NACU Establishes Jerry Berberet Leadership Innovation Fund to Advance Campus-Wide Change

New fund will support institutional teams using NACU’s Leadership Development Institute to address shared campus challenges

The New American Colleges & Universities (NACU) has established the Jerry Berberet Leadership Innovation Fund, a new initiative that will help member institutions build leadership capacity while advancing strategic priorities and meaningful institutional change.

Named for NACU’s founding executive director, Jerry Berberet, the fund will support campus teams participating in NACU’s Leadership Development Institute (LDI). The Institute helps higher education professionals strengthen their leadership capabilities and apply them within the complex environment of colleges and universities. The Berberet Fund extends that model by connecting individual leadership development more intentionally to team learning and institutional action as each campus team will apply their learning to a strategic priority or change initiative at their institution. The approach reflects Berberet’s longstanding belief that lasting organizational change is more likely when colleagues learn together around a shared challenge and return to campus prepared to put that learning into action.

“Throughout my career, I saw that meaningful institutional change rarely happens because one person attends a program and returns to campus with new ideas that are seldom widely shared,” said Berberet. “Change takes hold when colleagues learn together, develop a shared understanding of a challenge, and commit to moving forward together. This approach enables good ideas to gain traction.”

Following the Institute, funded teams will develop a brief artifact capturing their work, lessons learned, or approach to the challenge. These resources will be shared with the other LDI participants and, possibly, the broader NACU membership, allowing other institutions to benefit from the teams’ experiences.

“Jerry’s vision goes well beyond helping more people participate in LDI,” said Seán Creighton, president of NACU. “This is an investment in the capacity of our institutions to lead change. By bringing colleagues together around a consequential challenge, we can develop stronger leaders, create shared ownership, and help campuses move from ideas to action. We are deeply grateful to Jerry for an investment that will benefit individual institutions while strengthening the NACU network as a whole.”

The Jerry Berberet Leadership Innovation Fund reflects the collaborative approach at the heart of NACU: institutions solving problems together. By supporting campus teams and creating opportunities to share what they learn, the fund will extend its impact beyond participating institutions, allowing lessons, approaches, and promising practices to ripple across the consortium.