Academic Leadership Institute

The Academic Leadership Institute (ALI) was founded by Dr. Earl Lewis and Dr. Dwight A. McBride in a partnership between the University of Michigan and The New School.

ALI’s mission is to increase the representation of rising leaders committed to issues of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), including faculty of color. The program will help colleagues on the path to becoming future presidents and provosts and utilize the small network of current and former presidents and provosts who have demonstrated leadership in DEI principles, to provide a forum for more intentional and scalable mentoring of the next generation of such leaders.

The 2021 and 2022 ALI residential programs were a tremendous success featuring 22 established higher education leaders with esteemed DEI track records. While most programs for higher education leadership focus on the skills required of a leader, the ALI goes beyond that to talk about the experience of being a leader within the academy from an individual perspective.

Each day’s curriculum is explicitly organized around identity as it relates to the various streams of university business: the sense of self as a leader, in relation to institutional frameworks, in relation to the team, and in relation to the community and the public. The institute will be the first major professional development event of its kind to have an explicit focus on DEI, and the first to aim to equip leaders to change their institutions. In addition, the nature and size of the program allows its scope to be tailored to the expectations of its participants, providing a personalized five-day course guided by successful collegiate heads.

Through participation in the ALI, attendees will benefit from:

• Access to a generation of proven leaders that can speak to core principles of leadership in higher education
  
• Intense, close relationships with colleagues to provide an overall support network for the rest of their careers
• Hands-on assistance from leading search consultants
• A certificate testifying to their completion of the program

Below is a recording from the ALI's first webinar, held in Fall 2020. 

Development Partners

The Office of the President, The New School
The Center for Social Solutions and National Center for Institutional Diversity, The University of Michigan

Sponsors