Professional Development Corner: October 2025

Make time for professional development!

Contributed by Patty Marbury

Why is professional development important?

Professional development offers a valuable opportunity to stay engaged and navigate the constantly changing landscape of Higher Education and beyond. Whether you’re looking to learn new skills, sharpen existing ones, enhance your leadership abilities, explore new interests, stay on top of emerging trends, or simply connect with colleagues, there’s something for everyone. 

Check out this article from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, How Professional Development Can Boost Employee Engagement on how participating in learning activities benefits all.

Turning Professional Development into Impact

Turn your growth into results by applying what you learn, sharing it with others, and connecting it to what matters most.

Professional development is most powerful when it creates real-world results. Learning itself is valuable, but the true measure of growth is how it changes outcomes — for your projects, your team, and your organization.

• Start by reflecting on what you’ve learned: How can this skill or insight make a difference in your work? Maybe it’s improving a process, solving a challenge more efficiently, or contributing a fresh idea that benefits the team.
• Sharing knowledge amplifies impact. When you mentor a colleague, demonstrate a new approach, or pass along insights, your growth extends beyond yourself.
• Finally, connect learning to tangible goals. Align development with what matters most to your team or organization, and you’ll see how growth translates directly into meaningful outcomes.

Professional Development Opportunities

We’re pleased to share information about a variety of workshops, courses, and resources to support your ongoing growth—wherever your journey leads. While some opportunities are free and others may have a fee, many do not require travel. Please feel free to share other opportunities you come across and I’ll include them in future communications!

Coursera

Remember that we have access to Coursera, and an online learning platform that offers a wide range of courses, specializations, certifications, and degree programs from universities and institutions around the world. UVA has a university-wide subscription for Coursera. Check it out and start learning!

Upcoming Offerings

Listed below are links to offerings that may be of interest – as we have done for the past couple of months, we’ll again focus on opportunities for which you can use your centrally-funded education benefit and are offered virtually, or in a few cases, locally, so there are no travel costs! (Remember, if you are requesting departmental funds, make sure it you have approval before you register for or enroll in any offering.)

Annual Fall 2025 FOCUS Conference – November 19-20, 2025 at Virginia State University ($50)

National Conference on College Cost Accounting (NACCA) – November 19 and 20, 2025, 12:30-5:00 – virtual. Registration is free. Note that this is on the same dates as Fall FOCUS.

EDUCAUSE Events

What is EDUCAUSE?  From their website: “EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to lead the way, advancing the strategic use of technology and data to further the promise of higher education. We connect and empower our member community through insights, advocacy, resources, and learning opportunities to anticipate trends and strengthen professional practice.”

NACUBO*

• Washington Updates and Other Recordings
• Other Live Online Events - unless indicated, the session is free to NACUBO members, which we are, although you need an individual account.* Some also offer CPE credits.
• Conferences and Forums
• Save the date! NACUBO 2026 Annual Meeting – July 18-21, 2026 in Anaheim, CA
• 2026 Intermediate Accounting and Reporting – Jan 28-30, 2026 online ($300)
• Self-Paced Courses and Microlearning
• Strategic Higher Education Finance and Planning ($595)
• F&A Short Form ($150)
• Essentials of College and University Accounting ($125)
• Facilities Management ($49)
• New to Higher Education ($49)
• Podcasts
• Career Conversations
• NACUBO in Brief

*Individual NACUBO membership is free through UVA’s institutional membership. To join go to nacubo.org and click on “Login or Join”. From the Login box, click on “Don’t have an account” and fill out the form. In the “Primary Affiliate” field enter “University of Virginia” and select the appropriate affiliate.

SACUBO

• 2026 Leadership Forum – February 25-27, Destin, FL
• 2026 Annual Convention – April 19-21, Dallas, TX
• 2026 Fall Conference – November 11-13,  Myrtle Beach, SC

EACUBO

• 2025 Annual Meeting – October 19-22, Pittsburgh, PA
• Higher Education Leadership Program – August 10-13, 2026, at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY ($2,999)

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Professional Development Programs, including:

• Leadership Transformation Collaborative - starts January 2026
• Women Leading Change Program - 2026 dates coming soon
• Administrative Leadership Institute – 2026 dates coming soon 
• Higher Education Mental Health Forum – 2026 dates coming soon

Virtual Events (many are on-demand)

AGA - is the association that connects and empowers professionals who support government, from financial management to IT, human resources, cybersecurity and more, to advance good government initiatives, grow their expertise and accelerate their careers. (Requires membership.) 

LearnBFSI (several interesting for fee courses - $199 each for live webinar and $159 for recording – note this company is in Australia), including: ChatGPT for CPAs and Finance Professionals, as well as courses in Excel and ChatGPT for PowerPoint.

UVA Organizations

• UVA Organizational Excellence has many learning opportunities, resources, and articles. Check out Creating Behaviors for Organization Success, November 5, 2025 12:00-1:00.. Subscribe to OE’s newsletter. 
• See a list of ongoing UVA offerings on our website.

Other Institutions 

• Harvard Business School Online offers multi-course credentials and certificate programs – many are less than $2000.
• University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business online programs; many are $1,000 or less. 
• Stanford University Executive Education – the self-paced programs are $1,500.

Education Benefit

Each year you have $2,000 of centrally-funded education benefit for professional development or $5,250 to use for tuition toward a degree-seeking program. See https://hr.virginia.edu/career-development/education-benefits-1 for more information. (To be eligible for this benefit, you must have had six months of service in a benefits-eligible position at UVA by the start date of the class, with the intent to remain on the active payroll during the entire term of the class.) December 5, 2025, is the cutoff date to use your 2025 benefit.

Professional Development Request Form 

UVAFinance team members –please discuss with your manager and use the Professional Development Request Form before you register for any program. Remember, not all professional development opportunities require submission of the form. If an opportunity is less than ½ day AND there is no cost associated with it, then do not submit a form. Many LinkedIn Learning courses and some courses offered by UVA Human Resources or other UVA departments meet these criteria. Otherwise, the form must be submitted. If unsure, feel free to ask!

Articles on Leadership

• A Title Does Not a Leader Make (Inside Higher Ed)
• The Top 20 Leadership Challenges (Center for Creative Leadership) – this informative article provides many links to other articles and resources.

Please feel free to share other opportunities you come across and I’ll include them in future communications!