Member Societies Come Together for 2025 Leadership Seminar in Philadelphia

ACLS hosted presidents, executive directors, and other leaders from more than 20 of its member societies for its annual Leadership Seminar, which took place on Monday, September 8, 2025, in Philadelphia.

Leadership teams representing a broad variety of academic societies and organizations participated in a series of highly interactive exercises designed to build relationships, encourage productive collaboration, and clarify roles and responsibilities from the board, executive officers, and staff.

The day-long workshop was facilitated by Susan Decker, whose expertise in nonprofit governance and cultivating positive leadership culture helped participants identify strengths, work through common challenges like governing during times of scarcity and turbulent times, and develop and build upon governance practices to better meet the goals of their organizations and the needs of their members.

ACLS President Joy Connolly introduced the day with a strong call to action for societies to collaborate efforts and work toward finding the strongest ways to advocate for their fields and publicly highlight their benefit. ACLS Director of Member Society Relations Camilo Villalpando also led a session on managing difficult situations at meetings and events. The closing session challenged participants to build the start of an action plan for continuous improvement based on the discussions and information from the workshop.

ACLS also hosted participants at a lively dinner the evening prior to help further build relationships across societies.

ACLS presents this professional development workshop each fall to help member societies strengthen relationships between society leaders and newly elected presidents. ACLS Member Society executive directors will meet in person again in October 2025 in Seattle. Learn more about our work with academic societies.