The Keynote on Speaking Engagement

What if your degree never expired — not as a credential, but as a relationship you kept using for the rest of your life? In this Keynote, Brandon Busteed — CEO of Edconic and former head of education at Gallup and Kaplan — joins Ryan to rethink what higher ed is really for. Watch the full-length version on YouTube (53 mins) Drawing on the landmark Gallup-Purdue Index, the largest study of college...

The message from Nathan Chappell in The Generosity Crisis and reinforced in his interview on the Keynote podcast is that the focus must be on creating Radical Connection. Alumni and donors need to feel emotionally connected with their alma mater, and that spirit has been waning amongst graduates of more recent decades. So how do we go about doing this? What’s the best way to create a more meaningf...

AI-reading of Kristin Hanson's new article, "Making engagement an 'inimitable product' This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.speakingengagement.org/subscribe

One of the most provocative ideas in my conversation with Nathan Chappell is that there may soon be no such thing as a “donor.” Nathan has spent more than two decades as a fundraiser and fundraising leader, and he’s become one of the clearest voices on AI in our field. This Keynote is also a milestone for us: it kicks off our first-ever Book Club, reading Nathan’s The Generosity Crisis , a book th...

AI-reading of Ryan's new article, "Closing Remarks - Week 6 - Friendships through Affiliation" This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.speakingengagement.org/subscribe

What do you do when your engagement goals are climbing, your content has gone all-ask and no-story, and there's no budget to hire a writer? At UTEP, you stop looking inward and start looking out — to your own alumni. In this special Agora edition of the podcast, Sydney Bertram, Assistant Vice President for Strategic Communications and Engagement at UTEP, shares how her team broke out of the "trans...

AI-reading of Dave Hail's new article, "Too Big to Be a Cause." This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.speakingengagement.org/subscribe

This week on Keynote, Ryan sits down with Patrick Auerbach, Vice President for Advancement with the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, for a wide-ranging conversation about affinity, philanthropy, identity, and the changing nature of engagement work. After more than two decades leading alumni relations and engagement efforts at the University of Southern California, Patrick reflects on hi...

AI-reading of Ryan's new article "Closing Remarks - Week 5 - Honest Convos are on Podcasts" This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.speakingengagement.org/subscribe

AI-reading of Kristin's new article, "Say the Hard Thing—But Say it with Care." This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.speakingengagement.org/subscribe

In this episode of Keynote, Ryan sits down with Mackenzi Huyser, Vice President for Advancement and Chief Academic Officer at Trinity Christian College, for a conversation unlike any previously featured on Speaking Engagement. Watch the Full-Length edition on YouTube (48-mins) Last fall, Trinity Christian College announced that it would close at the end of the academic year. In this deeply reflect...

AI-reading of Ryan's Closing Keynote this week, "Fixing the Broken Experience." This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.speakingengagement.org/subscribe

In this Breakout episode, Ryan is joined by Dave Hail and Kristin Hanson to discuss two big questions shaping the future of higher education: what happens if universities move toward a lifelong “subscription” model, and how does AI fundamentally change what colleges are actually teaching? The conversation begins with a follow-up to the “60-Year Degree” debate, exploring David Rosowky's follow up a...

AI-generated reading of Annie Bastida Quade's new article "Substract First" This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.speakingengagement.org/subscribe

In this episode of Keynote , Ryan Catherwood sits down with Mallory Willsea for a wide-ranging conversation about the growing pressure on higher education marketing and communications teams and why those teams are increasingly carrying institutional survival. Watch the full-length video on YouTube Drawing on her work with institutions, agencies, and higher ed technology companies, Mallory explores...

AI-Voice generated reading of Courtney Stombock's article, "Could Volunteerism be the Remedy to Shrinking Donor Pipelines." This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.speakingengagement.org/subscribe

This week’s Keynote is a personal one for me. My guest is Meghan Buzby from the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD) , and our conversation centers on advocacy, volunteer engagement, and the challenge of building community around a devastating disease that many people still know very little about. My mom passed away from FTD in 2012 after a long battle with the disease, and listening...

Published by Speaking Engagement Authored by Ryan Catherwood About the content this week I’ve been mulling over the idea of an “all-comer” university. During the Keynote this week, Michael Latsko described Arizona State’s efforts to make it possible for anyone who wants to attend, at any phase of life, to have access. The doors are open. I very much appreciate the idea of an institution putting ac...

Published by Speaking Engagement Authored by Dave Hail Michael Latsko came to Arizona State University in January 2023, about a month after ASU had wrapped its first-ever faculty and staff engagement survey. Sixty percent of employees responded. Affinity for the institutional charter landed in the upper 90s, not just agreement with what it said, but belief that the university actually lived it out...

In this episode of Keynote, Ryan is joined by Michael Latsko, Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Arizona State University, for a conversation that challenges a core assumption in advancement: that engagement starts with alumni. Michael offers a different perspective — one rooted in workforce strategy, culture, and institutional design. We explore how employee experience shapes lon...

The Closing Keynote remarks is a reading from a weekly newsletter that wraps-up the week on Fridays. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.speakingengagement.org/subscribe

In this Breakout episode, Ryan is joined by Annie Quade to unpack a provocative question from the Harvard Business Review article “ Has AI Ended Thought Leadership ?” — and what it means for professionals trying to build credibility in an increasingly crowded digital world. They explore the tension between thought leadership and what the article calls “thought doership,” questioning whether AI has...

Hey Listeners! I have an updated Keynote podcast hitting your feed. Note on format: Beginning with this episode and moving forward, we’ll be publishing a condensed ~30-minute version of Keynote conversations here in the podcast feed. If you’d like to watch the full-length, edited version , you can find it on YouTube as part of the Speaking Engagement channel. Link here: https://youtu.be/IahIhJsPXE...

In the first-ever Breakout episode, Ryan is joined by Kristin to unpack the biggest ideas from the debut Keynote conversation with John Hill—and what they actually mean for leaders building communities today. They dig into a provocative shift: what happens when it’s no longer about finding a job, but being the job—and how that reality is already reshaping higher education, alumni engagement, and t...