Reclaiming Agency Workshop
An inspiring and practical session supporting:
Campus professional development programs
Leadership institutes
Administrative faculty and staff gatherings
Retreats and conferences
Groups that need a shared framework and language
Sustaining judgment in times of institutional strain
Higher education professionals are working through sustained institutional pressure: changing beliefs about the value of a degree, demographic change, constrained resources, leadership transitions, political scrutiny, new technologies, reorganizations, vacancies, and uncertainty about what comes next. At the same time, colleges and universities still contain committed people, strong teams, meaningful work, and areas where individuals can exercise real influence.
Institutional strain affects everyone differently:
Why can two people working in the same difficult environment experience their work so differently?
Why do some teams remain connected and purposeful while others become depleted?
When many of the forces affecting our work are beyond our control, where do we still have meaningful choices?
The session begins by naming the conditions honestly. Some parts of higher education work are harder because the environment itself has become harder. From there, participants identify where institutional strain is affecting them most and where their attention, judgment, and choices can still make a difference.
Start by identifying what the work is asking of you
Participants assess four dimensions of their current experience:
Purpose: Can I connect what I do to my values and what matters to me?
Pride: Can I still find reasons to value the institution and my work, even while seeing its challenges and shortcomings clearly?
Belonging: Where do I experience affirming connection with colleagues, teams, or leadership?
Agency: Where do I have meaningful choices about what I do and how I do it?
These questions help participants identify where institutional strain is affecting them most strongly and what may need attention.
Together, these dimensions also point toward something more fundamental: whether people experience a sense of dignity in their work.
Then decide where your energy can have an effect
Participants distinguish among:
what they cannot control;
what they may be able to influence; and
what remains within their control.
Participants consider where they may be spending attention and energy without meaningful effect, what conditions they can try to influence, what needs they can communicate, what low-value work they or their teams can stop doing, and what practices might strengthen connection and purpose.
The session also examines how choices about time, attention, communication, meetings, boundaries, and rest affect the quality of judgment people bring to their work.
The goal is not to deny difficult conditions. It is to identify what remains possible within them and act more deliberately from there.
What participants will explore
Participants will:
examine the external and institutional forces shaping their current work;
assess where purpose, pride, belonging, and agency feel strong or strained;
identify which needs or values may be driving their reactions to difficult circumstances;
distinguish between what they can control, what they can influence, and what they cannot reasonably treat as their responsibility;
identify where attention and energy are being spent without meaningful effect;
consider practical ways to influence working conditions, strengthen teams, communicate needs, or stop low-value activity;
examine how habits around attention, time, meetings, communication, and rest affect judgment; and
identify choices and actions they can carry forward after the session.
This program does not simply urge employees to become more resilient in the face of difficult conditions. It begins by acknowledging those conditions directly, then asks what remains possible within them.
Choose the format that fits your group
Reclaiming Agency Workshop: Core Session
90 minutes
Virtual/remote or in person
A focused session combining institutional context, guided self-assessment, and practical strategies for directing energy, protecting attention and judgment, and acting with greater purpose and agency.
The Core Session is adapted to the institution. Before the program, Ilene meets with the sponsoring leader to understand the group, the institutional context, and the pressures currently shaping participants' work. Relevant institutional priorities, mission language, circumstances, and examples are incorporated into the session.
Includes: Discovery conversation, customized presentation, participant reflection prompts, and follow-up resources.
Fee: Starts at $2,500
Reclaiming Agency Workshop: Extended Session
Half day or full day
Virtual/remote or in person
The Extended Session moves beyond the core framework into facilitated application.
Participants have more time to work with specific institutional and team conditions such as where attention and energy are being lost, what they can influence, and what practices can strengthen judgment, connection, and intentional choices.
Depending on the institution's goals, the workshop can include structured reflection, paired or small-group discussion, team exercises, case scenarios, facilitated application to current institutional circumstances, and follow-up resources. The scope and fee are developed in consultation with your institution’s sponsoring leader.
Further customization
Some institutions want to use the workshop as the beginning of a larger leadership development, team development, or coaching engagement. The Reclaiming Agency Workshop can be expanded to address a particular group, transition, or institutional challenge, including:
leadership teams working through change;
units experiencing leadership turnover or reorganization;
new and interim leaders;
teams rebuilding connection after sustained strain;
supervisors seeking to make performance management more developmental;
managers seeking to strengthen purpose, belonging, and agency within their teams; or
cohorts of department chairs or other emerging leaders.
Extended engagements can combine the workshop with team facilitation, individual or group coaching, follow-up sessions, or a series designed around the needs identified during the initial work.
“I plan to repeat the self-assessment periodically. At one point, Dr. Crawford explained that the four stability anchors, when positive, brought a sense of dignity. It seems simple, but it was a revelation to me. ”
“I can’t overstate how much I appreciated the no-stress style of the presentation. Please keep the no-pressure, private self-assessment format. It was so helpful.”
About Ilene Crawford
Ilene Crawford, PhD, is a higher education leadership coach, consultant, and former provost. Her work combines professional coaching discipline with 25 years of experience as a faculty member and academic leader, giving her a practical understanding of the distributed authority, resource constraints, leadership transitions, and competing responsibilities that shape work in colleges and universities.
Through Ilene Crawford Consulting, she helps higher education leaders clarify what a situation requires, identify where meaningful action is possible, and develop the judgment and practical skill to act effectively.