7:30 – 8:30 a.m. | Breakfast
8:00– 8:30 a.m. | Summit Foundations Grounding Instructional Continuity
8:30 – 9:15 a.m. | Community Insight Panel: Learning Through Disruption
9:30 –10:00 a.m. | Activity: Collaboratively Mapping Disruption
EDUCAUSE Annual Conference | Denver, CO
Tuesday, September 29
Times: 8:00am - 4:00pm
**Registration for the 2026 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference is required.
Beyond the Outage: Building Institutional Readiness for Instructional Continuity
Higher education institutions increasingly depend on complex digital ecosystems to support teaching and learning. Yet, recent events, including the Instructure data breach and platform disruption, have exposed a difficult reality - many institutions remain under-prepared for large scale instructional disruption. Instructional continuity is not a new challenge. Higher ed has navigated major disruptions before, most notably during the rapid transition to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. These experiences have surfaced both institutional strengths and systemic vulnerabilities, yet many continuity conversations remain reactive, decentralized, or narrowly focused on technology operations rather than the broader teaching and learning ecosystem.
This one day, highly interactive experience emphasizes practical institutional strategy over abstract discussion. The summit brings together key stakeholders from cross-functional roles to frame instructional continuity as a shared institutional responsibility centered around a complex problem the sector continues to face.
By moving the conversation beyond incident response towards institutional readiness, participants will examine pressing questions facing colleges and universities today:
- Where are the greatest institutional risks, dependencies, and vulnerabilities in maintaining continuity of learning during disruption?
- What responsibilities do institutions, vendor partners, faculty, and leadership each hold around ensuring continuity of learning?
- How do decisions made during disruption shape faculty workload, student access and belonging, institutional trust, and the quality of the learning experience?
- What governance structures, communication strategies, and contingency planning models are needed now?
- How can institutions move from reactive response to durable readiness for disruptions that may be technological, operational, environmental, or policy related?
Whether institutions are just beginning these conversations or refining existing continuity plans, this summit is designed to help participants begin where they are today and build momentum for sustained cross campus collaboration.
Participants will return to their institution with practical ideas, peer-informed strategies, tools to help advance instructional continuity conversations and planning efforts at their own institutions, and a stronger peer network to support ongoing instructional continuity work.
By participating in this summit, attendees will be able to:
- Explore cross-functional approaches to instructional continuity planning that strengthen institutional readiness, communication, and coordination.
- Engage with peers across functional areas to examine institutional models, decision-making frameworks, and emerging practices that support resilient teaching and learning environments.
- Identify practical strategies to strengthen readiness and support sustainable instructional continuity during disruption.
- Develop actionable next steps for advancing institutional readiness within their own campus context.
Presenters and Panelists
Executive Director of Digital Learning and Artificial Intelligence
Pima County Community College District
Agenda
7:30 – 8:30 a.m. | Breakfast
Join your fellow Summit attendees at an informal breakfast for a relaxed opportunity to grab a bite, connect with colleagues, and ease into the day’s conversations.
8:00– 8:30 a.m. | Summit Foundations Grounding Instructional Continuity
Kim Arnold, Director, Teaching and Learning Community Program, EDUCAUSE
We’ll kick off the Summit by laying the groundwork for a day of learning, inspiration, and community solutioneering. We’ll establish a shared understanding of instructional continuity, surface key considerations for institutional readiness, and introduce the questions and challenges that will guide our work together throughout the day.
8:30 – 9:15 a.m. | Community Insight Panel: Learning Through Disruption
Tom Cavanaugh, Vice Provost for Digital Learning, University of Central Florida
Allan Chen, Vice President for Institute Technology and CTO, California Institute of the Arts
Gloria Niles, Chief Academic Technology Innovation Officer, University of Hawaii System
Olena Zhadko, Interim University Executive Director of CUNY Online, CUNY
What can past disruptions teach us about preparing for the next one? Hear from higher education leaders who have navigated a range of disruptions as they share lessons learned, emerging practices, and challenges that remain. The conversation will explore what makes disruption uniquely complex for teaching and learning professionals, how institutions have responded, and what these experiences can teach us about moving from reactive response to proactive instructional continuity.
9:30 –10:00 a.m. | Activity: Collaboratively Mapping Disruption
Tom Cavanaugh, Vice Provost for Digital Learning, University of Central Florida
Allan Chen, Vice President for Institute Technology and CTO, California Institute of the Arts
Gloria Niles, Chief Academic Technology Innovation Officer, University of Hawaii System
Olena Zhadko, Interim University Executive Director of CUNY Online, CUNY
Together we’ll explore what disruption looks like through a teaching and learning lens. We will identify common instructional continuity challenges and vulnerabilities, consider which elements are uniquely relevant to teaching and learning, and compare experiences across institutional contexts. Together, this work will begin to build a shared map of the challenges institutions need to anticipate and address as they strengthen instructional resilience.
How to Register
In order to participate in the EDUCAUSE Teaching and Learning Summit, you’ll need to add it as an additional item as part of your 2026 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference registration.
- Go to the EDUCAUSE Registration page and click on the red “Register Now” button to register for the conference.
- On the Registration page select FC – Full Conference
- On the Preconference Programming page add the EDUCAUSE Teaching and Learning Summit.
- Complete your registration and join us in Denver.