Leading with Purpose: Dr. Carleen Vande Zande Earns Jillian Kinzie Award

When NASH’s Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Carleen Vande Zande, stepped onto the stage at the Assessment Institute in Indianapolis to receive the 2025 Jillian Kinzie Award for Innovative Leadership in High-Impact Practices, she carried with her decades of work devoted to transforming how students learn. The award means even more to her because of who it honors. Jillian Kinzie, a renowned scholar and Associate Director of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), has collaborated with Carleen on research, articles, and national presentations over the years. “An award honoring Jillian is an award indeed,” Carleen said. “Her shadow is cast on every campus that uses NSSE. To be chosen by her, in person, felt deeply humbling.”

Carleen’s passion for high-impact practices (HIPs) began with her own undergraduate experience, which included a clinical internship, three study abroad programs, undergraduate research, and exceptional mentoring. “These practices were so transformational for me that I knew I wanted them for everyone else,” she said.

She defines HIPs succinctly: “experiences that engage students deeply in the learning process, across time, with faculty support to achieve a high-quality result.” In addition to internships, study abroad programs, and undergraduate research, other examples of HIPs include capstone courses, service learning, and common intellectual experiences.

As a faculty member and later Associate Vice Chancellor at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, she dedicated herself to helping faculty rethink how students demonstrate learning. One highlight was serving as a judge at the campus research symposium, clipboard and all, where she saw the impact of newly redesigned learning experiences on students’ work and confidence. In those moments, she knew the faculty development she’d led was translating directly into stronger student outcomes.

Carleen carried that momentum statewide as Associate Vice President for Academic Programs and Educational Innovation in the University of Wisconsin System. She helped lead Research in the Rotunda, an experience she still describes with amazement: student teams from all 13 UW institutions presenting research under the Capitol dome as legislators, staff, and even the governor stepped out of their offices to listen. “Standing up on the balcony, watching students share what they knew—it was overwhelming pride,” she said. “It showed what public higher education contributes to the state.”

Her impact continued nationally. Through a Lumina–NASH project, Carleen collaborated with teams from Georgia, Montana, Wisconsin, and Tennessee, assisting 20 institutions in developing shared definitions of high-impact practices, creating faculty development strategies, and aligning campus practices with system strategy. In one state, the work even helped shape degree standards, embedding HIPs into the undergraduate experience at a policy level.

Innovation—done thoughtfully—became the throughline of Carleen’s career. She is clear that innovation is not a matter of chasing new ideas. “You don’t start with something shiny,” she said. “You start by getting very clear on the outcomes you want, examining what hasn’t worked, having the courage to ask hard questions, and bringing students and faculty together to design differently.” Her insistence on mapping HIPs across the entire undergraduate journey—from orientation to capstone—shifted how campuses and systems planned their curricula.

At NASH, Carleen continues shaping leaders and learning experiences at scale. As a Chief Academic Officer, she is the liaison to the Senior Academic Officers Council, is integral to the Catalyst Fund, and was a key part of TS3 (Taking Student Success to Scale). A coach for the inaugural Executive Fellows Program, she works closely with 23 system-level leaders across the country, analyzing themes in their reflections, helping them shape their projects, and guiding them toward deeper understanding of their leadership pathways. Many fellows have shared that the coaching has pushed them to ask questions about themselves they had long avoided—exactly the kind of transformational learning Carleen has always championed. “If we have an experience and remain the same after it,” she said, “I think we’ve failed.”

Her optimism for the future of higher education remains unwavering. She points to better data on student behaviors, expanded partnerships between universities and industries, new models of learning that blur physical and digital boundaries, and even the potential of AI. “I don’t view technology as a threat,” she said. “It can extend learning. The more students learn in collaboration with their communities, industries, and even innovators in shared spaces, the stronger their education becomes.”

At NASH, Carleen brings her deep belief in students, her commitment to reflective practice, and her clarity about innovation to system leaders nationwide. For her, the real reward is seeing students thrive, faculty supported, and leaders inspired to build institutions worthy of their promise.

Congratulations to Dr. Carleen Vande Zande, whose career reminds us that when systems invest in strong foundations, shared vision, and human-centered design, they create the conditions for students—and leaders—to transform.