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TRANSFORMED
Hosted by Higher Digital, TRANSFORMED is a podcast that sheds new light on the resurgence of higher education. In each episode, Higher Digital President and Chief Technology Officer, Joe Gottlieb, interviews guests to explore the new Whys, the new Whats, and the new Hows of higher ed. Strategy and tactics; planning and execution; people, process, and technology – it’s all on the menu, because that’s what’s required to truly transform.
Interested in learning more? Reach out to the team at Higher Digital.
TRANSFORMED
Dual Transformation as the Growth Engine for Higher Ed
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In this episode of TRANSFORMED, we break the mold and welcome two esteemed guests from Butler University: Dr. Brooke Barnett, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Melissa Beckwith, Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer.
The discussion revolves around the concept of Dual Transformation and how Butler University is using that concept to not only maximize resilience today but also build the institution’s growth engine for tomorrow. Our guests delve into the creation of Butler Ventures, a multi-faceted initiative aimed at driving innovation and change at Butler. The conversation includes key challenges faced during this transformative journey, including the need for system upgrades and effective change management. They even touch on surprise challenges, including having too many good ideas to explore!
References:
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Dual transformation is really simply kind of two paths that are running simultaneous. One is how organizations reposition themselves to maximize resilience in what they do today. And the second path is, while doing that, they are also , um, creating kind of tomorrow's growth engine for their organization. So for us, as we looked at dual transformation , um, several years ago, we recognized, we kept talking about kind of tradition plus innovation, tradition plus transformation in our, in our language. And we said, Hey, what we're describing, what we need to do at Butler is dual transformation. We need to figure out how we enhance the traditional model of what we offer, where , you know, at the time, primarily residential, undergraduate education, right? So how do we continue to do that really, really well? While at the same time, as you heard , uh, Brooke mention a little bit ago, expanding the learners we serve , um, thinking about different revenue streams into the university, right? And recognizing we needed to do both of these. And that became the premise for , uh, the Butler Beyond Strategic Direction.
Joe Gottlieb:That's Melissa Beckwith, Chief Strategy Officer at Butler University, introducing the concept of dual transformation, which I believe every institution must adopt in order to balance progress across strategic objectives and operational urgencies. In this episode of TRANSFORMED, I spoke with Melissa and her colleague, provost Brooke Barnett, about how Butler has organized around dual transformation to pursue its strategic direction, some of the challenges encountered along the way, and some of the early successes that their approach has produced. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Welcome to TRANSFORMED, a Higher Digital podcast focused on the new why's, the new what's, and the new how's in higher ed. In each episode, you will experience hosts and guests pulling for the resurgence of higher ed, while identifying and discussing the best practices needed to accomplish that resurgence. Culture, strategy and tactics, planning and execution, people, process and technology. It's all on the menu because that's what's required to truly transform. Hello, welcome and thanks for joining us for another episode of TRANSFORMED. My name is Joe Gottlieb, president and CTO of Higher Digital. And today I'm joined by two executives from Butler University, Dr. Brooke Barnett, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Melissa Beckwith, Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer. Brooke and Melissa, welcome to TRANSFORMED.
Dr. Brooke Barnett:Thanks, Joe. Happy to be here.
Melissa Beckwith:Joe, what do you wanna talk about?
Joe Gottlieb:Well, I'm really glad you asked. I want to talk about your thoughts on dual transformation as the growth engine for higher ed, but first tell me a little bit about your personal journeys and how they impact the work that you do in higher ed.
Dr. Brooke Barnett:All right , I'll jump in, Melissa, if that's okay with you. I, before becoming an academic, I worked as a journalist. I used those journalism skills a lot. Uh, it ended up being the academic area that brought me to Butler because I came to be the dean of the College of Communication. But I used some of those journalistic skills in administrative life all the time prior to coming to , um, Butler. I taught for 18 years at another university and a variety of roles and had , um, a lot of academic and student affairs , uh, areas that reported up through me, and some dual reports and shared reports. Really got to know the wide variety of the student experience through that work in those 18 years. And also had some work , uh, leading nonprofit organizations prior to that that informed kind of the administrative life that I'm, that I take here now as well. And I have been really delighted to think about , um, coming to Butler for a variety of reasons. I'll talk about one when I talk about the founding mission of the organization. But I was really excited to come because our president and leadership team had such an innovative and change oriented posture and stance . And I just knew that for survival , uh, much less flourishing and higher education in the future, that was gonna be a necessary part of the recipe for the future. And I have been lucky to be an externally focused provost in many different ways. Still involved in the higher ed education conversation outside of Butler, which has informed how I think about what I do here as well.
Joe Gottlieb:Great. Melissa?
Melissa Beckwith:Yeah, I think , um, maybe I'll start with a, a fun fact , um, is that I, I kinda , I bleed blue. Um, I like to say I am the Butler trifecta of , uh, my undergraduate degree is from Butler, obviously I work here , um, in administration now. And I just had , um, the distinct privilege of having my , uh, daughter as a first year at the university. So I'm also now a Butler parent. So I think , uh, it's, it's interesting to be able to see the university from multiple perspectives. So , um, I started out , uh, in strategy consulting , um, in the business world for several years before moving into higher education , um, through marketing , uh, realm. So did that for a few years. Um, and then I was recruited, interestingly enough to come back to Butler years ago when they were starting up an initiative , um, their own consulting kind of business , um, within the university. So have, have been at , uh, the university for several years and played a variety of roles , um, from working on and building that startup organization. Uh, but then started to work what I actually say, kind of inside the university , uh, both with the leadership team and cabinet on the previous Butler strategy, but also served , um, in roles in IT marketing and , uh, enrollment, which , uh, I think gives me a unique lens on, on multiple parts of, of how to run a university. About five years ago, we , uh, decided to create a position , um, really focused on future efforts. Um, so while the, you know, majority of the university is focused on running the day-to-day, we recognized that with the change in higher ed , um, it would be helpful to have a cabinet level position really focused , um, on what's coming our way and how we best prepare for that. So that's where the current , uh, position came from. And I've been here , uh, 16 years now. So it's been a great ride,
Joe Gottlieb:Fantastic background. Just love hearing those and, and how they end up pertaining to the story. So thank you for sharing. So I wanna , I wanna dive in with a little bit of history. So to set the stage for your transformation work, tell me a bit about the history of Butler. 'cause it's, it's , um, like all institutions, it , it , it's interesting.
Dr. Brooke Barnett:Ours is, ours is particularly interesting though, I will say. I , I just, I love this part of Butler University, and again, it was one of the reasons that that drew me to consider the position in the first place. We were founded in pre-Civil War Indiana by an abolitionist. And if , uh, this is at , its , you know, Indiana was not in a particularly progressive state , uh, at this point. And throughout Indiana's history, we have had, you know, the resurgence of the KKK, we have had a lot of not great things about Indiana, and I love that Butler erupted in this moment and continue to be strong throughout moments since 1855. And that really is in the DNA of what we do. And so that intersection of access to higher education, innovation seeing a path forward when people were not seeing things in the same way. Um, that really sort of social justice, innovation, higher education frame and intersection is a really exciting part of who we are and what we do. We have not always lived up to that wonderful founding mission and legacy, but every single day we have the opportunity to get up and decide what that looks like in 2024 as we try to lead this institution. So very excited about that part of who we are. And I think that leads us to consider then the way we think about our future as an institution. And so, Ovid Butler had a very , um, distinct idea at the time in 1855 about what educational access would look like. And he was particularly focused on creating an institution that was free from the pernicious effects of slavery. We have many other types of things in 2024 that we're also focused on when we think about potential barriers to higher education. And so we take really seriously expanding the footprint of the learners that come to Butler, the offerings that we , um, have for them, their backgrounds and identities, and the ways in which together collectively we make up Butler University and make it a stronger place.
Joe Gottlieb:Well, I, I definitely agree. It is particularly interesting and it's, it's exciting to see how original mission can apply to current and future mission, when then , when that's possible. A lot of special things get unlocked, at least the power of the history is additive , additive then to , um, the power of the present. And so now I wanna , I wanna shift and talk about the present and the future for Butler. You know, I, I, I like the Butler Beyond Strategic Direction progress reports, and they, they, they tell stories about what's, what's going on, about how things are changing. And I want , I like starting there because it's a very visible way that you're communicating those changes, which, and we'll talk as we'll talk about like communicating change is really, really important. But , um, they talk about the need for and progress made in something you refer to as dual transformation. So I wanna , I wanna first tackle this concept of dual transformation, which is in the episode title and, and really the primary topic that we wanna have today. What does dual transformation mean at Butler?
Melissa Beckwith:Yeah, maybe I'll start with , uh, I'm happy to talk about what it means at Butler. Maybe I'll start with just what it means in general, because it's not a term that's used , um, uh, a lot in higher ed. Uh, so dual transformation is really simply kind of two paths that are running simultaneous. One is how organizations reposition themselves to maximize resilience in what they do today. And the second path is, while doing that, they are also , um, creating kind of tomorrow's growth engine for their organization. So for us, as we looked at dual transformation , um, several years ago, we recognized, we kept talking about kind of tradition plus innovation, tradition plus transformation in our , in our language. And we said, Hey, what we're describing, what we need to do at Butler is dual transformation. We need to figure out how we enhance the traditional model of what we offer where , you know, at the time primarily residential, undergraduate education, right? So how do we continue to do that really, really well? While at the same time, as you heard , uh, Brooke mention a little bit ago, expanding the learners we serve , um, thinking about different revenue streams into the university, right? And recognizing we needed to do both of these. And that became the premise for , uh, the Butler Beyond Strategic Direction. So , uh, several years ago when we set out to launch our new strategic direction, and I will say we called a direction, not a plan for very specific reasons , um, we said that dual transformation is going to serve as the foundation for how we think about our strategic direction. So everything that we then did in built into our direction is a result of, of that framework of how do we enhance what we currently do and become really resilient while also building new programs, new educational models to serve new learners and do that at the same time. Um, for us , uh, we, we called a strategic direction instead of a strategic plan because what we didn't wanna do is we went into this, is we didn't wanna create a document that, you know, is a hundred pages of all the things we had to do between now and a certain date. For us, we recognize that, you know, higher ed is constantly changing and in a state of kind of high dynamic , um, momentum. And so we said we wanna lay out a direction knowing very well that the details within that direction could change over time. Now interestingly, we launched that, right? But, you know, late 2019, early 2020, not knowing Covid was going to happen. So we were really glad we chose a direction and not a detailed plan 'cause it allowed us to shift a bit, but we always maintained the two parallel paths of dual transformation. Um, so that's how we use dual transformation, how we talk about dual transformation. One of the interesting things that we recognized as we were , um, building a strategic direction based on dual transformation is that, as I mentioned in our introduction, a lot of our university is focused on doing and operationalizing what it is we do today really, really well. What we needed to build were dedicated teams, resources, processes, and organizational structure to support the second part of dual transformation, the university growth engine. And that's what then led to the creation of Butler Ventures.
Dr. Brooke Barnett:Can I just add one thing? Melissa mentioned that we had had been primarily undergraduate and residential focused . Um, one of the things about this is it's happened is that even had , though we had been, we have had graduate programs for a long time at the institution. I was doing a presentation, I was trying to work with our archives to find the first known, you know, conferral of a degree, a graduate degree at Butler. And we found a program in 1902. So it's not like we're new to the graduate space. Um, we have had students who have commuted to campus in our traditional residential undergraduate programs for a number of years too. What has happened as we've been focusing on increasing the learners, perhaps in those two areas, is it has helped us to, to galvanize efforts to ensure the best experience for the 60 students of our first year class who do live at home and commute to campus. They're not the largest number of people. We wanna make sure we focus on their experience. We've done several different things to increase that experience in anticipation of other students coming who will be commuting to campus, but also just to serve the students who are already here. And then some of the approaches we've had to graduate education have helped us think about online graduate education in certain ways and improve both of those modalities towards graduate education. So I do think it has galvanized increased strength in some things that were already happening at Butler and some of that broader base. We have not been a traditional, more narrowly focused liberal arts only undergraduate institution. We've had a broader portfolio, and those are some of the strengths on which we've built some of the things that Melissa's describing.
Joe Gottlieb:And interesting that you point out that there's another example of you being conscious about deviating your approach in this case to , uh, get involved in another part of the market, let's just say for higher ed, but also capturing the synergies and evolving the whole right, based upon learnings , uh, that you discover in those endeavors. Right. Great stuff. Okay . So Butler Ventures, you, you mentioned that Melissa, at the, the tail end of describing dual transformation. So you, you arrived at dual transformation out of an awareness to think not only about how to keep doing what you currently do well, but to keep investing in new, new models to do other things as well. Right. So let's talk now about, about Butler Ventures. Um, this engine that powers your dual transformation efforts. Uh, how would you describe this three-way venturing structure that , uh, that you've told me about before? Yeah,
Melissa Beckwith:So first of all, I'd like that you call the three-way venturing structure. That's not language I've been using and I'm gonna steal that now. Um, but I , it is a good description of, of what we are have built and continue to build , um, within Butler Ventures. So really as I , as I mentioned before , um, there was a recognition that we needed it . It's not that we weren't being innovative and couldn't be innovative in our core at all, it's that we were asking people to do that on top of the work that they already do. So Ventures was created really to think about how do we support innovation and transformation in a different way and kind of put, again, resources and time and people and energy toward that. So it was , um, really a , our board when we were at our strategy retreat, kind of saying, here's the Butler Beyond Strategic Direction. Our board of trustees , uh, was very adamant that we need to be dedicated to this and we need to resource this. And so that it really came down from the board that we want you to start Butler Ventures to help , um, uh, support innovation at Butler , um, or enhance innovation at Butler, I should say. So , uh, what we've really done with, with Ventures is a couple of things. And getting back to your three-way , um, venturing structure in Butler Ventures, we have , um, created the transformation lab, which is really outside of higher ed, you call it kind of our R&D unit. So it's the group of people that are saying, you know what, bring us your idea for how we create new educational models, how we create new business models, and we're gonna help move that idea forward. Uh, at Butler, we are not at a lack ever for ideas. <laugh> , we , we had a struggle with, was a centralized area to take those ideas and get, again, the , the dedication to help support and move those ideas forward , um, in a way that made sense of the university. So the transformation lab is really kind of, where's higher ed going? Where do we need to be positioned? What do we need to be thinking about? And bringing that together with people's ideas and helping them move forward. So they were a great resource for that. So that's kind of the , the first piece. The second piece is our division for professional studies. So as Brooke mentioned a few minutes ago , um, we've had, you know, adult programs, we've had executive education programs, we've had graduate programs at Butler. But what we wanted to do was , um, emphasize and do more of this work and scale , um, those offerings and create new offerings in that space. And so our division of professional studies is what we created to help the development specifically of adult online or what we call extended access programs , um, for the university. Um, we've worked with OPMs, we also have an internal team that we've built to do this work. And so that has become really a , a group that can drive the development of, of new programs, but also support the colleges in the development of new adult and online programs. So you've got the Transformation Lab, you have the division of professional studies, and then the third piece that is part of Butler Ventures is kind of what we'd call the , our Education Venture Network. Um, and this is really a little bit different than what a lot of higher ed institutions do. So one of the things we recognized is that one of the ways we can transform higher ed is not by only building our own new programs and our own new solutions, but partnering with incredible startups that are happening outside of higher education that are working to solve some of the same big challenges of higher ed, accessibility, affordability, learning styles, delivery , you know, new models of education. So our Education Venture Network is a team that works with startup organizations from across the country that are positioned to , um, develop companies around solving some of higher ed's biggest challenges. And we work alongside those companies. One, we learn from them about new solutions that they're developing that we might not have thought of, but at the same time, what we hope is that we are bringing a lot of subject matter expertise, resources, experience to these companies to help them be successful. So , um, it's a, it's a, right now it's a group of universities , um, venture capitalists, startup organizations that are working together to figure out new solutions to higher ed that's not programmatic in nature, if you will. So those are the three pieces of what we have in Butler Ventures. Again, all along the, the goal of figuring out how do we transform higher ed , um, and expand Butler's impact, whether it's through new programs or new companies.
Joe Gottlieb:Fantastic. I know that that was a, a necessarily deep description of some pretty important elements of this whole process, right? So just to restate, the lab helps you take new ideas to action like that sort of that R&D sort of helping that along when people might have a great idea, but not the wherewithal or the skills or the bandwidth to advance it. Um, Professional studies is this place where you really are now able to mobilize programs through a variety of methods, right? To get those things operational. And then last but not least, Education Venture Network, being able to call upon external partners that might bring new elements that might stimulate , um, innovative programs because they may be bringing a new solution to bear that makes something possible that may have not been possible in the past. So if I've got that right, you know, let's then talk a bit about, alright , now you've got these mechanisms, you know , in your portfolio and sort of your arsenal of , of of things that you can use, tools that you can use to deliver on your strategic direction through three-way venturing. Let's talk a little bit about some of the challenges that you encountered, like as you stood these things up. Maybe you can give this a little bit of texture , um, you know, talk about some challenges that maybe you faced so far while, while tackling dual transformation and establishing this unit.
Melissa Beckwith:Yeah . Uh , you know , uh, we make it sound so easy, right? Um, the, one of the challenges, and I think, and this is just the way we've operationalized it, is , um, we had a couple of paths we could have gone down is that Butler Ventures could have been a completely separate and distinct, you know, operating entity that had, you know, very little tie to Butler. We didn't do that. It's a , it's a bit more integrated. And so , um, in many ways I think that's a good thing. What we still run into is in some cases, right, are the, where we share departmental processes, you know, back office systems ability to get data. Um, so part of the, I think, challenge that we continue to think through is you want Butler Ventures and Butler to be connected because that's what transforms and drives the whole organization forward. But yet you need the autonomy to be able to do some different things on back office systems so that you can move faster. So it's always , uh, a challenge for us is continually, what is that right balance between the two. Brooke , I think you've got some others, probably two from your perspective .
Dr. Brooke Barnett:I do, I was thinking about adding a little bit onto that one because I, I think sometimes it surprised us where the resistance and challenge came. You know, you'd sort of maybe think everyone in higher education sort of thinks like the faculty are gonna be at writ large opposed to what's happening. Well, there were a lot of faculty members who were like, I've had a great idea forever and it's never seen light of day and this lab is gonna help me, you know, launch the great thing that I've always wanted to do. Now, sometimes the lab helped them understand their idea was not as great as they thought it would be, but shaped it into one that was a good idea. And sometimes it was really, you're exactly right, let's go and this is exciting. So I think there was built in baked in frustration and the system of not having an easy way to move ideas forward. We have a different thing happening now where we might start to have some too many ideas, which is great 'cause it's really taken off and we have to sort of prioritize among them so we can execute really well. But it was interesting sometimes to see where who ca who showed up to play and who was really excited and where some of the resistance might be that you would expect in some places where some people you had some unlikely very enthusiastic partners in the work. So that, that was just really great fun. We have a faculty member in, in French on campus who was listening to the president and others who had a lot of business background talk about things. And she said it was like they were talking a foreign language, which is really funny from someone in world language and culture. And so she , um, earned a master's in management at Butler so she could better understand some of the business things that were undergirding the higher education environment. And she's been such a fun, she's now one of our innovation fellows. She has been a really fun person. And that's not, you wouldn't say like who's gonna drive innovation on your campus that might not be the most likely suspect. Other where places where we have had pitholes , uh, you know, sorry, potholes and , um, things along bumps along the way, communication, high level execution and change management. We have had missteps in all three of those areas as we have tried to do really good things that are good ideas and had been well vetted sometimes they really fell apart in the launching of them because we didn't communicate them as well as we could have. We didn't get the right messages to the right people at the right time. We didn't execute on a great plan, great plan. We didn't do it well or we just didn't do the change management to get people where they needed to be to be able to move forward. Now there are some people on a campus who will never be where they need to be to move forward, and you just know that that's part of the system. But we had places where things were bumpier than they needed to be because we had not done the proper change management part of it. Great . At one point I was talking to somebody who was having what I described to Melissa as an outsized emotional response, but probably for that person was so very personal and I just said, is this, are we talking about like a bad idea, poorly executed, or you know, what are we talking about? And that kind of deflated a little bit of, you know, that take this website down, this is a bad idea. Um, but you could tell that just like a little conversation with this person prior to this would've made a world of difference. But the way they reacted and all the kind of the paths they took that ended up being quite destructive and taking lots of time from lots of people could have been prevented, which is better change management. So those are three big takeaways I think we have for a lot of things that we did that could have gone more smoothly and it ended up being probably inefficient or a waste of time or harder than it needed to be. 'cause we hadn't done some of that planning.
Joe Gottlieb:It's a great reminder that communication and in particular change management when you're doing something innovative , uh, in , in particular, is so key to get right and so hard to get, you know, it , it , you're never gonna get it perfect, right? So, so being able to evolve and learn from how you've set a course and started to act , uh, that sounds really powerful. So now having quite humbly and openly shared some of the challenges, now let's talk about, you know, some of the examples of, of some of the changes you've been able to accomplish, some of the innovative future models that you have been able to develop with this newfound agility. Let's talk about those.
Melissa Beckwith:Yeah , I'll give wanna again and get us started. So back to , um, the, one of the goals right at Butler Ventures was to, to serve as a catalyst for growing, scaling, and doing more in our adult professional online space. Um, one of the interesting, I think great metrics for us is that, you know, in the last three years since we've had that pretty much up and running, you know, we've been able to launch , uh, nearly 25 new programs that's credit non-credit degree, non-degree, all across the board , um, serve, oh , and , and serve about 3000 new learners. So for us in three years, that's pretty, pretty remarkable. Um, so that's in the more the lifelong learning space for us, which was a focus of what Butler Ventures was charged to do. So that's one. Brooke, you've got others?
Dr. Brooke Barnett:I'm just, we've also launched online degree programs and we already had some online degree programs, but those were for us and still are , uh, in the graduate space. Um , we just launched our first , um, online degree completion program that has some online and a degree focused program in the, in the undergraduate space, but really have looked , uh, and found some, you know, very successful programs that build on existing strengths at the institution. Um, and that's been, I think, important. And then some of the , um, the other work is the way we have, again, galvanized on both sides thought about applying some of these processes to how we think about academic program review and portfolio review and the way we think about new programs for my whole time in higher education, I think that the thinking about new programs has been a little more, Hey, I'm interested in this. Are you interested in this? We could do this. What if we cobble these classes together? It was very academically based in terms of a very high quality experience, felt really good about that. Not necessarily very clear on the market alignment on where student interest might be and how we might think about shifting and changing what we do to still provide that incredible academic high quality , but to make sure it's aligned with the student interest and where the market's headed. And I think we've made some important changes as we've brought on board , um, undergraduate in-person , uh, majors and minors. We have done that with a new lens. So one thing that we added into this that I think is , um, an example, and it's sad to say this is an example of innovation, but sadly it is in a higher education space, we have been able to create a pilot to permanent process. Initially we called that fast launch and part of it was the emphasis on something more quickly that can go through governance and curricular review, which are important things. They make what we do high quality and they improve the process. Faculty governance is productive friction that makes things better, but we just said, could we make it better a little quickly, <laugh> a little more quickly so we could move on to and take advantage of and be more nimble? And so we started that process thinking it was gonna be used by a subset of people thinking about programs. Everything new now goes through by choice, that process. And so it has really engaged and galvanized, I would say, and improved the way we think about key faculty process, external reviews, assessments, building of new programs, and assessing whether new programs are effective or not. And built into that is the sunset process. Sometimes things don't work and that's okay, let's say what are the metrics, how we wanna meet them, if we don't, let's effectively sunset those programs. So we don't try to keep spreading ourselves thin with too many things. We really, really focus on the things we do the best and do at a really excellent level. That's been a really positive thing. I'll note also , um, we created a new college here that will , um, is our seventh college at Butler. We'll be welcoming students in 2025 and they will be part of a two year degree program at Butler. We have had longstanding associate degrees at Butler. They haven't really been utilized in the past 15 years or so in effective ways. And we have now in this new college, there'll be four market aligned , two year degree programs that have great potential outcomes as a standalone degree and have credentials along the way for the students, but also a very clear pathway for those students to continue on to a four year degree at Butler or elsewhere. And that's our founders' college. Again, an homage to the founding of the institution and what we thought the founder was really all about. And that is very much about access to higher education for the Indianapolis , um, region and area, the donut counties around Indianapolis and the local community. And it's a new model that's based on , um, the come to believe model, which we are now. We were the third, and now there is a fourth school as part of that model and incredible student outcomes for an underserved student population that has not been served as well by those outcomes. So our students in the two year college will be Pell eligible students. Many will be the first in their family to attend college. And the national outcomes for students of those populations are not strong at all. And in these two previous models, they're getting really stellar outcomes for the students completing the two year degree, continuing onto the four year degree and beyond. And then I'll say the last thing is our global strategy. We're working to think about more international students on campus, but also producing graduates that are more suited to international work and in , in a global frame on what they're doing. And we have a couple of innovative things we're not yet quite ready to be talking about in that space, but a , a expansive global strategy about incoming students, but also about degree programs.
Melissa Beckwith:One other I that I might just add, and I think it's an example , um, of how, going back to some earlier comments, we, you know, we built ventures to launch new things , um, beyond what we're doing in our, our traditional model. But one of the interesting pieces, our , um, Butler Ventures team, our, our transformation lab team works quite a bit externally to the university with corporate partners and others in the, in the community. And as part of that, we generate a number of ideas externally and bring them in. So one of the things that we're doing is, for an example, our transformation lab is working alongside one of our existing colleges and helping them, frankly, with a whole new vision for their college and a strategy of programs and partnerships across the board. Um, so one of the, when you think about models and how we work differently, the transformation lab is not only an idea vetting mechanism, but it's also serving as a connector between internal and external ideas, which is helping I think our, our , all of our colleges to think even bigger , um, in what they could do , uh, in , in market informed way, as Brooke mentioned earlier.
Joe Gottlieb:Another example of you discovering and leveraging these synergies, right? So external partnering is a, is a practice, is a , it's a , it's a, it , it's a even a discipline, right? And so being able to leverage that discipline you've established to help now a college leverage it for more fulsome consideration and then execution on, on what they want to be maybe in the next vision, that's exciting. I also love the notion of sun setting is a really important principle to get, right, right? Especially when you're rolling out services to do new things and open up the institution to ideas. Being equally disciplined about pruning back ideas based upon merit or status or, or volume and capacity, right? Allows you to do fewer things well than too many things poorly , you know , good, good, good discipline to have in place. And then the last thing I definitely wanna highlight is, is you know , this notion of I can totally feel the fingerprints of your backgrounds on this mechanism and how you've leveraged things you've learned outside higher ed to help higher ed accomplish this with the benefits of some other practices that perhaps are more established, more typical in corporate development and business development. And , uh, and even for , for example, strategic direction and strategic execution , um, that I know exist in other verticals, sometimes in more advanced forms and in higher ed, sometimes it can be tricky to navigate the traditions that are awesome, but, but sometimes get in the way of , uh, of being innovative and somewhat a little bit disruptive. So with that, I'd love to transition to, you know, what takeaways can we offer our listeners on this topic of dual transformation as the growth engine for higher ed. Let's summarize.
Dr. Brooke Barnett:All right , I'm gonna start with a rhyme. You can't wait to innovate and then Melissa, see if you can do yours in the form of a haiku. So you start working on that as I'm going through. But um , in all seriousness, just find the people who are interested in doing the work and go for it. Keep in mind you're gonna need to have a bit of a startup mentality of iterating and changing and being willing to stop the things that didn't work the way you thought that they would, but try to get in there and just go with the people who you wanna play with. And if you kind of wait for the pristine environment for all the right people in the, you know, science experiment type environment for it is just not gonna work. And so figure out how to do it and it's gonna be a little bit messy. That being said, try to work on those systems that serve the strategy so you can build out that foundation and keep honing it because that's gonna tell you how steady the things are that you do , you build. So try to figure out how to build them on the strongest foundations you can and to make sure those systems are driving towards the strategy.
Melissa Beckwith:So Brooke, I'm not even gonna attempt to do mine in a haiku. Um, so I'm just gonna ...
Dr. Brooke Barnett:So disappointed.
Melissa Beckwith:I'm just gonna put 'em out there. I think we've talked about this a couple of times through at the last several minutes, but it's, you know , um, move and move fast while also spending time on change management and communication, right? Those are not an either or, but you can't do one before the other and it's not gonna be a perfect , um, uh, linear path, you know, as Brooke said, but really being purposeful about change management communication and bringing as many people in. And , um, Brooke used the term earlier about figure out who wants to play. There's a lot of people that wanna play. So if you're focused on the change management, you'll find people that are just excited to dive in and that's really important. Um, second thing is I think board support and propensity to take risks. We are very blessed to have a president who is an entrepreneur by background. We've a very supportive board and it has created an environment in which doing, doing this wasn't even a question. It was kind of like, we have to do it, you know? Um, and so that's really, really important. The last thing I'll say is it going back to some of the original comments about dual transformation yes, is two separate paths that are working in parallel. The more you can find points of intersectionality between those two paths, the more you're actually changing the institution. So you're not just doing all of the fun, creative, innovative stuff to one side. You are really figuring out how you can test pilot and launch things there, but that move your whole organization forward. And that takes purposeful focus on intersecting points between the two.
Joe Gottlieb:Great summaries. Brooke, Melissa, thank you so much for joining me today.
Melissa Beckwith:Thank you. It has been so fun. Has been Thanks. Appreciate it Joe,
Joe Gottlieb:And thanks to our guests for joining us as well. Hope you have a great day and we'll look forward to hosting you again on the next episode of TRANSFORMED. Yo, stop the music. Hey, listeners have transformed. I hope you enjoyed that episode and whether you did or not, I hope that it made you stop and think about the role that you are playing in your organization's ability to change in the digital era. And if it made you stop and think, perhaps you would be willing to share your thoughts, suggestions, alternative perspectives, or even criticisms related to this or any other episode, I would love to hear from you. So send me an email at info@Higher.Digital or Joe@Higher.Digital. And if you have friends or colleagues that you think might enjoy it, please share our podcast with them as you and they can easily find TRANSFORMED is available wherever you get your podcasts.
