Earlier this month, I had the privilege of co-facilitating the D2L Texas Executive Roundtable, an experience designed not around presentations or answers, but around provocative questions meant to spark deep conversation. It was an opportunity to bring higher education leaders together in community to wrestle with some of our sector’s most pressing challenges.
The design of the day was deliberate: lean into collective expertise, push beyond conventional dialogue, and invite real vulnerability. We began simply—introductions and an informal lunch conversation. From there, the provocations began:
- How do we balance workforce responsiveness with preserving the broader mission of higher education?
- How do we ensure AI enhances, not erodes, critical thinking and digital literacy?
- How do we support risk-taking in teaching without penalizing failure?
- If innovation is a shared responsibility, what leadership action signals it’s welcome here?
These questions weren’t abstract. They were grounded in the daily realities of our institutions: the pressure to do more with less, the urgency of aligning programs with a rapidly changing workforce, and the ongoing tension between innovation and tradition.
Key Roundtable Themes
As the conversations unfolded, several key themes emerged:
- Student-centered design is essential, but it must be matched by intentional support for faculty well-being. Innovation cannot thrive in a culture of burnout (Becker & Mahoney, 2021).
- Siloed leadership is a liability. Leaders need spaces to connect, exchange ideas, and normalize vulnerability (Kezar & Holcombe, 2017).
- Belonging matters. Professional kinship and shared reflection are more than “nice to haves”—they’re foundational to leadership in this moment (Wilson et al., 2025).
- We must thoughtfully balance workforce responsiveness with the mission of higher education. Institutions are under increasing pressure to produce job-ready graduates, yet our long-term societal impact depends on cultivating critical thinking, civic engagement, and broad intellectual development (Deloitte, 2025).
The Importance of Mattering
A concept that surfaced often, but perhaps wasn’t named directly, is the importance of mattering. Faculty and administrators, like students, need to feel that they are seen, valued, and essential to the mission of the institution. Mattering is not just emotional, it’s strategic. When individuals feel like they belong, they are more innovative, more resilient, and more committed to institutional goals (Schlossberg, 1989; Wilson et al., 2025). Creating environments where educators and leaders feel a genuine sense of belonging must be prioritized not as a wellness initiative but as an institutional imperative.
The Roundtable was more than an event. It was a reminder that transforming the way the world learns requires community. Our time together demonstrated that even brief, intentional conversations can catalyze actionable change.
We ended the day with a question that still lingers: How do we continue this connection? How do we grow these moments of insight and empathy on our own campuses?
The answer may lie in prioritizing conversations not for professional gain, but for professional kinship. Creating spaces to be real, be challenged, and be supported. It’s time we stop treating connection as extracurricular. In a time of disruption, connection is strategy.
For future roundtables and other events, please check out D2L’s Events page.
References
Becker, C. M., & Mahoney, M. (2021, October 7). Overcoming burnout to spark innovation. NAFSA: Association of International Educators.
Cox, B. E., & Strange, C. C. (2020). Achieving student success: Effective student services in higher education. Jossey-Bass.
Deloitte. (2025, April 7). 2025 Higher Education Trends. Deloitte Insights.
Kezar, A., & Holcombe, E. (2017). Shared leadership in higher education: Important lessons from research and practice. American Council on Education.
Schlossberg, N. K. (1989). Marginality and mattering: Key issues in building community. In D. C. Roberts (Ed.), Designing campus activities to foster a sense of community (New Directions for Student Services, No. 48, pp. 5–15). Jossey-Bass.
Wilson, M., Ghosh, S., & Jason, K. J. (2025). Understanding sense of belonging of faculty and staff in higher education. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal.
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