Dr. Sara Goldrick - Rab, Professor at Temple University & Founder of the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, and recently announced, next-generation Hope Center for College, Community and Justice, follows-up with Mark Milliron to talk about the #RealCollege movement that Sara, and the team at the Hope Center, are championing to bring more voices to the forefront. They explore the energy and urgency behind this initiative and invite the listeners and their institutions to join the cause.

Student Voices with Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab

Mark Milliron chats with Chris Hester, Civitas Learning’s new CEO, to discuss the valuable experience Chris brings to Civitas Learning, his successful application of analytics within the healthcare sector, and how that success translates into education.

Chris Hester's Focus on Improving the Delivery of Care

Lorain County Community College has unlocked impressive results in their work with Achieving The Dream, Completion By Design, Guided Pathways, and a number of other student success initiatives. Their president, Marcia Ballinger, reflects on their journey of transformation and the roadmap (data) that helped them become student ready. She shares what they learned along the way and how they became more focused than ever on what matters most for students inside and outside of the classroom. Today, they’re designing a student experience with the end in mind -- and their outcomes prove it.

Becoming A Student-Ready Institution

What does competency-based education mean for today’s students and higher ed leaders? How can institutions define outcomes and assess learning while ensuring the personalization and flexibility that students need? It’s not easy work, but Marni Baker Stein, Provost and Chief Academic Officer for Western Governors University(WGU), discusses how her team is tackling this critical challenge. Today, WGU is growing rapidly -- and successfully delivering on the promise of life-long learning and competency-based education.

Delivering on the Promise of Competency-Based Education

The data show that one of the biggest barriers to higher ed completion is mathematics -- yet until recently and according to Karon Klipple of Carnegie Math Pathways, it was treated with a Sputnik-era mentality. Now innovation in college-level math isn’t about fixing math dev ed, but rather ensuring that students are on the right pathway, taking the right math courses for their degree or program, and making sure they have the support they need to be successful. According to Klipple and Dr. Richard Rhodes, Austin Community College President/CEO, the solution to this mult-faceted problem requires a radically more holistic view and collaborative approach.

Streamlined Math Pathways - A Formula For Improved Student Success

In this podcast episode, Dr. Angela Kersenbrock, Community College Baccalaureate Association President, discusses the imperative of building innovative and diverse pathways to better serve students today. Strategies include improving the transfer experience, designing streamlined journeys and systems, building co-located campuses or industry partnerships, and creating structural incentives for students to finish what they start. It’s all on the table and part of the important conversation to help more students graduate and into income-producing careers.

On The Pathway To Possibility: A Conversation with the Community College Baccalaureate Association

Leaders at the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) have accomplished something rare. They’ve tackled the structural and cultural challenges to developing, scaling, and measuring a co-curricular program -- while ensuring faculty buy-in. UCO President Emeritus Don Betz and UCO’s Student Transformative Learning Record (STLR) Executive Director, Jeff King, reflect on how their curricular and co-curricular approach to the student journey is expanding perspectives, deepening agency, and improving employability for UCO students. It’s a shift from course content mastery to an institution-wide focus on transformative learning, and the result is infectious.

The Rise of Co-Curricular Transcripts and Evidence-Based Transformative Learning

It’s no secret: the majority of today’s students are no longer "traditional." More students than ever are balancing work, families, and basic-needs issues while they are working their way through colleges and universities. Learning is not their only priority. Nonetheless, education and training represent the path to unlock new opportunities and navigate changes in the workforce. To help our students today, we need to meet them where they are to help them reach their dreams -- and that no longer means just offering night courses or online courses. In this podcast Marie Cini from the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning reflects on the new breakthrough practices that colleges and universities are trying, testing and fine-tuning to serve adult learners today.

What Do Adult Learners Need to Succeed?

Throughout her career in higher education, Barabara Gellman-Danley has led organizations, colleges and universities through change and transformation. Her collaborative approach asks 1) what is in the best interest of the student and 2) do our current standards address the future? Today she leads the Higher Learning Commission to ensure that accreditation delivers an infrastructure for transformation and innovation. And, when this work is anchored in transparency and openness, we’re emboldened to take chances on how to better serve our students today and in the future.

Accreditation Isn’t the Enemy of Innovation

Achieving the Dream leaders Dr. Karen Stout and Laurie Heacock connect with Mark Milliron on how higher ed leaders can best navigate the “wicked” domain of student success. According to David Epstein, wicked domains like education aren’t linear or predictable. Leadership in this field requires both breadth and depth in multiple dimensions. The road ahead necessitates better data, student-centered design thinking and deep domain expertise.

3D Leadership: Data Science, Design Thinking & Domain Expertise

Dr. Wynn Rosser and Dr. Gerardo de los Santo join Dr. Mark Milliron for a much-needed conversation on how educators, especially in the wake of COVID-19, are simultaneously addressing digital learning and support infrastructures while acknowledging the staggering gaps in our collective ability to use it well -- and in our students’ ability to access it.

The dialogue we need is not about the Digital Divide, but rather Digital Equity and how to confront persistent equity issues about digital technology with digital technology

COVID-19's Spotlight on Digital Equity

Conversations on education, innovation, inspiration, leadership, learning & more.