2020-2021 the Year in Review

As this absolutely crazy academic year comes to an end, I would like to thank you for your continued support of SACUBO. Thanks to so many volunteers, it has been a very productive year in the virtual environment for SACUBO. It took a lot of hard work to change our typical in-person meetings to virtual meetings, and we truly appreciate the participation of our members in the events we hosted throughout the year. Below is a quick recap of those efforts.

SACUBO hosted its first virtual conference in June 2020. With 213 registrants from 17 states, Moving Forward in the Midst of Uncertainty was a huge success. Sessions offered during the workshop provided relevant and timely information related to the ongoing pandemic. Attendees were able to earn up to 10 hours of CPE.

The Fall Workshop in November had 270 participants and offered up to 10 CPE hours. Vision’s Convene Conferencing Platform made the Workshop very user friendly and professional. We began the conference with our general session keynote speaker Michelle Gielan, formerly an anchor of The CBS Morning News, who has spent the past decade researching the link between happiness and success. She gave a great presentation focusing on resilience and optimism – a very timely topic in that we all faced issues with the national pandemic. An accounting track and concurrent sessions rounded out the two-day event. The accounting track addressed GASB and FASB updates and issues for public and private institutions. Concurrent sessions, with topics including financial management, accreditation, ethics, etc., provided attendees with options. Attendees were highly engaged as evidenced by responses to the polling questions and general questions from the audience. Overall, the virtual Workshop was a great success.

The SACUBO Women’s Leadership Forum continues to be popular and was a sold-out event again this year. The virtual conference held on March 4–5 featured half-day sessions each day. This year’s theme was Leading at All Levels, and attendees heard from great women speakers from all levels within their career while earning up to 8 CPE hours. We strategically structured breakout discussion groups and added optional continuing engagement discussions to develop a virtual networking platform.

The SACUBO Annual Meeting was held as a virtual conference on April 19–20 with 376 attendees. The conference started with a panel of four college presidents discussing lessons learned during the pandemic. Susan Whealler Johnston, President and CEO of NACUBO, moderated this panel. The second general session speaker was David Epstein, a New York Times bestselling author, who spoke on why generalists triumph in a specialized world. In addition to the two general sessions, attendees could choose from numerous concurrent sessions packed with relevant and useful information. As part of our partnership with the Association of College and University Policy Administrators (ACUPA), an ACUPA session was offered in each of the time slots. Attendees were able to earn up to 12 hours of CPE.

A variety of networking opportunities was offered to Annual Meeting attendees including sponsor networking rooms, session speaker networking rooms, ad hoc topic networking rooms, and Wine 101: It’s a RED Talk, Not a TED Talk. As everyone had struggled with networking on a virtual platform, we are hopeful these opportunities resonated with our members.

The 2020 College Business Management Institute (CBMI) was cancelled due to the pandemic. However, SACUBO is looking forward to continuing its partnership with the University of Kentucky for this longstanding program. 2021 CBMI will be held on a virtual platform with a welcome and overview on July 25 and sessions on July 26–30. Participants will be able to earn up to 26 hours of CPE in this format.

SACUBO conferences and meetings provide members with the opportunity to participate in conversations throughout the events. These discussions provide opportunities to learn from and share information with others. The pandemic made those exchanges more difficult so SACUBO took those conversations online to provide a regular opportunity for informal Conversations via video conference. In addition, Lunch and Learn sessions provided relevant and timely information and tools to members. Although attendance numbers for SACUBO Conversations and Lunch and Learn sessions were minimal, the discussions were engaging and allowed members to stay connected with colleagues.

The SACUBO Board remained active throughout the year planning the virtual conferences for our membership. We also updated the Strategic Plan and shared it with the members at the Annual Business Meeting in May. The new Strategic Plan includes an emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion which is so important to all our organizations.

I hope you find your membership valuable. SACUBO remains committed to delivering relevant professional development opportunities and providing information to help members run their organizations more effectively.

Susan Maddux

SACUBO President (2020-2021)

May 18, 2021