It’s just as critical for mid-level leaders and managers to receive continuous support and professional development as it is for faculty, presidents, and chancellors.

In response to a growing need across the field, ATD launched the Change Management for Mid-Level Leaders Seminar Series, a professional learning opportunity that provides intentional support and development for the leaders and managers who are often charged with implementing change but rarely offered structured support.

Throughout the series, ATD coaches and experts work with institutional cohorts to equip mid-level leaders with the tools, mindset, and support they need to lead collaboratively.

An essential layer of leadership

College faculty and staff who sit in the middle of an organizational structure often have the dual responsibility of leading teams and managing day-to-day tasks, all of which has a direct impact on the student experience.

“In many ways, it’s one of the most important layers of leadership,” said Dr. Karen Stills, senior associate vice chancellor of student success at Dallas College.

Dallas College comprises seven campuses and serves more than 100,000 students annually. The institution is not only a large education provider but also a large employer: Dr. Stills estimates that there are more than 1,000 employees in student success roles, including 375 under her purview alone. The college decided to enroll representatives from across the student success team in ATD’s Mid-Level Leaders seminar series to help this large, dispersed team build strategic and cultural cohesion.

“In a very large organization where we are all looking to drive the mission forward in sync, we want to be on the same page,” Dr. Stills said. She referenced the children’s game of telephone, where a simple message can change completely after being passed through just a few people. When it came to managing over 1,000 staff, Dr. Stills and her peers were eager to develop tools and strategies to ensure strategic priorities were translated through the organizational telephone without any loss of information.

Anne Arundel Community College (AACC) in Maryland serves a smaller student body— about 17,000 students annually — but also identified a need for professional learning among its mid-level leadership during a period of institutional transition that required agility, collaboration, and alignment across departments.

Dr. Tanya Millner, provost and vice president for learning, said that many leaders at AACC “had expressed a desire for more professional development in leading people rather than only managing tasks.” They found that ATD’s seminar series addressed this need while reinforcing a shared leadership framework grounded in student success and equity.

“The more we invest in and take care of the people working for us, the more they’re going to take care of our students.”

Dr. Karen Stills, Dallas College
—

Activating leaders

Dallas College and AACC are two of six colleges that have, so far, participated in the seminar series, a nine-month engagement that includes both in-person kickoff meetings and a series of virtual seminars tailored to each institution’s needs and goals. The institutional cohort model, bringing leaders together from across college departments to learn and plan together, is designed to break down silos, build relationships, and empower mid-level leaders to co-create change.

Dr. Millner said that, since participating in the series, AACC has seen a notable shift in how its mid-level leaders engage with their teams, supervisors, and peers.

“Many participants have shared that they feel more confident in navigating resistance and aligning team efforts with institutional goals,” Dr. Millner said. “Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and most appreciated the structured time to reflect, share experiences with one another, and apply frameworks to their daily work.”

She also noted that the series has resulted in the creation of a more cohesive peer network at AACC and that staff who previously felt siloed are now in a better position to initiate new partnerships that improve the college’s student support services.

Dr. Stills said that at Dallas College, participation in the seminar series has helped teams mobilize themselves: Mid-level managers now connect with each other more often to collaborate and make sure their work aligns.

One of Dallas College’s key takeaways from the series was a need for increased data literacy across the faculty and staff. This has resulted in the creation of a four-module data literacy series (two modules have been developed), completion of which will now be part of staff evaluations.

“I think that is a result of [the mid-level managers] understanding that data is really important to use as leaders in a contextualized way,” Dr. Stills said.

Sustainable transformation

The Change Management for Mid-Level Leaders Seminar Series is built on the idea that lasting and meaningful change happens when mid-level leaders have the resources they need to lead effectively and collaboratively.

Dr. Stills said that the tools Dallas College’s mid-level leaders gained and refined during the series have had “ripple effects” not only in practices and outputs but also in institutional culture: When team members share information or present at meetings, she notices a marked shift in their level of preparation and in the way leaders now address the “so what” behind the information being presented.

Most importantly, though, she said, the series integrated productively with broader goals and strategies at the institutional level. “The biggest piece is that we were able to align the mid-level training with the strategic direction of the college,” Dr. Stills said.

Dr. Millner, likewise, saw the series as more than just a one-off professional development opportunity for AACC’s mid-level leaders. “The seminar series … not only provided professional development, but also it created momentum, empowered our teams, and fostered a stronger culture of collaboration and accountability,” Millner said.

She recognizes that mid-level leaders are essential pieces of an often complicated puzzle to deliver high-quality services to a diverse range of students. Because of this, she thinks of the time AACC’s mid-level leaders spent learning and growing as a cohort as “an investment that will pay dividends across the institution.”

As Dr. Stills said, “The more we invest in and take care of the people working for us, the more they’re going to take care of our students.”