Skip to main content

The UCF Higher Education Coaching Academy is a training and research center designed to provide customized success coach and leadership training to individuals, teams, and organizations seeking to develop a culture of success coaching within their educational institutions.

The mission of the UCF Higher Education Coaching Academy is to educate, train, and certify current and future academic coaches and leaders, and to advance knowledge and understanding of the coaching culture that includes empowerment, change management, and quality assurance.

What is Success Coaching?

Success coaching is a personalized, proactive approach to supporting the needs of students.

Success coaches complement the traditional student support model that includes academic advisors, faculty, and other staff who work with students. Coaches build relationships with students to help them develop individualized plans to graduate by understanding degree requirements, utilizing institutional services, and taking accountability for their success.

What is Success Coaching circular graph

Success Coaches use evidence-based coaching methods to help students set their own goals, create realistic success strategies, and develop knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy in key areas.

-Dr. Jenny Sumner, Founder & Executive Director, UCF Higher Education Coaching Academy

Coaching Training Programs

The UCF Higher Education Coaching Academy provides research-based, student-centric curricula facilitated by actual coaches with years of experience in higher education student coaching.

Professional Coaching Peer Coaching Coaching Leadership

Professional Coaching

40-hour

Coach Practitioner

Practioner Badge

The 40-hour Coach Practitioner training program teaches fundamental understanding of basic coaching techniques and skills, and how to apply these coaching skills to work with students. View learning outcomes.

Length: 8 weeks (40 hours)

Modality: Web-Course- Asynchronous & Synchronous

Audience: Staff/personnel who want to utilize coaching methodology in their work with students

$1800
per person

Request Information


70-hour

Coach Professional

Professional Badge

The 70-hour Coach Professional training program builds on the Practitioner level training, with participants required to demonstrate and apply advanced coaching techniques and skills, including group coaching and coaching students through unique issues and challenges. View learning outcomes.

Length: 16 weeks (70 hours)

Modality: Web-Course- Asynchronous & Synchronous

Audience: Staff/personnel who want to utilize coaching methodology in their work with students

$2800*
per person

Request Information

*Includes the Practitioner Level training + additional 30-hour training.


138-hour

Coach Master

Master Badge

The 138-hour Coach Master training program builds on both the Practitioner and Professional trainings, and signifies that participants have achieved a mastery of student coaching, including strategy-building and quality assurance for both student and coach success. View learning outcomes.

Length: 22 weeks (138 hours)

Modality: Web-Course- Asynchronous & Synchronous

Audience: Staff/personnel who want to utilize coaching methodology in their work with students

$4800*
per person

Request Information

*Includes the Practitioner Level training and the Professional Level training + additional 68-hour training.

Peer Coaching

20-hour

Peer Coach

Peer Badge

The 20-hour Peer Coach training program is specifically designed for currently enrolled higher education students, and teaches fundamental understanding of peer coaching techniques and skills, and how to apply these skills in a peer coach role on a higher education campus. View learning outcomes.

Length: 4 weeks (20 hours)

Modality: Web-Course- Synchronousous

Audience: Students

$600*
per person

Request Information

*Students must be currently enrolled in a higher education institution.

Coaching Leadership

40-hour

Coach Leader

Coaching Leadership Badge

The 40-hour Coach Lead training program is specifically designed for those who are leading, or who aspire to lead, a team of coaches within a higher education setting. This training program includes instruction on coaching, leadership, team management, and quality assurance strategies. View learning outcomes.

Length: 5 weeks (40 hours)

Modality: Web-Course- Synchronous

Audience: Team leads, unit leaders, and campus leaders

$2000
per person

Request Information

The UCF Higher Education Coaching Academy also offers training specifically to managers and leaders, with curricula designed to teach the skills necessary to drive coaching teams and build coaching cultures within higher education institutions. Contact us for more information.

Why UCF?


Trends and analyses indicate that higher education institutions are increasingly looking to deploy coaching to improve student success outcomes. However, there is a critical need for education, standardization, and certifications specific to academic coaches and managers. While there are many private, for-profit entities offering coach trainings to anyone interested in a myriad of non-academic coaching areas (executive coaching, leadership coaching, marriage coaching, etc.), extensive research by the program leads indicates that there is little training being provided by higher education institutions that is specifically focused on academic coaching.

The University of Central Florida (UCF) is a recognized leader and innovator in higher education, and has been a pioneer in the coaching space. Through the UCF Higher Education Coaching Academy, the University is excited to provide critical training specific to academic coaching for academic practitioners. These training opportunities include coaching methodologies, change management strategies, culture-building techniques, and quality assurance planning and execution.

The UCF Higher Education Coaching Academy provides coach training for higher education by higher education!

Participating Institutions

Participating Institutions logos

The coaching training course facilitated discovery and learning of what coaching is, how it is used, and
the benefits of coaching by creating an encouraging, diverse, and exploratory environment. The course allowed me to understand coaching at the core, and how I can integrate the practices of coaching into my current and future roles.

-Josh, Academic Advisor, University of Central Florida

The Coaching Collaborative was very well designed, providing informative content, helpful and creative exercises, and an engaging environment. The skills and knowledge I gained will definitely influence how I’ll approach my work with students in the future.

-Jonathan, Associate Director, Office of Transfer Student Success, University of South Florida

I have so many takeaways, I could go on forever – I think the most valuable thing for me was the realization that I need to ensure that my advising team really understands the WHY behind the need to be an effective advisor and coach, as well as the need to structure our conversations with students.