John Woods, Chief Academic Officer & Provost of University of Phoenix

This week we feature John Woods, Chief Academic Officer & Provost of University of Phoenix.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You are listening to CEOs, youshould know an iHeartRadio. Of course.
My name is Billy Harfash. Wehave a very special guest this week,
and I am excited to talk aboutthis because the future of our communities really
it boils down to one thing,and that is education. I have the
Provost and Chief Academic Officer of theUniversity of Phoenix, mister John Woods.

(00:23):
Mister Woods, welcome to the show. How are you today, Hi,
Billiam great, thanks for having me. Well, I'm happy to chat with
you, and you know a lotof us out there listening today have heard
of University of Phoenix, but Iwant you to dig into some of the
details. Why is the University ofPhoenix different than some other universities and colleges.
I think it's a special institution,Billy. We were founded in nineteen

(00:44):
seventy six, and the best ofmy knowledge at the time, and maybe
even still to this day, theonly institution that would built for working adults.
So not built for a lot ofdifferent audiences or a variety of different
folks seeking education, really built specificallyfor one particular audience, the adults who's

(01:06):
working by looking to advance their educationwhile doing so when I was reading about
you, mister Woods, and readingabout the University of Phoenix, what stood
out to me as a couple ofthings, And I want to start with
this. Your office really defines studentlearning outcomes that make sure that they align
with employer expectations. So we're talkingabout career relevant academics here. And to

(01:30):
me, in a lot of theinterviews and a lot of the conversations around
education that I've had, I alwaysgo back to we need to make sure
that our curriculum, that our classes, that the programs were offering in the
end will make sure that this persongets a job, because that's what we're
trying to achieve here. Talk tome about those learning outcomes and how the
University of Phoenix is really aligning tomorrow'sworkforce. Yeah, there's a long history

(01:55):
here of what we've done to betterserve working adults than the lineup with the
things that employers expect them to beable to know. When we were first
founded, our founder, doctor Spurling, he wanted a different education for working
adults and he wanted to better serveemployers. He hired faculty who were practitioners
in the fields. We offered programswould help students get ahead in their careers.

(02:21):
We've evolved over the years as welook at where we stand today,
we don't offer any programs that don'tlead to above average job prospects according to
the dure of labor statistics, whichI think is really part and parcels who
we are. And then to yourpoint about what students learned in those programs,

(02:42):
We've mapped all of our programs sothat each course, in every single
program teaches students at least three skillsthat are required by employers, and a
lot of mapping has been done tofigure out what those skills should be.
We've mapped those skills to find thatthey're in job postings, to find that
they're in job descriptions that are postedby employers looking to hire people, they're

(03:09):
in the beer of Labor statistics datasets, and so in every single course
someone takes, they're going to learnat least three skills that are really important
for the job they have to doupon completion. In this way, a
student can learn skills and accumulate thoseskills as they go and maybe be able

(03:29):
to progress in their career or domore in the job they're as they go
and not wait till the end,which is really important. Speaking right out
of John Woods, he's the provostand chief academic officer at the University of
Phoenix. In a John, whatkind of feedback do you get from employers?
You talked about how you gather allthat data together, all that information
about what they're looking for, Butwhen they hire a University of Phoenix graduate,

(03:53):
what kind of feedback over the yearshave you gotten like, oh my
gosh, this candidate was really prepared. What sets universe see Phoenix graduates apart
well Anecdobley, We get those storiesall the time. More scientifically, we
do employers surveys. We've got industryadvisory councils that serve to help us evolve

(04:14):
our programs, and they meet regularlyyear round to help us do that.
We survey our alumni and we askour alumni specific questions about how well prepared
they felt the University of Phoenix educationmade them. So we're always looking at
that data. We've got, asI said, some great stories from different
faculty, students, employers, industryadvisory council members who all tell us what

(04:40):
we're teaching really hits the mark andhelps our students advance, And it really
is a mix of are we gettingthose stories, are we getting that great
feedback, and are we also collectingthe data from those different sources that tell
us the same thing. So we'realways making adjustments to try and be better
in this regard. As I'm hearingyou speak about the University of Phoenix and

(05:01):
your goals, I just kind ofam laughing inside because I'm thinking of myself
as a college student when I wentto university and I had this moment like
halfway through my junior year, like, oh my goodness, I'm doing this
all because I need to get ajob after this is all done. And
I had all of these courses fromall over the place, and I really,

(05:23):
if I was being honest with myself, I wasn't sure where it was
going. And I don't think thatthe classes I was taking was necessarily directing
me down a career path. Soit's really nice to hear that the University
of Phoenix is doing something different tomake sure that your students they know what
the next step is. I thinkthat's so important when we talk about education.
Yeah, you and me both,Billy. I can remember as an

(05:46):
undergraduate student feeling a little lacking indirection myself, and I've got kids now
going through the process of selecting orin college one of them, and I
think college is an amazing experience forparticularly for our younger people, the seventeen
to twenty one year old who cankind of go about things a little bit

(06:09):
differently and discover that path learn whatthey're interested in, and then pursue it.
Before working adults who's you know,maybe looking to make a change or
advance their career, they're feeling maybea little bit topped out in their career.
They need something a lot more specific, a lot more directives, and
they need a confidence that what they'rebeing asked to learn is in fact the

(06:32):
important and relevant and will help themget ahead. So higher uccasions pretty diverse
it in that way. For us, we're looking for the most specific,
most direct, most really valuable pathwayfor our students to be able to apply
that knowledge right away as they're learningit on the job and maybe impressed the

(06:55):
boss and and you know, geta different job, a better job,
or get a new project that theymight not have otherwise been able to get.
Because the skills that are learning buildupon each other and they're more transparent
both the learner and the employer asthey go again, not having to wait
four or five years until you're doneto say I'm ready to get hired,
but with the skills they learn alongthe way, I'm ready to do more

(07:17):
the next day. Making a lotof sense on the air right now,
I'm speaking that John Woods of theUniversity of Phoenix. This is CEOs.
You should know. My name isBilly Harfas John. You know you talk
about those jobs. I mean,we all are always talking about jobs here
in the state of Arizona, inAmerica in general. It's no surprise to
my audience and certainly no surprise toyou that the current trends in business and

(07:40):
technology they're changing, and they're showingthat the way employees work. We're talking
about where we're talking about when evenhow they work have and are continuing to
change almost month over month. Thisthing is evolving and what our business culture
looks like for the future. Sosomebody in your experience, you've been in

(08:00):
academia for a long time, jobplacement at the highest levels, executive levels,
where is this thing going? Imean, are we going to be
working from home? Now? Alot of us seemingly forever. Is this
the new career path? What kindof changes do you see in the next
ten years. Yeah, I thinkwork from home has become pretty widely accepted,

(08:20):
obviously out of necessity. At thestart of COVID, you have seen
a lot of large organizations bring peopleback to their offices. I think that
has been a bit of a stubbit of a shift, and maybe a
bit of a surprise shift. Companies, I think are wanting to re establish
that connection with their employer employees.I don't think that we'll see a complete

(08:46):
shift to remote work. You've gotthose larger ones I've asked the employees to
come back. You've got employees nowable to make choices of where they want
to work based on some key factorslike work from home and if that's important
to them. So I think you'regoing to see more employee choice, employees
voting with their fee to who theywant to work for, taking the type

(09:09):
of work they want, the styleof work, the culture of work.
Those were choices that were not alwaysavailable to employees. So we do see
that when we ran our soon tobe our third coming up in the next
couple of months, when we runour Career Optimism Index. We see a
big, big difference in what employersare expecting of employees and what employees are

(09:31):
expecting of employers on things like professionaldevelopment, the culture at work, and
appreciation for mental health awareness and appreciationand support for training and development. There
are a lot of gaps. I'dsay, if there's one thing I would
tell you where the world of workis headed, is that employees have ever

(09:54):
more leverage and power to choose whothey want to work for. You see
very low unemployment today, but yousee an incredible amount of churns where people
are sometimes you've been willing to leavea job without a next job. Wind
up our career optimism. And nexttole is that nearly two thirds of people
are taking kind of always on approach, so looking for that next position even

(10:20):
if they're happy where they are,and many reports that they'd be willing to
leave their job if they were unhappy, like I said, without even having
that next job ready to start in. And you know, John, you
mentioned the remote work and how thattrend is shifting. Really, the University
of Phoenix has been on the cuttingedge for a number of years now as
far as how we conduct classes andhow we don't really need to drive,

(10:45):
park our car, walk into abuilding and sit at a desk in order
to get an education. University ofPhoenix has been doing something different for a
number of years, and that's onlinelearning. Where do you see the direction
of the University of Phoenix as faras online learning goes? And I'm assuming
you're seeing more and more people adoptthat model. Yeah, many folks will

(11:05):
remember that when we started serving workingadults, we were campus based in nineteen
seventy six. We were one ofthe first institutions to have fully online programs.
Those online programs eventually grew to bea majority of our student enrollment.

(11:26):
Pre COVID, we were seeing thattrend increase. People not wanting to deal
with traffic, people not wanting todeal with the lack of flexibility of going
from work to school and spending threefour hours in a classroom on a weeknight,
and so online was growing even beforeCOVID, and then obviously with COVID

(11:46):
it became even much more widely accepted. Our programs, I would say,
continue to evolve. There's online education, but there are many different ways folks
can build and deliver online education.The evolution for us of most recent times
is to move into competency based onlineeducation, and these are programs that give

(12:09):
students even more flexibility, even greateragency to navigate through the curriculum, to
go a little bit more at theirown pace. And that's a big evolution
for us. We've built of ourprograms now in a competency based model.
They're also even more affordable, andso we've always been pretty I think competitive

(12:31):
in terms of our our pricing ofprograms. For their competency based programs are
even lower priced and someone can gettheir MBA, for example, in our
competency based version in about eleven months. For I believe it's about eleven thousand
dollars. And so for the personwho wants flexibility, affordability, value to

(12:54):
learn from faculty who our practitioners inthe field, we're really good fit.
And you know, I think peoplemake choices based on what they're looking for,
and if those are some of thethings that appeal to them, they'll
choose us. Well, we knowthat you're dealing with adults here. Adults
are busy. Adults are also sometimesparents, and they have a job,

(13:16):
but they also want to up theirskills and they want to get further their
education process. So these competency basedprograms, it's my understanding that they really
help with timing. In other words, you can go as faster as slow
as you want. Do I havethat correct? Yeah, you can really
vary your speed in a competency basedprogram. As I said, you can
finish in as quickly as eleven months. You can go a little bit longer

(13:41):
if you want. Some of ourstudents take breaks. The thing about the
competency based programs and they have aslightly higher work requirement as an entrance requirement.
But the thing about comptency based programsis you're doing application based assignments that
ask you to draw on what you'relearning in combination with your work and world

(14:03):
experience. And most people report itdoesn't seem like a lot of busy work
to them. These assignments seem verypractical, very applicable to what they're what
they're asked to do on the job. And in addition to the flexibility and
being able to go faster, thestudent satisfaction in these programs has been really
high. I gotta tell you we'regoing to finish up with this and thank
you for being on the show today, But this last topic. I'm really

(14:26):
excited to talk with you about itbecause I'm not sure how I feel,
and I'm not sure how the audiencefeels. But here's a fact. So
fifty two percent of American workers saythey are easily replaceable in their job or
position. Forty one percent of workersworry about losing their jobs. So if
we go off those numbers, it'smy belief that we're not talking about losing

(14:48):
your job in the traditional sense,always like a layoff, we're getting fired.
But right now we have things happeninglike chat GPT. I'm sure you're
aware of an AI based programs,and it was the thought a number of
years ago, really just a coupleof years ago, that these would replace
more blue collar jobs. And nowwe're getting data and we're talking to experts

(15:09):
that say, not so fast,my friend. These could also be replacing
even more so white collar jobs.When we talk about Americans that are worried
about losing their jobs, we haveto also worry about technology, which is
a great thing to have in ourlives, but it might take some of
those jobs away. At the Universityof Phoenix and you, personally, I
mean, how do you look aboutthis? New phenomenon that the workplace is

(15:31):
getting ready to experience. Yeah,I think Bill, you're onto something there.
The studies that are written about wherewe see the world of work going
by the like the Gardener Group orForbes, they talk about the skills that
are required regardless of the technology advance, as regardless of things like artificial intelligence

(15:54):
as you mentioned, and chat GPT. There are skills that will really help
somebody be successful no matter what happensin the world of work, no matter
how work evolves. The skills thatare mentioned things like being able to collaborate
and work in teams, or appreciatedifferences in people, or be a good

(16:17):
communicator. Those are sometimes called softskills. But whenever these studies are released
at the top of the list ofwhat employers are expecting and hoping for in
their workers, because they make somebodywho is adaptable, who is able to
evolve even as the world of workchanges and evolves. So I guess my

(16:37):
answer for that would be, notonly have we mapped the technical skills in
our programs, but we've mapped thoseskills which are, as I said,
sometimes called soft skills, but they'revitally important. So if you're a student
at the University of Menix, you'llfind out where those skills are being taught
as well. You'll be measured onyour attainment, your learning level against those
skill requirements, and you'll even getto be awarded for your learning with a

(17:03):
badge. People can share those badgesif they want places like ZIP recruiter profiles
or linked in profiles, and thebadges are validated the data that we collected
to measure the learning that took place. So even as the world of work
evolves and changes, those skills willbe I think we'll say durable, and

(17:23):
we're trying to make them so thatthey're more easily translated to a student and
to an employer. So that's understandexactly where they were learned and the level
of attainment that was reached. TheUniversity of Phoenix is on the cutting edge
of education. It was such apleasure to have you on the show,
mister John Woods. Could you justgive my audience some information as someone's out

(17:47):
there listening and maybe they are apparent, maybe they already have a job,
they want to further their education,they might want to change your career,
they might want a promotion at workand they just need some more skills.
Where can my audience get involved andlearn more about the University Phoenix. Well,
the website has a lot of greatinformation Phoenix Doddu. I would point
folks specifically to one of the followingthings on the website, because you know

(18:11):
a website, you can go justabout anywhere and learn all kinds of stuff.
Certainly, there's information about our programs, but we write an academic annual
report that tells everybody, and Ithink a really clear and transparent way about
all the things that we're doing andthe success of our students our alumni.
I would check that out. Youcan also go to our Career Optimism Index

(18:36):
from the Phoenix website, and asI said, that shares with the world
a lot of information we've collected abouthow work is evolving and how worker perceptions
of their career prospects are changing.And that career Optimism Index also reflects what
employers are thinking and saying. Soa few places on our website to find

(18:56):
out about our programs, our approach, and are really important career Optimism Index
that we do every year, andof course you can go to Phoenix dot
edu Phoenix dot edu for all ofthat and more learn about the University of
Phoenix. Fascinating conversation. Mister Woods, Thank you so much for being on
the show, and we'll talk toyou down the road. Thanks. Billy
appreciated the time. This has beenCEOs you should know an iHeartRadio. My

(19:19):
name is Billy Harfash. This hasbeen CEOs you should know, showcasing businesses
that are driving our regional economy.Part of iHeartMedia's commitment to the communities we
serve. I'm your host, BillyHarfosh, Thanks for listening.