Monday, October 6, 2025
The RP Group

 LFM Academies

The LFM Academy Experience
1. Academy Kick-Off Participants will kick off the Academy by learning what to expect, familiarize themselves with the LFM Canvas course, and meet cohort members, facilitators, and coaches. Each team will also have a dedicated session with their assigned coach.
2. Onboarding Onboarding involves online pre-academy preparation activities. In partnership with their coaches, teams will engage in activities like team development, leadership exploration, and refining their project plans.
3. In-Person Convenings During three in-person convenings, participants will explore leadership concepts and broaden their knowledge, and skills, through readings, discussions, interactive exercises, project work, and networking with other teams.
4. Between Convenings Teams will participate in monthly virtual meetings with their coach to ensure that learning is applied to real-world situations. These sessions will explore a range of topics with input from participants, and provide opportunities to discuss how they are applying the Academy concepts to their team project and daily work.
5. Sustainability Planning Teams will work closely with their coaches in a final series of virtual meetings to develop a sustainability plan for their teams’ projects and their ongoing leadership development.

Overview

Welcome to the Leading from the Middle (LFM) Academy. This dynamic Academy is more than just a leadership course—it’s a journey of growth, collaboration, and innovation.

Over the course of 15 months, your college’s cross-functional team—composed of tenured and adjunct academic and counseling faculty, administrators, classified professionals, and institutional researchers—will immerse itself in a rich blend of virtual and face-to-face experiences (for specific details, refer to graphic). Members of each team will gain new perspectives, hone their leadership skills, and forge connections with like-minded peers who are meaningfully driving systemic change at colleges across the California Community Colleges system.

LFM is a dedicated space to cultivate the leadership mindsets and strategies necessary to champion equity-focused reforms, close achievement gaps, and create an inclusive, student-centered educational environment. As you progress through the Academy, you will not only apply what you learn to real-world projects, making a tangible impact on your campus, but you will also be guided by experienced facilitators and coaches—LFM alumni who bring invaluable insights. Together, you will navigate the complexities of institutional change, utilizing evidence-based decision-making and innovative leadership practices to achieve your goals.

LFM Curriculum

The LFM curriculum will serve as your roadmap on this transformative journey, guiding you through the essential elements of effective middle leadership. Carefully crafted by and for leaders within the California Community Colleges system, this curriculum is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills needed to navigate the complexities of leadership both now and in the future. You’ll explore a wide range of topics such as the following:

  • Why Lead? The Case for Middle Leadership

  • Collective and Individual Equity-Minded Leadership Identity

  • Making the Case/Using Evidence

  • Using Data for Decision-Making to Improve Student Success

  • Understanding and Analyzing Institutional Cultures for Successful Leadership

  • Communicating Successfully

  • Building Teams and Coalitions

  • Engaging Resistance

  • Using Design Tools 

  • Momentum Mapping

  • Taking Risks/Failing Successfully

  • Building a Data-Informed Campus Culture

Academy Outcomes

The Academy’s outcomes are designed to create lasting change, focusing on three key dimensions: individual leadership development, collective leadership development, and campus-based capacity building. These outcomes are as follows:

  • Formulate and articulate a collective and individual equity-minded leadership identity

  • Map the connection and relationship among institutional needs, effective leadership, and equitable student success

  • Create sustainable professional relationships in which peers share ideas 

  • Identify data, research, and other forms of evidence to spark courageous and explicit conversations to inform and prioritize transformative institutional changes that address systemic racism and social inequities

  • Apply data, research, and other forms of evidence to make informed decisions that advance transformative change efforts toward more equitable outcomes at the participant’s institution

  • Identify ways to measure a change in achievement and equity gaps

  • Develop strategies to sustain and support their ongoing leadership development

  • Identify a project aligned with their college’s strategic priorities that advance equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism work at their institution

  • Implement or continue to advance an identified project

  • Create a sustainability plan for the project to continue after the conclusion of LFM

  • Increase the number of middle leaders with the necessary skills to create the changes to redress systemic barriers and empower historically marginalized students to realize their educational goals.

  • Advance a strategic priority that increases equitable student success and/or institutional transformation.