Top of Mind with Tambellini Group
Top of Mind with Tambellini Group
The Role of the Chief Transformation Officer
What does a Chief Transformation Officer do? This leadership position can take on many forms depending on the institution, but one thing is for sure: it is never strictly about “technology.” In this Top of Mind episode, Kristophyre McCall, chief transformation officer for University of Maryland Global Campus, sits down with us to talk about his experience during his rookie year as UMGC’s first leader in this role. Tune in to hear all about what makes a chief transformation officer successful, and why more colleges and universities are creating this position to drive results aligned with their missions and goals.
Hello, and welcome to the Tambellini Group's latest Top of Mind Podcast. I'm your host, Liz Farrell. This month, we're focusing on a leadership position that we're seeing at a small but growing number of colleges and universities. And this is the role of the chief transformation officer, as described by Inside Higher Ed's Emma Whitford,"the role has been quote-unquote popular in business, but relatively new to higher education." And in its own description of a CTO in the business world, the consulting firm McKinsey has said he or she acts the face of the transformation sets the tone, spurs, enthusiasm, and challenges, current wisdom. But what does a chief transformation officer in higher ed really do? And why are we seeing more institutions recognize the need for this role to help us answer those questions? We are joined today by a pioneer in the chief transformation officer role. Kristophyre McCall. Kris was the first to assume the role of CTO when it was created about 14 months ago at the University of Maryland Global Campus. He took on this role after serving as UMGC's VP of academic operations for almost three years. And he's been working in higher education for two decades, leading operation roles at a myriad of institutions and organizations, including AIU online and Western International University. Also, Kris, you bear the dubious distinction of being our first guest who could reasonably count as my neighbor as we're both located in the DC Metro area. So welcome, Kris.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for making the time to enlighten us on what you do. I was reading up on institutions that have recently appointed chief transformation officers, and there seems to be a lot of emphasis on them coming from technology backgrounds. A lot of times this title will be like chief technology transformation officer or chief digital transformation officer. But what you told me was for you, that's a bit different in terms of the technology focus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So, so typically from the other CTOs that I've interacted with, it's really a technology/IT job. And in some cases the roles just seems like it's a rebranded CIO position. But I don't come from an IT background as many others do as you noted. My background really is in operations and strategy. I've spent years overseeing student-facing departments of universities from admissions and marketing to registrar, financial aid, prior learning assessment, analytics, and a whole host of other teams. Which has given me a very, I think, unique perspective and the ability to connect the dots across the entire student lifecycle. So when people ask me, you know, what the heck does a chief transformation officer do? My super quick elevator pitches? I really sit at the crossroads of our technology, our business processes, and our offerings. So on the business side, I'm heavily focused on our student experiences and our academic offerings in terms of ensuring that we are delivering the programs, courses, degrees, and certifications that our students are looking for. And then we also provide the best experience possible while doing that. I also spend time paying attention to the higher education trends to help UMGC determine which ones make sense for us as a university. Really, it's focusing on all those things through the lens of where we are as a university and where we want to be in six months, in two years, and at various points in the future, and really building out the roadmap to get us to where we want to be as an organization.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great description. I like themarriage of those three areas that you're talking about, and I wanna get to that roadmap and talk a bit more about it. But before that can you tell us about the forces that compelled, UMGC to create this role?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So about a year and an half ago, UMGC hired a new president named Dr. Greg Fowler. His background is that he's been at some other really successful schools in including Southern New Hampshire, Western Governors, and that he has a real passion for the student experience. Those institutions serve very similar populations as UMGC—working adults that are looking for online programs that can fit into their busy lifestyle. Those schools also have tremendous success over the past several years, and they're really doing great work across the board. So when Greg started assembling and, you know, building out his cabinet and putting together his vision for, you know, what do we need to do and where do we need to go, the chief transformation officer role is really born from that. And it really helps to kind of ensure that everything is aligned with the new UMGC vision.
Speaker 1:So where did this vision come from? I mean you had already been at the institution for a couple of years before president Fowler got there and you were in this academic operations role, you were overseeing, you know, the business side, the, you had this 30,000 foot view of what's going on. Can you give us some context, like when, when this new president comes in, he's setting this vision, what is he finding on day one?
Speaker 2:Sure. So, you know, UMGC, you know, University of Maryland Global Campus, it's a state university. That's part of the University System of Maryland. You know, we've been teaching students for about 75 years. We're a large institution and we have about 90 programs and, you know, our offerings range from certifications, associates degrees, bachelors, masters, and doctoral programs. And we service about 90,000 students per year. The vast majority are online. We also have about 170 locations spread around the globe. So with our stateside operations, our European operations and our Asian operations. The sun never sets on UMGC students. So when the pandemic hit, you know, two years ago, we weren't forced to make a lot of the changes that other schools had to make in terms of figuring out how to service our students and you know, our staff and our faculty in a virtual capacity because we were already doing that. For the most part, we already had those things figured out. We were a very flexible organization, but on the flip side, we didn't have that immediate, immediate urgency that other institutions were dealing with on, you know, how do you take your courses online? How do you service these students? How do faculty teach online? We were already doing that and doing it really well. So at the beginning of the pandemic, you know, we were gaining students as others were challenged to kind of retain their existing ones. The first summer after the pandemic began, we saw a pretty dramatic increase in the students taking online courses because really what else was there to do? You know, if you think back, you couldn't go on vacation, everybody was staying home. So, you know, an online course or two was really a good use of their time during that first summer.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, from what you just described, it sounds like UMGC was in a remarkably enviable position. You know, there was no disruptions to the operating model. They were able to attract more students when, as you mentioned, like retention was a major struggle, continues to be one for the vast majority of institutions. So it seems that it could have been very easy for this new president to come in and just sort of say, Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We're on the upswing, we're doing everything right, but that's not what president Fowler did. Can you tell us about his vision and how it was shaped by those favorable conditions that were already in place?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, you know, even though we already do what we do pretty well, you know, serving, working adult students mainly online. There always areas of opportunity for us to take our university to the next level. And I think Greg really kind of focused on that. So, you know, when people talk about institutions in our space, they typically mention, you know, WGU, Southern New Hampshire, Arizona State. And, you know, from that list, UMGC would pretty much be the next one. But we don't have the same kind of national recognition. So that's one of the things that, you know, we're looking to do is to kinda get our name out there. So we're, we're pretty well known on the east coast and throughout the military community. But when you look at other areas of the country, you know, it, our brand recognition probably isn't as high as we want it to be. So we definitely wanted to, you know, spend some time and effort to attract, students nationwide and also to build kind of the UMGC brand recognition. So when Greg came in, he recognized kind of off the bat that we have a great organization, a great history, and those great opportunities to kind of expand what we do and to do it even better. So as a high-level vision, you know, it's really around kind of being the best, the best, you know, to be that top choice for serving the global community of students. You know, we wanna put our students first, we wanna be the most transfer, friendly university out there. We wanna be a trusted partner for residents and employers in Maryland and nationwide, but in order for us to do that, it requires us to focus on improving a lot of our business processes and also applying the right technology and automation in certain places. And then from there, we can focus on scaling our operations even more than they currently are. So, you know, to meet this new vision, we know that we need to be more strategic. We need to be more intentional and we need to be more accountable across all of UMGC.
Speaker 1:So in order to do that and meet up with that vision, there's the decision made by the president to add this position of chief transformation officer. You know, as you mentioned, building that roadmap, corralling everyone, making sure everything's aligned. So it's a pretty big role. It hasn't existed before at the institution. So there's always that by being first, you get to be the Guinea pig. So what compels you to throw your hat into the ring and apply for this position?
Speaker 2:So, so first off I love a new challenge. You know, it's something that I've done throughout my entire career is to always, you know, welcome new and different roles and try to help move the organization that I'm with forward. And this position really excited me because it incorporated everything that I love to do, you know, from an operations perspective, technology perspective thinking about the future, you know, that those are the things that I spend a lot of my time doing. So, you know, in the past I've spent my career working in roles, you know, at different organizations, I focus on either something new or reinvention. Um, and I've worked on trying to, you know, approach things differently analyze what works, what doesn't work, how to make them better, you know, really fail fast, learn from those mistakes and then, you know, kind of rinse and repeat, do that over and over until ultimately we kind of have solid business practices and, you know, processes to move forward with. So when this new role came around I was really very excited to kind of, to interview for it and to be a part of, you know, driving that conversation for UMGC. Um, as we look to the future and focus on a couple things, one, how do we take, you know, what we've got and make it better? Two, how do we attract and retrain and retain students in new and different ways? And three, how do we build a better, more engaging student experience for our UMGC students?
Speaker 1:Those are all very big questions to answer. How did answering those fit in with the president Fowler's new vision?
Speaker 2:So, you know, with that, it it's all about intentionally putting the student at the center of everything we do. Um, it's not that we weren't doing that before, but really having that laser focus on the student experience as the driver of everything we do and staying true to our vision it's about taking, you know, a new approach to solving our problems and trying to move forward with how we improve on things, you know, what are the technologies that we need and the enhancements that we should work on, you know, making sure that the projects that we choose and prioritize are really aligned with our strategic goals and making sure that everybody is rowing in the same direction, because that's kind of the worst thing that could happen is having folks kind of going off in different directions. We all need to be on the same page and kind of heading into battle together for lack of a better way to say it. Um, and you know, finally, when you think about Greg and his leadership, one of the things that he reminds the team all the time is, you know, it's all about, you know, following through on what we say we're gonna do. So it's not about chasing kind of that the next headline it's really about doing what's right. Um, you know, by the student, by the university, by the system, by the state. So, you know, we, we really kind of take all those things in into consideration as we plan for, you know, kind of what we're tackling next.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, that makes a lot of sense. Um, and a lot of what you said, it falls into the easy, easy to say, hard to do, right. Get everyone aligned when you have, and you're obviously very familiar with having worked in so many different functions, like the silos that can exist. Um, so there's another side to this alignment that you've mentioned in terms of them working as a coordinated team, but doing that as we know, like communication is key. So it seems to me that a big part of being a chief transformation officer is like most other leadership roles mean an effective communicator. So would, would you say that that's true
Speaker 2:100%, you know, I think it's, it's really, it's critical for for the empowerment and accountability across all teams. So communication it's not just, you know, how I'm communicating with folks, but it's also listening to everybody to understand what their concerns are and to address those issues as quickly as possible. Um, I'm always asking the team how they're feeling about our work in progress. I really want transparency and openness around what we're doing. So everybody fully understands the path ahead. Um, you know, recently some, some folks on the team were actually kind of, you know, lightheartedly teasing me about, you know, saying that I felt very Dr. Phil-ish and kind of asking how, how they feel all the time, but I really do think it's critical to, to ensure that, you know, everybody understands kind of where we're at today, where we're going tomorrow, if they have concerns that, you know, in the past, they weren't allowed to kind of speak openly about that. They have an avenue to do that because that kind of derails a project or, or kind of implodes what we're working on really quickly when everybody isn't bought into it. So that's something that is just very, very key to, I think what's, what's kind of helping our teams move forward is empowering everybody's voice. Yeah. So you know, one of the first things that I had to do once, you know, I kinda came into this role was ultimately kind of define our roadmap. So a year ago, before I came into the role we had really what, the best way to describe it is just a laundry list of all the projects that were in different phases and stages. We needed to narrow that down, you know, to the top 10 things that we should define our focus, and we can devote our energy as an organization to.
Speaker 1:How long was that list? Getting that down from 10 from, I mean.
Speaker 2:We probably had 75 to 80 things on that list.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Okay. So, and, you know, some of them were, were very small items. Some, some things were items that probably hadn't been worked on in a very long time, but there were just kind of hanging out. So, you know, it's really about making those tough decisions of, you know, here's where we're gonna focus our priorities on not that, you know, everything isn't important, but you know, there's critical, important tasks that we need to do and projects that need to be worked on. And then there's other ones that can kind of be set to the side. And ultimately we could come back to them if, you know, if there's the value that they need to bring. Um, otherwise, you know, we have also kind of had the courage to kind of kill projects. Um, yeah. And if something kind of didn't meet the criteria that we needed to have first success moving forward we were kind putting things on ice and kind of stopping work and kind of relocating resources. And, and that's something that, you know, UMGC wasn't really doing in the past, but over the past year, we have kind of stepped it up and said, you know, we need to have all of our energy focused on stuff that aligns to our goals. And if, if these don't align, then you know, maybe we shouldn't be working at them.
Speaker 1:So you get this list of 10 and then you've got this defined road map. So what do you do with that? How do you share that with all these various stakeholders and staff members?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So to get, once we narrowed it down, you know, it was really kind of about putting this, you know, roadshow about, you know, here's our enterprise, it roadmap, here are the big ticket items that we're working on as an organization that will move us forward. So we also have this series that we do at UMGC, called Team Talks, where we record zoom send it out to the entire organization. So in early 2022, so several, six months ago or so, we did one on the it roadmap sent it out to the organizations, had hundreds of views which I think is pretty successful because what it shows is that our, our teams are interested in knowing, you know, what we are working on as an organization where we're spending our efforts to make MGC better and ultimately giving them the visibility into what's happening across other departments. Um, and I think that's new and exciting for our staff. You know, they hadn't had that kind of visibility before in terms of what's happening. Um, and what's gonna be delivered when it's gonna be delivered. And ultimately when you do all that it helps us build, you know, more cohesive teams, they understand kind of where, you know, they fit in the organization and kind of the work that they do, how it impacts other departments. And that's, you know, really key I think to build a healthy organization.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's type of communication is, I think you've told me as well, it's not just about doing it initially. It's about keeping that up. Um, what are some of the things that, you know, in this first year that you've made a consistent part of ensuring that those communication lines are open?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we, we do a lot of stuff. So I think at, UMGC, we are getting really good at being transparent and open and bringing together cross-department groups to work together. So we do have you know, more meetings where we're, we're bringing together these cross-functional groups to talk about how they're impacting students. So, you know, how can they help each other, or how does a minor change in one department impact other groups across, you know, UMGC we also have weekly updates that get sent out to all of our leaders about our ongoing projects through our enterprise project management team that, you know, that's a team that rolls up to me and, you know, they, they're doing a great job of kind of corralling all the projects and giving visibility to everybody. We created a dashboard that's available to our entire staff that gives transparency and visibility into all project progress. We also have a webinar series that we run about every six weeks or so, where we spotlight a handful of projects. That's available for all of our staff to join. And we record that and send that out to anyone who couldn't make it. So, you know, our goal is to really be kind of looking forward through the windshield and not really focused on the rear view mirror, but that doesn't mean that we don't celebrate our successes. You know, we are, uh, really excited when something kind of launches and, and we have a new release, but we are really focused on kind of what's out in front of us, what's next to happen. Um, and that's, you know, kind of, I think really exciting for the organization is to not just rest on our laurels, but to kind of push the boundaries and kind of take us into, to new spaces and solve new problems that we haven't solved in the past.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I really love that analogy about the windshield and the rear view. I've heard a spin on that. That is, you know, there's a reason why the windshield is bigger than the rear view, right? You've gotta, you've gotta pay a lot more attention to what's coming than what's happened in the past. Um, but it does sound like there's a lot of technology involved in this role. I mean, especially, you know, I would say most leadership roles today in higher ed, you've got to have a certain level of tech savviness. And you had mentioned before that you didn't come from that CIO background that can often be the person who's considered for roles like this. But you did say one thing that I'd love for you to explain more, you, you mentioned your expertise comes from being a technology super user. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, you know, when I look at my experience you know, they're very operational and, you know, from those experiences, I tend to tend to work from the inside out to really understand, you know, what is truly happening in various departments and how they interact with technologies and learn the technologies that, you know, each one of these groups is using to ultimately, you know, get a really good understanding of how, you know, they play a part in the entire university ecosystem. Um, you know, I like to get my hands dirty to understand kind of what works and then ultimately understand what doesn't work, where are the areas of or opportunities for improvement. So, you know, by you can't just do that without kind of getting into the weeds. So, you know, that really kind of helps understand, you know, what makes the organization tick. So doing that across so many different departments over, you know, the 20 years that I've been in higher ed, it's really given me, you know, that, that opportunity to understand not just how certain silos of university work, but how the whole operation works and understand where those silos do exist and how to work across those silos, how to really make informed decisions and, and how to understand a decision made, you know, here impacts upstream and downstream. I think that is where a lot of folks in, in higher ed, they don't understand how to connect those dots. Um, so by paying attention to all of that and really looking, you know, like I said, from the inside out to, to make sense of what works and what doesn't I think that's how we can approach our solutions with scalable technology in mind. So it's important for folks to, you know, who, who understand the business side and also understand the technology side to partner together very, very closely. So, you know, I work really closely with our technology teams to, to understand kind of what they're working on how we can make those solutions better. Um, but you know, I think what it boils down to is, you know, you've gotta figure out a way to not just get an it solution that doesn't fit a business need or a business need that can't find an it solution. So you have to have this combination of business and technology that I ultimately feel leads to much better results than just having it from one side or the other. So, you know, kind of this hybrid role is kind of how I think our CTO role at UMGC is. It's not an IT role. It's not a business role. It's not an academic role. It's a hybrid role that really pulls all of those areas together to ultimately build the best solution for us as an organization.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And from the user, well, the super user experience rather you've got, it's like you're an embed almost in everything because you've seen the good, the bad, the ugly and the 360 degree view of it. And so you started with these 75 to 80 projects, you've gotta, Whitle it down to 10 that involves making some difficult decisions. Um, there's one that you shared with me that came from that super user experience. Can you talk a bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So at, at, UMGC, we we have made some really, really hard decisions on which projects to prioritize over the past year or so. There, we had some projects that had been in flight for quite some time. Um, and we really had to make that determination whether or not we keep them because of, you know, kind of all the time and energy that we've already spent, the progress that had been made versus reprioritizing based on, you know, the new vision of, of where UMGC is going and kind of those new list of priorities of kind of what we need to do as an organization. So for example we had a preexisting project to implement a new student information system. And we had been working on it for about three to four years you know, at the time about a year ago. Uh, and it really was kind of our main focus as an organization is how, how do we kind of stand this up? And we let a lot of our other projects kind of sit on the sidelines. So, you know, the pandemic hits also, and that just makes it 10 times more complicated to try to figure out how do we do this implementation remotely. Um, you really can't zoom your way through assist implementation. So you know, in this first couple weeks in this new role, you know, we, our, our big questions we're asking where, you know, why are we doing this? Why are we continuing to kind of throw time, energy and money at a system that might not necessarily work the way that we want it to? Um, so, you know, we're asking the questions about, you know, does this make sense to continue on? And, you know, we are actually looking for more vanilla or kind of out of the box products, and this thing was customization after customization and, and ultimately it wasn't gonna solve, you know, the needs that our team members were actually being very vocal about. So we ultimately made the choice to to pause that project, to discontinue it, and instead refocus our energy on an upgrade of our current. And, that project then became our top priority as an organization. And we spent about seven or eight months really, uh, just working really hard to get that upgrade done. And we rolled that out in March. And, to be honest, it was a super successful project. We had great buy i n. We, you know, it's not like there wasn't a few bumps in the road during that project, but with the, t he transparency, the visibility into what was going on our team members were very informed. They knew kind of where we were at every step of the way we rallied together to kind of, you know, uh, this one team mentality to solve our problems and delivered the project on time and on budget. And that was a really big win for UMGC. It kind of put to bed this, you know, three to four years of, you know, this SIS nightmare and know it allowed us to kind of launch a whole host of other new projects and modernization efforts. And, and the teams are really excited to be able to kind of move on from that
Speaker 1:Yeah. That, that freedom must have been a great feeling. So you described making that decision as an inflection point in terms of boosting morale and, and crystallizing what the new strategic approach at UMGC was. Can you explain why?
Speaker 2:Yeah. As I mentioned, you know, there, there really was a huge sigh of relief from everyone that we weren't continuing down the road of the new SIS. You know, the staff that were gonna be using that system, they were working so hard on the implementation on a daily basis saying like this really wasn't working for them, it's not meeting their needs. And they didn't feel like their voices were, were being heard. So to kind of come back and say, you know, we're gonna make this really tough decision and listen, and truly listen to our staff members. Um, I think it was really immediate buy-in, you know, we were giving voices of the people who hadn't had, you know, the ability to have that input in the past. And it really set the tone for us to kind of, you know, lay out a new kind of roadmap for UMGC that, you know, our staff members are important to listen to that. Um, you know, even though we have time and energy and all this, you know, kind of tech debt behind us, we're, we're willing to make a hard decision and have the courage to kind of move past that. And I think our team members really, really appreciated the fact that we did that and that we weren't going to kind of have this burden continue with us. And you know, it, it really, it set a great tone for us moving forward. And, you know, some of the projects that have launched since then have, you know, are following the same type of format, you know, like it worked really well how we set that project up, so we're just gonna replicate it. And we're using the same methodologies we're using kind of the same strategies to to, to, you know, make our future projects more successful. And, so far it's, it's gone really, really well for us.
Speaker 1:It's a continuing the analogy. I mean, the windshield got bigger than the rear view. You got that a lot of that tech debt out of the way, and people all felt like they had a say in the direction that you're traveling. Yep. May have overextended the metaphor there.
Speaker 2:I think it works. I think it
Speaker 1:Works. Okay. All right. Thank you. I appreciate that. So we talked about your role as strategic leader, communicator technology, super user. There's another part that you've said is one of your favorite parts of your work, which is being this technology scout in a way, and you said this takes up about 20% of your time. I believe.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I would say it's sometimes more than that. Some, but, you know, on average, it's probably about 20% of my time is really spent, you know, kind of looking out to the future and saying, you know, here's the different technologies that are out there, here's different vendors and partners that we could work with. Here's new ideas that are out there in the marketplace that we should think about. You know, I think just about every new idea or a product that kind of comes in through Greg and through the president's office ends up on my desk. So I spend a lot of time kind of sifting through that to kind of ultimately determine, you know, these are worth the time to kind of to figure out if, if this could work for us or having conversations that, you know, ultimately don't go anywhere, but it's, it's really also interesting to kind of hear what, you know, some companies are doing out there. So I'm also spending a lot of time attending numerous webinars talking to a lot of people you know, going back to conferences, you know, actually face-to-face in person conferences started, you know, as those are kind of coming back on you know, on everybody's calendar. So, but it's, it's really exciting to kind of hear, you know, what's happening in, you know, ed tech and also, you know, just the ways that organizations are trying to solve kind of these very large problems that many schools are having, but also having conversations about unique problems that UMGC has and, you know, talking with vendors and other folks to see how they could potentially solve it for us. So that to me is really exciting. I really love to do that. And it's also great to see, you know, those conversations come, you know, to fruition and roll out these new projects, roll out new products, offer, you know, new offerings that we have from it's like, I remember having, you know, the first conversation with that group eight months ago, and now we're finally to the point where it's launched, like that's really kind of satisfying to kind of watch it go from very, you know, infancy to roll out. It's something I've always liked to do in my, you know, 20 years in higher ed, but I get to spend a lot more time doing it today than in the past.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That that's really cool to get to see that whole full circle of it. Um, and have that diversity of viewpoints that you're able to incorporate, you know, not only within the institution, but going above and beyond with other institutions and seeing how they solve their problems. So it sounds like a lot of fun. It seems like you enjoy it, but do you think every institution should add this role of the chief transformation officer? And if not, when should they add one, what are the circumstances that we might wanna see for an institution to have, or goals that would compel them to see the need for this position?
Speaker 2:So, so I think it's it makes sense for a lot of institutions, but probably not for all institutions, but, you know, and why I say that is you think about higher ed in the landscape right now, it's, it's pretty much changing very dramatically. Sometimes it seems like on a daily basis. Yeah. You know, students expectations are changing, you know, the question of whether or not a degree is worth it, moving forward, there's new competitors that are coming out, you know, free to low-cost online options for, you know, with access for everybody there's new and improved technology that's rolling out and to stay recent and relevant from a tech perspective needs to be, I think every university's kind of top priority. So these are, you know, really big topics that most schools are dealing with. And I think it makes sense for many institutions to empower some, someone, you know, a specific person or a team to kind of help plan to address all of those topics. So, you know, I don't think it should just be wrapped around it, you know, and once again, kind of going back to how I feel and kind of how our role has been set up, but I think it needs to be a more holistic approach to tackle, you know, true transformation. It's not just digital transformation or it transformation it's holistic transformation. Um, I also don't think it should just be a title added to someone who has another full-time role, this, you know, speaking from experience. There's no way I could do this, you know, and another full-time role. I swear what I'm doing is probably three full-time roles.
Speaker 1:Sounds like it.
Speaker 2:But I think, you know, in order for it to really bring value to an organization, you know, that institution has to have a clear vision from, you know, the top. And it has to have support from leadership. You know, it, this is not a one-person show. Like, I feel like a lot of times, I am just the conduit that goes across the organization to kind of impact transformation and change. But you know, it has to be trust among the leaders in the organization. There needs to be openness and willingness to take a hard look at what's working and what's not working. Um, and, you know, to really figure out what it's gonna take to truly move the needle on setting th course for the future. You know, when it comes to new business processes, new technology, new academic offerings. So, you know, I think in order to be a successful university CTO, you need a well-rounded person with deep knowledge of the entire student life cycle. Couple that with tech savviness and the ability to get buyin from teams is really what it takes. So as a quick aside my family was recently at the Hirshhorn Museum in DC. And as we walk through the Lori Anderson exhibit, I don't know if you've ever been there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the sculpture museum. I love that museum.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, I took a picture of a wall and it said, you know, and this is a great quote."If you think technology will solve your problems, then you don't understand technology and you don't understand your problems."
Speaker 1:I like that.
Speaker 2:I think that is a great way to think about, you know, the CTO role. It's not just technology, you have to think bigger and you have to think, you know, to get to the root cause of really what you're trying to do and what you're trying to impact. And it's not just technology, technology's a big part of it. B ut you know, it is so much more than that. And if you just kind of are narrow-minded or narrow focused on just the it aspect of it, you're missing the boat.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That that's excellent advice. I've often seen when I have CIOs on the podcast, some of the most interesting and engaging ones have held multiple different roles at the institution. That seems to be more of a prerequisite maybe than being a tech master these days.
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree.
Speaker 1:So I've added a new sort of game slash question to end our podcast, and this is the first time we're gonna do this. And I thought you, as this pioneering change agent first in a role would be great to be the first to answer this, this question. And we're calling this overplayed and under the radar. So how this works is for overplayed, we'd like you to share something from your perspective, something in higher ed that you think is overrated overhyped, or maybe gets more attention than it deserves for its maturity in the market. Um, and under the radar is something that is kind of the exact opposite. So something that you've been excited about, an idea, concept approach, tool that you've seen that maybe needs a bit more attention from your peers and fellow strategic roles that have a lot to do with technology and the overall delivery of education. So let's play. Kris, can you give us you're overplayed?
Speaker 2:So, so when I'm looking at this, I don't want this to sound like it's, it's negative because I think that this is a great, great pathway for higher ed to embark on, but we're just not there yet. So it's skills. So, okay. You know, I am a huge fan of skills mapping and building better pathways from education to employment, you know, using skills as the middle layer to be able to discuss the connection between what employers are looking for, from an employee perspective and ultimately what schools can teach. You know, that is a great idea and the time has come for us to kind of figure that out. But right now there's just so many different work streams and ideas on how to make this become a reality. It's, it's literally crazy. You know, the technology to make this all these connections is very, very early stage. There are a lot of organizations out there trying to figure it out. UMGC has actually been engaged with many of those teams and in a lot of those different work streams. And for example, we even launched our own comprehensive learner record for our MBA students a while ago. It's, you know, but the whole concept of skills mapping and kind of the skills pathway. It's very wild west and, uh, which makes it very exciting, but I also feel like schools are waiting to kind of see what different models gain traction and how, interoperable it's actually gonna be. There's also on the adoption side of it all, you know, will employers truly make hiring decisions based on those. Um, so once again, firm believer in it, can't wait for all this to actually come to fruition, but I feel like the technology isn't quite ready for prime time, but very eager to see it all come together. So that's what I would say for the overplayed. And then for under the radar, this and this one's kind of near and dear to kind of my career. And also I think just UMGC in general, but it's around the transferability of credits and credit for prior learning. So, you know, I mentioned that, UMGC has a goal to be the most transfer friendly university out there. Um, and we're already at the top of the list in terms of number of transfer credits, according to us news, but, you know, for schools to not accept transfer credit and for students to retake courses that are really comparable my personal opinion. That's ridiculous. Especially when we're talking about, you know, general education courses or lower-level courses you know. More schools are becoming more transfer friendly, and there's some traction around, you know, for schools to really pay attention to, y ou k now, credit for prior learning and meet students where they are, but there's a long ways to go. You know, there's a handful of organizations and schools out there that are doing this well. But it needs to really get a lot more traction in, you know, the ability to look at learning outside of the traditional classroom and apply that to a pathway it's so important for students. Um, it can save them time, money, frustration, they don't have to reprove what they already know. You know, I could honestly spend hours talking about this topic and it's really something I, I do personally believe in. And I'm really happy to see it becoming more of a hot topic. As many schools are realizing that, you know, transfer students and those coming back with credits are important. It's an important student demographic to work with. As we look at kind of what's happening with, you know, the quote unquote enrollment cuff, that's happening, more schools are thinking about how do we, you know, still maintain our level of, you know, student population. And they're gonna start looking at different types of students. You know, if that's working adults, if that's transfer students it's just becoming more and more of a, of a topic that folks need to pay attention to. And I'm glad that it's getting its kind of time in the sunshine, but, uh, everybody still has a ways to go to kind of really ratchet up and, and kind of give students what, what they deserve and be more student-centric. And student-centric
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean"some college, no degree" I think is another term used for them. Those students are a lot of, they can be low hanging fruit if what you are proposing gets more widespread adoption. And I think that that's, it's interesting as you've described that UMGC has the goal to be number one for transfer credits and absolutely right. I love that under the radar and I think you were grading your answers to those questions. I set a high bar for future guests. But thank you so much, Kris, for sharing your thoughts and insights with us today and making the time to join us.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I appreciate the conversation and the chance to give some insights into, you know, what I think is an important role for universities. I think as they think about ways to navigate, you know, the future and this roadmap of what higher ed is gonna look like. It's going to be, I feel, drastically different than what it's been, and to have folks that can kind of help lead that charge is very important and probably a good use of resources at the university level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think a lot of people would like to add that role as well, and hopefully they can get the necessary precursors that you've laid out for making it a viable contender. That concludes this month's episode of Tambellini's Top of Mind Podcast. Don't forget to check out more of our monthly episodes, blogs, and resources at thetambellinigroup.com.