Top of Mind with Tambellini Group
Top of Mind with Tambellini Group
Pandemic Protocol: Realizations and Innovations at Colby College
The COVID-19 Pandemic expedited the timeline for technological modernizations at many institutions. As the fall semester approaches, a new normal is expected. Institutions are reflecting on what they learned and deciding which new adopted practices to continue. In this episode, Katelyn Ilkani talks with Jason Parkhill, Interim Chief Information Officer at Colby College. Jason shares how the pandemic brought innovation to Colby, highlighted inequities on campus, and prompted new insights into the future of higher ed.
Welcome back to Tambellini's Top of Mind Podcast. I'm your host Katelyn Ilkani, and I'm joined today by higher education technology thought leader. Jason Parkhill, the interim chief information officer at Colby. Jason and I will be discussing how COVID has driven innovation at Colby and also forced the institution to consider potential inequities on campus. Thanks for joining us today, Jason.
Speaker 2:Hi, Katelyn. I'm glad to be here. Thank you,
Speaker 1:Jason, tell us about yourself and more about Colby.
Speaker 2:Sure. So Colby is a selective liberal arts college located on Mayflower Hill in Waterville, Maine. So in the central Maine area, we have an enrollment of around 2000 students and that has been pushing the upper boundaries of that recently, which have caused a number of different challenges. And we offer only undergraduate degrees—only BAs. And we are exclusively an undergraduate institution.
Speaker 1:Thank you for that background. Jason, you and I had a conversation prior to us doing the podcast about how COVID really changed some of the ways you were looking at technology at Colby. Can you share what some of the early realizations that you had were about how you were handling your tech stack?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So just a quick little anecdote about maybe a unique aspect of our experience with COVID. Is that the way that we, um, our, uh, academic year is scheduled? We have a January term and often during January, our students will travel abroad for classes or for courses for credit. And we had a not insignificant number of students who had traveled to China during January, and when they returned at the end of January, we made the decision to have them coordinating for two weeks in a local hotel where the college put them up. So my group at the, at the time I was leading the academic technology group, and so my group had to scramble and collaborate with our center for teaching and learning to really understand how we could get these students started remotely from the hotel during our spring semester. So it was kind of a, a practice run for what was to come, although at the time we never, never suspected it. And then as those students, just as those students were really coming into the classroom, it was just days and weeks later where we were Colby, like the rest of higher ed really had that to make that decision to pivot towards an emergency remote teaching, um, uh, mode. And, uh, the way that it worked for us was that, um, we had effectively two weeks of runway leading up to our remote teaching efforts. So on-campus instruction stopped right around spring break. And we had two weeks to really prepare with our faculty colleagues for what this was going to look like when the remote instruction began at the end of March. So there was a lot of early realizations that came to us pretty quickly then as all of our students were departing campus, when our students are on campus, we can to some degree level the playing fields in terms of resources that are available to all of them. But as our students began to leave campus, we quickly quickly realized that they were headed off into many different, different kind of home living situations that were far different than what we could provide here on campus. So we had to, um, develop programs so that students could petition for eimbursement for high speed internet access, wherever they were going. Some we had to even send with cellular hotspots just because there was really no other option for them where they were, they were going. We also realized very quickly that our entire model—being a residential college—dependent on students, having access to our computation resources that were on campus, which was effectively cutting all of them off to our computer classrooms, our computer labs and, uh, the other, uh, resources that we had on campus. So, in that world, a lot of our software licensing is tied up with licensing the software suites for use on college owned computers. So institutional hardware, and there's really no. There was really no stipulation for being able to then, you know, allow the students to install it on their own computers. Now, fortunately, many of the big academic software vendors stepped up and they made some adjustments during that emergency remote teaching period to allow our students to install things so like Adobe and SPSS and those other things that typically the institution would license. So we were able to solve some of that that way, but we also needed to very quickly, we realized very quickly that we needed to look into virtual desktop services. So students could log into a computer and run software in a web browser. Um, and, uh, those kinds of those kinds of things, we also realized very quickly that video was going to be a much more important part of instruction in the remote teaching era, right? So both synchronous and asynchronous video. Uh, so we did a lot of preparation with our faculty on how to use Zoom for synchronous interactions and then how to use other recordings, screen recording, lecture, recording, to be able to provide material to the students, asynchronously, all of this was happening in a very short period of time.
Speaker 1:Jason, were some of these projects already on the roadmap or was COVID forcing you to undertake projects much sooner than you would have otherwise?
Speaker 2:No, I think it was really a combination of both. And, um, I will say that, uh, by the time, the summer of 2020 arrived, and we realized that we would be headed into a modified academic year in 2020 and 2021. We certainly accelerated some of the projects that we would have otherwise probably have done in the year or years to come. So an example of that would be, uh, we very quickly during the summer of 2020, selected and implemented an enterprise video content management system. And in our case that was the platform Kaltura. You know, most colleges in our sort of peer group probably have a platform like that, that they have adopted, not all, but most we were probably headed that way no matter what. But we certainly accelerated it and got it done in short order during that summer of 2020. Another one was our efforts around virtual desktop, interface or desktop as a service type product. So we implemented during the spring term the Apporto VDI service, w hich is a platform as a service p roduct. And u se that throughout the academic year to be able to give some of our students who, even though we were back in person in the fall, we understood that t here were g oing t o be many students off t o quarantine isolation a nd various times as our testing in contact tracing dictated. So we still needed to be able to make sure that those students would have remote access to a l ot of these resources that we provided on campus. So definitely accelerated some of our, u m, projects that we had in the works, but other things we probably would never have done i f it hadn't been for COVID. So I think like a lot of peers, u m, we went through the, sort of the dance of assigning various Zoom licenses to faculty members as they needed it for synchronous teaching and so forth. But ultimately, we ended up just with an enterprise license to provide everybody with the full Zoom capability. And, you know, you want to think about some changes that COVID brought it b a ck b rought about that wi ll p robably never go away. I suspect, d ependence on or use of Zoom is going to be one of those things. Video conferencing in general is probably going to be much more prevalent in our future than it was in our past.
Speaker 1:How did you decide how to prioritize these projects, Jason, because things were so rushed, right? It was pretty high stress. People were working probably past a hundred percent capacity, you know, what did you use, how did you decide to prioritize?
Speaker 2:Well, I felt very, I feel very fortunate that I have a really talented group of academic technologists and within the academic technology group, and then more broadly, a very experienced and dedicated team in our information technology services organization, more broadly. So on the academic technology side, we really huddled early in the summer of 2020 looked at what our experience was in that spring of 2020 and decided on what we thought needed to be our top priorities heading into the fall. Trying to be careful not to bite off much more than we could chew, considering that some of these were pretty big projects that would typically have been implemented over a period of time, much longer than the abbreviated three months that we had during the summer of 2020. So just drawing on our experience, consulting with our colleagues in the Provost's office and the Center for Teaching and Learning, we were able to develop a list of, I believe, three or four priorities that we absolutely needed to address. As we progressed on from the spring experience into the 2020–2021 academic year.
Speaker 1:Did you face any challenges implementing these solutions so quickly?
Speaker 2:We certainly did. And really one of the challenges was we were doing this at a time that many others were also doing it, right. So for example, when we implemented, implemented the Kaltura platform, you know, they were seeing service demands on their service and new customers coming at them from all over the place. So I feel like we got very good service from them, but it's just, everybody was stretched, not just us at the college, but a lot of these vendors being able to get their attention, their time and expertise at the same time that everybody else was also trying to do so. And at the same time that maybesome of the supporting technologies were facing extremely challenging supply lines. It was really a challenge to try to bring all this together in a timely manner and have it mostly ready to go at the beginning of the fall semester. And there were some rough edges, right, as we started off in the fall around some of these services, just simply because we did not really have them refined to the level that we usually like to have things right. And I know that for some faculty colleagues that probably left a bad taste in their mouth, and it might be awhile before they come back to them. But that being said overall, I think it was very successful given the challenges, the constraints, and especially the time period that we were operating. You know.
Speaker 1:So earlier in our discussion, I brought up the fact that you had mentioned some inequities that you found on campus. I'd love to hear more about those. How did this process of moving to more virtual learning? Nope. Force you into really looking at inequities and make the institution act.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So, you know, it really drove home to me, the importance of the residential experience at Colby. I mean, I've worked at Colby for quite a while. And before Colby, I worked at another residential liberal arts college and I attended a residential liberal arts college. So it was something that perhaps, maybe I was taking for granted, but really one of the great things about the residential experience is that we can, sort of, take off the sharp edges of inequities. That is not that they don't exist on our campuses. They absolutely do. And there, it can be extremely pronounced in some areas. But one of the things that we do hope to do by bringing everyone together in the residential experience is that we can provide a level of resources to everybody that is generally the same, regardless of their background or what they bring to the college. Now, when we sent all the studentsZremote that changed dramatically now their ability to participate in a zoom session or their ability to be able to watch some kind of high-quality video stream is all up in the air, right. We don't, we no longer have control over that. Right? A lot of it depends on the type of computer its age, the type of internet connection they have, wherever it is they are studying from. Where we can kind of level that field when they're all here on campus. And it really just through, into sharp relief, those inequities that the residential experience can help iron out a little bit, but are always there. So it was just really revealing and we had to pay a lot of close attention to developing ways to support students while they remote in ways that we never had to do. Uh, obviously when neighbor here, here on campus and even the modes of instruction right. Are very different, right. So students remotely, not attending class, not having access face-to-face with faculty, but I think even in some ways more importantly, not having that face to face interaction with their peers around the classwork, right. That's another thing that I think that we take for granted is how much peer learning happens because of the residential experience. But students are working together, they are studying together, they are getting together every day, or, you know, during the evening to, um, collaborate on projects and, and coursework. And with that removed that really affected some students more significantly, um, um, than others. And that's really hard to replicate. You can put together zoom study groups, you can encourage them to attend those, but still the informal interactions that the residential experience, um, uh, enables kind of without removed exasperated. Some of the challenges that some of our students would have
Speaker 1:Jason, now that vaccines are available, we're looking at more reopening. What does the fall look like for you as the pace of change continued the same way now that we're coming into this next school year?
Speaker 2:Well, I'll say as I sit here on June 15th, we are anticipating and optimistic that we will have fairly normal fall semester. And what I mean by that is students back. Most of our community vaccinated and guests allowed back on campus and, um, a lot of, uh, uh, things that were really disruptive last year just returned to normal. So we're all optimistic about that. Of course, everybody has sort of side-glancing at some of these variants that are out there and so forth. And wondering how that is all going to play out. I will say that, you know, so far this summer, c ompared to last summer, i t has not been as anxiety inducing considering that we're at least planning for a normal fall semester where l a st summer t h ere was a certain intensity that pervading the entire institution that was, u m, t hat was certainly certainly new. I will say that a lot of my thinking, a lot of the thinking of many of my colleagues across other, you know, our peers and private liberal education right now we're all dwelling on this question of what's going to carry on, what did we learn during COVID that we want to, we want to proactively or actively make sure that we continue. One of the things that I think was just really interesting to me, is to see how quickly and ably many of our faculty adapt to those new, those new modes of teaching. And there were things that they did that in talking with them, I think they're going to want to continue, and that will cause some challenges, uh, for us in information technology. So, you know, for example, we had a pretty modest lecture capture pilot before COVID, but now that so many of our faculty members have had experience with recording their presentations in the classroom and understanding how that can help students that are maybe not a English as a first language speaker to go back and review how some of the auto transcription works with that. So students can go back and search for when something is said and rewatch it and so forth. I know we're going to have a lot more interesting can interest in continuing some of those practices. And it's going to be interesting to me to see, um, um, you know, what it is our faculty want to continue on with here.
Speaker 1:I think that will be interesting Jason to see. And in some ways it probably would be a very thing for everyone to continue, because it may help students, as you mentioned, to have English as a second language, students who have learning differences, who might be less, you know, less auditory learners and need to watch things a few times could be some great benefits of continuing with the video capture and making that available.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
:That goes into my next question. Which was, are you going to keep all these changes? I mean, so I'm assuming you're also going to be keeping the virtual desktop interface as too.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, that's some of the questions that we're working through right now. I mean, some of them, you know, in terms of the way some of these services were paid for, it was really from an emergency COVID fund. And now we're going through the challenge of saying, okay, do we still need these services? And, in most cases, yes, we do. They've become popular. And, how are we going to pay for them going forward, longer term, right. Are they sized correctly for what we need? We need to ask all of those questions and work through all of those issues now. And as we've been planning for next year's budget, we have been working through, you know, a lot of that. And just, you know, there are other questions. Well, you know, we're hoping for a fall, that's pretty much a return to face-to-face instruction. Like a lot of our peers, on the administration side, we're, we're working through, um, bringing, uh, administrators and other remote workers that have been working remotely, um, back to campus. And then considering, you know, what does the future of work look like for the staff of the college as well, in terms of hybrid and remote. And so forth that all those are conversations that are going on, not just at Colby, but really across higher ed, um, that that many of us are facing right now. And I think it's particularly challenging at a residential that role arts college, like Colby and like, you know, many others where we pay, we, we place an absolute premium on the face to face experience really across the board. You know, if we didn't, we wouldn't put so many resources into our campuses into our residential program. So there is going to be, I think, a period of working out what that looks like. Some of that I think will be directed by local culture. But I think at some point, some of it's just going to be probably influenced by larger market dynamics on, you know, recruitment and how employees want to work in the future. Particularly, in IT type roles, information technology roles, where there has even before COVID been some, I guess, tradition of the possibility of remote work.
Speaker 1:What's interesting is that I've been reading that there's a huge movement now of people quitting because they're not allowed to work remotely. And it's like, the more people have been quitting their jobs, and they have been in the past 20 years when their employer said, you have no choice, but to be back in person. And that's, you know, that's pretty significant. And then if you look at the positive side of allowing remote work is that maybe it opens up more pools of talent to you that may not be locally available. So there's the positive and the negative side of having to be in person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there, there certainly is. And, you know, it's going to be interesting to see the big picture of how COVID really affects how, how we work and what our workforce looks like. I've, I've also just anecdotally observed, you know, kind of the, the number of retirements that have been happening here as sort of the pandemic has been coming to a close, I think the whole experience has given many people right on that cusp of retirement, a moment to reflect on what's important and what they really want to do in the years to come now that we are exiting the pandemic. But, you know, also, even within sort of the residential liberal arts college community, it was, I believe at the end of April, or maybe it was at the end of March that I saw for the first time a job ad go out for an it professional that gave the fully remote option—as in they could be anywhere, not just a local with a hybrid type arrangement, but anywhere. And not just, you know, the light went off in my mind then was, you know, this is the market that we will be competing in. Remote becoming more common.
Speaker 1:I agree, Jason, thank you. This has been a wonderful conversation. I appreciate all of your insights and the really the experience and the journey you've gone through is fascinating. I'm sure a lot of our listeners have experienced something similar. I really enjoyed our talk today.
Speaker 2:Thanks for the opportunity, Katelyn. I enjoyed it quite a bit too.
Speaker 1:That concludes this episode of Tambellini's Top of Mind Podcast. Thanks for joining us. We'll be back next month with another great speaker and topic, and you can check out all of our podcasts, blogs, and other free resources at thetambellinigroup.com as well as our member-only resources.