HBCU FACULTY DEVELOPMENT NETWORK
33rd Annual
Conference
Strengthening Excellence at HBCUs:
Developing Faculty, Staff, and Academic Leaders
for What’s Now and What’s Next
October 29-31, 2026
Charlotte, North Carolina
Renaissance Charlotte SouthPark Hotel
ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
The HBCU Faculty Development Network Annual Conference brings together faculty, staff, academic leaders, and higher education professionals from across the HBCU community for three days of learning, collaboration, and connection.
This year’s conference, Strengthening Excellence at HBCUs: Developing Faculty, Staff, and Academic Leaders for What’s Now and What’s Next, focuses on practical strategies, shared solutions, and meaningful conversations that strengthen teaching, leadership, faculty and staff development, and institutional effectiveness.
Join colleagues in Charlotte to exchange ideas, build relationships, and return to your institution with new perspectives, practical resources, and strategies you can put to work.
Fri, Mar 06
|Virtual Event
March 2026 Lunch & Learn: Higher Ed+
Elevate Research with Sustainable AI Pathways Move beyond basic AI workshops. Leverage HigherEd+’s foundation-funded model to build sustainable, ethically grounded AI research pathways. Master curriculum design, digital badging, and faculty engagement strategies tailored for HBCU excellence.
Time & Location
Mar 06, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM CST
Virtual Event
About the event
Building a Sustainable AI Training Program for Scholarly Research
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming how faculty conduct scholarly research, and HBCUs are uniquely positioned to build structured, research-focused AI training pathways that move beyond introductory workshops into the hands-on mastery of the most useful AI tools and platforms. This interactive lunch-and-learn draws on HigherEd+'s proven AI professional development model, currently funded by leading foundations and in use at research-intensive and teaching-focused institutions alike, to explore how HBCUs can design a sustainable, ethically grounded AI training program tailored to scholarly research. Participants will gain practical insights into curriculum design, faculty engagement strategies, digital badge credentialing, and scalable delivery formats that support both individual researchers and institutional goals.
Presenters
