Mackenzie Jordan Johnson

Assistant Vice President Learning & Organizational Development Howard University

Wednesday 24th June 2026

Discover: Building Culture from the Ground Up: How Howard University Is Driving Leadership Alignment and Accountability at Scale

1:30 pm

Launching a multiyear, university-wide cultural transformation focused on leadership effectiveness, service excellence, and accountability by co-creating a shared framework with faculty and staff, ensuring the work was community built rather than HR mandated and grounded in lived institutional realities
Activating Howard’s new leadership and service blueprint, The Bison Way, across the employee lifecycle by embedding it into performance expectations, talent attraction, leadership development, and recognition, giving leaders and teams a consistent language and clear blueprint for how work gets done across the university
Demonstrating early, measurable momentum with a 2x increase in applications to manager and leadership development programs, including unprecedented faculty participation, forcing cohort caps for the first time and signalling stronger cross campus engagement, reduced silos, and rising confidence in leadership development as a pathway for growth

Wednesday 24th June 2026

Develop: How Can Higher Education Institutions Build Leadership Systems That Scale Across Faculty, Staff, and Decentralized Units?

2:10 pm

How can universities co‑create leadership and culture frameworks with faculty and staff so they feel community‑owned rather than HR‑mandated?
What design choices matter most when moving from one‑off leadership programs to a multi‑level, institution‑wide leadership architecture?
How can leadership expectations be embedded consistently across the employee lifecycle (recruitment, development, performance, recognition) in a shared‑governance environment?
What indicators best demonstrate leadership impact in higher education, such as reduced escalation to HR, stronger succession readiness, or increased cross‑campus engagement?