An in-depth interview with the maestro behind the 2026 Annual Conference, Kelly Cross

ACUPA recently opened its Call for Proposals for the 2026 Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado. As a member of the Event Planning Committee (EPC), I know just how much the committee pours into making sure this conference is worth every minute and dollar spent attending.

With the expansion of ACUPA's institutional memberships, our membership stretches beyond direct policy office administrators, so many of you may not have experienced the caliber of the conference we put on each year. I also know higher ed institutions are tightening their belts under financial uncertainty. So, for this month’s post, I sat down (in front a screen) for a chat with chair-elect of ACUPA’s Board of Directors and Event Planning Committee chair, Kelly Cross, to dive into what makes ACUPA's annual conference one of the best professional investments you can make in 2026.

I hope you’ll be inspired to join us in Denver, April 20-22, and consider submitting a conference session proposal. The deadline to submit a proposal is October 16, 2025.

Editorial Note: I am convinced that this interview should have been podcast. I regret that you can’t see our facial expressions and gestures, or hear our asides. Editorial liberties were taken to ensure this post captured the essence of our conversation and came out (somewhat) shorter than a federal regulation.

The Interview

MONIQUE: What makes this year’s conference unique compared to previous years?

KELLY: We've seen a few different things over the last few years.

One, we've seen increased attendance, which we love. I hope it's a reflection of how important policy administrators are on their respective college campuses. I also suspect it might be a reflection of how much we need each other and want to have a network of colleagues.

But we've also noticed that our sessions’ contents have become more and more advanced. Typically, they represent experiences or questions that folks might have if they're more seasoned in the field or they've already gone through some of the foundational elements of a policy program.

One thing that we [ACUPA] really want to focus on this year is pulling back in that foundational element in a pretty unique way. To that end, we're going to do our first ever solo pre-conference. The pre-conference is going to be focused on those foundational elements, and so it's going to be great for an individual who is new to higher education policy. We're going to talk about your Policy on Policies. We're going to talk about the intersections of shared governance, and all of those key things. I also think it's going to be good for people who might need a refresher. 

MONIQUE: From your perspective as a board member, and not just EPC chair, why is this conference a “must-attend” event?

KELLY: Our annual conference is a must attend event for a number of reasons, not least of which for me personally is that I find it to be very rejuvenating. I am the only, you know, enterprise-wide policy administrator at my institution. That may be true for many of our members. To be able to have our own conference is great, but it's also kind of like an intensive, right? There are sessions, but you're all in this kind of cohort experience together while we're going through it. We're all attending the same sessions together and we can network in a way that is super beneficial and I think rejuvenating and energizing for the field. 

And so I think--there's probably a better way to say this--the bang for the buck, or the return on the investment, is excellent. I can get so much information in one place at one time and feel great about it and want to stay employed in my field work. It's really a one stop shop for me, and honestly, it's so valuable to me that even if I wasn't EPC chair and I think even if I wasn't a member of the board, if for some reason I didn't have funding, I would still personally pay to come to this conference because I need to go for myself. 

MONIQUE: I've said the same thing.

KELLY: I think it's worthwhile from a budget standpoint, but I think it's worthwhile from a professional development standpoint. It gets me connected in a way that it doesn't just solve these immediate questions that I have at the conference. It gets me connected to professionals that I contact throughout the year. So, it's facilitating these kind of one-off interactions that last year-round really. 

MONIQUE: And that kind of already answered my question, but what do you look forward to most about the conference?

KELLY: Oh my gosh, all of it! I look forward to so much.

I look forward to the content because I know I'm going to learn something new. I also have to say I know I'm going to see people doing really amazing things. I do have to work on being OK with what I'm doing, you know, not feeling like I'm not doing enough, you know what I mean? And I think that's the other benefit of the conference is that every policy program is in a different place and we're all doing what we can and it's all, it's all good.

I look forward to that. But it's the network for me that I love so much. I have members of a ACUPA pinned in my Teams chat because I talk to y'all so much throughout the year and its one-off conversations about policies or procedure or process or how people are handling X, Y and Z. I also love the post-conference vacations that some of us take together.

MONIQUE: Yeah {sighs and looks off into the distance longingly}

KELLY: Yeah. Yeah. You know!

MONIQUE: So, I know we talked a little bit about why you and I, who are in this field, want to go to the conference.

But what would you say to those folks who are part of institutional memberships who maybe don't have the word “policy” in their title? Why should they attend this conference?

 KELLY: So as a policy administrator, I work with a lot of people who are responsible for policy who do not have “policy” in their title, and it's because they're the content subject matter expert, the SME.

I think once you get to a certain level of an organization, the likelihood that you are responsible for a policy, and in most cases many policies, is very high. So, we have our financial compliance officer who is one of our [ACUPA] institutional members at Georgia Tech. She's responsible for like eight policies and “policy” is not in her title anywhere. I think the benefit of attending this conference for her or for an HR project manager that oversees policies for human resources is that they're getting to connect with other people who are in similar roles.

You get insight into some of the behind the scenes work that goes on so that you can more efficiently and more effectively navigate your own processes when you return to your primary campus. Also, you are hearing about how other schools manage the work and you might be able to advocate for a change in process or procedure at your own institution. Even though you may not be directly responsible for the enterprise-wide policy process, policy owners can request and advocate for quite a lot, because most policy administrators, we want it to be a good experience. So, they're looking at it from a different lens than we might be, and I think it's just going to help their own personal experience just be even better.

MONIQUE: Awesome. I think that’s great. {ready to move on}

KELLY: Yeah, I'm going to add something to that one. Sorry. So, we have had some members who are, you know, we talk a lot about higher education and our higher education policy administrators or our institutional members. But we know we have members that are staff or employees at state agencies. 

MONIQUE: OK, go for it. {chuckling}

KELLY: A few years ago, we had a member from one of the Illinois state agencies who was building an entirely new office and program. And one of the things she had to do was do a lot of policies. And there is so much overlap between a higher education institution and a state agency and kind of policy, procedure, bureaucracy. She found it incredibly beneficial because she, similar to many of us, felt alone and wasn't really sure how to do things. She was able to get connected to other employees from other states who run policies for their respective unit that is not a college, and I think she still keeps in touch with them as well. So, there's a lot of benefit even if you're not in higher education. 

MONIQUE: Absolutely. I agree with you. Some of the things that we talk about are so foundational to program building in general, whether we’re talking about stakeholder development or risk assessment or some of these other topics. It’s really a “plug and play.” While we all have unique lenses on higher ed, especially coming from a public institution, we have that state entity and federal bureaucracy lens that we get to carry. Like state agencies, we very similarly understand doing a lot with a little. 

KELLY: Yes, yes, and documenting. {Laughs}

MONIQUE: Making it all work and documenting the heck out of it!

MONIQUE: In what ways does the conference strengthen ACUPA’s community and network and advance the mission? What impact is ACUPA having in our community, but also the industry? 

KELLY: I think there is a real tangible benefit that we get from being from being in the same place at the same time, where we can immediately engage in some cross-institutional dialogue around what we're learning in the moment so we can engage in the “pair and shares.” We can formulate opinions. We can make recommendations that other schools might consider that would not have popped up, in an otherwise organic way.

And it’s also not recorded. So, people are more willing to say things that they may be less inclined to put in a forum post or e-mail to someone. You kind of get the real, off-the-cuff responses from other policy administrators that might be more.

MONIQUE: Well, I think of the depth of what you can provide to somebody in these spaces, right? We understand confidentiality and sensitivity. We get what you might be inferring, but you can finally just say out loud, “this is a really tough situation I’m dealing with,” without it sounding like you're whining about your job.

KELLY: Yeah, absolutely. We can get to--and I think you hit it--we can get to that depth of knowledge and depth of sharing that is very difficult to do via a forum post or an e-mail and because we're all together. It's much more effective. You're not having to schedule 15 30-minute meetings to try to figure things out.

MONIQUE: Yeah, I just feel like sometimes like our conferences are so intense, because you're taking in so much that like, I leave and there's that high that we're all together, and then that low that I'm worthless and not doing enough {laughs}. And then there's like this middle ground that’s like, “OK, what can I do?”

KELLY: No, that's exactly it, Monique. “What can I do immediately? Because I see all of the amazing things that my colleagues are doing. How can I do a smidge of it?” But I think we're all feeling that because we all want to do good work. We're all trying to do more with less.

MONIQUE: Well, let's jump into impact of the organization. How is this conference advancing this profession? 

KELLY: One, this is really, to my knowledge, the only conference where we are focused on policy administration, right? It is not a backburner topic at a larger organization. You know, every single session is going to be applicable, and every single session is going to bring some advanced knowledge, interest, skill, right? And all of those things drive the profession forward. There are so few of us at our respective college campuses, most of us are in office of one, or half of one… unless you're Tony Graham and then you have 12 people. 

{both start laughing}

MONIQUE: You’re totally right. This is going in... “unless you’re Tony Graham” –

KELLY: --unless you're at the University of Pittsburgh, and you got a billion people working with you… I think that being together at the conference, it gives us some weight. In a way, it is advertising that the profession and field and organization exists. I think in general, getting people together as a field of study and field of work to share ideas, share knowledge, share expertise, moves, moves the functional area forward. 

We come from a lot of different places and [policy] is one of the critical elements of the seven elements of an effective compliance program, right. And this is the only conference exclusively focused on one of those seven. You know, auditors have their conference and organizations, but this this is specific to policy.  And that has far, far reaching impacts, right? If we're saying that this is a standard for the field, it has huge impacts for our larger compliance programs and how those functions work together or don't work together.

MONIQUE: We’ve talked about how the conference has really become more and more advanced. How does the conference support the policy program maturity levels of all possible attendees?

KELLY: There are some targeted aspects of it where we're going to hit people who might want either new foundational knowledge or a refresher on foundational knowledge.

There's going to be a benefit to employees who are kind of moving from their initial years in the field to more senior roles. Even if you have all the experience in the world with policy, so much our success and ability to do good work is dependent upon others in an in an institutional administration or where we are in the organization.

What if we suddenly have an executive leader who wants to change a lot of things that goes counter to your established process? Revisiting those foundational elements can be very useful. Or connecting with individuals from schools who are doing things the way they want to switch to.

Or maybe you're starting a new job and you need to reconnect to see how people are doing things. Things are never static. We think we've solved a problem and then the problem circles back around. People change and so questions that have been asked and answered years ago come back around, and I need to remember why the answer I provided years ago or the decisions we made years ago may not be relevant anymore or may not be enough. Times have changed, y'all.  Doesn't matter how much experience I have, this is my first experience--

MONIQUE: --with this rain fire?! {throwing hands up in the air}

KELLY: Bam, that's exactly it! This is my first experience being a policy administrator after 183 executive orders.

You know, I'm at a state institution, the leadership of our Regents, our legislators, those change. So even if I stayed the same, the things around me are changing and I need to be prepared to respond and do so in an informed way. Which is why I think colleagues who have that experience are incredibly valuable, like you, Katheryn Yetter, definitely.  And Tony “I have a million employees” Graham.

MONIQUE: Last thing, what is one thing you hope every attendee takes away from this conference, this year's conference? 

KELLY:  Yeah.  {sheepishly} So, I'm going to say that there are two things. I know you asked for one thing. 

MONIQUE: {rolls eyes and laughs} I hate you so much. Nothing's more Kelly than that statement. Go for it.

KELLY: So first of several things is: YOU CAN DO THIS. You can do the work. 

There are resources and people who want to help each other out and it can be very stressful trying to figure out what to do first and then what to do next. And you can figure it out and we can help you.

Which leads into the second thing that is YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

You're not alone in this field. You may be the only person on your campus with the title. You may feel alone, but you're not alone with us. We got your back and selfishly, maybe not selfishly, but--this is my personal perspective, right-- what I gained from attending this conference are the things that kept me in the field. I alluded to this before, but I was really ready to leave the field, and then I attended one of ACUPA’s in-person conferences and I really felt like I could just breathe. I could take a deep breath again and I didn’t have to figure things out by myself. I had a team of people that I could connect with, and the work felt much more achievable. 

We collect feedback via surveys at the end of each conference, but please feel free to share what you find most valuable about attending the annual conference by emailing the EPC at events@acupa.org.

Articles on Topics that May Affect Your Policies

Due to the popularity of our previous Policy in the News post, the Blog Committee wanted to take this opportunity to share recent policy-related higher education articles ahead of the ACUPA Annual Conference.

Administration

Guidance for an Often Thankless Task: Revising the Faculty Handbook
By Laura L. Behling, Inside Higher Ed, April 4, 2023

AI in Academia

AI Tools Don’t Have to be the Enemy of Teaching and Learning
By Gavan P.L. Watson & Sarah Elaine Eaton, University Affairs, February 17, 2023

Canadian Universities Crafting ChatGPT Policies as French School Bans AI Program
By Aaron D’Andrea, Global News, February 1, 2023

Campus Safety

West Virginia Governor Signs Campus Carry Gun Bill
By John Raby, AP News, March 1, 2023

Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

Free Speech vs. Hate Speech
By Safia Abdulahi, Inside Higher Ed, April 4, 2023

Harvard Grad Union Members Mixed on New University-Wide Policies on Bullying and Discrimination
By Julia A. Maciejak, The Harvard Crimson, April 5, 2023

How EDI Policies are Failing International Students
By Karine Coen-Sanchez, University Affairs, January 24, 2023

The Ohio Education Bill that Stands Against Diversity Training—and China
By Alcino Donadel, University Business, March 15, 2023

Health and Wellness

New ‘Disconnecting from Work’ Policies Aren’t Enough to Tackle the Problem of Work-life Balance
By Michael Rancic, University Affairs, August 8, 2023

What Higher Ed's Paid Parental-Leave Policies Look Like
By Megan Zahneis, The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 28, 2023

Yale University’s New Mental Health Policy Raises Discussions Among BW Communities
By Madeline Dwyer, The Exponent, March 23, 2023

Information Technology

Education Espionage: FSA “Secret Shoppers” to Monitor Higher Ed for Unethical Practices
By Alcino Donadel, University Business, March 15, 2023

How IT Departments Can Shape Acceptable Use Policies in Higher Ed
By Alexandra Shimalla, EdTech: Focus on Higher Education, March 29, 2023

U.S. Department of Education Announces Updated Data Security Expectation for Postsecondary Institutions
By Sarah Pheasant, Jonathan Tarnow (Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP), J.D. Supra, March 31, 2023

Tenure and Recruitment

Florida University System Approves New Tenure Policy, Spurning Faculty Critics
By Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Higher Ed Dive, March 30, 2023

Texas Senate’s Priority Bills on Higher Ed Would End Tenure, Diversity Policies
By Kate McGee, The Texas Tribune, March 10, 2023

A Continuous Improvement Approach to Policy Management

This post is co-authored by Stefan's colleague Erin Hastey, Project Assistant for Administrative Policies and Special Projects at the University of Wisconsin.

In an effective policy administration system, policies are regularly reviewed and revised to align with our institutions’ missions and implementation needs. That same emphasis on review and revision applies to our policy management processes. In the University of Wisconsin (UW) System, we follow these guidelines to facilitate continuous improvement.

• Appropriate policy work channels

  Policy owners are our subject matter experts, and we leverage their expertise for maximum impact. At the UW System, we do this by having two, separate policy review committees: one for academic and student affairs policies, and another for finance and general administration policies. Each committee is empowered to develop the internal and institutional review processes best aligned with their subject matter.

• Frequent requests for key stakeholder input

  We cast a wide net for stakeholder input—draft policies and policy revisions are sent to administrators and shared governance groups at every institution each month. Draft policies include web comment forms through which stakeholders can submit their feedback and see others’. Additionally, as part of our annual policy prioritization process, we survey institution stakeholders for their top policy priorities. Based on the survey results, we work with our policy owners to identify areas most in need of attention in the coming year. This allows policy end-users to drive policy prioritization from the start.

• Regular “fresh eyes” on our process

Perhaps the most important part of continuous improvement for any process is regularly having it considered from different perspectives. At UW System, we do this in three ways:

1. Attend the ACUPA conference! By sharing information about our process at conferences, we gain valuable feedback from colleagues and learn emerging best practices. The implementation of our policy equity lens was a direct result of participating in an ACUPA conference.
   
   
2. Graduate fellow program. Through the UW System graduate fellowship program, a fellow serves as our process coordinator. Graduate fellowships last one to two years, and students come from diverse backgrounds and programs of study. This gives us a new perspective on our process at least every two years.
   
   
3. Get “familiar eyes” on our process too. While it’s important to get new perspectives, we also benefit from the perspectives of those most familiar with our process. To this end, we survey our policy owners and end-users at least biennially to get their recommendations for improvement.

Questions to inform continuous improvement for your process:

Key stakeholders: Who are the key stakeholders in our policy management process, and how do we engage them? Do we seek their feedback on our process as well as our policies? How does our process support their (and ultimately, students’) success?

Peer benchmarking: When did we last review our peers’ policy management processes, whether through conferences, research, or direct outreach? What questions or new ideas did that prompt with respect to our process?

ACUPA: How have we taken advantage of our ACUPA member resources to improve our process? What’s one resource we could utilize in the next month?

Accelerate your Membership Experience

by Gina Kennedy

This past year has proven that no matter what happens, there is always a way to get through it. Working in an academic institution, the halls are usually buzzing with chatter from students, faculty and visitors, but now, just silence for the most part. A year ago, if you had a question or wanted to share an idea, you walked down the hall, but now you Zoom. We are all learning how to do the same work differently. Of course, it can be scary – most changes are – but that does not mean it will not lead to something amazing, right? Reflecting on this year, I will try to value the human connection a little bit more.

I am grateful for my ACUPA membership connection to help during these unprecedented times. ACUPA represents more than 150 institutions in the USA and abroad, and  I miss the in-person conferences when I could connect, break bread, share a favorite story and learn something new. When we can get together again, we will…but for now we all Zoom.

As policy professionals we navigate around the emerging changes and concerns, we are always evolving and moving forward. Being a member of ACUPA gives me a forum to solicit advice and share policy issues with ‘like’ colleagues (we really are policy unicorns). In our supercharged Zoom world, it is hard not to feel distanced or that there is too much change, frustrated that we cannot conference or socialize, it gives me Zoom fatigue sometimes just thinking about it.

Socrates writes, "The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new." These are sage words to live by, and a great way to kick-start something with new perspective and a heavy dose of positivity. So, here are four ideas on how to make the most of your ACUPA membership.

1. Member Spotlight

It’s important in a group as large and diverse as ACUPA to put yourself out there and introduce yourself.  Each month, ACUPA spotlights one individual in an effort to bring you, our unique and diverse group of members, together to network, share, and acquire knowledge. To be a spotlight participant, send us your information.

2. Be Prepared and Make Every Meeting Valuable

Many do not realize the preparation that should go into each meeting role. The better prepared you are for a position, the more you can learn, help others, contribute to the meeting, and energize the organization. Share your ideas – creative members make all the difference to strengthen the connection.

3. Turn Challenges into Opportunities

Now more than ever, the challenges of COVID and post-COVID provide policy administrators with a wealth of new tools, and I am sure some old tricks of the trade have been used to migrate through the changes needed for our organizations. Having a resource organization like ACUPA established to explore policy processes and to discuss specific policy issues is a great reason to ensure your membership is up to date, that you are participating and that you promote the organization with other policy administrators so they too can turn challenges into opportunities.

4. Be the Dose of Positivity - Engage and Inspire

Do you have a story to tell? Write a guest blog, offer to do a presentation, share with your colleagues!

Bringing the ACUPA Conference Home

At last year’s ACUPA conference, I attended a session called “What Have We Been Missing? Adding Equity Review to Our Policy Process,” presented by Michele Gross from the University of Minnesota. Michele presented information about UM’s “equity lens” facet of their policy review process in which policies are evaluated for unforeseen, undue burdens for groups who have experienced exclusion and/or discrimination. The presentation was informative and thought provoking. I returned to my campus motivated to implement something similar. This post describes the process of realizing this change on my campus. 

By way of context, I work at a college of almost 13,000 students with the only student demographic majority being women. Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) is also relatively new, founded in 2005, and serves large populations of first-generation, immigrant, and students of color. We have approximately 600 faculty and 400 staff. Our policy process involves the following stages: 

1.      Informal review by me 

2.      Informal review (which we call coordination) by senior leadership 

3.      Final reviews by our Legal Affairs team and me 

4.      Final approval by the president’s cabinet.  

Despite a growing level of diversity among our faculty and administration, many faculty and administrators are from different demographic groups than our students. Our policy process is relatively streamlined, which has many advantages, but the equity review presentation I attended highlighted one of the disadvantages: A potentially narrow view of the impact of our policies, made even more possible when creators and reviewers of policies aren’t members of the groups potentially impacted by the policies.  

Consequently, when I returned from the conference, I began plans to pilot test an equity review stage in our policy review process. After assembling a proposal describing logistics and potential benefits, I met with my supervisor and her supervisor (then, the president’s chief of staff). They were both on board quickly and the idea was presented to the president’s cabinet for their feedback. Because the cabinet is the final approver of all policies and provides oversight for the policy process itself, their support was necessary. They agreed to a pilot test of the idea, so I updated our policy review flowchart and created a memo outlining the process and the reasons behind it. After some discussion, the equity review stage was inserted early in the process, between my informal review and senior leadership coordination. I also assembled a team of campus officials with responsibilities with relevant groups who would compose our equity review team. Because our campus is relatively new and leanly staffed, we don’t have many of the cultural centers that other campuses do. Here is our current equity review team and, where not obvious, the groups for which they review: 

• Associate Dean for Advising Programs: Students receiving mentoring for academic renewal or enhancement 
• Executive Director for Diversity and Equity Compliance: Groups covered under federal EEO and Title IX policy 
• Veterans Success Manager 
• Executive Director of Financial Aid Services: Pell Grant recipients and other low income students 
• Director of Disability Services 
• Senior Associate Vice President, Student Affairs: A wide variety of other student groups that don’t currently have dedicated staff, such as LGBTQIA+, returning students, etc. 

After identifying the group, I met with them to gauge their interest and invite their suggestions about maximizing the success of the group. All agreed that equity review would provide a beneficial level of review and potentially provide them with a professional development opportunity to become more involved with policy creation and review.   

If you’ve managed any type of organizational change, you know how strongly institutional context and timing influence its success, and our equity review implementation was no different. In particular, a series of staffing changes created an environment conducive to success, although this could have easily had the opposite effect. In the past year, a new president and four new VPs (two in newly created divisions) have been hired and three new deans (out of seven total) have either been hired or are in the final hiring stages. This has led to a slow-down in normal policy review activity, but also created fertile ground for new ideas to take root, since the entire campus was in change mode. 

The equity review team has reviewed a few policies and we are still in the early stages of implementing equity review, but every sign so far has been positive. I have every reason to believe that it will become a permanent feature of our policy review process. We are currently exploring the addition of staff who work with international students and athletes to the equity review team.  

For anyone interested in making such a change, I highly recommend UM’s equity lens website and Michele’s presentation from the 2019 conference and the webinar she and her colleagues presented last week, both available under Resources on ACUPA’s website. Additionally, tying the effort to campus culture and traditions strengthens its chance of success, and most campuses have a mission or vision statement or some other foundational document that describes the institution’s commitment to diversity that can add support to the effort. A variety of administrative units, such as those whose staff work with underrepresented groups, also may be engaged to build a coalition of support for anyone wanting to implement such a change on their campus.