Professional Development Day 2026
Schedule
📅 Thursday, October 29, 2026 | 📍 Linda K. Paresky Conference Center, Simmons University, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115
We’re excited to share the full schedule for the Higher Education Networking Collective Professional Development Day! This year’s event centers on the themes of working smarter, growing your career, building relationships, and leading in complex environments. We have a strong slate of experts leading sessions designed to provide both insight and actionable strategies, with presenter bios available on our Presenter page. We look forward to an engaging and impactful day of learning, networking, and professional growth.
Pre-Professional Development Day Happy Hour 🍹
Join us the evening before the Professional Development Day for an informal networking happy hour! Connect with colleagues, catch up with friends, and meet new professionals before the big day.
📅 Wednesday, October 28, 2026
🕠 5:30–7:30 PM
📍 Yard House Fenway, 126 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA 02215
Food and drinks are on your own. Open to all higher ed professionals, even if you’re not attending PD Day!
Professional Development Day
Thursday, October 29, 2026 | 8:30 AM – 4:00 PM ET
Sessions Color-Coded by Theme
Alex Fronduto, DHS, Taryn Tessari, M.Ed., Jon Ahern, M.S. & Andrei Antonescu, M.S.
10:30 – 11:20 AM | Breakout Sessions
From Silos to Shared Purpose: Building Cross-Functional Collaboration in Higher Ed
Mary Ellen Normen, MPA
Higher education runs on cross-functional collaboration, yet many campus teams still feel stuck in silos, strained handoffs, and “mystery gaps” between departments. This interactive session helps participants move beyond knowing what they should do toward practical, shared experiments that improve collaboration across roles and units, grounded in the SCARF model and the Immunity to Change™ framework.
Participants will surface a real cross-functional challenge, map where handoffs break down, and apply a condensed Immunity to Change “x-ray” to explore why teams struggle to change even when they agree on the goal. The session closes with each participant designing a 30-day cross-role collaboration experiment they can run back on campus.
Win the Workday: Building Resilience, Discipline, and Momentum
Max Quinn, M.Ed.
Burnout, stagnation, and lack of direction are common challenges across higher education. This interactive session introduces a habit-based resilience framework designed to help participants build momentum through intentional daily actions rather than relying solely on motivation.
Participants will reflect on the gap between their current habits and desired outcomes, then create a personalized system of daily non-negotiable actions that support resilience, accountability, and sustainable growth. Attendees will leave with practical tools they can immediately apply within their personal lives, leadership roles, and campus communities.
The Social-Emotional Leader: Building Trust and Collaboration
Alexander Patturelli, Ed.D. & Anthony Pellecchia, M.Ed., MBA
What do you do when you’re new to leadership or your approach seems to be becoming stagnant? Participants will learn how applying social-emotional tenets to their leadership style can go a long way in building a productive and collaborative team, especially when managing a multigenerational team with varied work styles.
This approach requires leaders to tap into self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision-making, and relationship skills. Participants will leave with tools and methods to build or rebuild relationships, improve collaboration, and feel comfortable delegating tasks again.
12:40 – 1:30 PM | Breakout Sessions
Supporting Neuroinclusivity in the Workplace for Colleagues and Supervisees
Kim Johnson, M.Ed.
To thrive in today’s complex higher education environment, we must build workplaces where every professional can perform at their best. This session explores how supporting neurodivergent colleagues strengthens teams and campus communities, reframing neurodiversity as a valuable workplace asset rather than a limitation.
Designed for both supervisors and peer colleagues, participants will learn to recognize common institutional barriers and implement simple, low-barrier changes to daily routines, communication styles, and management practices. Attendees will leave with immediate steps to improve collaboration, reduce burnout, and create a more inclusive, productive environment.
The Influence Gap: Leading Change Without Formal Authority
Ella Epshteyn, Ed.D. & Tes Zakrzewski, Ed.D.
Higher ed professionals are often expected to lead initiatives, build consensus, and drive results without direct authority over the people whose support they need. Success depends on influence more than hierarchy.
This interactive workshop explores practical strategies for building commitment, identifying sponsors and champions, and moving initiatives forward in complex higher education environments. Participants will leave with a practical framework and actionable techniques they can immediately apply to their own work.
1:40 – 2:30 PM | Breakout Sessions
Executive Presence and Courageous Conversations: Trusted Before You Speak
Megan Akatu, MBA
People decide whether they trust you long before you finish your sentence. Executive presence is the sum of those signals: how you carry yourself, how you communicate, and how you follow through.
This session covers the conversations most of us avoid — asking for the raise, giving hard feedback, pushing back on a decision, advocating for yourself — and offers a practical framework for walking into a courageous conversation grounded instead of bracing, and clear instead of over-explaining. Participants leave with language they can use and a repeatable way to prepare for the next conversation they’ve been putting off.
Leading from Every Seat: Practical Leadership for Complex, Uncertain Environments
Siria Martinez, Ph.D., Adbimalik Buul, Ed.D. & Ebony Jeffries, MPA
Leaders in today’s higher education environment are asked to manage upward to senior leadership, lead downward through their teams, navigate across departments with competing priorities, and communicate clearly when institutional direction itself is often unclear. This interactive workshop equips attendees with practical tools for leading effectively in exactly these conditions.
Participants will work in pairs and small groups, applying frameworks to challenges they are currently facing in their own roles, and will close with a structured commitment exercise identifying one specific action to take within the next week.
2:40 – 3:30 PM | Breakout Sessions
The Leadership Listening Gap
Raashi Bhatia, M.A.
Leadership challenges are often framed as problems of strategy, expertise, or decision-making. Yet effective leadership depends not only on what we know, but also on what we are able to notice. This interactive workshop explores listening as a core leadership practice rather than simply a communication skill.
Through guided reflection, small-group discussion, and practical exercises, participants will explore how listening shapes decision-making, trust, collaboration, and leadership effectiveness — leaving with practical strategies for recognizing what may be overlooked in complex and fast-moving environments.
Countering Cognitive Offloading: Reclaiming Human Intellectual Agency in an AI-Saturated Workspace
Mimi Tam, Ph.D.
The ubiquity of generative text, predictive communication, and algorithmic data synthesis within higher education has induced a critical phenomenon: systemic cognitive offloading. This session introduces Cognitive Architecture Design, a behavioral framework built to counteract intellectual attrition in hyper-automated environments — championing an intentional relationship with AI rather than a rejection of it.
Attendees will receive a practical Cognitive Maintenance Protocol featuring structured, offline strategic thinking routines designed to protect creative faculty and keep human judgment at the center of university operations.
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Higher Education Networking Collective (HENC), Inc. 