February 14, 2025 • 39 mins
What does it take to lead one of America’s oldest institutions while keeping it future-focused?
In this second conversation, Bryon Grigsby, President of Moravian University, shares:
- How Moravian’s values of equity and access shape everything from tech policies to new program offerings.
- Why cohort-based learning is the future of higher education.
- How their UNESCO World Heritage designation opens up new opportunities for students and faculty.
- His vision for balancing financial sustainability with transformational outcomes.
This is a conversation about bold leadership, strategic growth, and making higher ed relevant for the next generation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Awesome Excited to be back with Brian here.
Brian welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hey, great to be here again.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Well, we had such a great conversation the first
time.
You talked on so many sort ofinteresting pieces around your
own background, the challengesyou had around coming up, how
you took this unexpected pathinto becoming a college
president.
But I thought we also scratchedthe surface on these bigger
questions around how do you makea financial and operational
(00:29):
model really work.
You all have done a reallygreat job of sort of expanding
at the margins and building andfinding capacity and need for
emergency devices, you know, andparticularly sort of growing
these cohorts and expanding thework that you're sort of doing
in these spaces.
So I thought that might be areally interesting place to dive
(00:51):
in.
You know, how do you balancethose financial pressures while
still maintaining that coreundergraduate experience that is
really sort of such alongstanding and thriving
institution for so long?
How do you balance those twopieces?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, I think there's some models out there that work
really well that demonstratethis.
Wake Forest is an example of aplace that really emphasizes
undergraduate education andgraduate education and doesn't
use undergraduate facultygraduate assistantships to teach
the undergraduate.
(01:29):
I think that's one of the bigdifferentiators between
essentially the German model ofhigher ed, which is what the
land-grant universities arefounded on, where we use
graduate students to teach theundergrads, as opposed to the
English model of Oxford andCambridge, where full-time
(01:52):
faculty teach both undergraduateand graduate and sometimes you
have them isolated to justundergraduate or isolated to
graduate.
The Jesuit universities do thesame thing.
If you're looking for anothermodel in America that does this.
So you know, in our programslike Wake Forest, we have
(02:16):
primarily graduate programs,where they are full-time,
usually in the healthprofessions, and there are no
graduate assistantships that areteaching undergraduate students
.
There may be graduateassistantships that are tutoring
or doing other support services, but the faculty are being
(02:38):
taught.
The students of theundergraduate are being taught
by full-time faculty members.
That enhances undergraduateresearch for those students,
because they're, you know,rubbing elbows with the faculty
and the faculty are needing themto help out in the research and
other areas.
So I think that you know,america likes to tout the
(03:02):
liberal arts model that itcreated.
But the European models havesignificantly longer longevity
as a successful business modeland they're diversified.
They're not just doing oneaspect, they're doing multiple
aspects of education of adults.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
That's a great answer .
What's it look like from a costperspective, right?
What are some of the trade-offsthat you have with those models
and what was the calculus foryou sort of making the decision
to pivot not pivot in thatdirection, but really sort of,
you know, build a model thatworks for your graduate students
?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, so the big cost differential is your faculty.
You know health science facultyjust cost more.
They can make more in thegeneral market.
So to get them to come touniversities they're going to be
asking for more money than yourEnglish faculty are going to be
(04:06):
.
So the cost differential issignificant.
But the revenue on the studenttuition side is also
significantly more.
But you know it does change aculture when you're having, you
know, dpt faculty or PA facultyor pharmacy faculty and you're
(04:31):
making that leap into that realm.
You know you're looking atpeople who are making $120,000,
$150,000 as assistant professorsto be competitive with what
they can make in the healthcarearena.
The costs.
Oftentimes presidents, I think,look at the cost side of those
(04:52):
programs and say we can never doit.
But they don't look at therevenue side of the program too,
where you have full-timegraduate students paying tuition
up in the 30s and $40,000, notin discounted, because they're
going to get jobs outside in theindustry that are going to be
(05:14):
able for them to pay back thoseloans.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, that makes a ton of
sense.
What have been some of the sortof cost strategies that you've
implemented to really sort ofmanage the cost across the
institution?
Up amazing programs.
You're leveraging, I think,some interesting models and you
(05:51):
know, and really sort of leaninginto the cohort design aspect,
while also you know sort oftraditional sort of European
models.
But how do you really sort ofbalance those pieces with?
You know, you've got excellenceand you've got costs and you're
trying to meet in the middlesomewhere?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
They're hard.
I mean I would say you know, Iwould say Elon's done the best
at this, saying that you knowwe're going to provide you a
value that is going to be betterthan the other values you're
going to get, and so you know wecould reduce our expenses down.
I could stop giving a MacBookand an iPad and a watch and the
(06:26):
whole Apple ecosystem.
We could get rid of the careercounselors that are dedicated to
every student the minute theyshow up.
We could reduce the tutoringprograms, reduce counseling
programs, but you're going tolose students.
You're going to not retain asmany students.
(06:48):
I think we're right now on thebleeding edge of what does AI do
for us?
(07:09):
Bot for admissions that's goingto help lower the need for more
staff to add and so betterquality of responses coming back
and lower costs.
We're adding an AI bot this fallto the academic student life
experience that hopefully willhelp retain students and, like
most changes and we're workingon one for the registrar with
(07:31):
Maryville University right nowthose you know we're going to be
deploying a lot of those in thenext couple years and then
they're going to consolidatedown because I think we're on
the bleeding edge of you'regoing to start seeing AI bots go
hey, I can do that too, youknow, and just like Apple
(07:52):
absorbs all these other startups.
That's what's going to happen, Ithink, over the next three to
five years.
This is truly a game changerfor retention, for the drudgery
of what higher ed is in thebureaucratic component of how
(08:13):
you know you do transcriptreviews and all those kinds of
things, library, all thoseaspects.
Those are going to be I thinkthose are going to be the
significant cost reductions, butwe're so new to this and we
can't see it yet.
We're going to deploy them andsee what happens and monitor the
(08:38):
data, because we just don'thave any other way to do it
right now and if you wait, it'sgoing to be by you before you
can even deploy it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah, I love that attitude.
I'm a big proponent of justsort of experimenting and having
sort of smart, sort of upfrontdesign to sort of ensure that
your parameters in place andthen sort of really training
staff to sort of iterate andadapt to new things and find new
ways to do things.
But two follow up questions onthat who are the vendors?
(09:09):
I know people would love thisbecause it's just such an
interesting thing.
Who are the vendors that youdecided to go with?
And then how are you sort oftraining staff to really sort of
like onboard and sort of usethis in effective ways?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So of course you would ask me these questions and
I'm not gonna be able to pullthem off the top of my head.
Fahrenheit 451 is the companywe're using for the chat bot.
I believe in the admissions.
The one we're using in studentlife is one.
Everybody is using thatacademics, academics.
(09:45):
For you, it's the.
It's the largest one, um, I sawthem at a conference uh, middle
states conference the name'sescaping me right now, but it is
, it's.
It's pretty much the blackboardum model of you know, this is
the one that is doing studentlife and retention yeah, yeah,
really cool to hear.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And how's the sort of transition with getting sort of
staff on board and workingthrough their discomfort and
trying to sort of also likecoach them on, like, hey, this
is a tool that can be reallysort of helpful in this regard,
but it does require us doingthings different.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, so admissions is fully on board and moving.
Yeah, so admissions is fully onboard and moving.
I think that one's the easierlift and development is looking
at how it could be used to helpout in the development area,
because I'm always amazed at howsimilar development and
recruiting is Just one movesfaster.
(10:43):
Right, you can make a change ina year where it takes decades
to make changes in giving habits.
So they're using that.
They're going to be up andrunning in less than a month and
deploying it and using it.
This year we're giving the onefor student life and academics
(11:07):
tutoring and all that a till thefall semester to be ready.
So the provost right now isdeploying a task force on the AI
bot with the faculty who areinterested in this, getting them
comfortable on what this can do, working with the registrar and
the academic support staff thatis looking at this.
(11:30):
So we're ready to roll when thenew students come in in the
fall.
On the flip side, though, theadult program is using it right
now because they can just deployit.
It's in a cohort base programand so the minute they are ready
to deploy, they're deployingimmediately, which will, you
(11:52):
know, help sandbox us a bit.
We're going to get someexperience on how this works as
the cohorts move through it anduse it in the adult market, and
then we'll have some moreinformation for the traditional
market when we get there.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
That's nice, Kind of a heavy soft launch, but it
helps yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
It really helps having the adult online
accelerated market to experiment.
You know, if you have 14 kidsin a cohort and something
doesn't work, it's fine.
Much better than if there's2000 students and something
doesn't work right.
So you get to play around withthings on how they are, how
(12:32):
things are working, and then, ifthey're working well, you can
deploy them for your otherconstituents.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Completely and you actually referenced culture
change sort of happening withthe onboarding of different and
new programs before.
Have you seen other sort ofsynergistic effects of like
having these new cohorts thatare popping up and that you're
building and building all theinfrastructure and bringing new
people in?
Have you noticed sort ofsynergies or like changes to
(13:01):
your broader organizationalculture through those shifts?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Slowly.
Yeah, I mean I'll give you anexample for me personally that
they're now here and I you knowthey were staff that I worked
with before, so I know this.
I'm teaching a course onpandemics across history, which
is my expertise.
(13:26):
And I said I'm doing that inthe fall and I sent it to the
people who run the adult onlineprogram and I said you know,
over the summer, I want tototally reinvent this and use AI
and explore different ways todo assignments.
You know more about this than Ido in new pedagogy, I'm just
(13:52):
the content expert.
But I want to spend the timeall summer to make this the best
course I can possibly make it,and we're going to build it from
the online perspective.
I'm going to deliver it onground, but I'm going to be able
to use all the wonderful toolsthat are available through AI
and online that they know about.
(14:14):
That will make this course morerobust.
I'm not the only faculty memberwho can drop their ego and say I
don't know enough about this.
Let's go through this processand I've done this process
before.
It's hard, it's not an easyprocess.
It takes months of work, butthe result is so much better.
(14:34):
So, yes, I see a lot ofparticular health science
faculty reaching out across andsaying hey, I don't know
everything about pedagogy intoday's day and age.
Help me out and I'll just bethe content expert on what I
want to accomplish and you cantell me the tools that are
available that I don't knowexist that are available that I
(14:57):
don't know exist.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah, that's really cool and powerful to hear that
you're modeling that behaviorfor people that are sort of
working for you.
One thing that occurred to meyou've got all these incredible
data sources.
You're an Apple DistinguishedSchool.
You're getting sort of datafrom devices and all those sort
of pieces, while you're alsosort of like onboarding new bots
(15:20):
in a really sort of interestingway, training people to sort of
use them effectively,experimenting with your cool
boards before onboarding them.
You know the challenges of likeall of this data like in the
(15:42):
sort of like knowing what to dowith it, how to use that.
You've got the sort oftransition that's happening now
to Oracle.
Somebody that's sort of donepieces of those Like.
I know how cumbersome it can beto make sure that one thing is
talking to the other and youknow dive into the weeds of that
.
What kind of bumps are youhitting with regards to that?
And um, how do you balance thatsort of like too much data
(16:05):
versus not enough thing andwhere to sort of like who to
share data with all the sort ofdata governance pieces that go
with that?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
it's a big question.
We we just had this meeting, sowe hired a project manager and
started an office of projectmanagement and she just gave us
an update on Oracle with thedirector of HR and where she was
, on all the key indicators.
(16:35):
On all the key indicators.
It's an immense lift by thestaff.
I mean just to give you anexample, she told us that this
is the business office that'sdoing it.
(16:56):
They have next week, 60 hoursof meetings next week Wow, and
they have a day job to do.
This is in addition to studentsare back and everything has to
be done in the business office.
The academic SIS when it getsdeployed.
(17:17):
The academic SIS when it getsdeployed is like 10 times more
complex in hours than what we'redoing right now.
Like this is the easy lift.
So burnout of our staff is anincredible worry right now as
(17:46):
we're doing this.
But at the same moment, we sawwhat HR has already put together
in Oracle and we were all blownaway by just now.
You can see all the reportingtrees of people who they have
and you can document yourone-on-ones and there's KPIs to
every staff member and thingswe've never experienced before.
So on one hand you're like, ohGod, is my staff going to be
(18:10):
able to survive this?
But on the other hand, they seethe promised land and it's a
whole lot better than what theyhave.
Yeah, so for us, I think thedriver is we're not changing
from a platform we don't like toanother okay platform or just
(18:32):
slightly better.
We're going light years toOracle.
So it's like going to Apple.
The stuff just works and that'sthe ultimate challenge.
Now, when that comes back toyour question, we have a data
scientist who runs IR for me andshe's working, obviously, with
(18:59):
the project management.
We have a kind of data lakethat she goes in and gets stuff
out, but it's very hard becausesystems don't talk to each other
, because we're in an ERP thatdoesn't work like that, in an
ERP that doesn't work like that.
But she's starting to get datafrom Oracle which is much more
(19:22):
developed, much clearer, muchmore accurate because they're
held accountable to what they'reputting in.
So there's a brighter daycoming.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
There's a lot of work coming too, and yesterday's
cabinet meeting it dawned oneverybody's some really sort of
there's a rainbow somewhere, butyou know sort of wayfinding
your way there.
It can certainly sort of betricky.
Is it a lot of the sort of likeback end problems, which is
really sort of connecting API'sto like the third party data
(20:15):
lakes and then sort ofconnecting them back?
Is it like?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
a lot of that integration kind of stuff.
That's the problem right now.
Yeah, the problem with Oracleor where we're going, I wouldn't
say the problem with Oracleit's you know it's redesigning
the chart of accounts, which youknow is an immense activity
(20:38):
it's that Oracle won't let youdo this process that way because
that's not a best practice.
So you got to learn it this wayand it's all those kind of
aspects that are happening.
I mean, we just just as anexample, went through a massive
change in the university.
We were handing out P cards toeverybody.
(21:00):
Oracle prefers not to have thathappen and that we just make
reimbursements.
They use their personal cardand we make reimbursements
within 24 hours.
One of the benefits of that isthat the CFO has more control
over what's allowed and what'snot allowed.
You use a P-card.
(21:21):
Now the CFO has to work withyou.
That wasn't allowed and inprocurement they're building a
catalog out of Oracle, of allvendors, of Oracle of all
vendors, so you don't even haveto use your card.
If you want, you just selectout of the catalog.
(21:43):
And they told us in costcontainment areas it's a much
larger university, it's a stateuniversity, but they save $5
million in procurement becausethey added a single source for
it.
They're looking at us that wecan save, you know, three to six
hundred thousand dollars a year.
That's, you know, on a 70, 80million dollar operating budget.
(22:08):
That's not chump change, thatthat that helps, so that those
kind of tools, that's alldifferent ways the business
office operated.
Previously.
It was don't use your privatecards, use the P cards.
Everybody's got a P card andthey were managing it and Oracle
goes that's not the way we'regoing to do this.
You're going to build aprocurement center, you're going
(22:30):
to catalog it.
You can select what you wantout of that and if you're
traveling you're using yourpersonal card and then you're
putting it in and you're cutting.
You know we're giving you themoney for what's appropriate.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah, that's really really powerful and very well
said and I'm glad to hear thatthe transition there is going
really really well.
We had some fascinatingconversations the first time
around the challenges of sort ofpositioning and marketing and
how you sort of arrived at this,I think, sort of unique
position in just such a crowdedlandscape.
(23:07):
You know, it's occurred to methat you know you've got this
increasing challenge of you'vegot, I think with Gen Z right
this like skepticism aroundhigher education and some of the
narratives that are there andhow do you really sort of
connect with them in ways, inmediums and in things that
really sort of like resonate.
(23:28):
But then you've also got thischallenge right of your
nontraditional populations andyour working adults and learners
that have really specific needsand they're really sort of
career driven but those two looklike so vastly different right,
and how you're sort ofsignaling to the two somewhere
like between the two.
You've got your core brandright.
(23:49):
That is this sort of, like youknow, embodied entity that we
talked a little bit about thefirst time.
How do you think about thosetwo pieces and then really sort
of unifying them to the pillarsthat have made Merovian a
longstanding place, that istrusted, that has great
reputation, all of those kind ofpieces.
How do you circle the square onthose very different markets?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I don't think the markets are that far off anymore
.
I think they used to beno-transcript.
(24:34):
I've never believed knowledgefor knowledge's sake is the best
relevance tagline.
And you know I'm a medievalistby training.
So you know, in my disciplinewe were constantly thinking
about how we were relevant.
How were we relevant to theEnglish degree?
How were we relevant?
Why would people stay in theMiddle Ages?
Because it actually we need tobe relevant.
(24:57):
You know how they dealt withbubonic plague.
We had similar models that wedealt with COVID in the same way
and they didn't work.
So I think every faculty memberhas to think what is my
relevance to training studentsto be citizens of the United
(25:18):
States and in the workforce?
That's our mission.
It's the same for adults.
I mean, I would say that theonly slightly different
component is when you look atthe core, the undergraduate core
that you want them to take Inthe traditional market.
(25:42):
You're really looking at themexploring a little bit.
You want them to explore thingsthat they might not have
thought about.
You want them to integratethose things in different ways.
There's lots of schools thatare coming out with new majors
that integrate two majorstogether.
I can talk a little bit aboutwhat I see as what we can do for
(26:04):
our UNESCO World Heritage inthat way that combines computer
science, video, history andEnglish in a unified way.
The adults want similar, butthey want the workforce tomorrow
.
You know they, they're they.
They don't want to explore asmuch, they, they.
They just want what can I learntoday that I can apply to my
(26:27):
job tomorrow?
Um, but both are dealing withrelevance.
I, I can't make a nursingstudent that can't pass the
NCLEX.
Uh, because they're not goingto get a job.
So you know that's.
I think it all comes down torelevance, and that's where we
lost the generations.
(26:48):
We, you know, and we back tocost management.
We're constantly looking at ourprograms.
There are programs that are nolonger relevant either to a
market.
So there may be schools thatserve this market better.
They have more facilities.
To be competitive with themWe'd have to build large
(27:10):
facilities and hire faculty, somaybe it's better we just step
out of that market and let thecompetitor have that market.
There's other programs that areno longer relevant.
Greek and Latin used to be veryrelevant at one time to
universities and they're notprograms that are taught much
(27:31):
more.
And if they're taught, maybethey're taught in a consortium
that you're sharing those things.
So, like an example, I will giveyou where I see the blending of
majors.
We're the 26th UNESCO WorldHeritage Site and right now we
(27:55):
are one site that has fourlocations Three are in Europe
and one is in the United States.
So we're working with Apple onVision Pro.
Apple's coming out with a newcamera this quarter that takes
the video in 3D that can go intothe Vision Pro or into an iPad,
(28:16):
and we're going to havestudents go do the tours at all
other sites.
So at any site you can pick upthe Vision Pros and you can go
on a virtual tour of the othersites, since we're so separated
by geography.
The next level of that is to useAI to talk to the people of the
(28:42):
founders of the Moravian faith.
So Comenius, as the father ofmodern education.
You can put on the vision proseand you can ask Comenius
questions about why he pickedthis kind of education, what it
was like to live in as an exilefrom his home, all those kinds.
Then we do Zinzendorf, then wedo Benigna, then you can do, you
(29:04):
know, the contribution ofMoravians to music around the
world, to architecture, toeducation.
I mean it's a never endingstudent project that will get
them publications all the time.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
So and it blends computer science, ai, video, the
arts, humanities, english andhistory.
Yeah, that's incredible.
I mean it's so fascinating tohear.
How do you get, like, do youfind there's like an organic
interest in that already withboth populations of students,
right, Meaning that theinstitutional history, the deep
dive on these other sort ofworld heritage sites, like do
you anticipate like differentengagement between the two
(29:55):
populations in that and sort oflike you know, like do you see
your healthcare people, sort of.
I'm just so curious becauseit's such a fascinating sort of
piece of it that sort of, Ithink connects and extends to
the question that we're sort ofgetting at is like relevance
with, with marketing tosurrogate population.
How do you see that sort oflike playing out with your
(30:16):
populations and and and thatthat rich history that you have
the ability to leverage tech toengage in is just such a
fascinating piece.
But how do you think that'sgonna play with with everybody
and how do you expect that to go?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I'm actually finding that the unesco world heritage
has more relevance than Ithought.
We're getting students that arecoming because we have that
designation, which I didn'tthink we were going to have,
because we, you know, regularlysay we're the sixth oldest
college in the United States,from the Gen Z.
(30:54):
You know so what?
You know big deal, so you know,somehow this has spun a
different component.
Yeah, I do think that thebuildings and the history are
(31:15):
kind of the secret sauce to thekind of students we get.
We're not pretentious, thebuildings aren't pretentious,
they are not like they're old,but they're not pretentious
buildings.
As one of the architects whoworks on our campus says, your
(31:38):
buildings have the same feel asyour favorite sweater or worn
pair of jeans.
They're just comfortable.
It's comfortable to be there.
So I think that's the kind ofstudent we get that comes here
and you know we've been aroundso long that there's.
You know we're established.
You know I don't think ifyou're into really, really
(32:01):
cutting edge stuff, you'recoming to us.
I think you're coming to us ifyou want this blend of some
cutting edge stuff.
But the the history of abuilding that's, you know, built
in 1748 and was a RevolutionaryWar hospital at some point.
You know so, you know this, sothis is our market, and I think
(32:25):
every president needs to figureout.
Every president asks all thetime what do we do that
differentiates us?
This is what we do thatdifferentiates us, but every
school has a differentiator,even if they're small, and you
just have to stay on thatdifferentiator.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yeah, you've managed to, I think, find the
intersectionality of yourdifferentiation in a way that I
think positions you uniquelyright.
I mean, it's one thing to havea World Heritage Site and to be
an Apple school, and those areboth, I think, pretty unique
things, but the really sort ofcombine the two so that you've
got this like virtual realitybased experience of like
(33:08):
traveling and seeing thesedifferent heritage.
I mean that's a really sort ofunique offering, that that's a
blend that is, I think, sort ofgets to this unique
intersectionality that you haveof knowing what your strengths
are and then leaning not justleaning into them, but like
finding the unique pieces, thatsort of fit at the middle of all
(33:29):
of those two and exploring them, I think is particularly unique
.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, I would say that there are lots of schools
that do this.
I would say Elon does this invery unique ways.
Lynn University down in Floridadoes it, Maryville does it.
I mean the latter two are Appledistinguished schools, but they
make a unique pitch on whatdifferentiates them from the
(33:58):
other institutions and Elon doesthe same thing.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Completely, completely, maybe.
An interesting place to end.
It is like, how do you thinkabout that as somebody that's
got such a rooted academicbackground and an appreciation
for that applied liberal arts,liberal arts how do you balance
(34:22):
that sort of need for likerelevancy and, you know, taking
it in directions that are goingto sort of prepare your students
to be the types of citizenworkers that you want them to be
and know that they can be, withthat history right?
How do you sort of like findyour space between the two of
those?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So I think everything I learned preparing students
for the workforce I think Ilearned at Moravian.
I'll give this is a personalexample.
I had the choice to takeChaucer or Shakespeare as an
English major here and I tookChaucer, not Shakespeare, and I
(34:58):
actually went through mymaster's degree and my doctoral
degree without ever taking aShakespeare course as an English
major.
I wrote two of my chapters ofmy dissertation on Shakespeare.
I've published on Shakespeare.
I was the Shakespeare facultyteacher at UConn and was hired
(35:19):
as a Shakespeare expert atCentenary.
So faculty often think that wehave to have courses.
I mean the old model is thestudents on the conveyor belt
and we're throwing a hubcap onthem and the steering wheel and
an engine and brakes and that'sthe course model.
And an engine and brakes, andthat's the course model.
(35:42):
What I learned at Moravian was Ican do a single author depth
model and really dive into thatone author and I've learned the
skills now to do that on my ownfor Shakespeare, for other
places.
So breath, which is what theAmerican liberal arts model was
set up for, because we weretaking farm boys and moving them
(36:05):
into middle management right,that was the goal of the.
That liberal arts model now canbe replaced by well, we're
going to do depth because we'renot going to keep up with
content.
Content is, you know, we makemore content every year than all
of human history before.
So the only way to do this ishow do I develop the skills of
(36:27):
critical thinking, of workingwell in teams, of being a leader
, of being ethical ofcommunication, of good writing
and good numeracy skills,looking in depth so that it's
transferable to the next blockand the next block and the next
block.
So we are teaching how to thinkand be as humans, which is
(36:49):
really the heart of the liberalarts.
It's just inverted to make itrelevant.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
Well, brian, yeah, that makes aton of sense.
Well, brian, this has beenincredible.
I really appreciate you beinghonest and open and going really
deep with some of theseconversations.
I know that people are going toreally enjoy it and appreciate
it as well.
So, thank you, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Thanks, mike, greatly enjoyed it Awesome.
Awesome Excited to be back with Brian here.
Brian welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hey, great to be here again.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Well, we had such a great conversation the first
time.
You talked on so many sort ofinteresting pieces around your
own background, the challengesyou had around coming up, how
you took this unexpected pathinto becoming a college
president.
But I thought we also scratchedthe surface on these bigger
questions around how do you makea financial and operational
(00:29):
model really work.
You all have done a reallygreat job of sort of expanding
at the margins and building andfinding capacity and need for
emergency devices, you know, andparticularly sort of growing
these cohorts and expanding thework that you're sort of doing
in these spaces.
So I thought that might be areally interesting place to dive
(00:51):
in.
You know, how do you balancethose financial pressures while
still maintaining that coreundergraduate experience that is
really sort of such alongstanding and thriving
institution for so long?
How do you balance those twopieces?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, I think there's some models out there that work
really well that demonstratethis.
Wake Forest is an example of aplace that really emphasizes
undergraduate education andgraduate education and doesn't
use undergraduate facultygraduate assistantships to teach
the undergraduate.
(01:29):
I think that's one of the bigdifferentiators between
essentially the German model ofhigher ed, which is what the
land-grant universities arefounded on, where we use
graduate students to teach theundergrads, as opposed to the
English model of Oxford andCambridge, where full-time
(01:52):
faculty teach both undergraduateand graduate and sometimes you
have them isolated to justundergraduate or isolated to
graduate.
The Jesuit universities do thesame thing.
If you're looking for anothermodel in America that does this.
So you know, in our programslike Wake Forest, we have
(02:16):
primarily graduate programs,where they are full-time,
usually in the healthprofessions, and there are no
graduate assistantships that areteaching undergraduate students
.
There may be graduateassistantships that are tutoring
or doing other support services, but the faculty are being
(02:38):
taught.
The students of theundergraduate are being taught
by full-time faculty members.
That enhances undergraduateresearch for those students,
because they're, you know,rubbing elbows with the faculty
and the faculty are needing themto help out in the research and
other areas.
So I think that you know,america likes to tout the
(03:02):
liberal arts model that itcreated.
But the European models havesignificantly longer longevity
as a successful business modeland they're diversified.
They're not just doing oneaspect, they're doing multiple
aspects of education of adults.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
That's a great answer .
What's it look like from a costperspective, right?
What are some of the trade-offsthat you have with those models
and what was the calculus foryou sort of making the decision
to pivot not pivot in thatdirection, but really sort of,
you know, build a model thatworks for your graduate students
?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, so the big cost differential is your faculty.
You know health science facultyjust cost more.
They can make more in thegeneral market.
So to get them to come touniversities they're going to be
asking for more money than yourEnglish faculty are going to be
(04:06):
.
So the cost differential issignificant.
But the revenue on the studenttuition side is also
significantly more.
But you know it does change aculture when you're having, you
know, dpt faculty or PA facultyor pharmacy faculty and you're
(04:31):
making that leap into that realm.
You know you're looking atpeople who are making $120,000,
$150,000 as assistant professorsto be competitive with what
they can make in the healthcarearena.
The costs.
Oftentimes presidents, I think,look at the cost side of those
(04:52):
programs and say we can never doit.
But they don't look at therevenue side of the program too,
where you have full-timegraduate students paying tuition
up in the 30s and $40,000, notin discounted, because they're
going to get jobs outside in theindustry that are going to be
(05:14):
able for them to pay back thoseloans.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, that makes a ton of
sense.
What have been some of the sortof cost strategies that you've
implemented to really sort ofmanage the cost across the
institution?
Up amazing programs.
You're leveraging, I think,some interesting models and you
(05:51):
know, and really sort of leaninginto the cohort design aspect,
while also you know sort oftraditional sort of European
models.
But how do you really sort ofbalance those pieces with?
You know, you've got excellenceand you've got costs and you're
trying to meet in the middlesomewhere?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
They're hard.
I mean I would say you know, Iwould say Elon's done the best
at this, saying that you knowwe're going to provide you a
value that is going to be betterthan the other values you're
going to get, and so you know wecould reduce our expenses down.
I could stop giving a MacBookand an iPad and a watch and the
(06:26):
whole Apple ecosystem.
We could get rid of the careercounselors that are dedicated to
every student the minute theyshow up.
We could reduce the tutoringprograms, reduce counseling
programs, but you're going tolose students.
You're going to not retain asmany students.
(06:48):
I think we're right now on thebleeding edge of what does AI do
for us?
(07:09):
Bot for admissions that's goingto help lower the need for more
staff to add and so betterquality of responses coming back
and lower costs.
We're adding an AI bot this fallto the academic student life
experience that hopefully willhelp retain students and, like
most changes and we're workingon one for the registrar with
(07:31):
Maryville University right nowthose you know we're going to be
deploying a lot of those in thenext couple years and then
they're going to consolidatedown because I think we're on
the bleeding edge of you'regoing to start seeing AI bots go
hey, I can do that too, youknow, and just like Apple
(07:52):
absorbs all these other startups.
That's what's going to happen, Ithink, over the next three to
five years.
This is truly a game changerfor retention, for the drudgery
of what higher ed is in thebureaucratic component of how
(08:13):
you know you do transcriptreviews and all those kinds of
things, library, all thoseaspects.
Those are going to be I thinkthose are going to be the
significant cost reductions, butwe're so new to this and we
can't see it yet.
We're going to deploy them andsee what happens and monitor the
(08:38):
data, because we just don'thave any other way to do it
right now and if you wait, it'sgoing to be by you before you
can even deploy it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah, I love that attitude.
I'm a big proponent of justsort of experimenting and having
sort of smart, sort of upfrontdesign to sort of ensure that
your parameters in place andthen sort of really training
staff to sort of iterate andadapt to new things and find new
ways to do things.
But two follow up questions onthat who are the vendors?
(09:09):
I know people would love thisbecause it's just such an
interesting thing.
Who are the vendors that youdecided to go with?
And then how are you sort oftraining staff to really sort of
like onboard and sort of usethis in effective ways?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So of course you would ask me these questions and
I'm not gonna be able to pullthem off the top of my head.
Fahrenheit 451 is the companywe're using for the chat bot.
I believe in the admissions.
The one we're using in studentlife is one.
Everybody is using thatacademics, academics.
(09:45):
For you, it's the.
It's the largest one, um, I sawthem at a conference uh, middle
states conference the name'sescaping me right now, but it is
, it's.
It's pretty much the blackboardum model of you know, this is
the one that is doing studentlife and retention yeah, yeah,
really cool to hear.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And how's the sort of transition with getting sort of
staff on board and workingthrough their discomfort and
trying to sort of also likecoach them on, like, hey, this
is a tool that can be reallysort of helpful in this regard,
but it does require us doingthings different.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, so admissions is fully on board and moving.
Yeah, so admissions is fully onboard and moving.
I think that one's the easierlift and development is looking
at how it could be used to helpout in the development area,
because I'm always amazed at howsimilar development and
recruiting is Just one movesfaster.
(10:43):
Right, you can make a change ina year where it takes decades
to make changes in giving habits.
So they're using that.
They're going to be up andrunning in less than a month and
deploying it and using it.
This year we're giving the onefor student life and academics
(11:07):
tutoring and all that a till thefall semester to be ready.
So the provost right now isdeploying a task force on the AI
bot with the faculty who areinterested in this, getting them
comfortable on what this can do, working with the registrar and
the academic support staff thatis looking at this.
(11:30):
So we're ready to roll when thenew students come in in the
fall.
On the flip side, though, theadult program is using it right
now because they can just deployit.
It's in a cohort base programand so the minute they are ready
to deploy, they're deployingimmediately, which will, you
(11:52):
know, help sandbox us a bit.
We're going to get someexperience on how this works as
the cohorts move through it anduse it in the adult market, and
then we'll have some moreinformation for the traditional
market when we get there.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
That's nice, Kind of a heavy soft launch, but it
helps yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
It really helps having the adult online
accelerated market to experiment.
You know, if you have 14 kidsin a cohort and something
doesn't work, it's fine.
Much better than if there's2000 students and something
doesn't work right.
So you get to play around withthings on how they are, how
(12:32):
things are working, and then, ifthey're working well, you can
deploy them for your otherconstituents.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Completely and you actually referenced culture
change sort of happening withthe onboarding of different and
new programs before.
Have you seen other sort ofsynergistic effects of like
having these new cohorts thatare popping up and that you're
building and building all theinfrastructure and bringing new
people in?
Have you noticed sort ofsynergies or like changes to
(13:01):
your broader organizationalculture through those shifts?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Slowly.
Yeah, I mean I'll give you anexample for me personally that
they're now here and I you knowthey were staff that I worked
with before, so I know this.
I'm teaching a course onpandemics across history, which
is my expertise.
(13:26):
And I said I'm doing that inthe fall and I sent it to the
people who run the adult onlineprogram and I said you know,
over the summer, I want tototally reinvent this and use AI
and explore different ways todo assignments.
You know more about this than Ido in new pedagogy, I'm just
(13:52):
the content expert.
But I want to spend the timeall summer to make this the best
course I can possibly make it,and we're going to build it from
the online perspective.
I'm going to deliver it onground, but I'm going to be able
to use all the wonderful toolsthat are available through AI
and online that they know about.
(14:14):
That will make this course morerobust.
I'm not the only faculty memberwho can drop their ego and say I
don't know enough about this.
Let's go through this processand I've done this process
before.
It's hard, it's not an easyprocess.
It takes months of work, butthe result is so much better.
(14:34):
So, yes, I see a lot ofparticular health science
faculty reaching out across andsaying hey, I don't know
everything about pedagogy intoday's day and age.
Help me out and I'll just bethe content expert on what I
want to accomplish and you cantell me the tools that are
available that I don't knowexist that are available that I
(14:57):
don't know exist.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah, that's really cool and powerful to hear that
you're modeling that behaviorfor people that are sort of
working for you.
One thing that occurred to meyou've got all these incredible
data sources.
You're an Apple DistinguishedSchool.
You're getting sort of datafrom devices and all those sort
of pieces, while you're alsosort of like onboarding new bots
(15:20):
in a really sort of interestingway, training people to sort of
use them effectively,experimenting with your cool
boards before onboarding them.
You know the challenges of likeall of this data like in the
(15:42):
sort of like knowing what to dowith it, how to use that.
You've got the sort oftransition that's happening now
to Oracle.
Somebody that's sort of donepieces of those Like.
I know how cumbersome it can beto make sure that one thing is
talking to the other and youknow dive into the weeds of that
.
What kind of bumps are youhitting with regards to that?
And um, how do you balance thatsort of like too much data
(16:05):
versus not enough thing andwhere to sort of like who to
share data with all the sort ofdata governance pieces that go
with that?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
it's a big question.
We we just had this meeting, sowe hired a project manager and
started an office of projectmanagement and she just gave us
an update on Oracle with thedirector of HR and where she was
, on all the key indicators.
(16:35):
On all the key indicators.
It's an immense lift by thestaff.
I mean just to give you anexample, she told us that this
is the business office that'sdoing it.
(16:56):
They have next week, 60 hoursof meetings next week Wow, and
they have a day job to do.
This is in addition to studentsare back and everything has to
be done in the business office.
The academic SIS when it getsdeployed.
(17:17):
The academic SIS when it getsdeployed is like 10 times more
complex in hours than what we'redoing right now.
Like this is the easy lift.
So burnout of our staff is anincredible worry right now as
(17:46):
we're doing this.
But at the same moment, we sawwhat HR has already put together
in Oracle and we were all blownaway by just now.
You can see all the reportingtrees of people who they have
and you can document yourone-on-ones and there's KPIs to
every staff member and thingswe've never experienced before.
So on one hand you're like, ohGod, is my staff going to be
(18:10):
able to survive this?
But on the other hand, they seethe promised land and it's a
whole lot better than what theyhave.
Yeah, so for us, I think thedriver is we're not changing
from a platform we don't like toanother okay platform or just
(18:32):
slightly better.
We're going light years toOracle.
So it's like going to Apple.
The stuff just works and that'sthe ultimate challenge.
Now, when that comes back toyour question, we have a data
scientist who runs IR for me andshe's working, obviously, with
(18:59):
the project management.
We have a kind of data lakethat she goes in and gets stuff
out, but it's very hard becausesystems don't talk to each other
, because we're in an ERP thatdoesn't work like that, in an
ERP that doesn't work like that.
But she's starting to get datafrom Oracle which is much more
(19:22):
developed, much clearer, muchmore accurate because they're
held accountable to what they'reputting in.
So there's a brighter daycoming.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
There's a lot of work coming too, and yesterday's
cabinet meeting it dawned oneverybody's some really sort of
there's a rainbow somewhere, butyou know sort of wayfinding
your way there.
It can certainly sort of betricky.
Is it a lot of the sort of likeback end problems, which is
really sort of connecting API'sto like the third party data
(20:15):
lakes and then sort ofconnecting them back?
Is it like?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
a lot of that integration kind of stuff.
That's the problem right now.
Yeah, the problem with Oracleor where we're going, I wouldn't
say the problem with Oracleit's you know it's redesigning
the chart of accounts, which youknow is an immense activity
(20:38):
it's that Oracle won't let youdo this process that way because
that's not a best practice.
So you got to learn it this wayand it's all those kind of
aspects that are happening.
I mean, we just just as anexample, went through a massive
change in the university.
We were handing out P cards toeverybody.
(21:00):
Oracle prefers not to have thathappen and that we just make
reimbursements.
They use their personal cardand we make reimbursements
within 24 hours.
One of the benefits of that isthat the CFO has more control
over what's allowed and what'snot allowed.
You use a P-card.
(21:21):
Now the CFO has to work withyou.
That wasn't allowed and inprocurement they're building a
catalog out of Oracle, of allvendors, of Oracle of all
vendors, so you don't even haveto use your card.
If you want, you just selectout of the catalog.
(21:43):
And they told us in costcontainment areas it's a much
larger university, it's a stateuniversity, but they save $5
million in procurement becausethey added a single source for
it.
They're looking at us that wecan save, you know, three to six
hundred thousand dollars a year.
That's, you know, on a 70, 80million dollar operating budget.
(22:08):
That's not chump change, thatthat that helps, so that those
kind of tools, that's alldifferent ways the business
office operated.
Previously.
It was don't use your privatecards, use the P cards.
Everybody's got a P card andthey were managing it and Oracle
goes that's not the way we'regoing to do this.
You're going to build aprocurement center, you're going
(22:30):
to catalog it.
You can select what you wantout of that and if you're
traveling you're using yourpersonal card and then you're
putting it in and you're cutting.
You know we're giving you themoney for what's appropriate.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah, that's really really powerful and very well
said and I'm glad to hear thatthe transition there is going
really really well.
We had some fascinatingconversations the first time
around the challenges of sort ofpositioning and marketing and
how you sort of arrived at this,I think, sort of unique
position in just such a crowdedlandscape.
(23:07):
You know, it's occurred to methat you know you've got this
increasing challenge of you'vegot, I think with Gen Z right
this like skepticism aroundhigher education and some of the
narratives that are there andhow do you really sort of
connect with them in ways, inmediums and in things that
really sort of like resonate.
(23:28):
But then you've also got thischallenge right of your
nontraditional populations andyour working adults and learners
that have really specific needsand they're really sort of
career driven but those two looklike so vastly different right,
and how you're sort ofsignaling to the two somewhere
like between the two.
You've got your core brandright.
(23:49):
That is this sort of, like youknow, embodied entity that we
talked a little bit about thefirst time.
How do you think about thosetwo pieces and then really sort
of unifying them to the pillarsthat have made Merovian a
longstanding place, that istrusted, that has great
reputation, all of those kind ofpieces.
How do you circle the square onthose very different markets?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I don't think the markets are that far off anymore
.
I think they used to beno-transcript.
(24:34):
I've never believed knowledgefor knowledge's sake is the best
relevance tagline.
And you know I'm a medievalistby training.
So you know, in my disciplinewe were constantly thinking
about how we were relevant.
How were we relevant to theEnglish degree?
How were we relevant?
Why would people stay in theMiddle Ages?
Because it actually we need tobe relevant.
(24:57):
You know how they dealt withbubonic plague.
We had similar models that wedealt with COVID in the same way
and they didn't work.
So I think every faculty memberhas to think what is my
relevance to training studentsto be citizens of the United
(25:18):
States and in the workforce?
That's our mission.
It's the same for adults.
I mean, I would say that theonly slightly different
component is when you look atthe core, the undergraduate core
that you want them to take Inthe traditional market.
(25:42):
You're really looking at themexploring a little bit.
You want them to explore thingsthat they might not have
thought about.
You want them to integratethose things in different ways.
There's lots of schools thatare coming out with new majors
that integrate two majorstogether.
I can talk a little bit aboutwhat I see as what we can do for
(26:04):
our UNESCO World Heritage inthat way that combines computer
science, video, history andEnglish in a unified way.
The adults want similar, butthey want the workforce tomorrow
.
You know they, they're they.
They don't want to explore asmuch, they, they.
They just want what can I learntoday that I can apply to my
(26:27):
job tomorrow?
Um, but both are dealing withrelevance.
I, I can't make a nursingstudent that can't pass the
NCLEX.
Uh, because they're not goingto get a job.
So you know that's.
I think it all comes down torelevance, and that's where we
lost the generations.
(26:48):
We, you know, and we back tocost management.
We're constantly looking at ourprograms.
There are programs that are nolonger relevant either to a
market.
So there may be schools thatserve this market better.
They have more facilities.
To be competitive with themWe'd have to build large
(27:10):
facilities and hire faculty, somaybe it's better we just step
out of that market and let thecompetitor have that market.
There's other programs that areno longer relevant.
Greek and Latin used to be veryrelevant at one time to
universities and they're notprograms that are taught much
(27:31):
more.
And if they're taught, maybethey're taught in a consortium
that you're sharing those things.
So, like an example, I will giveyou where I see the blending of
majors.
We're the 26th UNESCO WorldHeritage Site and right now we
(27:55):
are one site that has fourlocations Three are in Europe
and one is in the United States.
So we're working with Apple onVision Pro.
Apple's coming out with a newcamera this quarter that takes
the video in 3D that can go intothe Vision Pro or into an iPad,
(28:16):
and we're going to havestudents go do the tours at all
other sites.
So at any site you can pick upthe Vision Pros and you can go
on a virtual tour of the othersites, since we're so separated
by geography.
The next level of that is to useAI to talk to the people of the
(28:42):
founders of the Moravian faith.
So Comenius, as the father ofmodern education.
You can put on the vision proseand you can ask Comenius
questions about why he pickedthis kind of education, what it
was like to live in as an exilefrom his home, all those kinds.
Then we do Zinzendorf, then wedo Benigna, then you can do, you
(29:04):
know, the contribution ofMoravians to music around the
world, to architecture, toeducation.
I mean it's a never endingstudent project that will get
them publications all the time.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
So and it blends computer science, ai, video, the
arts, humanities, english andhistory.
Yeah, that's incredible.
I mean it's so fascinating tohear.
How do you get, like, do youfind there's like an organic
interest in that already withboth populations of students,
right, Meaning that theinstitutional history, the deep
dive on these other sort ofworld heritage sites, like do
you anticipate like differentengagement between the two
(29:55):
populations in that and sort oflike you know, like do you see
your healthcare people, sort of.
I'm just so curious becauseit's such a fascinating sort of
piece of it that sort of, Ithink connects and extends to
the question that we're sort ofgetting at is like relevance
with, with marketing tosurrogate population.
How do you see that sort oflike playing out with your
(30:16):
populations and and and thatthat rich history that you have
the ability to leverage tech toengage in is just such a
fascinating piece.
But how do you think that'sgonna play with with everybody
and how do you expect that to go?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I'm actually finding that the unesco world heritage
has more relevance than Ithought.
We're getting students that arecoming because we have that
designation, which I didn'tthink we were going to have,
because we, you know, regularlysay we're the sixth oldest
college in the United States,from the Gen Z.
(30:54):
You know so what?
You know big deal, so you know,somehow this has spun a
different component.
Yeah, I do think that thebuildings and the history are
(31:15):
kind of the secret sauce to thekind of students we get.
We're not pretentious, thebuildings aren't pretentious,
they are not like they're old,but they're not pretentious
buildings.
As one of the architects whoworks on our campus says, your
(31:38):
buildings have the same feel asyour favorite sweater or worn
pair of jeans.
They're just comfortable.
It's comfortable to be there.
So I think that's the kind ofstudent we get that comes here
and you know we've been aroundso long that there's.
You know we're established.
You know I don't think ifyou're into really, really
(32:01):
cutting edge stuff, you'recoming to us.
I think you're coming to us ifyou want this blend of some
cutting edge stuff.
But the the history of abuilding that's, you know, built
in 1748 and was a RevolutionaryWar hospital at some point.
You know so, you know this, sothis is our market, and I think
(32:25):
every president needs to figureout.
Every president asks all thetime what do we do that
differentiates us?
This is what we do thatdifferentiates us, but every
school has a differentiator,even if they're small, and you
just have to stay on thatdifferentiator.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yeah, you've managed to, I think, find the
intersectionality of yourdifferentiation in a way that I
think positions you uniquelyright.
I mean, it's one thing to havea World Heritage Site and to be
an Apple school, and those areboth, I think, pretty unique
things, but the really sort ofcombine the two so that you've
got this like virtual realitybased experience of like
(33:08):
traveling and seeing thesedifferent heritage.
I mean that's a really sort ofunique offering, that that's a
blend that is, I think, sort ofgets to this unique
intersectionality that you haveof knowing what your strengths
are and then leaning not justleaning into them, but like
finding the unique pieces, thatsort of fit at the middle of all
(33:29):
of those two and exploring them, I think is particularly unique
.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, I would say that there are lots of schools
that do this.
I would say Elon does this invery unique ways.
Lynn University down in Floridadoes it, Maryville does it.
I mean the latter two are Appledistinguished schools, but they
make a unique pitch on whatdifferentiates them from the
(33:58):
other institutions and Elon doesthe same thing.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Completely, completely, maybe.
An interesting place to end.
It is like, how do you thinkabout that as somebody that's
got such a rooted academicbackground and an appreciation
for that applied liberal arts,liberal arts how do you balance
(34:22):
that sort of need for likerelevancy and, you know, taking
it in directions that are goingto sort of prepare your students
to be the types of citizenworkers that you want them to be
and know that they can be, withthat history right?
How do you sort of like findyour space between the two of
those?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So I think everything I learned preparing students
for the workforce I think Ilearned at Moravian.
I'll give this is a personalexample.
I had the choice to takeChaucer or Shakespeare as an
English major here and I tookChaucer, not Shakespeare, and I
(34:58):
actually went through mymaster's degree and my doctoral
degree without ever taking aShakespeare course as an English
major.
I wrote two of my chapters ofmy dissertation on Shakespeare.
I've published on Shakespeare.
I was the Shakespeare facultyteacher at UConn and was hired
(35:19):
as a Shakespeare expert atCentenary.
So faculty often think that wehave to have courses.
I mean the old model is thestudents on the conveyor belt
and we're throwing a hubcap onthem and the steering wheel and
an engine and brakes and that'sthe course model.
And an engine and brakes, andthat's the course model.
(35:42):
What I learned at Moravian was Ican do a single author depth
model and really dive into thatone author and I've learned the
skills now to do that on my ownfor Shakespeare, for other
places.
So breath, which is what theAmerican liberal arts model was
set up for, because we weretaking farm boys and moving them
(36:05):
into middle management right,that was the goal of the.
That liberal arts model now canbe replaced by well, we're
going to do depth because we'renot going to keep up with
content.
Content is, you know, we makemore content every year than all
of human history before.
So the only way to do this ishow do I develop the skills of
(36:27):
critical thinking, of workingwell in teams, of being a leader
, of being ethical ofcommunication, of good writing
and good numeracy skills,looking in depth so that it's
transferable to the next blockand the next block and the next
block.
So we are teaching how to thinkand be as humans, which is
(36:49):
really the heart of the liberalarts.
It's just inverted to make itrelevant.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
Well, brian, yeah, that makes aton of sense.
Well, brian, this has beenincredible.
I really appreciate you beinghonest and open and going really
deep with some of theseconversations.
I know that people are going toreally enjoy it and appreciate
it as well.
So, thank you, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Thanks, mike, greatly enjoyed it Awesome.
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