The lived experiences of primary role academic advisors are rarely explored, this study aimed not only to explore those experiences, but focused in on feminist academic advisors and how their feminism interacts with their personal life and professional practice. 22 participants shared their stories and experiences as feminist academic advisors and how they incorporate their feminism into their advising practice. This presentation expands on a presentation that was delivered at last years GAIN conference.

Clare and Kristie will be joined by students Deepti Gautam and Lisette Castañeda to speak about centering the student's whole self in our mapping of professional development opportunities in student work.

In this session, we'll engage in reflection, discovery, and sharing to explore and advance our capacities to operate as 'improvisatory' leaders, particularly when we are positioned on the margins of formal leadership opportunities by virtue of our social identities and/or our professional positionalities. Starting from a definition of improvisatory leadership as fundamentally relational, collaborative, emergent, and grounded in the continuous learning of the leader, we'll catalyze new ideas and imagine fresh approaches to leading from the margins.

This session delves into the often invisible challenges faced by first-generation students in higher education. This talk will explore strategies to build a supportive community that celebrates students' unique backgrounds through the lens of community cultural wealth. Emphasizing equity, this approach involves fostering relationships, providing individualized support, and educating campus resources. Additionally, it showcases the Linfield First Scholars program as a mentoring model, evaluating its effectiveness through student experiences and data. Attendees will gain actionable insights to enhance support for first-generation students on their campuses.

This session aims to empower attendees to share their own stories surroundingtheir intersectional identities and provide them with practical resources for cultivating more inclusive and equitable institutions. Presenters will share findings from a qualitative case study that investigated how historically underrepresented identities working in higher education incorporate their existing intersectional identities. Participants will leave this session with a richer understanding of why sharing stories featuring intersectional identities within higher education matters. They will also receive research-based best practice resources for addressing and navigating the challenges of incorporating intersectional identities within professionalsettings.

The stories that shape dis/abiilty are often deficit-based, medicalized and remove agency from dis/abled folx. This workshop will aim to guide participants in their work with dis/abled students in a way that promotes both autonomy and agency. We will discuss strategies to de-medicalize dis/ablity by learning to crip student narratives and experiences. Primarily by, discussing language and vocabulary around ableism and dis/ability; and, strategies for creating inclusive dis/ability spaces in classrooms and campuses. This will be interactive and collaborative, with an aim to leave with new skills in the area of dis/ability justice.

In this session, facilitators and attendees will have the opportunity to share stories of how collective care has and has not shown up in their work and lives within and outside of higher education. We will discuss the meaning and significance of collective care and mutual aid within our lives and within higher education. Together, we will co-create knowledge and methods for facilitating collective care amongst ourselves in our institutions, organizations, departments, offices, classrooms, and other spaces. Story is the medium through which we acknowledge our experiences, hopes for change, and connect with one another in service of a better community. Facilitators will empower participants to share their stories through verbal, visual, tactile, and creative means. Supplies will be provided for participants to use during the session, however, participants are also invited to bring any arts and crafts supplies and/or other tools and items that inspire their creativity.

Higher education is centered around the dissemination of knowledge—creating and distributing content meant to inform and educate. As a professional in this field, one of your primary day-to-day activities is likely generating content, and right now, that content is probably digital. This is a good thing because digital content has the capacity to be substantially more accessible and inclusive to all users. One of the most important things we can do as digital content creators is ensure that our digital content is accessible and inclusive to the widest possible audience. In this workshop, participants will establish a foundation for accessible digital design, learn how to identify and remediate inaccessible digital resources, and gain strategies for expanding overarching unit and department capacity for digital accessibility.

In this session, you'll be shaped by the stories of how twenty women leaders of different races, nationalities, sexual orientations, disabilities, and professions from around the world use communication strategies to make change. We'll examine how African-American musician Lizzo, Portuguese artist Joanna Vasconcelos, disability rights activist Vilissa Thompson, former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and many more work towards equity and justice by proclaiming their identities, naming the problem, enriching the system, changing the system, and creating alternate systems.

Critical curiosity is the idea that in order to be great advisors and educators, we ought to be curious, ready to make connections, ask questions, and have a critical lens. What does it mean to approach the field of higher education with a sense of critical curiosity? What does it mean as a graduate student? Why is curiosity and a critical lens crucial in HE? During this interactive session, we will share stories of where our curiosity has led us in professional settings. And times where a critical lens is important in supporting our students.

This session will be a thought-provoking conversation with Andrea Ballinger as she shares her story on navigating the “unexpected” event including the emotional fallout, processing what happened and figuring out next steps.

In today’s fast-paced world, it’s not uncommon to be blindsided by “unexpected” events in your career. Whether it’s a sudden job loss, a difficult conversation with a colleague or boss, or a major shift in your industry, these “unexpected” events can leave you feeling lost, anxious, and unsure of what to do next.

From Shakespearean plays to modern political drama, scandals are a part of human society. They function as a means of charting a new cultural narrative and, often, moving society forward. But what does that mean for the organizations we work for? What happens when a scandal affects our workplace? How do we move forward?

Through a mixture of real-world examples and theory, this presentation will explore how scandals operate and how we can build through scandals and use them to rebuild a better organizational culture. From this presentation, audiences will understand how to ‘seize the scandal’ and how we can build a better organizational culture in the future.

This session will focus on the aims related to an Interprofessional Education Fellowship project addressing interprofessional care and experiences for transgender/gender non-conforming individuals. This academic and community partnership project aims included the development of an interprofessional team, a needs assessment research study, Transformational Stories: Transgender Experiences in Healthcare in the Salisbury MD-DE Metro Area, an Interprofessional Transgender Care Symposium, and an evaluation study. Stories shared highlighted the need for advocacy. Providing voice to the diverse experiences along the gender spectrum highlighted the dire need for increase education, support, and training on best practices in education, healthcare, and mental health care. The session will review lessons learned and promote discussion.