Notes from the Conference Hall: Hot Takes from the CASE Summit for Leaders in Advancement

For many attendees, the CASE Summit was their first in-person conference experience since the pandemic, and it showed. The vibe inside the Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park was equal parts elation and somber reflection — the by-product of more than two years of mission-critical work during a time when the mission of higher education has been questioned more than ever. 

There were lots of big questions: But a few overarching themes emerged from the three-day conference. Here’s the rundown.

We’re witnessing the dark side of hustle culture in real time.

Increasing productivity used to be associated with competitive advantage. But productivity without creativity is working harder, not smarter — and it’s adding unhealthy weight to our collective workloads, according to digital anthropologist Rahaf Harfoush, author of Hustle and Float: Reclaim Your Creativity and Thrive in a World Obsessed with Work.

In her opening keynote, Harfoush addressed questions we’ve all been feeling: As our organizations increasingly value and optimize productivity in our hybrid work models, are we sacrificing creativity? Is our output better? Or is there just more of it? Even though we glorify taking breaks, that doesn’t mean our teams aren’t broken.

The truth is, we’re all just burnt out, Harfoush said. 

Even Beyoncé, long hailed as the capitalist exemplar of hyperproductivity incarnate, is burnt out — as evidenced by her recently released track, “Break My Soul,” which has already entered the zeitgeist as the first theme song of the Great Resignation.

Consider the lyrics:

Now, I just fell in love
And I just quit my job (oh)
I’m gonna find new drive
Damn, they work me so damn hard (oh)
Work by nine, then off past five
And they work my nerves
That’s why I cannot sleep at night
I’m lookin’ for motivation
I’m lookin’ for a new foundation, yeah
And I’m on that new vibration
I’m buildin’ my own foundation, yeah

@Beyonce is telling me to quit my job ???

— Ashleigh Patterson (@AshleighPat) June 21, 2022

According to Harfoush, productivity alone can’t offer the same competitive edge it used to. There’s too much noise. Too much information. Too many communication channels. As we work ever harder amid sociopolitical upheaval, war, and the pandemic — with access to all of it on social feeds and media channels algorithmically programmed to keep us scrolling — Harfoush cautioned us to consider the relationship between hustle and exhaustion. And how our true competitive advantage in work (and life) comes not from our ability to increase output, but from our ability to make sound, split-second decisions. 

That’s not hustle. That’s creativity.

Communicating mission, values, and institutional stance has never been harder (and it’s really hard).

If you never thought you’d read the words “role play” and “CASE” in the same sentence, we’d have agreed with you. Until a poignant main-stage plenary session that featured a mock senior leadership meeting and interactive town hall about fictitious Great State University, located “somewhere in the Midwest,” as it wrestles with the fallout when a transformational $20 million gift from a corporation with connections to Big Oil is met with resistance from students, faculty, and alumni who are calling for the university to completely divest its endowment from the Carbon 200. 

Here’s the scenario: Great State’s students are planning a sit-in and the student newspaper is calling. There’s a petition to consider and optics to think about as Great State’s leadership team must address questions about the interests of the bottom line and institutional mission. Are they at odds? Doesn’t philanthropy serve mission? Should the board vote to divest — even when it’s the more fiscally irresponsible decision in the short term? Or is it more nuanced than that?

Of course, the president can’t make the event due to a positive COVID test. The provost is unable to attend as well. So it’s all on Great State’s leads in marketing and communications, operations, and development to hold down the town hall. (Those parts were played masterfully by Brian Hastings, president and CEO of the University of Nebraska Foundation, Montique Cotton Kelly, senior vice president for stakeholder engagement and COO for the University of Connecticut, and Rachel Sandison, deputy vice chancellor for external engagement and vice principal for external relations for the University of Glasgow.)

“I’m an assistant professor of French, which makes me a money expert,” an attendee of the town hall chimed in, ultimately asking, “Can’t you just pull from the endowment?”

A faculty member from the chemistry department demanded to know why he and his colleagues weren’t consulted, as they are “experts in the field of fossil fuels.” 

A board member asked why the advancement team couldn’t just find another gift from another donor — as this gift looked like greenwashing.

“We are not a university of broken promises,” said Sandison, the fictional Great State’s chief communicator, triggering a wave of laughter through the conference hall.

This tragicomic scenario laid bare just how many layers that advancement folks and other leaders must consider amid our currently heated political and social climate — when every institutional decision appears to be framed by the public in Faustian absolutes (read: Is Great State sacrificing mission for the bottom line?). 

The faux town hall played out like a higher ed version of a Sam Shepard play — darkly comical, while tackling what at times seemed like absurd demands from higher ed’s myriad (and opposing) constituents. 

Was it satire? Or extreme realism? Either way, kudos, CASE.

Universities don’t just educate. They facilitate dreams.

Ritesh Gupta, an Emmy-winning journalist turned filmmaker, delivered a compelling case for rethinking how we mine stories about impact to show the “why” in what we do. 

For example: That $20 million dollar gift Great State received might be a game-changer, but it’s not the headline or the story, according to Gupta. There must be a hook, an emotional appeal, and a more measured approach to finding the narrative window into our stories to show the correlation between giving and outcomes — or any outcomes, really. 

We’ve all heard the phrase “show, don’t tell” before, but Gupta challenged the audience to be deliberate about what exactly we show in our content. 

“Universities don’t just educate people,” he said. “They facilitate emotional experiences.” We just have to find the hook, and take our audience for a ride on an emotional roller coaster.

To illustrate his methodology, Gupta shared “This Bud’s for 3,” an award-winning, four-minute video he produced for Budweiser in 2019 as a surprise for NBA legend Dwyane Wade on the occasion of his retirement. The video wasn’t framed around Wade’s prowess on the hardwood, but rather, it showed the impact Wade made on the lives of people he helped off the court. 

But enough telling. Watch this (and take note for your next promotional video).

Being together felt so right (but we’re struggling with how to do it right on campus).

After three days of convivial sharing and commiserating in the Windy City, it was clear that being together felt great. Minus the masks peppered through the conference hall, it felt exactly like how conferences used to be in the “Great Before.” 

However, based on the number of sessions that touched on culture, coaching, empathy, empowering teams, and engaging remotely, it’s also clear that we’re struggling to bottle that same excitement on campus with our teams in a way that isn’t quixotic or contrived. While many presenters offered pearls and recommendations, perhaps the biggest takeaway from the Summit is that there is no silver bullet to build culture and team cohesion — or anything, really — in the same ways we did before. 

Personally, I left feeling hopeful that organizations like CASE are addressing these pain points. Not because I think there’s a quick answer you can digest during a single session — because I think it will take research, pedagogy, and hands-on collaboration to solve such ubiquitous problems.

After all, isn’t that what higher education does best?