Lisa Nunn

Lisa Nunn Speaking Topics

• Burnout and Belonging

  Many of the causes of burnout are actually symptoms of something else. Symptoms we experience when we are a member of a community that is flailing, a community that has withered, or one that was underdeveloped from the start. Nunn's Burnout and Belonging keynote brings insights from sociology to help us understand how this happens and what we can do about it.

  Nunn explains the dynamics of how community bonds are built between us and how those bonds bring us a sense of belonging. She shows how fostering belonging can reduce burnout and offers 5 strategies that you can immediately put to use. She also helps you steer clear of 5 common pitfalls. Nunn offers tailored advice to those in leadership on how to make structural shifts in policies and workplace culture that foster belonging even further. The burnout-belonging connection is part of every community we are a part of: family, neighborhood, church, school, book club, you name it. It is especially crucial to our sense of purpose in the work that we do.

  This keynote helps audiences reduce burnout on their teams and across their organizations by focusing on building belonging at every tier and unit. Research shows that high levels of belonging in one’s work arena improves productivity and motivation, increases creativity, reduces turnover, and staves off ills such as quiet quitting. Belonging deepens the purpose our work brings to our lives making it all the more intrinsically rewarding, which makes us more enthusiastic to wake up every day and get to it.

• Authenticity and Connection in Professional Relationships

  We live in a time when people are experiencing more loneliness, disconnection and isolation than ever before. Some are calling a national crisis. We hunger for meaningful connection to others because we are human. Yet today's world can make human connection feel elusive.

  Nunn's Authenticity and Connection in Professional Relationships keynote will equip you with small everyday actions that nurture deeper and more durable relationships with people in your professional realms. Grounded in sociological wisdom, this talk offers a roadmap for how you can better connect with others, be they office colleagues, vendors, suppliers, clients or customers. Nunn will help you identify the personal values that drive you and then show you how to create moments of connection that are anchored in those values, amplifying your purpose. This kind of interaction allows you to connect more authentically, which in turn allows your professional relationships to move from shallow pleasantries to something rich and meaningful.

  In leadership, relationships are everything. The same is true for entrepreneurship, for sales, for corporate teams, you name it. Relationships are key to success for all of us in our careers. This keynote helps audiences reinforce their networks with more durable and more desirable relationships while enjoying the freedom of living authentically and pursuing lives of purpose. Healthy networks yield stronger business ties, higher visibility, fresh ideas, and access to wider professional opportunities, all of which means greater success.

  This keynote offers a way to attain that success without a single additional hour of work, just a shift in intentionality in your everyday conversations that are already happening.

College Belonging

What are colleges getting wrong about fostering a sense of belonging for students? Why should faculty care? Belonging is more than making friends and joining orgs; and first-generation college students experience particular hurdles and challenges. Understanding how belonging happens in the classroom (academic belonging) and how it happens in the campus culture (campus-community belonging) allows faculty to recognize the important role we play in offering belonging to our students rather than expecting them to go and find it for themselves. This keynote explores not just how and why belong matters but also practical strategies we can use in our everyday interactions that will make a difference.

Based on her 2021 book, College Belonging: How First-Year and First Generation Students Navigate Campus Life, Dr. Nunn leverages findings from her research on students at two different 4-year residential universities, following 67 students across their first two years in college, Dr. Nunn shares insights on:

• The importance of understanding the dynamics of the three realms of belonging that students describe: social belonging, academic belonging, and campus-community belonging.

• The many strengths that first-gen students bring with them to college. They are resilient, resourceful, independent, and highly motivated to succeed.

• The obstacles and frustrations that first-gen students in particular face in having their belonging needs met by their academic community (including faculty and classmates) and by their campus-community.

• The challenges for underrepresented students of color as they navigate campus cultures that desire “nice diversity,” that is, non-confrontational, non-divisive expressions of differing backgrounds, histories, perspectives and personal experiences that do not make majority (White) students uncomfortable.

The keynote is infused with practical changes we can make in our everyday interactions with students as well as our campus policies to help first-gen students –and everyone!– thrive in college.

33 Simple Strategies for College Faculty

In this workshop based on Dr. Nunn’s award winning book, faculty learn straightforward ways to address the most common issues that first-year students struggle to overcome as they transition to college academics and college life. The workshop highlights first-generation students’ experiences–those for whom neither parent holds a four-year degree–helping faculty better understand what the transition to college feels like in their shoes.

Every suggestion and strategy in the workshop emerged from research interviews with first-year students at two universities. By the end of the workshop faculty will have revamped syllabi to better support first-year and first-generation students as well as gained an arsenal of easy-to-implement strategies for classroom interactions and office hours.

If you are willing to spend 5 to 15 minutes a week on student well being, this workshop will tell you exactly what to do each week of the semester. Some of it is as simple as making slight shifts in what we say as we teach introductory material, or in the timing of exams, remembering that our students arrive at our college gates from a wide range of K-12 experiences.

In Dr. Nunn’s hands-on 33 Simple Strategies Workshop faculty develop and practice activities and interactions that have a meaningful impact not only on improving students’ academic performance as also on their sense of trust in us and trust in their own ability to be successful college students.