Join us for AI and the Student Experience: Leadership Applications and Measurable Impact, part of the EDUCAUSE Leadership Series. In this three-part experience, synchronous sessions and asynchronous content are combined to support deep, applied learning. Through case studies and examples from higher education, participants will gain practical insights into how institutions navigate the intersection of AI and impactful student experiences.
NOTE: Each session builds on the previous one. Participants are encouraged to engage in all three to maximize their learning.
Schedule
- Session 1: January 12, 2027 | 12 noon–1:00pm ET
- Session 2: January 14, 2027 | 12 noon–2:00pm ET
- Session 3: January 19, 2027 | 12 noon–2:00pm ET
Sessions
Session 1 | Align without Controlling: Leadership through Principles and Guardrails
Higher education leaders increasingly find themselves navigating a tension between institutional consistency and local autonomy. Traditional governance models often promise alignment but can create bottlenecks, frustration, and resistance. At the same time, decentralization can lead to duplication, technical debt, and fragmented experiences. Effective leaders must find a better path.
This session explores the first pillar of the Architect's Compass: Align without Controlling. Participants will examine how successful leaders replace excessive oversight with principles, guardrails, and shared understanding that enable teams to make effective local decisions while advancing institutional objectives. Rather than serve as gatekeepers, leaders become navigators and enablers who provide direction, establish boundaries, and create conditions for success.
Drawing on examples from higher education institutions, participants will explore practical approaches for defining non-negotiable standards, identifying areas where autonomy should flourish and creating "paved paths" that make desirable behaviors easier than alternatives. Discussion will focus on governance as an enabler rather than an obstacle and include methods to simplify decision-making, reduce organizational friction, and foster trust between centralized and distributed technology organizations.
Participants will engage with peers to assess their own governance environments and identify opportunities to move from compliance-focused oversight toward leadership models built on transparency, shared outcomes, and mutual accountability.
Higher education IT leaders regularly navigate the tension between institutional consistency and local autonomy. Too much centralized control can slow decisions and create frustration, while too little coordination can contribute to duplication, technical debt, security risks, and fragmented experiences.
This opening session introduces the Architect’s Compass and its first pillar: Align without Controlling. Participants will examine how principles, guardrails, and shared outcomes can help teams make effective local decisions while advancing institutional priorities. Examples will illustrate how leaders can clarify nonnegotiable requirements, identify areas where autonomy can flourish, and create “paved paths” that make preferred practices easier to adopt.
Through reflection and peer discussion, participants will assess where their current governance approaches create clarity or friction. They will identify one opportunity to replace detailed oversight with a clearer principle, guardrail, or paved path that supports both institutional alignment and responsible innovation.
Learning Outcomes:
- Differentiate between governance that enables and governance that constrains innovation.
- Identify organizational areas where principles and guardrails can replace detailed controls.
- Design leadership approaches that balance institutional alignment with local autonomy.
- Create paved-path strategies that reduce governance friction and encourage adoption of preferred practices and services.
Session 2 | Creating Coherence: Leading across Boundaries of Technology, Data, and Decisions
This session focuses on the second pillar of the Architect's Compass: Create Coherence. Participants will explore how leaders establish shared context across departments, campuses, and technology domains without imposing unnecessary centralization. The session examines how common language, clear business capabilities, data stewardship, and interoperable systems can create consistency while preserving flexibility.
Participants will discuss the leadership practices necessary to build trust among stakeholders with different priorities and perspectives. Special attention will be given to the role of leaders in creating organizational coherence during periods of rapid change, including digital transformation initiatives, AI adoption, cloud modernization, and evolving student expectations. Real-world examples will illustrate how institutions have addressed fragmentation, reduced duplication, and strengthened collaboration through shared models and collective decision-making frameworks.
Through applied exercises and peer discussion, participants will examine a cross-boundary challenge from their own institution, identify where shared context or connections are missing, and determine practical steps for improving coherence.
Learning Outcomes:
- Explain the relationship between shared context and organizational coherence.
- Identify sources and consequences of fragmentation across institutional technology, data, and organizational contexts.
- Develop approaches for building common language and shared understanding among stakeholders.
- Develop an approach for strengthening collaboration around a cross-boundary institutional challenge with interoperability.
Session 3 | Influence at Scale: Architecting Alignment for Action
Many consequential decisions occur outside a leader's direct span of control. Advancing these decisions increasingly depends on the ability to influence outcomes, build consensus, and guide decision-making through relationships rather than authority.
This session explores the third pillar of the Architect's Compass: Influence Architecture at Scale. Participants will examine practical methods for stakeholder engagement, storytelling, negotiation, prioritization, and consensus-building. They will explore how to translate technical concepts into language that resonates with executive leaders, faculty, researchers, and business stakeholders. Discussion will also explore strategies for creating alignment during difficult conversations, navigating competing interests, and building coalitions around institutional goals.
Through interactive exercises and peer discussion, attendees will practice reframing enterprise IT challenges from positions of authority to positions of influence. Participants will leave with techniques for communicating value, facilitating better decisions, and encouraging action across organizational boundaries. This session concludes the Leadership Series by helping participants develop the confidence and capabilities needed to guide complex institutions through enterprise change while fostering trust, collaboration, and shared ownership.
Learning Outcomes:
- Apply storytelling, engagement, and consensus-building techniques to strengthen support for a proposed direction.
- Translate technology and architecture concepts into stakeholder-relevant language and outcomes.
- Develop strategies for leading enterprise transformation without relying on formal authority.
- Build an action plan that strengthens relationships and sustains long-term organizational alignment.