0:06

Hello everyone. Welcome back to HigherEdLive. I'm Nicole Lentine from

0:10

PlatformQ joining you from Chicago and this week I will be serving as your

0:13

host. HigherEdLive offers direct access to the best and brightest minds and higher

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education and allows audience members to share knowledge and participate in

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discussions around the most important issues in our industry. All episodes

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Live is produced by PlatformQ Education, the leader in video powered

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to our newsletter below and connect with us on social media using the

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hashtag HigherEdLive for our podcast listeners. All this information will be

0:47

in the episode notes. And this week we are discussing Insights from Taking

0:51

the Future U. Podcast on the Road and I am honored and thrilled to have Jeff

0:55

Selingo as my guest. Many of you probably already know Jeff, but just in

1:00

case you don't let me tell you a little bit more about him. So Jeff Selingo has

1:04

written about higher education for more than two decades and is a New York

1:08

Times best selling author of three books. His latest book, "Who Gets In and

1:11

Why: A Year Inside College Admissions" was published in September 2020 and was

1:16

named among the 100 notable books of the year by The New York times. A

1:20

regular contributor to The Atlantic, Jeff is a special advisor for

1:23

innovation and professor of practice at Arizona State University. He also

1:27

writes a biweekly newsletter on all things Higher Ed called Next and co

1:31

hosts the podcast Future U. He lives in Washington D. C. with his family, so

1:37

again, thrilled to have you on Jeff, thank you so much. And for those who

1:42

haven't already been avid listeners of the Future U. podcast like myself, can

1:46

you share a little bit more about it and what you talk about there? Yeah, so

1:50

it's really started as a hobby with me and Michael Horn of the Clay

1:54

Christensen Institute and we really wanted to think about the future of

1:59

higher education, but also the future of individual learning pathways. So the

2:05

U in Future U. is not only about universities but it's also about you,

2:09

the learner and really connecting kind of the learner journey with what's

2:14

happening more broadly around the future of higher education. So every

2:18

other week during the season we take the summers off, like most of Higher Ed

2:22

does, every other week we introduce you to the newsmakers and the ideas that

2:28

are shaping the future of higher education. Each podcast is about a half

2:32

hour, some are longer depending on the guest. We bring in a guest for about

2:36

half the show and then Michael and I kind of dissect what that guest said

2:41

and also just talk more largely more broadly about what's happening in

2:45

higher ed. Awesome, thank you. And I'm curious, I know you started, I

2:50

believe it was 2018, when you first started the podcast? We just

2:54

finished our fifth season this year. We just recorded our our 100th episode. So

3:00

our podcast dropped, the last episode for the season just dropped recently.

3:05

We'll take a summer hiatus and then we'll be back for the 6th season in the

3:09

fall. Terrific. And I'm curious, you know, because obviously that sits the

3:13

span of time between pre pandemic and I'm not gonna use the term post

3:18

pandemic because we're not there yet, I don't think. Yeah. But I'm curious to

3:22

hear what conversations maybe stayed the same? What

3:28

conversations drastically dropped off the radar? And I mean, I guess we can

3:31

probably guess it's some of the ones that started coming into the

3:34

conversation that we were in before. But I'm really curious to hear about the

3:37

evolution over the last five seasons. Yeah, so I think during the

3:42

pandemic we actually really upped the number of episodes, we were

3:45

actually recording almost every week in the very beginnings of the pandemic,

3:49

really talking about how institutions were pivoting to online education,

3:53

were just surviving. We had some great guests during that time including

3:58

Scott Cowan, who was the former President of Tulane, talking a little

4:02

bit about how they got through Katrina, for example, and what lessons might be

4:05

learned for institutions from that. So what we've done a little bit post

4:10

pandemic is really what the future is going to be for institutions coming out

4:15

of the pandemic. We already knew there was pressure on institutions with a

4:19

demographic drop off in the number of high school graduates, this huge group

4:22

of adult students who needed education. So we already knew that there was going to

4:26

be some issues that higher education was going to face in the

4:32

next decade. But obviously the pandemic really put a lot of pressure on the

4:36

residential model. Put a lot of pressure on the financial model. And we

4:40

saw during the pandemic that increasingly parents and students were

4:43

also questioning the value of higher education. So a lot of what we're

4:46

talking about now is around value around alternative models. We're really

4:50

thinking largely about this idea of a hybrid university. So what does that

4:57

mean? Because we saw a lot of this discussion during the pandemic of

5:01

optionality of student flexibility. And what was really interesting to me is we

5:06

were recently on the campus of U. C. L. A and Gene Block, the Chancellor, said

5:10

students want this flexibility but it's even difficult for a place like U. C. L. A

5:14

which has enormous resources to do that to provide that more personalized

5:19

education. So we're really thinking about not only what students want but

5:23

what's really possible given the capacity of higher education going

5:27

forward. Yeah certainly. And it's fascinating that you share that

5:32

particular concept of the hybrid model. There is a HigherEdLive episode

5:37

that has not been released at the time of recording but will have by the time

5:41

folks are listening to this one, and I spoke with someone about Omnichannel

5:45

Education and the complexity that goes into making that happen. It truly is

5:50

quite a heavy lift. So it's no surprise that U. C. L. A. is trying to figure

5:54

out how to make that work and how to still provide the the equal value to

5:58

students no matter what modality they're receiving that education

6:01

through. So it's fascinating. I did listen to the U. C. L. A. podcast and I

6:05

thought it was a really good listen for folks that may haven't listened to it

6:08

yet. Just talking about how do you still connect with students? You know,

6:14

I think you've had a really great series of conversations around human

6:18

connectedness and I know that's something we struggle with a little bit

6:21

when we're talking about the concept of hybrid university. Yeah. I'm curious,

6:27

you know, you mentioned U. C. L. A. and a big piece of this past season has

6:31

been taking the podcast on the road. So I'm curious about what inspired you to

6:36

do that in the first place and how you determined where you'd even go

6:42

when you were trying to figure out where you're going on the road? So it's

6:45

an interesting question because when we first started the podcast it was kind

6:48

of pre -- Zoom was around but it's kind of like pre Zoom times right? We have to

6:53

remember before the pandemic, where we wanted to meet in person or

6:57

when we did phone calls, they were conference calls. Like Zoom was not as

7:01

prevalent I think in our lives as it is today. And so when we first started

7:05

recording the podcast, when we started it, we often did it in person. So

7:08

Michael's in Boston, I'm in D. C. We would try to get together in each city,

7:13

we would try to get guests there live. To be honest with you, the technology

7:17

to record podcasts, even just a few years ago, remotely wasn't as good

7:22

as I think it is now, especially because of the pandemic, but what the

7:25

pandemic taught us is that we could basically get guests from anywhere and

7:30

Michael and I never had to be in the same city. And so often during the

7:34

pandemic we never saw each other and we never saw our guests at least face to

7:37

face. And I think coming out of the pandemic, we wanted to get back to

7:41

campuses as campuses were quote unquote "trying" to get back as we knew

7:46

that the face to face residential experience is still a key hallmark of

7:50

American higher education and higher education around the world. We really

7:54

wanted to get a sense of what changed and that's why we wanted to be on

7:58

campuses. You asked how we picked. So part of it was that we wanted to be in

8:03

different parts of the country. So the Northeast, the West Coast, the

8:08

Southeast the Mid Atlantic. Obviously there's many more regions of the

8:12

country. And we started this tour with four because we had support for four

8:18

stops on on this campus tour. And then we approached institutions in

8:22

those cities that were doing interesting things that we thought were

8:26

innovative that were at the intersection of public and private

8:29

higher ed. We unfortunately didn't get a community college this time around

8:34

but we are doing an HBCU, the fourth stop will be in the

8:38

early fall at Bowie State just outside of D. C. so you know we will have a

8:44

couple of privates, a couple of publics all four year institutions, but

8:47

hopefully, we want to make this tour kind of an annual thing where

8:51

not the entire season is a tour but a little bit of the

8:55

season is on campuses and we want to get to different types of

8:59

institutions. Certainly. Yeah and your listeners, you know, you've had some

9:03

terrific conversations with presidents. I loved hearing where their

9:07

heads were at and just how differently they were grappling with

9:11

the challenges at hand. You and Michael have both said

9:15

multiple times that higher education isn't a monolith, it's

9:18

several different institutions with different challenges and different

9:22

entities. And so it was fascinating to hear them talk about it. But so

9:26

I came from higher education myself, I was an admissions counselor and I loved

9:29

the conversations that you had with other folks that are part of the

9:32

community faculty and provost, staff students, and I think you give a really

9:37

good voice to those other community members. And so I'd love

9:43

to hear a little bit about, some of the powerful

9:45

conversations that you had with some of those different individuals across

9:49

campus, because I know it's a benefit from being on site. Yeah, I think,

9:53

that's again, that's another benefit. You know, we talked to presidents all

9:56

the time. In fact, I think a quarter or more of our 100 episodes

10:00

featured a president. So when we went to these institutions, we didn't want to

10:04

just hear from the president. So every panel has included a student, a faculty

10:09

member and another administrator. And I'm just thinking of

10:14

the powerful stories that we heard from students who wanted to feel that sense

10:19

of purpose and belonging that was lost during the pandemic. I think those are

10:24

are important stories to remember why we're doing this. I think often we

10:27

sometimes lose sight of why we're doing this work in higher ed and I also

10:32

think it sends a message to higher ed that if we don't give students a sense

10:37

of belonging and purpose to their education they're going to look

10:40

elsewhere or they're not going to come to us. I think when we think about value

10:43

and higher education it's those student stories about belonging and

10:47

purpose that are critical from the staff and an administrative perspective.

10:51

We really heard about just the challenges of trying to run these

10:55

massive organizations during a global pandemic, right? While faculty were

11:00

at home and could be doing their classes through Zoom, as we all know, the

11:04

campuses still had to run and so I think we heard about the challenges

11:09

whether it was at Northeastern or U.C.L.A about that. And then finally one

11:13

of the things that I think about for the future is the talent on campuses.

11:17

And again this is something that we heard from Gene Block who really

11:20

surprised us in the conversation when he talked about just the challenge of

11:25

hiring people at U. C. L. A. going forward, right? We we often think of

11:29

talent in higher ed as the faculty. I always felt that everyone else on

11:34

campus was quote unquote "replaceable". That we used to think of them as just

11:37

cogs in a wheel and unfortunately I don't think we can do that anymore. And

11:42

as Gene said it used to be an honor to work at U. C. L. A. People used to

11:46

flock to want to work at U. C. L. A. Well now they have a lot of options

11:50

especially if you want to work from home and have more flexibility in your

11:53

in your workplace, you know, U. C. L. A has trouble recruiting for

11:58

that reason. And maybe the mission alone is not good enough. You

12:02

can't pay for groceries and pay for gas just on your mission. Right?

12:06

So I think higher education to become an employer of choice going forward,

12:10

really going to have to think differently about how they attract that

12:14

talent and also respect that talent beyond just the faculty. The faculty

12:19

clearly are important to making our universities run but we have to have a

12:23

talent management strategy for beyond just the faculty. You're

12:28

absolutely right and coming from a very specific role on campus

12:33

I've only known that admissions experience but there are such

12:37

passionate folks in that field that learn so much and bring such great

12:42

insights and thoughts and "let's try this different thing that I'm getting

12:47

inspiration from whatever else I'm experiencing out there", and I've

12:51

appreciated the conversations that you've had talking about investing in that

12:56

talent and the conversations you've had with leadership. I jotted something

13:00

down where, I can't remember which episode it was from so forgive me for

13:05

that, but you were talking about how institutions think of themselves as

13:09

a learning institution for everyone besides themselves and

13:14

the importance and the value of thinking about how you can better

13:18

support and engage and invest in that talent. Right. And

13:22

professional development, I think if we want to encourage engage employees, if

13:27

we want to recruit the next generation of employees in higher ed, we really

13:33

need to think about the learning journey of those employees as well and

13:36

not just professional development for everyone else. Again, I think

13:40

that we have to start to invest in our employees in ways that we haven't in

13:44

higher ed before, and that's hard because most institutions are running

13:47

on very thin margins right now, inflation is high,

13:51

enrollment is down in some of these places, it's going to be hard to do this.

13:54

But it's going to require, I think, very creative solutions to rethink the

13:58

workforce beyond the faculty. Absolutely, yeah. And an innovation

14:03

comes from that population and you cannot have one without the

14:07

other. And I agree. And I think that's going to need to be

14:12

part of the conversation for institutions. We

14:16

challenge folks all the time to not just fall back on the traditional

14:19

methods of the way that you're connecting with students and I think

14:22

that's equal value of how you're supporting your community. So I

14:26

appreciate that that's been part of the conversation that you're that

14:29

you're having on these campuses. And talking about mental health of staff

14:34

and faculty just as much as students. It's an incredibly

14:37

challenging time. This pandemic has changed us in so many ways and it's

14:42

important for folks to be talking about that if they aren't actively already.

14:47

So thank you for giving voice to that. As we talked about before,

14:51

clearly institutions differ in their needs and priority. We're talking

14:57

about a varied set of very different kinds of institutions with different

15:00

challenges, and so I know it's hard to generalize, but based on what you're

15:04

hearing on these different campuses, are there any broad stroke

15:09

concerns, topics, that you feel or that you think

15:14

that higher ed leaders should be focusing on if they're not already? I

15:19

mean, I think we've covered a few of them in the topics that we've discussed.

15:22

Yeah, I think that we've talked about belonging and purpose,

15:28

right? I think that if we could answer, if we can help students find a sense of

15:32

belonging, if we help them find a sense of their purpose for being there, we

15:35

can actually solve a lot of student success issues that we have in

15:39

higher ed and I think we need to really focus on that. You know, this

15:42

one size fits all system that we've had for decades, basically since post

15:46

World War II, I don't think works for a lot of students today. They want that

15:50

personalization. And I think that's the other thing is that whole student

15:54

experience, that whole learner experience has to really be improved

15:57

because I think that customers, and I hate to use that word because I know

16:00

people in higher ed don't like it, but they have heightened

16:03

expectations. Especially after the pandemic because think about it,

16:07

especially residential higher education. Residential higher education is sold to

16:12

prospective students as a physical location and a unique geography. Right?

16:17

The beautiful pictures. I'm going to college in a specific place. But when

16:22

we went, in the early days of the pandemic, when we pivoted to remote

16:25

education, all that was lost. I was now learning via Skype from my, in some

16:30

cases my childhood bedroom, and now I was judging the quality of the

16:34

institution actually on the course and it was hard to differentiate that

16:38

course sometimes by, you know, Econ 101 by my institution was, to be honest with

16:43

you, not that much different than Econ 101 everywhere else. And the

16:46

tuition paying students and parents now starting to say, what am I really

16:50

paying for here? And so I think coming out of the pandemic, those questions

16:53

are not going to stop from prospective students and parents

16:58

and students. And so I think that we have to really rethink that value

17:03

proposition. What are we offering? What is our unique selling proposition to

17:07

students? And really lean into that and create that experience that

17:13

is second to none. And what does that mean? It means reducing the friction

17:18

that students often see. I told, Nicole, I relayed the story of my newsletter

17:24

a couple of weeks ago, my newsletter called Next, which you talked about

17:29

in the beginning and it was of a student at a big public

17:33

flagship institution who had to get credit for an internship. And the

17:38

student started at the registrar's office, the registrar's

17:42

office sent the student to the financial aid office, the financial aid

17:46

office sent the student to the career services office, sent the student to the

17:51

student's academic advisor. Right? So four stops to get one question answered.

17:56

Meanwhile you have to repeat the story over and over again. I asked the

17:59

student, what if you had to do that to a Target? Say you're returning

18:02

something and they moved you from department to department. What would

18:05

you do? And the student said I wouldn't shop there anymore. Well, the same

18:08

thing is happening in higher ed. And I know that higher ed doesn't like to be

18:12

compared to the retail industry, or any other industry for that

18:14

matter, but we want better service. And maybe if we liken this to another

18:19

sector that's similar to higher ed is healthcare, right? We want our health

18:23

care to be frictionless. If I'm running into a hospital because I have

18:27

a problem, we want to get the care that we want as fast as we can and we want

18:32

good service. I think the same expectation is now in higher ed. Yeah.

18:38

And we need to, as an industry, not be afraid of thinking in that customer

18:43

mindset because you're right, at the end of the day, we still want to make sure

18:46

that the experience is a good one because it can push them away just as

18:50

much as a good experience can bring them in and make them want to share

18:55

that experience with others, right? It's a give and take either way. And so

18:59

I'm not afraid of that term, but I hear you, I know a lot of, especially,

19:03

faculty, leadership, administration don't like to hear that,

19:06

but you're absolutely right. And the more that we can lean into it, it

19:11

comes back to that sense of belonging. It comes back to feeling like you

19:16

individually are cared for and attention is paid to you and we can

19:22

anticipate your needs because we've been in this industry for however long

19:26

the institution has been there, the student is very unlikely to be the

19:29

first one experiencing this challenge. And so you want to say yes, we know how

19:34

to support you and let's make sure that you're not hitting four

19:38

different individual's offices on the way. Yeah. It's really wonderful

19:43

insight to be able to share. And I know that you've talked quite a bit

19:47

about kind of continuing education and returning learners, lifelong

19:54

learners, you know, I feel like the adult learning conversation is one that

19:57

seems to be picking back up again. And I'm curious how often you

20:02

maybe heard campus leaders talk about supporting that population. I think

20:06

some institutions really do it really well and other institutions, you take a

20:09

look and it seems like they're focused almost purely in the traditional

20:12

students. So I'm curious if that came up quite a bit or not. Yeah. And

20:16

unfortunately it does, it comes up all the time. But I think that adult

20:20

students are kind of a siren song of higher education, right? We know

20:24

they exist. We know there are a huge market, we don't know how to serve them.

20:27

And I think where it did come up is not what I would call the

20:32

unconnected adult student. When I say the unconnected adult student that may

20:37

be an adult student who started college didn't finish, so has some credit,

20:40

no degree. Maybe went to a two year college but wants a four year degree.

20:44

Where adult students often come up, and I think that's an underserved market

20:48

and there's a couple of institutions that serve it very well, but I think

20:51

there's a lot more institutions that are needed in the market,

20:54

where we saw a lot of conversation, whether it was on the Future U. tour

20:59

or within Future U. this year, it was on lifelong learning as an alumni

21:04

benefit. Thinking of how do we connect our alumni to learning throughout

21:09

their lifetime? That's the adult student. They know that's the adult

21:13

student they know how to serve. That's where I think most of the energy

21:17

by traditional colleges and universities is right now. And I'm not

21:20

saying that's not a market to be served. There's huge up skilling and re

21:24

skilling needs in that market, but an underserved market is that former

21:28

market that I mentioned, which is really all those adults out there, tens

21:32

of millions of them with some college credit and no degree and a

21:36

two year college degree as well. Yeah. And ironically, I'm realizing that once

21:41

again, higher ed can learn a lot from the retail industry. That way of

21:45

thinking about return customers and return clients and how I feel valued as

21:50

a customer of some of these different companies that I've purchased from

21:54

before where they pay attention. They know something about me, right? You

21:57

know, the amount of times I've been a recipient of an email that asks again

22:02

for what year I graduated, what degree I was in, you know that about me

22:06

already! So I think even if higher ed takes a little bit of

22:11

inspiration from that, that's a really good audience to start with, to start

22:15

thinking about supporting them differently. Well, fantastic. Any

22:20

other insights you want to share from taking the podcast on the road with

22:25

viewers before we wrap up today? So, I think the thing

22:29

that I always find fascinating inspiring about higher education is

22:33

that higher education and colleges and universities are renewing themselves

22:38

constantly, right? They're always having new cohorts of students come in,

22:42

new research that's being discovered. They still are. I still kind of get

22:47

teary eyed walking onto college campuses, seeing the emotion of

22:51

students who are learning, who are completing their journey. And also

22:56

throughout human history, we've always needed more education and we probably

23:00

have never been in a point in human history where we need more education

23:03

than we need right now. Right? The world is changing in a way with

23:08

automation and artificial intelligence, the future of work is shifting in so many

23:12

ways. And so education is in high demand. And I think the question is not

23:17

whether these institutions will survive, I think some might not, but whether

23:22

they're going to serve the markets that need to be served in the decades ahead.

23:26

It's clear that the market is shifting and some institutions are ahead of it,

23:31

some institutions are going there, but other institutions are resisting that

23:35

change. And if they continue to resist in unless they're sitting on tens of

23:40

billions of dollars of endowment, I think it's going to be really hard for

23:43

them to kind of go against this winds of change. And so I'm really bullish on

23:47

the future of higher ed. And I'm more bullish by the way after doing this

23:51

campus tour and seeing kind of the innovation that's happening on college

23:56

campuses, the spirit of students and and knowing what they know about the

24:01

future. But I do worry about those institutions that are still resisting

24:05

change. Yeah, I'm with you on that. So I'm hoping that they heed your advice

24:11

and heed the things that you share and move forward because yeah, I

24:17

know we both believe way too strongly in the power of high education. We want

24:21

better for all these institutions out there. Fantastic. Well,

24:24

thank you again for your time, Jeff. If folks have follow up questions or want

24:28

to connect with you, where's the best place to find you? So, I'm all over

24:31

social media handle JSelingo on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, as well

24:38

as Instagram. JeffSelingo.com is my website, they could message me there.

24:42

I'm really bad about. It's really hard to reply to every single message

24:47

we get but please check me out at JeffSelingo.com and also

24:51

FutureUpodcast.com, which is our podcast website. Yes, as a listener I cannot

24:57

recommend it enough, it's fantastic. So, thank you to you and to Michael for

25:01

doing that. Yeah, so thank you again, Jeff and thank you to our viewers. And

25:08

this is actually the last episode of season two. So we'll see you when