CUPA-HR Southern California Chapter Spring Event
"Bend Without Breaking - Endurance, Adaptability, and Impact"
The CUPA-HR SoCal Chapter Board is pleased to announce our in-person Spring Event. We are committed to keeping our community connected and are proud to offer complimentary registration for this session. We are able to provide this high-value programming at no cost thanks to the generous support of our sponsors. Please be mindful that our event does reach capacity and if you are unable to attend please notify the board no later than March 27, 2026.
Please note that parking fees are not included and are the responsibility of each attendee.
Keynote speaker: Stefan Jungmichel
Bio: Stefan Jungmichel, MBA, is an AI researcher and consultant who co-founded the AI Lab at Biola University. He works with students and organizations to understand and implement generative AI thoughtfully and effectively. At Biola, he focuses on AI research and education, while his consulting practice helps teams across various industries adopt AI solutions responsibly and effectively.
Presentation: AI is rapidly reshaping the HR landscape in higher education, bringing both unprecedented opportunities and new challenges. This session will help equip HR professionals with the tools to navigate this evolving terrain with confidence and strategic foresight. We'll explore the latest AI developments and emerging applications through the lens of HR professionals, offering current use cases and a forward-looking perspective to help you prepare for what's ahead. The discussion will address important AI ethics considerations specific to HR contexts, including frameworks for risk mitigation and effective response to potential challenges. Finally, we'll examine practical AI automation opportunities that free up human capacity for more meaningful, strategic work while maintaining rigorous safety standards and ethical practices.
Plenary speakers: Kayla Shawver and Amy Heinze
Bios:
Kayla Shawver is a seasoned HR professional with a strong foundation in higher education, where she has led transformative initiatives in career framework development and job design. With a creative and people-centered approach, Kayla is committed to making a lasting impact on campus communities through thoughtful leadership and service.
With over 25 years of experience, Amy Heinze acts as an advisor to Boards and Executive Leadership Teams on the strategy, design, implementation, and communication of HR and total rewards programs. She has deep expertise in the development of HR strategy and career frameworks that are aligned with organizational objectives and designed to enhance employee engagement, mitigate organizational risk, and optimize human capital investment.
Presentation: Building a Sustainable Future Through Strategic HR Initiatives
Using a recent case study, discover how this university overcame staffing challenges and budget gaps by establishing a Staff Career Framework. Learn about strategic HR practices, data-driven decisions, and efficiency improvements that optimized the university’s budget and ensured competitive staff pay, fostering a sustainable future.
- Learn how to build a strategic job architecture, leveraging data to inform staffing level decisions.
- Learn how to interpret organizational data for streamlining the organization.
- Understand how to guide leaders in attracting and retaining staff while improving efficiency.
Plenary speaker: Amie Gonzalez|Associate and Ezrah Bryant|Associate
Bios:
Amie Gonzalez provides advice and counsel for private employers with respect to labor and employment law to a variety of employers including colleges and universities. Ms. Gonzalez handles matters involving employment policies and procedures, litigation, personnel matters, leaves of absence, discrimination, harassment, negotiations, retaliation, compliance with state and federal labor laws, and wage and hour matters. Her practice includes advising clients on employment policies and procedures, personnel matters, leaves of absence, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage and hour compliance, negotiations, and compliance with state and federal labor laws. She also represents employers in employment-related disputes and litigation. Ms. Gonzalez brings both legal expertise and practical, real-world perspective to her practice. Prior to becoming an attorney, she worked in Human Resources at a private higher education institution, where she handled personnel and employment matters firsthand. This experience allows her to provide practical guidance to colleges and universities navigating complex workplace issues.
Ezrah Bryant advises and represents private and public colleges and universities, community college districts, school districts, county offices of education, and as well as private schools, on a wide range of employment and labor matters. His practice focuses on labor relations, personnel issues, wage and hour compliance, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and other civil rights matters. Mr. Bryant also represents public entities in litigation matters, including employment disputes, school board governance issues, and labor matters before the Public Employment Relations Board. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Bryant worked at a private university, giving him firsthand insight into the operational, governance, and employment challenges facing colleges and universities. This experience allows him to provide practical, informed counsel that aligns legal strategy with the unique needs of higher education institutions.
Presentation: Built to Last: Leading HR in an Evolving Higher Education Landscape
Higher education institutions are navigating a rapidly changing landscape shaped by workforce expectations, regulatory developments, and evolving institutional priorities. This session will explore key employment and HR challenges facing both public and private colleges and universities and provide practical strategies for building resilient HR practices that support long-term institutional success.
Plenary speaker: Eric Canny; nextSource|USC Professor and Jennyn Herrera Biola University|Head of Talent Acquistion
Bios:
Eric Canny is a global program and project leader with over three decades of experience in education and organizational development. He holds an Ed.D. focused on global awareness and multilayered assessments, with expertise in curriculum development, accreditation, organizational change, human resources, and DEI/DE&B initiatives. His leadership includes program governance, program evaluation, and strengthening organizational culture through outreach and engagement., and DEI/DE&B initiatives.
Jennyn Herrera has worked in the talent acquisition space of higher education for twenty years. She has a passion for innovative approaches to service and business operations. She holds her bachelors and masters of business administration degrees from Biola University, the same institution where she proudly serves from within the Human Resources department. She is also a SHRM Senior Certified Professional.
Presentation: Beyond Boundaries: Why Multi-State Hiring Is Reshaping Higher Education's Competitive Edge
The permanent shift to online and hybrid education has fundamentally changed institutional talent strategy. With over half of U.S. college students now taking online courses, what began as emergency remote teaching has become core infrastructure. This creates a critical challenge: delivering competitive programs nationally requires access to specialized talent that doesn't exist in your local market—but hiring across state lines introduces compliance, cost, and operational risks most institutions weren't built to manage.
This session examines why multi-state hiring has become a strategic necessity rather than an administrative preference, and how to build sustainable models that preserve speed and flexibility while reducing institutional exposure. Participants will explore the competitive pressures driving remote talent acquisition, the early warning signs institutions miss as multi-state hiring expands, and where compliance constraints most often surface—from program launches to specialized faculty searches to international expansion.
The discussion focuses on practical alignment strategies that bring HR, finance, legal, and academic leaders around a shared operating framework. Attendees will learn how modern workforce models like Employer of Record solutions enable hiring in any jurisdiction without entity creation, how to build clear decision trees for multi-state hiring requests, and what tradeoffs successful institutions navigate between control, cost, speed, and risk tolerance.
Participants will leave with actionable next steps to audit current exposure, establish cross-functional governance, and create sustainable infrastructure for multi-state talent access—turning what could be a compliance liability into genuine competitive
advantage in today's higher education landscape.
Thank you to all our Amazing Sponsors!
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