The conference program is at the heart of the FOCUS experience. A strong agenda combines practical higher education finance content, timely updates, professional development and opportunities to hear from a range of institutions and perspectives.
Start with what has worked before. Review previous FOCUS agendas and attendee feedback before building the program from scratch. Recurring topics and successful session formats can provide a useful foundation for the next conference.
Begin Program Planning Early
Initial program planning should begin well before registration opens. Previous hosts have started discussing session ideas approximately a year before the conference and have contacted potential state-agency speakers several months in advance.
Early planning gives the host team time to:
- Identify major themes and priority topics
- Invite high-priority speakers before calendars fill
- Balance strategic and operational content
- Build a mix of plenary and concurrent sessions
- Coordinate room needs and online-delivery requirements
Review Previous Conferences
Past agendas are one of the best starting points for program development.
Review them to identify:
- Topics that regularly draw broad interest
- Sessions that may benefit from an updated version
- Previous speakers who may be useful contacts
- Program formats that worked well
- Gaps identified through attendee feedback
Topics that have appeared regularly at FOCUS conferences include ethics, NACUBO-related updates, legislative or state-agency information and leadership discussions.
Build a Balanced Program
Aim for an agenda that reflects the range of institutions, functional areas and experience levels represented in FOCUS.
Consider balance across:
- Public and private institutions
- Large and small institutions
- Strategic and operational topics
- Functional areas such as budgeting, accounting, procurement, payroll and related finance operations
- Emerging issues and established professional-development topics
- New professionals and experienced leaders
Session Formats
Plenary Sessions
Plenary sessions bring all attendees together and are generally best suited for broader topics, keynote-style presentations, major updates or issues with wide relevance across institutions.
Concurrent Sessions
Concurrent sessions allow the conference to offer more specialized content for smaller groups. These can work especially well for operational topics, case studies, functional-area discussions and sessions intended for a particular audience.
Sessions of approximately 45–60 minutes generally provide enough time for substantive content while maintaining a workable conference schedule.
Finding Speakers
Speaker recruitment does not have to begin with nationally known presenters. Some of the most useful conference content may come from people already working within Virginia higher education.
Potential speakers may include:
- Colleagues at the host institution
- Finance leaders and subject-matter experts from other FOCUS institutions
- State-agency representatives
- Professional associations
- Previous FOCUS presenters
- Partners with expertise relevant to higher education finance
Use internal expertise. Previous hosts have successfully used their own institutional staff for conference sessions. A strong local practice, innovation or lesson learned can often translate well to colleagues across Virginia institutions.
Speaker Outreach
When inviting speakers, provide enough information for them to understand the event and what you are asking of them.
Include, as appropriate:
- Conference dates and location
- Expected session format and length
- Anticipated audience
- In-person or online participation expectations
- Important presentation deadlines
- Technology or AV information
- Travel or reimbursement arrangements, if applicable
- A host-team point of contact
Track invitations and confirmations centrally so the planning team can quickly see which sessions are confirmed and where program gaps remain.
Collect Session Information
As speakers are confirmed, gather the information needed for the agenda, website, conference app and attendee communications.
This may include:
- Speaker name, title and institution
- Speaker biography
- Session title
- Session description
- Learning objectives, when appropriate
- Presentation format
- AV or technology needs
- Final presentation materials
Establish deadlines for these materials in coordination with the FOCUS online/AV team so that program information can be published and presentations can be prepared for on-site and online delivery.
Plan for Room Capacity
Concurrent-session planning affects both the agenda and the physical conference layout.
Use registration information and session preferences, when available, to help:
- Assign appropriately sized rooms
- Avoid placing two likely high-demand sessions against one another when possible
- Identify sessions that may require larger spaces
- Support attendee flow between rooms
Ethics & Continuing Professional Education
If the conference includes an ethics course or another session offering continuing professional education credit, begin planning early enough to meet applicable requirements.
Ethics Programming
For Virginia ethics programming, consult current Virginia Board of Accountancy information regarding approved ethics-course providers and requirements.
Coordinate directly with the selected provider regarding:
- Course requirements
- Participant registration or attendance documentation
- CPE credit procedures
- Issuance of participant certificates
- Provider fees
- Travel expenses, when applicable
Budget connection: Previous hosts have paid both the ethics-course provider fee and associated provider travel expenses. Include these costs in the conference budget rather than treating ethics programming only as an agenda item.
Coordinate with the Online/AV Team
Program development and technology planning should happen together.
Coordinate early regarding:
- Which sessions will be available online
- Room and microphone requirements
- Presentation formats
- Speaker presentation deadlines
- Conference app information
- Testing needs before the event
The FOCUS online/AV team may also need time before the conference to test venue equipment, sound and connectivity.
Finalize the Program
As the conference approaches, conduct a final program review that considers both content and attendee experience.
- Confirm every speaker and session.
- Confirm room assignments and session times.
- Check that session titles and descriptions are consistent across the website, agenda and conference app.
- Confirm speaker arrival and check-in instructions.
- Collect final presentation materials.
- Confirm AV and online-delivery arrangements.
- Identify a host-team contact for each speaker or session as needed.
A good program serves more than one audience. The strongest FOCUS agendas provide broad shared experiences while also giving attendees opportunities to choose content relevant to their own work.