January 8, 2025 • 34 mins
Have you ever felt lost in your career path, unsure of where your true passion lies? Meet Brian, a Moravian University alumnus who transformed uncertainty into leadership. From switching between five majors to ultimately discovering his love for English, Brian's story is a testament to the power of mentorship and perseverance. As he shares his journey from student to president of Moravian University, Brian offers a candid look at overcoming imposter syndrome, the role of community, and the valuable lessons his athletic background taught him about dedication and practice. Through initiatives like Heritage Day, Brian illustrates Moravian's enduring commitment to equity and service, creating a profound sense of belonging and civic engagement on campus.
This episode also takes a closer look at how Moravian University is staying ahead of the curve by reshaping its curriculum to better align education with career success. As a member of the New American Colleges and Universities organization, Moravian is integrating applied liberal arts with practical fields, all while respecting its rich historical legacy as a UNESCO World Heritage site. We explore exciting developments in healthcare programs and address the growing demand for professionals in tech and cybersecurity. With a focus on inclusivity and adaptability, Moravian is uniquely positioned to serve a diverse and non-traditional student body, offering flexible, meaningful learning experiences designed for today's dynamic job market. Join us as we uncover how this historic yet forward-thinking institution is preparing students to meet contemporary challenges head-on.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Brian, thank you again for being with me.
You have such a greatbackground.
Could you just walk us throughhow you went from being a
Moravian graduate to presidentof the university?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
identity and was in a pretty difficult time of I
didn't know what to do.
I had I ended up with fivedifferent majors because I
couldn't start one, and nowthat's not it, and I at one
point I was even going to be acriminal justice major because,
you know, athletes should runafter bad guys.
That's.
That was the logic behind thatone, and I met a professor here
who started talking to me aboutEnglish and about what it meant
(00:51):
to be human and that this is thestudy of that, and one of the
influences I say is greatest tome and my leadership is
something he taught me, whichwas when someone's ready to do
something in their livestransformationally that they've
never done before, having thatperson that just helps them
(01:13):
along the way makes up time forthem.
I mean a person like myself.
I don't think there's manypeople that decide their junior
year of college they're going tobe an English major and go on
for a PhD in English and want tocome back as a faculty member
teaching English, right.
So so he had to level theplaying field for me pretty fast
, because people grow up aroundeight years old thinking that
(01:36):
who who are are entering thatworld, so, and so that's kind of
been my whole leadershipphilosophy at Moravian is that
it's about.
Our school is founded on equitySix oldest college in America,
first to educate women andNative Americans and then we
went on to educate the freed andthe enslaved down in the
(02:01):
Caribbean island.
So education for all is ahallmark here and in.
That's about leveling theplaying field.
So that's my story, how I gotthere.
I think all of us hold on tothe fact that we're imposters,
and having that professor tellme no, you're not an imposter,
(02:23):
you can do this, this ispossible.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Possible even if you're starting late, was
important, yeah I love the factthat you just opened the door to
like this, to imposter syndrome, so this wasn't in a
pre-planned questions, but I'dlove to explore that with you.
What tactics have you found?
Because this is, this isactually something secretly like
(02:45):
a leader institutional leaderstalk about but not talk about
openly sort of talk about what'sbeen helpful for you in terms
of like dealing with that um,great mentors, great faculty who
care and want to help you, andand and my sports background.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I think it's hard.
You know, when you're anathlete, you figure out that I,
if I want to be good at this, Ihave to practice the
fundamentals and I have to getgood at the fundamentals before
I can be good at the best partsof the game.
But that if I, you know, spendmy 10,000 hours, I will be
better than most at this.
And if I think the difficultpart athletes have is then
(03:33):
transferring that over toacademics.
But it's the same skillset,right?
I need a coach, um, who who'sdone this before and is and is
successful at that, to help methrough this process so I don't
waste a lot of time.
And then I have to reallypractice just the fundamentals
of this to get at feeling firstcompetent and then qualified to
(03:58):
be in that position.
But it takes time and it takesconstant dedication to it and it
takes good people around youthat can help you with it.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, that's incredibly well said.
I couldn't agree more.
Your institution is reallyunique in that you've got such a
service focus.
What role does service play inthe lifeblood of your campus,
and how important is it to whatdistinguishes you as an
institution?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Well, everything about Moravian is about the
community and service to thecommunity, and we started, about
10 years ago, a program calledHeritage Day.
We want students to actively dostuff, everything that, all the
(04:58):
education that was set up byComenius, who's the father of
modern education, and theMoravian Bishop, is about
experiential learning, and so weset up this program called
Heritage Day, which, as a entirecampus, we take the day off and
serve the local community.
We've just united with UnitedWay in their day of caring, and
so we've now have the United Wayhere be the largest service
(05:22):
provider, because we add athousand volunteers to their
roles.
The idea is that some studentscome from families that
volunteer and are civicallyengaged, and some don't, and so
this is your.
You know you're putting yourfoot in the water, and do I like
this, don't I like this?
(05:43):
If you like it, we have thiswhole center for career and
civic engagement with a massivenumber of people that you can
volunteer all the time that youwant, and so what we've seen is
massive growth in the number ofstudents that are volunteering
in their community.
But it's in the DNA of Moravian,but it is in the.
(06:33):
It's in the DNA of MoravianBack when the federal government
was starting public schoolsacross America, they just let
Moravian teach as the publicschool system elementary school
and everything else for thisarea.
So you know, in 1741, theMoravians named Bethlehem and
six months later they startedthe school for women in the
school for men.
So Bethlehem has never known aplace without Moravian College.
That's basically it.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
That's really incredible, just such an
interesting, I think, blend ofcommunity and institution that
you don't see anywhere, thelines really sort of like
connect with you just given yourinstitutional history, the
lines really sort of likeconnect with you just given your
institutional history.
You also are, I think, uniquein that you are a
well-distinguished school, Likejust some what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
exactly?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And what competitive advantage do you find in that To
your students'?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
information.
So this is also about levelingthe playing field.
So this is also about levelingthe playing field.
It's not fair for students tocome in who come from families
(07:40):
of wealth and have the latestand greatest in technology and,
more importantly, that you're aproducer of technology.
Our students are generallyreally good consumers of
technology, but you ask them todo a pivot table in Excel and
they look like a deer caught inthe headlights.
So we need to provide that forthem, and so we provide a
(08:02):
MacBook, an iPad, an ApplePencil and now we provide the
Apple Watch to all the students.
The Apple Watch is designed onhealth and wellness, which is
one of our greatest challengeswith students right now is to
keep them mentally andphysically well, and the
wearable tracks that.
For us, the MacBook and the iPadare obviously their academic
(08:30):
pieces.
I used to believe that thepower of this was that the
faculty and the student had thesame unit, so the faculty could
come over and say here, this ishow you do it, because there was
great comfort, because that wastheir computer.
I now realize that the realpower in this happens back in
(08:53):
the dorms and the student centerand the library, where another
student says here.
Let me show you how to do this.
And so that's where we seemassive growth in our students'
technology skills, because theirfellow peers can all help them
in producing new technology.
So an Apple DistinguishedSchool is an accreditation
function.
You have to go to Apple everythree years and show how you're
(09:17):
using this in teaching andlearning and how it's changing
student lives, and then, if youdo this adequately, you get your
accreditation for another threeyears.
So we've done it three times.
So for the last nine yearswe've been in Apple
Distinguished School.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, no, that's really great and definitely, I
think, something that anotheraspect that just sort of blends
in and makes you pretty unique.
Which brings me to the nextquestion, which you know, I
think a lot of people in ourspace talk about, is the, you
know, the demographic cliff andjust shrinking and changing
demographics and the number ofcollege going students just
(09:53):
being lower generally speaking,especially in places like like
the midwest and the northeast,and you're kind of kind of
between the two.
Um, I think what less peopletalk about is how much breadth
of competition and depth ofcompetition there really is.
You're not just competingagainst other places like we're
(10:13):
in, you're competing againstcommunity colleges, you're
competing against onlineprograms, you're competing as
this non-college and thisbroader non-college narrative
right.
How do you think about thispositioning thing and how you
can signal to the right studentswhat's sort of unique and how
you can sort of stand and be areal difference maker in such a
(10:36):
crowded space?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, well, I think, first off, knowing what your
institution's strengths are.
So we're located in a city,we're in an urban environment,
third largest population inPennsylvania, behind Philly and
Pittsburgh, and we're two hoursfrom New York City, an hour from
(11:01):
Philly and three hours from DC.
So if you draw a circle aroundthat population, that's a pretty
big population.
But the best part is we're in acity that we can get lots of
commuter students and we're verycommuter student friendly and
we're very commuter studentfriendly.
(11:22):
We have altered everything inour curriculum to be primarily
focusing on getting studentscareers.
So we're part of the NewAmerican Colleges and
Universities organization, whichfocuses on the applied liberal
arts.
So we have a nursing program,we have occupational therapy, we
(11:44):
have teacher education, we havebusiness along with, you know,
english programs and historyprograms.
So our curriculum is relevant.
I think parents right now wantto make sure that their
daughters and sons get a degreethat can get them a job, and so
(12:06):
we're focused on careerplacement.
We're focused on gettingstudents careers or into
graduate schools that they wantto get at.
We realize our strength inbeing in an urban environment
and we're now 18% of our studentpopulation is Hispanic, which
mirrors the population in theLehigh Valley.
(12:27):
We leverage any strength wehave in the sense of I will say
I'm the sixth oldest college inAmerica multiple times because
no one else can say that.
The sixth oldest college.
Multiple times because no oneelse can say that the sixth
oldest college.
So, um, this is my foundingdate and you know, we just
became a UNESCO world heritagesite, one of only three in the
(12:51):
in the country, threeuniversities in the country that
have that designation.
So, um, those are importantthings to be leveraging because
there's strengths that Moravianhas.
Uh, and you want todifferentiate your institution
as opposed to someone else.
The interesting part you bringup and we have started a school
(13:11):
about this for non-consumers orconsumers of a different kind of
educational desire, is tryingto figure out how to get not
only the working adult but theworking 18-year-old that is
choosing not to come to schoolbecause they don't want the debt
(13:33):
, they're not really interestedin the clubs, they're not going
to play sports, and how to getthem who.
They may be working as a UPSdelivery person or in another
kind of blue-collar job, butwant to get a college degree at
the same time.
I'd give the idea that we allboard planes to get to a
(14:00):
different destination.
Some of us choose to board theplane and be in first class and
business class, and they pay foran experience that's important
to them to be there.
Some of us choose coach and wepay for an experience that we
get there.
We all get to the samedestination at the end of the
day.
So how do we think abouteducation in comparison to these
(14:25):
online deliveries that wereusing the resources of an
institution but providing abetter educational experience
than they may be getting in justan online environment and
getting what they need?
A classic example of you have torethink everything about this,
but a classic example of this is, for an 18-year-old, a gen ed.
(14:52):
We want them to explore alittle bit, right, just not
don't be so laser focused intheir career, but see some other
things.
So breadth of knowledge is thereason for the gen ed.
But for a working adult, theyprobably don't want breadth of
knowledge.
They probably want more thingsthat apply to their career
(15:12):
tomorrow when they step backinto the workforce, and so the
gen ed should be slightlydifferent for them, because
you've got to meet them wherethey are and where they want to
go.
So I think those are the wayswe're making changes at the
university.
We're seeing a lot morenon-consumers who don't want to
(15:33):
come to dorm rooms and they'regoing into cohort education and
finishing with a cohort whilethey work full time, and I don't
think that's going to change.
I think COVID drove that andkids doing high school online
and being homeschooled are goingto be a market share that
(15:55):
colleges and universities ignoreat their peril.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
That's incredibly well said and the way that
you're sort of adapting to thatand creating better, more
efficient pipelines to get,frankly, a fairly underserved
population, a population whoseneeds are going to sort of be
transient and changing lightly,very quickly in the early years
of their career, that makes aton of sense to me.
(16:25):
How do you think aboutbalancing all of your historic
values and the things thatreally sort of make you unique,
being in the UNESCO site?
being one of the oldestinstitutions in the country,
having the great climate andproximity to good cities,
bethlehem itself being a prettyvibrant place.
How do you balance that withthose racial and financial goals
(16:48):
and having to sort of balancethe two?
Knowing that you want to havethis like incredible curated
experience education that getsgood outcomes in those pieces
but at the same time, enrollmentand financial really weigh in
on you.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yes, well, I talked a little bit about Comenius.
Comenius is the father ofmodern education.
Came out of the Czech RepublicAlmost everything I talk about
he talked about For being 17thcentury.
It was amazing how 21st centuryhe was.
(17:28):
He talked about education forall.
He talked about meetingstudents where they are at, not
forcing them into a system thatyou want.
He talked about technology andfaculty needing to embrace
technology.
He talked about differentdelivery systems for different
(17:50):
student populations, oureducational system.
It all fits into this financialmodel where, you know, back to
the image of the airport and theairline, people are going to
(18:13):
pay more for more resources, formore amenities.
And is it a better education?
It's a different education, adifference, not deficient, and
(18:34):
we're going to have to see howthe outcomes result.
After this, know we can paredown the education.
It's better to get the studenteducated than not educated, and
oftentimes what we have in adultcohort-based education is the
(18:57):
cohort is helping everybodylearn and the outcomes are just
as good as if they're in aresidential environment, which
is kind of its own cohort, butit's a cohort of ants running
all different directions.
This is a cohort where I, as aneducator, can say okay, I know
you learned these three conceptsbecause that was the last class
(19:17):
you had and we're going tolearn three more concepts that
we're going to build on that andthe cohort itself knows who's
really strong and who can helpeach other out in that.
We do that in graduate schoolsall the time.
Law schools are set up bycohorts, med schools are set up
by cohorts on the undergraduatelevel in an effective way for a
(19:41):
certain group of students, theworking adult.
That would make the most sensefor them.
In a lot of places right nowthey're left on their own in
asynchronous self-guided mazeswhich we know doesn't have the
same outcomes as a cohort-basedprogram.
(20:02):
So I think all of those thingshaving different.
Back to your financial question, all of these things are
providing more revenue streamsin.
So you've got the traditionalschool.
You want that at 100% becauseyou don't want buildings empty.
But then you've got theseonline students who are in a
(20:24):
cohort base and they're notusing as many resources and
you're able to bring the costdown, but you're still making
money on that.
And then you got graduatestudents, particularly in
professional-based graduateprograms, who are willing to pay
a bit more to have thecredential at the end of the day
and all these revenue streamsare funneling in so that you're
(20:47):
revenue positive in your system.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, no, incredibly well said.
And how do you think abouthiring and retaining talent to
support that right?
And because this is such afascinating thing that I think
so many people in the news, thispost-COVID higher ed space, are
really trying to get a handleon the complexity of the
(21:10):
business model, I think is, youknow, it's or I phrase it
terribly it's becoming morecomplex, right, and I need these
multiple revenue streams.
What you said about the cohortis brilliant.
I wish more people adopted thatmodel because there's so many
sort of downstream effects ofhaving that sort of strong
cohort model, both for learning,hiring talented people to
(21:33):
support these goals and upskillthem to make sure that they've
got the necessary bandwidthskills, et cetera, to build out
brand new programs.
We've done this in sportsmedicine rehab.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
We've done this in community and behavioral health.
Establishing a new school andhaving a building that the
people can come and designreally helps attract some very
creative people, and I don'tknow how many times I've heard I
(22:28):
love the fact that we get to dothis from scratch, and this
place hasn't been here.
You know this.
We haven't done this for 30years and I have to live with
someone else's mistakes.
So you get some very talentedpeople who then they end up
hiring people who want to dothat too.
Now the downside of that isthey also get stolen away by
other schools doing the exactsame thing right.
(22:48):
So that's the challenge isretaining them.
I think what we had we wentfrom a college to a university
five or so years ago and thatopened up opportunities for
these faculty to go intoleadership administration
positions, because we startedschools and colleges within the
(23:11):
university structure.
So you need associate provost,you need a higher level of
administrative, and so they gotto move up the ranks.
That enabled junior faculty tomove up into the ranks behind
those.
But in all those kind ofprofessional programs you're
going to have to spend money tomake money, because you need the
(23:33):
accreditation and you needpeople who are highly skilled at
making sure you get theaccreditation, making sure you
get the accreditation For theother population we were talking
about, I mean most of our time.
They want people who areindustry leaders.
They don't necessarily want afull-time faculty member and you
(23:56):
can pay a CEO of a company whowants to just teach one class
and still, because it's in acohort back to what you're
saying your revenue stream isbig enough that you can pay them
a decent adjunct salary to beable to do that.
Those individuals who are inthe workforce want to hear from
other people in the workforce.
(24:17):
They want to hear from the sameperson who is resource.
They want to hear from the sameperson who is, you know, put in
an eight hour to nine hour day,grabbed McDonald's on the way
and came to teach the same waythat they came to learn.
So they're living the same lifeand so you're in a.
(24:37):
You have a different market offaculty in that.
In that realm, I mean, we havefull-time faculty in that realm.
They write the curriculum, theyare there for assessment, they
teach some classes, but themajority of our people in the
adult and professional programs,the School of Professional
Studies, Innovation, areadjuncts who have industry cred
(24:59):
and can talk about that to thestudents.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Yeah, industry cred and can can talk about that to
the students.
Yeah, really interested in thedistinguishing feature.
It's pretty, pretty, um, whenyou're when you're looking at
your institution as a whole.
If you could fix anything, justlike magic wand, it poof.
This is sort of working alittle bit better.
What do you think that would be?
Speaker 2 (25:37):
IT systems system integration for data.
We're in the hopefully poof.
We're moving from our currentERP, which is GenZivar, to
(25:58):
Oracle.
Oracle's an industry leader,world-class program, so we're
hoping the poof will happen.
It's not going to be poof.
I mean, we're in the midst ofit right now and you know what
changing over in ERP is.
But so far everybody's happy.
Even my office has moreinformation than I do and I
can't get at the information.
(26:21):
There should be a way for me tohave been pulled up that
(26:47):
student's record and have allthe information in one place as
I'm talking to the parent.
But you know that's not the waythe systems work and it is
always.
You know, if people listeningwonder why college presidents
and everybody else put them onhold for a while, it's because
they're trying to get all theinformation in one place before
they can have this conversation,because the parent has all the
information or the student, butyou don't.
(27:12):
And we could do so much morewith retention if we could start
just analyzing our data.
And where does a student startgoing at risk and how much
earlier can we find that andthen start making corrective
action.
There's so much we could do andso much we could do in
(27:33):
recruiting more students who dowell here.
I often say students who leaveare great and yes, we should.
We should try to retain them.
But the students that love usand do well here, how about we
get more of them?
Like what, what is that?
So why do they stay?
(27:54):
And then can we find out how weget more of those kinds of
students, because they thrive inthis environment?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I like the way you're thinking about it and tackling
it Cause I've seen thischallenge with a number of
places that you know, even ifyou do fancy system and not.
I like such good databasemanagement and structures that
are fairly intuitive, but I'veseen so many places have this
fallacy around, like if weonboard this system to be able
(28:26):
to nurture retention, ultimatelythat's based on a specific
algorithm that works for aspecific type of school, rather
than what's sort of unique aboutthis.
And what are the drivers thatshould be equal to choose stay,
attend or stay?
As a graduate, exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
And what is?
Speaker 1 (28:46):
the special sauce that we're able to support to do
what we do so.
I love the way that you'rethinking about that, because
I've found that too many peopleare relying on the system to do
the heavy lifting when it'sreally thinking about the system
and the system's system isreally supporting.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yep, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Looking ahead, what are you really excited about?
I think there's so many thingsthat are challenging in this
space.
There's so many things that Ithink keep you all up and up.
What do you personally getexcited about that?
I think, keep people open.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
What do you personally get excited about?
I get excited about buildingout new programs and new
opportunities.
Right now, I'm in the midst ofthis UNESCO World Heritage.
We became the 26th site inAmerica and the first
transnational transatlantic sitefor America and the first
America Europe site for UNESCO.
(29:46):
So you know how, using themuseum that's here, using the
World Heritage, how we, you know, I just basically this is my
analogy I had the federalgovernment just come here and
give me a super lab and say Ihad the federal government just
come here and give me a superlab and say, here you can have
it.
Now it's not a super lab thatdoes science, but it is a super
(30:08):
lab that does world history, andso museum studies, ecotourism,
phds in world history there's noone that does that in America
Like, all those things arethings we have to think about.
How do we resource them up?
How do we use the museum andthe World Heritage Sites across
(30:28):
four different countries to dothat?
Because we're in a four-countrysite system.
We're continuing to really blowout our healthcare, uh,
healthcare programs, so thinkingabout other things like
radiology and um, uh, physicianassistant and those kinds of
(30:49):
programs.
Um, all we're looking at a newbuilding, uh, because, uh,
growth has been so dramatic inthat program.
We've outgrown the building webuilt, uh, eight years ago, so
now we're looking at buildinganother one.
So those are the things thatare dynamically happening you
(31:10):
have to keep up with.
Kaminya said that educationshould concern itself with that
which concerns society, and Ithink you can't say it any
better than that.
You need to remain relevant.
If you're trying to explainyour relevance to society,
you're in trouble, and so weneed healthcare workers, we need
(31:33):
people who are skilled intechnology, cybersecurity,
computer science, all thosethings.
The job market is screaming forthese people, and that pain
point should be our inflectionpoint.
That helps us build all thoseprograms.
And so that's what gets meexcited, because I love
(31:55):
providing the path for studentsto get to their dreams, and
that's essentially what we'redoing.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Thank you, this has been amazing.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Thanks, mike, it was great.
Brian, thank you again for being with me.
You have such a greatbackground.
Could you just walk us throughhow you went from being a
Moravian graduate to presidentof the university?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
identity and was in a pretty difficult time of I
didn't know what to do.
I had I ended up with fivedifferent majors because I
couldn't start one, and nowthat's not it, and I at one
point I was even going to be acriminal justice major because,
you know, athletes should runafter bad guys.
That's.
That was the logic behind thatone, and I met a professor here
who started talking to me aboutEnglish and about what it meant
(00:51):
to be human and that this is thestudy of that, and one of the
influences I say is greatest tome and my leadership is
something he taught me, whichwas when someone's ready to do
something in their livestransformationally that they've
never done before, having thatperson that just helps them
(01:13):
along the way makes up time forthem.
I mean a person like myself.
I don't think there's manypeople that decide their junior
year of college they're going tobe an English major and go on
for a PhD in English and want tocome back as a faculty member
teaching English, right.
So so he had to level theplaying field for me pretty fast
, because people grow up aroundeight years old thinking that
(01:36):
who who are are entering thatworld, so, and so that's kind of
been my whole leadershipphilosophy at Moravian is that
it's about.
Our school is founded on equitySix oldest college in America,
first to educate women andNative Americans and then we
went on to educate the freed andthe enslaved down in the
(02:01):
Caribbean island.
So education for all is ahallmark here and in.
That's about leveling theplaying field.
So that's my story, how I gotthere.
I think all of us hold on tothe fact that we're imposters,
and having that professor tellme no, you're not an imposter,
(02:23):
you can do this, this ispossible.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Possible even if you're starting late, was
important, yeah I love the factthat you just opened the door to
like this, to imposter syndrome, so this wasn't in a
pre-planned questions, but I'dlove to explore that with you.
What tactics have you found?
Because this is, this isactually something secretly like
(02:45):
a leader institutional leaderstalk about but not talk about
openly sort of talk about what'sbeen helpful for you in terms
of like dealing with that um,great mentors, great faculty who
care and want to help you, andand and my sports background.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I think it's hard.
You know, when you're anathlete, you figure out that I,
if I want to be good at this, Ihave to practice the
fundamentals and I have to getgood at the fundamentals before
I can be good at the best partsof the game.
But that if I, you know, spendmy 10,000 hours, I will be
better than most at this.
And if I think the difficultpart athletes have is then
(03:33):
transferring that over toacademics.
But it's the same skillset,right?
I need a coach, um, who who'sdone this before and is and is
successful at that, to help methrough this process so I don't
waste a lot of time.
And then I have to reallypractice just the fundamentals
of this to get at feeling firstcompetent and then qualified to
(03:58):
be in that position.
But it takes time and it takesconstant dedication to it and it
takes good people around youthat can help you with it.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, that's incredibly well said.
I couldn't agree more.
Your institution is reallyunique in that you've got such a
service focus.
What role does service play inthe lifeblood of your campus,
and how important is it to whatdistinguishes you as an
institution?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Well, everything about Moravian is about the
community and service to thecommunity, and we started, about
10 years ago, a program calledHeritage Day.
We want students to actively dostuff, everything that, all the
(04:58):
education that was set up byComenius, who's the father of
modern education, and theMoravian Bishop, is about
experiential learning, and so weset up this program called
Heritage Day, which, as a entirecampus, we take the day off and
serve the local community.
We've just united with UnitedWay in their day of caring, and
so we've now have the United Wayhere be the largest service
(05:22):
provider, because we add athousand volunteers to their
roles.
The idea is that some studentscome from families that
volunteer and are civicallyengaged, and some don't, and so
this is your.
You know you're putting yourfoot in the water, and do I like
this, don't I like this?
(05:43):
If you like it, we have thiswhole center for career and
civic engagement with a massivenumber of people that you can
volunteer all the time that youwant, and so what we've seen is
massive growth in the number ofstudents that are volunteering
in their community.
But it's in the DNA of Moravian,but it is in the.
(06:33):
It's in the DNA of MoravianBack when the federal government
was starting public schoolsacross America, they just let
Moravian teach as the publicschool system elementary school
and everything else for thisarea.
So you know, in 1741, theMoravians named Bethlehem and
six months later they startedthe school for women in the
school for men.
So Bethlehem has never known aplace without Moravian College.
That's basically it.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
That's really incredible, just such an
interesting, I think, blend ofcommunity and institution that
you don't see anywhere, thelines really sort of like
connect with you just given yourinstitutional history, the
lines really sort of likeconnect with you just given your
institutional history.
You also are, I think, uniquein that you are a
well-distinguished school, Likejust some what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
exactly?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And what competitive advantage do you find in that To
your students'?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
information.
So this is also about levelingthe playing field.
So this is also about levelingthe playing field.
It's not fair for students tocome in who come from families
(07:40):
of wealth and have the latestand greatest in technology and,
more importantly, that you're aproducer of technology.
Our students are generallyreally good consumers of
technology, but you ask them todo a pivot table in Excel and
they look like a deer caught inthe headlights.
So we need to provide that forthem, and so we provide a
(08:02):
MacBook, an iPad, an ApplePencil and now we provide the
Apple Watch to all the students.
The Apple Watch is designed onhealth and wellness, which is
one of our greatest challengeswith students right now is to
keep them mentally andphysically well, and the
wearable tracks that.
For us, the MacBook and the iPadare obviously their academic
(08:30):
pieces.
I used to believe that thepower of this was that the
faculty and the student had thesame unit, so the faculty could
come over and say here, this ishow you do it, because there was
great comfort, because that wastheir computer.
I now realize that the realpower in this happens back in
(08:53):
the dorms and the student centerand the library, where another
student says here.
Let me show you how to do this.
And so that's where we seemassive growth in our students'
technology skills, because theirfellow peers can all help them
in producing new technology.
So an Apple DistinguishedSchool is an accreditation
function.
You have to go to Apple everythree years and show how you're
(09:17):
using this in teaching andlearning and how it's changing
student lives, and then, if youdo this adequately, you get your
accreditation for another threeyears.
So we've done it three times.
So for the last nine yearswe've been in Apple
Distinguished School.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, no, that's really great and definitely, I
think, something that anotheraspect that just sort of blends
in and makes you pretty unique.
Which brings me to the nextquestion, which you know, I
think a lot of people in ourspace talk about, is the, you
know, the demographic cliff andjust shrinking and changing
demographics and the number ofcollege going students just
(09:53):
being lower generally speaking,especially in places like like
the midwest and the northeast,and you're kind of kind of
between the two.
Um, I think what less peopletalk about is how much breadth
of competition and depth ofcompetition there really is.
You're not just competingagainst other places like we're
(10:13):
in, you're competing againstcommunity colleges, you're
competing against onlineprograms, you're competing as
this non-college and thisbroader non-college narrative
right.
How do you think about thispositioning thing and how you
can signal to the right studentswhat's sort of unique and how
you can sort of stand and be areal difference maker in such a
(10:36):
crowded space?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, well, I think, first off, knowing what your
institution's strengths are.
So we're located in a city,we're in an urban environment,
third largest population inPennsylvania, behind Philly and
Pittsburgh, and we're two hoursfrom New York City, an hour from
(11:01):
Philly and three hours from DC.
So if you draw a circle aroundthat population, that's a pretty
big population.
But the best part is we're in acity that we can get lots of
commuter students and we're verycommuter student friendly and
we're very commuter studentfriendly.
(11:22):
We have altered everything inour curriculum to be primarily
focusing on getting studentscareers.
So we're part of the NewAmerican Colleges and
Universities organization, whichfocuses on the applied liberal
arts.
So we have a nursing program,we have occupational therapy, we
(11:44):
have teacher education, we havebusiness along with, you know,
english programs and historyprograms.
So our curriculum is relevant.
I think parents right now wantto make sure that their
daughters and sons get a degreethat can get them a job, and so
(12:06):
we're focused on careerplacement.
We're focused on gettingstudents careers or into
graduate schools that they wantto get at.
We realize our strength inbeing in an urban environment
and we're now 18% of our studentpopulation is Hispanic, which
mirrors the population in theLehigh Valley.
(12:27):
We leverage any strength wehave in the sense of I will say
I'm the sixth oldest college inAmerica multiple times because
no one else can say that.
The sixth oldest college.
Multiple times because no oneelse can say that the sixth
oldest college.
So, um, this is my foundingdate and you know, we just
became a UNESCO world heritagesite, one of only three in the
(12:51):
in the country, threeuniversities in the country that
have that designation.
So, um, those are importantthings to be leveraging because
there's strengths that Moravianhas.
Uh, and you want todifferentiate your institution
as opposed to someone else.
The interesting part you bringup and we have started a school
(13:11):
about this for non-consumers orconsumers of a different kind of
educational desire, is tryingto figure out how to get not
only the working adult but theworking 18-year-old that is
choosing not to come to schoolbecause they don't want the debt
(13:33):
, they're not really interestedin the clubs, they're not going
to play sports, and how to getthem who.
They may be working as a UPSdelivery person or in another
kind of blue-collar job, butwant to get a college degree at
the same time.
I'd give the idea that we allboard planes to get to a
(14:00):
different destination.
Some of us choose to board theplane and be in first class and
business class, and they pay foran experience that's important
to them to be there.
Some of us choose coach and wepay for an experience that we
get there.
We all get to the samedestination at the end of the
day.
So how do we think abouteducation in comparison to these
(14:25):
online deliveries that wereusing the resources of an
institution but providing abetter educational experience
than they may be getting in justan online environment and
getting what they need?
A classic example of you have torethink everything about this,
but a classic example of this is, for an 18-year-old, a gen ed.
(14:52):
We want them to explore alittle bit, right, just not
don't be so laser focused intheir career, but see some other
things.
So breadth of knowledge is thereason for the gen ed.
But for a working adult, theyprobably don't want breadth of
knowledge.
They probably want more thingsthat apply to their career
(15:12):
tomorrow when they step backinto the workforce, and so the
gen ed should be slightlydifferent for them, because
you've got to meet them wherethey are and where they want to
go.
So I think those are the wayswe're making changes at the
university.
We're seeing a lot morenon-consumers who don't want to
(15:33):
come to dorm rooms and they'regoing into cohort education and
finishing with a cohort whilethey work full time, and I don't
think that's going to change.
I think COVID drove that andkids doing high school online
and being homeschooled are goingto be a market share that
(15:55):
colleges and universities ignoreat their peril.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
That's incredibly well said and the way that
you're sort of adapting to thatand creating better, more
efficient pipelines to get,frankly, a fairly underserved
population, a population whoseneeds are going to sort of be
transient and changing lightly,very quickly in the early years
of their career, that makes aton of sense to me.
(16:25):
How do you think aboutbalancing all of your historic
values and the things thatreally sort of make you unique,
being in the UNESCO site?
being one of the oldestinstitutions in the country,
having the great climate andproximity to good cities,
bethlehem itself being a prettyvibrant place.
How do you balance that withthose racial and financial goals
(16:48):
and having to sort of balancethe two?
Knowing that you want to havethis like incredible curated
experience education that getsgood outcomes in those pieces
but at the same time, enrollmentand financial really weigh in
on you.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yes, well, I talked a little bit about Comenius.
Comenius is the father ofmodern education.
Came out of the Czech RepublicAlmost everything I talk about
he talked about For being 17thcentury.
It was amazing how 21st centuryhe was.
(17:28):
He talked about education forall.
He talked about meetingstudents where they are at, not
forcing them into a system thatyou want.
He talked about technology andfaculty needing to embrace
technology.
He talked about differentdelivery systems for different
(17:50):
student populations, oureducational system.
It all fits into this financialmodel where, you know, back to
the image of the airport and theairline, people are going to
(18:13):
pay more for more resources, formore amenities.
And is it a better education?
It's a different education, adifference, not deficient, and
(18:34):
we're going to have to see howthe outcomes result.
After this, know we can paredown the education.
It's better to get the studenteducated than not educated, and
oftentimes what we have in adultcohort-based education is the
(18:57):
cohort is helping everybodylearn and the outcomes are just
as good as if they're in aresidential environment, which
is kind of its own cohort, butit's a cohort of ants running
all different directions.
This is a cohort where I, as aneducator, can say okay, I know
you learned these three conceptsbecause that was the last class
(19:17):
you had and we're going tolearn three more concepts that
we're going to build on that andthe cohort itself knows who's
really strong and who can helpeach other out in that.
We do that in graduate schoolsall the time.
Law schools are set up bycohorts, med schools are set up
by cohorts on the undergraduatelevel in an effective way for a
(19:41):
certain group of students, theworking adult.
That would make the most sensefor them.
In a lot of places right nowthey're left on their own in
asynchronous self-guided mazeswhich we know doesn't have the
same outcomes as a cohort-basedprogram.
(20:02):
So I think all of those thingshaving different.
Back to your financial question, all of these things are
providing more revenue streamsin.
So you've got the traditionalschool.
You want that at 100% becauseyou don't want buildings empty.
But then you've got theseonline students who are in a
(20:24):
cohort base and they're notusing as many resources and
you're able to bring the costdown, but you're still making
money on that.
And then you got graduatestudents, particularly in
professional-based graduateprograms, who are willing to pay
a bit more to have thecredential at the end of the day
and all these revenue streamsare funneling in so that you're
(20:47):
revenue positive in your system.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, no, incredibly well said.
And how do you think abouthiring and retaining talent to
support that right?
And because this is such afascinating thing that I think
so many people in the news, thispost-COVID higher ed space, are
really trying to get a handleon the complexity of the
(21:10):
business model, I think is, youknow, it's or I phrase it
terribly it's becoming morecomplex, right, and I need these
multiple revenue streams.
What you said about the cohortis brilliant.
I wish more people adopted thatmodel because there's so many
sort of downstream effects ofhaving that sort of strong
cohort model, both for learning,hiring talented people to
(21:33):
support these goals and upskillthem to make sure that they've
got the necessary bandwidthskills, et cetera, to build out
brand new programs.
We've done this in sportsmedicine rehab.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
We've done this in community and behavioral health.
Establishing a new school andhaving a building that the
people can come and designreally helps attract some very
creative people, and I don'tknow how many times I've heard I
(22:28):
love the fact that we get to dothis from scratch, and this
place hasn't been here.
You know this.
We haven't done this for 30years and I have to live with
someone else's mistakes.
So you get some very talentedpeople who then they end up
hiring people who want to dothat too.
Now the downside of that isthey also get stolen away by
other schools doing the exactsame thing right.
(22:48):
So that's the challenge isretaining them.
I think what we had we wentfrom a college to a university
five or so years ago and thatopened up opportunities for
these faculty to go intoleadership administration
positions, because we startedschools and colleges within the
(23:11):
university structure.
So you need associate provost,you need a higher level of
administrative, and so they gotto move up the ranks.
That enabled junior faculty tomove up into the ranks behind
those.
But in all those kind ofprofessional programs you're
going to have to spend money tomake money, because you need the
(23:33):
accreditation and you needpeople who are highly skilled at
making sure you get theaccreditation, making sure you
get the accreditation For theother population we were talking
about, I mean most of our time.
They want people who areindustry leaders.
They don't necessarily want afull-time faculty member and you
(23:56):
can pay a CEO of a company whowants to just teach one class
and still, because it's in acohort back to what you're
saying your revenue stream isbig enough that you can pay them
a decent adjunct salary to beable to do that.
Those individuals who are inthe workforce want to hear from
other people in the workforce.
(24:17):
They want to hear from the sameperson who is resource.
They want to hear from the sameperson who is, you know, put in
an eight hour to nine hour day,grabbed McDonald's on the way
and came to teach the same waythat they came to learn.
So they're living the same lifeand so you're in a.
(24:37):
You have a different market offaculty in that.
In that realm, I mean, we havefull-time faculty in that realm.
They write the curriculum, theyare there for assessment, they
teach some classes, but themajority of our people in the
adult and professional programs,the School of Professional
Studies, Innovation, areadjuncts who have industry cred
(24:59):
and can talk about that to thestudents.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Yeah, industry cred and can can talk about that to
the students.
Yeah, really interested in thedistinguishing feature.
It's pretty, pretty, um, whenyou're when you're looking at
your institution as a whole.
If you could fix anything, justlike magic wand, it poof.
This is sort of working alittle bit better.
What do you think that would be?
Speaker 2 (25:37):
IT systems system integration for data.
We're in the hopefully poof.
We're moving from our currentERP, which is GenZivar, to
(25:58):
Oracle.
Oracle's an industry leader,world-class program, so we're
hoping the poof will happen.
It's not going to be poof.
I mean, we're in the midst ofit right now and you know what
changing over in ERP is.
But so far everybody's happy.
Even my office has moreinformation than I do and I
can't get at the information.
(26:21):
There should be a way for me tohave been pulled up that
(26:47):
student's record and have allthe information in one place as
I'm talking to the parent.
But you know that's not the waythe systems work and it is
always.
You know, if people listeningwonder why college presidents
and everybody else put them onhold for a while, it's because
they're trying to get all theinformation in one place before
they can have this conversation,because the parent has all the
information or the student, butyou don't.
(27:12):
And we could do so much morewith retention if we could start
just analyzing our data.
And where does a student startgoing at risk and how much
earlier can we find that andthen start making corrective
action.
There's so much we could do andso much we could do in
(27:33):
recruiting more students who dowell here.
I often say students who leaveare great and yes, we should.
We should try to retain them.
But the students that love usand do well here, how about we
get more of them?
Like what, what is that?
So why do they stay?
(27:54):
And then can we find out how weget more of those kinds of
students, because they thrive inthis environment?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I like the way you're thinking about it and tackling
it Cause I've seen thischallenge with a number of
places that you know, even ifyou do fancy system and not.
I like such good databasemanagement and structures that
are fairly intuitive, but I'veseen so many places have this
fallacy around, like if weonboard this system to be able
(28:26):
to nurture retention, ultimatelythat's based on a specific
algorithm that works for aspecific type of school, rather
than what's sort of unique aboutthis.
And what are the drivers thatshould be equal to choose stay,
attend or stay?
As a graduate, exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
And what is?
Speaker 1 (28:46):
the special sauce that we're able to support to do
what we do so.
I love the way that you'rethinking about that, because
I've found that too many peopleare relying on the system to do
the heavy lifting when it'sreally thinking about the system
and the system's system isreally supporting.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yep, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Looking ahead, what are you really excited about?
I think there's so many thingsthat are challenging in this
space.
There's so many things that Ithink keep you all up and up.
What do you personally getexcited about that?
I think, keep people open.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
What do you personally get excited about?
I get excited about buildingout new programs and new
opportunities.
Right now, I'm in the midst ofthis UNESCO World Heritage.
We became the 26th site inAmerica and the first
transnational transatlantic sitefor America and the first
America Europe site for UNESCO.
(29:46):
So you know how, using themuseum that's here, using the
World Heritage, how we, you know, I just basically this is my
analogy I had the federalgovernment just come here and
give me a super lab and say Ihad the federal government just
come here and give me a superlab and say, here you can have
it.
Now it's not a super lab thatdoes science, but it is a super
(30:08):
lab that does world history, andso museum studies, ecotourism,
phds in world history there's noone that does that in America
Like, all those things arethings we have to think about.
How do we resource them up?
How do we use the museum andthe World Heritage Sites across
(30:28):
four different countries to dothat?
Because we're in a four-countrysite system.
We're continuing to really blowout our healthcare, uh,
healthcare programs, so thinkingabout other things like
radiology and um, uh, physicianassistant and those kinds of
(30:49):
programs.
Um, all we're looking at a newbuilding, uh, because, uh,
growth has been so dramatic inthat program.
We've outgrown the building webuilt, uh, eight years ago, so
now we're looking at buildinganother one.
So those are the things thatare dynamically happening you
(31:10):
have to keep up with.
Kaminya said that educationshould concern itself with that
which concerns society, and Ithink you can't say it any
better than that.
You need to remain relevant.
If you're trying to explainyour relevance to society,
you're in trouble, and so weneed healthcare workers, we need
(31:33):
people who are skilled intechnology, cybersecurity,
computer science, all thosethings.
The job market is screaming forthese people, and that pain
point should be our inflectionpoint.
That helps us build all thoseprograms.
And so that's what gets meexcited, because I love
(31:55):
providing the path for studentsto get to their dreams, and
that's essentially what we'redoing.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Thank you, this has been amazing.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Thanks, mike, it was great.
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