Workshop Session Block 1

Leveraging Copilot to Support Your Administrative Workflows

This session introduces administrative professionals to Microsoft Copilot as a practical resource for everyday work. Participants will leave understanding how large language models produce their outputs, what JMU allows and restricts, and how to put Copilot to use on real tasks. 

Building Connections through Speed Networking

This "speed-dating" guided networking session will be a highly interactive opportunity for admins to expand their campus network and build meaningful connections in a short amount of time. Participants will rotate through brief, structured conversations designed to open the door to those across all of campus. This session provides guided prompts and a supportive environment to make networking approachable, productive, and fun.

The Professional "No": Setting Boundaries at Work

Learn practical communication strategies for navigating requests, managing competing priorities, and setting healthy workplace boundaries. This interactive session will explore a variety of approaches to saying “no” with professionalism, confidence, and respect.

Connecting with Purpose: Elevating Administrative Networking Through a Leadership Lens

In today’s dynamic workplace, administrative professionals play a critical role in connecting people, processes, and priorities. This session explores how individuals at all levels of an organization can better understand their impact and strengthen their contributions to overall success. Delivered from a leadership-focused perspective, participants will learn how to build authentic, strategic relationships that go beyond traditional networking. We will break down common barriers that limit growth and visibility within administrative roles, while offering practical strategies to foster meaningful connections across departments and leadership levels. Attendees will leave empowered to position themselves as essential relationship-builders, through driving collaboration, influence, and organizational effectiveness from wherever they sit.

Office Yoga Session

This session will help promote physical well-being in an accessible approach through desk-friendly yoga practices. Participants will learn simple stretches, movements and breathing practices to support stress relief and mindfulness that can be done at a desk during the workday.

Workshop Session Block 2

Time to Power Up Your Excel Game!

You’ve been given Excel files from multiple departments and asked to put them all together for one report. What now? Time to Power Up Your Excel Game! Join us as we demonstrate several tools and tips within Excel, specifically Power Query and Power Pivot, that will help you compare the data, join the data together, and present pivot tables using multiple data sources.

Rapid-Fire Strategies for Managing Up

Join us for a focused Coaching Circle session using Rapid-Fire Strategies for Managing Up. In this collaborative problem-solving session, we shift the dynamic from advice-giving to peer idea-generation. Several participants will have the opportunity to share a brief, real-world scenario regarding their partnership with senior leadership—whether it involves navigating conflict, seeking resources, influencing strategy, etc..

Once a scenario is set, the group peers are invited to offer creative ideas, support, and organizational approaches without interruption. Crucially, the leader in the "hot seat" listens without the obligation to respond to each suggestion, creating a low-pressure environment for creative thinking. The coach will manage the flow to ensure momentum, including creating a psychologically safe space for all participants to engage in way that they feel comfortable.

This session is designed to deepen a welcome culture by demonstrating how peer wisdom can unlock solutions to complex business issues and interpersonal dynamics when we remove the barriers of immediate defense.

Come with an idea where you would like support, ideas and creative collaboration.

Using Microsoft Copilot Premium/Copilot in Microsoft 365

This session will provide a look at Microsoft 365 Copilot with an emphasis on the premium offering. Microsoft Copilot is starting to show up everywhere, but the most powerful capabilities are available through the licensed Copilot Premium experience. This session introduces administrative professionals to those advanced features and shows how they can be applied in everyday work.

Participants will see practical demonstrations of how Copilot Premium integrates across tools like Outlook, Word, Teams, and OneDrive to draft emails, summarize conversations, analyze information, and search across organizational content like Teams chats, Sharepoint, OneDrive, etc. not just the web. These premium capabilities allow users to work with their own files, emails, meetings, and chat data in a more intelligent and efficient way.

The session focuses on real-world, high-impact use cases tailored to administrative roles, along with simple strategies for writing effective prompts and reviewing AI-generated output. Designed for beginners and curious users, this session helps participants move beyond basic awareness and toward meaningful, everyday use of Copilot Premium. The premium version of Copilot is available for a departmental charge for JMU departments.

Passive Aggressive Poetry - Where Angry Emails Imitate Art

Ever received an email that made your cortisol levels spike? JMU’s Furious Flower Poetry Center has a trick up their sleeve to help you blow off some steam before you hit reply. In this creative, community-building workshop participants will learn to use poetry as a stress management technique. The best part is you won’t have to start from scratch! Bring curiosity and an open mind: No poetry experience needed!

Workshop Session Block 3

Inner Circle Quest: Building Connections and Opportunities

An interactive session exploring the different inner circle relationships that support professional well-being and success. Participants will learn how to recognize opportunities to build an inner circle, identify the kinds of relationships that support professional growth, and take practical next steps toward a stronger professional community.

The Power-Up Playbook: Leverage and Elevate Personal Power in Workplace Environments

The Power-Up Playbook: Leverage and Elevate Personal Power in Workplace Environments will explore workplace power dynamics, personal agency, and collective synergy of individuals' power. Through the lens of Nintendo's "Super Mario Bros," this session will prompt self-reflection of power and powerlessness, recognizing the capacity of the variety of personal strengths, and its impact within workplace environments knowing when to power up or wind down. To wind down the session, Disney Pixar's "Soul" will provide the lens through which power dynamics do not exist, only perceived personal will and limitation, and how to continue when the fueling power runs out.

From Chaos to Coordination: Admin Best Practices for Event Planning for Events (The Festival, The Union, The SSC, and AV Support for Student Life Spaces)

JMU SPECIFIC CONTENT

This session explores how administrative professionals can leverage technology, systems, and cross-functional coordination to successfully manage events, at the Festivals, the Union, and other Student Life managed spaces Using real-world operations at JMU as a model, panelists will demonstrate how centralized scheduling platforms, communication workflows, and AV coordination systems can transform fragmented processes into a seamless event ecosystem. Attendees will leave with practical strategies and scalable tools they can apply immediately.

Next-Level Admin: Growing Beyond Day-to-Day

This engaging and practical session invites participants to explore what it means to become a “next-level” administrative professional and fully leverage the power of their profession. Attendees will gain insight into how to shift from reactive task management to proactive, high-impact contribution by strengthening key capabilities such as strategic thinking, communication, and ownership of outcomes. The session focuses on ways to anticipate needs, align daily work with organizational priorities, and communicate value more effectively. Participants will leave with practical strategies that can be immediately applied—regardless of career stage—to move beyond routine responsibilities and grow into a more confident, impactful professional presence.