Institute on Community Transformation

The Institute on Community Transformation is a multiday, team-based opportunity—offered in person and online—designed to help campuses move beyond false hierarchies of human value and cultivate communities grounded in belonging, trust, and shared humanity. Through expert guidance, mentoring, and community healing circles, you’ll leave with strategies and an action plan to strengthen student success, increase community engagement, and foster lasting institutional change.

What Is a Transformation Campus Center?

Transformation Campus Centers are AAC&U-designated programmatic or networked hubs within a college or university that bring students, faculty, staff, and community partners together across differences to create narrative change and heal historic and present-day harms. This is in an effort to redesign campus and community systems so that no human difference predicts access, success, or well-being. 

Transformation Campus Centers are not required to have physical space. These centers serve as a setting for healing circles, storytelling, relationship-building, and narrative change that challenge false hierarchies of human value and foster belonging, trust, and shared humanity on campus and in surrounding communities.

Participation in the institute does not require you to have a campus center.

Who Should Attend

This institute is designed for colleges and universities interested in creating, strengthening, or expanding a Transformation Campus Center, learning about the institute’s framework, or advancing community-centered transformation initiatives. 

Campus teams may include

• a senior academic officer to champion change;
• faculty and staff leaders who can align curriculum and campus priorities;
• student success and student life professionals who connect learning and community; and
• other cross-campus and community partners essential for advancing healing and transformation.

What You'll Gain

With guidance from national experts and campus center leaders, your team will develop and refine a comprehensive action plan, design and participate in community healing circles, strengthen institutional capacity for student belonging and persistence, and become part of the growing national network of Transformation Campus Centers committed to systemic change.

Across both the in-person and online convenings, teams will engage in a hands-on learning experience that blends expert guidance with collaborative design. Participants will learn from faculty and experienced healing practitioners, participate in healing circles grounded in compassion, listening, and shared humanity, collaborate across disciplines and roles to align institutional vision, student success goals, and community-based initiatives, and explore how to address the contemporary impacts of today’s climate and difference while scaling change across their institutions.

A Hybrid Experience Designed for Connection

In-Person Convening (Salt Lake City)

During the in-person convening, each participating institution will designate a team lead and one additional team member to serve as on-site representatives. These representatives will engage directly with local nonprofit leaders involved in healing work, belonging, and community transformation. The in-person experience focuses on

• strengthening relationships across higher education and nonprofit organizations through intentional connection, strategy sharing, and trust building;
• reflecting on narratives and exchange effective, transferable approaches to meaningful narrative change;
• identifying opportunities for strategic collaboration and partnership; and
• deepening engagement with healing practices that can be applied on campus and in communities.

Online Convening (Full Team)

The online convening includes the full institutional team and extends the in-person experience by supporting continued collaboration, reflection, and implementation. During the online convening, teams will build on insights from the in-person experience, refine strategies for local contexts, and advance sustained campus and partner-based action.

Beyond the Institute

The impact of the institute extends well beyond the institute's end. Your team will benefit from continued professional development, peer learning, and campus center collaboration opportunities. By participating, you’ll join a national community of practice dedicated to strengthening human connection and building more inclusive, trusting communities.