In this episode, Carissa Little, associate dean for global and online education at Stanford University, began her education journey as an undergraduate at Boston University, and now is a leading voice and collaborator in driving new models and innovative approaches in online education. She talks about what it takes to successfully stand up online units – from course development and marketing to technology. She also contends that the acceleration of technology in teaching and learning will continue to drive change, and she takes pride in thinking carefully about the power of human connection and collaboration. In her own words: “My goal is to have impact on as many people as possible for whatever scale I can muster.” I would love to see higher ed band together more in this time and in this space to partner on that mission. We can do much more together than we can do separately.”
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Episode Transcript
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Wendy Colby (00:11):
This is Wendy Colby , vice President and Associate
Provost at Boston University andthe host of BU Virtual Connects
.
I'm really pleased to welcomeCarissa Little, associate Dean
for Global and Online Educationat Stanford University.
Carissa is one of the trueinnovators in the space of
extended higher education.
She has partnered closely withfaculty over the years through
(00:32):
the evolution of distancelearning and streaming media to
massive open online courses, tofull online program development.
Her vision has contributed tothe university's mission to
service both campus students andlearners worldwide.
I have had the privilege ofserving on several industry
advisories with Carissa and I'vereally appreciated her spirit
(00:52):
of collaboration, along with herpassion, wisdom and expertise.
In fact, when I was new in myrole at BU and looking to
advocate for new online programs, carissa came and met with me
and some of our senior leadersat BU to share her perspectives
and experiences in expandingengineering programs to support
residential, online and hybridlearners.
(01:13):
I'm also proud to share thatCarissa received her
undergraduate degree from BostonUniversity.
A little known fact is that onher recent visit here, she had
the opportunity to casually beintroduced to one of our
colleagues, only to realize thatthis colleague was her
supervisor when she was astudent.
This is the power of highereducation.
Hey, carissa, welcome, it's sogood to see you.
(01:34):
Thanks for joining me today.
Carissa Little (01:37):
Oh, thank you so much, Wendy, for inviting me.
It's really my pleasure to behere.
Well, let's dig in.
Wendy Colby (01:43):
I'd love to start off by talking a little bit
about your role at Stanford.
Could you describe the work ofStanford Online and the Center
for Global and Online Education?
Carissa Little (01:54):
Absolutely.
We are a mission-drivenorganization supporting
Stanford's research and teachingmission.
I'm an associate dean in theSchool of Engineering and we
support engineering faculty anddepartments in extending their
teaching and research beyond thetraditional residential
(02:15):
experience through online,hybrid and credentialed
education programs that takemany shapes and forms.
We also support StanfordUniversity in a lot of
centralized support for otherschools to develop similar
programs in their cognizantareas and to help extend our
wonderful School of Engineeringinfrastructure to support
(02:39):
efforts across the campus,including enrollment
capabilities and course deliveryand credential fulfillment,
compliance, technology pilots,educational technology pilots,
as well as managing all of thethird-party platform
relationships that enable us toextend our education much
further to more learners aroundthe globe.
(03:00):
We offer really Stanfordfaculty taught programs through
Stanford Online since 2012.
We've reached 21 millionlearners around the globe, which
is a pretty big number, whichwe're very proud of.
Yeah, and you know those rangefrom free, low costs to
credentialed professionaleducation, you know, in cohorts,
(03:23):
all the way through topart-time and online master's
degrees.
Wendy Colby (03:27):
Fantastic.
Wow, that is a lot and I'mwondering about given this is
one of the reasons I was reallyinterested in talking to you is
just the vastness of yourexpertise here, the journey to
get there, and can you talk alittle bit about what your
portfolio you just described itas a high level but of your
certificate and degree and whatit meant to kind of move from
residential to hybrid to online?
Carissa Little (03:50):
Yeah, so when I started at Stanford about 20
years ago a little more than 20years ago we were really
majority of our activity wasdelivering part-time degrees via
broadcast TV to SiliconValley-based companies.
And when I started at Stanfordnow there's a proliferation of
(04:13):
online education providers butin that era really, Stanford was
one of the first to do onlineprofessional programs and what
we were finding at that time wascompanies were really needing
their employees to have morejust-in-time education.
So when I joined Stanford, itwas really the beginning of
(04:36):
unbundling of degrees and thesort of pace of technological
change and new disciplinesneeding to get out into the
world of work faster.
So that's how we began.
And then over the years, it wasfascinating to think about
because in the beginning, if youthink about how we delivered
(04:57):
degrees, it was really a sort ofthink of like a B2B sort of we,
stanford, as an institution,were delivering to corporations
and that was the relationship.
And then, with the advent ofstreaming media and the internet
, that became a university toindividual learner, consumer
(05:19):
direct relationship.
And now what we're seeing isactually a flip back to
corporations really needing tofill their talent pipelines in a
bigger way, and so we have thiswide range of types of
offerings now and modalities,you know, cohort based,
asynchronous, everything inbetween virtual, everything in
between Now corporations arecoming and saying, well, we need
(05:52):
our employees to be able to doX and Y and Z and so sort of a
reinvigoration of that B2B typerelationship.
Wendy Colby (05:55):
It's almost like an evolution right, a
reimagination of the model, andit's so interesting how you've
extended that, given your focuson extended higher education,
how you've extended that overthe years.
Higher education how you'veextended that over the years.
I'm wondering, too, if you'dtalk a little bit about
engineering and you know that'sone that's been near and dear to
my heart too since some of ourearly conversations here given
how much that does tend torequire more high-touch
(06:15):
in-person experiences, and Iknow you now have a pretty broad
portfolio online, hybrid,residential and so I wonder if
you'd talk about what it takesto navigate that kind of
transition, both internally,perhaps, and externally for your
students, and what that hasenabled you to do in terms of
the growth.
Carissa Little (06:38):
Yeah, that's an interesting question.
So I think the evolution ofthat right is fascinating.
The School of Engineering iscelebrating its 100-year
anniversary this year and ourorganization has been a part of
the school.
We just celebrated our 70thanniversary this last year,
which was an well, and it wassort of when I had that
(07:00):
realization that we've been inexistence for 70 years and the
evolution of you know how youthink about delivering education
in a variety of ways.
You know, in the very beginning, engineers were coming to
campus, sitting in classes andthen we were shuttling homeworks
and exams back and forth.
Of course, now you know there'smany different pathways through
(07:21):
degrees and certainly there areparticular courses that are
harder to do online and maybearen't done online, and that is
a part of our kind of hybridexperience, and I think that one
of the things that we sort ofthink carefully about is both
the quality of the education butalso providing as many flexible
(07:41):
pathways through programs aspossible to allow students and
learners to have, you know, moreaccess and more flexibility.
That's been a big driver of allof the types of things that we
do.
I think that you know we workedhard to build stackability into
our thinking about degrees fromthe very beginning.
(08:02):
So that's a new sort of popularterm now.
But even you know, since Istarted here, and I think even
much before, that we hadstackability in our degree
programs you could take you cantake individual courses remotely
for credit and then you cantransfer up to 18 units into a
Stanford master's degree if youwere admitted.
(08:24):
And that's been in place for,you know, decades and I think
that that model of stackability,you know, has been really
important.
Even thinking about otherinstitutions you know granting
credit for Stanford courses aswell.
So, and did I?
Did I kind of touch on the coreof what you wanted to get at?
Wendy Colby (08:44):
Yeah, no, I think so.
You know, I love the whole whereyou're kind of pivoting to
right this whole, theoptionality right that you're
giving students if they want totransfer in, and the fact that
it's what I find reallyinteresting as well is that
you've been doing this for aperiod of time, even though
definitions have changed andsome of the terminology has come
(09:04):
into greater vogue, right, andso we'll get at this, because I
think a big reason we are havingthis conversation and opening
it up to a broader group ofconstituents is also to elevate
the kind of expertise you've had, as others are thinking about
evolving and moving in thisspace, and I know I've greatly
valued that, just even as acolleague and a collaborator in
(09:25):
this space with you.
So let's talk a little bitabout the other popular term in
vogue today, which, of course,is AI, and so you know I'm
wondering how you think about AIin the context of teaching and
learning and how you believe itcan enrich disciplines like
engineering, and are there anyefforts that you're taking at
(09:48):
Stanford to create meaningfulexperiences using AI?
Carissa Little (09:54):
Certainly, I think the topic of AI is really
fascinating to me because theresearch in this area has been
happening for, you know, decadeshere at Stanford.
Some of the leading individualsin the world are here at
Stanford or were here at AndrewNg and Fei-Fei Li and others, so
(10:17):
we are really fortunate to haveaccess to all of that thinking.
I think one of the things thatI'm spending time thinking
deeply about is making sure thatwe, in the work that we do in
teaching and learning, continueto preserve optionality for
ourselves in the future.
So I think it's very easy tojump on a technology or go with
(10:44):
a big player in the spacebecause it's a movement now and
it's important to be thinkingabout this and incorporating it
into your work.
I think the thing that I worryabout is the rapid pace of
change in the space.
I don't want to be stuck with aset of technologies or pilots
(11:06):
that we turn into operationalactivity and then look up and
say, oh wait, there's a betterthing over there, and so my sort
of current strategy in thisspace is to really follow very
closely the work of our facultyhere at Stanford in terms of
what actually has good efficacyin the future, but also doing
(11:29):
lots and lots of pilots andworking where it makes sense.
Also, stanford, I think, likemany other institutions, has
what they've coined the AIplayground, and so there are
many large language modelsincorporated there, and you can,
you know, use those tools andthe work that we do in different
ways, but I do.
(11:50):
I think it's really importantfor everyone, not just in the
space that we're in, in teachingand learning.
But I mean, this is a massivechange management time.
Everyone's work will changedramatically, and so there's
sort of the operational part ofthe activity, which is using
these tools on a regular basisto make work better, more
(12:13):
efficient, do interesting things, and then there's the part of
it that's really the teachingand learning part.
I think some of the early thingsthat I'm seeing that you know
are promising are really around,you know, using agentic AI as
simulators for things that mightfeel high risk to practice,
(12:33):
kind of like you know, and wehave some faculty doing that
kind of research.
I also think that thisintersection of VR, ar and the
ability in the future maybe 10years out to produce really high
quality experiences usinggenerative AI it's very costly
to do now, and one of ourfaculty talks about how Jeremy
(12:54):
Bailens and how, just with theadvent of AI, he's been able to
create environments in the VR ARspace that are just striking
and much less expensive and muchless time consuming than they
used to be.
So those are some of thedirections that I think are
promising.
The thing that I'm also reallyfocused on in our work is
(13:16):
ensuring that we think carefullyabout human connection whenever
we are working on bringingtools into our environments and
experiences into ourenvironments, and so we have a
number of pilots going, but Ithink that those are some of the
things that are top of mind forme, that I think about, worry
about and want to make sure, aswe're implementing pilots and
(13:37):
strategies, that the optionalityand the human connection, that
those are things that areimportant to me.
Wendy Colby (13:44):
I love what you're sharing there, carissa, and it's
really echoing for me here too.
We're in the process ofstanding up a new AI development
accelerator here at BostonUniversity and we held a
symposium just a few weeks ago,and what was really interesting
and really the purpose of thatsymposium was to surface all of
the good things going on acrossour university right the
(14:06):
experimentation that ishappening not only in teaching
and learning with faculty, butalso across all the
administrative functions whenyou think about contracts or
reviewing applications can do,but really thinking about that
(14:26):
human connection and reallybeing purposeful and not getting
so stuck on.
You know, this is the latesttool or technology that we can
apply, because I think we dohave to think about this with
the longer view in mind.
And I do love what you saidabout kind of following faculty
too, because there are what Ifound here many innovators, many
champions that can start tolead the way as we do further
(14:46):
experimentation, right with whatit is.
Carissa Little (14:54):
Stanford has a human-centered AI institute that
looks at the sort ofintersection of policy and
technology, and they have anannual symposium they hosted a
few weeks ago, and one of thethings that was fascinating
coming out of that that I attenda lot of different types of
(15:17):
research conferences here atStanford and around the world,
and often experts will tell youthat oh, here's the prediction
of what's going to happen.
And what was striking to me atthis event was that mostly the
faculty and the experts werelike we don't really know what's
going to happen.
And we're, you know, we'reforging some paths in these
(15:39):
directions, but it's justchanging so rapidly, and so I
think that's one of the thingsabout this whole space that's
really fascinating and funactually for the work that we do
is we don't know what willhappen, and that's kind of
exciting and it means thatthere's lots of change coming.
Wendy Colby (15:56):
It's a bit of right .
You've got to expect theunexpected right.
One of the other things thatcame out in our symposium was
you know, there were a number offaculty who weren't there,
right, this was a kind of a coregroup of people who came to the
symposium, and so there was alot of dialogue around well, how
do we bring everyone else along?
And, just as a follow-up, Iwonder how you're thinking about
(16:17):
that?
Right, there are certainlyalways in any new technology.
Right, you're going to seethose who embrace it early on.
Right, the early adopters, ifyou will, and we're going to get
to a bit more on faculty herein a moment.
But I wonder how do you thinkabout that at Stanford, right,
are all your faculty innovators,or do you find that, you know,
there are populations you haveto bring along as well?
Carissa Little (16:39):
Oh for sure there are populations that have
to be brought along, as we, youknow, bring new ways of doing
work into.
You know the way that thatfaculty think about and deliver
education, and that's been thecase for many of the technology
changes that we've that myorganization has been a part of
over decades, so you'll have theearly adopters, you have the
(17:02):
folks in the middle.
One of the things that we morerecently have done on an annual
basis is we put out a call forparticipation to our faculty
around a combination of things.
It can be programmaticdevelopment themes that we think
are important, you know, in aparticular year, but we also
embed in there someexperimentation and and around
(17:27):
using innovative technologiesand the teaching that that we
might do together.
So that that's one way.
I think Stanford at large alsohas the Graduate School of
Education, has a learningaccelerator where they're also
putting out grants for facultyto do experimentation and
research and teaching, and sothose are some.
(17:49):
You know faculty love to doresearch and they love grants,
and so that's one of the ways tobring them into the fold.
Wendy Colby (17:56):
No, I love that too , and we're talking a lot about
that here as well.
Another part of my ownportfolio is heading up this
Institute for Excellence inTeaching and Learning, and
there's been a lot of discussionon how you tap into those kinds
of incentives.
You talked about an academicinnovation fund, ways of
convening faculty spotlightswith faculty and how to kind of
(18:17):
be that hub and spoke if youwill across especially a very
large community.
Well, that might segue reallynicely into just as you think
more broadly about the faculty.
You know partnership withfaculty and the role you know
your unit plays with faculty.
I'm wondering if you can talk alittle bit about and again for
those who might be listening andare trying to set up online
(18:39):
units or extended learning unitsyou know how you collaborate
and work with faculty,especially as you're kind of
steering new online or hybridprograms.
You know what drives successand are there any?
You know particularcollaborations you're most proud
of.
Carissa Little (18:53):
Yeah, I think you know one of the things
lesson learned over, you know, acouple of decades here at
Stanford is most of the activityin universities is driven out
of departments.
So if you talk to a provost,they say, well, I can't tell the
deans what to do.
And if you talk to deans, theysay, well, I can't tell my
(19:14):
faculty, you know what to do.
I can set some directionality,but they will do what they will
do.
And so we work extremelyclosely with department chairs
to help think through what theirgoals and objectives are in
terms of reaching folks beyondthe Stanford campus and then
help craft programs around that.
(19:35):
We're totally faculty driven.
I think you have to be in thework that we do, and so that's
something that's been, you know,really important, I think, in
terms of collaborations that I'mmost proud of.
I mean, I think I'm proud of allof the sort of relationships
that we built with all of ourdepartments in the School of
(19:55):
Engineering, because they'revery different and they have
very different goals andobjectives in terms of what
they're trying to accomplish.
So, for example, we have a civiland environmental engineering
department that has a hybriddegree, because a lot of their
coursework, you know, doesn'tlend itself to online, but we
also have a very large portfoliowith them that is professional
(20:18):
education, and so theirportfolio is crafted one way.
And then I have anotherdepartment that has just
entirely only degree and creditbased activity of is just
building and understanding thesort of culture of particular
departments, their goals andobjectives with education and
(20:41):
what their constraints are interms of you know, it could be
they have a small set of facultyor it could be that their
faculty are overloaded inteaching, and so how do we
respond to that?
I think one example of that thatI'll share in our computer
science department that I ampretty proud of the programmatic
side of this is our computerscience department here at
(21:04):
Stanford is very much motivatedby, you know, free, open content
being made available to thepublic, and we worked with them
to think about how to optimizetheir teaching time in the AI
space, as these things arechanging so rapidly.
So we have this lovelyexperience where they teach
(21:30):
their regular Stanford coursethat we make available to degree
students or make thoseavailable to industry students
to enroll for credit.
We then modify that and it hasa very similar level of rigor.
We edit it in a rapidpost-production process and make
that material available onYouTube for free.
(21:51):
And then we also have acohort-based program that runs.
That's a professionalcertificate and so it's
leveraging the teaching time ofthe faculty, but their objective
is really around making thecontent available for free.
Wendy Colby (22:08):
That's terrific.
And then the support your teamprovides, and I understand the
faculty-driven and I also reallyappreciate the approach you're
taking with faculty, in thatit's not a one size fits all,
that there are differentapproaches across departments
and different needs.
And then is it your team thatgets involved in collaboration
with faculty, for instance onbuilding out the programs or
(22:29):
courses or marketing andsteering the growth or
commercialization.
Can you just talk a little bitabout that structure?
Carissa Little (22:36):
Yeah, so right.
So, yes, all of those functionsthat inside my unit.
I think that we don't sort ofinfluence what a degree is.
We might influence you knowsort of what a pathway might
look like and help advise aroundthat, because you know Stanford
, like many institutions, youhave a lot of optionality when
(22:59):
you enroll in a degree programand so maybe there's a simpler
pathway through a degree.
So we help provide advice andguidance to departments, but on
the degree side it's entirelydefined by existing degree
programs.
On the professional andexecutive education that we do,
it is entirely driven by ourteam sort of matchmaking with
(23:24):
faculty around.
Here's an area of interest.
A faculty member might come tous with an idea, or we come to a
faculty member and say, hey, wethink that this is something we
might want to build, are youinterested in doing it?
And so we help do the marketresearch, we do all of the
marketing, we, um, we come upwith the you know business case
(23:45):
for how, you know what will wecharge for it and how will that,
you know, pay off over time?
Um, all of those things, um,and I think that, again, one of
my lessons learned in my rolehere at Stanford is two things.
I think having control overmarketing is super important,
actually, but we've partneredfor decades with smaller
(24:19):
boutique consulting firms andanytime that we relinquished our
control over marketing andcommunications, we had less
success.
So that's been something thatI've built up over a period of
time and find it super important.
And it's different than thecommunications arm that most
institutions are very good at.
You know the communications armthat most institutions are very
(24:39):
good at.
It is digital marketing andcontent marketing.
It's a completely differentbase than our institutions are
used to practicing in.
So that's been really important.
We also have, you know, a veryand again, this has been built
up over decades but a verysophisticated tech and marketing
stack that we built, you know,out of hide over time.
(24:59):
So I think that's something tonote too, and you can partner to
get ahead in those spaces inthe short term.
But I think those capacitiesare really important to be able
to deliver on the type of workthat we do.
Wendy Colby (25:12):
I'm so happy we're having this conversation.
I'm smiling because you knowthis is very much, I think, the
same approach that we've triedto take here through my own unit
at BU Virtual, which is, as youthink, about the marketing
often online marketing, ormarketing of professional or
certificate programs verydifferent from what we see at
sort of the core on thecommunication side.
(25:34):
So I couldn't agree with youmore in terms of how to build up
that capacity, and often thatis a challenge inside of
universities today, which is whywe've seen such a variety of
partnerships out there and onthe technology stack too, I
would say we're very much doingmany of the same things you were
talking about here, likebuilding up the muscle, as I
like to call it, in that area.
So a couple other topic areas,you know, chris, I'd love to, if
(25:55):
we have time, to get to.
Of course I want to have in anyconversation a focus on the
student right, and you know sowe're seeing just such changing
dynamics with our studentpopulations too and what
motivates them and all thechange going on in higher ed.
You know, with all of yourexperience at Stanford, how has
that evolved and how are yourprograms sort of meeting
students where they are today?
Carissa Little (26:16):
evolved and how are your programs sort of
meeting students where they aretoday?
It's interesting, right?
I think at institutions likeours there's this sort of
balancing act of being learnerdriven versus being driven by
the research of our faculty, andso I always come back to that.
I think that you know, we, wealways stay grounded and what
and what is it that's uniqueabout the research at Stanford
(26:40):
and how do we bring that tostudents?
I think our former dean, jimPlummer, talked about T-shaped
engineers, where you have adepth of expertise in one field.
But then there's the top of theT, which is, you know, which
changes over time.
But that's the sort of softskills, entrepreneurship, you
(27:04):
know, rounding out individualsin the STEM space, you know.
So back, you know, at one timeit was really about project
management and communication,and those things continue to be
important.
But now there's a big emphasison ethics, which you know, maybe
a couple of decades ago, notthat folks would say it wasn't
(27:25):
important, but it's moreimportant now because of the
rapid pace of change withtechnology.
So that's something that, um,you know, we think about how to
meet those needs, and some ofthem are ecosystem needs and
some of them are learner needs.
So I think we are finding nowin this current time I mentioned
(27:45):
change management earlier boy,lots of conversations about the
need for skills in the changemanagement space, you know,
around different disciplines,and so that's coming up quite a
lot.
Yeah, I do think that one of thethings, too that I worked on
here at Stanford, I think youknow, is we have a credential
(28:07):
framework, and part of what hasbeen important, I think, for
learners is understanding sortof what it is I'm doing and what
you know, having transparencyaround the level of rigor and
some kind of standardizationwithin our own institution about
what we're telling learnersthey've earned, so that when
(28:29):
they go to an employer they cansay, okay, I did this thing.
Or on their LinkedIn they cansay, I did this thing.
And I think meaningfulcredentials is super important.
There are a bunch of, you know,fly by night providers out
there that are, you know, nothigh quality credentials or you
know, and we even have offeringshere at Stanford that are
really meant just to be, youknow, sort of a short hour long,
(28:53):
have some perspective, not ameaningful credential.
These are not all the samethings, right, and so we want to
recognize that there aredifferent types of learning
opportunities, but also bereally transparent with learners
and employers about whatthey're getting when they do an
experience with Stanford.
Wendy Colby (29:10):
That's wonderful, carissa.
Thank you for that.
I'm now going to bring us backto a little bit where you
started, because you started abit of our conversation today
talking about some of theworkforce right and even how
that has evolved over the years.
You know, when you started inthe early days and it was
connecting with companies, andnow we're trying to evolve that
whole model right, and of course, some of this relates to the
(29:30):
global piece of this as well.
We both were recently at anevent in India, kind of looking
at the opportunities there.
So I wonder if you can justtalk a little bit about your
views of where we are today.
You know this has long been thepromise in higher education
right how we connect highereducation industry right.
How we more broadly expandglobally.
How are you thinking about thatin your role at Stanford?
Carissa Little (29:52):
Yeah, and I will say it's fascinating to me too,
because this term upskillingand reskilling in workforce
development keeps coming up.
But the founding of my centerwas really grounded in, you know
, hewlett and Packard weregraduate students of Dean Terman
in the 50s and their engineerswere getting out of date with
what was happening at Stanford.
(30:13):
That's a reskilling andupskilling challenge, and so I
think, you know, grounded inengineering, that's always been
what our work is about.
I think that when I think aboutworkforce and global, again I
come back to well, what are thething where?
What is that matchmakingbetween what industry needs and
(30:33):
what Stanford can offer, theexpertise of our faculty can
offer?
So I stay grounded in that.
I think, in terms of globalmarkets, you know.
So my goal is to have impact onas many people as possible with
whatever scale I can muster interms of what the technology
will provide and our limitedresources, you know, can provide
(30:56):
.
So, and every geography isdifferent.
I mean, we were together inIndia, as you pointed out, and
gosh, the scale there isunbelievable because of the size
of the population and the verydistinct differences between,
you know, metropolis India andrural education systems.
(31:17):
It's just a vast set of complexproblems there.
That's very different than someof the work that we've done in,
say, latin America or SoutheastAsia.
So I think when you're thinkingabout workforce and global
strategy, you have to reallylearn it's not one size fits all
.
Every geography is very, verydifferent in terms of what's
(31:40):
culturally accepted, what arethe challenges, what will work,
what won't work.
Very, very interesting.
We support also, for example,some healthcare education in
South Africa, but it's only onecountry in Africa, right?
So we're trying to look at youknow, where can we have impact,
and some of that can be drivenby faculty relationships that
(32:01):
exist.
Some of it comes from where youmight be able to partner.
I think partnership strategiesfor global workforce is really
important.
Wendy Colby (32:10):
I was going to say to you how are you thinking
about that?
Right, it's, you know, giventhe complexity and the stark
contrast you see in places likeIndia, as you mentioned.
Right, trying to go it alonecan be very challenging.
Right, you have to have some ofthat sort of in-country
expertise right to help guideand inform those efforts work
(32:37):
that we do around the globe is alot on the um.
Carissa Little (32:38):
Well, we deliver a lot online, but we also do a
lot of custom live virtualeducation with different
geographies, and always oursuccess has been driven by
having a local partner in someform.
It's not necessarily a platformpartner.
It could be, for example, wehave a well-placed Stanford alum
in one geography and thatindividual has helped us
(33:00):
understand that space and wepartnered with that individual's
company.
So I think you can lean onalums.
I think you can lean on localproviders that might just fill
in marketing for you in thatgeography or understanding
learners in that geography.
It doesn't have to be an entirepartnership around delivery.
Wendy Colby (33:23):
Yeah, it's kind of determining your I like to call
it the constellation of partnersand who might best suit the
purpose right that you're after.
Yes, it's great, that's great,carissa.
So you know kind of gettingkind of winding us to a close
here, you know.
Just two more questions really.
I mean we talked a little bitabout all the changes going on
in higher ed and that probablyisn't new.
(33:44):
I mean, over the years, asyou've said, we've seen a lot of
changes.
They happen to seem, you know,sort of right in front of us
right now.
But where do you see this allgoing right, waving that magic
wand right?
What's on the horizon as youthink about, you know,
universities who are trying toopen up diversification, trying
to think more broadly aboutportfolios, trying to think
(34:05):
about reskilling and upskilling.
Is it more of the same on thatsort of pitch?
Is it something else?
Carissa Little (34:14):
I mean I think that that will continue, right.
I mean, the technology changesaround us will just drive a need
for education and you know,universities really tap into
currently a very small portionof the education market, if you
will.
So I think that that willcontinue.
(34:34):
I do see, you know, somechallenges in our current
environment for smallerinstitutions who have fewer
resources than an institutionlike Stanford and BU, and so I
feel like those providers, Ithink, will really struggle in
the future.
I'm also seeing that a lot ofinstitutions like ours maybe
(34:58):
initially did a full partnershipstrategy or pulling're going to
see a lot more around what someuniversities call the 60-year
curriculum.
People are living longer andyou need to reskill and upskill
(35:30):
more times in your life than youdid just because of how long
people are living and how muchchange is coming.
And I think that for me that Imentioned this before the sort
of flexibility and optionalityfor students I see more
institutions will build towardsthose capabilities and it will
take time, but that will beimportant, I think, for for
(35:55):
institutions to invest in umbecause our learners will demand
it and we will have morediverse learners in the future.
They're already demanding itcoming out of COVID, and so I
feel like you know, universitiesare slow, uh, to build, but but
we'll get there, I think.
Wendy Colby (36:14):
Absolutely.
You know, and when I thinkabout your story and it's a
story like, you know, many otheruniversities I think we're
trying to do the same at BU.
You know it's like and this iseven thematically, how I was
thinking about our conversationtoday.
It's been from sort of SiliconValley, which is the sort of the
epicenter right of a lot ofinnovation, but to the world and
making that available in a lotof different ways.
(36:35):
And it opens up opportunitiestoo for many institutions to
think about and to takeresponsibility for how we are
extending our mission right toreach more students and open
access.
And you know, it's something Ithink a lot of us in higher ed
are really thinking very deeplyabout.
Carissa Little (36:54):
And I think that there is a big opportunity for
institutions to partner with oneanother.
Right, some of the promisearound I mean we don't need to
have redundant curriculum insome of the basics right, and
there may be things thatStanford's really good at but
has gaps in our curriculum, etcetera.
So I think I would love to seehigher ed you know band together
(37:18):
more in this time and in thisspace to to partner around that
mission.
We can do much more togetherthan we can do individually and
separately.
Wendy Colby (37:28):
I'm so glad you said that, chris, and it's one
of the reasons that I talked toyou early on that I wanted to do
this podcast right, because oneof the things I've really
valued moving into, you know, myrole here is the opportunity to
reach out to you and others andto share experiences and to
learn from those experiences anddetermine what I can bring back
into my own environment right.
So I have loved thecollaborative and collegial sort
(37:50):
of, you know, instincts that weall have here, right to do that
.
So, finally, you know Imentioned at the opening and
this was just kind of a sidebenefit after meeting you, I
think I learned this way aftermeeting you that you are a BU
alum and so I'm wondering youknow I always think about
connecting dots right as youthink back to your undergraduate
(38:11):
education.
You know, what you gained fromyour own education experience
and how that informs where youare and what you're doing today.
Carissa Little (38:31):
Yeah, it's fascinating, I mean, I think,
and being kind of forced toexplore really rounded out me as
a person.
I was, you know it's sort ofpopular to say now I was always
at the time embarrassed about it, but I was a first gen, you
know, sort of first person in myfamily to graduate from a
(38:54):
four-year institution and Ithink that, you know, bu really
gave me an opportunity to livein a very, very wonderful,
thriving city, explore manydisciplines and topic areas.
(39:15):
I also was a I think you knowthis I was a student worker.
I worked in the provost'soffice on accreditation, so I
feel like that also helpedinform my thinking.
Yeah, so just having reallygreat mentors and experiences
along those lines, right, tryingto think what else you know
(39:39):
came out.
I mean, you know, one of myfavorite classes actually was a
religion class and I didn't growup having religion in my life
as a kid, and so that sort ofexploration was just, you know,
really eye opening for me whileI was, you know, thinking I was
going to be pre-med and workingtowards a, you know, a biology
major.
And then I found educationpartway through my experience,
(40:02):
and BU has a wonderful school ofeducation and I, you know
taught in.
You know student taught inBelmont, which was really
wonderful.
So you know I yeah, I had awonderful experience at BU.
Wendy Colby (40:19):
I see all the connecting of the dots right of
teaching and liberal arts, andyou know just the wealth, as you
were talking earlier about.
You know some of those, thosesoft skills, right, they may be
evolving over the years, but youknow, working in the provost's
office, all these other thingsthat you know really paved the
way right.
You can't always.
I always say, you know sort ofsee the breadcrumbs, you know
(40:39):
going forward, but when you goback you can kind of it all
sorts starts to make sense,right.
All right, carissa, this hasbeen so fantastic.
Any other words of wisdom,anything else you want to share
with our listeners here in termsof and you've touched on so
much of this right in ways wecan strengthen collaboration or
open dialogue to shape thefuture of higher education, if
(41:01):
that's not too aspirational.
Carissa Little (41:05):
It's pretty aspirational.
No, I will come back to right.
Thinking about coming togetherand partnering across
institutions is something thatyou know I think is just so
important.
I learn a ton from you andothers in our space all the time
, so that I think is reallyimportant.
(41:26):
I think you know I'm right now,in this particular moment I'm
thinking about.
You know I had my all hands withmy team yesterday and I'm
thinking deeply about how, inthis current environment that
we're in, that there's a lot ofuncertainty and there are a lot
(41:46):
of constraints that are comingto us, but to try to remember
that anytime you have thoseconstraints, you have more
opportunity actually.
So when one door closes, anotherdoor opens.
I know that that's a reallysilly kind of idiom, but it
really.
It does create new opportunityand you know it's easy to feel
(42:10):
kind of doom and gloom whenresources become more
constrained, but actuallyconstraint can provide
opportunity for innovation.
And you know someone coined thephrase never waste a crisis.
I love that.
Like crises get us active andactivated and give us
opportunity to work on hardproblems.
So I think if I were thinkingabout a parallel wisdom, you
know I've been in the valley fora couple of downturns and you
(42:33):
know those downturns providereally interesting opportunity
and I think higher ed hasn't hadas much of that on the whole
ecosystem and I think actuallyit could be an interesting time
for us to do really innovativework.
Wendy Colby (42:47):
Carissa.
I think that is a fantastic wayto end.
Constraint brings opportunity.
One door closes, another opens.
I love it.
Thank you so much for havingthis conversation with me today
and for all the work you'redoing at Stanford Really
impressive and I look forward tocontinuing to be part of the
community with you.
So thank you, Thanks, Wendy.
(43:07):
Thank you for joining us forthis BU Virtual Connects podcast
.
Special thanks to my colleaguesat BU Virtual and to our media
team who produces this podcastunder the leadership of our
studio director, George Vago.
To keep up with our BU VirtualConnects series, be sure to
(43:30):
subscribe wherever you listen toyour favorite podcasts.
You can also learn more aboutour portfolio of online programs
at BU Virtual by visiting bu.
edu/ virtual.
This is Wendy Colby , vice President and Associate
Provost at Boston University andthe host of BU Virtual Connects
.
I'm really pleased to welcomeCarissa Little, associate Dean
for Global and Online Educationat Stanford University.
Carissa is one of the trueinnovators in the space of
extended higher education.
She has partnered closely withfaculty over the years through
(00:32):
the evolution of distancelearning and streaming media to
massive open online courses, tofull online program development.
Her vision has contributed tothe university's mission to
service both campus students andlearners worldwide.
I have had the privilege ofserving on several industry
advisories with Carissa and I'vereally appreciated her spirit
(00:52):
of collaboration, along with herpassion, wisdom and expertise.
In fact, when I was new in myrole at BU and looking to
advocate for new online programs, carissa came and met with me
and some of our senior leadersat BU to share her perspectives
and experiences in expandingengineering programs to support
residential, online and hybridlearners.
(01:13):
I'm also proud to share thatCarissa received her
undergraduate degree from BostonUniversity.
A little known fact is that onher recent visit here, she had
the opportunity to casually beintroduced to one of our
colleagues, only to realize thatthis colleague was her
supervisor when she was astudent.
This is the power of highereducation.
Hey, carissa, welcome, it's sogood to see you.
(01:34):
Thanks for joining me today.
Carissa Little (01:37):
Oh, thank you so much, Wendy, for inviting me.
It's really my pleasure to behere.
Well, let's dig in.
Wendy Colby (01:43):
I'd love to start off by talking a little bit
about your role at Stanford.
Could you describe the work ofStanford Online and the Center
for Global and Online Education?
Carissa Little (01:54):
Absolutely.
We are a mission-drivenorganization supporting
Stanford's research and teachingmission.
I'm an associate dean in theSchool of Engineering and we
support engineering faculty anddepartments in extending their
teaching and research beyond thetraditional residential
(02:15):
experience through online,hybrid and credentialed
education programs that takemany shapes and forms.
We also support StanfordUniversity in a lot of
centralized support for otherschools to develop similar
programs in their cognizantareas and to help extend our
wonderful School of Engineeringinfrastructure to support
(02:39):
efforts across the campus,including enrollment
capabilities and course deliveryand credential fulfillment,
compliance, technology pilots,educational technology pilots,
as well as managing all of thethird-party platform
relationships that enable us toextend our education much
further to more learners aroundthe globe.
(03:00):
We offer really Stanfordfaculty taught programs through
Stanford Online since 2012.
We've reached 21 millionlearners around the globe, which
is a pretty big number, whichwe're very proud of.
Yeah, and you know those rangefrom free, low costs to
credentialed professionaleducation, you know, in cohorts,
(03:23):
all the way through topart-time and online master's
degrees.
Wendy Colby (03:27):
Fantastic.
Wow, that is a lot and I'mwondering about given this is
one of the reasons I was reallyinterested in talking to you is
just the vastness of yourexpertise here, the journey to
get there, and can you talk alittle bit about what your
portfolio you just described itas a high level but of your
certificate and degree and whatit meant to kind of move from
residential to hybrid to online?
Carissa Little (03:50):
Yeah, so when I started at Stanford about 20
years ago a little more than 20years ago we were really
majority of our activity wasdelivering part-time degrees via
broadcast TV to SiliconValley-based companies.
And when I started at Stanfordnow there's a proliferation of
(04:13):
online education providers butin that era really, Stanford was
one of the first to do onlineprofessional programs and what
we were finding at that time wascompanies were really needing
their employees to have morejust-in-time education.
So when I joined Stanford, itwas really the beginning of
(04:36):
unbundling of degrees and thesort of pace of technological
change and new disciplinesneeding to get out into the
world of work faster.
So that's how we began.
And then over the years, it wasfascinating to think about
because in the beginning, if youthink about how we delivered
(04:57):
degrees, it was really a sort ofthink of like a B2B sort of we,
stanford, as an institution,were delivering to corporations
and that was the relationship.
And then, with the advent ofstreaming media and the internet
, that became a university toindividual learner, consumer
(05:19):
direct relationship.
And now what we're seeing isactually a flip back to
corporations really needing tofill their talent pipelines in a
bigger way, and so we have thiswide range of types of
offerings now and modalities,you know, cohort based,
asynchronous, everything inbetween virtual, everything in
between Now corporations arecoming and saying, well, we need
(05:52):
our employees to be able to doX and Y and Z and so sort of a
reinvigoration of that B2B typerelationship.
Wendy Colby (05:55):
It's almost like an evolution right, a
reimagination of the model, andit's so interesting how you've
extended that, given your focuson extended higher education,
how you've extended that overthe years.
Higher education how you'veextended that over the years.
I'm wondering, too, if you'dtalk a little bit about
engineering and you know that'sone that's been near and dear to
my heart too since some of ourearly conversations here given
how much that does tend torequire more high-touch
(06:15):
in-person experiences, and Iknow you now have a pretty broad
portfolio online, hybrid,residential and so I wonder if
you'd talk about what it takesto navigate that kind of
transition, both internally,perhaps, and externally for your
students, and what that hasenabled you to do in terms of
the growth.
Carissa Little (06:38):
Yeah, that's an interesting question.
So I think the evolution ofthat right is fascinating.
The School of Engineering iscelebrating its 100-year
anniversary this year and ourorganization has been a part of
the school.
We just celebrated our 70thanniversary this last year,
which was an well, and it wassort of when I had that
(07:00):
realization that we've been inexistence for 70 years and the
evolution of you know how youthink about delivering education
in a variety of ways.
You know, in the very beginning, engineers were coming to
campus, sitting in classes andthen we were shuttling homeworks
and exams back and forth.
Of course, now you know there'smany different pathways through
(07:21):
degrees and certainly there areparticular courses that are
harder to do online and maybearen't done online, and that is
a part of our kind of hybridexperience, and I think that one
of the things that we sort ofthink carefully about is both
the quality of the education butalso providing as many flexible
(07:41):
pathways through programs aspossible to allow students and
learners to have, you know, moreaccess and more flexibility.
That's been a big driver of allof the types of things that we
do.
I think that you know we workedhard to build stackability into
our thinking about degrees fromthe very beginning.
(08:02):
So that's a new sort of popularterm now.
But even you know, since Istarted here, and I think even
much before, that we hadstackability in our degree
programs you could take you cantake individual courses remotely
for credit and then you cantransfer up to 18 units into a
Stanford master's degree if youwere admitted.
(08:24):
And that's been in place for,you know, decades and I think
that that model of stackability,you know, has been really
important.
Even thinking about otherinstitutions you know granting
credit for Stanford courses aswell.
So, and did I?
Did I kind of touch on the coreof what you wanted to get at?
Wendy Colby (08:44):
Yeah, no, I think so.
You know, I love the whole whereyou're kind of pivoting to
right this whole, theoptionality right that you're
giving students if they want totransfer in, and the fact that
it's what I find reallyinteresting as well is that
you've been doing this for aperiod of time, even though
definitions have changed andsome of the terminology has come
(09:04):
into greater vogue, right, andso we'll get at this, because I
think a big reason we are havingthis conversation and opening
it up to a broader group ofconstituents is also to elevate
the kind of expertise you've had, as others are thinking about
evolving and moving in thisspace, and I know I've greatly
valued that, just even as acolleague and a collaborator in
(09:25):
this space with you.
So let's talk a little bitabout the other popular term in
vogue today, which, of course,is AI, and so you know I'm
wondering how you think about AIin the context of teaching and
learning and how you believe itcan enrich disciplines like
engineering, and are there anyefforts that you're taking at
(09:48):
Stanford to create meaningfulexperiences using AI?
Carissa Little (09:54):
Certainly, I think the topic of AI is really
fascinating to me because theresearch in this area has been
happening for, you know, decadeshere at Stanford.
Some of the leading individualsin the world are here at
Stanford or were here at AndrewNg and Fei-Fei Li and others, so
(10:17):
we are really fortunate to haveaccess to all of that thinking.
I think one of the things thatI'm spending time thinking
deeply about is making sure thatwe, in the work that we do in
teaching and learning, continueto preserve optionality for
ourselves in the future.
So I think it's very easy tojump on a technology or go with
(10:44):
a big player in the spacebecause it's a movement now and
it's important to be thinkingabout this and incorporating it
into your work.
I think the thing that I worryabout is the rapid pace of
change in the space.
I don't want to be stuck with aset of technologies or pilots
(11:06):
that we turn into operationalactivity and then look up and
say, oh wait, there's a betterthing over there, and so my sort
of current strategy in thisspace is to really follow very
closely the work of our facultyhere at Stanford in terms of
what actually has good efficacyin the future, but also doing
(11:29):
lots and lots of pilots andworking where it makes sense.
Also, stanford, I think, likemany other institutions, has
what they've coined the AIplayground, and so there are
many large language modelsincorporated there, and you can,
you know, use those tools andthe work that we do in different
ways, but I do.
(11:50):
I think it's really importantfor everyone, not just in the
space that we're in, in teachingand learning.
But I mean, this is a massivechange management time.
Everyone's work will changedramatically, and so there's
sort of the operational part ofthe activity, which is using
these tools on a regular basisto make work better, more
(12:13):
efficient, do interesting things, and then there's the part of
it that's really the teachingand learning part.
I think some of the early thingsthat I'm seeing that you know
are promising are really around,you know, using agentic AI as
simulators for things that mightfeel high risk to practice,
(12:33):
kind of like you know, and wehave some faculty doing that
kind of research.
I also think that thisintersection of VR, ar and the
ability in the future maybe 10years out to produce really high
quality experiences usinggenerative AI it's very costly
to do now, and one of ourfaculty talks about how Jeremy
(12:54):
Bailens and how, just with theadvent of AI, he's been able to
create environments in the VR ARspace that are just striking
and much less expensive and muchless time consuming than they
used to be.
So those are some of thedirections that I think are
promising.
The thing that I'm also reallyfocused on in our work is
(13:16):
ensuring that we think carefullyabout human connection whenever
we are working on bringingtools into our environments and
experiences into ourenvironments, and so we have a
number of pilots going, but Ithink that those are some of the
things that are top of mind forme, that I think about, worry
about and want to make sure, aswe're implementing pilots and
(13:37):
strategies, that the optionalityand the human connection, that
those are things that areimportant to me.
Wendy Colby (13:44):
I love what you're sharing there, carissa, and it's
really echoing for me here too.
We're in the process ofstanding up a new AI development
accelerator here at BostonUniversity and we held a
symposium just a few weeks ago,and what was really interesting
and really the purpose of thatsymposium was to surface all of
the good things going on acrossour university right the
(14:06):
experimentation that ishappening not only in teaching
and learning with faculty, butalso across all the
administrative functions whenyou think about contracts or
reviewing applications can do,but really thinking about that
(14:26):
human connection and reallybeing purposeful and not getting
so stuck on.
You know, this is the latesttool or technology that we can
apply, because I think we dohave to think about this with
the longer view in mind.
And I do love what you saidabout kind of following faculty
too, because there are what Ifound here many innovators, many
champions that can start tolead the way as we do further
(14:46):
experimentation, right with whatit is.
Carissa Little (14:54):
Stanford has a human-centered AI institute that
looks at the sort ofintersection of policy and
technology, and they have anannual symposium they hosted a
few weeks ago, and one of thethings that was fascinating
coming out of that that I attenda lot of different types of
(15:17):
research conferences here atStanford and around the world,
and often experts will tell youthat oh, here's the prediction
of what's going to happen.
And what was striking to me atthis event was that mostly the
faculty and the experts werelike we don't really know what's
going to happen.
And we're, you know, we'reforging some paths in these
(15:39):
directions, but it's justchanging so rapidly, and so I
think that's one of the thingsabout this whole space that's
really fascinating and funactually for the work that we do
is we don't know what willhappen, and that's kind of
exciting and it means thatthere's lots of change coming.
Wendy Colby (15:56):
It's a bit of right .
You've got to expect theunexpected right.
One of the other things thatcame out in our symposium was
you know, there were a number offaculty who weren't there,
right, this was a kind of a coregroup of people who came to the
symposium, and so there was alot of dialogue around well, how
do we bring everyone else along?
And, just as a follow-up, Iwonder how you're thinking about
(16:17):
that?
Right, there are certainlyalways in any new technology.
Right, you're going to seethose who embrace it early on.
Right, the early adopters, ifyou will, and we're going to get
to a bit more on faculty herein a moment.
But I wonder how do you thinkabout that at Stanford, right,
are all your faculty innovators,or do you find that, you know,
there are populations you haveto bring along as well?
Carissa Little (16:39):
Oh for sure there are populations that have
to be brought along, as we, youknow, bring new ways of doing
work into.
You know the way that thatfaculty think about and deliver
education, and that's been thecase for many of the technology
changes that we've that myorganization has been a part of
over decades, so you'll have theearly adopters, you have the
(17:02):
folks in the middle.
One of the things that we morerecently have done on an annual
basis is we put out a call forparticipation to our faculty
around a combination of things.
It can be programmaticdevelopment themes that we think
are important, you know, in aparticular year, but we also
embed in there someexperimentation and and around
(17:27):
using innovative technologiesand the teaching that that we
might do together.
So that that's one way.
I think Stanford at large alsohas the Graduate School of
Education, has a learningaccelerator where they're also
putting out grants for facultyto do experimentation and
research and teaching, and sothose are some.
(17:49):
You know faculty love to doresearch and they love grants,
and so that's one of the ways tobring them into the fold.
Wendy Colby (17:56):
No, I love that too , and we're talking a lot about
that here as well.
Another part of my ownportfolio is heading up this
Institute for Excellence inTeaching and Learning, and
there's been a lot of discussionon how you tap into those kinds
of incentives.
You talked about an academicinnovation fund, ways of
convening faculty spotlightswith faculty and how to kind of
(18:17):
be that hub and spoke if youwill across especially a very
large community.
Well, that might segue reallynicely into just as you think
more broadly about the faculty.
You know partnership withfaculty and the role you know
your unit plays with faculty.
I'm wondering if you can talk alittle bit about and again for
those who might be listening andare trying to set up online
(18:39):
units or extended learning unitsyou know how you collaborate
and work with faculty,especially as you're kind of
steering new online or hybridprograms.
You know what drives successand are there any?
You know particularcollaborations you're most proud
of.
Carissa Little (18:53):
Yeah, I think you know one of the things
lesson learned over, you know, acouple of decades here at
Stanford is most of the activityin universities is driven out
of departments.
So if you talk to a provost,they say, well, I can't tell the
deans what to do.
And if you talk to deans, theysay, well, I can't tell my
(19:14):
faculty, you know what to do.
I can set some directionality,but they will do what they will
do.
And so we work extremelyclosely with department chairs
to help think through what theirgoals and objectives are in
terms of reaching folks beyondthe Stanford campus and then
help craft programs around that.
(19:35):
We're totally faculty driven.
I think you have to be in thework that we do, and so that's
something that's been, you know,really important, I think, in
terms of collaborations that I'mmost proud of.
I mean, I think I'm proud of allof the sort of relationships
that we built with all of ourdepartments in the School of
(19:55):
Engineering, because they'revery different and they have
very different goals andobjectives in terms of what
they're trying to accomplish.
So, for example, we have a civiland environmental engineering
department that has a hybriddegree, because a lot of their
coursework, you know, doesn'tlend itself to online, but we
also have a very large portfoliowith them that is professional
(20:18):
education, and so theirportfolio is crafted one way.
And then I have anotherdepartment that has just
entirely only degree and creditbased activity of is just
building and understanding thesort of culture of particular
departments, their goals andobjectives with education and
(20:41):
what their constraints are interms of you know, it could be
they have a small set of facultyor it could be that their
faculty are overloaded inteaching, and so how do we
respond to that?
I think one example of that thatI'll share in our computer
science department that I ampretty proud of the programmatic
side of this is our computerscience department here at
(21:04):
Stanford is very much motivatedby, you know, free, open content
being made available to thepublic, and we worked with them
to think about how to optimizetheir teaching time in the AI
space, as these things arechanging so rapidly.
So we have this lovelyexperience where they teach
(21:30):
their regular Stanford coursethat we make available to degree
students or make thoseavailable to industry students
to enroll for credit.
We then modify that and it hasa very similar level of rigor.
We edit it in a rapidpost-production process and make
that material available onYouTube for free.
(21:51):
And then we also have acohort-based program that runs.
That's a professionalcertificate and so it's
leveraging the teaching time ofthe faculty, but their objective
is really around making thecontent available for free.
Wendy Colby (22:08):
That's terrific.
And then the support your teamprovides, and I understand the
faculty-driven and I also reallyappreciate the approach you're
taking with faculty, in thatit's not a one size fits all,
that there are differentapproaches across departments
and different needs.
And then is it your team thatgets involved in collaboration
with faculty, for instance onbuilding out the programs or
(22:29):
courses or marketing andsteering the growth or
commercialization.
Can you just talk a little bitabout that structure?
Carissa Little (22:36):
Yeah, so right.
So, yes, all of those functionsthat inside my unit.
I think that we don't sort ofinfluence what a degree is.
We might influence you knowsort of what a pathway might
look like and help advise aroundthat, because you know Stanford
, like many institutions, youhave a lot of optionality when
(22:59):
you enroll in a degree programand so maybe there's a simpler
pathway through a degree.
So we help provide advice andguidance to departments, but on
the degree side it's entirelydefined by existing degree
programs.
On the professional andexecutive education that we do,
it is entirely driven by ourteam sort of matchmaking with
(23:24):
faculty around.
Here's an area of interest.
A faculty member might come tous with an idea, or we come to a
faculty member and say, hey, wethink that this is something we
might want to build, are youinterested in doing it?
And so we help do the marketresearch, we do all of the
marketing, we, um, we come upwith the you know business case
(23:45):
for how, you know what will wecharge for it and how will that,
you know, pay off over time?
Um, all of those things, um,and I think that, again, one of
my lessons learned in my rolehere at Stanford is two things.
I think having control overmarketing is super important,
actually, but we've partneredfor decades with smaller
(24:19):
boutique consulting firms andanytime that we relinquished our
control over marketing andcommunications, we had less
success.
So that's been something thatI've built up over a period of
time and find it super important.
And it's different than thecommunications arm that most
institutions are very good at.
You know the communications armthat most institutions are very
(24:39):
good at.
It is digital marketing andcontent marketing.
It's a completely differentbase than our institutions are
used to practicing in.
So that's been really important.
We also have, you know, a veryand again, this has been built
up over decades but a verysophisticated tech and marketing
stack that we built, you know,out of hide over time.
(24:59):
So I think that's something tonote too, and you can partner to
get ahead in those spaces inthe short term.
But I think those capacitiesare really important to be able
to deliver on the type of workthat we do.
Wendy Colby (25:12):
I'm so happy we're having this conversation.
I'm smiling because you knowthis is very much, I think, the
same approach that we've triedto take here through my own unit
at BU Virtual, which is, as youthink, about the marketing
often online marketing, ormarketing of professional or
certificate programs verydifferent from what we see at
sort of the core on thecommunication side.
(25:34):
So I couldn't agree with youmore in terms of how to build up
that capacity, and often thatis a challenge inside of
universities today, which is whywe've seen such a variety of
partnerships out there and onthe technology stack too, I
would say we're very much doingmany of the same things you were
talking about here, likebuilding up the muscle, as I
like to call it, in that area.
So a couple other topic areas,you know, chris, I'd love to, if
(25:55):
we have time, to get to.
Of course I want to have in anyconversation a focus on the
student right, and you know sowe're seeing just such changing
dynamics with our studentpopulations too and what
motivates them and all thechange going on in higher ed.
You know, with all of yourexperience at Stanford, how has
that evolved and how are yourprograms sort of meeting
students where they are today?
Carissa Little (26:16):
evolved and how are your programs sort of
meeting students where they aretoday?
It's interesting, right?
I think at institutions likeours there's this sort of
balancing act of being learnerdriven versus being driven by
the research of our faculty, andso I always come back to that.
I think that you know, we, wealways stay grounded and what
and what is it that's uniqueabout the research at Stanford
(26:40):
and how do we bring that tostudents?
I think our former dean, jimPlummer, talked about T-shaped
engineers, where you have adepth of expertise in one field.
But then there's the top of theT, which is, you know, which
changes over time.
But that's the sort of softskills, entrepreneurship, you
(27:04):
know, rounding out individualsin the STEM space, you know.
So back, you know, at one timeit was really about project
management and communication,and those things continue to be
important.
But now there's a big emphasison ethics, which you know, maybe
a couple of decades ago, notthat folks would say it wasn't
(27:25):
important, but it's moreimportant now because of the
rapid pace of change withtechnology.
So that's something that, um,you know, we think about how to
meet those needs, and some ofthem are ecosystem needs and
some of them are learner needs.
So I think we are finding nowin this current time I mentioned
(27:45):
change management earlier boy,lots of conversations about the
need for skills in the changemanagement space, you know,
around different disciplines,and so that's coming up quite a
lot.
Yeah, I do think that one of thethings, too that I worked on
here at Stanford, I think youknow, is we have a credential
(28:07):
framework, and part of what hasbeen important, I think, for
learners is understanding sortof what it is I'm doing and what
you know, having transparencyaround the level of rigor and
some kind of standardizationwithin our own institution about
what we're telling learnersthey've earned, so that when
(28:29):
they go to an employer they cansay, okay, I did this thing.
Or on their LinkedIn they cansay, I did this thing.
And I think meaningfulcredentials is super important.
There are a bunch of, you know,fly by night providers out
there that are, you know, nothigh quality credentials or you
know, and we even have offeringshere at Stanford that are
really meant just to be, youknow, sort of a short hour long,
(28:53):
have some perspective, not ameaningful credential.
These are not all the samethings, right, and so we want to
recognize that there aredifferent types of learning
opportunities, but also bereally transparent with learners
and employers about whatthey're getting when they do an
experience with Stanford.
Wendy Colby (29:10):
That's wonderful, carissa.
Thank you for that.
I'm now going to bring us backto a little bit where you
started, because you started abit of our conversation today
talking about some of theworkforce right and even how
that has evolved over the years.
You know, when you started inthe early days and it was
connecting with companies, andnow we're trying to evolve that
whole model right, and of course, some of this relates to the
(29:30):
global piece of this as well.
We both were recently at anevent in India, kind of looking
at the opportunities there.
So I wonder if you can justtalk a little bit about your
views of where we are today.
You know this has long been thepromise in higher education
right how we connect highereducation industry right.
How we more broadly expandglobally.
How are you thinking about thatin your role at Stanford?
Carissa Little (29:52):
Yeah, and I will say it's fascinating to me too,
because this term upskillingand reskilling in workforce
development keeps coming up.
But the founding of my centerwas really grounded in, you know
, hewlett and Packard weregraduate students of Dean Terman
in the 50s and their engineerswere getting out of date with
what was happening at Stanford.
(30:13):
That's a reskilling andupskilling challenge, and so I
think, you know, grounded inengineering, that's always been
what our work is about.
I think that when I think aboutworkforce and global, again I
come back to well, what are thething where?
What is that matchmakingbetween what industry needs and
(30:33):
what Stanford can offer, theexpertise of our faculty can
offer?
So I stay grounded in that.
I think, in terms of globalmarkets, you know.
So my goal is to have impact onas many people as possible with
whatever scale I can muster interms of what the technology
will provide and our limitedresources, you know, can provide
(30:56):
.
So, and every geography isdifferent.
I mean, we were together inIndia, as you pointed out, and
gosh, the scale there isunbelievable because of the size
of the population and the verydistinct differences between,
you know, metropolis India andrural education systems.
(31:17):
It's just a vast set of complexproblems there.
That's very different than someof the work that we've done in,
say, latin America or SoutheastAsia.
So I think when you're thinkingabout workforce and global
strategy, you have to reallylearn it's not one size fits all
.
Every geography is very, verydifferent in terms of what's
(31:40):
culturally accepted, what arethe challenges, what will work,
what won't work.
Very, very interesting.
We support also, for example,some healthcare education in
South Africa, but it's only onecountry in Africa, right?
So we're trying to look at youknow, where can we have impact,
and some of that can be drivenby faculty relationships that
(32:01):
exist.
Some of it comes from where youmight be able to partner.
I think partnership strategiesfor global workforce is really
important.
Wendy Colby (32:10):
I was going to say to you how are you thinking
about that?
Right, it's, you know, giventhe complexity and the stark
contrast you see in places likeIndia, as you mentioned.
Right, trying to go it alonecan be very challenging.
Right, you have to have some ofthat sort of in-country
expertise right to help guideand inform those efforts work
(32:37):
that we do around the globe is alot on the um.
Carissa Little (32:38):
Well, we deliver a lot online, but we also do a
lot of custom live virtualeducation with different
geographies, and always oursuccess has been driven by
having a local partner in someform.
It's not necessarily a platformpartner.
It could be, for example, wehave a well-placed Stanford alum
in one geography and thatindividual has helped us
(33:00):
understand that space and wepartnered with that individual's
company.
So I think you can lean onalums.
I think you can lean on localproviders that might just fill
in marketing for you in thatgeography or understanding
learners in that geography.
It doesn't have to be an entirepartnership around delivery.
Wendy Colby (33:23):
Yeah, it's kind of determining your I like to call
it the constellation of partnersand who might best suit the
purpose right that you're after.
Yes, it's great, that's great,carissa.
So you know kind of gettingkind of winding us to a close
here, you know.
Just two more questions really.
I mean we talked a little bitabout all the changes going on
in higher ed and that probablyisn't new.
(33:44):
I mean, over the years, asyou've said, we've seen a lot of
changes.
They happen to seem, you know,sort of right in front of us
right now.
But where do you see this allgoing right, waving that magic
wand right?
What's on the horizon as youthink about, you know,
universities who are trying toopen up diversification, trying
to think more broadly aboutportfolios, trying to think
(34:05):
about reskilling and upskilling.
Is it more of the same on thatsort of pitch?
Is it something else?
Carissa Little (34:14):
I mean I think that that will continue, right.
I mean, the technology changesaround us will just drive a need
for education and you know,universities really tap into
currently a very small portionof the education market, if you
will.
So I think that that willcontinue.
(34:34):
I do see, you know, somechallenges in our current
environment for smallerinstitutions who have fewer
resources than an institutionlike Stanford and BU, and so I
feel like those providers, Ithink, will really struggle in
the future.
I'm also seeing that a lot ofinstitutions like ours maybe
(34:58):
initially did a full partnershipstrategy or pulling're going to
see a lot more around what someuniversities call the 60-year
curriculum.
People are living longer andyou need to reskill and upskill
(35:30):
more times in your life than youdid just because of how long
people are living and how muchchange is coming.
And I think that for me that Imentioned this before the sort
of flexibility and optionalityfor students I see more
institutions will build towardsthose capabilities and it will
take time, but that will beimportant, I think, for for
(35:55):
institutions to invest in umbecause our learners will demand
it and we will have morediverse learners in the future.
They're already demanding itcoming out of COVID, and so I
feel like you know, universitiesare slow, uh, to build, but but
we'll get there, I think.
Wendy Colby (36:14):
Absolutely.
You know, and when I thinkabout your story and it's a
story like, you know, many otheruniversities I think we're
trying to do the same at BU.
You know it's like and this iseven thematically, how I was
thinking about our conversationtoday.
It's been from sort of SiliconValley, which is the sort of the
epicenter right of a lot ofinnovation, but to the world and
making that available in a lotof different ways.
(36:35):
And it opens up opportunitiestoo for many institutions to
think about and to takeresponsibility for how we are
extending our mission right toreach more students and open
access.
And you know, it's something Ithink a lot of us in higher ed
are really thinking very deeplyabout.
Carissa Little (36:54):
And I think that there is a big opportunity for
institutions to partner with oneanother.
Right, some of the promisearound I mean we don't need to
have redundant curriculum insome of the basics right, and
there may be things thatStanford's really good at but
has gaps in our curriculum, etcetera.
So I think I would love to seehigher ed you know band together
(37:18):
more in this time and in thisspace to to partner around that
mission.
We can do much more togetherthan we can do individually and
separately.
Wendy Colby (37:28):
I'm so glad you said that, chris, and it's one
of the reasons that I talked toyou early on that I wanted to do
this podcast right, because oneof the things I've really
valued moving into, you know, myrole here is the opportunity to
reach out to you and others andto share experiences and to
learn from those experiences anddetermine what I can bring back
into my own environment right.
So I have loved thecollaborative and collegial sort
(37:50):
of, you know, instincts that weall have here, right to do that
.
So, finally, you know Imentioned at the opening and
this was just kind of a sidebenefit after meeting you, I
think I learned this way aftermeeting you that you are a BU
alum and so I'm wondering youknow I always think about
connecting dots right as youthink back to your undergraduate
(38:11):
education.
You know, what you gained fromyour own education experience
and how that informs where youare and what you're doing today.
Carissa Little (38:31):
Yeah, it's fascinating, I mean, I think,
and being kind of forced toexplore really rounded out me as
a person.
I was, you know it's sort ofpopular to say now I was always
at the time embarrassed about it, but I was a first gen, you
know, sort of first person in myfamily to graduate from a
(38:54):
four-year institution and Ithink that, you know, bu really
gave me an opportunity to livein a very, very wonderful,
thriving city, explore manydisciplines and topic areas.
(39:15):
I also was a I think you knowthis I was a student worker.
I worked in the provost'soffice on accreditation, so I
feel like that also helpedinform my thinking.
Yeah, so just having reallygreat mentors and experiences
along those lines, right, tryingto think what else you know
(39:39):
came out.
I mean, you know, one of myfavorite classes actually was a
religion class and I didn't growup having religion in my life
as a kid, and so that sort ofexploration was just, you know,
really eye opening for me whileI was, you know, thinking I was
going to be pre-med and workingtowards a, you know, a biology
major.
And then I found educationpartway through my experience,
(40:02):
and BU has a wonderful school ofeducation and I, you know
taught in.
You know student taught inBelmont, which was really
wonderful.
So you know I yeah, I had awonderful experience at BU.
Wendy Colby (40:19):
I see all the connecting of the dots right of
teaching and liberal arts, andyou know just the wealth, as you
were talking earlier about.
You know some of those, thosesoft skills, right, they may be
evolving over the years, but youknow, working in the provost's
office, all these other thingsthat you know really paved the
way right.
You can't always.
I always say, you know sort ofsee the breadcrumbs, you know
(40:39):
going forward, but when you goback you can kind of it all
sorts starts to make sense,right.
All right, carissa, this hasbeen so fantastic.
Any other words of wisdom,anything else you want to share
with our listeners here in termsof and you've touched on so
much of this right in ways wecan strengthen collaboration or
open dialogue to shape thefuture of higher education, if
(41:01):
that's not too aspirational.
Carissa Little (41:05):
It's pretty aspirational.
No, I will come back to right.
Thinking about coming togetherand partnering across
institutions is something thatyou know I think is just so
important.
I learn a ton from you andothers in our space all the time
, so that I think is reallyimportant.
(41:26):
I think you know I'm right now,in this particular moment I'm
thinking about.
You know I had my all hands withmy team yesterday and I'm
thinking deeply about how, inthis current environment that
we're in, that there's a lot ofuncertainty and there are a lot
(41:46):
of constraints that are comingto us, but to try to remember
that anytime you have thoseconstraints, you have more
opportunity actually.
So when one door closes, anotherdoor opens.
I know that that's a reallysilly kind of idiom, but it
really.
It does create new opportunityand you know it's easy to feel
(42:10):
kind of doom and gloom whenresources become more
constrained, but actuallyconstraint can provide
opportunity for innovation.
And you know someone coined thephrase never waste a crisis.
I love that.
Like crises get us active andactivated and give us
opportunity to work on hardproblems.
So I think if I were thinkingabout a parallel wisdom, you
know I've been in the valley fora couple of downturns and you
(42:33):
know those downturns providereally interesting opportunity
and I think higher ed hasn't hadas much of that on the whole
ecosystem and I think actuallyit could be an interesting time
for us to do really innovativework.
Wendy Colby (42:47):
Carissa.
I think that is a fantastic wayto end.
Constraint brings opportunity.
One door closes, another opens.
I love it.
Thank you so much for havingthis conversation with me today
and for all the work you'redoing at Stanford Really
impressive and I look forward tocontinuing to be part of the
community with you.
So thank you, Thanks, Wendy.
(43:07):
Thank you for joining us forthis BU Virtual Connects podcast
.
Special thanks to my colleaguesat BU Virtual and to our media
team who produces this podcastunder the leadership of our
studio director, George Vago.
To keep up with our BU VirtualConnects series, be sure to
(43:30):
subscribe wherever you listen toyour favorite podcasts.
You can also learn more aboutour portfolio of online programs
at BU Virtual by visiting bu.
edu/ virtual.
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