Reimagine Higher Ed · Signature Perspective
Your leadership has shaped an institution.
Now let your ideas influence higher education.
A private intellectual strategy and editorial partnership to uncover the thinking that guides your leadership, articulate what makes it distinctive, and bring it into wider conversations in higher education.
The questions you ask, the assumptions you challenge, and the approaches you develop as an academic leader are intellectual contributions. Yet that thinking often remains within strategic plans, institutional initiatives, budget proposals, and the conversations where the work gets done. The outcomes become visible. The intellectual contribution behind them often does not.
Together, we give your contribution a form you can name, explain, and share, so others can engage with the ideas behind your leadership work.
The intellectual work of leadership
Your CV records the accomplishment.
What about the thinking behind it?
As a scholar, you had established avenues for sharing intellectual work: journals, conferences, and disciplinary communities. As your leadership responsibilities expand, you begin asking different questions that span disciplines, institutional structures, and competing priorities.
How did you recognize that the apparent problem was not the underlying problem? What changed when you approached resources differently? What have you learned about building the conditions for change?
At the same time, technology is changing how those ideas circulate. Digital platforms and professional networks give people additional places to discover ideas, seek insight, and learn from colleagues beyond their own institutions. For academic leaders, these spaces offer opportunities to share the thinking behind their work and contribute to wider conversations alongside established scholarly outlets.
Higher education needs the thinking emerging from the people doing the work as we Reimagine Higher Ed.
One integrated partnership
Identify. Develop. Bring into conversation.
Together, we uncover the intellectual thinking within your leadership, articulate the framework that makes your approach distinctive, and develop its contribution beyond your institution. That work becomes the foundation for a sustained 90-day campaign designed to bring your ideas into the conversations shaping higher education.
Identify your intellectual contribution
Through a strategic discovery process and a review of relevant leadership materials, we examine the decisions, approaches, and recurring ideas within your leadership. We identify three possible intellectual directions, select one together, and clarify its central argument, intended audience, and connection to your professional goals.
Together, we establish a clear intellectual direction and an actionable roadmap for developing and publishing your contribution. We review the plan together before launch.
Illustrative example · Identifying the contribution
Dr. Consuella Askew, Vice President for University Libraries and University Librarian, Rutgers University
Dr. Askew is a client and collaborator whose leadership thinking I shared through a Client Spotlight. Her experience provides a real example for illustrating the process below.
The visible work: Advancing a “One Library” vision through organizational change across a geographically dispersed university library system encompassing 14 library facilities across four campuses and approximately 200 staff members.
The intellectual contribution: Her approach offers a way to examine how leaders build a shared institutional identity across dispersed locations, distinct professional roles, and established organizational boundaries.
This is the distinction we explore together: what you accomplished, and the thinking behind it that could contribute to how others lead.
Articulate your leadership framework
Together, we make explicit the thinking that guides your leadership: the principles behind your decisions, the connections you recognize, and the reasoning that makes your approach distinctive.
We develop that thinking into a coherent intellectual contribution, with clear applications and implications that other leaders can examine and build upon.
Example · Unearthing the framework behind the leadership
An illustration of how we could develop the thinking behind Dr. Askew’s “One Library” approach.
Beneath Dr. Askew’s approach is a way of thinking about institutions: how she interprets complexity, brings different perspectives together, and creates conditions for shared identity. She may not have named that thinking as an intellectual framework, even as it guides her leadership.
Together, we would make that underlying framework explicit—tracing the connections among her judgments, identifying its guiding principles, and articulating what makes her approach distinctive.
The result is a contribution she can name, explain, and bring into wider conversation, giving other leaders something substantive to examine and build upon.
Expand your intellectual influence
We develop and manage a 90-day campaign that brings your leadership thinking into wider higher education conversations. Through collaborative editorial development and coordinated distribution, we help others encounter, understand, and engage with your contribution.
You refine and approve the work; I manage planning, scheduling, and distribution.
Example · Bringing the contribution into conversation
An illustration of a campaign built around Dr. Askew’s approach to shared institutional identity.
A campaign extending Dr. Askew’s thinking could include:
- One signature article in her voice articulating her approach to shared institutional identity, drafted by Nicole, refined with her, and published under her name.
- 24 supporting LinkedIn posts, shared twice weekly, exploring its principles, applications, and implications.
- An in-depth recorded intellectual conversation, exploring the framework behind her leadership, with three mini video segments distributed during the campaign so colleagues can hear her thinking in her own voice.
Together, these pieces give her professional community several ways to engage with her thinking throughout the 90-day campaign.
Reimagine Higher Ed · Client Spotlight
When people encounter the thinking behind your leadership work.
That exposure created opportunities for Dr. Askew to bring the intellectual foundations of her leadership into broader conversations within the academic library profession, sharing insights that could help others reimagine the role and future of libraries in higher education.
What you leave with
Your thinking, developed.
Your contribution, in circulation.
A clear intellectual direction
One selected contribution, with its argument, audience, and purpose defined.
An intellectual asset distinctly yours
Your thinking articulated as an argument, framework, methodology, or other substantive form.
One signature article in your voice
Drafted by Nicole, refined with you, and published under your name to express your intellectual contribution.
A comprehensive LinkedIn campaign
A 90-day campaign featuring one signature article in your voice, 24 supporting posts shared twice weekly, and three mini video segments drawn from one in-depth recorded intellectual conversation.
One extended conversation. Three mini video segments.
An in-depth exploration of your leadership thinking, with three selected video excerpts distributed throughout your campaign.
A LinkedIn profile that reflects your contribution
Recommended updates to your headline and About section, with guidance on using the Featured section to highlight your signature article, videos, and other work you want visitors to discover.
Campaign managed for you
I develop your posting strategy, plan your content calendar, and schedule approved articles, posts, and videos, with a relevant tagging and sharing strategy designed to extend your reach.
Partnership throughout
A development review, monthly check-ins, engagement guidance, and a closing review.
Four months together · One month of discovery and development · A 90-day LinkedIn campaign
Your four months
Space to examine. Support to develop.
Continuity to share.
Month 1
Discover & develop
Identify your intellectual contribution, articulate your leadership framework, and record an in-depth intellectual conversation. Prepare your signature article and campaign strategy.
Month 2
Launch
Publish your signature article under your name, begin twice-weekly LinkedIn posts, and publish the first mini video segment.
Month 3
Extend
Continue scheduled posts, publish the second mini video segment, and refine the tagging and sharing strategy through our monthly review.
Month 4
Carry forward
Publish the final campaign posts and third mini video segment. Review the engagement and establish a plan for sustaining your intellectual influence.
Signature Perspective
One contribution.
An integrated partnership.
A private four-month partnership to identify your intellectual contribution, articulate your leadership framework, and expand your influence through a managed 90-day LinkedIn campaign.
You bring your thinking and approve what is shared. I guide the intellectual development, draft in your voice, and manage the campaign.
Let’s begin with a conversation about your leadership work.
Your intellectual strategy partner
Dr. Nicole R. Robinson
Founder, Reimagine Higher Ed
In nearly 30 years in higher education, I served as a full professor, an endowed professor, and an Associate Vice President on a university president’s cabinet. I understand the intellectual demands of scholarship and the thinking required to lead through institutional complexity.
Through my consultancy, I have served nearly 100 institutions, corporations, and academic-based nonprofit organizations.
Today, as founder of Reimagine Higher Ed, I partner with academic leaders to uncover the intellectual thinking behind their work and bring those contributions into the conversations shaping higher education’s future.
My conviction is simple: some of the best thinking needed to reimagine higher education is already taking shape every day in the work of academic leaders. That thinking deserves a place in the conversations shaping higher education’s future.
Questions about the partnership
Before we begin
Do I need to arrive with a framework or finished idea?
No. Discovery is part of the engagement. We begin with your leadership experiences and relevant materials, identify possible directions, and choose one to develop. The intellectual form follows the work.
How is this different from scholarly publishing or posting on LinkedIn?
We begin with the intellectual thinking within your leadership: the judgments, principles, and approaches that guide your work. Together, we make that thinking explicit, develop its distinctive contribution, and bring it into wider conversation through a coordinated LinkedIn campaign. Your scholarly publications and existing LinkedIn writing can inform the work.
How much writing will I need to do?
I prepare strong initial article and post drafts. You contribute through discovery, intellectual discussion, refinement, and approval. Your participation is essential to the substance and voice of the work, but you will not be asked to write any content for the campaign from scratch unless you prefer to.
What if I’ve already participated in The Dean’s Perspective or The Chair’s Perspective?
You have an added benefit: we’ll build upon the conversations, insights, and published work we’ve already developed together. Your Perspective provides a foundation for examining your thinking more deeply, developing its distinctive contribution, and extending it through a sustained campaign.
Does every engagement produce a leadership framework?
No. The contribution may be best expressed as an argument, a framework, a methodology, or another intellectual form. We agree on the asset and its development boundaries at the outset, based on what your experience and evidence support.
What does the recorded conversation involve?
We explore the intellectual framework behind your leadership through one extended recorded conversation. From it, I prepare three mini video segments that allow others to hear your thinking in your own voice: the principles guiding your approach, how you apply them, and why they matter.
You approve the segments before I schedule and distribute them as part of your LinkedIn campaign.
Can I continue posting my own content during the campaign?
Absolutely. Your Signature Perspective campaign complements your existing LinkedIn activity. Continue sharing your ideas, scholarship, institutional news, and professional updates.
We coordinate the campaign calendar with you so the scheduled content supports your broader presence and leaves room for timely contributions.
Who manages the LinkedIn account and approvals?
You maintain control of your LinkedIn account and approve content before it is published. You authorize a connection between your LinkedIn account and my Metricool account so I can schedule and publish approved content through that connection. I do not receive your login credentials or direct access to your LinkedIn account. You or your team apply the recommended profile changes.
What if I’m a faculty member rather than an academic leader?
You do not need a formal leadership title to participate. Your research, teaching, or academic service contains ideas and approaches with significance beyond your immediate work.
Signature Perspective can help you develop that contribution and bring it into wider professional conversation through LinkedIn. We begin by exploring what you want to share, whom you want to reach, and whether the partnership fits your goals.
Could this lead to speaking, consulting, or a new role?
It could. Leaders featured in The Dean’s Perspective, The Chair’s Perspective, and Client Spotlights have used those pieces to support speaking, consulting, and career opportunities.
Signature Perspective builds on that possibility by developing a sustained body of work that helps others understand your thinking and the contribution you could make. We align the engagement with your professional aspirations, while recognizing that specific opportunities cannot be guaranteed.
Your contribution to what comes next
Your thinking has already shaped an institution.
What could it contribute beyond one?
Let’s examine the ideas within your leadership and how you would like them to enter the wider conversation.
Begin a conversation →