On February 20, the 2018 Advocate Symposium cultivated expertise and innovation on student conduct at the Hyatt Regency in Jacksonville, Fl. This year's event was bigger than ever, bringing together 80 representatives from 54 higher education institutions from the U.S. and Canada for a full day of networking, best practice sharing, training and developing of expertise on the major issues affecting colleges and universities today.
Keeping in tradition, this year's Advocate Symposium delivered a combination of client and expert presentations. Symplicity President and CEO Matt Small opened the event by addressing the main challenges faced by higher education institutions today. "Sexual harassment and sexual abuse is top of mind," Matt said in his opening remarks. "Not only in Hollywood and the media, but also its top of mind of faculty, students, parents, the government and donors to the universities. Now more than ever, there's a heightened awareness of how that takes hold on campus and the impact on the standards and the burdens of proof."
Following Matt's opening remarks, Dr. Kyle Williams from Washington University in St. Louis enlightened us with his transition to Symplicity Advocate, and how he has worked to update his office and onboard campus partners to utilize the system to track students and behavioral concerns. On the other hand, AJ Andreucci from Wentworth Institute of Technology explained how the school adapted the Charges Responsibility form to transition to a paperless conduct process and make work easier for hearing administrators. The event also incorporated several breakout training sessions tailored to address the most critical topics of concern for the Advocate platform and the trending topics in higher education led by subject matter experts from Symplicity and its extensive client network.
Representatives from Washington University in St. Louis enjoying the reception at Intuition Ale Works This year's Advocate Symposium provided us and our clients with unmatched opportunities to build expertise and share best practices for handling student conduct issues in higher education. On behalf of the entire Symplicity Advocate team, we're very proud of what we have been able to accomplish in collaboration with all of our attendees and look forward to next year!
For anyone unable to attend this year, we are sorry we missed you, and we'd still like for you to be able to access some of the great presentations viewed this year. Access this year's presentations below.
