Seminars & Institutes

ACUI provides a variety of seminars and institutes each year that take a deeper dive into those content areas that impact the profession—from facilities management to student organization advising to leadership.

While the calendar showcases scheduled events, you may also explore the list of traditional seminars and institutes that ACUI offers on an annual or biannual basis.

Upcoming Seminars & Institutes

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Events

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  • 2026 Next Up: Leading Forward: Women’s Leadership for What’s Next

    Agnes Scott College 141 E College Ave, Decatur, Georgia, United States

    Women across higher education are leading through complexity—advocating for students, navigating institutional change, and holding communities together through seasons of uncertainty. This institute is designed to support, strengthen, and elevate that leadership.

Traditional Seminars & Institutes

The information below showcases the events ACUI offers; not all programs are offered annually.

This seminar is designed for mid-level professionals who aspire to higher level positions in student affairs. Focusing on career advancement in higher education and preparing employees to be senior leaders is good for everyone: the organization, the students, the campus community, and the individuals looking to advance.

Build skills and strategies to support your career advancement in higher education! Learn about relevant trends impacting higher education with a lens of social justice and equity woven throughout explorations of staffing, organizational development, planning, and fiscal management.

The Building Managers Seminar brings together both professionals and students working within facilities management to develop skills and learn from one another.

Professionals will have the opportunity to share best practices for building manager training and gain additional skills around student supervision and engagement. Students who work in union operations or serve as building managers will further develop their skill set to perform tasks in their current role on campus and serve them as leaders in the future.

With the increasing competition for students and the need for campus programs and facilities to support student success, marketing is becoming an increasingly critical competency of higher education professionals.

Join campus recreation, college union, and student activities professionals to share best practices and trends in campus marketing! Learn how to tackle the challenges of being a successful marketing professional in today’s competitive higher education industry.

A collaborative event produced by NIRSA and ACUI, two higher education associations with a common goal of building healthy campus communities, this event is valuable for both experienced marketers and those new to the field.

Aspiring union directors and senior professionals new to facilities responsibilities will benefit from this foundational program.

Through back-of-house tours, instructional presentations, and immersive case studies, you will gain an overview of how facilities can be successfully managed. Attendees benefit from:

  • Meeting other facilities managers with similar challenges and potential solutions
  • Gaining ideas about how to maximize facilities budgets and human resources
  • Learning the basics about common facility equipment, technical standards, and maintenance processes
  • Seeing some of the new technology being introduced in the industry

The Institute for Leadership Education and Development (I-LEAD®) is a transformational experience, informed by student development and leadership theories, for inclusive leadership and community building, that provides space for college students achieve the below Learning Outcomes. Students will explore, through multiple lenses, the complexities of leadership in our current world and will be encouraged toward a life-long learning journey beyond the program.

Learning Outcomes

The key intended outcome of students participating in I-LEAD® is that they will be able to relate the meaning of community and its importance to the role of the college union and student activities back to their leadership experiences beyond the institute.

Social Justice
  • Gain awareness of how one’s own intersecting identities and behaviors shape one’s worldview and lived experiences, and how this can influence their leadership style.
  • Identify major aspects of identity and cultural difference within the campus community and society.
  • Utilize empathy to modify communication and interaction styles to seek understanding of others.
  • Explore opportunities to advocate for equity.
Planning
  • Ability to identify and share the students’ organization’s mission, vision, and core values.
  • Ability to set specific and reasonable goals
  • Ability to create a plan in order to accomplish set goals
Organization Leadership
  • Develop awareness of self, through use of student development and leadership theories such as the Social Action Leadership & Transformation (SALT) theory and the Leadership Challenge by completing and analyzing the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI).
  • Develop and articulate a personal leadership style.
  • Learn from prior experiences, as well as experiences of others, via self-reflection and group discussion.
  • Develop and apply a personal set of ethics, morals, and values.
  • Ability to identify and share the students’ organization’s mission, vision, and core values.
  • Ability to set specific and reasonable goals
  • Ability to create a plan in order to accomplish set goals
Human Resources
  • Ability to communicate effectively with a diverse population of peers and colleagues.
  • Ability to identify good work in others and recognize individuals and groups

New college union and student activities professionals gather annually for IPDS: New Professionals Seminar. The institute, designed to provide the foundation for a successful career, will offer participants an immersive four-day program focused on skill building and networking.  

Participants will:

  • Further skills in multiple competency areas, fiscal management, human resource, organizational leadership, student learning, and social justice
  • Build a network of peers from other institutions to call on for advice and continued learning
  • Gather tips and tricks directly applicable to daily work
  • Hear lessons learned and best practices from experienced professionals
  • Find solutions to common issues in the profession—whether entering the field out of graduate school or making a career change

ACUI’s Renovation and Construction Seminar is the perfect opportunity for you to gain valuable insights, knowledge, and expertise in this crucial aspect of campus development. This comprehensive program is designed to equip you with the tools and information needed to successfully renovate or build student union facilities that meet the evolving needs of your campus community.  

If you are a student organization advisor, whether a new or seasoned professional, the Student Organizations Institute offers you opportunities to network with your peers.

With a variety of engaging session formats, you will explore best and promising practices; learn strategies for risk management, advisor development, and student leadership development; and discover valuable resources to make the work that you do easier. In addition, you will be challenged to work collaboratively with your peers as you experience simulations based on real-life scenarios and as you co-create programs and activities that can be implemented on your campus.

Be a part of a special program for women seeking to further their leadership skills in higher education administration. Coproduced by several higher education associations, this unique program will bring together administrators from across campus functions to help you:

  • Hone your leadership skills for working in a rapidly changing environment
  • Develop a better understanding of the campus as a workplace and culture
  • Share experiences with others about how campuses are adapting and adjusting to the new reality
  • Create new personal networks and networking skills to better tap the higher education community

Through presentations, small-group exercises, and discussion, you will gain a practical understanding of what it takes to be a leader on a college or university campus—both the challenges and the rewards. Examine the unique roles, skills, and relationships needed to lead as higher education faces and deals with the most challenging period in 50 years.