Transcript
Speaker: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Getting Stuff Done in Higher Education. i am your co-host, Kevin Schreiner, joined, as always, by Fritz and Kelvin. And today we have the pleasure of having Jeremiah Grabowski with us.
Speaker: Jeremiah has spent many years in higher education, primarily in the um online learning space. He is now, um I think what's been kind of put out as ah as new types of of verbiage, fractional chief online learning officer. And so we're excited to have Jeremiah here today and look forward to the conversation. So Jeremiah, welcome. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker: Yeah. Hey, thanks for inviting me. Really appreciate it. And I'm looking forward to the conversation. could give a a little bit of overview real quick. So yeah, I, for 20 years was in higher ed, mostly, you know online learning and ed tech. And then about maybe a little over a year ago, maybe 18 months, hung up my own shingle.
Speaker: And I call myself a fractional chief online learning officer. I just say fractional because it sounds cooler than part time. But essentially, just helping schools, you know, with their online learning strategy, and execution. So that's what I've been doing for a while. I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker: Yeah, great. Well, you know, thanks for for for joining us. And we're, you know, really kind of interested in, Juan, the things that you've been doing. but one of the things we usually always start our guests off with is, did you choose higher ed or did higher ed choose you? And kind of how did you get to, you know, where you ended up?
Speaker: um Yeah, did higher ed choose me? I don't know. I'll think through it, maybe come to the answer. So When I was an undergrad, I was over at the University of Buffalo, and i my major was in and in business and and management. And I originally was doing a concentration in management information systems, you know, because I always liked technology and, you know, of that combined tech and business. And then I took, you know, the obligatory human resources class.
Speaker: And I didn't necessarily like the like the paperwork side of it. But I like this idea of like, you know, HR helps to get the best out of your employees and employee growth and empowerment and that sort of thing. So I ended up tacking on another concentration. So I i did MIS and HR. And then, you know, in my head, as I'm you know graduating, I kind of saw those two things equaling, you know, kind of education and like, ah you know, ed tech type of thing. It was, you know, similar again, trying to help people, you know, through education and technology. And again, it's like,
Speaker: you know the early to mid two thousand so you know there's a lot of you ed tech opportunities um so that then led me to um i got a a master's degree in instructional design uh one of the few schools at the time uh was university of georgia and obviously you know being from buffalo moving down to georgia for two years wasn't uh horrible you know i avoided the snow for a while and um so So I did that and came back and had the opportunity, my first full-time job was at an institution in Buffalo, Trocare College, and they were looking for, I think it was like coordinator of online programs or something like that.
Speaker: um so So yeah, I kind of took this business-y education route and just been working at institutions you know ever ever since. So the one thing I did find was that graduate degree in instructional design really kind of became like a superpower, um you know, as I, you know, throughout my entire career. so so yeah, i still don't know if, you know, maybe, maybe I chose higher ed. I think in a way we all kind of ended up choosing it I'm interested in like in your, so your instructional design, you said was early, you' like mid 2000, right? yeah
Speaker: How much do you think, if you went back to school, and I mean, the stuff that you know now about programs, academic programs, if you went back to school now in instructional design, how different is the instruction?
Speaker: man. i mean, I'm just thinking instructional design from 2004. Yeah, it was. So a lot of it was almost more on like the corporate kind of and instructional design and, you know, we you know, kind of multimedia theory and stuff like that. So it, it, Ness, like I, you know, it wasn't a hard pivot, but you know, to then kind of pivot it to more online ed.
Speaker: Again, because these were just one or two schools were throwing, you know, courses online at the time. um so So, yeah, and we did have learning theory and stuff like that. But I do think that, you know, to kind of better equip it, you might want more of that kind of slant in, you know, higher ed or maybe like do like concentrations or tracks or something, you know, because the corporate is a little bit different than, you know, like higher ed instructional and design.
Speaker: So, so yeah, that's kind of just some thoughts. Yeah, I mean, they kind of, I mean, they do kind of overlap. I mean, there's a lot of folks, I think, that have started off in the corporate world doing training, professional development, those types of things that have kind of pivoted. And I think people in higher ed have done the same thing, right? Like they've taken what they've learned in in learning and development and pivoted to the to the organizational side of things.
Speaker: um Your PhD also is science of learning. which I just find the title interesting. So can you explain a little bit to our listeners what what your PhD kind of focused on? Yeah. So the the full thing is curriculum instruction and the the science of learning. And it was a ah new, at the time, at least the University of Buffalo, PhD program and kind of one of the the first cohorts. But yeah, we really you know kind of,
Speaker: looked into it and took you know a ton of classes and in terms of like, you know, kind of the research methods and everything about, you know, what actually, you know, helps people learn, you know, and like a super deep dive. So really appreciative of that you know opportunity.
Speaker: um Yeah, I think we were only like, I don't know, and there's like a handful or like a consortium of, you know, kind of learning science schools and um you know kind of some of the new faculty they brought in were in real pivotal in terms of just like you know how i think about um you know evaluate research and things like that we really you know they they built into uh you know kind of a keen sense of um analyzing research and stuff like that so that yeah again great great opportunity that i had so um i'm looking at your cv here in linkedin jeremiah
Speaker: And you got into these director of distance learning. And then I see in 2012, you started at a online programs coordinator at University of butff at Buffalo. So, which is to me, this is a really interesting time to be, to be ramping up your career in that space. Cause that's the dear colleague letter comes out the the opportunity for OPMs and the basically the unleashing of online program growth really starts. So can you talk can you tell us what was your experience and did you did you feel that change in the field at that time because of this changing dynamics with allowing the the financials to change, OPMs become, it's allowed, you know, that you can do this tuition share model and all those kinds of things. So did you feel that shift at the time?
Speaker: Yeah, I definitely did. And it was, you know, kind of cool because early in your career, you start off on a path and you're hoping that it leads to something. And then, you know, was fortunate in the timing of it to kind of start to ride that wave and more interest, you know, growing into online. programs, but yeah, I mean, it was again, if you're, you know, kind of, I don't know, 2015, uh, 2019 or whatever timeframe, like it seemed like every university is starting to, you know, spring up online programs and stuff like that. And at the time I was at the university of Buffalo, um, and we were starting an online MPH.
Speaker: program, but then also, you know, I had a great set of colleagues, even though large universities are somewhat siloed, had colleagues in school of social work, the graduate school of education, you know, engineering. So like, it was this kind of really collaborative, you know, time in my career, just, we were all learning from each other, even though we were in different schools, you know, at UB. So, so yeah, it it was Yeah, it was really fun. And, you know, I was really fortunate to kind of take all that experience and really got to apply ah my last position before the company at Uville. So i I think it was kind of a sum of like, you know, this instructional design background, which, you know, really helped me with the foundation of building high quality online courses. But then, you know, again, at at UB and just working with colleagues over there, you know, we're all kind of,
Speaker: In it together, either at various stages of starting up online programs. So you know that kind of experience and then really getting to implement it at Duville was you know kind of, that that was all very cool. I like this thread here. So um what aspects of your background in instructional design and MIS, management information systems, how do you think that prepared you well for the opportunities you were making your way into.
Speaker: And, uh, I mean, if you want to talk about ways that it didn't prepare you for the, like, Whoa, I didn't expect to need to build up competency or skills or proficiency in this or that. I've just, I mean, well, how did your background help you make your way in? You know, cause I think you had a interesting, it had a really useful set of tools and experiences and expertise to make your way into that.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's, it's funny. So the, the, online or sorry, the the undergrad business, you know, like I did that, but that led me to the, you know, the instructional design. And I kind of like parked, you know, the the business skills, if you will, but obviously they're there, you know, you get a four-year degree and then really leaned more into course development, working with faculty, because I feel like that's, you know, the foundation, right? If you don't have high quality courses, you know, it's all for naught.
Speaker: But then the business aspect came back around once you start talking about, you know, building programs, the economics, the revenue, you know, how are you going to market, like kind of all this stuff. So it was like, I was kind of dusting it off off this, you know, skill set once, you know, as I'm kind of growing in my career, ah right.
Speaker: You know, like I'm um using those skills again and kind of seeing it. And it was funny that one day, i don't know why it popped in my head, but my favorite class, like when I was an undergrad, was, I think they called it like strategic management. And it was essentially like the capstone course, right? Where you're taking everything and and applying it and you had a a big capstone project or whatever. And I loved that course.
Speaker: And it was just because finally, like, you know, it hit and all these things that were at the time somewhat disparate, like all connected. and I really feel like that's kind of the parallel and, you know, why I really like doing what I do now. is because you know we're taking all these different things, you know the course design schedule, the how are how are we marketing, what's the finances look like, you know faculty development, like retention, like all these different factors. And now like we're bringing them into kind of a coherent strategy. um
Speaker: so So yeah, like this again, this thing I loved 20 years ago is kind of what I get to do now. And like, that's, that's my favorite part of the job is just all the various variables.
Speaker: So I think this is an important point for one of the things we like to do here at Jeremiah is to think about and offer perspectives to early and mid career folks in in this area who want to get into it or into it and trying to find their ways that you have a unique set of skills and backgrounds and expertise from your degrees and your experiences that you can speak both sides of a, of the field. God, I'll edit that part out. who um
Speaker: I think a lot of institutions and units and institutions fall into a, either cause they're siloed or or whatever, but one site says, well, Online programs, it's mostly about having excellent, high quality courses and programs.
Speaker: Obviously, it's very important. But do they really do an analysis of the financials and the other things that bring the students to that high quality thing? The other side does the same thing. Well, the financials have to be great. ah you know and that Not that they're not concerned about quality, but they don't factor that in. So you're able to speak to both sides of that and...
Speaker: keep keep everything moving smoothly or know how, how what what excellence or the kind of benchmarks you have to hit on both sides look like. So I think it's important point for folks is that, you know, you need to have, somehow get a foot in the other side, the other sides of the online program or just any academic program enterprises that, you know, domain expertise in the field, maybe it's, you know, social work or whatever, data analytics, it's important.
Speaker: and making high quality programs, but you can't ignore the other side. You know, might be a great program and it's in ah it's in a super saturated area that you'd spend a fortune on marketing to make an impact or get out there or vice versa. So I just want to put you out there as an exemplar of multidisciplinary expertise and chops.
Speaker: Yeah, well, I appreciate that. Yeah, did you ever hear the idea of like the T-shaped individual versus the M-shaped in terms of skills? No. so and healthel and Yeah. So the idea is like, you know, you have this broad set of skills, but then you go deep in one area and that's like a T-shaped person. And that might be a very traditional.
Speaker: Yeah. And so what I think is Michelle Weiss, maybe one of her books where she starts talking about now with the changing economy and everything like that, you know, individuals probably may have to turn into more of like an M-shaped work. where you still have that really deep domain knowledge as you were talking about, but then you kind of have these blips across like different areas where you can speak to the finance, you can speak to, you know, operations or or what have you. And I think that's really important. And I mean, maybe before it scares listeners and be like, oh my God, I have to get like an MBA on top of my, you know, my master's in education. I don't necessarily think you need to do that.
Speaker: But I think you should have a a strategy around like your own professional development and and that could be like, you know, just podcasts listening to like podcasts that are about, you know, kind of just general finance or, you know, picking up books about like, you know, how to start your own business. Like you may never start your own business, but like these very general principles are going to start popping up, especially if you're, you thinking of moving up that ladder. Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of times we pigeonhole it. When we work in higher ed, I think sometimes we get the lens of this is who we are. And I think sometimes that lens, I think really to Fritz's point, oftentimes I think is driven a lot by academic affairs in higher ed, right? Because, and you know Kelvin can speak to this, having come up through faculty ranks and thinking about being a faculty member. But I think sometimes you get into that and you're like,
Speaker: This is what I have to do in order to get to this point of my academic career. But I think because of the way, I just think the way higher ed is structured a little bit, right? It's the president and then the provost is typically the second person in charge.
Speaker: And so a lot of, I think the way things kind of get pushed out is, well, you know faculty do this, they research, they they know their subject matter, they're teaching their subject matter, they're getting grad assistance, they're they're bringing in all these extra dollars in all these spaces.
Speaker: But then I think sometimes we kind of forget about the the other parts of the operation where, you know, if you came up in student affairs, student services, there's more to it than the residence hall. There's more to it than discipline of students. theres I mean, there's so many things.
Speaker: And I think, you know to your point, trying to think of what ladder I would be. i need one that has a lot of peaks and valleys and there's not a letter there's not a letter that that fits that. I'm an M and a W to together maybe. I think you look more like an echocardiogram what you're looking at. know, that's kind of I'm just like, dig and hopefully it just keeps going that way and never flatlines.
Speaker: um But I think you just have to keep absorbing stuff. And I think that's where you have the conversations and and and where you learn all these other things. And so it's not just, I can go hire a great admissions person, but how can you both learn from what that admissions person is doing?
Speaker: How do you dive deeper into stuff? Like, mean, I would have never thought of doing pro formas years ago, but I i love doing pro formas because you get to look at every aspect of the of what you're doing, right? Like you're getting out of the, yes, I need faculty. Yes, I need high quality courses, but that costs money.
Speaker: You know, here where are we going to revenue? What's our projections? Like, I don't know. That's for me, like in my current role, like that is what excites me on a day-to-day basis is figuring out where we're going to go in that strategy.
Speaker: And I think that's that's a piece I think is just missing from higher ed in general is a lot of more folks thinking about the strategy, the strategic aspect of things.
Speaker: I'm just thinking of all my books on my bookshelf that have the word strategy and strategic in it. And I just don't know that we necessarily have enough people reading them.
Speaker: Well, this is a great, this is a, So I do performance too for programs that we support, Kevin. And the way I generated knowledge how to do this, I don't have background in finance. I have a bachelor's and a master's in history and a PhD in higher ed policy.
Speaker: I owned rental properties for like 17 years, not a ton, but enough. And I managed all the finances for all that time. I have a man. I became like with a master of projections.
Speaker: I had crazy spreadsheets for figuring out like, what's the market like and all this, what are finances and projecting things out multiple months or years. So like all that knowledge helped me figure out and and transition into what I'm doing now, which it's immensely important. Uh,
Speaker: to to make sure we don't make a big misstep. So, you know, you can draw on other areas of not only your professional experience, but just your personal life experiences to, to, uh,
Speaker: to inform how you approach this this kind of work. But yeah, if you're not, but you you know you also have to you have to lean on your colleagues. you know Like I tell people, look, my performers assume we're gonna have a killer, awesome, well-designed program with really great courses. I can't be responsible for doing that.
Speaker: That's more than one person can do. So my assumption is that you all in that unit are gonna do it and crush it. So if you can't, you need to let us know. and we're going to shift. We'll shift accordingly, but you know it bit and you have to base some things on assumptions that it's going all, people are going to really hit the mark in their different part of the whole the whole apparatus.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that. And then you know the other piece of this is you know, you you can have, as you all know, like the best pro forma, and then, you know, you kind of launch, and now you're six months in And I certainly hope you're collecting all that data, right?
Speaker: Because the way the market shifts, and and things are so fluid, is like, you're gonna, I believe you should be checking those base assumptions, you know, in terms of like, okay, you know, how are we doing in the market? Like, how is our, you know, marketing trends looking? And you should, you know, have colleagues that don't you know, and marketing that can give you that data. But then you're looking at your enrollment and like, are students really moving through the funnel, right? And then you got to, you know, kind of tweak like that Michael Tyson quote about everyone's got a plan until they get, you know, smacked in the face or whatever. Like everybody's got the, you know, the the plan for launching, you know, the program, but, you know, are you utilizing the data that you have and then, you know, kind of moving on the fly, right?
Speaker: Yeah, so I'd be interested in kind of how you thought about market analysis, market trends in um online. So from your experiences in this space of managing programs and and now where you currently are, but how how do you kind of think about looking at today's marketplace with all the noise that's out there in today's higher ed market?
Speaker: So I probably have like kind of two two thoughts and hopefully they they make sense. So the the the first one is I usually tell a school that you should think of owning your own market. And that's what we did at Duval. Like we looked at the 50 or the 100 mile radius of you know Buffalo, New York.
Speaker: And you know what what does my local workforce need? because I do think a lot of institutions, you know they they worry they might have a big online player in their backyard and they're like, you know how how are we gonna compete? I'm like, well, i don't know, what are you gonna do, just quit? Like, no, you have something that the market wants or else you wouldn't have you know you want to be enrolling students for the last hundred years or whatever. So it's like, you know what what can you work on and what's like kind of that that core? So, and I'll use Juville as the example, like we we were fortunate, right? We we have a strong healthcare care or they have ah a very strong you know healthcare base, right?
Speaker: But the you know in my first couple of years, the first thing we really focused on was building that infrastructure that can support growth.
Speaker: Actually, there's a a guy, his name iss Brian Fleming, who I met at OPSIA in Boston. And like, now I just love he has a sub stack and everything like that. But ah I think he also worked at Southern New Hampshire, but he really talks about this like organizational capacity building. And, you know, like, yes, you have to worry about the programs, but, you know, if if you don't have the organizational capacity to absorb, you know, 100 new students, 200 new students, whatever the case is, right, like, that's where the pressure is going to find where the weaknesses in your org structure are. And that's going to be the the fail point. But to kind of go back to the first thing I always do is, okay, what's the 100 mile region? What does your workforce need?
Speaker: but's Let's work on that. Because then you know if you think about it, you probably have connections already. Maybe you have somebody on your board. Maybe you have just affiliation agreements. you know You know the local employers. You can kind of rework some of those corporate partnership types of things. Those are low cost or free organic marketing.
Speaker: You know, you're already, you kind of have a brand name in the area. you're You're addressing the the, you know, the local workforce. So let's focus on on those programs and and those, you know, students.
Speaker: So again, Juville Healthcare. And then what once we had that base, we started kind of looking a little bit outside of the base. So we built out, you know, kind of the the team. And then the market showed us that nurse practitioners, right? A, they make a bunch of money in the marketplace, and so they can justify the cost of a master's degree, right?
Speaker: So we launched in the you know the Western New York area, started getting some traction, getting some enrollment. Now we have a little bit of revenue. So then we started looking like, okay, what's a little bit outside that first ring? We're fortunate Toronto is, you know depending on traffic, like a two-hour drive.
Speaker: And we had a low residency program where they would have to come to campus a couple times, but our faculty were able to ship the in-person experience and into a site in Canada. So now you didn't have to cross the border. So now we could start targeting, you know, know digital marketing funds into that greater Toronto area.
Speaker: And so now we're kind of and we knew that the Canadian school online schools are like non-existent or super slow. So we have one of the top five metros in the U.S. of Toronto plus Buffalo.
Speaker: And so, you know, it's just kind of like now the flywheel starts. Yeah, yeah. And then, so one of the other really big wins all around this kind of time as we're we're starting at the flywheel effect is we have, they have a school of pharmacy.
Speaker: And so prior to us launching, there were four-year online pharmacy programs, there were three year in person pharmacy programs. nobody We were the the first university in the country to combine the two into a three-year online program. And that's just what the the market needs. And again, you come up making six figures, you know it's three years, it's you know speed, it's what the adult students want. And that because we were the first, now you can go national. right
Speaker: so then we So we we launched you know that program, that was a heavy lift. pharmacy is like 140 credits or something like that, you know, so not small, but again, to that organizational capacity, like you don't do that unless you've got, you know, kind of ah the players and the bench to to kind of support this, right?
Speaker: So I hope those kind of, I went on a couple of different tangents, Kevin, but I hope that's good. No, no i feel i mean i think that's you know it's it's I think that's helpful to the folks that are listening.
Speaker: I'd love to dive in a little bit more on the organizational capacity because I think sometimes, to go back to what I was saying earlier, I think we think faculty. Faculty is what you need in order to do an online program.
Speaker: So how do you help institutions think through their organizational capacity I know what I put in a pro forma. I'm sure Fritz puts similar things into his pro forma. Like, I'm just curious, like where, where do you start? Like, what is your first and whether it's you or whether the school does it on their own, right? Like if someone wants to do like, how can someone assess their own current capacity to make sure that they're structured in the way that they need to be?
Speaker: Yeah. So I look at it in kind of four main buckets, right? I think of, you know, marketing, right. And, How are we going to let people know we have you know this program? I do think that's where a lot of universities could use some help, in to be honest, especially when it comes to digital marketing. It's just a game that, you know like i I just don't think we you know folks that are grew up in higher ed marketing have have you know the experience, right? you know you're doing You're talking Google Advise, Meta, you know, LinkedIn, TikTok, everything, and you gotta know the data and be able to, you know, kind of adjust and and everything, you know, cost per lead, all this stuff. So like, ah you know, I think of that as, as kind of one bucket.
Speaker: Um, then i do think of, you know, course design, right? Like I think that's paramount, right? Because bad courses, you just have a leaky retention problem and and you gotta fix that. Then I think of what the admission experience is you know, for those online students.
Speaker: I think a lot of institutions take their traditional enrollment playbook and just apply it. You know, they just copy paste in the CRM and, you know, they, that's what they do for their adult students.
Speaker: Um, so I don't think they understand who the adult market is, which is probably them, you know, somebody in their mid thirties trying to go back to school. But anyway, um, and then I think of the student experience, like from a, either advising or an onboarding student support type role.
Speaker: So I usually take those kind of four buckets and when, you know, working with schools, we we kind of do a deep dive into each one. And then obviously later over over the top of all of that is, you know, what's the university's strategic plan, right? What does leadership think about this? You know, are they invested? Do they, you know, is is this kind of like a one-off QC thing or is this, you know, again, like a major driver?
Speaker: um So that that's where I start and and those pro formas usually kind of match it, right? They have different tabs around that. Yeah. So it's interesting you mentioned Brian Fleming's recent Substack.
Speaker: I saw that one, and I read it, and I know Brian a little bit from, I met him a few times, we talked. He's a really great guy to know, great person and hired to know. And I forwarded it to the team I work with and it spurred some good chatter.
Speaker: What I found interesting is and you work you work with institutions and implementing and negotiating this landscape is the discussion we had internally was how solidified do we need to have the structure before we start moving? We're already moving. We don't have the solidified structure.
Speaker: Like you mentioned a CRM like, oh, you think every and every unit at the University of Minnesota has Salesforce implemented? Oh, or they're using Slate as a CRM or vice versa. um So from your perspective how solidified do you need that structure before you start moving or you know you can you can there can be a paralysis by planning and infrastructure building so just wanted to open that question for you yeah um you just you know the the best day to start is today um yeah and one thing and this i stole from you know business books and stuff like that is um in my departments we always worked on quarterly systems and so
Speaker: we broke the year up into, you know, quarters. So it didn't higher ed is really good at being like, Oh, we have these fall projects or we have these spring projects. We do nothing in the summer. Right. I mean, let's be honest. Right. Like, but, and we also have this great ability to be like at the beginning of the year, when we're thinking about our strat plan for the year, we have 12 awesome goals and and we're going knock all 12 out of the park in this year. Right.
Speaker: And like, let's be honest, like, what you maybe get two, yeah, three if you're you're lucky. So just people's attention spans are short, right? So again, that's why I like this idea of a ah kind of ah a quarter system. And this is you know right to to your question, like how solidified you have to be to start?
Speaker: You don't, but I bet you your staff have problems and bottlenecks that they know and that have been like eating at them. And you'd be like, okay guys, like that's our quarter quarterly goal. We're gonna fix this.
Speaker: Right. And it could be, I don't know, you know, there's some gap between, you know, the admissions or sorry, the advising software and the registrar and it takes too long for the students. And there's always this, you know, like like every institution has some problem that, you know, everybody keeps griping about, I never want to fix like, all right, you know, we're taking three months and like, this is we're going to fix this. And then, you know, it it could be you, it could be, you know, somebody on your team, but like, they're the lead. And all right, we're we're pulling in the registrar, we're pulling in IT, we're pulling in whoever we need and like we're going to fix this. And just start building that muscle of, you know like you know I think you need the the big goal, right? And that's why you have the pro formas and everything like that. You know where you're going, but then start using those quarterly you know was kind of sprint projects to get you
Speaker: like up towards that. And I mean, that starts adding up. You do couple of those now in a year, you've fixed four major problems. Like, yeah that's pretty good. So one thing I wanted to ask you about is I'm, and this came out of the discussion about Brian's sub stack posts internally with where I am, but you must encounter,
Speaker: um institutions that have wildly different, organizational structures faculty governance, so the ability to move things along is quite different. I mean, one thing in Brian's he he. David He cited exemplars of Western governors and southern new Hampshire and Liberty University and then also mentioned asu WGU, Liberty, and SNU, they're very top-down organizations. They don't have tenure. you know i mean There's no faculty governance. ah
Speaker: They were tiny or nonexistent when they started their enterprise. like SNU is like a struggling when they have less than 5,000 students. There's no turf. like It's all up. I'm not saying it's all upside, but it's kind of a like, we got this is our shot.
Speaker: Whereas, you know, the university of Minnesota is massive. We've got all sorts of different divisions doing the same kind of things. There's turf, there's revenue fighting. So, um, it's not all the, all those functions are important, but they can only be built out in certain ways, depending. So you must encounter that at different clients you work with. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent, which is fun. Cause yeah. Instead of solving for one problem at one institution, you know, I'm solving for multiple problems at multiple institutions. But so you do start to see like patterns emerge.
Speaker: And, and the thing that, you know, especially when you're, you're starting is, you know, I'll kind of come and and do, you know, this assessment and there's always low hanging fruit.
Speaker: Right. And I think you need some early wins to, to start getting a little bit of momentum because if not, it's always like, Oh yeah, here's the, you know provost and their new initiative and blah blah, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, it's just like, oh, in six months they're going to forget about it.
Speaker: But again, if, if you're trying to identify, you know, kind of what these low hanging fruit are and like control what you can control. And I don't know people in higher ed think that way, but like, again, there's a problem that you can solve, right. And you don't need faculty governance to okay it, but if you solve that problem and then, you know, the faculty, um,
Speaker: you know, see it or or whoever, you know, administrators see it and they're like, oh, this is getting better. And then you, you solve another one and oh, it's getting better. You know, again, it starts to build. So, and I do think, you know, I don't want be like mean to admire faculty to colleagues, but like faculty governance sometimes like spreads in the stuff that has nothing to do with faculty. Like, you know, I'll show you the the marketing landing page and I will ask you to make sure everything is factual.
Speaker: but we're not wordsmithing it. This isn't a dissertation. This is a landing page to get people to convert, you know, and just be honest, you know, about it to the to chair or the department head or or whatever it is. It's like, here's the purpose of this, you know, please, please review it. You know, we're working together. But it it takes time, man. Like, I think the good thing and the one of the reasons, you know, I was successful at Duville, I was there eight years and I had the same president who was awesome and gave me that,
Speaker: latitude right you know and i came in with a plan and i was like you know there's i'm a bills fan right and uh you know there's this uh our famous coach marv levy's like you know plan your work and work your plan and that was kind of like in my head i'm like you know the the thing that i interviewed with and i gave them like here's what i'm gonna do is exactly what i did over eight years so there's a little bit of luck right like again i had an awesome president that allowed me the space to do it um but There's always something you can do. And and I think, you again, like stacking these small wins and empowering your team starts helping that. right And it's hard at the beginning.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, to me, I think that's the big thing, right? Like it's it's doing the small things to get to the bigger thing that you're trying to accomplish and not you don't need to do 100 things to to move a needle. I love the point about the the the marketing and the emails and stuff. um previous place where I was at, I did, i mean, I basically, I wrote the emails and I sent like the the five emails that we were going to send out to prospective students.
Speaker: And each one was four specific things. So talking about affordability and, you know, talking about the program. And basically what I did is I highlighted these things You can do whatever you want around it, but these things have to stay.
Speaker: You cannot change these particular parts of this email. And so they could you know kind of word it the way they needed to, but the things that we needed to kind of be the catch or the hook or the call to at the next call to action stayed in those emails. And basically they all came back with hardly any changes, um but I think that's good, right? Like, I mean, think those are the types of things where you have to be you almost just have to be proactive a little bit in how you present stuff.
Speaker: And, and, Not worry that you're going to get your feelings hurt if someone says something, but at the same time, have this stuff to update it. um My current president, love him um because i he I have a lot of latitude and stuff.
Speaker: But our conversations are always these programs, you know let's do programs that ain't market sense. Let's do programs that make market, like he says it over and over and over and in multiple meetings, not just in my meetings, but it's always market sense programs.
Speaker: And so to be able to present to him, here's, here's what the market says. Like he's on board, he gets it. But then if you go somewhere else, anybody else can have, it's like, well, this, this is what the market has said. And so that's the push that we're, that we're driving towards, which kind of goes back to your, you know, the whole hundred mile thinking about where you can, can serve. I mean, we're, you know, we're an HBCU, basically the middle of Alabama, right? Like where,
Speaker: who who are we serving what do we serve i think our region's a little bit broader than that um which does kind of and small institution so kind of interested in like so into youville i you know it was a fairly small institution yeah like three thousand yeah so yeah we're basically the same so when you when you're working with smaller institutions and i don't know what your definition is for for small but um
Speaker: is is selling them on that hundred mile, like, is that like, is that an easy thing for people to understand? Like, or are they all still kind of looking at it going, well, you know, I can't compete with X, Y, Z 20 miles, like to your point earlier, right? Like how do you compete with those schools that are there? So I'm just, I'm just kind of interested in how you kind of think through like the, um,
Speaker: helping them understand how their geography plays into where they go. And not even necessarily online, right? Like, and I know you're you're you're doing, but I think it's broader than just online. I think institutions, it's actually this conversation I was having with the president yesterday.
Speaker: is not even just online programs, but things that we're gonna want we want to do on campus and in our community and help help with
Speaker: getting people back to work and getting people employed in different types of high paying jobs and stuff. So it's it's both, right? It's online and it's on campus what you're doing. Yeah. I think most folks understand kind of ah the the geography play and if they,
Speaker: If they don't, you know you you kind of politely lead them to you know thinking about, we don't have, again, if it's a smaller institution, unless there's you know something really cool about them, you don't have brand recognition outside of you know the that 100 mile radius. And then one one thing I do, I've been pretty good at just like, squirreling away you know data points you know from OPC or OLC or you know this,
Speaker: you know, person kind of put out the yearly review. So I always kept those, you know, kind of in my back pocket and I would use that data to kind of show how, you know, especially at small institutions, you know, their their brand really doesn't go outside of, you know, a certain area or, you know, how important it is to, you know, serve like your your workforce in your region.
Speaker: And then I also, again, layer in like, the the marketing piece. So I might say, okay you know, you might want to like, oh, we have this online MBA program and we're going to like, you know, market it nationally. I'm like, do you know what your average cost per lead is? You know, you're probably looking at like north of $5,000. Like if you're a no, not national brand school, right. And you want to, you know, play in the big pond and it's an MBA and every, you there are a dime a dozen, like your conversion rate is going to be really bad.
Speaker: Right. Or do you want to, you know again, play to your strengths, you're going to reduce your marketing you know costs. You're going to build relationships, right. With the local employers or, you know, kind of the local workforce or whomever.
Speaker: And then that, you know, again, I going back to Juva and like nurses, nurses talk, right. Like, I don't know any of you have nursing programs, but like, if you have a good product, they're going to tell everyone, right.
Speaker: You like if you're, and if you have a bad product, So everyone, so, you know, I think what you're trying to do is again, by tapping into, you know, regional, you're you're starting to again, build that momentum. So those are some of the things that I try to do either, you know, I bring data on the, you know, kind of just the statistics or i turn it into dollars and cents, you know, in terms of like marketing and and stuff like that. So hope that kind answered your question a little bit. Yeah, no, it does. I just think a lot of times schools are,
Speaker: They want the big goal, right? So kind of thinking through what your market looks like, but your market may just be, we bring in 35 new students to this program every year, but the pro forma makes sense that you can do that.
Speaker: You don't have to have a hundred. today. Right. So I, so I think, it so my thing is like, you have to balance that. And so I guess that's a kind of a question is how do you help schools think through like balancing? Because again, you have to have workforce, you have to have people to do these things. You have to have the faculty, you have to have all the people that things that we talked about from the infrastructure standpoint.
Speaker: So where's the line to kind of say, yeah, it's great. You to these programs, but they don't all have to be 500 enrollment programs. You can get where you want to be by serving your market with 30, 35 students a year in your program.
Speaker: And you know to that administrator that's like, oh, we're going launch this program and it's going to get 100 students within you know the next year or whatever, look at their previous data, right? Like, let's let's grab some data out of that CRM and be like, OK, let's just do some napkin math, right? um I feel like I'm really good at napkin math. Just bust out my calculator. But i'm like, yeah here's the inquiry pool that that you had, which is probably less than 100. Here's how many you know even like made it to an app. And then you know it here's how many actually enrolled. And you just start you know kind of walking that out.
Speaker: And you're like, is you know so what magic wand do you have that you haven't pulled this out of that you're now going to increase your efficiency and your admissions, you know, you're probably not going to give any marketing money. So like, let's let's kind of tamper down. And a lot of times when I do work with schools, um, and especially like kind of my mantra is like, you know, like I'm teaching you how to fish. So you're, you're doing this yourself.
Speaker: That first year pro forma is not positive, right? Like yeah chances are you are learning or you're, you're losing money, but to that organizational capacity building, you know, I'll, I'll show like, Hey, in one year, this is what we did with a school like organizationally. Right. And yeah, they, you know, it was maybe they lost, you know, X amount of money, but now year two, okay, we've made that up. Right. So I think you gotta have reasonable, you know, kind of pro formas and always ah it's gotta be vetted by, you know, the finance folks. And I, you know, i don't know if you guys do this, but I'm like,
Speaker: Hey, like, you know, I've built a ah bunch of these, but I don't know your numbers, right? I'm, I'm looking at you know, your average retention and, you know, how they move through the funnel and, you know here's some industry benchmarks for like costs, but like you guys got to tweak those variables, right. To to your institution.
Speaker: Um, so that's, you know, it's definitely got to kind of be like a ah team approach, um, you know, to when, when you're starting to do some of these things. I want to pause here because this is our 21st episode.
Speaker: So I know how this goes. We know how this goes now. This is usually the moment when the always, ah not always, typically quiet Kelvin Bentley
Speaker: opens his mic and asks something or raises a point. So I'm just going to skip the part where we, where you just jump in. I'm just going to say, Kelvin Bentley, what's on your mind?
Speaker: No, this has been, a ah you know as always, you know interesting conversations. um you know In my current role with the National Association of Higher Ed Systems, I'm not necessarily working with them on performance around online learning and new new programs. The work that I do um really you know involves um aspects of the university which may be a part of like, you know non-credit, like a non-credit emphasis, and then but we're offering you know free access to Google certificates and and specializations, which you know some schools will monetize, at least in the grant-funded project. Schools are not necessarily doing that.
Speaker: But one of the things that your Performa conversation brought up, and And I too am not, I'm a psychology person. I'm not, I don't think I ever took a business course, you know, in undergrad or graduate school.
Speaker: But one of the things that I'm interested in are like, and we've all done this like pilots, right? Finding money somewhere either from a grant or from, you know, someone's piggy bank, you know, within the institution who's willing to to break it open a little bit for you to do these things. And I was just curious, are you hearing from schools like almost feel like these pilots, of course, happen because, you know, maybe we're interested in a project and then maybe that bubbles up if it's successful. It bubbles up to supervisors like a provost or a dean or something like that.
Speaker: But I was just curious when you are working with the schools that you've been working with, do they fold in um examples of how they're thinking about maybe ramping up certain technology related pilots they're doing, or maybe for example, with AI, someone is you know using open AI, but of course the salesperson is trying to get the institution as a whole to do that.
Speaker: I was just curious if that becomes a part of the calculus, because again, pilots seem to be very siloed. so Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, there, there's one institution I'm kind of thinking of, um, and you know, like a lot of institutions, you know, money's tight and and things like that. So we, we almost did the the math backwards again, not to always go back to pro forma, but you know, the, uh, you know, we just started ideating and, you know, the BPA a was like, well, we kind of had this initiative and, you know, it wasn't working so good. So we could kind of pause that and you know that brings us this month pot of money and then, well, maybe the deans can kind of you know kick in you know X amount of money. And then again, so then we we have, okay, here' here's this you know kind of small you know pot of money for for this pilot. And then you know kind of what's what's really thinking like, what's the best use of those funds? So, you know it may be, if it could be you know like a pilot and you know integrating Google like certificates and stuff like that and into you know like a program. Well, before we do that,
Speaker: you know, I would say like, well, did we develop marketing collateral for that? Right. Because that's something that then, you know, your admission team is is out there and they could use, even if it's ah like a trad program, like, Hey, you know, you come to our school, and did you know that, you know, you're going to be able to get this Google certificate and, you know, industry says like this helps your job perspectives or average starting salary. So like, instead of just like running and in the silo, like you're talking about, like if,
Speaker: institutions would take a step back and then ask you know maybe the other vps in the area like if we were to do this like how could that help your area right and then what you're doing is getting a little bit more buy-in so it's not siloed um but then also like you know looking past the pilot of like is this really gonna you know kind of be self-sustaining which i think that's something that um a lot of folks you know, they don't see. And again, they don't understand the numbers.
Speaker: So, so I would try to bring more people into, you know, a pilot like that and make sure you have the the pieces is in place so it can be successful.
Speaker: Yeah. Which is a, yeah, which is a great call out. Cause I feel like if you can bring in, like if you can keep the balance between bringing in you know, bringing in some additional people so that they are aware and that they can maybe initially weigh in, but then balance your need to like, as you mentioned, Jeremiah, like go, like, don't wait too long because it's almost like you're trying to make sure the scales are balanced because if you bring in too many people with, especially those who have like a lot of opinions on opinions, that then slows you down.
Speaker: Right. And then so, but to your point it it is important to, to, to unsilo yourself as much as possible upfront, especially to start maybe even thinking about having initial conversations around sustainability. Like, could we find the money right to, to fund this initiative ongoingly or,
Speaker: you know Or at least are we open to exploring what that could look like? you know Maybe some partnerships, public-private partnerships maybe we already have, or if it's you know, maybe again, looking at our central our central funds to see if, you know, what's the impact of leveraging some of those funds to sustain this, especially if the benefit is, you know, maybe better retention, right, or helping students when they graduate be more career ready, right, things that we can kind of rationalize and
Speaker: and feel like, yeah, that would be a worthy investment if we're able to grow and scale this new initiative, you know, if if if people find it helpful. yeah Definitely. Yeah. You know, what is like winning look like with with this pilot? Right. You know, yeah sometimes that's a question that, you know, isn't always answered at the beginning.
Speaker: um And I think that's another word that like people in higher ed should just use more. Like, let's win. yeah We're really good at navel gazing. And I'm like, no, man, like, come on. like Yeah, like we only live once. Let's set a goal and hit it.
Speaker: And then, you know, like you get a little dopamine, right? Come on, you're like a psychologist, right? Yeah, you got to get that dopamine hit as much as you can. And I almost feel like, you know maybe, you know, I was thinking too about like tiger teams, right? So maybe it's also working with institutions to have like a small subcommittee where depending on the pilot that you want to do or the the type of thing that you're trying to solve for with a pilot, maybe that team is already built in to be representative of key areas.
Speaker: And then you go with their blessings, so to speak, right? versus kind of more organically bringing in a lot of people who could be helpful, but then there's a risk that doing it organically may not be fast enough for you to like actually get it launched, especially if it's a grant funded thing where you have kind of a limited amount of time to submit the proposal or you've already done that, got the money and now you got like move forward with the right people. So, so that's ah another thing I've been thinking about as well. Like maybe your work,
Speaker: will look at that, especially like around any AI pilots and implementations, you know helping institutions really be prepared to leverage the tech in the right ways over time, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, I can't cite the report, but I did see something and kind of a recurring theme probably on LinkedIn is, you know, where where has that AI r ROI been, right? You know, like,
Speaker: Schools have now invested for X, you know, three or four years. Has it, you know, benefited anyone other than the AI companies, right? And maybe it's, you know, to what we talked about is, you know, nobody said, you know, kind of what's what's going to change? What does winning look like? How how is this going to really, you know, improve things going forward? so Yeah.
Speaker: Do you advise clients, Jeremiah, about non-credit opportunities? um I... I wouldn't say like I advise, that there's you know schools that I work with that do you know non-credit.
Speaker: It's not necessarily like my wheelhouse. like A lot of times, a lot of the blocking and tackling of enrolling non-credit is really similar to you know credit. So I think it's a great opportunity to you know kind of fill your funnel, if you will, right with non-credit opportunities that then can you know, kind of layer in or or stack in to the the credit world and and making sure you get prior learning and stuff like that credit. So I'm no expert by any means.
Speaker: it's It's a brutal space. I mean, not this is not our primary focus and charge for our office. it it It's gradually coming into us. We're doing it, but trying to suss out what is a viable opportunity and how to get to it and how to all the things, the marketing and getting there, what just, what the size of the market, it's really hard. So i don't know don't know if you had any cheat codes or magic advice, but I think everyone's trying to figure it out.
Speaker: I wish I did. and I don't want to be pessimistic, but again, it kind of goes back to the pro forma and the numbers is like, I haven't seen anything that makes me believe that marketing, you know, these new, um, you know, micro credentials or non-credit is going to cost me any less.
Speaker: And it's going to net me a student that brings in less revenue. Like, ah yeah, yeah. out there And I don't want to be pessimistic, but like, I think in that way. Yeah. I think that's, that's the hardest part. So, I mean, um,
Speaker: I always talk, mean, I think there's places where non-credit makes a ton of sense. If you, if you are connected with employers that need certain types of things, right? So like if you're close to a good healthcare organization and they're like, yes, we need CEUs for, for all these different types of people. And you can be that CEU grinder and you're, you're pushing all those different types of things out.
Speaker: Stacking into a degree, I think is also good, but I think it's, Non-credit is people paying out of pocket. And so that's always the hard part. So how do you... Project management is ah is is probably the best example, right? I can go set for the PMP exam and pay someone 75 bucks to get a little bit of instruction before I take the exam.
Speaker: But now you have a university who wants to do a PMP and they want to charge $745 for example. for that as an example you know, like how how are you balancing yourself into the marketplace? Well, you know, it's us giving the PMP. It's like you don't want care like, at the end of the day, it's an exam.
Speaker: Once they're done with the exam, it doesn't matter where they got the education do the exam. If they pass, they're a PMP. So... You know, I think there's always that to me has always been, i think, the the hard part with noncredit is just the value add that it brings to the institution.
Speaker: And then where do you where do you place it? And it and are you OK that they're not paying the premium price that they pay for everything else that you do at the institution?
Speaker: There's that. There's that balance. One, I don't know. secret hack or somebody told me once and i like I wrote it down immediately. It's not so much the non-cred, but it's on that employer, like that kind of partnership is that the most successful ones, there's buy-in at three levels, right? So like your president and the healthcare care CEO, they meet and they think this is fine. Like that usually happens, right?
Speaker: But then what the the two other levels are where it falls apart is like, you need somebody at this kind of director level It could be someone in like HR. It could be, it could, it's gotta be somebody that like does the thing.
Speaker: And then you need like that equivalent at your institution. And like, then you two need to kind of be partnered up And then you need that same, like boots on the ground, right?
Speaker: So then you need, if maybe it's a faculty member, you know, that is, you know, teaching the course or, know, some kind of maybe it's usually a faculty member. And then again, kind like a boots on the ground person at that organization kind of pair them up. And then like, and that's like, I haven't done bunch of them, but I've had a couple that have been successful and I found that to be true. So in a way you see what I'm hearing from you is non-credit opportunities work best when they're, and I don't know the right, whether it's a
Speaker: articulation agreement between an institution and an employer or an employment sector. <unk>s almost like i'm thinking It's almost like B2B to me. you know You have a need. You want to send people to us to fulfill that need. We're not trying to open the market this thing out in the whatever radius or whatever market level, local, state, national by paying for media or developing some organic engine for it. You're saying that really the, the clearest opportunities for non-credit or was, is when someone identifies a specific need for it and you can satisfy it because that way your costs are largely contained to develop the instruction versus trying to compete with. Maybe there's tons of other ones out there beyond the,
Speaker: area that, you know, beyond the employer or the employment, the the the employment sector opportunities near you. that is, um am I hearing that right? That's how I've been.
Speaker: I can tell you at Nebraska, our number one number one non-credit course is pesticide application. Everyone is required in the state of Nebraska to go through a pesticide training every two years in order to maintain their license to be able to spray pesticides. University of Nebraska has that contract with the state.
Speaker: it's ah It's an automatic funnel and it's it's a cheap course. I mean, it's like $50 set, take your exam all on Zoom. But it's our it was the number one non-credit course. I'm glad you qualified that if you want to apply pesticides. I thought you missed everyone in Nebraska has to take it. you know Yeah, if you're ah if you're a licensed pesticide applicator.
Speaker: Yeah. yeah I mean, technically, I mean, farmers are supposed to do it. Like there are, I mean, if you do certain types types of herbicides, pesticides, those types of things, you're supposed to have some sort of certification to do it. But that was our number one.
Speaker: um So Jeremiah, we are coming up on time and this has been really, really fun and really good conversation. I want to ask one last question.
Speaker: We'll probably have a couple more after this, but I'll say this is the last one. um What are some lessons that you've learned throughout your career that you think are important for our listeners to know? What's what's something that you want to give away that they should keep to help them through their career?
Speaker: So, um, Going back to Brian Fleming and he, again, I ran into UPSIA and we were talking about, i always used to say the term blocking and tackling. Like, I just want people to to you know do the blocking and tackling, the basic stuff. I think he articulates it better. And he he talks about the difference between poets and plumbers.
Speaker: And like, so my, you're kind of nodding, but my my career advice is like, You'll go far if you're a really good, you know air quotes, plumber in and higher ed. if If you can be, especially if you're early to mid-career and you see a problem, like like think of a plumber, right?
Speaker: I got a problem at my house. This you know individual shows up, they diagnose the problem, they come with a solution and they make it happen. like Man, like that is, I think, sorely in need because a lot of people, especially in their junior career, like they identify a problem, they're not necessarily going to their supervisor with a solution, right? So if you can start thinking in in that way of being like, you know, man, like, again, every place has these things that are just like thorns in people's sides. if If you can kind of be that person to, you know, address the problem, think of a solution, raise your hand and be like, hey, boss, I think I, you know, i got a couple hours extra week. I really want to take this on.
Speaker: And then you you know kind of be known to be the person that gets stuff done, yeah and no pun intended, but like getting stuff done, right? Like that that's huge. um And then I think the other thing is ah I really, in my head, I always think about it, relationships, right?
Speaker: Like the relationships get things done. And I'll give like this, hopefully quick example. So couple of years in Deauville,
Speaker: Like we're, we're turning the thing around, you know, the flywheel spinning, we've, you know, doubled our online enrollment or whatever. So now, you know, each year the the hockey stick is starting to happen and, uh, you know, it's budget, uh, time and you're asking for your budget. And I asked for more marketing money.
Speaker: I'm like, let's put some, you know, fuel on this fire. Like, let's go, let's really start to ramp up. And, um, you know, it comes back and like the request was not only like, you know, denied, but I want to say it was like 25% less than what my marketing budget was the year before. Like I get this email and dude, yeah. Like your, your reaction. I'm like, dude, I'm mad. Right. Let's just be honest. Like there's words in my mouth that I'm not going to, or in my head that I'm not going to say, but like, I, I took a step back and I was like, okay, what's, what's the, the controller or the CFO? Like what are, what are they thinking in their head? And, you know,
Speaker: at the time, like the the CFO, he he was kind of new. And I was like, did I do anything to let him know like what I'm doing? You know, like, I'm like, this is BS. I can show you all the the numbers and the metrics and our, you know, average acquisition costs have been going down for two years. But I was like, did I tell him any of that? Like, do I have a relationship with this guy? Like, no, like absolutely not.
Speaker: So whatever, like I sucked it up and I didn't, I think this is the first time I've telling this publicly, but like, i was like, no, my goal. And I didn't tell anyone, was just in my head. i was like, I'm to build a relationship with that guy.
Speaker: And I did. And I started with, you know, it's like the controller and then the CFO. And i just was like, you know, to the controller, I'm like, Hey, you know, if you, if you got some time, like, I'd love to just kind of show you like some numbers and I want to run this by you because I'm not a finance person, but you know, I kind of play dumb, but I just, you know, like, well, I want to get your read on it.
Speaker: And I did. And that meeting went well. And then i was like, okay, well, Hey, you know, I do this like every six months, you know, I look at the funnel and then I, you know, marketing costs. And so I like, can we meet in another six months? And, and we do.
Speaker: And then, you know, lo and behold, like right before budget season, now it's a meeting with me, the controller and the CFO. Right. And I'm presenting the same data. Now I'm like, Hey, here's two years of longitudinal data of, you know, our marketing effectiveness, effectiveness increasing. Here's how the funnel is working.
Speaker: Okay. And then, you know, every year on a six month meeting, you know, with those two individuals and, you know, I don't think the marketing budget exploded, but like I built trust with them, right. They knew that I was a good steward and if they were going to give me X amount of, you know, marketing dollars, like it was going to be well spent.
Speaker: And so I hope that story is, you know, kind of helpful because ah think it's human nature for us to, you know, If something doesn't go right, like it's somebody else's fault, but in this one, it's mine.
Speaker: Jeremiah, again, thank you for spending some time with us, sharing your thoughts of of what you're doing in higher ed with our listeners. And we appreciate all the time that you were able to put together um to share those thoughts. And we wish you the best of luck in your new endeavors and look forward to seeing you at other conferences and around in the higher ed space. So again, thank you. We appreciate the time.
Speaker: Awesome. Hey, this was super fun. Glad you had the opportunity to talk to you guys. You know, I'm a solo shop, so I don't always get to talk to to folks. So this has been great. And just the one thing I say is like, if somebody finds me on on LinkedIn, just shoot me a message. Like I am more than happy to spend 30 minutes with with anybody.
Speaker: A lot of people, you know again, they're junior in their career and they just got some questions and, you know, it's hard. Like you're usually in an office of one. So if anyone wants to reach out, like I'm not too busy that I can't you know take a 30 minute Zoom call with somebody.
Speaker: Great. We'll make sure people are aware of that. We appreciate it right. Thanks. Thanks, Jeremiah. Yeah. Thank you.
