2025 Keynote Address:
Future-Proofing Teaching and Learning Through High-impact Practices: Questions to Drive Meaning and Innovation
At a time of enormous change in higher education and the world, high-impact practices hold more promise than ever in preparing students to navigate a future steeped in uncertainty and complexity. But simply labeling an experience as 鈥渉igh-impact鈥� ensures neither efficacy nor innovation. As higher education seeks to prepare students to flourish in their lives, careers, and communities, it is time to reexamine what we know about high-impact practices that makes our continued investment in them relevant for faculty, staff, and students. This keynote session will center inquiry as the foundation of meaning and innovation to ask critical questions about purpose, quality, and equity as the means for unlocking the full potential of high-impact practices, now and into the future.
is the Vice President of Research and Senior Advisor to the President for the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). She oversees which develops integrative approaches to linking students鈥� career preparation, civic engagement, and well-being. Through research, campus-based projects, and partnerships, this work advances higher education鈥檚 commitments to supporting economic, community, and individual thriving. Her publications include: The Career-Ready Graduate: What Employers Say About the Difference College Makes; A Comprehensive Approach to Assessment of High-Impact Practices; and The Effects of Community-Based and Civic Engagement in Higher Education. She also currently serves as a commissioner for the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC).
Dr. Finley was previously the senior director of assessment and research at AAC&U and also national evaluator for Bringing Theory to Practice. She also served as the Associate Vice President for Academic affairs and Dean of the Dominican Experience at Dominican University of California, where she implemented a comprehensive framework for student learning and success centered around high-impact practices. Dr. Finley began her career as a faculty member at Dickinson College. She received a BA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and an MA and PhD, both in sociology, from the University of Iowa.
Areas of Expertise
- Advocacy for liberal education
- Strategic planning for implementation of high-impact practices and outcomes assessment
- Community engagement
- Student well-being and intrapersonal development