RPUs are navigating one of the most complex periods in higher education history, marked by shifting federal policy, accelerated technological change, financial pressures, demographic disruption, and intensifying public scrutiny. At the same time, these institutions remain the nation’s most powerful engines of social mobility, civic leadership, and regional vitality.

This summer convening brings together senior academic and student affairs leaders to examine how RPUs are leading with purpose, evidence, and innovation in turbulent times. Rather than focusing solely on constraints, the meeting will elevate strategic choices, courageous leadership, and scalable practices that empower institutions to thrive while staying true to their mission.

Participants will engage in forward-looking dialogue around a central question:

How can RPUs evolve—strategically, structurally, and culturally—while strengthening their role as anchors of democracy, opportunity, and student success?

Key Questions We Will Explore Together

• Federal policy and institutional autonomy: How are RPUs responding to evolving federal and state dynamics, increasing accountability demands, and changing regulatory expectations?
• Technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and academic work: How are leaders responsibly integrating AI and emerging technologies into teaching, advising, operations, and faculty work while preserving academic integrity and human judgment?
• Redefining student success: How are institutions broadening definitions of success to include persistence, equity, timely completion, and post-graduate career and civic outcomes?
• Communicating the value and purpose of higher education: How do we articulate the value of higher education amid skepticism, misinformation, and declining trust?
• Fostering dialogue in polarized contexts: What leadership strategies help campuses sustain intellectual inquiry, free expression, and constructive debate in a volatile sociopolitical environment?
• Ensuring student thriving under constraint: How can institutions sustain student support, belonging, and wellbeing when programs, services, and resources have been under pressure or eliminated?

Why Attend

This convening is designed for leaders who recognize that incremental change is no longer sufficient. It offers space for honest reflection, peer learning, and strategic alignment grounded in the realities facing regional public universities and focused on decisions academic and student affairs leads must make now.

Program Highlights

We offer a rare opportunity for colleagues from across RPUs to meet, share, and learn from each other’s challenges and successes.

AASCU’s Summer Meeting for Academic and Student Affairs Leaders is a place of welcoming and acceptance. Content presented celebrates and advances the work accomplished at institutions nationwide. Speakers, participants, and staff alike are committed to learning and growing together.

Sessions are anchored in AASCU’s commitment to student success and the key considerations (e.g. practices, mindsets, policies, and structures) of what it takes to cultivate truly student-centered environment. 

The Roosevelt New Orleans – Waldorf Astoria Hotel
130 Roosevelt Way
New Orleans, LA 70112

More information about reservations and accommodations will be available soon.