| Time | Event/Session | Description |
| Monday, September 21, 2026 | ||
| 08:00 – 4:00 PM | Leadership Academy (LA) Registration Open | Sponsored by Ferrilli; Additional Registration Required |
| 08:00 – 9:00 AM | LA Breakfast | |
| 9:00 – 9:45 AM | LA Welcome & Group Activity | |
| 9:45 – 10:45 AM |
LA General Session: Leading Change: The Human Side of Transformation – Bernice Green, Ferrilli |
This session reframes change management as change leadership. Leaders get a working model: the strategic, tactical, and operational layers of transformation; the difference between rearranging systems and reshaping mindset – practical guidance for building a coalition, communicating consistently, measuring adoption, project health, and business outcomes. Learn more… |
| 10:45 – 11:00 AM | LA Break | |
| 11:00 – 12:00 PM | LA General Session:
What is Leadership? Leadership is a Choice Before it is a Position – Dr. Carmelitia Coleman, Illumia |
What is leadership? Is it a title, a position, or something more? In this engaging and thought provoking session, Dr. Carmelitia Coleman challenges conventional thinking by exploring the idea that leadership is a choice before it is a position. Drawing on insights from renowned leadership scholars, real-world experiences, and interactive discussion, participants will discover how influence, character, and purpose shape the leaders people choose to follow. Whether you lead a team, an organization, or simply aspire to make a greater impact, you will leave inspired to embrace leadership as a daily practice rather than a destination. Learn more… |
| 12:00 – 12:45 PM | LA Lunch | |
| 12:45 – 1:45 PM | LA General Session:
Fundamentals of a Chief Business Officer Role – Dianne Duron |
This session will establish a foundational understanding of the breadth, complexity, and strategic importance of the Chief Business Officer (CBO) role. Topics will include key responsibilities, collaboration with executive leadership, and an overview of college administrative operations. Learn more… |
| 1:45 – 2:45 PM | LA General Session:
College Operations: What a CBO Needs to Know about Other Departments – Maderia Ellison, Northland Pioneer College |
Designed to build institutional awareness and strengthen cross-functional leadership, this session will explore the interconnected roles of Academic Affairs, Student Services, and Workforce Development. Participants will gain insights into collaborative practices, shared priorities, and strategies for fostering greater alignment and breaking down organizational silos in support of student and workforce outcomes. Learn more… |
| 2:45 – 3:00 PM | LA Break | |
| 3:00 – 4:00 PM | LA General Session:
Dynamic Leadership – Dr. Derrick Bennett, York Technical College |
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| 4:00 – 5:00 PM | LA General Session:
Communicating Financials to Non-financial Leaders |
Today’s community college business officers must do more than understand the numbers—they must help others understand what the numbers mean. This session will focus on practical strategies for communicating financial information to non-financial audiences and translating complex data into clear, actionable insights that support decision-making. |
| 06:00 – 7:00 PM | LA: Leadership Academy Reception | Sponsored by Ferrilli |
| Tuesday, September 22, 2026 | ||
| 08:00 – 5:00 PM | Leadership Academy (LA) Registration Open | |
| 08:00 – 9:00 AM | LA Breakfast | |
| 9:00 – 9:15 AM | LA Welcome | |
| 9:15 – 10:15 AM | LA General Session:
Challenges and Best Practices of a CBO – John Pitcher, Bunker Hill Community College & Michael McCarthy, Northern Essex Community College |
Designed for current and aspiring leaders, this session will examine the realities of the Chief Business Officer role through the lens of experience and best practice. Attendees will gain insights into ethical decision-making, financial transparency, relationship management, and strategies for effectively navigating the tension between constructive challenge and organizational alignment. Learn more… |
| 10:00 – 4:00 PM | Exhibitor Set-Up | |
| 10:15 – 11:45 AM | LA Second Year Presentations | |
| 12:00 – 12:45 PM | LA & Board of Directors Lunch | |
| 12:45 – 2:45 PM | LA Second Year Presentations | |
| 1:30 – 4:00 PM | Board of Directors Meeting | |
| 2:45 – 3:00 PM | LA Break | |
| 3:00 – 4:45 PM | LA Second Year Presentations | |
| 4:45 – 5:00 PM | LA Closing | |
| 6:00 – 7:00 PM | Annual Conference Opening Reception with Exhibitors | Kick off the 2026 Convention by mingling with peers, networking with Business Partners, and enjoying a taste of New Orleans. |
| 7:00 PM – | Dinner on Your Own | |
| Wednesday, September 23, 2026 | ||
| 7:00 – 5:00 PM | Registration | |
| 8:00 – 9:00 AM | Breakfast & Visit with Exhibitors | |
| 8:00 – 9:00 AM | Headshot Photo Station Open (appt. required) | No charge, advanced registration is required. |
| 9:00 – 9:30 AM | Welcome. Announcements and Live Ads | |
| 9:30 – 10:30 AM | General Session I | |
| 10:30 – 11:00 AM | Visit with Exhibitors | |
| 10:30 – 12:00 PM | Headshot Photo Station Open (appt. required) | No charge, advanced registration is required. |
| 11:10 – 12:00 PM | Concurrent Breakout Education Sessions l | |
| Chart Your Course to SaaS – Dr. Chrissy Coley, Ferrilli | As institutions move toward SaaS, success requires more than system selection—it demands readiness, alignment, and sustained support. This session explores a holistic approach to SaaS transformation, from assessing institutional readiness and evaluating ERP options to planning migrations, managing change, and enhancing implementation outcomes. Attendees will learn how to align technology decisions with business goals, engage stakeholders, manage risk, and stabilize systems post-go-live. The session emphasizes outcomes over outputs, positioning SaaS as a foundation for long-term modernization and institutional success. | |
| TBD | ||
| TBD | ||
| 12:15 – 1:15 PM | Networking Lunch with Sponsors and Exhibitors | Sponsored by Slingshot |
| 1:30 – 2:20 PM | Concurrent Breakout Education Sessions lI | |
| Fraud Never Sleeps: Outsmarting Bad Actors in Modern Payments – Melissa Klemp, Coconino Community College; Linda Wilson, Illumia | Community colleges are increasingly targeted by payment fraud, account takeovers, ransomware, and third-party breaches. With open enrollment models, high transaction volumes during registration periods, decentralized departments, and often limited cybersecurity resources, community colleges present unique opportunities for organized bad actors. This session explores how modern fraud rings target tuition payment systems, student portals, and third-party vendors serving community colleges. We’ll examine real-world higher education breaches and translate those lessons specifically for two-year institutions. Attendees will learn how to move beyond basic PCI compliance to build practical, cost-conscious, secure-by-design payment environments that protect students, safeguard institutional revenue, and maintain a seamless enrollment experience. | |
| Welcome to Facilities – Dietrich von Biedenfeld, Esq., Houston Community College | This interactive roundtable unpacks facilities procurement excellence for community colleges, blending Wooden’s timeless leadership principles with Drucker’s clarity in purpose-driven decisions. Participants will explore proven strategies for community college bonds, financing, board approvals, precise scopes of work, risk criteria, and vendor selection. Through guided discussion of real facilities projects, even including bond-funded construction to deferred maintenance RFPs, attendees test practical checklists to craft contracts that safeguard fiscal health while delivering instructional impact. | |
| Encouraging Innovation and Mitigating Risk through Strategic AI Policy Formation – Ryan Knight, Higher Education Consultant | Community colleges are working to form or adapt their generative artificial intelligence (AI) policies. To date, many initial policy formation efforts have focused on academic integrity, with a “stoplight” motif adopted to illustrate these policies: red for forbidden AI use, yellow for cautious use, and green for permissive use. Important as these initial policy efforts are, they tend not to include infrastructural matters that extend much beyond the classroom and academic integrity. Protecting sensitive and student-identifying data, blocking potentially high-risk generative AI platforms, licensing college-wide access opportunities to AI for students: these are important but often missing from AI policies proposed and formed at community colleges, even though they have significant budgetary and financial implications. This session provides attendees with guidance on how to advocate for comprehensive AI policies at their institutions that capitalize on opportunities and limit liabilities and risks. It begins with a thorough review of community college AI policies published to date. It then turns to important infrastructural aspects of AI policy with budgetary implications. It concludes with recommendations regarding how community college business officers can ground AI policy formation in principles of access, innovation, risk management, and secure infrastructure. | |
| 1:30 – 4:30 PM | Headshot Photo Station Open (appt. required) | No charge, advanced registration is required. |
| 2:30 – 3:00 PM | Visit with Exhibitors | |
| 3:00 – 3:50 PM | Concurrent Breakout Education Sessions lII | |
| Digitizing Student Financial Services: Payments, Plans, Refunds & Real-Time SIS Integration – Arif Harij, MTFX Group; Lucas Laracy, PayMyTuition | Community colleges are under pressure to do more with fewer resources while improving the student financial experience. Many institutions still operate fragmented systems for payments, payment plans, refunds, and reconciliation — resulting in manual processes, delayed posting, reporting gaps, and staff burnout. This session explores how colleges are digitizing student financial services through real-time integration with their Student Information System (SIS). We will examine how modern payment ecosystems automate payment processing, installment plans, refunds, sponsor billing, and reconciliation directly within systems such as Ellucian Colleague, Banner SaaS, PeopleSoft, and others. Attendees will gain practical insight into eliminating batch files, reducing manual reconciliation, improving cash flow visibility, and creating a self-service student experience. We will share real-world implementation lessons, operational impacts, and measurable efficiencies achieved by institutions that have moved to fully integrated, automated models. This session is designed for business officers and finance leaders seeking actionable strategies to modernize financial operations without increasing staffing. | |
| A Maturity Framework for Shared Services in the “Cliff” Era – Everett Ross, Steyer Associates; Donna VanCleave | As the 2026 demographic cliff forces a reckoning with institutional overhead, “standardization” is key to long-term success. This session deconstructs the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) Shared Services Center (SSC) as a dynamic governance framework suited for the enrollment and technological challenges of the moment. We will analyze the specific mechanics used to centralize procurement, HR, and accounts payable across 23 distinct campuses while maintaining local autonomy. Attendees will explore the “Compliance-for-Autonomy” trade-off, where standardized processes are leveraged to secure higher state-delegated spending authority. | |
| The Business of Belonging: How Strategic HR Investment Drives Institutional Success – Nahomi Carlisle, Esq, Bunker Hill Community College; Cheryl Cephas | Community colleges possess a powerful, often underleveraged asset: their people. This session invites participants to explore how intentional Human Resources strategies can enhance recruitment, strengthen retention, and support institutional effectiveness; while remaining aligned with sound fiscal stewardship. This presentation highlights proven, scalable practices that elevate employee engagement, reinforce organizational culture, and maximize return on human capital investment. Attendees will examine how proactive HR planning, data-informed decision-making, and finance-HR collaboration can position community colleges as employers of choice and engines of long-term stability. | |
| 4:00 – 4:50 PM | Concurrent Breakout Education Sessions lV | |
| Serving the Most Financially Vulnerable: A Student-First Pre-Collections Model for Community Colleges – Spencer Blackwell, Meadow; Dawn Davidson, Tulsa Community College | Community colleges serve the highest proportion of financially vulnerable students in higher education. How do business offices manage receivables responsibly without undermining access and persistence? This session explores how institutions are designing student-first pre-collections strategies that protect revenue while maintaining compassion and equity. Through real-world examples, attendees will learn how early outreach, flexible payment options, strategic late fee policies, and personalized communication can reduce delinquency while strengthening student trust and retention. | |
| Designing Access Programs That Drive Student Engagement and Institutional Impact – Jennifer Zourdos | Access programs are increasingly recognized as powerful tools for improving student engagement, academic momentum, and persistence. When implemented strategically, these initiatives reduce barriers to course materials and learning resources while creating more equitable pathways for students to succeed. For institutions, well-designed access programs can also support broader goals around affordability, retention, and operational efficiency. This session will explore how institutions can design, implement, and scale access programs that deliver meaningful outcomes for both students and the institution. Drawing on insights from institutional partnerships and implementation experience, presenters will highlight practical strategies for aligning access initiatives with campus priorities, including student success goals, financial sustainability, and cross-departmental collaboration. Participants will learn how thoughtful program design can reduce friction in the student experience by ensuring timely access to required materials while improving program participation and engagement. The session will also discuss operational considerations, including program adoption, campus alignment, and communication strategies that support successful implementation. In addition, attendees will explore approaches to evaluating program effectiveness using measurable indicators such as participation, cost transparency, student engagement, and retention-related outcomes. By examining real-world implementation practices, participants will gain a practical framework they can use to strengthen existing access programs or guide the development of new initiatives that support student success while aligning with institutional priorities. |
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| Breakout TBD | ||
| 5:30 – 6:30 PM | Happy Hour | |
| 6:45 – 8:45 PM | Excursion – Dead of Night – Nighttime Ghost & Cemetery Private Bus Tour (Additional Fee Required) | Sponsored by Illumia; Additional Registration Required |
| 6:30 PM – | Dinner on Your Own | |
| Thursday, September 24, 2026 | ||
| 7:00 AM – 2:00 PM | Registration | |
| 8:00 – 9:00 AM | Breakfast & Visit with Exhibitors | |
| 8:00 – 9:00 AM | Headshot Photo Station Open (appt. required) | No charge, advanced registration is required. |
| 9:00 – 9:30 AM | Annual Business Meeting (Members Only) | CCBO members only |
| 9:30 – 10:30 AM | Legislative Update – Kathryn Gimbroys, AACC | |
| 10:30 – 11:00 AM | Visit with Exhibitors | |
| 11:00 – 12:00 PM | Headshot Photo Station Open (appt. required) | No charge, advanced registration is required. |
| 11:10 – 12:00 PM | Concurrent Breakout Education Sessions V | |
| Skip the RFP: Unlock the Full Value of Cooperative Procurement – Holly Harper, Cowley College; Mike Price, E&I Cooperative Services | Community colleges are under increasing pressure to deliver cost savings, maintain compliance, and support campus operations—all while managing limited staff capacity and compressed timelines. Cooperative procurement offers a powerful solution, but many institutions are only leveraging a fraction of its potential. In this session, Holly Harper, CFO and Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration at Cowley College, and Mike Price, Sourcing Consultant with E&I Cooperative Services, will share a practical, real‑world approach to maximizing the full value of cooperative purchasing. Attendees will learn how colleges can significantly reduce the administrative burden of issuing standalone RFPs by utilizing competitively solicited cooperative contracts that have already gone through a rigorous, compliant procurement process. Drawing on Cowley College’s experience, the presenters will discuss how the institution avoided issuing its own RFP by leveraging an existing E&I cooperative contract and then expanded contract alignment across additional spend categories. The session will also explore how E&I’s broader portfolio of services—including spend analysis, contract alignment support, and ongoing procurement guidance—helps institutions move beyond one‑time savings to sustained operational efficiency. Participants will leave with actionable strategies to evaluate when cooperative contracts are a strong fit, prioritize high‑impact sourcing opportunities, build internal stakeholder confidence, and fully leverage cooperative resources to save time, reduce risk, and focus on mission‑critical work. | |
| Master Planning as an Alignment Tool: Using Space to Advance Institutional Goals – Michael McCarthy, Northern Essex Community College; Sarah Tarbert, AIA | Community colleges are increasingly asked to do more with less; optimize aging facilities, improve student outcomes, and support enrollment and workforce partnerships, all within constrained capital and operating budgets. This session presents a practical case study from Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill & Lawrence, MA, where leadership confronted these challenges across two distinct campuses with different identities, utilization patterns, and student needs. To address evolving campus priorities, this project focused on maximizing existing assets through strategic reallocation of space, consolidation of student services, and targeted, incremental investments that would deliver both operational and student-experience benefits. The session will walk through how administration, facilities, and academic leadership aligned around shared priorities; equity, utilization efficiency, clarity of campus operations, and long-term flexibility using a master-planning framework grounded in data, engagement, and resource management. Attendees will gain insight into how modest, well-sequenced decisions can unlock future capacity, support enrollment and retention goals, reduce operational friction, and create stronger alignment between capital planning and institutional mission. Emphasis will be placed on tools and approaches business officers can apply immediately: evaluating underutilized space, stress-testing assumptions about growth, leveraging partnerships, and ensuring that every facilities decision supports both financial sustainability and student success. This session is designed for business officers seeking actionable strategies to steward campus resources responsibly while positioning their institutions for long-term resilience. | |
| Breakout TBD | ||
| 11:10 – 1:00 PM | Exhibitor Breakdown | |
| 12:15 – 1:30 PM | Awards Luncheon | Sponsored by Ferrilli |
| 1:40 – 2:30 PM | Concurrent Breakout Education Sessions VI | |
| Title IX in Community Colleges: Building Institutional Responsibility and Shared Accountability – Nahomi Carlisle, Esq, Bunker Hill Community College; Dr. Bridgette N. Cofield, J.D.; Nicole Jones, Ph.D. | Title IX compliance in community colleges extends far beyond investigations and student conduct processes. Its impact reaches athletics, employee relations, student support systems, and critically — institutional business operations and financial decision-making. This interactive session explores how Title IX responsibilities intersect with the business office, requiring collaboration across finance, human resources, athletics, student affairs, and compliance leadership. Participants will examine real-world scenarios affecting community colleges and gain practical strategies for building cross-functional institutional responses that ensure equity while managing risk, resources, and compliance obligations. Using case studies and audience participation, presenters will guide attendees through how Title IX influences budgeting, staffing, athletics equity, grievance processes, and institutional accountability. | |
| Contract to Campus Impact – Yasmeen Hasan, Lee College; Vaughn Smiley; Dietrich von Biedenfeld, Esq., Houston Community College | This session will provide a foundation of terms and concepts for mid-level and senior professionals to explore how contract strategy can directly advance student success, institutional resilience, and stakeholder support. Drawing on existing contracts common to community colleges, including those associated with software, facilities and construction, auxiliary services, and professional services, the session will walk participants through a practical, repeatable framework for aligning negotiations with long‑term financial sustainability. | |
| Breakout TBD | ||
| 2:40 – 3:40 PM | General Session 3 | |
| 3:40 – 3:45 PM | Closing Remarks | |