Fostering Change for Academic Library Leaders Cohort

Fostering

About the Program

The Fostering Change for Academic Library Leaders cohort aims to build a community of change agents in academic libraries. Library workers often recognize the need to initiate a change in their organizations but may have no idea where to start. In this cohort experience, participants will gain the tools to spark, lead, and sustain change no matter your organizational position. You will also gain a network of peers to lean on as you lead change. The cohort runs from Monday, May 26 through Friday, July 25, 2025.

This program will build on ACRL’s Fostering Change: A Team-Based Guide, co-authored with Dani Cook and published in 2020, and the two ensuing team-based cohorts developed with Dani Cook and Sojourna Cunningham and offered in 2021 and 2022.

To hear the results of the pre-cohort survey and how the program will provide practical strategies for working with change stakeholders and cultivating leadership capacity, go to Fostering Change for Academic Library Leaders.

Why You Should Participate

This leadership development program will focus on helping participants explore your identity as a change leader, regardless of role or positionality. The facilitators will empower you as change agents, guiding you in identifying how to actualize change. You will learn practical strategies for working with change stakeholders inside and outside of the library and cultivate your leadership capacity to address the challenges facing academic libraries.

The cohort is for you if:

  • You are in or want to move into formal leadership or management roles.
  • You want to grow professionally and expand your leadership capacity.
  • You are or work for interim leaders.
  • You are a library worker seeking effective strategies for and community in meeting the evolving needs of our campuses.

Learning Outcomes

Participants will leave the cohort with a toolkit of change leadership practices that will help you take your library from where it is today to a new imagined future. Through a mix of facilitator-led presentations and candid cohort conversations, you will examine your organization’s cultural readiness for change, create inclusive change processes, and develop skills to lead effective change. Upon completion of the cohort, participants will receive the content from all facilitator presentations, a change leadership toolkit, readings to complement the openly available Fostering Change, and a certificate of completion.

Schedule

The cohort will meet every Tuesday from the weeks of May 26 through July 21, 2025, from 12 pm to 1:30 pm Eastern / 11 am to 12:30 pm Central / 10 am to 11:30 am Mountain / 9 am to 10:30 am Pacific.

  • Week 1: May 26-30 | Exploring Your Role as Change Leader
  • Week 2: June 2-6 | Leadership Models and Change
  • Week 3: June 9-13 | Psychology of Change
  • Week 4: June 16-20 | Co-Creating Change
  • Week 5: June 23-27 | Fostering a Culture of Change
  • Week 6: June 30-July 4 | Planning, Executing, and Assessing Change
  • Week 7: July 7-11 | Learning Through Change
  • Week 8: July 14-18 | Your Role as a Change Leader: Moving Forward
  • Week 9: July 21-25 | Cohort Wrap-Up
  • Optional post-cohort coaching session the week of August 4

Facilitators

Ippoliti.jpg

Cinthya Ippoliti (she/her). As director of the Auraria Library, Cinthya provides direct administrative leadership for library services, spaces, partnerships, and programming on the tri-institutional Auraria Campus which includes the University of Colorado, Denver; Metropolitan State University of Denver; and Community College of Denver and serves approximately 35,000 highly diverse students in an urban setting. She is the co-author of Fostering Change: A Team-Based Guide and co-editor of Critical Library Leadership: Managing Self and Others in Today's Academic Library, both published by ACRL. You can email her at cmilib3957@gmail.com.

Brianna Marshall - headshot.jpg

Brianna Marshall (she/her) is Interim Dean of the Library at Northern Kentucky University’s Steely Library. She is the co-author of Fostering Change: A Team-Based Guide, published by ACRL, and editor of the book The Complete Guide to Personal Digital Archiving, published by ALA Press. Her research interests include library administration, change management in academic libraries, and open data and infrastructure. You can email her at marshallb7@nku.edu.

Registration

Registration fee
ACRL member: $3,200
Non ACRL member: $3,999

Registration deadline
May 23, 2025

Registration capacity
40 participants. Registrations are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Register now!
Submit your Fostering Change for Academic Library Leaders registration via the online registration form.

Questions?

Questions about the Fostering Change for Academic Library Leaders Cohort should be directed to Erin Nevius at enevius@ala.org.