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GSD Episode 14: Dr. Scott Dolan
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In this episode of Gettin’ Stuff Done in Higher Education, the GSD crew sits down with Dr. Scott Dolan, Executive Dean at Excelsior University. Scott walks us through the history of Excelsior and its long-standing focus on serving adult learners. The conversation explores how institutions designed for working adults think about access, flexibility, and innovation. We also discuss what “hybrid” education might realistically look like in the coming years and why partnerships and strategic locations still matter, even for institutions that are primarily online.
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Getting Stuff Done in Higher Education. I'm Kevin Schreiner, joined of course by Kelvin Bentley and Fritz Vandover. And today we have the privilege of having a conversation with Dr. Scott Dolan, dolan excuse me who is the executive dean at Excelsior University and has been in that role for several years and has been at the university for for many years as well. And so we look forward to having a conversation with Scott and seeing how you get stuff done in higher ed. Welcome, Scott.
00:00:56
Speaker
Thanks so much, Kevin. Great to be here. I look forward to the conversation. Great.
Dr. Dolan's Career Journey
00:01:00
Speaker
So things that we just like to understand about folks is how did you how did you make higher ed your your job?
00:01:11
Speaker
yeah yeah ah you know So I was very much started on the pathway to a publisher parish tenure track kind of role. I went to the University at Albany to study sociology right out of undergrad and saw myself doing being a faculty member.
00:01:31
Speaker
Um, i always make a joke that my father was an accountant. Uh, and he would ask me, you're going to go do what you're going to go be a sociologist and show me how you're going to, how you're going to get a job, uh, doing that.
00:01:43
Speaker
And I did, uh, but, uh, um, you know along the way, you know i started to realize that that sort of track wasn't something that was ah was what I was passionate about. um ah The research kind of focus of what we were doing at a PhD program, the structure of how the work was getting done, just was not where my my excitement was so yeah know I took a long time to finish my PhD as I was reconsidering my career track.
00:02:20
Speaker
But was so far invested in getting a PhD that i just decided i needed to complete it. And I'm so glad that I did. When I came back to finish a You know, I really took a look at ah different ways that I could use the skills that I was developing as a sociologist and apply them a bit more directly real world problems rather than maybe speaking to five other folks who would be interested in my in my research.
00:02:49
Speaker
And i got ah an assistantship where I started to do program evaluation, which was research skills applied to organizations that got grant funding to help them understand whether or not the work that they were doing strategically was actually meeting its intended outcomes and whether or not they were spending the money that they were getting from the federal government, state governments, or foundations in the ways that they were expected to spend it. ah And that really excited me because I was starting to work with different stakeholders and groups and organizations, helping them solve their problems and helping them see whether or not their strategies were impacting the kinds of outcomes that they intended to, whether that was, you know, p through 20 education, after school programs, developmentally disabled. populations and yeah their living arrangements moving them out of institutional homes helping do parent satisfaction surveys for the state of Connecticut and just really felt like I was having some practical influence over real-world issues and helping organizations do that so finished my PhD and took a private research job after that and continued to do research P through 20 education health and human services
00:04:01
Speaker
And it was grant funded for the most part, continued to teach because I did have a real passion for the classroom at that time.
Excelsior University's Mission
00:04:10
Speaker
ah And a job similar to this came up in at Excelsior. all right So in learning outcomes assessment and program evaluation.
00:04:19
Speaker
And I always loved at least the culture of higher ed being around smart people on getting to work with them and the impact that higher ed can have on people's lives. And you know Excelsior was an institution that was really thinking differently about how to deliver education and was serving a very different population that needed access and affordability.
00:04:39
Speaker
And I could use my research skills to help them figure out what was working for students as well as for the organization itself. And so that's how I ended up back in higher ed and have continued to grow over the last 12 years at Excelsior, taking on additional responsibilities along the way.
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah, you've really had an opportunity to kind of do a lot of different chats that excelsior. um I'm interested because you said that you you came back to your PhD. So did you did you stop i mean Did you basically do a stop out while you're working on your PhD? I stayed continuously enrolled, but I was ABD.
00:05:21
Speaker
um I completed my comps. I was ready to go. i was teaching ah pretty large workload as a graduate assistant. not making a whole lot of money. So I had other jobs as well. right So it took me a while to kind of hone in on what I wanted to study and how to get to the finish line.
00:05:43
Speaker
um But yeah, I was still enrolled, but I wasn't making the kind of progress that I should have been. right I got through the first four years exactly as I should have and then got to that phase where you had needed to do your project. And that's where I started to get a little bit uncertain about whether that kind of pathway was going to work for me. And and so I came back and just, you know, i committed so much time and money into the work that I was doing that. And I love teaching too. And I knew that the degree would matter there.
00:06:15
Speaker
So I just wanted to finish what I started. So what area of sociology did you focus on? I'm mostly macro, looking at economics and politics. I wrote my dissertation on who has power in the United States, looking at interlocking directorates between the largest 100 corporations, public charities, foundations, think tanks, and federal advisory committees to see who had access to networks of power across different organizations and how are those connected to the organizations that they were affiliated with.
00:06:50
Speaker
It's kind of cool because I can just think about all the higher ed intricacies of who has power in higher ed. Like the way, mean, some of that's just kind of similar. Yeah, so some of the largest public charities in terms of private support are definitely elite.
00:07:07
Speaker
Ivy League types of institutions and those institutions are very well connected to folks in upper class socioeconomically and are also very well connected to networks of power. What I found was that public charities that were
Philanthropy and Education
00:07:21
Speaker
dealing with issues of poverty,
00:07:23
Speaker
health and human service were mostly isolated from networks of power and some of that was based on choices they made in terms of who they put on their boards but some of that was also i think reflections of the structure of power in the united states and the disproportionate influence some groups have relative to others that is interesting i i don't i don't know why i find this interesting but it's just so interesting to think about the way i mean yeah i mean just the intric interconnectedness of organizations.
00:07:57
Speaker
And it's still those who have the money are the ones that are driving the where where things are going I think that's an old, wow, we're going to get off on the way. yeah it's a about fun But this is an old thing. Like think of, think of charitable organizations in the 19th century, Carnegie's, you know, where them driving where philanthropy and and charitable giving and activity went. I mean, this is, it's not new. And i and I'm going to, I'm going to answer your rhetorical question, Kevin. You're interested in it because you, you're a historian too. Like, I know, but that's, but that's what I'm saying. Like Carnegie's,
00:08:31
Speaker
David Price- money to the public sector like Carnegie helped build hbc use in tuskegee i mean a lot of them did during the I mean during that whole gilded age period. David Price- The Red Cross.
00:08:47
Speaker
David Price- Poverty homes like all those things were start like and so it's just like to me it was like it's the opposite now it's almost like we don't care about the social pieces we're putting all of our money into.
00:09:00
Speaker
i don't know, some other organization that's going to help just build our kitty versus spreading the wealth of our kitty.
00:09:09
Speaker
Who is it? It's McKinsey, right? I mean, like how much money McKinsey has given away compared to, I just saw this article this morning, that McKinsey's given away compared to other folks that have more money than she does.
00:09:24
Speaker
Oh, talking about Bezos ex-wife? Yeah. Oh, and you said McKinsey. I'm like the consulting firm. Yeah. Sorry. No, I mean, but how much money she's given away. Oh, yeah. Compared to other. I mean, that's the thing. But so that's why i just it's just like, I don't know why. Sorry, it's a tangent.
00:09:43
Speaker
but No, it's not. It's not a tangent. The nonprofit stuff in the United States is definitely unique.
Nonprofit Sector's Role
00:09:50
Speaker
And to your point, for instance, gone back for a long time. You you go back to Alexis de Tocqueville and talking about what civil society looks like in the United States, but that's definitely changed over time and certainly since the mid-70s, which is also alongside what we've seen in terms of growing income and wealth inequality in the United States since the oil crisis too, right? One minor blip where it started to flatten out during COVID, but it continues to go back the other direction.
00:10:18
Speaker
where the income continues to be disproportionately distributed in the United States and wealth even worse, right? um And that does have something to do with how Public sector funding has operated.
00:10:32
Speaker
We certainly live that within higher ed, no doubt. It has a lot to do with how private sector money is being used too and to what ends as well. But the nonprofit sector in the United States is very is is unique relative to most countries in the world, which is one of the reasons I was interested yeah study it And it does still really help kind of frame some of the things that we're living through day to day within higher ed in terms of how you know federal funding has decreased, you know how that's impacted state funding, and then how that's impacted institutions and becoming more and more reliant on tuition at a time when you know the population in most parts of the country isn't going to support the the supply of institutions that exist right without some sort of state subsidy. And the question is,
00:11:18
Speaker
you know, what role does the state play in kind of funding education and individuals' education? And that's changed how they do that a whole lot. It's going to change some more here, but probably over the next few years as well. Yeah. so So when you think about funding grants, even federal funding, so would you say federal funding kind of follows that same guideline of your, like, Harvard's are going to always get the money, University of Florida's are always going to get the money versus...
00:11:47
Speaker
you know, a smaller institution. think about NSF grants. mean, what's some of the larger grants, those types of things, NIHs. I mean, the reality is, which I don't think, and i there are people who are much more well-versed in this sort of stuff, so I'm going to be sort of armchair answering this. But to me, R&D has been something that universities, especially elite universities, have done for the country for a very, very long time.
Funding Challenges in Higher Education
00:12:20
Speaker
So the idea now that they are sort of...
00:12:26
Speaker
Being criticized for some of the work that they do while they've been subsidizing a lot of research and innovation for the country is Is is a problem? Something you need to think think through and then federal funding is more and more going to the consumer, right, directly, rather than being passed through institutions and subsidized that way. The challenge there is that the consumer is also responsible for paying back the the money that they're getting. And, you know, that the complexity of what that will look like and how much will be available to students is going to be very interesting in the next in the next few years and whether or not that's going to really
00:13:05
Speaker
be enough for folks who especially want to continue their education in ways that has been really beneficial for the our society over the last, you know, through our entire history, right? So <unk>s that's a very simple answer to a really difficult question. And there are other people who probably know this stuff way better than than I do. But, you private universities and major state R1 institutions, they're doing a ton of that's helped us when it comes to health, when it comes to defense, when it comes to science, right? um
00:13:40
Speaker
And all of that basic research you know doesn't always pay off the immediately. But I think the track record of what colleges and universities have been able to produce when it comes to intellectual property is pretty significant. And the idea that now we're going to hold them accountable for different sorts of things without recognizing the contributions they made, I think, it is a
Flexible Education Models at Excelsior
00:14:01
Speaker
real challenge. so yeah So for our listeners who may not know about Excelsior, how would you explain Excelsior University to someone?
00:14:12
Speaker
Yeah, so we're a nonprofit institution headquartered in Albany, New York. We were founded in 1971. So we're one of the older distance ed providers.
00:14:23
Speaker
We were founded by the state of New York, which is interesting. So we were a public institution up until the 90s. We were founded really because folks in New York, leaders in New York, Edwin Nyquist and others,
00:14:39
Speaker
Saw people coming back from the Vietnam War with all this experience skill expertise and coming back to The US and not having a real good pathway to a college education using traditional models Residential primarily so we've got these working adults who got all this experience and expertise and training coming back to families and live lives and want to kind of make do on on the work that they've done and and and pursue a college education and didn't really have a good pathway for it. So the state of New York said we need to think through ways of creating a new model that's accessible to working adults and that's affordable and that can allow them to get the credentials that they need in order to access the jobs and careers that were available.
00:15:31
Speaker
So we were founded with and this is the interesting thing of our finding we were founded with degree programs and No courses of our own but they would use a mix of High stakes proficiency exams military work and occupations that could be evaluated for college credit which we're all familiar with through ace And they would get advised to take courses at other institutions and they would bring them back to us and we would package all those pieces.
00:16:02
Speaker
You CLEP exams, Dante's exams, military credit for prior learning and the courses that you take at other institutions and the state New York would confer confer the degree. And as technology evolved, it obviously became much, much easier to deliver some of the courses to through technology, and we started to do that more and more. I will say when I first got here in 2014, though, we had degree programs where we still weren't teaching every single course that was part of that degree program, right So we were still advising students, hey, if it's easier for you you to take this course at your local community college, go do that, and we'll articulate it back in.
00:16:41
Speaker
And even today, have bachelor's degrees that you only have to take 16 credits with Excelsior in order to complete the degree. The rest of the credit can be taken as transfer into us through a variety of mechanisms. Did you say 16 or 60? 16. One six. Yeah.
00:17:01
Speaker
Wow. That's not a lot out of a bachelor's. If you're talking bachelor's degrees, that's not very much. Yeah, and for a long time, even when I was here, it was seven. So this is relatively new, and it's mostly related to the fact that our students are choosing to take courses with us at at much higher rates, and they're more successful when they take a few early on with us to get them to the end.
00:17:25
Speaker
um But our our students are still working adults, average age is 36.
00:17:31
Speaker
92% of them are working, 80% of them are working full time. We do still have a high affiliation with military students, especially outside of our nursing programs, which is the programs that I oversee.
00:17:45
Speaker
So active military veteran, military affiliated family members and the Department of Defense still have a real good history and track record serving those those populations. And i you know more and more, we're rethinking even that, right? This idea of online only as an institution in the future.
00:18:12
Speaker
And I think you know there's a lot of great work that's going on in a fully online space, and it has opened up access and affordable options for so many people.
00:18:22
Speaker
um The question we have is that, is that the model for the future given what new generations are saying to us, what AI is doing to teaching and learning and based on what's needed in in the wider world around us.
Hybrid Learning Innovations
00:18:38
Speaker
So,
00:18:39
Speaker
ah Let's think about ways that we can marry the best of an online, fully flexible asynchronous learning environment, add some synchronous components where that makes sense to enhance relationships, and to start building more flexible in-person experiences too, where place matters, where hands-on skills can best be taught, and where the pipeline of employers are really looking for talent needs that are specific to them, right?
00:19:11
Speaker
So we're we're doing a lot in terms of what hybrid looks like in in the future, so in the best of both worlds there. So we consider ourselves a technology-enabled institution that serves working adults for the most part. I will say that we're getting younger every year.
00:19:31
Speaker
um And thinking through innovatively how we can continue to rethink the model of how we deliver education. And I think that's what our consumers are asking of us too.
00:19:44
Speaker
So when you when you when you think about hybrid then and trying to reach the populations of students that you're currently serving, are you all looking at distributed campuses?
00:19:55
Speaker
Yeah, sweet just lot yeahp we just launched a campus in St. Petersburg, Florida. ah Out of that, we'll be teaching a pre-licensure BSN, Bachelor of Science in Nursing program.
00:20:08
Speaker
as well as our ABET accredited Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering Technology. We're one of six institutions in the world that has ABET accreditation for an electrical engineering technology program. And most people think we're crazy when we say we do that fully online. But the students that we have in that program, military veteran, they get a lot of the hands on skills by virtue of the work that they do coming to us.
00:20:35
Speaker
What they need is a bit more of how they translate those skills to the civilian workforce and then some of the conceptual scientific and theoretical components that rounded out. With that said,
00:20:47
Speaker
AI is increasingly causing a demand for energy and the jobs that we're seeing grow are those that are in those areas, electrical, new mechanical, craft industries, hands-on. And we're seeing students sign up for our ABET accredited degrees and higher rates.
00:21:05
Speaker
And we just want to make sure that we have options for them. ah so that they're practice ready and hireable when they get out of our program too. And we're piloting that in in St. Pete for this kind of new mix of students that are coming to us to try to get access to those to those jobs. And there's just, we we hear from employers, like they don't,
00:21:26
Speaker
know how to handle this particular component or they don't know what hex wrench they might need. And so they're averse a little bit to hiring an online student. I will say they're also telling us that even their in-person students don't have some of those skills to hit the ground running. So we don't want to be the same in the same boat, right? We want to be better than that. Let's make sure that they have the skills and competences that they need in order to get the job. And sometimes that does mean I've got to do some practical work.
00:21:55
Speaker
I think that Kevin's dog they had a question. So Scott, um I'm interested in the when a lot of a lot of institutions, so I'm from St. Louis, Missouri, I grew up in Webster Groves and Webster, went to go, Webster's High School, Webster University is literally across street from where went to high school.
00:22:14
Speaker
A place like Webster is, they're walking away from, they have lots of campuses all over the globe and they're releasing a lot of that physical infrastructure.
00:22:26
Speaker
You all are moving towards it. Is that a place, so you have a St. Petersburg, Florida campus, is that to, tap meet a need in the St. Petersburg or greater St. Petersburg Metro or that part of Florida market? Or is that do you foresee that, you know, you're going to go to people are going to come to to St. Pete to do this?
00:22:48
Speaker
yeah I think we are seeing it more as regional physical anchors of which we're going to test that idea in in St. Pete. And, you know, it's not recreating the trappings of a traditional campus, right?
00:23:03
Speaker
And trying to keep up with the Joneses, which I think is what's getting a lot of a lot of it institutions right now in trouble, right? Because they're all competing for a smaller number of 18 to 21-year-olds. And they're doing that by building out infrastructure.
00:23:18
Speaker
great labs, great eating and dining facilities, wonderful living arrangements. But, you know, they're doing that based on projections of tuition that they're not able to realize just because there's not enough students. And that's just starting, right, the demographic cliff.
00:23:36
Speaker
And so, People come knocking on the door for them to pay back the capital expenses that they've got. It's not that, right? So it's not that, right? It's much smaller footprint. It's building out so that you really have space to deliver exactly what you need for the students.
00:23:51
Speaker
We're not requiring them necessarily to come in Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for three hours a week. It's more like what kind of working adult or someone bear or is willing to do. Like I'm giving up my time to travel to campus to do this. It better be very intentional and practical and applied to what I need to to do. And so the programs that we're selecting are very much programs where we see growth opportunity in that particular place.
00:24:20
Speaker
The other part to me is, you know, I've been in a situation where I've worked with employers and they're saying, hey, we have a real big talent need. I know you have know a thousand students in your business program, but my talent need is in Birmingham, Alabama.
00:24:35
Speaker
I'm sorry, we don't have 15 students in Birmingham, Alabama. So, however, if we knew you had that need and we were kind of building these anchors, we could be a little bit more tailored to what you want in that specific and that specific space. So that's sort of the thinking there is that there's certain needs that occur within regions that we can align our programs to. And those needs sometimes require hands-on and practical training. So let's build a space so that we can do that to meet the talent pipeline need in St. Pete. And if you think about nursing,
00:25:04
Speaker
For sure in Florida and that particular is needed. It's competitive, but it's needed right the demand is there and then cyber and it's a pretty big and growing space around cyber given the fact that it's on the water and where it's located and then electrical engineering technology is just about what we're seeing in terms of growth with respect to energy and what we're hearing from employers they're saying um I talked to one employer, Excelsior alum, went to your program. I know how good it is. I can't necessarily convince my foreman that they should try, they should hire folks for these roles coming from a fully online institution.
00:25:41
Speaker
Can you demonstrate that they have the skills that they're missing, that they're concerned about? Yes, let's do that. but And let's do that together aligned with your your competency model. so I mean, it's it's a, i'm I'm a fan of, um,
00:25:56
Speaker
contrarian moves. You know, my wife and I built a house near the back end of the housing recession in 2009, 2010. twenty two thousand nine two thousand and ten It was a good time to do it.
Strategic Investments and Market Transitions
00:26:05
Speaker
You're looking for spaces to do this. i mean, it's a good time to get commercial real estate. You know, there's a lot of inventory out there that ah owners are trying to fill. So you're making moves at a, at a transition point in higher ed and lots of other spaces, real estate, employment, economy in general, that make,
00:26:25
Speaker
sense to have a so to make smart investments, not just blow the throttle open and see what happens, but to make really prudent and well thought out investments in these different markets. That's, it's interesting. And where you're at kind of, i mean, St. Petersburg, right, fits the model of Excelsior, because you have St. Petersburg Community College, which is technically state college,
00:26:48
Speaker
um You have US, I mean, you have, so you have several other universities in the area. So you have places where people have either started or can, to your point, no, go take that course at the community college, we'll articulate it in we'll do it.
Military and Regional Educational Opportunities
00:27:03
Speaker
But you're also near a military base. So that gives you not only military, but military families availability to take programs. You know, if a husband or a wife wanted to do nursing,
00:27:17
Speaker
And they weren't able to do nursing because they didn't think they to be, you know, if this place long enough to do it, they had that capability to potentially even start and finish their degree online if they get all the didactics and other types of things are done. Yeah. and And I think where higher ed is going is a little uncertain. So being able to test some of these ideas is really important.
00:27:44
Speaker
you know, how we learn and how we teach. it's going to change dramatically. but need It needed to change anyway, but it's going to change dramatically as we move forward because of artificial intelligence. So we're embracing AI, obviously, and then thinking through what's left for us to teach humans so that they can interact with these tools ethically, responsibly, and then provide value in a way that we want and meaning in the ways that that we want. So,
00:28:15
Speaker
that That role of you know what we used to do with content and what faculty do, I think it's becoming radically disrupted. And I think people, again, I go back Fully Online has done tremendous things. And there are students that we serve asynchronously, fully flexible, that absolutely need it based on the requirements of their lives and might not be able to pursue education if they didn't have it.
00:28:43
Speaker
It's not the only thing they need, right? And it's not always the only thing they want. So giving options matters. Making sure that they graduate with the skills and competencies that matter.
00:28:55
Speaker
And I say this as someone who really admires what we're able to do in a fully online environment. Sometimes I worry that it it is becoming a bit too transactional, that it's just an investment in a credential um when I think there's a whole lot more that education can do and not in terms of an ivory tower away, but in terms of what people might be looking for in the future with with what's happening with AI.
00:29:25
Speaker
Meaning, connection, relationships, context, right? How do I put this information to use in the place that I am with other humans too, right? The things that are gonna be left for us. So,
00:29:40
Speaker
I mean, at it's best I think a college, any college to credential, any credential, whether it's a high school diploma up through a PhD or whatever.
Adapting Education for Technology
00:29:49
Speaker
It gives you the ability to adapt to give you a base of knowledge and expertise and something and then the ability to adapt, especially when you get into graduate and advanced degrees the ability to adapt as that field changes, rather than just be I know how to use cold fusion.
00:30:07
Speaker
I know how to develop in that. I can never program in another language ever. you know but that's That's not what we want from education. You have to be able to build on you what you do. There's a good ah article, I think it was by Hollis Robbins about the never ending credential or something that effect. And it was basically saying like,
00:30:29
Speaker
Lifelong learning sounds sounds like, a to me, it sounds like a prison sentence. I don't wanna be going back to school constantly. I don't wanna pay for it. I wanna be able to adapt. And I feel like the the degrees I have and the skills I bolt on allow me to do that.
00:30:42
Speaker
But I don't wanna be going back to class forever because that's time. And time is is is a rare commodity, especially as you get older and you can do more and more in your career with your families and whatever. So.
00:30:56
Speaker
I'll get off my soapbox. now but No, I have to chuckle because literally somebody said this on LinkedIn earlier this week about three year degrees. Well, let them do their three year degrees, but then they can come back later and finish the fourth year.
00:31:11
Speaker
but you're going to give the degree, but then come back later and get all that other stuff that we cut out and get four years. Like that's not a three year degree then. Certainly not a bachelor's degree. No, no, I just yeah. If it's if it's got an asterisk.
00:31:27
Speaker
Yeah. It's almost like this attitude that we have about our stop out students, right? Like, Hey, it's no problem. We'll set up a way for them to come back. And I, I will, I mean, not to be a dad a Debbie downer on it, but I almost feel like that's not what we should be doing. Um, we, I mean, we could definitely provide that, um,
00:31:46
Speaker
but there's all this expectation that all of a sudden we're gonna recoup all these students who who hit a brick wall life got in the way.
00:31:56
Speaker
And um I think we have to be much more realistic in terms of recouping those students. um Scott, I had a question for you. Excelsior's model is a very unique model.
00:32:09
Speaker
I love the fact that at the heart of how Excelsior was kind of created, you thought about CPL, like, you know, credit for prior learning um at the core of everything, right? Which is, it's a very, it's very different from traditional higher ed, which tries to be, you know, it tries to to kind of meet the needs of all learners. Like, yes, we're going to have tons of courses, tons of programs, and we will be the originators of that. And then if you do come to us with transfer credit, we may or may not give you one-to-one recognition of that credit. A lot of times, right, that credit is like thrown into this...
00:32:52
Speaker
kind of a junkyard category we call electives, but then it doesn't always help that student continue their momentum toward graduation, right? Because you can only graduate with so many of the elective credits.
00:33:06
Speaker
So, you know, I'm just wondering like for you and your role, since you've been at Excelsior for a while, what would you say to our audience that's, you know, really interested in CPL and trying to serve the adult learner?
00:33:20
Speaker
not that every school can do what Excelsior does, but what what are what are some things that we should be focusing on, especially given, you know, technology changes and, you know we you know, there's still this competition that's out there to to win back students. Like what what can we be doing better to, you know, to to definitely help our adult learners? um as well as even like helping our or high school learners who are coming in with dual credit or other, you know, experiential learning opportunities.
Competency-Based Education
00:33:55
Speaker
How can we do a better job in higher ed to recognize that all learning counts as my, as a a common colleague of ours, Melanie Booth, um you know, has highlighted for years, but higher ed is just very slow to do it.
00:34:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think the the first battle is just recognizing... how much learning occurs outside of a classroom, right? and And how that learning can be equivalent to what we're trying to teach within a classroom, right? So you can acquire knowledge and skills and competencies in ways that you didn't necessarily sitting in front of us or taking our course. And that's sometimes hard for us within higher ed to wrap our heads around.
00:34:45
Speaker
How do we know they learned what we need them to know or I need them to know? and I teach that course well and we cover these pieces, right? So that's the first thing is just philosophically just acknowledging That there's a lot of learning that happens outside of colleges and that's particularly true for adult students, right? and if you're If you're developing courses andragogically using the you traditional ways, the first thing you do is recognize how much experience and expertise adults bring into the classroom, right? And you make sure that the courses are designed in a way
00:35:23
Speaker
that contextualizes what they're bringing into the classroom and adds value to it directly in a relevant way. But once you start serving adults, you realize, oh my gosh, these people are coming to us with whole bunch of skills and competencies that why are we making them repeat that because time is such a precious value so then the question for us is that excels your has always been well how do we assess learning right how do we know that students have learned what they need to learn and can do what they need to do, which is where you know we were one of the earliest competency-based education providers. And I know competency-based education has it had a renaissance and continues to have some steam.
00:36:10
Speaker
But that was really how we were founded with our nursing program was to ensure that students who are graduating with could demonstrate their skills and competencies and we developed high stakes exams to validate validate that. And then we're building our courses in that way as as well, right? to To ensure that the assessments are able to show that students have the skills and competencies that we expect them when they graduate the program.
00:36:37
Speaker
And at the end of our programs, we're using portfolios to validate that too, right? You got 12 learning outcomes, eight learning outcomes. Demonstrate how through a mix of your experience, professional career, the courses you've taken at Excelsior, the courses you've taken elsewhere, reflect on that and demonstrate to us how you've ah you've met the outcomes that we've established for you. So those are...
00:37:01
Speaker
you know So that to me, it's what you value, your philosophy. It's um how you're assessing learning and saying that's the most important thing. And then saying, okay, how do we use those same kinds of approaches and apply them to learning that might help happen outside?
00:37:19
Speaker
of the class it's a corporate training right now they might not have the same paper within that corporate training but they have some sort of assessment that shows that they've learned what they need to and that they've applied it and they can reflect on that and they can demonstrate how that is equivalent so let's set up some tools for us to assess that training for equivalence to what we're offering within our courses and how do you continue to refine that model over time. so ah
00:37:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's sometimes getting out of our own way and hubris or that it needs to happen in front of us in order for it to have happened. And then having mechanisms by which we can validate that learning has occurred. and And then just trying to think about ways in which learning within a classroom can be similar or equivalent to learning that happens outside of the classroom and having tools to be able to make those decisions and apply them for students. And that and students are care about a lot about cost.
00:38:20
Speaker
They care a lot about time to completion. They also care a lot about the fact that the degree is validating as a signal that they are able to do what they're able to do, and they're going to get jobs and careers based based on that. So while we have that as a responsibility, too. It's not just time and total cost and a credential. It's, no, you're ready, and we can validate that, and and you're going to hit the ground running when you get hired.
00:38:48
Speaker
So, you know, think it's just a matter of how do we help them do that without saying you have to do everything with us, right? And there's a variety of pathways that students can take, learners can take in order to get to the ah get to the end.
00:39:03
Speaker
So how how do you how do you weigh as an organization what courses to take the time to set up an assessment for competency-based versus just, I mean, i you know, I mean, I think of gen eds, right? I think To me, gen eds are, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think gen eds probably are more difficult to try to do, comp unless you have an exam, right, to be able to clap out of history or or something like that, versus accounting. I can demonstrate my knowledge in accounting.
00:39:37
Speaker
again, I could be, ah like I'm just curious how you all think through, like, what are the right courses? How do you spend your time thinking about where do you do? Where do you spend the energy of faculty to create those assessments?
00:39:53
Speaker
Yeah, i mean we have a capstone in every one of our programs. So we start there, right? Because at the end of the program, folks are supposed to be able to demonstrate generally that they've met program outcomes, right? And this is how.
00:40:05
Speaker
um We certainly have curriculum maps where we're identifying where different skills and competencies are being introduced, reinforced, and assessed along the way.
00:40:15
Speaker
And we are assessing those at the end of a program as well. So I think that's that's good curriculum design too, right? Each course has learning outcomes. Those learning outcomes stack up to good program outcomes. And let's have assessments along the way, formatively and summatively, to ensure that they're they're getting getting there. right um So that's generally how we would approach it. Start with that capstone synthetic experience, make sure that you've got good assessment there, and then um scaffold back to the curriculum.
00:40:49
Speaker
And then just making sure that when you're slotting out an experience or another course for what you have built within your curriculum, that it's equivalent in the ways that it needs to be, both from a college level perspective, from a upper level, lower level graduate perspective, but also from the kinds of skills and competencies that people should have achieved because they completed that particular course elsewhere or that set of learning elsewhere.
00:41:19
Speaker
So when you when you think about your work at Excelsior
00:41:26
Speaker
with the teams that you have, actually, so before I ask the question, can you explain what your role is as as as executive dean? Sure. Yes, I'm the executive dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, which is a structure that we created when we became university, and we realigned our degree programs with verticals where we saw our students studying most and where we saw the demand for jobs in the future to be. So um within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, there is a school business, there is a school of technology, and then there's the Department of Liberal Arts. And and and within our college, there's certainly an intersection between business and technology.
00:42:16
Speaker
So I oversee schools within our college, focus on you know strategy and execution, a program development and revision, refinement, talent hiring you know faculty and staff along the way, and you you know all the student support and operations that are associated with running multiple schools and academic programs.
00:42:41
Speaker
So, and and we have associate's degrees all the way up through doctoral degrees. And we're launching our first doctoral degree next spring, waiting on final approval from ah the state, which we expect in the next month or two.
00:42:59
Speaker
And that'll be a DBA within the school business. And then there's a counterpart College of Nursing and Health Sciences, which has nursing programs and allied health programs, which are other verticals where we're seeing students uh a lot and where we're seeing careers of the future um being high demand so that is a diverse set of programs so how do you how do you like just get through your day of working across all those different um
00:43:32
Speaker
curricular structures and in keeping, you know, all the folks that are there motivated to continue to do the good work that Excelsior has done for 50, 50 some years now.
00:43:47
Speaker
Yeah, little bit over right. on I mean, the first thing is have a good team, right? So, you know, I'm lucky to have deans and associate deans, department chairs, full-time faculty and part-time faculty but within each one of those verticals that do great work aligned with you the values and goals that we have as a college and as an institution. So,
00:44:13
Speaker
you know I would not be able to manage across each one of those areas without people who are really talented underneath me and working with with me. So I'm not a you know i'm a sociologist, right? So I'm not an expert in business. I'm not an expert in technology.
00:44:31
Speaker
I'm not someone who thinks I can tell them what to teach or how to teach. But can we work together on building some shared expectations in terms of what we're trying to accomplish?
Data-Driven Student Success Strategies
00:44:42
Speaker
pick the best strategies and about how we're going to get there and then use data to evaluate what's working and what's not and help that also prioritize our focus too, right?
00:44:55
Speaker
So a lot of it is really good communication and staying in contact with those teams to keep us focused. ah We do a lot as a university. We do a lot within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. I think that is necessary. We have to try things and learn from them.
00:45:14
Speaker
But we also need to stay focused and disciplined in terms of making the right strategic bets on the things that we think might work and have impact um too. So, you know, the day is very, very meeting heavy, but that's because I'm working with folks and helping them, you know,
00:45:31
Speaker
address barriers and challenges, ensure that we've got the resources that we need to do the work, and then just making sure we're focused on the right on the right things. First and foremost, students, right? And and are they being successful?
00:45:43
Speaker
And how do we make it so that they can be more successful reaching their goals?
00:45:49
Speaker
And you to me, the data matters a whole lot because we do need to make choices, right? And the school business has needs and the school technology has needs and the Department will of Arts has needs. And we need to explain why we're making the choices that we make based on the data that we have and based on what the students are telling us they want.
00:46:08
Speaker
And and need so those herbs, you know how we make those choices and how we communicate Why we did it and then yeah I guess I'll say as a leader Be humble enough to know when you've been wrong, which is often It's often right so you got to make a decision. You got to pick a lane You don't always know how it's going to end up but But you can explain why you chose the things that you did as a team.
00:46:34
Speaker
And you can also try to figure out why didn't it work if it didn't work. And when it did work, how do you keep kind of investing in that and build on that build along the momentum. but But data helps to have those discussions and keep us focused.
00:46:50
Speaker
Yeah, and Scott, thanks for kind of giving us a peek under the hood of Excelsior in terms of the the work that you're doing within, which again is it's a lot. You know, i'm I'm curious too about, given that Excelsior has been around for so long,
00:47:10
Speaker
and And of course, you've been there now for over 11 years. Like, what can you share with us too about the the work within the states? like the I'm interested in knowing a bit more about the impact that Excelsior has had on the rest of maybe higher ed within the state of New York? Or, you know, do you find or have you found that Excelsior more recently has been involved in consultancy conversations with schools that want to adopt and adapt aspects of your model so that they can better serve for adult learners? Or maybe they see competency-based education the way that you approach it as something
00:47:55
Speaker
that they should invest in and then, of course, build structures to support. Would just be curious about, you know, the external work that you're doing with other institutions or as well as, you know, what you're hearing from institutions too. or You know, there's, of course, there's lots of haters out there around CBE, um but but just curious about, like, external facing, like, how how are you interacting with other institutions, given your work?
Collaborations and Partnerships
00:48:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think
00:48:29
Speaker
we're we're we're focused mostly on partnering first, right? um So one of the things we talk about as an institution when we're thinking about regional physical anchors, having alliances and partnerships with other institutions is how do we build an ecosystem for students that creates seamless pathways among students?
00:48:51
Speaker
different colleges and universities, especially, you know, so Excelsior, we've been online only for most of our history. So if we're going to start building hybrid experiences and in-person experiences, it is not a muscle that we honed over the last few years. So we need to partner with other institutions that do that, especially those that are thinking about how to do that innovatively. um So that's one thing, right? So we're really thinking about instead of competing with other institutions, how do we partner ah with other institutions and leverage what our different strengths might might be? And we're exploring a variety of transformational partnerships that will help us do that. And we see growth in that direction through partnership, not just through doing the same things we've done.
00:49:41
Speaker
to take So when we then given the fact that we're looking at regional physical anchors, it's becomes much more of a national play and beyond that.
00:49:52
Speaker
But there are certainly things that you need to work through from a state by state basis as we're starting to think through doing on the ground learning. in different parts parts of the country. But the whole goal for us is to figure out ways to expand opportunities for students and to give them options that they might not have in a traditional online technology enabled environment. right So we launched the study abroad in Rome.
00:50:16
Speaker
And at the time, I will say some people are like, our students can't do that. They don't wanna do that. We get 50 folks every year who express interest, and then we get a handful of students who actually go and do it. And then when they come back, the kind of experiences that they talk about are sticky and profound um and it's just an option right and it's relatively easy for us to do in partnership with john cabot university uh in rome uh and it might not be an option that they have at a lot of a lot of other online institutions when we're thinking about the intersection between health
00:50:53
Speaker
and the human environment. Yeah, you can teach that online, but we've got a partnership with Paul Smith's College, which is the second largest campus by landmass, and it's in the Adirondacks. It's just beautiful. They've got cross country, they've got a lake, they've got, it's bucolic, right? um So do one week online, do one week in-person, immersive learning about the intersection between health and the human environment ah right there in the Adirondacks. Have you know campfire lectures and talks to make it worthwhile and kind of fun, create relationships with other students.
00:51:29
Speaker
and then come back online and reflect and and and and wrap up the learning. And it's an option, right? And it's experiential. And the reason to be there makes sense and the learning is enhanced because you're doing it in a place that brings it brings it to life. And you create different kinds of relationships with your faculty and other students by virtue of doing that.
00:51:52
Speaker
We have a partnership with the Milwaukee School of Engineering right now where we're sharing courses. right So they have a really cool AI course in their and MBA program, which we don't have. We wanted to give our students that that option.
00:52:03
Speaker
We have an accounting and finance course that sometimes they have a tough time filling or finding good faculty local to teach it. um So we have space so those students can take our course, our students can take their course, and we're exploring a lot of ways to do that in partnership with with other other institutions. So I think we're really thinking through how we work with other institutions rather than compete with other institutions to leverage complementary strengths, modality, place,
00:52:37
Speaker
talent and then also think about ways where we can share services so we can also cut cut costs together too so that we can keep the cost of education low and affordable for the students that we serve. And it's about pathways but giving students options on those pathways that they might want opt into rather than just having one one option. They can move around this ecosystem in different ways. And other other colleges and universities have programs that we don't have. So if we want our students to have a pathway into that program, how do we partner with institutions to give them that pathway rather than just building it on our own, which will take time. and We don't always have the expertise to do.
Affordability and Resource Management
00:53:15
Speaker
So let's dig in some more about cost and tuition. You know, how do you, how are you keeping things, those costs for, and I looked at your undergraduate and graduate tuitions are very reasonable. How do you do it? And is it just because you don't have a big physical plant to deal with? I mean, that's a big one. Is it a staffing model that's lean?
00:53:35
Speaker
Give us some insights into that if you can. um Yeah, i mean, I think it's, I mean, it's, you know, the, It's how we use our people, I think is is one. Though we compensate well and competitively, for sure, across the board.
00:53:52
Speaker
you know The instructional costs are you know lower than a lot of other institutions because we have centralized course design, right? um And so the course is the same from one section to the next, and the instructor teaches, but within that model where the course is kind of been pre-built.
00:54:11
Speaker
For them which allows us to keep some instructional costs relatively low and Yeah, I mean I think yeah And I will say for an online institution, we're priced a little higher than some of our peers.
00:54:27
Speaker
But it's also because we allow for the different kinds of transfer credit and articulation, which brings down the total cost of a degree with us if you compare us to other institutions. right So if you go to a more traditional online environment, for the most part, you absolutely have to take at minimum 30 credits with them. Right right there, you're saving 14 credits with us if you have that type of credit, and that saves you overall.
00:54:52
Speaker
uh total cost which is what allows us to charge a little bit of a higher tuition price but um this is for small segment of folks who have that amount of credit uh towards bachelor's or associates to associate's degree um and then we're just reviewing this stuff very very thoroughly uh monthly quarterly annually just to make sure that the expenses that we are signing up for are not going to drive costs for our students because they are, you know, the the market is very cost sensitive right now. And more importantly, asking questions about the value they get for the cost of the education that they're being provided. And that comes from a variety of perspectives, not just the sticker price, but what they're actually paying, but then also when I'm there,
00:55:42
Speaker
Am I really getting what I signed up for and and the value for what I'm paying to, which to me is about the experience in the classroom, around the classroom and beyond, and then the impact getting folks to the finish line. So I hope I asked your answered your question. But yeah, some of it is about you know not not having a lot of that physical footprint that we need.
00:56:03
Speaker
We've got the pre-built courses, which allow us to kind of each course can be delivered at a more cost effective rate because of the instructional costs and the design costs, which is different than a traditional institution. Doesn't mean it's insignificant. it's not necessarily lower, but when you pull out some of the other costs associated with the traditional environment, and you get to a lower price point that you can offer to students. Because a lot of you're talking about programs that are low residency, especially for ones that
00:56:35
Speaker
they, you really need hands-on time in the, in the, the field, the, to gain the knowledge, whether it's engineering or nursing or whatever. um But a lot of those low residency, residency programs can be a gradual level can be very expensive because they cater to a certain, you know, a certain learner ah population, you know, executive and MBAs are the,
00:56:58
Speaker
I think are the prime example, but to do them and keep them affordable is a huge opportunity for career growth and launch for anyone who's able to access that. So if they're doing it, if you're doing them affordably, that's, that is, that's the dream right there is to have it affordable, but a very powerful level lever for those learners.
00:57:19
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think ah you if you're thinking exec MBAs, you're certainly paying premium for the brand. And then they're also costly to deliver because of the the faculty that they're using, at least to promote the program.
00:57:35
Speaker
Not always the faculty there's teeth that are teaching within the program, but different different conversation. but But the faculty that are affiliated with the program and are at least contributing ah to the design and and you're getting some contact ah with them too. So you're paying for that, right? and And people will get a tremendous value out of it, obviously. a lot of it is from the name and its recognition and it' the legitimacy, but it's also about the personal relationships that you create with other folks who are going through that. But it creates ah it creates a level of accessibility that a lot of learners can't possibly. and And look, I'm not trying to ding on, to to dunk on executive MBAs, but
00:58:15
Speaker
to have a for low residency programs are really you need the residency experience it might be once during the program it might be that summer between a first and second year you go for two weeks um for that for those barriers be lowered is a great thing and it sounds like that's what you all are doing yeah that's that's what we're trying to do to reach a different segment of the market with similar kinds of models and use models that make the learning experience really great without falling into the trap of it has to be delivered at a certain price point.
00:58:48
Speaker
yeah We tried to launch an executive MBA. I think we were this scenario failure. I'll just admit it where we we were probably a little ambitious, thinking that our students could travel to three different locations as part of a one-year
00:59:03
Speaker
I think what we've learned from that launch is maybe asking a bit too much, but there some ideas that we have around maybe regional plays with a similar kind of model and keeping the cost low, but still having those low residencies as a component of it. It's just that people can drive to them versus fly to them. And then providing a bit more flexibility in terms of how they move through a program. So we'll look to relaunch with those sorts of ideas in mind. But I do think there's a segment of people who would like those kinds of experiences. Two thirds of graduate students are still choosing
00:59:39
Speaker
you know hybrid and online versus in fully in person. And there's benefits to getting together in person for the social capital that you can create through ah through a graduate program, which I think sometimes is missing and in our graduate programs and fully online asynchronous models. So we're just trying to reach a different segment at a different price point using an an innovative model to to get there. so but it has not yet fully succeeded either. But we've got the luxury and freedom to to try those things and to learn learn from them. And I do think the market will change here a lot in the next five to 10 years based on just what's happening with technology around us.
01:00:21
Speaker
Yeah, I just wish we had better data to really know what's really happening with hybrid. and what's happening with online because you can't use iPads data to get to that, right? like And 100% agree with you, Scott. I mean, people are gravitating towards a certain things, but there's still that unknown of what is that some but not all student who is enrolled in that little data set, and and is it really just someone enrolled in a one-credit online research course as part of their doctoral program? and so now they're in it not by their choosing or you know i use my children every once in a while um they both took medical terminology online as part of their bat undergraduate degree program because that was the only way it was offered it was online and so that they get lumped now into that group that's some but not all but their intention is not to to to be that way right they want to be residential they want to be in the classroom so i i i just
01:01:25
Speaker
I agree. like I love what you guys are doing with with going to certain locations, but also having
Exploring New Educational Models
01:01:34
Speaker
availability. And so that's always one thing that I've always, when when I've talked to to programs that want to be online or they want to have somebody on campus, what's the purpose? What's the academic reason for bringing them to campus or to wherever you want to bring them?
01:01:47
Speaker
what's the value that they're going to get by coming to that? And and very much to what Fritz was saying with with the executive MBA, like you get to be around all these people you may never be around ever in your business world, and now you're all brought together. It's like bring like we're all going to the Emmys, right? We'll never be around actors, but now we're all there.
01:02:07
Speaker
It's the same type of thing, but there has to be a reason and a purpose. And I think that's really what you all are really trying to get at in in the way that you're describing everything is really the value and the purpose and the intent for a hybrid model versus my fear is I think a lot of folks are just going to go, no, you're going to one class on campus. You're going to one class online. And then all of a sudden we're going to shrink our market.
01:02:35
Speaker
And we're still going to wonder why Arizona State, Western Governors, and Southern New Hampshire is rolling 500,000 people. Because we were not we're not thinking of it the way that you're thinking about hybrid.
01:02:47
Speaker
you know, my definition of hybrid has always been, it's an embedded component of part of your course. So hybrid was, you know, if i go back to my community college days, one week we're on, we're on one week, we're going to meet for the three hours on campus. The next week we're online for those three hours. The next week we're on campus for those, like that was our hybrid definition, right? Like it was to give people flexibility, but not in the way that high flex right being able to choose now i really want to go to campus to take that class but i'm gonna do all my other classes online because they're available that way or they're going to be taught that way yeah and i i mean think
01:03:30
Speaker
A part of that is just goes back to one of the challenges we've had historically in higher ed is that we probably don't pay enough enough attention to what we're actually doing in the classroom and whether or not how we're teaching is how it should be taught at that moment. you know And there's a lot of great data on learning science and neuroscience that tells us a lot of the methods we use are a little out of date, if not worse.
01:03:59
Speaker
us But to your point, I think people are really busy. Their time matters and it's costing them a lot. So when they're there, I think they have a lot of questions about, does it make sense for me to be here? And how is this helping me achieve a goal?
01:04:17
Speaker
and not in some And I don't think it should be just in some transactional way. I don't think it should just be about a widget that we're giving you in terms of the skill or a job. I think it's about a career and helping them change their lives and being able to do that and be prepared for that.
01:04:35
Speaker
and you know And I think sometimes that does require or can be done better when people are together in person. But when you make them give something else up, right the opportunity cost, and it while they're there, better better be worth their while. right And it should be good too. It should be high high quality. And we should try to manage those experiences to the best of our ability so that they see the value in every interaction that they're getting.
01:05:01
Speaker
You know that's easier said than done when there are options where you you can kind of do it all from your living room which we are one right so i so with that said um you I just wonder where the world's going, what AI is doing to it. And i also look at some people who are younger than me and what they want and what they're going to need because the jobs five years from now, we don't fully know how they're going to land and what skills and competencies people need in order to get those jobs and careers. So the gig economy is something that's sort of real for a lot of folks. They're going to be bouncing around in different
01:05:41
Speaker
ways this sector's change here. So think we've gotta be agile and nimble on and also think about ways that we're kind of bringing education to people in the ways that they're going to need in order to pivot, move. And then I just think too, younger people are looking for connection in ways around their identity and they have affinity for that. They're used to that. They're looking for personalization in ways that we haven't always done a good job with in higher ed. And they're looking for options. So let's design some of those and see if they resonate, I guess, is what we're looking at. And then what do we need to do in person? And um when you're there, just make sure it's really good too.
01:06:19
Speaker
You know, i've I've been reading about um how with COVID and the move to more virtual environments, especially in education, is driving this desire for analog experiences amongst younger people.
01:06:38
Speaker
um Vinyl records, cassette tapes, CDs, going to movie theaters, um And I'm wondering how far out that will ripple. And that then within the long lens, how does that impact higher ed? Do we see a more of a desire for people to go to physical campuses for undergraduate experiences or graduate experiences or even micro-credentials, things that we could do online and do really well.
The Future of Education: In-Person vs. Online
01:07:05
Speaker
we know We could do them online well with the right supports and all that fun stuff.
01:07:09
Speaker
But I'm just wondering if that you know how that will how that will echo as this generation of younger people, my daughter's 17. I see some of that in her. She has a digital camera from like 20 teens because she likes the aesthetic of like semi crappy early digital cameras. So are the the images that come out of them.
01:07:30
Speaker
so I'm just you know, I wonder if we'll see a ripple of that somewhere in the near or midterm future.
01:07:39
Speaker
I think so. And, and you know you know, the approach we're taking is, again, you don't have to overbuild, right? So you can test a lot of different things and see if anything hits, right?
01:07:52
Speaker
Because I do think we don't fully know what's going to hit. We know what's hitting right now, for sure, right? And you mentioned it, right? know There's certainly ah institutions that are enrolling very, very large numbers of students. And that's you know people making choices that we've got to really pay attention to.
01:08:10
Speaker
um you know We're not an institution of that size. So you know in some ways trying things different makes sense too strategically because we're probably not gonna compete for those same students in the same way because of the resources that we have.
01:08:26
Speaker
And honestly, I don't know if I want to sometimes, too. yeah We were talking about three-year degrees. Now, the question I have for three-year degrees is what 30 credits go away?
01:08:38
Speaker
Which ones? What are the competencies and skills that students aren't going to get? Is that equitable to folks who have a bachelor's degree that took them 120 credits?
01:08:50
Speaker
so There's a lot of questions I have about this. say There's no doubt that we need to rethink models, right? And we've got to do things differently, teach skills in new ways. But to what end and how are we helping the people that we're trying to serve? from you know College degree is good for me, but you know you just need a certificate or a credential.
01:09:11
Speaker
won I don't know. um You know, the wider perception still on the sociologist, you look at the general social survey, there is a prestige difference between people who have a college degree and people who don't.
01:09:23
Speaker
What does that mean long term society, especially as you know, we're talking about inequality growing off offline. So, um, I think we have to think through these things. We have to try to serve learners in new ways, but we need to pay attention to unintended consequences of the choices that we're making too. And it's just at least have the conversation around some of this stuff as well. So that being said, you know can can we get people employed quicker using different kinds of credentials?
01:09:55
Speaker
Great. Let's just make sure that the skill that they have is doesn't have a half-life, that they're now having to go back and retrain for a skill. So, which is happening.
01:10:07
Speaker
You know, there's there's a durability historically to a college degree. Is it a good enough signal? No. We've got to do better. But unemployment, median earnings, the prestige that you have in other people's minds, your perception,
01:10:24
Speaker
matters too. So let's not ignore those trends as well as we're kind of rethinking models that we need to move move forward with. And there are always just be, there will be professions you cannot unlock without a bachelor's degree or something higher. Like um it's just, and not saying the way it is and when I'm resigned to it I mean, it takes a large amount of knowledge and expertise and the ability to invoke that expertise in different settings to get into a lot of those professions.
01:10:55
Speaker
And as as they should, I, you know, medicine is one, like, I don't want a doctor who's just got a few credentials under their belt, a few. I mean, have you ever seen the movie Idiocracy? and That's like, there was a scene like that where the first it's, it's, it's, it's a good laugh, but so,
01:11:15
Speaker
so and i do And I think, too, I totally agree. And then I think maybe I'm harping on it too much, but I don't know how you don't. But artificial intelligence is changing what you need to be able to do.
01:11:30
Speaker
Well, I don't know. it's It's further amplifying the skills that you need in order to be really successful. moving forward, good critical thinking, good judgment, a good communicator, creativity, emotional intelligence, these human skills that are going to be even more important when, you know, just regurgitation and knowledge is is not going to do it well enough.
01:11:52
Speaker
And those require higher and higher orders of thinking. And and I do think college has done a pretty good job helping folks achieve those skills. I don't think we do a very good job helping students with the language of how we've done that for them, right?
01:12:12
Speaker
And I don't think we do a good enough job that every experience is leading towards that in a very intentional and systematic way. So there's inward stuff that we need to do about how we're delivering the models, the approaches, the modalities, all that stuff.
01:12:25
Speaker
But the end product has been good in terms of durability, in terms of outcomes, and and also skills and competencies. And I think those skills and competencies are going to be even more important with the kind of technology that's coming down the pike for us. So, yeah, like I'm all for the movement towards teaching skills within college, but it's got to be skills and, right? And it's got to be ah the the holistic picture of skills. And some of those skills are not just tangible widget kind of technical sorts of things. They're higher order stuff that occurs over time sometimes and with with with a certain level of education too.
01:13:06
Speaker
How we deliver that education can change and probably should in
Personal Insights from Dr. Dolan
01:13:10
Speaker
some ways. but so so So Scott, as we get close to our time, very interesting to know what does Scott do when he's not being at Excelsior? So what how do you How do you escape your higher ed world or or do you?
01:13:30
Speaker
I'm going to jump in and I might edit this out, but does is look is doing a Patrick Dempsey ah lookalike contest on your list? Because I'm looking at you, I'm like, geez.
01:13:44
Speaker
uh he's worked on that i've heard that one before i've heard that one before and even since i was a kid so um before he was mcsteen uh but no uh he's mcdreamy by the way mcsteen was eric day oh mcsteen's the other guy that's right thank you uh so what do i do outside i love my job don't get me wrong so i do um i'm passionate I think the work that we do is really important. So whatever things that we need to do that's changing, I also know that we have a great impact on people. and i That's why I do it. So and that's everybody on this call. right
01:14:19
Speaker
With that said, you need balance. So I've got a great family. I like to spend time with my wife and children. They're really into athletics. So I'm spending a lot of time texting them around to ballet, soccer, and basketball.
01:14:35
Speaker
coaching when I can. We ski as a family. i like to watch sports. I love to read. love to listen to podcasts, too. But I'm fully committed to the work that I do, but you need time for yourself and your family. And got to take care of that. And you can only do that for yourself, too.
01:14:58
Speaker
And y' I'm lucky enough to have an organization that I work for that really does value flexibility and provides opportunities around that too. But so you've got to lead a full life, right? It's not just work. That's that's for sure. even even if Even if you love your work as much as I do.
01:15:14
Speaker
It's hard. I mean, for those of us that are passionate in this space oh higher ed, it's hard to separate your life from, from work sometimes, because you'll just, you just see it, right? Like it's in so many different places. And like, for me, like there's, there's times I just have to get away from LinkedIn. Cause I'm just like, I don't, I don't understand what we're saying anymore because that's not, it's not the reality that higher ed is living in, but it's what somebody is out there saying that we're all living in. And so, yes, hundred that's one of the reasons we started a podcast. Which is a hundred percent. We talk about that. Yeah.
01:15:47
Speaker
And we're doing more with less, right? I mean, I think that's the reality. It would go back to the funding environment. yeah and And I get the wider world. I have this conversation with friends and family all the time.
Closing Remarks and Thank You
01:15:58
Speaker
College is expensive. And why? Yeah. You know and then why is there such a difference between sticker and real price and those sorts of things? But you know the people who are Working within higher ed are really low educated for a reason right and they're compensated for that but the funding has changed dramatically over the last few decades or so every institution most institutions are doing a lot of work with less with less resources, right? So the people in our jobs are being asked to do more, often with less.
01:16:35
Speaker
So it's and how do you balance that with such commitment to the goals that we have and to the students that we serve? And I think if that goes back to me a question about as a society, going back to my sociologist Dave, what sort of commitment do we have to investing and in people and their education?
01:16:55
Speaker
and what does that look like in the future because it's certainly changed over the last over the last few decades decades is it a public good or is it something uh that should be privately funded uh we've moved more and more towards towards the latter and i think we've got to reevaluate that um too but if we do then we've got to get better uh in higher ed getting people to the finish line and ensuring that they have the outcomes uh that they that they sign up for in terms of what they're paying bad
01:17:26
Speaker
I couldn't have wrapped it up any better, Scotty. That's a perfect way to to wrap up all of this and to, again, the great work that you're doing at Excelsior. We appreciate you joining us. Thank you very much for taking the time to to have a chat. And best of luck in your role and best of luck to Excelsior as you move forward in new adventures of educating public.
01:17:49
Speaker
Thanks so much. Great to see you all. I appreciate the time, too. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.