DREAM Studios

9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.

The AI-Enhanced Student Success Journey: Leveraging Technology To Drive Community Vibrancy From First Contact to Career

This interactive workshop maps the complete student journey from first contact, through classroom success, and on to career milestones, identifying strategic AI integration points that accelerate student momentum while building community vibrancy. Participants will explore how AI can transform each touchpoint to create an "inescapable" support system that promotes access, momentum, and mobility for all learners. Participants will leave empowered and equipped with an AI implementation roadmap.
Registration Fee:
$195 per workshop for in-Network colleges
$245 for out-of-Network attendees
 

AI for Access & Achievement: Empowering Community Colleges to Unlock Student Success 
Artificial Intelligence is reshaping the higher-education landscape—yet many community colleges wonder how to turn ambition into action. This immersive, hands-on workshop demystifies AI, showcases proven tools, and guides participants through practical exercises that connect AI capabilities to real-world challenges in student access and success. Attendees will leave with the knowledge, confidence, and actionable plan to champion responsible AI initiatives on their campuses.

Sponsored by Element451

$100 per workshop for in-Network colleges
$155 for out-of-Network attendees

Beyond Credits: Embedding Advising To Strengthen Dual Enrollment Pathways
Dual enrollment has become a powerful strategy for expanding access to higher education, yet too often students earn credits without a clear plan for how those experiences connect to future college and career goals. This session will highlight innovative ways institutions are embedding intentional advising into dual enrollment programs to ensure students, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, are supported in charting meaningful postsecondary pathways.

The session will feature institutions that have pioneered this work as well as an early preview of data from a national survey on the topic. Presenters will share examples from the field that demonstrate how integrated college and career advising can increase dual enrollment participation, strengthen persistence, and improve matriculation into higher education. Participants will examine real-world models, reflect on their own institutional practices, and explore strategies to remove barriers that prevent students from fully leveraging dual enrollment. Attendees will leave with actionable ideas to expand and enhance advising approaches that not only guide students through high school coursework but also connect them to long-term academic and career success.
Registration Fee:
$195 per workshop for in-Network colleges
$245 for out-of-Network attendees

Blueprint for Belonging: Co-Designing a Successful Student Experience

This interactive studio explores how co-creating the student experience with students leads to transformational impact and a deeper sense of connection and inclusion. Participants will explore how centering student voice in the design of programs and services fosters deeper engagement, equity, and a lasting sense of belonging. Through participatory activities, attendees will collaboratively build a tangible resource for capturing and elevating student perspectives—laying the foundation for inclusive, student-driven innovation across the college experience.
Registration Fee:
$195 per workshop for in-Network colleges
$245 for out-of-Network attendees

Building a Strong Data-Empowered Culture

Advancing data literacy contributes to improved decision-making, increased innovation, and faculty and staff engagement that advances organizational transformation, equity, and student success.? This session explores key components of data literacy with a focus on creating a culture of empowerment, collaboration, and storytelling that turns data insights into strategies that support the holistic, intersectional needs of students.? The session will include an assessment of current institutional capacity, practice in data sensemaking and storytelling, and an opportunity to develop a plan to apply lessons learned in individual contexts and cultures. 
Registration Fee:
$195 per workshop for in-Network colleges
$245 for out-of-Network attendees

Career-Connected Pathways: Preparing Students for the Workforce Through Work-Based Learning and AI
Community colleges are leveraging multiple strategies to ensure students are prepared for meaningful careers in today’s rapidly evolving economy. This session highlights two complementary approaches at the forefront of this work: expanding work-based learning opportunities and redesigning programs to embed AI skills needed in industry. Participants will hear how chambers of commerce and colleges are collaborating to deepen employer engagement and create high-quality work-based learning experiences, from career exploration and project-based learning to internships and apprenticeships, while also adapting programs to reflect changing industry needs around AI skills. 

The session will introduce tools colleges can use to assess the strength of their employer partnerships and identify opportunities to embed work-based learning and AI more meaningfully into pathways. A panel of community college leaders will share practical insights, challenges, and lessons learned, offering attendees a roadmap of actionable strategies to better align programs with labor market demand and prepare students for long-term economic mobility. 
Registration Fee:
$195 per workshop for in-Network colleges
$245 for out-of-Network attendees

Data Informed Instruction: Making the Invisible Visible

It’s never a question of whether our practices are working; it’s a question of who they are and are not working for. In this workshop participants will explore how disaggregated "in the moment” course level data, course outcomes, and institutional trends can illuminate opportunities for addressing success for disproportionately impacted students through teaching and learning. Participants will begin to engage in sensemaking practices to interpret outcomes through intentional interrogation of engagement patterns, attendance, formative assessments, and grade distributions. This workshop will equip faculty to recognize disparities by examining academic outcomes and empower them to make real-time, data-informed instructional changes. Student centered data approaches go beyond the analysis of quantitative data as a performative “check the box” activity and require data-informed teaching and learning practices that utilize multiple modalities of data collection and analysis to transform student experiences in higher education courses.

Registration Fee:
$195 per workshop for in-Network colleges
$245 for out-of-Network attendees

Partner Up & Power On! Exploring Partnerships and Tools To Boost Basic Needs Supports
Research shows that effective collaboration across campus departments and community organizations is essential to removing barriers and expanding resources that support students’ basic needs. Using ATD’s Basic Needs Institutional Assessment Tool, this session will focus on Section 5: Collaboration and Support, guiding participants to recognize and strengthen their institution’s partnerships that improve basic needs services.

Participants will learn from a partner college’s experience, engage with role-playing vignettes and a gallery walk, and develop actionable next steps to leverage existing partnerships and explore new ones. This session will also introduce ATD tools designed to support basic needs capacity building, and empower faculty, staff, administrators, and community partners to work together in support of students.
Registration Fee:
$195 per workshop for in-Network colleges
$245 for out-of-Network attendees

Strategic Enrollment Management for Adult Learners: Driving Recruitment, Retention, and Mobility
Adult learners are a vital and growing student population, yet they often encounter distinct barriers to enrollment, persistence, and upward economic mobility.  
This interactive session will showcase innovative enrollment management strategies designed to attract, retain, and support adult learners— guiding them from entry through completion and into meaningful career pathways.

Drawing on case studies from a Network college, attendees will see how intentional and strategic enrollment management can lead to stronger outcomes for adult learners at every stage of their journey. Participants will take part in hands-on activities to assess their own enrollment and engagement practices, identify gaps, and reimagine approaches that prioritize outreach, community connection, and sustained support through graduation and beyond.

The session will highlight population-specific strategies tailored for parenting and caregiving students, as well as justice-impacted learners, providing actionable insights that can be adapted to diverse campus contexts. By the end, participants will leave with ideas to strengthen their enrollment management plans and advance educational and career success for adult learners in their communities.
Registration Fee:
$195 per workshop for in-Network colleges
$245 for out-of-Network attendees