2025 Innovation Conference Takeaways

April 2025

This year’s Innovations Conference provided an excellent platform for educators around the world to share leading-edge practices in teaching, learning, and leadership across community colleges. I attended about 15 breakout sessions and took some really good notes. Here are the key takeaways that I feel well align with our mission and priorities, especially in these categories: strategic enrollment management, academic scheduling, student readiness, faculty and staff engagement, and innovation and change management.  

From “bite-sized” Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) planning to optimizing course offerings, several sessions explored how colleges are shifting from reactive recruitment to intentional, data-informed strategies. Presenters shared how micro-planning, flexible pathways, and collaborative governance can improve enrollment outcomes without overwhelming institutional capacity. Successful SEM depends on manageable SEM initiatives aligned to realistic goals and existing capacity, especially in areas like program marketing, student onboarding, and predictive scheduling.   

SEM and academic scheduling go hand in hand. Sessions on “Optimizing Course Offerings” and “Academic Program Prioritization” stressed that schedules are not just logistics. They are student success tools. Colleges shared how demand forecasting, cross-functional planning, and course availability and completion pathway alignment prevented scheduling gaps and boosted enrollment, retention, and completion. Better scheduling requires better questions: Who are we scheduling for? Are we designing for full-time learners, working adults, or dual and concurrent enrollment students?  How do various course offerings and programs interact with one another? And how can we design those interactions to create an overall positive impact—not just operationally, but academically, socially, financially, and in terms of long-term student success and college sustainability? 

One common topic at the conference is the Student Readiness Crisis. EAB hosted a session that emphasized a need for cross-sector collaboration to address post-pandemic learning loss, mental health challenges, disconnect between high school and college learning, and financial and career uncertainties. Their data-driven recommendations included: Transparency in Learning and Teaching or TILT-based academic transparency (Purpose, Task, Criteria), peer mentoring for socioemotional support, financial nudging tools and consolidated advising hubs, and real-world career exploration through job simulations. Readiness is no longer just academic. It is emotional, financial, and career-focused. Institutions need to support students holistically through redesigned interventions and communication strategies.  

At San Jacinto College, the Distinguished Faculty Recognition Program (DFRP) has energized faculty through tiered service, leadership, and research pathways. Structured with transparency, incentives, and community-building in mind, this program reminded us that meaningful faculty and staff engagement needs intentional design. Recognition programs can be powerful levers for leadership development, shared governance, and cultivating a sense of community.  

Multiple sessions emphasized how change rooted in empathy and purpose is more likely to succeed. The session “Human-Centered Organizational Change” highlighted tools like the Change Readiness Assessment and stakeholder mapping, while “Agile Leadership in an AI-Driven World” explored how iterative mindsets and continuous feedback can transform teams. In addition, several case studies showed how AI can support—not replace—human teaching and learning. Students using AI tools for writing feedback saw gains in confidence, quality, and engagement, and faculty are encouraged to set clear expectations in the use of AI. True innovation is more than new tools—it is about clarity, culture, and community. Effective innovation and change management require both strategic intent and human-centered design.  

In one of the general sessions, keynote speaker Joe Abraham opened with Alvin Toffler’s quote: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Such a powerful reminder in these times of change!

Wei Ma, PhD
Dean of Instructional Innovation
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