Change is required to create sustainability in colleges and universities. While this point is well known in the chief finance officer/controller community, getting institutional buy-in to true transformational ideas from faculty, students, and other administrators can be challenging. This panel includes three universities that have embarked on a series of transformation initiatives in order to revamp and revitalize their operating models. You’ll hear how they have assessed and evolved their academic delivery models, reduced institutional costs, improved revenues, or merged with other institutions to expand their geographic footprint.

Shifting global policies in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia are reshaping international student mobility and altering the competitive landscape for enrollment growth. For many institutions, international recruitment represents both a revenue strategy and a long-term investment in global engagement, research partnerships, and institutional reputation. Leaders from three public institutions will share business-focused perspectives on stabilizing and growing international enrollments amid policy uncertainty and changing market dynamics. Presenters will discuss budget strategy, partnership recalibration, and brand positioning, supported by current global mobility data. You’ll gain practical insight to inform enrollment planning and evaluate international recruitment investments.

As AI adoption accelerates across higher education, business officers must make critical decisions about where—and how—to invest. Should your institution purchase commercial AI tools, build custom solutions, or pursue shared-services models? This session will provide a practical framework for evaluating these options through the lenses of mission alignment, financial sustainability, governance, risk management, and long-term scalability. Panelists will share candid lessons learned, real-world examples, and cost considerations from institutions navigating these decisions. You’ll leave with clearer criteria for weighing trade-offs, asking the right due diligence questions, and positioning AI investments to deliver strategic value.

This session will explore how public universities combine staffing and payroll analytics with service-quality data to strengthen decision-making. Presenters will demonstrate frameworks for benchmarking central and decentralized spending across finance, HR, IT, and facilities using activity-based models. Using examples from their campus experiences, speakers will show how benchmarking can advance transparency and resource allocation, connect staffing to service outcomes and systems such as Huron RAMP and Workday, and guide resource alignment in fiscally constrained environments. You’ll also hear how benchmarking can support hybrid budget models, shared services implementation, and program health assessments aligned to strategic, outcome-based metrics, as well as approaches for building trust in analytics and increasing transparency across campus.

Extreme weather is an increasingly common reality for colleges and universities. Flooding, burst pipes, campus evacuations for wildfires and hurricanes, and more are growing financial and operational risks. During this session, presenters will explore changing severe weather risk profiles and move beyond theory to practical and actionable frameworks for business officers to lead in an era of climate volatility. They’ll discuss emerging trends and present real-world case studies on how to mitigate these specific "billion-dollar" threats. You’ll leave with actionable strategies for building robust emergency preparedness plans, ensuring business continuity, and—most critically—leveraging powerful partnerships with internal departments and community agencies to protect the campus and its mission.

Recent revisions to the Uniform Guidance and subsequent Executive Orders have reshaped the federal grant environment, creating new compliance expectations, funding uncertainties, and operational pressures for colleges and universities. Business officers and research administrators must assess the financial and stewardship implications for indirect cost recovery, award management, and institutional risk. This session will provide a practical update on recent and anticipated Office of Management and Budget actions, agency implementation trends, and the proposed Joint Associations Group FAIR model. Presenters will translate federal developments into actionable considerations for institutional budgeting, cost allocation practices, and strategic planning in 2026.

At a time of accelerating change—from demographic shifts to public scrutiny and technological transformation—higher education leaders are being asked to lead with both courage and clarity. This session brings together national association presidents to reflect on how institutional mission can serve as a stabilizing force while still enabling innovation. Panelists will explore what this moment demands of presidents, boards, and campus leaders—and how cross-sector collaboration can help institutions navigate what comes next.

In a rapidly shifting environment, institutions must demonstrate financial resilience. This roundtable will bring together senior finance leaders, a credit ratings analyst, an institutional investor, and a financial advisor to examine proactive, transparent engagement with rating agencies, investors, lenders, and stakeholders. These experts will share how strategic communication and aligned financial narratives can sustain or improve ratings, attract long-term capital, and build trust. They’ll also present a case study to highlight strategies for navigating liquidity pressure, evaluating financing tools, and executing a bond issuance amid major capital projects and federal disruption.

Like many institutions, Temple University found that its Responsibility Center Management budget model no longer supported its strategic goals. Rather than making incremental adjustments, Temple partnered with NACUBO Consulting to assess whether RCM was still fit for purpose. When it was not, they designed and implemented a centrally coordinated model. This session will trace that transformation, from evaluating RCM and engaging stakeholders to building a framework grounded in transparency, shared governance, and institutional priorities. Speakers will address politically sensitive issues, including graduate and professional tuition, incentive design, and change management under financial constraints. They’ll also explain how cost of instruction and administrative cost analysis informed senior leadership decisions.