Webinar | Strategic Design: Building Trust Through Student-Centered Change

Student journeys are complex—they are both deeply personal and involve countless interactions with faculty, staff, and systems. Students often have limited visibility on their path from enrollment to graduation, while staff struggle to provide seamless support as our institutions have become increasingly complex.

At the same time, higher education faces unprecedented challenges. Public trust is declining, budgets are constrained, and emerging technologies like AI are reshaping expectations. In this environment, institutions must demonstrate they are both effective AND genuinely student-centered However, traditional approaches often force leaders to choose between efficiency and care.

Join Phyllis Treige, associate vice chancellor of experience strategy and design at UC Santa Cruz, as she shares how strategic design provides a powerful framework for being both competent and caring while navigating institutional change. You'll learn practical approaches to align stakeholders, build organizational resilience, and create sustainable improvements that rebuild trust through measurable student impact.

Learning Outcomes:

• Build trust by centering student needs in leadership decisions, initiatives, and programs.
• Make strategic trade-offs confidently, using design methods that clarify problems, identify meaningful impacts, and guide tactics.
• Strengthen organizational alignment through collaborative design techniques that unite diverse stakeholders around sustainable change.
• Navigate complex pressures including budget constraints, policy shifts, and technology disruption (including AI) while maintaining student-centered focus.