Fall 2026 or Spring 2027
Lead the transformation you've been asked to deliver.
A four-month practitioner certification for leaders translating AI and digital transformation into something their institution can actually adopt—without losing its mission, governance, or people.
The problem: You've been handed transformation as a mandate and a mystery. Strategy decks don't survive contact with shared governance.
The transformation: You don't study transformation in the abstract: You lead one. Four months, four deliverables, one defensible portfolio—an Institutional Diagnostic Report; a Strategic Rationale and Stakeholder Plan in the languages cabinet, senate, board, donors, and accreditors speak; a Governance Framework and Conditions; and a Roadmap and Evaluation Framework—capped by a live panel defense. Built on The Adaptive Institution™, Bot/Agent/Human, AWARE, and MVG.
Choose Your Cohort
(Wednesdays, 11:00 AM-12:30 PM ET)
Fall 2026
- Sep 16 – Milestone I. Diagnose: Institutional Diagnostic Report
- Oct 14 – Milestone II. Align: Strategic Rationale and Stakeholder Plan
- Nov 4 – Milestone III. Govern: Governance Framework and Conditions
- Dec 9 – Milestone IV. Implement: Roadmap, Evaluation, and Capstone Defense
Spring 2027
- Jan 20 – Milestone I. Diagnose: Institutional Diagnostic Report
- Feb 17 – Milestone II. Align: Strategic Rationale and Stakeholder Plan
- Mar 17 – Milestone III. Align: Strategic Rationale and Stakeholder Plan
- Apr 14 – Milestone IV. Implement: Roadmap, Evaluation, and Capstone Defense
Key Outcomes
For higher education leaders asked to turn AI and digital transformation into something their institution can actually adopt, scale and transform
What you'll leave with:
- The CCTL credential, earned through demonstrated practice: a rubric-scored portfolio, a live panel defense, and a signed practitioner commitment
- A complete, board-ready portfolio built on a real transformation challenge at your institution:
- Institutional Diagnostic Report—a five-dimension readiness assessment across strategic, fluency, cultural, governance, and decision-rights readiness
- Strategic Rationale and Stakeholder Engagement Plan—the case for change in the languages cabinet, senate, board, donors, and accreditors actually speak
- Governance Framework, Risk Posture, and Adoption Conditions—AI use policy, decision rights, data and privacy posture, and the human-centered conditions that let adoption hold
- Implementation Roadmap and Evaluation Framework—the path from plan to traction, with metrics that track trust, capability, and mission impact
- SBDG's proprietary frameworks: The Adaptive Institution, Bot/Agent/Human, and Minimum Viable Governance
- Two 1:1 strategy sessions
- AI Leadership Collective membership, year one
What you'll be able to do:
- Diagnose where your institution is ready and where it isn't across five dimensions
- Make the case for change in the language each stakeholder group needs to hear it in
- Build the governance scaffolding transformation requires: policy, decision rights, risk, accountability
- Create the conditions that let adoption take hold: psychological safety, experimentation norms, recognition
- Lead change without positional authority
- Treat resistance as information, and hold the conversations transformation requires
- Move from plan to traction with measures that go past adoption rates
Who enrolls: Presidents, provosts, deans, CIOs, CHROs, chiefs of staff, system-level strategy leaders—often as teams. Twenty leaders per cohort. 5-7 hours/week.
Investment: Member, $1,200 per participant; Nonmember, $1,600 per participant. The CCTL is earned—complete portfolio, live defense, signed practitioner commitment.
Twenty seats. Board-ready in four months. Enroll your team.
Registration opens soon!
Click here for Fall 2026.
Click here for Spring 2027.
Cancellation and Payment Policies for Fall 2026 and Spring 2027 programs are available on their respective registration pages.