Illinois Tech faculty and staff members are invited to attend the third and fourth forums in the “Future of Higher Education” forum series.

Whether or not you attended the first forum, we hope you will join us at others. What we did in Forums one and two complements but is not a prerequisite for the processes we will use in subsequent forums. Note that we will engage in a similar set of activities in Forums two and three, the former was at the Mies Campus and the latter will be at the Downtown Campus. At Forum #4 we will engage in a final interactive analysis process, summarize the results of the series, and discuss how this information will be shared with the strategic planning committees.

You are encouraged to bring your lunch to these brown bag events; beverages and desserts will be provided. While an RSVP is not required, it is helpful if you do let us know of your interest to attend for our planning purposes. Express interest here.

• Forum #3: Re-writing the Rules will take place on Thursday, May 3 from 12:15–1:45 p.m. on the 10th floor of Morris Hall at the Downtown Campus. Add this event to your calendar.
• Forum #4: Smash and Summarize will be held on Tuesday, May 8 from 12:15–1:45 p.m. in the Hermann Hall Expo on the Mies Campus. Add this event to your calendar.

Participants from the first two forums overwhelmingly agree that the events are meeting the objectives of:

• contributing toward a campus culture of communication and collaboration
• constructively providing ideas and perspectives to the university’s strategic planning committees
• sharing out-of-the box creativity-sparking methods that could be applied to work and life
• inspiring a different kind of professional development and growth among participants

Testimonials from participants of the first two forums include:

“The interactive aspect of this session made it engaging and exposed attendees to new ideas.”

“Content was excellent, there was a good balance of structure and follow up with freedom.”

“Love that you are doing this.”

“Thanks. Look forward to next session.”

“Would love to attend more of these.”

“Thank you for facilitating this important event.”

“Love the process and the exercise.”

“The collaboration was refreshing.”

“Liked being in small groups with different people from different offices.”

“The topic was thought-provoking and led to great discussions.”

“Everything was great :)”

“Thanks! Great to get a different thought process.”

“Thank you for making space for this!”

“Hope this continues!”

“More people engage!!!”

Information about what we did at Forum #1 and the results are available here.

We hope that you will join us and contribute your thoughts in this on-going exploration. If you have questions, contact Megan Mozina at mmozina@iit.edu.

“Future of Higher Ed” Lead Exploration Team

• Britt Burton Freeman
• Chris White
• Frank Lane
• Jacqueline Anderson
• Liz Friedman
• Megan Mozina
• Renee Albrecht-Mallinger
• Sarah Pariseau

This “Future of Higher Education” forum series is co-sponsored by Academic Affairs, the Staff Advisory Council, and the University Faculty Council.