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ACHE South is now accepting proposals for our upcoming conference, Beyond the books: Nurturing the well-being of higher education communities. This event brings together educators, administrators, workforce development professionals, and student support advocates to explore strategies that foster well-being, resilience, and success for faculty, staff, and nontraditional students in higher education. This year’s theme explores how higher education institutions can prioritize the holistic well-being of faculty, staff, and students. It focuses on creating supportive environments that foster emotional resilience,social connection, and spiritual fulfillment. Sessions will highlight practices that promote a thriving, compassionate campus culture. The deadline for proposal submissions is November 5, 2025.
We invite proposals that address the following themes:
Emotional Resilience
• Faculty & Staff:
o Burnout prevention: Strategies for supporting overextended educators and staff.
o Emotional wellness: Mindfulness, stress management, and self-care practices.
o Compassionate leadership: Creating people-centered departmental cultures.
o Work-life balance: Policies and practices that support healthier workloads.
o Faculty and staff development: Equipping educators with tools to recognize and respond to emotional health challenges in the classroom.
o Holistic advising: Incorporating emotional wellness into academic counseling.
• Students (traditional and non-traditional):
o Burnout prevention: Strategies for supporting overextended traditional students navigating academic pressure and nontraditional students balancing studies with work and family.
o Innovative practices: Best practices for engaging and retaining students through support efforts (traditional, non-traditional, and online).
o Emotional wellness: Mindfulness, stress management, and self-care practices.
o Resilience in transition: Supporting students who are first-generation, transfer, or returning after time away from education.
o Workforce readiness and resilience: Helping students build coping skills for high-pressure careers, including adaptability and managing change in evolving industries.
Social Connection and Community Building
• Faculty & Staff:
o Campus belonging: Fostering inclusion, connection, and engagement.
o Empathy in education: Building stronger faculty-student relationships.
o Collaborative learning: Group-based projects that promote meaningful connections.
o Civic engagement: Service-learning programs to strengthen social bonds.
o Support networks: Peer mentoring and mental health advocacy programs.
• Students (traditional and non-traditional):
o Engaging nontraditional students: Strategies for engaging commuter students, adult learners, and online students who often feel disconnected from campus life.
o Campus belonging: Fostering inclusion, connection, and engagement.
o Networking: Developing programs that connect students with alumni and industry leaders.
o Peer mentorship programs: Creating bridges between traditional and nontraditional students to share experiences and foster connection.
o Workforce collaboration and networking: Partnerships with local industries to create mentorship, internship, and apprenticeship opportunities that connect students to both peers and professionals.
Spiritual and Values-Based Support
• Faculty & Staff:
o Values-based leadership: Infusing compassion and empathy into academic culture.
o Personal growth and reflection: Workshops on integrating personal values with professional roles, retreats for academic renewal, sessions on rediscoveringpurpose and passion in teaching or student support.
o Workshops or faculty and staff support groups: faith-based, season-of-life, career advancement, work-life balance, servant leadership.
• Students (traditional and non-traditional):
o Purpose-driven learning: Helping students connect education and vocation to personal meaning.
o Interfaith and spiritual programming: Offering inclusive, non-denominational support.
o Ethics in the workforce: Preparing graduates to bring values-based leadership and ethical decision-making into their careers.
o Service: Opportunities for students to focus on servant leadership and the value of contributing to your community.
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