Advanced Networking in Higher Education Activity Courses

“What we used to call networking was really networking,” Barbara DiRocco, senior director of meetings and events for the National Association of College and University Business Officials (NACUBO), said of the association’s annual conference. “At breaks or receptions, people tend to socialize with people they’re traveling with or people they already know,” she told us convene On a recent video call, she was joined by NACUBO Vice President of Leadership Development Randy Roberson. “This is not the Internet.”

Robertson said that over the past five or six years, NACUBO has taken a more intentional approach, understanding that attendees want to connect with others for different reasons. “We’re always bringing people together” around what they have in common, he said, “whether they’re women leaders, leaders of color, LGBTQ leaders or young professionals, or whether they’re from small institutions or large public research institutions Leader” compared to community colleges. We’ve been trying to focus on how to bring these people together to learn from each other while also giving them a sense of camaraderie and a peer group to talk to. “

Barbara DiRocco

Members want the network to be both organic and structured, DiRocco said. “When you get together with more than 2,000 people,” she said, it can feel like “you’re trying to wade through a sea of ​​everyone trying to find your colleagues. You need help to guide you.”

Here are some of the ways NACUBO achieves this goal.

Navigating NACUBO First Time Attendee Meeting taking place just before Saturday night’s opening event. “We had about 250 people come to the opening, and they now have someone to go to the opening event with, stand in line with, or sit at the table with,” rather than going to the opening reception themselves, Robertson said.

“We do some small social events and get them talking to each other. We show them how our voting system works and how our continuing education credit system works. We also tell them some things they might not know,” Robertson Say, like where to line up for autographs and get free headshots. “We’re in the financial space and we have a lot of introverts joining us. We know that for many of them this is out of their comfort zone, how do we make it as comfortable as possible for them?” The first-ever session also asked attendees A chance to pair up with another conference newbie and experience the rest of the event together.

The roundtable began on Sunday morning and was organized around institutional types — “Are you a small institution, a research university, a community college?” Robertson said. Roundtables are scheduled before the main opening session so attendees can walk into the grand ballroom or auditorium together. “Again,” he said, “we’re trying to make it less overwhelming for them.”

Four connection and collaboration sessions During the expo, Robertson said there were one-hour events each for young professionals, LGBTQIA+ professionals, leaders of color and women leaders “where they can come together and find others in those groups.” “It doesn’t matter what institution you serve, or it’s your first time attending a conference, or this is your 17th, but if you identify with one of the groups, then this is a way to meet people like you. DiRocco said each group has its own scheduled time to meet in a room designated for these meetings and can have a moderator to keep the conversation flowing.

Randy Robertson

Robertson said voter roundtables and professional roundtables are conducted slightly differently. “For the past two years in our roundtable groups, we have been using this ‘blow, worry, wonder, bet concept,'” according to the book. Boast, worry, wonder, bet: A manager’s guide to giving feedback – Like, “I’m worried about this, I bet this will work…”

Are there any additional benefits to these courses? Senior association leaders attending the conference can meet with members and hear their ideas. “It’s a really good thing for our CEO to go to these meetings and meet people and hear their dreams, their hopes, their aspirations, their frustrations,” Robertson said.

Emphasis on interactive meetings Robertson said the types of programming people want to see have changed since the pandemic. “I’d ask, ‘How was that meeting?’ and someone responded to me: ‘It could have been a webinar. “When they show up to the scene, yes, they might want to listen to the speakers or the panels, but what they really want to do is connect with the people in the room and find out, ‘What are you doing to solve this problem?’ That’s what happens on my campus. What do you learn on campus? The conferences that get the highest ratings right now are the ones that are interactive, that allow for networking, that allow for the exchange of information within the conference.”

Application gamification — Attendees can earn prizes by visiting exhibitors, attending certain events, and by visiting the NACUBO central booth and talking with NACUBO staff. But NACUBO also extends the game “beyond our exhibition halls and exhibition hours,” DiRocco said. “What we’re really seeing is people pairing up — that’s how they find each other.”

In a gamification called “QR Quest,” attendees had to find “certain QR codes that they photographed with their phones and answer questions.” Just by the simple act of trying to find the sign with this QR code, they met other people,” she said. “Last year, I saw a group of people walking around the convention center performing this task, helping each other find and answer these questions. “

Michelle Russell Is the editor-in-chief held.

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