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GSD Episode 1: Why a Podcast
33 Plays2 months ago
In their first episode, Fritz, Kelvin, and Kevin discuss why they are launching the Gettin' Stuff Done in Higher Education podcast.
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Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to the official first episode of Getting Stuff Done in Higher Ed.
00:00:21
Speaker
hey everybody welcome in who the official first episode of getting stuff done in higher ed um I'm one of your three hosts, Fritz Vandover, and I'm joined by two friends and colleagues, Kevin Schreiner and Kelvin Bentley.
00:00:38
Speaker
Say hello, gentlemen. Hey, everyone. Hey, everybody. How's it going?
Purpose of the Podcast
00:00:44
Speaker
So... um One thing we want to do as we introduce this podcast ah to to the world is we want to talk about why we're doing this because there are lots of podcasts about higher ed.
00:00:56
Speaker
So why are why are these three guys doing and putting out another one? So wed start we'd start our podcast with with that. And then the next three episodes, we're each going have a time to let you get to know each of us in turn.
00:01:11
Speaker
So first, why are we doing this? So... um Why are we doing this, guys? What have we talked about?
00:01:23
Speaker
I think there's so so many reasons to be doing this. I think, i think one, the three of us have so much in common and so many different connections within this higher education space.
00:01:38
Speaker
um And I think so much to share and on on so many different levels and different connections with with different folks. And so I think we have a great opportunity to to really kind of bring some of the behind the scenes and some of the front of the scene things that that we've done and um and continue to do and share that with other folks who maybe learn about higher ed for the first time or just interested in other aspects.
00:02:01
Speaker
Or early career too, I think. Early career. i think that's a great one. Yeah, I mean, between the three of us, I think we have pushing... I don't know, 80 plus years of experience just in higher ed and higher ed and ah related, you know, educational technologies, et cetera, that are bolted directly to higher ed. So we are not new to this world. We're, I'm the last to turn 50 this year of the three of us. That'll be in November. be for me.
00:02:27
Speaker
um So yeah, that's a great reason is that we've been around a bit. There's actually one of the names we were kicking around when we said, before we settled in this one is, you know, something about, Make mocking our age, but taking advantage of it.
Podcasting and Perspectives in Higher Education
00:02:42
Speaker
Um, Kelvin, what about you? What, what drew you to, to, uh, launching a podcast together about this? Oh, I think kind of all the above. um i would also say I've always wanted to do, um you know, that to have a podcast, you know, with colleagues. I've been an invited guest, but i there was something about also um hosting it. But I also knew just given my schedule and other commitments, it would be hard to kind of do it all on my own. And so it's great to
00:03:14
Speaker
to to do it with other people, but also people that you you know and you trust. um and And I also think, just given our perspectives in this space, I think we can highlight maybe some things that are not always like top of mind in terms of what's going on in higher ed.
00:03:38
Speaker
My hope to you just mentioned something too, which was important about like maybe giving back to early career folks. i I think we've all had some interesting adventures. I've also um maybe for for good and for ill, i've I've had a lot of different positions in the 25 plus years I've been in higher ed.
00:04:00
Speaker
um Not always because I chose, sometimes choices were made for me because I ah have been laid off before or been caught up in reorganizations. this crazy things that I don't always share on LinkedIn, let's say. And so amongst those friends and maybe amongst those listeners, I can speak to some of those things and and maybe, you know, it could be a reminder to folks that, hey, you know, sometimes you have to kind of keep your head on the swivel.
00:04:31
Speaker
And to do that, you will be maybe different for you than what it was for me. But it's, it's, um but my hope is that, you know, maybe we can give some, some advice to kind of help people always be nimble and be thinking about like, what is next for me? Right.
Job Security and AI's Impact on the Job Market
00:04:49
Speaker
Like I think about my dad, for example, who worked for Chrysler for, um,
00:04:54
Speaker
you know, yesterday was his birthday and he just turned 82. And I was like, yeah you know, I remember my dad working for Chrysler for like 40 plus years. And in in our space, at least in terms of what we do, which is not um full time teaching,
00:05:11
Speaker
As an administrator, that's very, very rare. um And so how can you stay relevant, especially given the fact that the world of work is changing so quickly because of various priorities and your competition is not just other people, but also things like AI. And it's it's a crazy time. So I think this is the right time, I think, to do this type of a podcast where we can share insights and then also think about what is going on and in the world in terms of uh again just various uh various things so so i for me um and i is it fair to say guys that i'm the one who broached this idea it's a fair statement okay yeah kudos
00:06:02
Speaker
thank it No, seriously, no. Thank you for for including both of us. i I sincerely appreciate it. Right. and i'm know so ke nights where We're going to do like the Kevin and Kelvin show. That was our backup plan. We've known each other for long time, Kelvin. I knew you actually knew your wife before I knew you, but it's been like 13 years now since we started really connecting and and getting to know each other. Kevin, it's more recent, but I've been tracking, I mean, and we've known each other like four or five years, but I've been tracking what you're doing for a long time too, not only in your day gigs, but your, you know, your adjacent work in the data in higher ed. But from my perspective, I wanted to do ah podcast about higher ed, first of all, and the reason I wanted to do with guys like you,
00:06:51
Speaker
that I know is I mean, my career has been centered in this and it's, i've so this is my discipline of study. And my PhD is in higher ed policy and administration. So I tell people I'm a higher ed nerd. I met some young guy yesterday at the car dealer. He's studying to be an aeronautical engineer.
00:07:10
Speaker
And, you know, I was asking about, he was at Embry-Riddle. And so I was asking about it and i was like look, I'm just a higher ed nerd. I'm looking up stuff about Embry-Riddle. um So I wanted something that moves around the different kinds of, um, one the conversations about the different spaces that affect higher ed. It's not just this. We're not going to just talk about marketing. We're not just gonna talk about ed tech.
00:07:31
Speaker
There's a lot of places, lot of spaces, podcasts and publications that talk about that stuff, blogs endlessly. Um, but it's not that we wouldn't talk about it, but, um, I wanted a space, frankly, uh, because I,
00:07:47
Speaker
For a long time, I feel like a lot of the chatter, the discourse about higher ed is conducted, curated, and don't know the right word for it, but by folks who haven't always worked a lot in higher ed.
00:08:00
Speaker
They've been adjacent to it somehow. Ed tech is a big space they've been in, or they've come in from, they've had a cup of coffee, you know, for a little while at institution, then they've gone out in the tech space or the consultancy space.
00:08:14
Speaker
They all have great, really important perspectives. But to me, being in an institution and having a lot of time in it and different kinds of parts of it, whether it's teaching, administration, marketing, is everyone advising, you name it, the IT t and academic technology side, there's no substitute for that because you get to know the ins and outs of an institution. And then if you move between institutions, now you start to get a really deep comparative skill set, knowledge base, and you can't
00:08:48
Speaker
You cannot read your way into that, meaning through blogs or whatever. You
Highlighting Unsung Heroes in Higher Education
00:08:52
Speaker
have to live it. So as we've talked about how we're going to do this podcast, one of the things we want to do is we want to talk to people. And this is why it's called getting stuff done. And you all should know we were going to call getting shit done.
00:09:06
Speaker
But then we figured no one respectable would want to talk to us. So um getting stuff done is we want to talk to people who getting stuff done. in whatever capacity they're in, whether it's faculty, whether it's staff, whether it's administrative leadership.
00:09:20
Speaker
You know, we were talking earlier before we hit record, the associate director of admissions at a, you know, regional institution, people who aren't highlighted necessarily in the Chronicle, or, ah you know, they're not at GSV, ASU, but they're critical to the functioning of higher ed.
00:09:38
Speaker
Like, I would love to talk to some institutional research people right now, because they are really in a weird space right now than weirder than it's ever been, I think, at least in our career arcs timeframe. So these are some of the reasons we wanted to put together something like this, a podcast, basically an insider's podcast about higher ed and all the kinds of aspects. So um we're going to do, we're going to sometimes talk to people, bring them in, talk to people who we think are interesting and
00:10:10
Speaker
play important roles and in getting stuff done in higher ed. And sometimes it's just gonna be the three of us talking about subject that's maybe just emerged and it's hot on the scene, whether it's technology or AI or policy or macroeconomic, whatever, or just something that's longstanding challenge or feature or some aspect of higher ed. So that's a really, for me, that's what drew me to doing something this. Plus I like to talk to my friends. So this will be, this will be fun.
00:10:43
Speaker
I think it's gonna be really fun. I mean, I think we have a huge opportunity, to your point, to really start to shed the light on things that most people don't realize, things that are outside of the news, or even just going deeper on things that are that are inside the news.
00:11:00
Speaker
Or misportrayed in the news. Or portrayed in the news. or yeah i mean mean week week week week yeah we could spend a lot of time talking just a lot of the stuff that... that is out there about how what higher ed is doing and how i higher ed operates and and all these types of things. And and one thing that i I've always said, and I think this podcast is really going to gear us towards that, is higher ed does a really poor job telling their own story.
00:11:29
Speaker
And I see this as an opportunity for at least three people who've been in this space to help others tell their story or to tell our story of, of, of things that are going on.
00:11:40
Speaker
And because we've all been in such a different, we've all played different roles, right? I mean, I think that's the thing that, that those of you that are listening, you're, you're going to start to see is that,
00:11:52
Speaker
we're not We're not doing this as three you know agreeable individuals that we all believe exactly the same thing. I mean, we have we're we three independent into people on this um this podcast.
00:12:05
Speaker
And that's kind of also what I look forward to is the opportunity that... we We may disagree on certain things or we may have different perspectives on different things. But that's the world we live in, right? Like that's that that is that is the world of higher ed. And so um it's we're not doing this because we all.
00:12:25
Speaker
the three of us think exactly the same way. and And we have this perspective that we're going to try to transform form and impose on um um to people that are listening. it's It's really to share what we think.
00:12:38
Speaker
I'd love if we could do a call-in, right? Like have an episode where just like figure out how people can dial in and like ask questions. Cause I think there's going some topics that just going be like, Hmm.
00:12:50
Speaker
Well, I think we should, we're I think we'll definitely have a way of people to submit things they're interested in. Yeah. Would you all talk about this? Would you talk about that? Which would be honestly a good way to find some guests to have on.
00:13:01
Speaker
Yeah. and I think we should put that out there right now for it's like, so if you are interested in being a guest, like Let us know. been We will have ways. we have in our yeah We'll have our ways to get in touch with us, email addresses, whatever, socials.
00:13:17
Speaker
We're still getting started here, people. Give us give us a little grace. So I think we should actually, I think we have we plenty of time today because it's only, we've only been recording for like 15 minutes. I think we should talk about, get into why Hired's been horrible about telling its story.
00:13:33
Speaker
And Kelvin, I'm going to kick it over to you to kick that kind of discussion off?
00:13:42
Speaker
oh I mean, it's, I think it's for a lot of different reasons. I think almost like psychologically in some ways.
Cultural Challenges in Higher Education Institutions
00:13:53
Speaker
And we were actually, before we we started today's podcast, Kevin and I were having kind of a separate conversation about something, but but it made me think about how,
00:14:04
Speaker
the culture of higher ed is the culture of higher ed, right? and And Kevin, you know, you just mentioned something before too, like, even though, like, even if you work at this, let's say at the same institution, you may not always be on the same team, right? Or the same frame of mind in terms of where the institution is or where it needs to go.
00:14:27
Speaker
And I think that puts you in a boat where everyone is either rowing in different directions or saying, you know, um i'm not going to row at all. And so you know, you you end up kind of just like...
00:14:42
Speaker
you know, not really going in any one direction. And I think that's higher ed's problem. I think there are certain people, certain leaders from the top, right, who want to do X, Y, and z but then their messaging down to everyone else who actually gets stuff done um is heard or maybe not heard in the right ways. And so then you're in this weird telephone game like, you know, but where the message gets diluted as as it moves through the layers of the institution.
00:15:18
Speaker
And it just makes it really tough then su then um for, let's say, an institution and, of course, for higher ed in general to tell the right story. um I think some think another problem, too, around the culture is that higher ed, I think, has gotten really comfy cozy with the way things have been, right?
00:15:41
Speaker
Yes. And because of that comfort, that makes it really tough, even for the innovators to really like, so you know, to to move the institution.
00:15:52
Speaker
So maybe I'll just pause there well and and get your your reactions to all of that. I want to jump in and I want to piggyback on that because I look at it through through a very historical lens. So You'll find out in my episode, but you know, my, my bachelor's and my master's are in American history.
00:16:08
Speaker
And so while I didn't focus on the history of higher ed in any of those spaces, or even my doctorate, i I do read a lot about it. I think about it a lot, the history of higher ed. You're talking about comfy cozy.
00:16:20
Speaker
I mean, to me, the reason higher ed has become bad about telling its story and its value, its value to the U S to the world, et cetera, is because for so long after world war war two the value, well, first of all, there was endless demand. you don't have to really justify your value when demand is, ah you know, demand is out the roof. Why do you need to justify your value? Because first of all, everyone wants to come to you and they have the means either cause it's really affordable to pay for it, or they're getting student loans that make that affordable cost easily bearable.
00:16:56
Speaker
Granted it's not now. And then the other thing was um the value of it to those learners, to those recipients of those credentials was really, it was big and growing. So, you know, ice I like to say where I work now at the university that, you know, the university is adapting to this new space where they don't just have to put out their shingle, there' their sandwich board, say, hey, we're the University of Minnesota, come here.
00:17:21
Speaker
And everyone comes here. And we have plenty of students and we got all the students we need or, you know, enrollments are growing. that world is doesn't exist anymore. So part of the reason it's not great at telling its story is because it really never had to tell much of a story before.
00:17:35
Speaker
So now it's having to tell its story. And that's, if you've never had to tell the story before, it's really hard. Like, what do I do and why am I valuable to this community that we're situated in? you know like we're in the Twin Cities. So we're community, state, region, US, global, et cetera.
00:17:55
Speaker
So it's that's interesting. um And yeah, so Fritz and I have similar background as well. Master's degree in history, minor in history, undergrad.
00:18:08
Speaker
um But I also have taught history of higher education. I'm jealous. at At the graduate level, um which is a course that that I love. but But it's it's it's everything like there's segments right there's segments to to this growth in higher ed so to your to your point we saw all this growth after World War II all the GI Bill everybody coming back to school getting that degree that they weren't able to get because they decided to go off and fight the war when they were 18 19 years old and then but in the 60s we saw that transition to the Community Colleges where we really started to think about this whole separation between what does a four-year institution look like and what does
00:18:48
Speaker
I'll just say workforce development type programs and what did they look like? i think this I think the development of community colleges, and then if you look trend wise, we're all talking about you know this impending cliff and that there's fewer and fewer students that are coming to school, which I don't disagree with.
00:19:05
Speaker
um I do have concerns with some of the metrics that are used to kind of get to that, but I don't disagree that we have fewer students, but we also had fewer students in the eighties in the early 90s.
00:19:17
Speaker
And so like there it's there's like this like it's just this ebb and flow that continues to go through higher ed. And I think where I think I struggle with when I say higher ed doesn't do a good job telling their story, I think they've allowed they allow sometimes what's being said out in the universe to direct their strategy. And so, oh, we have this cliff coming.
00:19:44
Speaker
And so when we don't make make our enrollment goals, we all just say, well, it's because of the cliff or, you know, it's because of this or because, you know, we saw this out there versus owning like who you are and where you are in this space.
00:20:01
Speaker
And who do you want to serve? Who do you want to be?
Community Colleges Transitioning to Four-Year Institutions
00:20:05
Speaker
Um, you know, I've, I had the luxury of working in Florida in at a community college when we transitioned to a four-year institution, ah right? When we started offering baccalaureate degrees.
00:20:16
Speaker
Is this in the nineties or two thousands? So this would have been early, late, well, early two, well, early 2000, it was 2009, 2010. Um, when we started making the transition, St. Petersburg in Florida had already made that transition.
00:20:33
Speaker
um But the rest of them, the whole, so there's there's an organization now, the community college, I think it's community college baccalaureate association. I'll have to check that name, but I think it's something like that, where there's this pattern out to help more and more schools become four-year institutions, um community colleges.
00:20:52
Speaker
And all of our degree programs are aligned towards workforce, right? So education programs, um so you know, business, nursing, um some of those types of things. that and But you also had to have approval from your four, closer four-year institution as to whether or not there was going to an impending degree program.
00:21:13
Speaker
But like, but it's transitions like that. And now, and now the transition's a three-year degree. So here's a question for you, Kevin, though, is, was the, I'm sorry, was the value of that apparent?
00:21:28
Speaker
that transition to a four-year institution or at least offering baccalaureate degrees bachelor's degrees and is it still apparent like does the community you said it where is it in florida st petersburg well st peterburg all of the community colleges now in florida are state cop they are now state colleges so they all offer someone so they all suite of they all offer at least some form of a baccalaureate degree well i'm not gonna well no offense they've all but the value of higher ed is Clearly not a parent in Florida these days. So and then I retract my question. i was gonna say, i mean did did people see it and realize, oh oh yeah, this is a good thing. And you know there was a a receptivity or receptiveness to that in the, least amongst students, the you know the target market of students.
00:22:12
Speaker
I think there was a receptiveness within the education community. I don't know.
00:22:19
Speaker
Part of it was- Did they tell their story well is what I'm saying. I don't, I don't know. I mean, I don't know that, that, that community colleges that have transition transitioned to four year institutions have told their story really well up to this point. So are, are we actually graduated more? so Like the whole goal was how do you graduate more individuals with baccalaureate degree? Right. So that was one of, one of the pushes for creating baccalaureate opportunities at community colleges for some people, for, for some individuals. and you know, we think about our, our,
00:22:51
Speaker
but we used to call our non-traditional student right our like our typical adult learner you know over the age 24 have children have a job have all those things that are keeping them from going somewhere else and so when you florida structured themselves really well with where community colleges were placed with where four-year institutions were right so there's always a pathway if you're at a community college you could go to a four-year institution but now But now with online, it's different somewhat.
00:23:19
Speaker
But for people to be able to pack up and leave and go, like like, so when we started doing this, Florida Gulf Coast University was fairly new. University of South Florida was really our institution in our neck of the woods.
00:23:31
Speaker
You still to, you had to go still from Fort Myers to one of those places if you want to continue your degree. And so it was really seen as a pathway to grow more people in the state of Florida with a baccalaureate degree.
00:23:46
Speaker
and so what are the right degrees and so to to not compete with universities right they had to be bas degrees bachelor applied science they had to be workforce ready workforce development type degrees so that you weren't we weren't offering history degrees we weren't offering um psychology like you know the liberal arts and things like that but so it's kind of niche that those other bigger institutions often didn't fill right right or Or didn't have the capacity. like If you think about a nursing program, there's so limited capacity to go to a four year institution because they're only going to take so many students.
00:24:23
Speaker
And so if you're not going to offer a baccalaureate degree at the community college where they just got their RN, then how are you serving the hospitals that want to have more individuals with a BSN degree? So it was trying to create gaps.
00:24:36
Speaker
um And I think it was also you know it was also during this time where um higher ed peaked in enrollments in 2010, right? So we had this peak. And then all of a sudden we've had this decline since um since that recession.
00:24:52
Speaker
And so I think, it again, I think it made sense. I don't think there's been really good storytelling of baccalaureate degrees and whether or not baccalaureate degrees at the community college.
00:25:05
Speaker
really give you what you think you're getting. ah did we get more baccalaureate students or would they have never transferred? Like that question I don't think has been answered.
00:25:18
Speaker
Was it just a shell game is what saying that students su may or may not have done saying they're just moving to a different institutional setting versus new students coming into that, reaching more students?
00:25:30
Speaker
Yeah, correct. Correct. Right. Did we get more students because we offered a pathway to a baccalaureate degree? Right. Or did we just get people because they want to?
Motivational Music at Work
00:25:42
Speaker
For some programs, I think we did. I think for our for our education program, I think we did. i think there was a huge uptick. But yeah.
00:25:56
Speaker
So I have a question. Can i ask a question? Oh, please. if If you were going to do, if you if you had if you came to work, I'm not saying you don't go to work.
00:26:08
Speaker
You go to work every day. So we all go to work every day. When you open your door to your office, what is your in-office song? You know, like your your walk-up song for ah for for work.
00:26:26
Speaker
That's a fun one. Well, what's yours? You get to lead off. can i Can I play mine? Sure. Yeah. Let me see if I can play it.
00:26:46
Speaker
you right? Crazy train. Crazy train. Ozzy Osbourne. All aboard the crazy train. Do you ever play this when you're going into work?
00:26:59
Speaker
yes um Sometimes, yes. Sometimes I play it when I'm on my way home from work.
00:27:09
Speaker
What's funny is like it just made me start thinking like all of our, and everybody will hear all of our introductions of who we are, but it just made me start thinking about late 80s, early 90s, the music that I used to listen to, listen to now. It's like, yeah, what would my walkup but that would be my walk-up song right now.
00:27:29
Speaker
Crazy Train. Because it pumps you up and prepares you for battle, you know, to have the kind of the hard conversations at work? I think a little bit. I think also the fact that a lot of higher ed sometimes just feels like you're on a crazy train going.
00:27:44
Speaker
yeah Right now it sure does. i just, but I think you have to have like, I don't know. I think you have to have a little bit of what gets you through the day in this stuff.
00:27:58
Speaker
Kelvin, what's yours? I don't know if I actually have one. i have certain songs on my running playlist that I like that really motivate me to like you know um to get out and and go for like a short run or a longer run.
00:28:17
Speaker
So, yeah, i don't i don't I don't know if I can commit to just one. I am a big anime guy, and so there was one called Ghost in the Shell, um the second series. or it was They did a movie, but then they also did a couple seasons of regular episodes.
00:28:38
Speaker
And there's um a song called Cyberbird that I really like. um That's about six minutes. It's, you know, it's electronica. So that's the one that I, if if that's on, I'm always like in a good mood.
00:28:52
Speaker
And then sometimes it's the theme song to certain TV shows. I like the $6 million dollar man, you know, ah used to watch more the Thundercats show, like that little intro talk about the eighties, right? It's like, the you know you know, it's got everything. It's got like,
00:29:09
Speaker
keyboards, guitar. It's it' probably one of the best, in my opinion, one of the best original um theme songs for for for a cartoon.
00:29:21
Speaker
I used to watch that all the time. was an after school. After school, guilty pleasure for me watching some Thundercats. Yeah. um So trivia time, i know Kelvin's a big Pet Shop Boys fan. so So West End Girls, man, that brings me back to outline left my older sister around St. Louis in the you know late 80s.
00:29:46
Speaker
um But you know if you want to, to the point that Kelvin has been to Pet Shop Boys shows in the last decade or so, they're they're still around and he goes to those shows if they're he's ever in the vicinity. Yeah, I've only been to a couple, but...
00:30:01
Speaker
Yeah. A couple more than most people, I would say. You know, for me, it's like I can't just pick one. too much too much good music out there. But if I'm going to get pumped up for work, like when many of you asked this question, Kevin, the first thing that popped in my head was Parliament's We Want the Funk.
00:30:22
Speaker
Because I love that beginning, you know, tear the roof off the mother, tear the roof over the mother sucker. So i will maybe I'll drop some in today. But you know if I'm going to have a pumped up song, I like something that's in a major key. So The theme for this show, our show, you'll notice is all like major keys.
00:30:38
Speaker
There's no minor keys. There's nothing. It's like I wanted it to be bright, funky, but bright. So that's why i wrote it the way I wrote it. um Because I wanted something that was, first of all, made it seem kind of like a like a talk show. Like you're you're coming to a talk show rather than um something else, you know.
00:30:56
Speaker
we don't have a desk with coffee mugs and all that stuff although i suppose we could maybe get some merch at some point you know with mugs that say gsd um but yeah you know i
00:31:11
Speaker
you know higher ed's it's an interesting place to work because it it's so big an institution can be massive you know the university of minnesota just the twin cities campus There's two campuses on Twin Cities.
00:31:22
Speaker
It is thousands and thousands of people, even without the students, thousands of people. So there is so many places and so many relationships you need to build, you need to maintain to get stuff done. I mean, there's an old, oh, what's his name?
00:31:39
Speaker
Jeffrey Wyke, I think is his name, a scholar. he talked about higher ed. It's loosely coupled systems. And even little places are loosely coupled. You know, the department's the the teams, the units administrative and otherwise. And when you get to a big place, it is definitely loosely coupled. So, uh, it's, you know, sometimes you need a, you need ah a ramp up, pump up song, like a baseball closer coming in for the ninth inning to not cause you're going to battle with people you don't like, but because it's just, sometimes it's a lot to keep all of those plates spinning is, uh,
00:32:11
Speaker
You know, it takes, but it's also that what part of that, that's what invigorates it for me. It's not like this little teeny silo sometimes is your, one thing I like about my job now is I'm all over the place. I get to talk to but everyone in the system. Like we go on a road show every year.
00:32:24
Speaker
Our team goes to every campus and that's what I love about it. You know, just moving around a campus. That's one thing I miss about pre-COVID is moving around a campus every day, walking to this place to meet people here and there. That was honestly one of my favorite parts. It is one of my favorite parts about it.
00:32:43
Speaker
You don't just go there are people that go sit in cubicles in higher ed, don't get me wrong, but I have not often been one and I'm thankful for that.
00:32:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think I've had the luxury of not really being one of those individuals either. I think every role that I've had has always been a role that requires engagement and multiple different places. In fact, i mean, even when I got to Nebraska, um I made it ah very,
00:33:10
Speaker
like had to come to this, like I didn't even it wasn't even like an ask. it was just any meeting that I had was always wherever that person was at. So no one ever came, nobody ever came to my office yeah to have a meeting. It was always, oh, you want to talk about something?
00:33:25
Speaker
i'll I'll meet you at the office, at your, in your office. I'll meet you in the union. we can go, we can go have coffee across the street. We can go do whatever, but it was never like, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm available at 10. Once you, you know, you can swing by you can chat it, you know, in my office and stuff.
00:33:41
Speaker
I've always been out and about. And I think that's important because not only do you see the person you're trying to meet with, but you see all the other people who are interlayered within that person, the administrative assistant, too. You really do have to beat the pavement, um depending on the role you're in. But I mean, for you early career folks might be listening, you have to be able to translate between worlds. You know you might work in one part, let's say admissions.
00:34:09
Speaker
but you need to be able to speak to or at least create a a relationship with, maybe it's a program or a faculty group in that program or another unit that IT or is a technology team, being able to translate and create relationships so that that translation and that that collaboration really is frictionless beating the, I can't, I can't, beating the pavement is an important part of it. Again, working remotely, I work a few days, you know, two, three days on campus, especially once the semesters are kicking or underway, but beat the pavement.
00:34:44
Speaker
You got to get out there and meet people that you're going to support across the institution and
Building Interdepartmental Relationships
00:34:51
Speaker
and beyond that. You got to meet people because you got to understand who they are and what they're trying to do.
00:34:59
Speaker
Yeah. No, I totally agree with that as well. it's It's interesting though, like for me, I remember, i mean, working at a community college where we just purchased access to um Illuminate Live, which was like an early conferencing tool. ye and but a lot of but you know But we didn't really use it to like contact other people you know to set up online meetings. We used it actually to do some early online tutoring and and to do orientation sessions for online learning.
00:35:32
Speaker
Now, i even though I have struggles at times with using Zoom or Teams, it really has opened up my ability this to to to really do these ongoing connections with folks. Like even if I was in a physical office, I do have a cubicle.
00:35:50
Speaker
I don't really have regular meetings that much with people in the office, which is always like a subset of our our team because everyone's on a hybrid schedule. um For the most part, there's just a couple of us who are more remote.
00:36:06
Speaker
And, but, you know, the people that I talk with are mostly like on our other ah University of Texas system campuses. They're across other community college and university systems. And,
00:36:21
Speaker
But to to all of your points, though, you have to be the person reaching out because everyone's really busy and you really have to do your yourre your best to kind of just like make sure that those connections, those partnerships are ah nourished on a regular basis.
00:36:40
Speaker
Don't expect it to always come back because everyone's busy. so you have to be the initiator, the person saying, hey, like let's jump on a call and And I feel like, know, maybe, you know, with online learning, especially in my career, I feel like I've always had to do that because I've had to collaborate with folks.
00:37:00
Speaker
You know, higher ed can be very matrix as an organization. So to get things done, these are like people who don't report to you. Right. Like you have to form those relationships and keep them healthy.
00:37:13
Speaker
Yeah. ah You know, I think an important part of that too is when when people start to look at their professional development and what do I want to do for professional development and what what is the first thing that always comes to mind? Oh, I'm go to go to a conference.
00:37:26
Speaker
um I want to go see other people from other institutions or whatever city it's in or or whatever. um I remember, i think it was when I was at Arkansas.
00:37:38
Speaker
um My director was like, why Why don't you go spend a day in with the College of Business? Like, let's just set up a time, go over there and just see what the College of Business does.
00:37:50
Speaker
Go spend a day in financial aid and just see what financial how the financial aid folks operate and what they do. And i think like I think there's so many opportunities in our own space.
00:38:03
Speaker
to provide some sort of connections like to your points both of you of meeting people but also like there's great professional development opportunities right there on your own campus if you would just say hey can i go shadow someone for a day just to see like i had an opportunity to shadow a college president on time for the day you know and just to sit in on the meetings and I'm sure they, you know, they move things around. So it wasn't certain types of meetings that I was going to be in.
00:38:31
Speaker
But still, but just to see what what does a college president really do? um i think we all have this idea. um but I think sometimes when we think about how we get stuff done and making those connections.
00:38:44
Speaker
But if we think about a professional development, it's not far away from you. Like you just need to kind of like just you have to own your journey a little bit, too. Yeah.
00:38:56
Speaker
So now I'm forgetting where we left off as we paused for a moment here. So pick, where were we? Pick it, where do we- We're talking professional development, kind of doing your own professional development thing, thinking about way, we could always change subjects too.
00:39:12
Speaker
Well, I just, I think that is, again, well, first of all, what's interesting is people will learn in our own episodes. And as we talk more, all three of us, because we're old, ah we were around when online programs,
00:39:26
Speaker
were just being thought of coming out of paper correspondence effectively. And the internet was birthing and becoming a thing. So, and making its way into higher ed, not just as you know mainframe computers for data analysis, but you know application tools, registering for courses. I mean, I still registered for courses on paper in college and i only first time in graduate school, like 2000 is the first time I ever registered for course online.
00:39:54
Speaker
So, A lot of the time, what I found is that, mean, first of all, there's a timing thing, but um I always had to tren i had to be able to jump between spaces because here I am, I have an academic background, I have a bachelor's in history, and ive I had a brief stint as a web developer before grad school.
00:40:16
Speaker
So I had these two spheres of knowledge, and then as I started grad school and different levels, the fact I had to learn how to walk between those. So as, and we all were in academic technology in some space along our careers,
00:40:28
Speaker
You have to be able to jump between these pools where you've got one side that, you know, they know tech. The other side, they're faculty and researchers. And you have to be able to speak a lot of the same language, not but you're not necessarily a pure expert in both spaces. So I just found that, you know, the more you can jump around at least speak those different languages, the more you can bridge those essentially cultures, ah more the more interesting of roles you're going to find and frankly, the better career path you're going to have.
00:41:00
Speaker
and And you may find that it's an entirely different career path than what than what you thought. i mean Oh, totally. um you know not to Not to go into a whole lot of of of my scenario, but I mean, even like same thing when I started the University of Arkansas, they were using punch cards. They had just implemented a student information system for the first time for inputting applications.
00:41:22
Speaker
and I didn't have a technical background. I mean, I was, I had, I mean, my, my bachelor's is park resource management. My master's is history, but. ended up you know learning how to use the system and then writing processes on how to use the system better. And so like this whole project management system analysis like just kind of just grew and was actually interesting and fun. um But i took it in but i took your my admissions role to a totally different level. Yes.
00:41:55
Speaker
My first job was inputting applications into the system. Did I have to continue to do that? Yes, I did. But at the same time, I was also thinking through, like how can we improve this system? How can we do things differently?
00:42:07
Speaker
And I think a lot of people just get into roles And sometimes it's because of the way they're managed, right? They get into these roles. It's like, well, that's your job. This is what you're going to do today. and they get bored with it or don't see a pathway to do anything else because they're not allowed to get out of that lane.
00:42:27
Speaker
That is your lane. that is and And honestly, I think that is having worked in the cor on the corporate in the corporate side of things. I think that's probably the biggest downfall of higher ed, is that we hire people for these little bubbles And we want them to only do that job because that's what we hired them for.
00:42:46
Speaker
And we don't think about all the opportunities to move out of that. Versus in the corporate world, we're kind of thinking like, does this person fit in the organization? Is there a better place for them to be? Like what skill sets have they shown?
00:42:58
Speaker
Can they demonstrate and can we move them? But I had an interesting conversation with Oregon State um couple weeks ago, and they actually do that exact same thing. When someone leaves their marketing department,
00:43:11
Speaker
they reevaluate all the current staff who are there. They reevaluate that job description of the person who left and said and they go, okay, is this what we want to rehire for? Or do we do you want to take some of these responsibilities?
00:43:24
Speaker
And do we want to create a whole different job description for something that we don't, that that we're not, that all of us together collectively don't have the skillset. And so let's go find that person right who has that skill.
00:43:37
Speaker
That to me is like, way above what I think a lot of ah folks in higher ed do. I think we just spend the same, someone left, going to rehire in the same job. Someone left, I'm rehiring the same job and not re not rethink what what those roles and responsibilities are or let the people, the employees in those spaces kind of rethink what their role could be.
00:44:04
Speaker
Amen to that. Testify. Yeah. Yeah. um Do you think, do you both think that sort of like our experience with the internet really, really shifted teaching scholarship research and administration, just the the functioning, the business enterprise of and of institutions when we were earlier in our careers, is AI going to do the same thing and do, you know, is that where, is that where people who are solidly in their higher careers like us or even early,
00:44:39
Speaker
become experts in that and that will allow them to go to different destinations or find those new roles in higher ed or beyond of course that that really flourish
00:44:55
Speaker
yeah i think there's the potential i mean i think it also just depends on how well institutions are you know prepared to to help their you know their
AI's Potential Impact on Higher Education
00:45:07
Speaker
their employees manage AI. And so it'll be interesting just to see like what lanes, right?
00:45:15
Speaker
Kevin, you brought up the lanes like what access will you have? Like some schools might just say, hey, you have access to just one tool and you're only supposed to use it in this one way.
00:45:27
Speaker
i do feel like we're going to really need to better prepare people to be generalists across tools. yeah um But I just don't know if many institutions will want there to be too much of a free range across these AI resources. But I almost feel like we're going to need to be generalists to also show our value, right, that we understand the pros and cons of different tools and and and hopefully show people that we're willing to continue to to learn and grow um given that AI is available.
00:46:01
Speaker
so But I think it's going to vary a lot across institutions. Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:11
Speaker
I mean, I think it's I mean, I think I think the product right. I mean, AI, there's so many different components to AI. Is AI just a chat bot? Is an AI more than a chat bot? Can an AI actually take my application off of the web and actually make a decision before it even gets admitted into?
00:46:29
Speaker
the the sis system to know whether or not this person you know meets admissions requirements i think there's so many there's so many avenues and i think that's where higher ed gets lost is everybody's worried about students cheating with chat gpt and we're not thinking about how can we actually improve our systems and things that we do but i also think a lot of times higher ed relies on those
00:47:00
Speaker
those entities to tell us how to use i AI, right? Like Canvas is going to come to us and tell us how we should be implementing AI within Canvas, right? It's going to products telling us how it's used and what to do with it versus us being a little bit more innovative.
00:47:21
Speaker
But I also think if you, I mean, Georgia Tech is doing some really interesting things with On which side? The teaching learning side or the administrative? The teaching learning side. Yeah. you they're but They basically have like a, think i share I think I shared this with you. And it's kind of creepy when you think about what they're doing, but just the they're the way that they're testing it and what they're able to do. But You can be in an online course and one of your first postings could be, tell tell me tell me about yourself tell us about yourself, share you know share who you are with the class, um you know that type of thing.
00:47:55
Speaker
And AI will actually comb those and go, hey, Fritz, we noticed that Kelvin also likes to run and you said that you like to run. You two might want to connect or the two of you actually live in New York. You might want, you know,
00:48:11
Speaker
to to get together personally rather than just in the online course. So there's a little bit of kind of like weirdness to it. Yeah. But at the same time, if if you're in a class, and again, Georgia Tech, all their classes are run very similar to MOOCs. And so ah you can be in a class of a thousand people.
00:48:30
Speaker
And so to comb through a thousand like to read everybody else's response, you're going to miss people. And so I can see where it's making like it's helpful there from a little bit to just say, hey, here's seven people who had similar interest as you in class that you might want to.
00:48:46
Speaker
But but you can also kind of see where it's just like, is it the dating game? And like someone's just matching me up with somebody else. If I'm an introvert or an extrovert, like, how do I how do I how do I take that?
00:48:58
Speaker
But it is cool. So the University of Minnesota just, I mean, we're only weeks, two, three weeks into implementing Gemini as our enterprise AI platform.
00:49:11
Speaker
So it is early, early days. um There is no, and we're also, you know we have a new-ish president. We have a brand new provost. So we're in the middle of a strategic planning process this summer and fall.
00:49:24
Speaker
So there is no directive yet as to how we're supposed to use this tool, how we could learn to use it well, how there's no expectations out there of what this could be yet. I imagine it will be, but I'm starting to talk to people about how to use it in our, in our business processes, you know, and in our work to, I want to use it as a giant, you know, a giant lever for me and our team to,
00:49:50
Speaker
amplify what we do. Can I do it? Can I do market research for programs just as fast? Or can I create performance faster? Because those are like and really niche, a big, nasty spreadsheets.
00:50:02
Speaker
So I want to use it as a way to speed up what I do, but still maintain the quality. I just, you know, as a volume, ah volume amplifier. um Yeah.
00:50:13
Speaker
But, you know, I see what I get what you're saying, though, is that the the vendors, the product vendors are going to really, they're going to make their moves in it based on what they see and what they think will let them differentiate themselves in the market, et cetera.
00:50:30
Speaker
Coursera, for example, they're really rolling out a bunch of AI tools right now. So I manage Coursera for the University of Minnesota, which means I help develop content for it. I find opportunities to that. And So I'm, i'm talking to them all the time and there are all kinds of things to make it seem to make it feel more like a smaller scale learning environment. So, um, putting AI tools into the discussion forums to, so that people can have conversations, learners can have conversations.
00:50:58
Speaker
or at least get peer reviews faster from their um for assignments and assessments they're doing. So, you know again, they're making these moves based on what they see is what they can do, what the needs are, what they see is opportunity to do that. So I think you're spot on is that, hired's not gonna be largely told, but at some point I think they need to start figuring out their, every institution needs to figure out a path through it. What's the best way to utilize this?
00:51:24
Speaker
I mean, and how many institutions are not gonna be able to do that because in a very resource constrained environment like we're in now, and yet another thing that's gonna separate have from have not institutions, ones that are struggling because of enrollment drops and other kinds of challenges, but they just not gonna be able to play in that space to be able to operate in that space. And that again, just drags them further down.
00:51:48
Speaker
Something I just, i really hadn't thought about till just this moment. Yeah. No, think that's very true.
00:52:00
Speaker
So go ahead, man. Go ahead. Go ahead. Well, I'll just say these, these are, so these are the kinds of conversations I think people
Reflecting on Higher Education's Functions
00:52:07
Speaker
can expect. This one's been, i think, person's been all over the place because yeah we've meandered in the higher ed world, but ah you know, I think people, it gives people a sense that, um,
00:52:21
Speaker
who we are the kinds of experiences we've had, the perspectives we bring, you know, so we've been talking about tech, we've talked about demographics, we've talked about history of higher ed, like we've, we've covered ground, but I still think it's been ah coherent.
00:52:37
Speaker
Please, you know, let us know for not coherent. ah But I do think it's grounded in, um certainly in our experiences, but it's grounded in this this higher ed space and that what ultimately, um how does higher ed functioning internally from a macro and a micro perspective? So these are the kinds of conversations I love and i'm I'm looking forward to more of them.
00:53:00
Speaker
Yeah, same here. I would agree. I mean, i think I think for the people who are listening and people who want to continue to listen, and it's they I think they'll have some ahas that they'll walk away with. And I think they'll have some, those three dudes don't know what the hell they're talking about, which I think is fine too.
00:53:19
Speaker
Or they might gravitate towards one or the other and just be like, I'm team Fritz all the way. He's always got the right answers. Yeah. Well, no, i think I think this is a good intro showcase to our thoughts and ideas of how this is going to kind of come together. And I look forward to take having a few guests. And I also look forward to having more conversations where we just kind of just pontificate of the world of higher ed.
00:53:53
Speaker
Yes, indeed. Kelvin, what are you thinking as we kind of wrap things up here? No, just looking forward to um to us kind of, again, covering an interesting array of topics. and Looking forward to also seeing who will potentially be guests to kind of add in into the conversation. and And who knows, after doing a few episodes, we might have...
00:54:19
Speaker
You know, there might be some other folks that may want to just join us, you know, the podcast too. So you you never know how the podcast will evolve over time, but I'm looking forward to that evolution.
00:54:32
Speaker
And as we start a new school year, um as our kids are going back to school and we're kind of going back to school, even though we're on 12 month contracts. It'll be interesting to see what's coming up next for higher ed, especially in terms of what's coming out of the federal government, the Department of Ed, Department of Labor and Commerce, all all kinds of crazy things are coming. So it'll be interesting just to see how higher ed reacts to all that.
00:55:04
Speaker
you