Changing Higher Ed

Епизоде

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  How Gies Gives Every Junior a Live Client Project 15.09.2026 35мин

  Most institutions measure access at admission and affordability, then ration the experiences that actually change student outcomes to whoever finds them. The experiential learning that employers say they want gets delivered to honors cohorts and groups of thirty while everyone else gets the catalog. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. W. Brooke Elliott, Dean of the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. The conversation covers how Gies scaled experiential learning from a selective offering into a curricular requirement across every program, and what it cost on the staffing, funding, and governance side to make it hold. Elliott is starting her third year as dean in her twenty-fourth year at Gies, where the land-grant mission is expressed through a purpose statement committing the college to expanding access to business education. Her operational focus is on what accessibility means after enrollment: whether the live client projects, consulting engagements, and immersions inside a degree are reachable by a large share of learners rather than a selected few. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, boards, provosts, and deans evaluating whether to scale experiential learning beyond pilot programs and selective cohorts. Topics Covered Redefining accessibility to include the experiences inside the degree, not just admission and price How Gies sources 300 to 400 live client projects a year to place every junior on a team Why undergraduate employer projects are free, and how project sourcing functions as the recruiting pipeline The staffing model: a dedicated experiential learning office paired with internal learning designers Embedding experiential capstones inside online graduate programs serving roughly 7,000 students Investing in faculty AI capability for 18 months before changing the curriculum The iMBA governance precedent that made current innovation move quickly Real-World Examples Discussed Business 301, Business in Action, a junior-year course placing every student on a live client project, and Business 401, Crafting Your Purpose, sending seniors into their local and home communities Illinois Business Consulting, in its thirtieth year, and the Disruption Lab, which pairs Gies and Grainger College of Engineering students on technology problems sourced from inside the college International immersions redesigned into domestic and then virtual formats, including a virtual immersion with a partner institution in Japan Replacing programming-language modules in the undergraduate core with modules on using AI to program, and launching the MSBAi with a first cohort of 30 Students correcting their assumptions about John Deere and Caterpillar by working the companies' actual problems Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leadership Mission and purpose alignment only matters when it functions as a decision rule for resource allocation and program design. Learner-centric requires faculty first, because faculty deliver the experience. Invest in capability before expecting delivery. Leading authentically is what mobilizes people past what an org chart can compel, and disruption is where access expands if someone goes after it. Read the transcript:  Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/scale-experiential-learning-to-every-student/ #ExperientialLearning #HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast
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  Workforce Readiness: Why Higher Ed Struggles to Use Employer Support 08.09.2026 40мин

  Workforce readiness is usually framed as a funding and program-design problem. In some states and at some institutions, the funding and the employer willingness already exist, and what is missing is a structure on the institution's side that can take the offer and act on it. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Brad Griffith, president of Buckeye Innovation, a central Ohio technology firm building custom software for nonprofits, local governments, and growing organizations. The conversation covers where the public-private partnership between employers and institutions breaks down, and what leaders can change on their own side of it. Griffith serves on a curriculum advisory committee at Central Ohio Technical College, hires apprentices through Columbus State Community College's IT Flexible Apprenticeship program, and ran six state-reimbursed interns this past summer. He guest lectures in a justice tech program at Ohio State and has helped commercialize university-developed technology, including a job-matching tool that came out of the OSU Wexner Medical Center. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, boards, provosts, deans, and career services leaders evaluating whether their institution can absorb employer, donor, and state investment in experiential learning at the speed those partners operate. Topics Covered State wage reimbursement programs for employers who host interns, and how the Ohio application and reimbursement process works in practice Donor-funded and institution-funded internship placements at outside employers Internal curriculum approval sequencing versus accreditor review as the source of curricular delay Writing course descriptions broadly enough that faculty can change technologies without reopening formal approval How curriculum advisory committees give two-year and technical colleges a structured way to bring in employer input Career fair pricing and participation structures that can screen out smaller local employers The start-to-finish work cycle, from conceptualizing a problem through launch and post-launch support Why commercializing university research calls for a different capability than developing it Real-World Examples Discussed VocFit, a job-matching tool for individuals with developmental disabilities developed at the OSU Wexner Medical Center, moved from mailed paper surveys and manual spreadsheet matching to deployed software now demonstrated in Italy and partnered with Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Colorado State University A University of Richmond student whose internship at an Ohio company was funded by his own institution An Ohio State justice tech program pairing engineering with the Moritz College of Law, where four student project teams on four technology stacks raised a real long-term support constraint Central Ohio Technical College's community advisory committee, which reviews courses and syllabi and names the skills employers see missing in graduates Apprenticeships through Columbus State Community College serving working adults changing careers, some with employer-funded certificates and stipends Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leadership Invite businesses in and build structures where outside perspectives are represented, including advisory boards and standing invitations for employers to participate. Make sure students graduate with real project work they can show, on a publicly visible portfolio rather than a transcript reference to coursework. Embrace AI while teaching its limits alongside its capabilities, so graduates can judge where it belongs, where it does not, and how to use it as a thought partner. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/employer-engagement-in-higher-education/ #WorkforceReadiness #HigherEducation #PublicPrivatePartnership #ChangingHigherEdPodcast
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  Diversifying Revenue Without Diluting Mission: Inside Rollins College's Innovation Triangle 01.09.2026 32мин

  Private colleges under enrollment pressure get told to diversify revenue. The venture that follows usually either fails to earn or drags the institution away from the academic identity families were paying for. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Brooke Barnett, President of Rollins College. The conversation covers how a tuition-dependent private structures a diversified budget model without compromising the curriculum that gives its degree value. Barnett walks through the Innovation Triangle, a three-part portfolio Rollins spent more than a decade and $200 million building. The parts run on deliberately different economics: a boutique inn whose net proceeds fund student scholarships, an art museum relocating into the Winter Park community that charges no admission and is designed to draw no institutional funds, and the Rick Goings Institute, a cross-sector executive education venture built around AI readiness informed by the liberal arts. She separates declining willingness to pay among full-pay families from rising ability-to-pay pressure driven by demographic shift, and explains why the instruments that address them are not interchangeable. She also details how Rollins applies its own pedagogical method to institutional AI decisions, refusing technophilia and technophobia as the same kind of failure. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, boards, provosts, and enrollment executives evaluating whether to launch non-tuition revenue ventures and how to structure them so they reinforce rather than dilute institutional identity. Topics Covered Separating willingness to pay from ability to pay, and why each requires a different instrument The Innovation Triangle and why only two of its three assets are expected to generate revenue How the Alfond Inn functions as a hotel, a rotating contemporary art collection, and a scholarship engine at once Positioning executive education as an extension of the curriculum rather than an unrelated business line Why 80 years of adult learning and graduate business capacity cannot be replicated inside a single budget cycle The Gateway and the pragmatic liberal arts tradition traced to John Dewey's 1931 conference at Rollins Applying liberal arts inquiry to institutional AI decisions, and protecting the cognitive struggle that produces learning Real-World Examples Discussed The Alfond Inn, a boutique hotel and living art museum with quarterly collection rotations, which had directed $10.8 million to the Alfond Scholars program as of early 2026 The Rollins Museum of Art, relocating off campus with donor and tourist tax support, free to the public and explicitly not a revenue generator The Rick Goings Institute, launching cross-sector executive programming this fall on a $10 million seed commitment Accelerated master's pathways including the Rollins MBA, serving a market seeking two degrees in a compressed timeline Incoming undergraduates serving with roughly 40 central Florida organizations before attending their first class A College of Liberal Arts AI certificate and a graduate business faculty summer spent rebuilding curriculum around AI Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leadership Concentrate capacity, attention, and financial resources on the students being served and the colleagues serving them. Identify the institutional assets that are genuinely distinctive, then protect and cultivate them rather than diluting them in pursuit of enrollment. Make the financial math work to support the aspirations. Doing more with less does not work; doing less with less requires the discipline to choose. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/tuition-dependent-college-non-tuition-revenue-academic-mission/ #HigherEducation  #HigherEdLeadership #ChangingHigherEdPodcast
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  Adult Learners: Redesign, Don't Just Recruit 25.08.2026 36мин

  Institutions recruiting adult learners are inserting them into schedules, deadline policies, and course structures designed for 19-year-olds, then treating the resulting attrition as a student problem. The barriers doing the damage are recent design decisions, not fixed features of higher education, and several of them cost almost nothing to remove. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Evan Kropp, executive director of distance education at the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications. The conversation covers what has to change structurally when adult learners stop being an enrollment contingency and become a population the institution designs for. Kropp oversees UF CJC Online and its Master of Arts in Mass Communication, a 36-credit online degree enrolling roughly 650 students. His operational focus areas include course design standardization, cost transparency, transfer and prior learning credit, and the translation of academic learning outcomes into professional language students can use. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, boards, provosts, and enrollment executives evaluating whether to build degree completion and adult learner pathways at their institutions. Topics Covered Why the "I'm too old for a classroom" objection comes from 25-year-olds as often as from 65-year-olds, and what that means for online positioning How course learning outcomes can be reissued to students as resume language at the end of every course What lifelong learning costs an institution that treats it as an operating commitment rather than a slogan Why transfer and prior learning credit decisions are traditionally financial decisions, and what a competitive response time looks like The recurring time cost created when faculty design online courses independently Why deadline policies written to teach 19-year-olds accountability misfire on working adults How to build an AI curriculum by asking employers where they are deliberately not using AI Real-World Examples Discussed UF CJC Online converts course learning outcomes into resume bullet points, producing 100 to 120 curated items across the 12-course Master of Arts in Mass Communication sequence Master Access, which lets graduates of that degree audit unlimited courses from an 80-course catalog for $500 per year Standardized navigation across every online course in the program, eliminating the semester-start relearning cost created by 40 faculty designing independently Franklin University's transfer database of roughly 1,800 institutions, returning a transfer decision in five minutes instead of a week A rebuilt program financial page showing cost per class and cost by credit load for students paying as they go Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leadership Adult learners cannot serve as an enrollment patch for demographic decline. An institution that wants them has to redesign schedules, advising, onboarding, and technology support rather than recruiting into the existing structure. The value proposition has to be explicit at the course level, connecting the program to the credential, the specific skills, and the student's professional aspirations, rather than leaving that chain implied across a degree. Insufficient support is a primary reason adults quit the first time. Advising, financial aid, career services, technology support, and faculty training all need to be reconsidered for this population rather than inherited from the traditional model. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/redesign-an-institution-for-adult-learners/ #HigherEducation #AdultLearners #DegreeCompletion
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  Reputation, Revenue, and the Cost of Silence in Higher Ed Communication 18.08.2026 38мин

  Most institutions in a crisis don't believe they're in one. The word calls up a scandal with a camera crew outside, and nothing on this week's agenda looks like that, so the answer is often no. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Evan Nierman, founder and CEO of Red Banyan, a strategic communications firm built around high-stakes rapid response. The conversation covers why a crisis is any circumstance with the potential to negatively impact reputation and/or revenue, and what that definition changes for colleges and universities. Nierman explains why the old instinct to stay quiet and avoid giving oxygen to a fire now cedes the battleground to whoever is willing to characterize your institution, how most colleges can pinpoint their likeliest crises well before one arrives, and why the day-to-day spokesperson should usually be a trained communications professional rather than the president. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, boards, provosts, and communications leaders deciding whether to respond publicly, and when. Topics Covered The broader definition of a crisis and why institutions may not recognize one before it escalates How hyper-connectedness, self-selected news, and hyper-partisanship changed the response calculus When to respond publicly instead of leaving well enough alone Why the bulk of crisis work happens before the crisis Who belongs on the core crisis response team, and when to bring in outside expertise Why the day-to-day spokesperson should usually be a trained communications professional Why Nierman says PR is dead, and what powering reputation means in its place Guilt by association, due process, and how colleges can center their institutional values Why institutions should teach students and faculty to use AI effectively instead of treating it primarily as a cheating problem Examples and Emerging Risks Discussed College presidents dragged before Congress over antisemitism on campus A George Washington University commencement speech, and the dean's response to it Colleges taking fire because donors' names surfaced in the Epstein files Deepfake cases where recordings exist of conduct that never happened Public opposition to AI data center construction Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leadership Reputation is the institution's single most valuable asset; protect it, preserve it, and invest in powering it The time to deal with a crisis is before you have one, with a detailed plan, media-trained people, and set procedures When it comes, be strategic and be speedy, even though that runs against the pace academia normally moves Read the full episode summary and transcript: https://changinghighered.com/higher-ed-crisis-communications/ #CrisisCommunications #HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast
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  Why Is Enrollment Falling Short When Applications Are Up? 11.08.2026 32мин

  Applications keep climbing while the class comes up short. The gap sits in the phase most institutions treat as the finish line: what happens after the acceptance letter goes out. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Mike McGetrick, Vice President of Spark451, which he co-founded. Spark451 is a Jenzabar company. The conversation covers why enrollment falls short when admissions and marketing are both performing. Drawing on twenty-five years in university marketing, branding, and enrollment marketing, McGetrick explains what Spark451's focus groups revealed about when families actually begin their due diligence, how summer melt stopped being passive attrition, and why a communication architecture addressed to the seventeen-year-old may be reaching nobody at all. This conversation is part two of two and is especially relevant for presidents, boards, provosts, and enrollment executives evaluating whether their shortfall is an execution problem or a misallocation problem. Topics Covered Why the yield phase, not the top of the funnel, determines the class The mechanism now driving melt rates up across institutions How parents have moved from influencers to operators of the enrollment process Why marketing fifty-five graduate programs is a different job than marketing one university The four Ds behind a branding engagement: discover, define, design, develop Where agentic AI belongs in admissions and why retention may be the bigger opportunity Real-World Examples Discussed A parent whose student opened nothing until the admission letter arrived Waitlist offers in June pulling students who deposited elsewhere in May NYU issuing a common brand while expecting each school to hold its own voice Admissions calls arriving after seven in the evening with no one to take them Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leadership Enrollment is institutional strategy, not a departmental assignment; portfolio, pricing, experience, retention, and reputation all shape demand Defining your value is the easy half; building and maintaining the evidence that proves it is the work Students experience one institution even when it operates as twenty departments, so the promise has to run as a single operating system Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/enrollment-falling-short-admissions-and-marketing/ #EnrollmentManagement #HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast
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  The Purpose of Liberal Arts Education in the Age of AI 28.07.2026 38мин

  The same students who say college costs too much are overwhelmingly saying it was worth it, and that contradiction is the key to the entire public confidence debate. In Gallup-Lumina polling cited in this episode, 93 percent of bachelor's students called their degree a worthwhile investment. The doubt is about price, not the education, and generative AI has raised the stakes for confusing the two. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Christa Acampora, philosopher and Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia, where she is leading the integration of AI into the curriculum, about the purpose of liberal arts education in the age of AI. Acampora argues that the purpose of higher education is human formation, making people capable of authoring their own lives and helping to govern a free society, with preparation for good work as part of that purpose rather than a substitute for it. She and McNaughton separate the public's doubts about cost from the question of value and discuss how UVA is making student formation visible through its first-year learning experience, the Commonplace Book, and an AI Literacy and Action Lab. Topics Covered Why the public's doubts about a degree center on price and debt, a different question from whether the education was worth doing What AI's capacity to produce competent outputs reveals about what higher education has rewarded World Economic Forum survey findings discussed in the episode on redesigning work and finding people with judgment who can adapt Whether institutions that teach students how to think are helping students recognize that learning in themselves UVA's first-year course sequence built around big human questions, the Commonplace Book, and the AI Literacy and Action Lab How students describe their own use of AI and their concerns about evaluating its outputs Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leaders Reframe the case for higher education around formation, for the individual and for society, rather than transferable skills that machines can now perform. Keep cost and value separate: address cost and price transparency directly, and make the value case with confidence, not apology. Make formation visible early and often through pedagogy and instruments that let students see their own growth. This episode offers perspective for presidents, provosts, and board members on articulating and demonstrating the value of a liberal education as AI capabilities continue to change. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/purpose-of-liberal-arts-education-in-the-age-of-ai/ #HigherEducation #LiberalArts #ChangingHigherEdPodcast
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  Building Fairleigh Dickinson's Lifelong Learning Ecosystem Across Five Generations 21.07.2026 40мин

  Program discontinuation is usually the fight presidents avoid. Fairleigh Dickinson University put a significant slate of program discontinuations and consolidations to a faculty referendum, and roughly 88 percent of the faculty endorsed it. The vote reflects a larger redefinition underway at FDU: a shift from the four-year degree to a university built around lifelong learning. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Michael Avaltroni, President of Fairleigh Dickinson University and the first FDU graduate to hold the office, about the four-P framework guiding that redefinition: programs, people, partnerships, and place. Avaltroni explains how FDU is specializing in health, health-adjacent, and professionally focused programs rather than trying to be everything to everyone; designing for five generations of learners on one campus; delivering degrees inside corporations such as Merck, Novartis, Fiserv, and Barclays; and reimagining its campuses as intergenerational "impact cities" that place retirement living alongside student housing. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, provosts, and board members weighing program portfolio decisions, partnership strategies, and how to pursue radical change without losing faculty and community trust. Topics Covered Why the fundamental model higher education was built for is gone, and the optimistic "but" that follows The four Ps of the university of the future: programs, people, partnerships, and place Winning faculty endorsement of program cuts through a data-driven shared governance process Serving five generations of learners concurrently, from pre-college pathways to retirement Corporate classrooms, advisory councils, executives in residence, and a learn-while-you-earn platform with health systems Humanics: preparing a healthcare workforce that is technologically literate, data literate, and human literate Real-World Examples Discussed A faculty referendum endorsing a significant slate of program discontinuations by roughly 88 percent On-site MBA and leadership programs where practitioners, including a VP of HR, team-teach with FDU faculty Plans to add university-based retirement living alongside student housing on FDU's two New Jersey campuses Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leadership Know who you are. Be the institution you are called to be, serving the students you are called to serve, not a copy of anywhere else. Rethink what higher education can be. The time-driven, hours-logged degree has run its course; the strategic question is how to deliver true lifelong learning, at its fullest a subscription-based model for life. Be bold. Institutions that nibble around the edges risk obsolescence; take a big swing and adjust course, and bring everybody along. This episode offers a working view of what redefining a university around lifelong learning actually requires: a clear identity, a disciplined portfolio, partners who carry what the institution should not, and governance strong enough to carry hard decisions. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/fairleigh-dickinson-lifelong-learning-ecosystem/ #HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast #LifelongLearning
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  Pairing Liberal Arts with Tech Readiness: Five Institutional Decisions from Manhattan University 14.07.2026 33мин

  At Manhattan University, the case for the liberal arts is being made with outcomes, not nostalgia. Its graduates rank in the top 2% nationally for mid-career salaries, and The Wall Street Journal ranked the university 73rd in the country for graduate salaries, social mobility, and cost-effectiveness. The more useful story for institutional leaders sits underneath those numbers: a set of deliberate decisions about program design, technology preparation, faculty adoption, hiring, and alumni engagement. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Fred Bonato, President of Manhattan University, about how the institution pairs a liberal arts core with universal technology preparation, on the premise that transferable skills hold even greater value when combined with technical fluency. Bonato explains how Manhattan houses its interdisciplinary programs in AI, cybersecurity, and data science outside any single college under the new ARCH Innovation Exchange; requires every first-year student to earn an IBM SkillsBuild digital badge in AI; funds faculty adoption through an institutional ChatGPT license, workshops, and peer champions rather than mandates; screens faculty and staff hires for comfort with AI as a tool; and treats the university's alumni network as employment infrastructure, including the James Patterson-funded leadership development honors program. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, provosts, and board members weighing humanities cuts, planning AI integration, or looking for adoption strategies that work within shared governance rather than around it. Topics Covered •       Why Bonato defines the liberal arts by their transferable skills: problem-solving, creative thinking, and persuasive writing and speaking •       Housing interdisciplinary programs in AI, cybersecurity, and data science outside any single college to reduce the likelihood of ownership disputes •       The ARCH Innovation Exchange (analytics, research, creativity, humanity) and its speaker series open to the surrounding community •       The required IBM SkillsBuild AI course and digital badge for first-year students •       Driving faculty adoption through demonstrated value, resources, and peer champions instead of presidential mandates •       How hiring questions have shifted from comfort with online teaching to comfort with AI, for faculty and staff alike •       Experiential learning, intern-to-hire pipelines, and the alumni network's role in supplying opportunities Real-World Examples Discussed •       ARCH's inaugural speaker, a cardiologist and Manhattan engineering alumnus who leads AI at his hospital, framing AI as decision support with a human in the loop •       An institutional ChatGPT license and training workshops so faculty and staff can adopt AI at no personal cost •       The James Patterson Honors Program, a leadership development program seeded by the best-selling alumnus, which launched with more than 160 students •       Board chair and American Express CEO Steve Squeri speaking directly with students about building a career Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leaders 1.     Keep the liberal arts in every program, including technical ones; graduates without them are less prepared and less well-rounded for the working world 2.     Build the capacity to pivot; the world is changing quickly, and "this is how we've always done it" will no longer hold 3.     Presidents need a deliberate way to disengage and recharge, even if only through adequate sleep; the job can consume its holder This episode offers a practical look at how one institution operationalizes the pairing of liberal arts and workforce readiness through governance, partnerships, hiring, and culture, without waiting for the technology or the sector to stabilize. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/manhattan-university-liberal-arts-workforce-readiness/   #LiberalArts #WorkforceReadiness #HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast
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  Student Retention: Using AI to Spot Disengagement Before Dropout 07.07.2026 33мин

  Most retention systems flag struggling students through grades and attendance. By the time those indicators fire, many students are already halfway out the door. Elvee's survey of 1,050 U.S. college students shows why: 86% start college highly motivated, 42% come close to dropping out at some point, and only 17% of those who struggle ever request help. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Raz Dar, CEO of Elvee, whose work with U.S. colleges centers on reading behavioral data for early signals of student disengagement. Drawing on his background in commercial technology, Dar explains how patterns in study time, login frequency, and forum participation reveal disengagement before exam period and before failure reaches the gradebook. He and McNaughton examine why motivated students still leave, why institutions that wait for students to ask for help miss most of the students who need it, and why intervention without follow-up monitoring routinely fails. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, provosts, student success executives, enrollment executives, and board members looking to move retention from reactive support to proactive, early intervention. Topics Covered Why grades and attendance are lagging indicators that flag students too late What disengagement looks like in behavioral data, and why a single dip can be benign The help-seeking gap: 17% ask for help, 52% try to solve it alone first, 30% never reach out The top dropout drivers: balancing work and school (72%) and mental health or stress (71%) How the most successful institutions build a personalized bond from day one Scaling a dozen advisors across thousands of students through prioritization and automation Real-World Examples Discussed A freshman who skipped two exams under acute stress and recovered because the institution initiated contact Institutions that call students at term start to confirm they have books, Wi-Fi, and a computer Cambridge's bridge week for first-generation students and Yale's required freshman life-skills course The corporate benchmark: turnover above 10% triggers alarm in business, while higher ed absorbs far worse Three Key Takeaways for Leadership Build trust with students before they struggle; outreach in crisis only lands if a relationship already exists. Move from reactive to proactive; only 17% of struggling students will ask for help, so use behavioral signals to know when to reach out and monitor afterward to confirm the intervention worked. Make retention a strategic, measurable KPI from the top, and resource it with a real team. This episode offers a practical look at what becomes possible when institutions stop waiting for students to raise their hands and start reading the signals students are already sending. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/using-ai-behavioral-signals-student-retention/ #StudentSuccess #StudentRetention #HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast #AIforStudentRetention
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  Higher Ed's Trust Problem Isn't a PR Problem: AAC&U's Trust Agenda 30.06.2026 46мин

  Half of college presidents worried about public trust are answering with a public relations campaign. According to the AAC&U report at the center of this episode, that is a reasonable instinct but the wrong one. Public confidence in colleges and universities has slid for more than a decade, and messaging alone will not turn it around. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Jeremy Young, lead author of The Trust Agenda: A Framework for Advancing Public Trust in Higher Education and co-director of AAC&U's Advancing Public Trust in Higher Education initiative, about why trust has eroded and what campus leaders can actually do about it. Their conversation moves past naming the crisis, which presidents and boards already feel, into the specifics: why the most prestigious institutions are the least trusted while community colleges and regional publics are the most, why distrust took root long before today's politics, and how the report's five recommendations translate into work a campus can start now. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, provosts, board members, and cabinet leaders weighing how to respond to declining confidence without defaulting to a PR campaign. Topics Covered Why public trust has fallen unevenly, and what the institution-type gap means for strategy The deeper roots of distrust, including the sense of distance between campuses and their communities Community engagement as the core of trust, and why it cannot live in a single office Inclusive excellence as a student success strategy, including the position of conservative students Defending academic freedom and university autonomy against government overreach Telling a clearer story that connects to shared values, and why PR alone falls short Accelerating internal innovation, from shared governance to AI literacy Three Key Takeaways for Leadership Connection is the thread through every recommendation: within a campus, across campuses, and with the community, society, and students. Reform, defense, and communication are not an either/or; institutions have to pursue all three at once. Higher education is a community asset, and it earns trust by being trustworthy and doing the work, not by asking for trust. The most durable change, Young argues, will not come from convening the sector's leaders to design a single fix. It will bubble up from individual campuses that innovate, with others adopting what works. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/the-trust-agenda-advancing-public-trust-in-higher-education/ #HigherEducation #PublicTrust #HigherEducationLeadership #ChangingHigherEdPodcast
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  Why Research Funding Cuts Are a Strategic Risk, Not a Budget Problem 23.06.2026 39мин

  When the federal government freezes research funding, leaders tend to treat it as a budget problem: a number that was cut and might later be restored. The harder truth in this conversation is that much of the damage cannot be undone. Halted studies, shuttered labs, and departed early-career researchers do not simply resume when the money comes back. Research funding cuts are a strategic risk, not a line item. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Nick Dirks, President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences and former chancellor of UC Berkeley. Dirks first joined the show in 2018, as the podcast's third guest, reflecting on the protests that had put Berkeley at the center of national attention over controversial speakers on campus. He returns to discuss what the current research funding cuts are doing to American science, where AI fits in higher education, and the choices facing presidents and boards. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, provosts, and board members weighing how federal funding volatility, the loss of early-career research talent, and the rapid arrival of AI in the classroom should shape institutional strategy and risk planning. Topics Covered •       Why frozen research funding cannot simply be switched back on, and what that means for biomedical studies, drug trials, and animal research •       The damage to the early-career research pipeline, and why postdocs and graduate students are the most exposed •       What current data shows about US scientists weighing whether to leave the country or the field •       How the president's role has shifted from pleasing every constituency to making hard, unpopular choices •       Why bringing higher education's costs down depends on faculty and administrators rebuilding trust Real-World Examples Discussed •       Drug trials at Columbia that had to stop outright, ending years of work toward a potential cancer treatment that could not be restarted once funding returned •       Animal research populations that universities could no longer afford to maintain, forcing some labs to shut down entirely •       The mRNA vaccine effort spanning the University of Pennsylvania, Germany's BioNTech, and scientists originally from Turkey •       A National Postdoctoral Association survey Dirks worked on, and a January 2026 AAU brief quantifying how far the talent loss has progressed •       The calculator's arrival in the 1970s as a precedent for absorbing a disruptive new tool without banning it Three Key Takeaways for Leadership 1.     Research funding cuts are a strategic risk, not a budget event. The damage to studies and to the people who run them often cannot be reversed once the money returns. 2.     The early-career pipeline is where the loss compounds. Protecting graduate students, postdocs, and research associates is protecting the institution's long-term research capacity. 3.     Hard institutional decisions require trust. Cost discipline and AI adoption both depend on boards, presidents, and faculty working together rather than against each other. This episode offers presidents and boards a clear-eyed look at how funding shocks, talent loss, and AI are reshaping higher education, and why the institutions that plan for these pressures will weather them better than those that wait. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/research-funding-cuts-are-a-strategic-risk-not-a-budget-problem/ #ResearchFunding #HigherEducation #HigherEdLeadership  #HigherEducationPodcast
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  When AI Finds the Administrative Friction Higher Ed Leaders Miss 16.06.2026 36мин

  Most AI conversations in higher education focus on the academic side. The administrative side gets less attention and is producing the bigger near-term financial wins for institutions willing to govern the rollout. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Justin Beck, CEO of Gravyty, about how AI is being applied across enrollment and advancement at institutions including Empire State University, Florida Southwestern State College, and Boise State University. Drawing on his career across Blackboard, Instructure, Kaltura, and now Gravyty, Beck walks through the specific case studies behind administrative AI adoption: a reported 4% year-over-year retention gain at Empire State, 90% first-contact resolution of admissions inquiries at Florida Southwestern, and an 87% increase in donor volume at Boise State. He also explains where institutions go wrong, including bots that loop the way call-center bots loop and set-it-and-forget-it deployments that drift out of alignment within weeks. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, boards, and enrollment and advancement leaders building the business case for administrative AI and the governance to back it. Topics Covered Why administrative AI is producing measurable financial gains while most institutions still treat AI as an academic policy question The retention math: how a 4% lift can translate into multi-million-dollar revenue protection at a mid-size institution How AI sorts and triages carries admissions volume that hiring cannot keep up with Why a poorly designed enrollment chatbot is worse than no chatbot at all How AI surfaces structural fragmentation across student-facing offices Advancement AI's real value: donor prioritization, not email generation What good governance and human-review cadence actually look like in practice Real-World Examples Discussed Empire State University: a 25% engagement lift and a 4% year-over-year retention gain after deploying AI virtual assistants across roughly eight departments Florida SouthWestern State College: 90% first-contact resolution of admissions inquiries and time to class registration cut in half Boise State University: an 87% increase in donor volume, a 50% increase in donor interaction and response, and $635,679 raised through an AI-assisted advancement channel A Missouri institution where an AI web crawler surfaced three different admissions deposit dates published on three active web pages A New York institution where more than 40% of questions coming into the financial aid office had nothing to do with financial aid Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leadership Move quickly, with an acceptable use policy on the books and defined institutional outcomes the AI work is supposed to drive Control what you can control while pulling stakeholders in, including the faculty committee model Iterate often on a recurring governance cadence, because the technology is changing month by month Institutions that do not use AI to improve administrative efficiency are incurring opportunity costs in every cycle. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/administrative-ai-in-higher-ed-finding-revenue-friction/ #AdministrativeAI #HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast
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  Inside CSU's ChatGPT Edu Rollout Across 22 Universities 09.06.2026 32мин

  AI implementation in higher education is often framed as a technology question. California State University treated it as change management with technology as the catalyst, rolling out ChatGPT Edu to 22 universities in 18 months while running the largest AI survey ever conducted at a single university system. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Leslie Kennedy, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Technology Services at the California State University Office of the Chancellor, about how the system designed and executed its generative AI implementation and what the Ahead of the Curve survey of 94,060 respondents reveals about AI adoption, faculty engagement, and student behavior. Drawing on her work co-leading the academic side of CSU's GenAI initiative, Kennedy explains the governance structure that made the rollout possible, the campus-level training infrastructure that scaled adoption across 22 universities, and the survey findings that pushed back on common assumptions about cheating, faculty resistance, and AI access gaps. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, provosts, boards, and CIOs evaluating how to move from AI policy discussions to systemwide implementation. Topics Covered: The sequencing model behind CSU's 18-month AI rollout Findings from the largest AI survey ever conducted at a single university system Why faculty are the only group reporting both positive and negative AI impact How CSU funded faculty-led innovation through the AI Educational Innovations Challenge The communication challenges of running AI implementation across 22 independent campuses What CSU plans next: hackathons, embedded credentials, and domain-specific tools Real-World Examples Discussed: The AI Educational Innovations Challenge received 417 faculty applications against an expected 50, with 63 funded at $3M ChatGPT Edu deployment across all 22 CSU campuses, now at 225,000 active accounts Student hackathons run with IBM Watson, AWS, NVIDIA, and Cal Poly partners across multiple disciplines Faculty-led podcasts (My Robot Teacher from Cal Maritime and Unfixed from Chico State) that built peer-to-peer training resources Three Key Takeaways for Leadership: Sequencing matters more than budget or technology. Faculty resolution first, governance second, enterprise tool third, training and funded experimentation in parallel. Faculty carry more complexity than staff or students in AI implementation, and need different support, training cadence, and communication than other groups. Communication is a continuous operating discipline, not a launch campaign. The technology changes faster than any single training cycle. This episode offers a practical view of what large-scale AI implementation actually looks like in higher education, and why the institutions getting it right are treating it as change management work supported by technology rather than a technology rollout in search of governance. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/https://changinghighered.com/csu-chatgpt-edu-rollout-lessons-higher-ed-leaders/ #GenerativeAI #HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast
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  AI in Higher Education: Bias, Procurement, and Human Oversight 02.06.2026 38мин

  At sixteen, with straight A's in math and science, Dr. Karen Panetta's school career assessment told her to sell makeup or be a cook. A male friend with lower scores got engineer or politician. No AI was involved. Just a rules-based system applying gender and biographical filters to two teenagers. That same logic now sits inside AI tools landing in admissions offices and HR systems across higher ed, with one critical difference: AI does not eliminate human bias, it removes the human accountability that used to make bias correctable. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Karen Panetta, Dean of Graduate Education for the School of Engineering at Tufts University and an IEEE Fellow. Panetta lays out a procurement framework presidents and boards can use to evaluate AI tools before signing a contract. She and McNaughton work through the four questions most vendors cannot answer, why IRB principles already give higher ed a working framework for AI, and what happens to graduate research when students ask AI for a unique contribution and accept whatever comes back. This conversation is especially relevant for institutional leaders making decisions about AI procurement, classroom adoption, and data governance who want a clear set of questions to ask before they buy and a clear standard for keeping humans accountable for the decisions AI tools are increasingly being asked to make. Topics Covered: The four procurement questions every higher ed leader should ask before signing an AI contract Why expert disagreement on ground truth limits what any AI tool trained on that judgment can do How IRB principles apply to AI deployments, and why every kind use of technology has a misuse case sitting next to it The risk of AI's interpretation of truth aging with the consensus Why faculty in English, history, and the arts are essential to AI policy What IEEE's 500,000 technical professionals are doing on AI standards that no single corporate vendor will do Real-World Examples Discussed: The career assessments that pointed a top math student toward cooking and a Navy veteran toward forest ranger work A cancer detection project where six doctors agreed on whether something was cancer but disagreed on every grade beyond that A conservation project where the same tracking data that helps park rangers could help poachers if security is weak Graduate admissions committees where different faculty weight credentials, projects, and volunteer work differently, and what gets lost when only one set of weights is encoded into an AI screen Three Key Takeaways for Leadership: AI does not create bias. It scales whatever bias is already in the institution's decision systems, at the speed and volume the institution chose to deploy. Every consequential decision needs a human in the loop who can explain the call out loud. Without that, the institution cannot defend the decisions it is making. The sticker price on the AI tool is not the story. The data behind it is, and most vendors cannot tell you what it is. This episode gives presidents, provosts, and boards a practical framework for AI procurement and governance, along with a clear answer to the trustee asking why the institution has not bought what everyone else is buying. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/ai-bias-procurement-framework-higher-education/ #HigherEducation #AIinHigherEd #HigherEducationPodcast #AIGovernance #AIBias #HigherEducationLeadership
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  AI-First Business Education: How Kogod Transformed Culture, Curriculum, and Faculty Adoption 26.05.2026 37мин

  Most business schools are still forming committees to figure out what to do about AI. Kogod School of Business at American University formed a committee, but far from the typical higher ed standards. Leadership gave it six weeks and a five-page limit, and used the recommendation to integrate AI into every department, major, and minor. Three years later, undergraduate enrollment is up 40%, applications are up 50%, and more than 90% of faculty are using AI in the classroom. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with returning guests David Marchick, Dean of the Kogod School of Business at American University, and Angela Virtu, Professor of IT and Analytics and Associate Director of Kogod's AI Institute, about how the school moved from a dean's instinct that AI would be big to a fully embedded, faculty-driven transformation that has redefined how business education is taught, assessed, and experienced by students. Marchick and Virtu walk through how they navigated shared governance at speed, leaned into 14 core course coordinators to spread adoption like wildfire, and built a culture where faculty are making stuff up, trying things, and pivoting when something doesn't work. Virtu explains how courses are being rebuilt from the ground up, with professors shifting from lecturers to coaches and students building real software for real clients. Marchick shares the enrollment and media results, including being named the first AI-first business school by Bloomberg Businessweek. This conversation is especially relevant for institutional leaders trying to figure out how to move on AI without blowing up their governance structures or losing faculty trust. Kogod's playbook worked within existing academic processes, and the results are measurable. Topics Covered: •       How a conversation with a Google executive sparked the AI initiative before ChatGPT went mainstream •       Why Marchick gave the faculty committee six weeks and a five-page limit instead of a two-year study •       The top-down and bottom-up strategy that moved faculty adoption from a handful of volunteers to over 90% •       How 14 core course coordinators became the tactical lever for culture change across the school •       The shift from professors as lecturers to professors as coaches •       How non-quantitative students are programming and building functioning apps using AI •       Kogod's scaffolded four-year curriculum: AI literacy in year one, domain-specific applications in year two, deep dives in years three and four, and a capstone that combines all three pillars •       Why the school teaches what's wrong with AI before teaching what's right •       The AI assessment problem no institution has solved yet •       What's next: domain-specific AI apps, student portfolios, and an AI minor for non-business students Real-World Examples Discussed: •       Tommy White's course with no readings and no textbook, where students use AI prompts to find their own materials and come to class with different sources on the same topic •       Kelly Frias's advertising class where students built a social media content tool and owner dashboard for a real college-apparel business with brand ambassadors at 75 campuses •       Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, telling Marchick that the specific AI tool matters less than teaching students to feel comfortable experimenting and trying new things •       A distinguished Kogod scholar describing AI as like having a PhD student for research productivity Three Key Takeaways for Leadership: 1.    Culture first, training second, technology third. Faculty adoption spreads when leadership creates permission to experiment and fail, not when it purchases a platform. 2.    Teach what's wrong with AI before teaching what's right. A human has to be in the loop at the beginning and at the end. AI can be a collaborator, a partner, an assistant, but it cannot be a substitute. 3.    Don't wait for the technology to stabilize. AI capabilities are changing in weeks. If you tried it two years ago and weren't impressed, try it again. The updates in just the last few weeks represent really big strides. This episode offers a practical, replicable look at what happens when a business school treats AI integration as a culture change initiative and moves fast enough to stay ahead of the technology. Kogod's transformation is relevant to any institution trying to figure out how to act on AI without waiting for a perfect plan. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/kogod-ai-first-business-school-enrollment-growth/ #AIinHigherEd #BusinessEducation #HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast #ChangingHigherEdPodcast
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  Closing Higher Education's AI Readiness Gap with Human-First Transformation 19.05.2026 39мин

  AI adoption in higher education is moving faster than institutional change models were built to handle. Students are already using AI at high rates, while many institutions are still trying to decide where AI belongs, who should lead it, and how much change is required. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Nikki Barua, serial entrepreneur and founder of FlipWork, about why higher education's traditional change management playbook will not work in the AI age. Drawing on her work with Fortune 500 companies and AI implementation, Barua explains why AI should be treated as institutional infrastructure, not an IT project. She discusses the growing gap between technology adoption and human readiness, why many AI pilots fail, and how institutions can move from slow, episodic transformation to shorter, people-centered reinvention cycles. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, boards, provosts, CIOs, and senior leadership teams trying to prepare students, faculty, staff, and institutional systems for an AI-driven future. Topics Covered Why incremental change management cannot keep pace with AI How AI differs from previous technology disruptions like the internet and mobile Why AI should be treated as infrastructure across the institution What the AI readiness gap means for higher education leaders Why many AI pilots fail when organizations focus on tools instead of people How AI may reshape entry-level jobs and the graduate talent pipeline Why skills-based hiring is changing what students need from higher education How faculty roles may shift from content delivery to mentorship, ethics, and judgment Why liberal arts and human skills may become more valuable in the AI age How human-in-the-loop design can improve AI use in enrollment, advising, and student support Why AI literacy must become a core institutional capability Real-World Examples Discussed AI adoption among students far outpacing institutional readiness Corporate AI pilots failing because organizations did not prepare people to use the tools effectively Entry-level jobs shrinking or changing as AI takes over early-career tasks Employers moving toward skills-based hiring and project-specific teams AI tutors, teaching assistants, adaptive learning tools, and student support applications Enrollment chatbots that create frustration when they replace rather than support human interaction Human-in-the-loop workflows that know when to hand a student or prospect to a person Ethics in AI as a foundation for preparing graduates to use powerful tools responsibly Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leadership AI is an opportunity for reinvention, not an IT project. Institutions should treat AI as a strategic leadership issue that affects competitive position, culture, academic delivery, student support, and institutional agility. Students are already ahead of many institutions. Without governance, ethical guidelines, and structured leadership, AI use can become unmanaged shadow AI across the institution. The cost of waiting grows exponentially. AI is advancing week by week, and institutions that delay action will face a widening readiness gap that becomes harder and more expensive to close. This episode offers a direct look at why higher education cannot rely on its traditional pace of change in the AI age, and why institutional leaders must rethink what they offer that AI cannot replicate. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/closing-higher-educations-ai-readiness-gap/ #AIinHigherEducation #HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast #WorkforceReadinessGap
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  Scaling Higher Education: An Entrepreneurial Approach to a Consolidating Market 12.05.2026 36мин

  Scaling higher education is no longer a theoretical strategy. As the sector moves deeper into consolidation, institutional leaders need to confront whether their operating models, credential structures, partnerships, and delivery systems are built for the market ahead. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Stephen Spinelli, President of Babson College, about how an entrepreneurial mindset can help higher education respond to consolidation, AI disruption, and changing learner expectations. Drawing from his experience as co-founder of Jiffy Lube International and president of one of the nation's leading entrepreneurship institutions, Spinelli explains why higher education's anti-scale culture has become a strategic problem. He argues that demand for learning is growing, but the sector's delivery model has not kept pace with what students, employers, and adult learners now need. The conversation covers how AI is changing the economics of small-unit, high-quality education, why credentials are likely to become more modular and measurable, and how partnerships with other institutions and industry will shape the next era of higher education. Spinelli also outlines why strategy must be tied to action, accountability, and institutional values that do not shift with every market signal. This episode is especially relevant for presidents, boards, and senior leaders working through questions of scale, consolidation, strategic partnerships, AI-enabled learning, and long-term institutional relevance. Topics Covered Why higher education is showing classic signs of market consolidation How anti-scale thinking limits institutional durability and adaptability Why demand for learning is growing while delivery models lag behind How agentic AI changes the economics of small-unit education Why credentials may become smaller, more measurable, and more industry-aligned How strategic partnerships may extend beyond institutions into corporate and industry networks Why lifelong learner relationships may become a new revenue and relevance model How quarterly board-level strategic execution reviews keep institutions accountable Why liberal arts capabilities matter more in an AI-enabled environment Real-World Examples Discussed Jiffy Lube's early growth model and what it taught Spinelli about scale Babson's shift from entrepreneurship to entrepreneurial leadership Babson's network of 45 or 46 partner schools building entrepreneurial leadership capacity A group of seven New England institutions exploring partnership models to save resources AI-supported teaching models that could allow one expert to reach far more learners The doctor, lawyer, educator relationship model for lifelong learning Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leadership Institutions need a crisp and understandable value proposition that clearly explains why they exist and what they believe. Mission and values must drive strategy so institutions can adapt their actions without abandoning their core purpose. Strategic plans must be actionable, measurable, and reviewed regularly by the board so they inform decisions instead of sitting unused. This episode offers a direct look at what higher education leaders need to confront as consolidation, AI, modular learning, and partnership-driven delivery reshape the sector. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/scaling-higher-education-entrepreneurial-approach/ #HigherEducation #HigherEducationLeadership #HigherEducationPodcast
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  Why College Presidents Need a Coalition for Civic Preparedness 05.05.2026 37мин

  Civic preparedness in higher education can no longer be treated as an assumed byproduct of a college education. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Raj Vinnakota, president of the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, about how colleges and universities can rebuild the civic skills students need to navigate disagreement, evaluate credible information, and solve problems across difference. Drawing on his work with college presidents, faculty, employers, and Gen Z leaders, Vinnakota explains why higher education has drifted too far toward a private-good narrative focused almost entirely on jobs and individual outcomes. He makes the case that institutions must also reclaim their public-good responsibility by preparing students to participate productively in civic life. The conversation also explores College Presidents for Civic Preparedness, or CP², a coalition of 135 college and university presidents working together to lower the political and institutional risk of leading civic preparedness work alone. Vinnakota explains why opt-in programming is not enough, why faculty need support to teach contentious issues, and why shared measurement is needed to move civic preparedness from rhetoric to campus-wide culture change. This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, boards, provosts, faculty leaders, and institutional teams working to strengthen civic learning, rebuild public trust, and prepare graduates for a more polarized and information-saturated world. Topics Covered: Why civic preparedness can no longer be assumed as a byproduct of college How higher education's public-good mission has been crowded out by short-term job-focused framing Why presidents who lead civic preparedness alone often face stakeholder pushback How CP² lowers institutional risk through a coalition of 135 college and university presidents The three civic skills every graduate needs: productive conversation, credible information use, and collaborative problem-solving Why opt-in civic programming fails to reach most students How institutions are embedding civic skills into orientation, general education, curriculum, residential life, and campus culture Why faculty need training and peer support to teach contentious issues effectively How shared measurement helps institutions assess whether civic preparedness work is changing campus culture Why local trust remains one of higher education's strongest strategic assets Real-World Examples Discussed: A diverse group of college presidents who identified the same public-good challenge across very different institutions The growth of CP² from 14 founding presidents to 135 institutional leaders Forty-two institutions moving from opt-in civic programming toward campus-wide culture change Faculty institutes that have trained more than 155 faculty members from over 60 institutions Campus-based faculty cohorts designed to build enough internal capacity for institution-wide change Shared measures tied to productive conversation, credible information, and collaborative problem-solving Three Key Takeaways for Leadership: Civic preparedness should not be led in isolation. Presidents have more leverage when they work through coalitions, peer networks, and shared institutional practice. Local trust is one of higher education's most durable assets. Colleges and universities can strengthen public legitimacy by engaging their surrounding communities through visible, substantive civic work. Student voice should be built into planning and governance. Students provide a different read on whether institutional efforts are producing real impact. This episode offers a practical look at how higher education can move civic preparedness from isolated programming to institution-wide practice, and why presidents, boards, faculty, and students all have a role in rebuilding the civic capacity colleges were once assumed to produce. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/civic-preparedness-in-higher-ed-coalition-of-college-presidents/  #CivicPreparedness #HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast #CollegePresidents  #StudentSuccess
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  International Enrollment Strategy: Taking Higher Education to the World 28.04.2026 34мин

  International student enrollment in the United States reached record highs in 2024–2025, followed by a sharp and uneven decline heading into 2025–2026. While top-tier institutions continue to attract global talent, regional and private institutions are facing growing pressure as visa restrictions, geopolitical dynamics, and shifting perceptions of the U.S. reshape the enrollment landscape. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Shaun Carver, Executive Director of UC Berkeley's International House, about how institutions must rethink international enrollment strategy in response to these structural changes. Drawing on more than two decades of experience in international education, Carver explains why the traditional model of bringing students to U.S. campuses is no longer sufficient—and what institutions can do to remain competitive. This conversation explores how global competition, parental decision-making, and policy shifts are influencing enrollment patterns, and why institutions must begin thinking beyond geographic boundaries to sustain international engagement. Topics Covered: Why international enrollment declines are impacting institutions unevenly How global brand strength influences student decision-making Why undergraduate international enrollment is more vulnerable than graduate programs The role of parental perception in international student recruitment Why universities are exploring global delivery models and partnerships How foreign governments are funding international campus expansion The broader economic and workforce impact of international students Why institutional leadership must advocate for international students Real-World Examples Discussed: UC Berkeley increasing international enrollment despite broader national declines International House's model of integrating students from over 80 nationalities Countries like Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia investing in global education hubs Students choosing Canada, the UK, and Australia over U.S. regional institutions The long-term impact of international students on innovation and workforce development Three Key Takeaways for Leadership: Universities should maintain institutional neutrality and create environments where all viewpoints are welcome and can be examined through civil discourse. Institutional leaders must actively advocate for international students, clearly communicating their economic, academic, and societal contributions. Regional and smaller institutions should position themselves as safe, supportive environments that appeal to international students and their families. This episode provides a clear view into how international enrollment is being reshaped and what institutional leaders must do to adapt in a more competitive and constrained global environment. Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/international-enrollment-strategy-for-regional-and-private-colleges/ #HigherEducation #InternationalStudents #EnrollmentStrategy