Leading in higher education is more complex than ever. If it feels that way to you right now, it’s because it is. The challenges landing on higher ed leaders simultaneously are genuinely unprecedented.
Evolve exists to help higher education leaders like you build the internal capacity and capabilities to lead through complexity rather than just survive it. What makes Evolve different isn’t just our curriculum and framework, it’s the three of us, Drs. Brian Arao, Dawn Lee, and me. Together, we bring something to participants that none of us could offer alone.
Here are the four E’s of what we bring to Evolve.
Experience: We’ve been there.
All three of us have held leadership roles in higher education. We’ve navigated budget cuts and search committees, managed staff through crises, sat in senior leadership meetings where there were no good options, and shown up the next morning anyway. We’re not observing higher education from the outside. We’ve lived inside it.
Expertise: We know what we’re talking about.
Higher education leadership is our field of study as well as our practice. This is our discipline. And the expertise we bring to Evolve is not static: every cohort sharpens our understanding of what higher ed leaders are actually facing and what they genuinely need. We are learning alongside you even as we support you.
Empathy: We get it.
As coaches, we are inside the real stories of higher ed leadership every week. We hear the problems, the successes, the things leaders can’t say out loud in their own institutions. We are not here to evaluate your performance or supervise you. We are here to understand your specific situation and be genuinely useful from there.
Engagement: We’re in it with you.
Evolve is not a program you receive. It’s a partnership you participate in. Your individual coach learns the specifics of your context, your institution, your role, your identities, your experience, and your goals. Then we work with you to figure out where you are, where you want to go, and how to get there. The experience is personal, not prescriptive. You also connect with a cohort of peers walking the same path, which turns out to matter more than most participants expect.
If you’re ready to learn more, you’re welcome to join our newsletter or attend a free Discover Evolve information session.
