 Let me welcome everybody. Welcome to the Future Trends Forum. I'm delighted to see you all here today We have a great guest and we have a great book with a topic to discuss We've been looking at the future of higher education and how colleges and universities might change since our first day That is indeed our preoccupation So I was absolutely delighted to read this new book called the great upheaval Higher education's past present and uncertain future. Its authors are very very impressive And they have taken us through a very very accessible tour of the many ways that higher education can change They address the ways that historically we've changed and they also give examples of other institutions in being transformed. I Really recommend this that I wanted to host these these two authors. So First of all, let me see if I can welcome Scott van Pelt He's the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business where he does an awful lot of stuff And rather than me telling you about him. Let me bring him up on stage so he can tell you more about himself Hello Scott. Hello Brian and good afternoon everybody. Thanks so much for the opportunity to speak. I really appreciate it Oh, it's our pleasure. Believe me and to begin with Scott when I we ask people to introduce themselves We ask them not to look at their past but at their future What are you gonna be working on for the next year? What are the topics the projects the classes and programs that are gonna be top of mind for you as 2022 unfolds Well, it turns out that being an author and a speaker isn't my full-time gig Actually, my full-time gig is as associate director of the Wharton communication program at Wharton Business School I actually have the fourth quarter of the academic term beginning on Monday And I'm teaching a section of crisis communication Monday morning at 8 30 a.m Not sure if we have any other I'm sure we have other educators in the room So you can probably guess that is an enviable time slot to be teaching and there's nothing better than teaching at 8 30 a.m on Monday I'm all joking aside My focus in the near term is really going to be on making sure that my students have the best educational experience possible with the time They have left in their first year And then I want to turn my attention towards Doing more work with the ideas from this book Brian One thing that I think is really important is that we have an opportunity to To help those people who are getting into higher education whether that's in a faculty role and instructor role staff administration the think creatively around the systems that we design implement and maintain and there's some wonderful work that I think could be done with taking the takeaways from this book and turning them into things like discussion guides or or other artifacts that can be helpful for those who want to discuss these ideas grapple with them and Suggest new ideas in their own institutions And so I'm going to be thinking a lot about ways that we can take these takeaways And translate them into something useful that that we might find in classrooms or reading groups a few of which I know have already occurred around the book. Oh Excellent. Excellent. Well, so in that second part at least you do get to be spending time as an author and And and think about this topic. I hopefully the recording from this session can prove to be useful in stirring that up As for your first good luck teaching crisis communication Unfortunately, the year seems to be all too all too ready to provide examples Unfortunately, Rick Bartlett just throws us the joke. That's a crisis just in the time of day, which is true Which is true Friends the the forum is is a place for everybody to ask questions And I usually begin by asking one or two myself just to get the ball rolling But I'd like you to be thinking about your questions and what you'd like our guests to be thinking about And what you'd like to ask them to respond to and if you don't have a copy of the book by the way on the bottom left of the Screen you should see a kind of mustard colored box and that should take you to a place where you can buy a copy Which I recommend In this book Scott you take you the two of you take a fantastic approach You look into the history of how higher education responded to the industrial revolution Covering about a century of institutional change, which is really breathtaking How quickly and how far we came just And then you take a look at what you call a sideways look you look at parallel industries at newspapers music movies And then you look at some of the really powerful forces reshaping higher education ones that are very congenial to me Economics you look at demographics and technology And this gives you a map for thinking how higher education could change as we respond to the knowledge economy and that whole change I guess my first question to you is when you were looking through all of these different examples and all of these different instances Which of these stood out as having the biggest impact on higher ed And just to clarify Brian, are you speaking about a specific trend along the lines of economics or technology? Yes, but also about how higher education responds And even though we don't have a what was the Yale report called that you're looking for the The defense of traditional institutions Even though we don't have one quite yet Yeah, well, you know Arthur and I looked at a number of trends that not just higher education But sectors across the entire economy are responding to we looked at demographics. We looked at technology we looked at economics and All of them are shaping education in different ways I'm sure the idea of demographic change and its impact on higher ed Probably isn't news to to many of you in this room We we know that there are major demographic changes coming especially when you think about the what we call the Traditionally aged college population. We know that in America. We are changing color. We are seeing a Fantastic rise in the Hispanic population, especially in certain parts of the United States We're seeing a lot of movement away from the Northeast where we have so many traditional institutions to the South and to the West We see institutions responding responding to these in a number of different ways, you know we look at technology and Technology is a huge one in what it enables higher ed to do Technology impacts how we teach it impacts the tools that we have at our disposal It impacts how students want to relate to various kinds of content, you know when Arthur and I were looking Sideways we we found a few other sectors a few other industries that offered Useful insights for us and how we think about higher ed in particular. We looked at the movie industry We looked at the film industry We looked at music and we looked at newspapers and we found several trends We found that by and large people are really changing the ways in which they interact with everyday Experiences, you know, they're looking more so than ever before for you know, what we call any time any place access the idea of needing to go to a fixed location at a fixed time is Something that you don't see replicated anymore in a great number of different sectors And yet for the most part for for higher education We do tend to be very time-based and very location-based tends to be rather fixed And so when we look at new providers that are coming into the space Many of whom are coming from outside the traditional higher education fold They're capitalizing on that new consumer behavior in a way that traditional institutions can be more hesitant To embrace you see places like Coursera kind of very popular and probably very well known to everyone in this space Having grown to Having grown millions and millions of new users over the past several years at a time when enrollments have declined Sometimes precipitously especially in the case of two-year colleges We see places like Google offering new certificates that can be created completed rather at low cost on a flexible time frame and Which are designed to lead to gainful employment with any one of the 150 partners that the Google's partnered with for these certificates We see the rise of just-in-time Education we see people wanting again that on-demand access for the ways in which they're engaging with content. I Think the biggest shift that we're seeing though with higher education And this is part of this larger context of a shift to a global knowledge economy It's a shift from inputs to outcomes And it underpins just about everything that I think Arthur and I looked at and what we're talking about here When we we're talking about inputs Our current higher ed system was really built for an industrial age society And in response to that last great upheaval that industrial revolution We saw a multitude of new models and organizations emerge. We're talking research universities land-grant Colleges technical schools two-year colleges the credit hour emerges during this time The thing is it's a system that's really rooted in seat time credits courses Semesters in short, it's a time-based accounting system and that serves us well for quite a while But that world is giving way to a new one It's giving way to one that emphasizes outcomes and a knowledge-based economy and in this new world We're seeing a great deal more agnosticism about the time or process by which outcomes are achieved We're headed towards a system of education that emphasizes learning outcomes and to use a bit of a dirty word in education competencies This industrial model of higher ed which focuses on time process and the like It's going to be eclipsed by one that's rooted in outcomes and learning and that shapes everything from how learning proceeds To how it's represented in the forms of the credentials that we offer to students and learners once they're finished with a learning experience Scott that's a terrific Answer and that also is a great outline of the last group of your book In which you try to outline how these institutions could change but let me ask you the The kind of historical judo question here you dive into the past in order to see where the future could go and you have all these great deductions based on the story of the invention of so much of what we now accept as you know Ancient history in higher ed when you talk about as you mentioned before the research university the community college the credit hour You know the elective system and all that Looking ahead a bit and then we've got some questions coming up from from the audience on this What are some of the great lessons we should take away in terms of how you successfully transform a college or university? Well, if I could offer you know perhaps one lesson for What I'd suggest leaders consider if I could leave one message and then I'll loop back around to I think One useful takeaway that we gained from looking backwards But let's look forwards first it would in reverse order And if I had one takeaway for those who are leading organizations and and considering their next steps it's to borrow the often butchered quote from Wayne Gretzky it's important to escape to where the puck is going not where it's been um You know the the future of higher education uh One thing that I find myself concerned about at times is kind of this Tension between what those of us in education know to be good for our learners and for participation in democratic society And where trends might be pulling learners who To use another dirty word or sometimes thought about as consumers And the tension there I think is that we are seeing the rise of all of these new trends and how people choose to engage with various forms of content The danger there is that that can take us away from some very critical parts of what has been wonderful about the Our traditional institutions You know one thing that archer and I mentioned in the text is that some of the things that we found We're not really to our liking in some ways when we can complete a disanalysis or martha and I we are both products of traditional higher education We learned in that setting. We've worked in that setting And there are there pieces of these trends that we have identified that Don't exactly mesh well with traditional institutions And there are others that I think traditional institutions can really learn from and I'll give you one example One example that is really important to me is the ways in which we credential learning Our authors over the past several years have talked a lot about this idea of unbundling right the idea that we've constructed These artificial bundles in higher education that are now just starting to Break down in some ways and that's why you're seeing the rise of digital batches other micro credentials but really at the heart of this is that There's a trend toward providing students with something representative of their learning That's far more useful to them as individuals and far more useful to consumers of credentials You know take the traditional college transcript for example, you know very often you'll see Radiations that don't make sense to anyone besides the school's registrar. You'll see course titles that are cut off You'll see final grades that don't communicate all that much around what a student knows or can do as a result of their learning Uh, and then when you think about the diploma, I mean, I'm going to quote Kevin Kerry here Who famously said a few years ago that the standard diploma has roughly the same amount of information that prisoners of war Are required to divulge under Geneva conventions When we look at What's that name rank serial number? Yeah, exactly Now in fairness these kinds of credentials, they weren't their artifacts of this passing industrial age They weren't designed to communicate the kind of information the kind of use that Arthur and I talk about in our text But the need is is really clear to us And this is something that applies not just to new providers But to all kinds of institutions the value to the student and having credentials that More accurately demonstrate and display what a student knows and can do what a learner can can take away and bring to another organization The need there is very clear And ultimately this gives more power to lifelong learners and be far more useful to consumers of credentials as well So when we talk about all of these changes, uh, you know, we're not talking necessarily about the idea that All institutions are going to be moving toward an any time any place model And that's what needs to happen right right this second But there are pieces of it that are relevant for all institutions And that's just one example that I think we we need to be cognizant of Now you mentioned what did we learn the learnings from looking backwards And the usefulness of that for when we're looking forwards One thing that we uncovered when we looked backwards is we found a template for how change occurred in the industrial age and If we map it on to what things are what we see going on now Seems to map rather well in some ways You know, we look at the industrial revolution and the changes to higher ed during that time You know, we started off by seeing demands for change Followed by denial and resistance After that we started to see experimentation and reform initiatives primarily with the goal of repairing the existing models It was only after that that we started to see new models emerge, especially at the periphery of mainstream organizations This is followed by diffusion and then scaling up and then a degree of standardization that now represents a new landscape of higher ed Now right now we're in the middle of that journey in our current upheaval. We're seeing experimentation With in traditional institutions, but also with new providers as well We don't have anything that has been standardized. There's nothing to standardize quite yet There's nothing to scale up quite yet, but we think about where the puck is going That's where the puck is going within the next Within the next decade or two is where I'd expect You're going to see more of this standardization and eventually scaling up for new models of higher ed That's a fantastic takeaway right there. Um, and that's one that uh, I think we should be we can focus on But before I pursue that, uh, we have questions from all kinds of people here and I want to Never on a chance. So to begin with Lynn Sibulski She asks Could you speak to the challenges and risks faculty and professors face in bringing higher ed problems solutions to the attention institutional leadership? How can students or alumni help? good question Definitely a fantastic question and one that's complicated I think by the fact that we've seen a decline as we all know and tenure over the years and it's it's a declined that you know one If we're being realistic you you don't expect to revert first anytime soon if at all That decline isn't something I celebrate and it makes it challenging I think for those of us in higher education who don't necessarily have the traditional protections To to raise concerns, you know, Arthur and I've spent a lot of time speaking with diverse audiences And very often our audiences include not only faculty and staff but also institutional leaders um I think the It's very important at institutions. Uh, where you're not having that Embrace of these ideas come from up top That there is a grassroots effort and it's important to find out To to speak with students and and to build support at that grassroots level and help those ideas funnel up the chain students staff faculty admin all working together to articulate these ideas and show how they Better serve the students and at the end of the day better serve the institution You know, I think if you speak to any student nowadays nowadays and I I say this because I've I've done it as an educator I've spoken to students There are things that they really value about for example the flexibility of online learning I work at a traditional institution. We we teach in person We teach in a very conventional way But when we return to campus we found that there was still an appetite for the ability to To work with some content asynchronously to connect in novel ways not just in the classroom If you talk to students you get that from them And and that feedback that input is really powerful ammunition for fueling or For fueling that argument over the mixed metaphor there, but I think you get the idea Well, first of all, thank you for the really really good answer And friends if you're new to the forum, this is an example of a text question So you can always always answer those And now I want to give you an example of a video question. Rick Bartlett from Tabor college wanted to join us So let me bring him up on stage. Hi rick Hello rick Hello Good to see you Thank you. I have my camera on but I don't see it. So sorry about that No, I can see it just fine rick. Oh great. We could Good. I can't see myself. That's okay. That's probably better. Hey Scott. Thank you for the book I got to read it before christmas and it just really rocked a lot of things that I was wondering about and thinking about and So my question is somewhat connected to the previous one I'm as an associate dean, you know, I'm at a certain level, but there's obviously people above me And I would imagine you're in a similar situation So one of the things that that you mentioned what should higher ed do was recognize that higher ed is Is in the education business not the campus degree or credit business So my question is how do you how do you lead upward? You know, how do you how do you translate that message upward? I I heard you saying some of the answers to that just a moment ago with getting more people on board But do you have maybe a little more specifically about how you how you Someone in in our situation Frame that question. Thanks Yeah, certainly and thanks for the question, uh rick. I know it's um certainly a Challenging situation to be in when you're trying to figure out how to get these ideas up kind of up a food chain in a way um, you know any degree to which we can Kind of ground these ideas in in data and what's actually happening on the ground I I found that that tends to be more convincing for, uh, especially senior level audiences, I'll give you one example around Kind of one of the things fueling these trends around For example, just in time education Now one of the key things driving the demand for just in time education over not just a traditional college, uh, college age population, but really the entire lifespan of a learner is The increase in automation Uh No automation is a huge driver that Arthur and I explored when we were looking at economic trends and You look at the data there and it's absolutely staggering As much as half of the time that we currently spend on job tasks could be automated in the next 20 years And this is especially true for jobs that are sometimes described as this being low skill But it's not just those it's jobs across the gamut. It's it's law. It's medicine. It's accounting It's all of these roles that are going to be impacted all of these things that our students want to do when they graduate You know the landscape is going to look very different for them Um, I was just speaking Arthur and I actually both were just speaking with a group in, uh, Florida We were speaking to the Florida state college system a couple of weeks ago Uh And in preparation for that I was looking at some data from the southern regional education board They do work on looking at automation and how it impacts, uh colleges and institutions and what they should be thinking about and one key piece for me was the fact that For the states within that region The southern regional education board had originally estimated that something like 30 of jobs might be, um Of the double check that figure something like 30 of jobs might be automated by 2030 Well, it turns out the pandemic accelerated a lot of this and now they've pushed up the, uh, time frame to 2025 It's 2022 right now. That's right around the corner. Um, my yeah my my kid won't even be in first grade by the time that comes around So we're talking about very quick turnarounds and time frames here And when we can find data points like that that show a very tangible impact to our communities not just generally Uh, again, the reason I find this to be such an interesting statistic is because it's by, uh, an educational group That's associated with a very specific geographic location for a very specific set of institutions And so for me the question, um, that I'd be looking for an answer to when I'm trying to figure out how to convince senior level audiences is Where can I find data like that data that's speaking specifically to the situation on the ground? Here specifically around these trends around horizon just in time learning or a greater appetite for, uh, for More nimble, uh, nimble programs that are organized around micro-predentials rather than lengthier degrees Uh, and that's where I think we can start to have some success and making ground and making headway on reform within institutions Well, thanks for the great answer Thank you for the great question Again, that's an example of video question and you can tell that both My guests myself are quite friendly. So please feel free to click the raised hand to join us on stage We have a few questions that are more about the change aspect And I wanted to share these because they are all kind of they they're of a piece um, our good friend, uh, tom hams in In texas asks if you see this as an evolutionary process or a revolutionary one Interesting. Oh, you know, I map that almost onto uh onto the ways in which Arthur and I thought about the process of change and One of the key distinctions we make and I think it's similar to the distinction you're making here Is the distinction between change by adaptation versus change by disruption uh I think When faced with pressure traditional institutions try their best to respond through adaptation They try and keep the same processes that have worked for decades and decades They try and reform those in order to meet new challenges and new needs So one of the key observations that we have uh that Arthur and I make in the text is that Higher education is a different beast from these other industries that we looked at when we were looking sideways Higher education tends to change through a process of Of repair rather than replacement. We try and look at what's broken We're not working anymore and we try and repair it so that it works again. Whereas in sectors that are more oriented towards a for profit model You see a model of replacement if something isn't working It goes bust and it's replaced by something that does now meet the needs of of whoever's looking for for that outcome Or for that need to be filled Uh, so the answer is both. I think that you will see some institutions that try to evolve what they're doing And try to adapt what they're doing in order to meet these needs with varying degrees of success Uh, and that's going to be especially common within traditional higher education institutions On the flip side, you're going to see more in the way of disruption and revolution from new entrants And when I mean new entrants, I don't strictly mean for profit entities Though I think they are far more common in this latter group But I do mean places like Coursera I mean places like new providers like google and microsoft that are getting into the micro credentialing game. I mean The sheer number of new entrants is absolutely staggering and their variety is as well I mean, we're we're talking about uh museums for example the museum of natural history Offering degrees exactly exactly. So it's I only make that point to emphasize that this is is I don't want to give the impression that nonprofits are going to experience Uh evolution and revolution will be a for-profit model. I don't think that that's a useful distinction Um, I think it's more so a matter of those who've been in traditional higher education those colleges and universities will try to evolve through revolution There are some that are Undertaking a revolutionary approach. I'm sure southern new hampshire university isn't New to anyone in this room. And I think that's a great example of someone An entity that that has embraced revolution and completely reinvented itself when it It kind of looked around and saw the writing on the wall and realized drastic measures needed to be taken But by and large, I would expect to see more revolutionary approaches completely new ways of thinking about learning and credentialing Coming from new entrants to the higher education space particularly in the lifelong learning space Oh, that's a that's a great answer and tom as always. Thank you for that. Uh, deep very deep question In the chat very quickly, uh, lisa durf and our john holland beckys Online learning Community learning youtube discord tiktok Along these lines, we have another question from pan mack Prof at Clemson university, uh, and and she asked this how can this change happen without just benefiting elites that so I mentioned earlier on that there are some aspects of, uh Our analysis that Arthur and I were concerned about Uh, and this is certainly one of them You know, uh, just to share a personal observation. Um You know, I mentioned that I'm an educator, uh, and I as an educator I have about a thousand students that, uh, take the courses that I manage A much smaller number who I actually teach directly each year But like any of you who are also educators, I'm sure I spend a lot of time thinking about How I teach what my students learn and how I'm empowering them to speak meaningfully about their skills and knowledge Once our time together is finished And when I think about the things the parts of our analysis that I'm excited about One thing that does seem very exciting to me, uh, is that The shift from inputs to outcomes will serve to benefit learners The better job that we can do to help learners speak meaningfully about the skills that they have gained The knowledge that they have that benefits learners across the spectrum I also feel too that technology can be a helpful force in some ways There are emerging technologies like adaptive learning virtual reality and augmented Reality digital badges things that we didn't have 10 15 years ago that have the potential to support effective learning environments And that's that's true for uh those who we might call a lead as well as as those who we might not put in that category But I'd be lying if I said I didn't see any cause for concern uh Just to take a recent example the pandemic has really exposed and exacerbated something that we already knew there's a massive digital divide both nationally and globally Uh, when you look at for example desktop computer access and broadband internet access in the united states Black and hispanic americans, uh, especially have lower rates of access I mean as of last year 80 percent uh approximately 80 percent of white americans have broadband access for black americans That's nine points lower for hispanic americans. It's 15 points lower That worries me it worries me in part because if we are looking at these emerging trends Where technology is playing a greater role in how people access and relate to education you know We risk creating a system in which we replicate the inequalities that already exist in higher education today And furthermore on top of that I do worry about uh the creation of Kind of a two-track system where you have elite learners who still have the option of going to privileged elite Residential campuses and all of the networking benefits that come with that I worry about the preservation of the status quo for that reason and then you'd have this other track of mainly online learning just in time access and all of those things that might be relegated only to those who can't afford This other track that I've just described so I don't know that I I take it as a foregone conclusion that that is the way things will go But I will say it is most assuredly something that i'm very concerned about when I look at the trends that we've identified And kind of the the pitfalls that we might fall into as education evolves in the coming years It's interesting in a couple of your historical cases I think it was uh brown and johns hopkin from the 19th century You gave examples where that class divide was crossed in the same institution But I don't want to dive into that myself. I wanted to share some of the thoughts that have come up more And there's more questions about uh about transformation Uh our friend will emerson at lansing community college asks to what extent do you see employer involvement as a driver of education outcomes and innovation? I think it's I think students care very much about what employers are looking for and that's why employer involvement and employer attitudes could play a major role here Uh, you know consider If we were to take one example, let's let's look at like accreditation for example, right? Uh, you know accreditation serves, uh, you know several purposes two of which I think are very applicable here being A gatekeeping access to federal funds and maintaining some semblance of quality Which is why you know over the several until probably up until several years ago It was very very very common if you're looking for a job description for something requiring a degree It's going to say that it requires a degree from an accredited institution But what happens when you have new providers coming in that are offering micro credentials and They have partnered with other employers to accept these micro credentials So take google for example where you have google offering certificates and Low-cost certificates and everything that you could imagine. Um, you know, you're talking about micro credentials in Uh, you know programming languages it support data analytics project management and more and google says We're going to treat these micro credentials as being equal to a college to a traditional college degree What happens when you have more and more and more employers adopting that attitude? I think what you're going to see is changes in student behavior And it's almost going to skip over colleges and universities is one way that that could play out Colleges and universities that aren't paying as close attention to that changing landscape of employer attitudes Mike one day wake up and look around and see, you know, where did all of our students go? And where their students may have gone is to lower cost shorter term nimble micro credentialing programs that offer gainful employment now I that said I think there is a lot of room For institutions and colleges to partner with employers when we're thinking about what are the outcomes that we're targeting for our students and our learners I think that that is especially true at the community college level One of the key challenges for institutions in the years to come is going to be figuring out What is our unique value at what sets us apart? Why should students come here instead of going to Google instead of going to Coursera instead of going to to this other boot camp or micro credentialing program? Community colleges in particular have a unique advantage and that they are connected to their local communities They're tied in in a way that larger employer larger non-traditional entities might not be and that to me suggests an opportunity It suggests an opportunity to connect with employers and find out hey listen Where are your needs? Where are your needs now and where do you anticipate them being in the next five to ten years? Because then we can start creating a roadmap for what kinds of skills and what kinds of learning outcomes We need to be thinking about and having that kind of relationship Will really be to the benefit of those institutions that are able to cultivate them I think will that speaks directly to your work at at Lansing. Um, thank you. Thank you both. That's that's a great example Um, we have one more question. This is a kind of transition question Which hits two different ideas at the same time. This is from the excellent Sally Muriamu Who's coming to us from Portland state and she says the institutions like hers are outsourcing this credential based learning Do you use does our speaker think the change is less grassroots and more external? Oh interesting. Uh, so they're outsourcing Credential based learning. Is this like an opm partnership? Uh, so I'm not sure Sally if you're able to comment further on that Sally, I'm going to put the open podium here So if you just want to hit that and join us or you could just type in the chat or as a question Um, and I'd be happy to relay that whichever one is is best for you Um, the one is open. Hey, here she comes. Hi Sally. Welcome. Hello. Thank you Um, we are outsourcing to a company that you know offers the credential especially around Like designing web pages Learning it's almost like a Coursera, but it's it's not and in fact, I was just at an education conference Where Coursera is now entering this market and we we contract with them So let's say you're in a department that's got low enrollment like anthropology And you say we're going to bring this program in as part of our anth 101 class or whatever or we're going to add this That's what I see happening and faculty Um Are not as concerned about this because it doesn't seem to affect their governance But I my concern is that this will start undermining what we teach I mean, I I'm for it, but I just think we haven't figured out the game plan Thanks for that selly. I appreciate the I appreciate the clarification and um, this does sound a little bit different from a traditional opm Partnership, so that's why I was looking for that context Honestly, I think that your worry there is well founded in the short term No, you probably don't see any there probably won't be many problems without sourcing some of this If you have a provider that is that is able to come in and offer some of that content In the long term though My worry is that eventually students start asking themselves. Well, listen if I'm going to this institution But I'm experiencing content and educational experiences from Coursera Why not just cut out the middle person and go straight to Coursera and the answer right now I think is because there's still a bit of uncertainty around The treatment and value of different kinds of credentials No, right now a lot of learners are still thinking about traditional credentials And though there is a growing sense of doubt around the value of a college degree I think by and large people are still seeing that there's more value to that than some micro credential But they've never heard of now. Here's the switch. Here's the pivot that I think will trigger Really a significant change. It's going to be going back to an earlier question It's going to be that employer involvement and employer attitudes around those credentials Let's say, you know, several years from now you see greater buy-in for these micro credentials They've been around for a while. People are hiring. They're seeing that they work out Now students are going to be asking, okay Why am I going to this school to get content from Coursera when I can go straight to the source and get that micro Credential and chances are it's probably lower cost to me as a student And so the answer to your question Sally at least from my perspective is that in the short term The faculty will probably not see a major disruption But down the line a few years from now it will be too late to course correct and and that's my that's That's one potential way it could go. That's that's my concern. I think that's the definite future Well, unless universities become cure, you know, they start curating these credentials. That's our new business model You know, like we have experts that like hey, you will put this together and tell you what kind of job you can get I mean, that's a little dystopian. But anyway, thank you very much. Thank you, Sally Thank you for following up Sally. I really appreciate it Friends we're coming close to the end of the hour. I'm afraid and we have a whole series of questions coming in And I want to make sure everyone gets a chance So I want to make sure that we get this one question here From Keith Wise at Aurora University Keith asks, how can we best serve the ethnic diversity of our incoming classes of students And can being an expert in those areas be important for institutions moving forward? Thanks for the question, Keith. Yes. So demographically speaking, that's one area we looked at And particularly in certain parts of the country, especially in the south and the west You're seeing, there are also places in the northeast where this is true as well Incredible growth in diversity And the challenge I think for For our institutions is that historically we've done a rather poor job of serving these populations You know, we've done a rather poor job in helping these populations achieve Achieve graduation rates. We've done an even poorer job And this is not unique to institutions and colleges. I think there's a larger responsibility here But the student debt crisis, for example, you know, 10 years post graduation You know, black americans and hispanic americans are far more likely to still Oh very heavy balances on their loans than uh, the white americans And so we really need to be cognizant of of the ways in which we are Are serving these populations. I I don't have an easy answer for how you do that I can say with absolute certainty that it is an existential need for institutions to be critically aware of it Ask for your second question Would it be to uh our benefit to be an expert in that area? And the answer for me is yes One thing that I think we can expect to see is that the instructor role in particular is going to change in the years to come Uh The role of the instructor has typically been Sir, we sure we've all heard the phrase sage on the stage versus guide on the side Instructors have been subject matter experts. Um, they have been the people that bring their expertise and content to the to the classroom Going forward what I would expect is that we're going to see models where this role is Sort of unbundled where you have various experts educators subject matter experts Learning design experts collaborating more so than ever before on the design of learning experiences And another key input there is going to be how best to serve diverse populations Now there's another way that this could go and I expect we'll see this in other models Is that you'll see a new kind of educator Those who can achieve mastery not only of their subject matter But also the science of teaching and that as well as educational technology And that includes considerations for how we serve diverse learners now in my view these experts Are probably going to come primarily from the ranks of current 10-year faculty part-time and adjunct faculty and they're going to be the new triple threats to borrow Sports and theater terms the new triple threats of our industry is these instructors these educators who Understand how to teach students and teach diverse populations Understand their subject matter and also have a proficiency in educational technology so that they can identify the best tool for the job Well, that's a powerful answer to a really really great question. Thank you for for both of those and we have Now a question from a guest and a former guest the wonderful Steven airman who was a great consultant thinker and author That's putting steven up on stage greetings, maland Hi, steven. Hi scott. Um, I just wanted to make a comment the um I hear I've been I've been in and around attempts to Make college is better for a little over 50 years at this point And most of the issues scot that you've talked about were being talked about 50 years ago um, including competencies um Making college is more accountable For what it was that students learn On the one hand, I've seen a I think significant progress among Still comparatively small number of institutions that are organizing education So that the student has better information to To know and to present to others about what they've achieved But that hasn't gone hand in hand with feeding that into the marketplace Even college for america at snhu is not telling anybody about what level of skills Their graduates have or to what degree there was value added from that program that They see I would imagine more disadvantages To make that but that tends to rule that out as a market force, which is probably why Since it can't be a market force institutions have been moving very rapidly the other piece Of reaction is between the holistic and the sort of differentiated or unbundled way of looking at learning And I find listening to folks including you today That the unbundled um model of higher education is more about jobs um And often breaking those competencies down in a fairly fine grain way And ignoring outcomes that are not competencies Does it make people more curious? Does it make them more ethical? these you know Being able to be ethical as a competence, but Acting in an ethical way is something else On the holistic side I think what They tend to look at a more or less equal balance between Education for work education for individual transformation Oh, I can be a person I never dreamt I could be not just I can be in a job But I'm I'm realizing I'm a different kind of person than I thought I was And then citizenship It's a really different view in other words about what higher education is for And if there's a split between some institutions that are looking at these Holistic broader outcomes and trying to equip students to at least demonstrate what they've learned in that area Where if the students going into the buying one credential one bit of content slash capability at a time They're going to be short changed almost certainly on the other two goals And what do you know a lot of the people who are going to go into that? I need the competence and then need to get a job quick our poorer students and our minority students So anyway and end of observation. I think it's a really interesting set of subjects you've raised Yeah, and that's an outstanding observation and I want to respond just in two ways first Part of the frustrating part of this work is seeing how many great ideas Have been bouncing around for decades and decades without seeing a lot of movement on them Uh, they give you free community college, uh, you know as an example We've heard a lot about free community college Recently a lot that can make you think it's a new idea Now sure you're probably familiar with this But there was a report that came out from the national commission on technology automation and economic progress A group that was tasked with exploring the impact of automation on the u.s economy And what it would mean for institutions of education Well, one of the top recommendations from this report was that we needed a nationwide system of free public education Through two years after high school with community colleges being key to that effort Now here's the thing that report came out in 1965 commissioned by president johnson and here we are, you know Decades decades later still grasping with this idea of free community college And how do we deal with the rise of automation? So I'm with you completely on the on the fact that many of these ideas Uh, really have been in the hopper for a while and have not always seen a lot of traction Now to your other observation, uh, I agree with you And it's one of the things that I am concerned about particularly from an equity perspective We've talked we've typically talked about higher education for you know, two primary purposes Uh a purpose for what I'll call meaningful participation in democratic society And then having the the other purpose of meaningful participation in the labor market There are some institutions that do one some institutions that do the other and but I also think we we don't always talk about The places where there's an overlap you know part of what Arthur and I looked at was uh all of these inventories of what what are commonly called 21st century skills And there's no shortage of inventories of of these and they all tend to be very similar They tend to emphasize communication cultural intercultural competency Uh critical thinking and creative reasoning and and and the like These are really general education requirements, but here's the thing I would identify those as being key to both meaningful participation in democratic society As well as meaningful participation in the labor market Absolutely You know, we're in this point where we're experimenting. We're seeing so many different models Emerge and I don't know that any one has gotten it right so far I'd expect that there will be providers that focus on one end rather than the other Uh and to your point one of the equity related dangers is that Students from the lower socioeconomic part of the spectrum are going to find themselves very attracted to The skills based job based learning purely for existential reasons. You need to get food on the table You need to pay your pills. Um, whereas those who are more fortunate and elite have the ability to have these transformational experiences That's a significant worry of mine. Um, and I wish I had a more Satisfying answer as to how we could avoid the sort of dystopian future that Recreates and exacerbates Some of the equity related challenges that we see in higher education today Yeah, thanks Thank you. Thank you. Um, always great to have steven on the program. Uh We have scott. Can I give you one technical question? Certainly we're going to run out of time. I want this is actually two questions that are basically the same question So let me put these on the screen one after the other. This is from John Hollenbeck Who asks who rates a learner's output? So who's going to be the judge of their knowledge or performance? So hold that and the next to that is this question next to from dory, uh, d eab and who asks What will the currency be if not credits? What are you know, it's of learning? So You see how these two questions are kind of the same question just different parts of it Yeah, and really what we're talking about here in both cases is how do you actually measure competencies? You know, we talk about competency based learning. What what measurement does that take? What is what is a unit of a competency? and This is one of those areas where that process of change that I mentioned earlier We're probably a little bit earlier in the process of change when it comes to to that as opposed to anything else We are are seeing right now Experiments and how to translate competencies into credits. That's really, uh, there's really a Kind of a bilingual environment that some institutions are working in They may claim to have competency based education But very often and perhaps not in all cases, but in many cases For reasons of tracking financial aid Satisfying accreditation purposes these competencies are being translated into credits This is probably the single greatest task facing institutions In terms of how we revamp our processes everything we do is built around credits Everything from tracking financial aid to tracking student progress, which both of the questions get at is built around credits Uh, this is another area in which I wish I had a more satisfying answer other than to say The task of experimentation and finding new ways of measuring student progress around how they achieve competencies And and then building new systems around that Is going to be the single greatest task for those who are working in in that area today um It's possible that we might see new forms of quality control, uh, you know, accredited I mentioned accreditation earlier and how One of the risks with accreditation is that it may lose some relevance if students start to bypass a need for financial aid And if employers start to not care about accredited degrees as much So we might see a new purpose for accreditors. We might see, uh, suggestions around, uh, new quality insurance Assurance entities similar to what was proposed, uh, when president obama and the education department under him Was doing some work with uh poop camp partnerships So this is another area that is right for experimentation and we are nowhere close to having anything standardized to scale up at this point We're still in the early experimental phase. I've got it Um, well that took us right to the wire. Uh, thank you scott for that, uh, perfectly timed answer Rich one too in response to those two very very good questions And thank you for being a great guest today. Um, I really appreciate this dive into your excellent book Again friends, if you have a chance to grab it great upheaval from john's hoppins is available Um, I strongly recommend it. I'm looking forward to teaching it in one of my classes this fall Um, looking ahead scott, uh, how can we keep up with your work on this? Should we follow you on twitter? Do you have a newsletter? Are you a tiktoker? What's the best way to keep up with you? So, uh, arthur and I recently, uh, have been working on a website for the book, uh Going by the domain the great upheaval.com. I'll go ahead and throw the link in chat And we're going to be working on Expanding the content in that page in in the coming weeks Again, like some of the resources that I mentioned around having things around discussion guides or class resources So we'll continue to keep that location updated if you want to get in touch with me or arthur There's also a location on the page to do so there Excellent. Excellent. I'm glad to see the website, which is very elegant And I'm glad still to hear that you're going to be adding to it Again scott. Thank you very much. I envy your student The faculty and stuff that you get to work with the benefit from your knowledge your vision and your energy. Thank you Thank you, brian. Thank you everyone for joining. I really appreciate you taking the time this afternoon People have great questions. It's a great community speaking of rich. Don't leave yet friends Let me just let you know where things are headed over the next few weeks If you'd like to keep talking about these issues, uh, how do we have a dual language of credentialing? For example Is this revolutionary or evolutionary change? Just hit the twitter head to twitter and use the hashtag f t t e You can tweet at me brian alexander or at shindig events You can hit to my blog brian alexander.org if you'd like to hear more If you'd like to go back into the past and look at our previous sessions Including what we hosted some of the figures that we've been talked about today Just go to tinywell.com slash f t f archive and you can find them all there freely available Uh, if you'd like to look ahead the next few weeks We have subjects ranging from the climate crisis to libraries and careers web 3 paying for college public higher education Just go to form that future of education dot us And if you'd like to keep talking about this keep going back to our sessions It's great to have all of you here today. We really appreciate your thoughts your comments and your questions Looking ahead. I hope everybody works hard. Stay safe. Take care everybody and we'll see you online Bye. Bye