Led and designed by Dr. Damon A. Williams and a team of experienced educators, scholars, and researchers, the NIXLA Accelerator Series helps individuals and especially institutional teams build and strengthen DEI plans and initiatives and enhance cultural competencies. We serve everyone from experienced leaders to those just beginning their DEI journey, including faculty, administrators, governance boards, student affairs staff, K-12 school leaders, corporate leaders, and more.

Each masterclass-style session includes formal online instruction followed by a brief break and then moderated small-group discussion with expert NIXLA coaches.

NEW for Teams! Finish a Plan/Project in July with Our Team Coaching Package

Accelerate or complete a specific project, plan, or initiative this summer (for example, your institution’s response plan to anti-DEI legislation). If your team is participating in four or more accelerator sessions, the team is eligible for the new NIXLA Success Coaching Package. Gain one-on-one support from our coaching and consultation team. Deepen your knowledge and apply it with professional support and consultation.

What’s Included:

• Once-a-week consultation sessions about your project with your dedicated NIXLA coach.
• One-on-one and small group coaching sessions during the NIXLA Accelerator series.
• A new NIXLA project management tool template to track your team's progress.
• Opportunity to present your project to your peers and the NIXLA team, receiving real-time feedback. 

Summer 2023 NIXLA Accelerator Full Session Descriptions

NEW SESSION ALERT!

Navigating the Current Strategic DEI Environment and Anti-DEI Legislative Dynamics

Thursday, 7/6/2023

During the session, we overview today’s DEI environment in the United States and share tips for how leaders, DEI officers, faculty, BIPOC professionals, community members and others can navigate the strategic, organizational, and personal challenges of the current state of DEI and antiracism.

This session also discusses current anti-DEI legislative dynamics impacting the future of DEI in healthcare, K-12 schools, and on college and university campuses. It includes a policy briefing on the anti-DEI movement, tracing its history, origins, and growth curve.

We will then move into an interactive conversation about action-oriented strategies to support presidents, DEI officers, and senior leaders. This session will build from our recent research and experiences informing a national discussion of how we not only survive this current policy wave but respond with increasing sophistication and coordination, and—ultimately—overcome this effort to dismantle DEI policies and strategies.

This session serves as a kick-off and introduction meant to prime and prepare attendees for their participation in the rest of the series.

Fundamentals of Success: Integrated Approaches; DEI vs. Antiracism Change Processes; and Building Engagement and Accountability

Tuesday, 7/11/2023

This session is designed to help leaders carry out an effective and high-caliber DEI planning and implementation process. We will discuss the launch point of many plans—often DEI crises, flashpoints, and student activism—all the way through to change management and implementation strategies that improve plan success. (For example, developing “big-bet," scalable initiatives and the importance of ensuring accountability, incentives, infrastructure, and resources to effectively drive change.) We will also focus on antiracism and its conceptualization within the evolving DEI paradigm on college and university campuses.

The session is designed for senior leaders, DEI officers, DEI committee chairs, communications leaders, and student affairs leaders who are:

• Working to strategically engage DEI issues in the academy.
• Nearing or currently in the process of launching, developing, and/or optimizing strategic DEI plans.
• Wanting to strengthen their DEI crisis response skills and capabilities.

Leading DEI Change Efforts in Higher Education, including Athletics, Student Affairs, and Other Administrative Units

Thursday, 7/13/2023

Too often we talk about DEI change efforts at the institutional or organizational level, yet in the last five years, DEI officers, committees, and plans have become more commonplace within colleges/schools and other divisions and units such as athletics and student affairs. Too many units struggle to prioritize and engage DEI work at a high level within both their institutional and unit environments. Yet students, faculty, and staff live their lives in their units—schools, colleges, on the playing field, in the residence halls, and more.

This professional development session is uniquely designed to help leaders who must lead DEI efforts and change locally under the supervision of their unit leader (president/chancellor, VP/VC, dean, or department chair/head), and who must also align their work to the broader DEI strategy and institutional or organizational approach.



It is designed specifically for those in higher education, including department chairs, deans, directors, chief DEI officers, DEI officers, and other leaders who are:

• Guiding DEI efforts in a specific subunit of and within the institutional environment
• Managing institution-wide responsibility and seeking to optimize and support the work of DEI efforts in units dispersed across campus

Session 5: Climate Research Best Practices

Avoiding Performative Climate Studies: Best Practices for Gathering and Utilizing Data to Disrupt a Culture of Microaggression and Othering

Thursday, 7/20/2023

Climate assessments too often result in little to no change because the completed study becomes itself the goal and output of the change conversation. Instead, good climate research can act as a seed—an input that drives new insights, understanding, policy, and action. In this session, leaders desiring to overcome a culture of microaggression and unconscious bias will learn how to fine-tune their climate research to this end. We will cover: choosing the right methodology and survey instrument; high-caliber climate data; benefits of using an external consultant versus an internal expert; how to maximize survey response rates; and how to use the data to drive antiracism and equity conversations.



This session will empower participants from any sector’s leadership and institutional research teams, especially those in higher education who want to learn more about strategically leveraging climate data to both power their DEI implementation efforts and establish a stronger accountability toward creating a more equitable and inclusive lived experience in their organizations.

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND

Inclusive Excellence in the Classroom: Strategies for Faculty & Teachers to Elevate and Foster DEI

Tuesday, 7/25/23

This session will explore strategies and techniques to build participants’ capacity to better support inclusion among students and engage with DEI issues in the classroom and beyond.

We will explore topics such as generational diversity and the culture of microaggression and othering impacting diverse students and discuss how to reach out to diverse students, respond well to tense classroom moments, and build a greater sense of inclusion. We will cover strategies for supporting diverse students, inclusive policies, assessing the school culture of inclusion and exclusion for BIPOC students, and engaging students in the DEI and antiracism change journey in the classroom.

This session will help faculty/teachers and educational leaders looking to build their allyship skills and institutional DEI capacity.

Participate in one, two, three, or all of these 3-hour accelerator sessions.

• You can choose to attend one or more (or all) sessions, as either an individual learner or in teams of five.
• Sessions are designed as half-day (3-hour), standalone learning experiences that take place from 4-7 pm ET.
• The first half of each session will begin with a live, ~75-minute virtual lecture and Q&A from a renowned scholar or nationally recognized expert.
• During the second half the session, all participants attend an interactive, 75-minute online learning community and strategy workshop.

Pricing Tiers

Benefits of Participating With a Team

The NIXLA Accelerator Series is for professional teams looking to build a competitive advantage by completing the series as a working group or learning community.

The team option is perfect for leadership groups, senior cabinets, and DEI committees looking to develop a stronger shared philosophy and approach to the work.

With so many governance boards searching to find their footing on these issues, we have taken special care to design a specific session for trustees, regents, and governors, while encouraging their participation in other aspects of our programming.

Is your school, institution, or organization interested in sponsoring more than one team or a team of more than 5 participants? E-mail us! We'd love to connect with you to learn more and discuss available learning packages designed to fit your leadership and professional development programming needs.

More About Our Presenter: Dr. Damon A. Williams, Chief Catalyst, NIXLA

• Award-winning scholar, educator, speaker, strategy consultant, and social-impact leader with 20+ years experience working with 1,000+ colleges, universities, corporations, nonprofits and government agencies
• Author of Strategic Diversity Leadership: Activating Change and Transformation In Higher Education and coauthor of The Chief Diversity Officer: Strategy, Structure, and Change Management
• For more details about Dr. Williams, visit our website.