EdUp Innovation: Episode 23, Elliot Felix, The Connected College

Exploring 'The Connected College' and Its Impact guest today is Elliot Felix. It's always fun to have somebody on the podcast who's also a podcaster. A few months ago, I had the good fortune to be a guest on The Connected College, which is Elliott's podcast. And then a few weeks ago, I saw Elliott in Washington, DC as part of the ACE Conference. Always amazing to meet a person you've only met before on Zoom. He's actually much taller in real life than than I anticipated. But it was great to hang out with Elliott in DC. And then during that conversation, I said, you know, hey, dude, I have to have you on my podcast. Elliott, for those of you who don't know, his work, is a author, speaker, consultant who's worked with hundreds of colleges across the United States. And his work has impacted the lives of of probably over a million students. Once you add up all of the institution institutions that he's worked with, Elliott is really skilled in every facet of what makes higher education tick. And I know this because I've read his book, The Connected College. And if you don't know this book, you, yeah, you're welcome. You've got to add this book to to your reading list. It would be an amazing common read to do at a university. What's awesome about the book is that Elliott kind of breaks down student success by functional area. So you know, student success as it pertains to institutional research or academic operations or student affairs, or you know, VP of finance, the board, all of these areas are broken down by chapter. You can read just the chapter, You can read the entire book. It's really an amazing resource and it's it's super well researched. Like there are hundreds of citations and six. Speaker 2 158. Speaker 1 It's, it's not just Elliot's opinion on these things. It's grounded in real research. He's, he's a super scholar and it's just an amazing book. Can't recommend it highly enough. And so super excited to dive in and talk with Elliot today and just get his take on what's going on. Tackling Silos: Academic, STEM, and Online Divides So Elliot, let's, let's dive into the book as a, as a first question here, you explore how institutions can break down silos across functional areas. And we, we've all know that higher Ed can be very siloed. Where do you see the greatest need for innovation on campuses? And, you know, can you call out some of the structures or things that you talked about in the book that can help break down those silos? Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely when I'm I'm excited to be here and I appreciate the high praise for the book. I the idea was to give people an encouraging, evidence based playbook to break down silos so that students can succeed. And it's, it's great to hear the encouragement that that's actually happening. Speaker 1 Oh, it is happening. It's really, it's great. And I, I love the first line of the, of the introduction when I was a student, you know, I was confused and so I'm, you know, I'm confused by this stuff. So I'm guessing you guys are too. It's a great, great place to start. Speaker 2 Yeah. And I think, I think breaking down the silos is different in every institution and sometimes they're at different scales. But I, I certainly encountered in all this work, so many like smart, hard working, well meaning people that are really trying to help students succeed. But the, you know, the structure, the, the culture, the tradition, the, you know, the space, sometimes it's disparate spaces. I think these tend to create these silos and separations. And if I can just make it a little bit easier to help students succeed like that would be pretty great. And, and I, you know, some of the big ones I see student affairs and academic affairs I think is one that folks are working really actively to integrate and things like a first year experience or leadership development are great ways to do that. The other one that I think is maybe has always been there, but seems to be getting a little more pronounced as economic and political climates change is the kind of STEM versus humanities divided that I would I would love to bridge. And the other one is online versus on campus, which I think is just bananas because that's like those are like, that's like the same thing, right? We know the dominant modality of learning is actually hybrid, right? The, the, the majority of students are taking at least one class online. And there, there are even when you're a fully on campus student, the digital experience is so much a part of that, right? It's how you find, find your people. It's how you find places. It's how you find programs, it's how you create, it's how you connect. And so thinking about online and on campus, thinking about digital and physical separately is something I've been working really hard to to, to knit together. COVID's Impact: Skunk Works and Mainstreaming Innovation Yeah, maybe that's a place to dig in a little bit deeper. That last piece, like all of the rifts, the, the, the typical chasms, academic affairs, student affairs stems humanities like those are age-old things that I think are maybe starting to kind of bridge together now in a little bit more peaceful way. The online on campus divide is an interesting one. I'm wondering to what extent COVID maybe drove some of that. I remember there was a time, so I was at CUCA College as Provost during COVID and we had students living in the dorms, but taking classes online. Then, you know, we, we brought everybody back once it was safe to do so. But we had all this online kind of web enhanced stuff. So if there's a snow day and the faculty can't get to campus, we could easily pivot a face to face class online. We can flip classrooms now because we have all the content is now living in an LMS. So to what degree did COVID kind of drive those two modalities together or separate them further apart? Speaker 2 I think it brought a lot of things together and it, you know, it unlocked a lot of latent capacity where institutions realized they could do a lot of things that maybe they didn't realize they could, or they could do the more quickly than they thought they could. I think there's been a bit of a snapback though, where, you know, a lot of people are looking forward to getting back to the way things were, even though the way things were maybe didn't always work for a lot of, a lot of people. And I, you know, it's not uncommon for the online learning unit at a institution to have its own set of instructional designers, its own LMS, its own PNL, you know, its own revenue operation. Sometimes that's living under continuing and professional studies. And some of that I get right. And I'm, I have no problem contradicting myself. As as much as I talk about breaking down silos in the book, I also say, you know, sometimes you need a skunk works, right? Sometimes you need to break something off in order to move fast. You need some independence. Maybe you need a separate space, a separate structure, But it can't live on that way forever. You had at a certain point, you want to take the innovation from your skunk works and mainstream it, right and scale it and scale it up. And so I think the more we can think about online and on campus together and have, you know, one LMS and have one set of instructional designers and have one set of KP is and I think the better off we'll be because then everybody can be moving in the same direction and everybody can benefit. You know, it's not uncommon, right, that the like an online learning unit or the continuing continuing Ed is like super responsive market focus, talking to employers, standing up new programs. And they're, you know, they're doing a lot of the things that maybe the rest of the institution, they're innovating in ways that the rest of the institution can usually benefit from running a little. Speaker 1 Bit more like a for profit. Speaker 2 Yeah, sometimes, I mean. Speaker 1 Speed and responsiveness and life cycle of development. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. And I think with the things moving as fast as they are for institutions to look at, who are our, you know, where do we have like pockets of responsiveness, right. Where do we have like pockets of of agility where we have a different kind of structure and they work on a different kind of cadence or they use different sorts of channels. I think can be a really good can be a really good practice. Lessons from SNHU, ASU, and Diffusion of Innovations Yeah, as you were talking, I'm thinking of two salient examples, two kind of hyperscale universities, one being Southern New Hampshire and the other being Arizona State and. Speaker 2 I've heard of them. Speaker 1 Yeah, that, yeah, you might have heard of those. Speaker 2 Schools both clients. Speaker 1 Yeah, actually Monday I'm speaking with Paula Blanc on the innovation. You're you're episode 23 and I think he's episode 24. So I'm excited to dig in with Paul and I've seen both operations. When I was an AC fellow, I toured both Southern New Hampshire and Arizona State and met with Paul and met with Michael Crowe. And those are two examples that did exactly the the two models that you're talking about, both highly successful Southern New Hampshire said, you know what the the faculty teaching, they don't they don't really know a lot about online teaching. And so like, let's build this thing on the side over here. The skunk works in your analogy that can, you know, really rapidly scale and and serve students, whereas at Arizona State it was more of an integrated model. And you know, Michael Crowe was using the faculty who are teaching on campus to also teach online and in many cases. And so I think both work. I think the context matters, right? The political climate, the governance, all of the situation regarding how faculty govern themselves and are willing to accept the pace of change are are relevant. But both can be successful, right? Like both models work. Speaker 2 Yeah, Yeah. I think as long as you have a scaling strategy and you're thinking about, you're thinking about that in an intentional way, it can work. And I, I used to teach innovation as an adjunct at Parsons in their BBA program. And it was really my first year. I inherited this syllabus. And one of the books on there was Everett Rodgers Diffusion of Innovations. And I, I took a look at it. I was like, why are we teaching innovation with a book from the 50s? Speaker 1 Yeah, right. Speaker 2 And for anyone out there who's heard the term early adopter, Rodgers is the one who coined that and the, and really the first one who figured out how ideas spread. And he came up with this whole strategy about, OK, there are innovators that come up with ideas and they're early adopters that have very specific influences. Like they want to be seen as they're influenced by the media. They want to be seen as doing new cool things. And then that you have the early majority and they are influenced not so much by the media, but by their peers, by early adopters. Then you have the late majority and they kind of jump on the bandwagon when it seems like everybody's doing it right, Right, right. And, and so I think, you know, as long as you're thinking through who's going to adopt what, when and why, then you can scale up the innovation either way. And I think that book, even though it's 70 something years old, is still super, super relevant. Speaker 1 Right. Yeah, Yeah, I mean, we, we often talk about being the first to market. We're trying to build things at SFBU that nobody's built before and bring them to market. And there's definitely that first mover advantage when you can, like in our case, use AI in a way that nobody's used it before and provide a really amazing student experience that no one is providing currently. Those are the conversations we're having. And, you know, tomorrow if somebody built a much better LinkedIn, I can't imagine I would ever change. Yeah, because there's already however many hundreds of 1,000,000 billions of users. It doesn't matter. They were first, they scaled. They're done, you know. Speaker 2 Yeah, now they have the network effect. That's it, right. Where the the value is, is based on how many people have adopted it. And so even if somebody comes out with a way better feature set, if it doesn't have the users, the user base. Speaker 1 Right. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. So that was an interesting rabbit hole. Identifying True Innovation Beyond Buzzwords in Higher Ed Shifting gears to really looking at student success in the way colleges in 2026 are transforming. I'm wondering, you know, I see a lot of colleges that talk about innovation and I see a lot of people that that mentioned innovate, we're innovating, we're doing new programs, new ways of delivering programs, hybrid. A lot of that are it's just kind of buzzwordy and I find it's just kind of incremental change on existing technology versus like a radically disruptive transformation that is like either new technology or or new ways of thinking and and behaving that drives students success. So I'm wondering if you could share with us, you know, the Champions, like who are the models that you're seeing as you scan higher Ed, who are truly innovating, who are, who are doing amazing work that that leads to enhanced student learning and student outcomes. Speaker 2 Well, in getting beyond the, how do you get beyond the kind of the jargon and the arm waving, I think is a really good question. And I think where we're at relative to student success is it feels like there is a, you know, there's kind of growing consensus as to what the playbook is. There's a lot of good ideas out there. They've been tried at 1-2, you know, whatever a dozen campuses, the the the predictive analytics to enable proactive advising, the Gateway course redesign, the student success coaching, the One Stop shop, student services. Speaker 1 All great. Speaker 2 All you know, these are all great things. They're they're great ideas. And the trick is, how do you move it into great implementation? And for that, you need the right leadership, you need the right governance, you need the right metrics to track your progress. And I think there's a lot of people that are doing they're they're doing great stuff. There's 154 different institutions that are referenced in the book, and they're all doing things in different, in different ways. Yeah, yeah. And by the way, if folks go to Elliot Felix slash bonus, there's one pagers with the big idea for each chapter. There's A1 pager with all the different, the 154 different folks that are referenced to help guide you through. And I think there's, you know, there's really interesting stuff happening. I think like Rowan University is a great model of strategic planning where they have a one page strategic plan. One of their goals is about being an economic engine for the region and they've increased their economic impact by like 50%. I think. I think, you know, under, under academic programs, you know, I really like what George Washington is doing with like stackable credentials within their Business School and their professional school, professional studies academic support. I think places like University of Oregon where they're like bringing together all the support functions under one roof is really is really cool. I think, you know, under career development, there's lots of places that are embracing life design right, where they're using design thinking to help students prototype their future, whether it's an internship or an experiential learning project or a, a job shadow. Those are, you know, places like Tulane and Johns Hopkins and Stanford, Dartmouth. Speaker 1 We're doing quite a bit of work with the Stanford D school and we have a course in our Gen. Ed required for all students how to design your life. And it brings in that design thinking that is that is an innovation for sure that this the schools who are leaning into life design. Yeah, so. Speaker 2 I think, I think there's a lot of great stuff out there. I'm only, you know, scratching the surface here, but I, I think there's a lot of great information and, and inspiration and the the trick is moving it into implementation. Speaker 1 Yeah, right. I mean, implementation is there's no shortage of great ideas and hire there, you know, there's no shortage of strategy. There is a shortage of execution. You know, I don't know if you're familiar with Brian Rosenberg and his book and his work. You know, he I had him on the pod and he really did a great job in his book of sharing why there's this graveyard of great ideas in in higher Ed. Like they're like, we know what to do, right? Like we know there's it's evidence based. We know if you create a one stop shop, students will get the services they need. And we know yeah, if you 3. Speaker 2 Percentage point increase in retention. We know that. We know from a RAN study of 33 institutions, yeah. Speaker 1 Right. We know if you have a first year seminar that you're more likely to retain students to the second year, right? Yeah. Do you know the stats on that? I'm sure they're high. Speaker 2 I the direct impact of a first year seminar. I don't, I don't know I should know it. Speaker 1 Yeah, but this is John Gardner's work, right? Like, we, we know this stuff. I can tell. Speaker 2 You that if a first year student that has a feels a sense of belonging is 41% more likely to to retain into the second year, that's a Nessie finding so yeah, so. Speaker 1 Like these are, I mean, I dare say, simple concepts, right? Like when you say them out loud, it's just inherently obvious that, you know, if you support students, you create structures that welcome them, you put all the services that they need in one place, easy to find, you're likely going to keep them and they're likely going to thrive. Yet higher Ed really struggles to execute these very basic ideas. And So what are your thoughts on that? I mean, certainly your book does a great job of saying like, look, people, this is confusing for for students. And you know, here are some things you can do to make it simpler for them in, in most basic terms, why do we struggle so much, Elliot? Overcoming Implementation Challenges with Bold Leadership Like why? Why can't we get to the finish line on some of these very simple concepts? Speaker 2 Well, there's this famous quote from Peter Drucker. You know culture eats strategy for breakfast. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 2 Right. But I think, I think they're both critical and I, I think often times it comes down to strategy and culture. I think every institution has a strategic plan, but few have a true strategy, you know, that that really focuses and differentiates them. So I think then what happens is they get really spread thin and people don't know they don't. You know, a good strategy helps people say no, right? Just to a partnership or a program that's not a priority. And so if your strategy is vague, then you're kind of all over the place and you're like a Jack of all trades or Jill of all trades, but master of of none because you don't have that focus. People get spread thin, they get burned out and you're not known for anything except for, you know, mediocrity, whatever, you know, because focus is, is what's needed for, for excellence, which is something almost every plan says they're going to be, but then they, they don't match it with the, with the focus. So I think, I think the better strategic planning that creates true strategy, I think is, is maybe the, the root cause of more of it than anything else. And so I think that's a really good place to start. It's just to say, how is this focusing us? Like, you know, how is this moving beyond kind of anodyne language? And that's a, a really good litmus test for a strategy beyond does it, you know, does it help us say no? Is is somebody going to disagree with this if there's nothing in your plan that people are going to disagree with? Speaker 1 You built a kitchen sink? Plan is, yeah. Speaker 2 You haven't, you haven't really taken a position on anything, right, So. Speaker 1 That's a great way to frame it. Speaker 2 I think that I think the strategy is part of it and I think the culture is the other part. And I think I, I think a lot of that changing culture takes leadership. So it, you know, you have to create a new mindset where it's not we're looking for the perfect solution, we're looking for something that's safe to try. You have to distinguish between reversible and irreversible decisions and treat them very differently. And it turns out most decisions are actually reversible. Very few can't, you know, can't be unwound If you think about design thinking and you are kind of prototyping things and piloting things. I think it's also a mindset where it's like as a leader, you're not going into every meeting thinking about what do I need to stop in order to or slow down to manage risk. But what piece however so small can I green light to make? Speaker 1 Progress. Because that's actually. Speaker 2 What motivates people, right, is like a sense that you're making progress, you're making an impact, your effort counts for something. And, and I think it's making the tough decisions. I think higher Ed has been in growth mode for, you know, 50 plus years. And generally the way that we've adapted is by adding stuff. You know there's a new need. You add a center, you add an institute, you add a service, You add a program, You add space and technology to support them. And the more you add, the harder it is to change. Speaker 1 Right, Yeah, We never take things away. Brian Rosenberg also talk like we're great at starting things, we're awful at stopping things. Speaker 2 Yeah, that's one of the one of the mantras in the connected college is you have to be as good at sunsetting things as you are at starting them. Speaker 1 Yeah, we're awful. Higher Ed is awful at the growth by substitution, right? We're going to start doing this thing and we're going to use the dollars we used to do this other thing that we shouldn't be doing anymore. Speaker 2 Yeah. And they're related, right? Because if you have a clear strategy, then you can say no. Then you it tells you what to stop doing so that you can start other things. And most people don't have unlimited funds, right? If, if we enforce that discipline of to do this new thing, we have to stop doing this old thing, we get, we get, we get there, I think. Speaker 1 Yeah, I think you've you've hit on a lot of really key things. I'm, I'm remembering as a very junior faculty member, we were going through a strategic planning process at a former university and some crusty old faculty members stood up and said, listen, this strategic plan is the same strategic plan as the one that 10 years ago and the one before. Just take any one of them out of a drawer and blow the dust off it and actually implement it, like actually execute the thing that's in the plan. And there are an awful lot of vanilla, non offensive kitchen sink. You know, we're going to be diverse and we're going to be a holistic and we're going to, you know, make students lifelong learners. And like they all say the same thing. You can, you can take the strategic plan from 100 universities and put it in 100 different universities. And it's like very similar. I love what you said about Rowan University having a one page strategic plan. And I also think COVID taught us that the days of A56710 year strategic plan are done. Like we need kind of a three-year or two year rolling actionable plan that you're looking at the metrics because the life cycle of a university president isn't 10 years, it's like 6. And you know, so if you can get 2 strategic plans worth of accomplishments in a six year presidency that then you're moving the institution forward. So there's that. And then I also think, you know, the culture piece that you spoke of where it takes leadership to engender a culture that is willing to execute on a strategic plan. And that means some bold decisions and telling people, no. If you look at who's winning college presidencies this day, you know, day and age, it's it's usually the least offensive candidate. You know, if you or I were to roll in there and be like, all right, look, we're going to shut this down. We're going to stop doing this. We're going to put all our eggs in this basket and this basket. And we're really going to serve students, which means, I don't know, it might mean no tenure, but something insane like that where it might mean, I don't know, you know, it might, it might mean we're going to devalue research to start valuing student success as a a performance metric for faculty. This blows people's minds. And that that candidate would never win a presidency. And so who do we get? The status quo candidate who says, yeah, we're going to keep the train on the tracks. We're going to, you know, enroll more students, fundraise some more, tighten our belts. And, you know, that person's really not moving the institution forward except in an incremental way. But that's who's winning the job. And so the system is set up to reward the change resistance, right? Speaker 2 Yeah, that's a really good observation. And it makes me one of my favorite, possibly my favorite West Wing episode was the episode called The Supremes where they they're kind of struggling with this and they they're interviewing all these candidates to be the next Supreme Court Justice and they're all, you know, super moderate and not offending anyone and. Speaker 1 Locking the political tightrope. Speaker 2 Right. And and so the way they end up getting around that is they get another justice to retire. And the agreement is, OK, we'll, we'll we'll appoint someone who's super conservative and someone who's super liberal and then we can actually like have the have the debate, Yeah. And a. Speaker 1 Murder suicide. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 But at least we'll get the two perspectives and we'll have the debate. Yeah. And that'll, you know, that'll be a much greater contribution than another, you know, non candidate candidate. There's lots of great presidents out there. Speaker 1 Of course. Speaker 2 So no shade, but I I do recognize it's a very hard job and the system is set up to reward the status quo basically. And, you know, the people that are really making big change, a lot of them are in the twilight of their career with nothing to lose. They're in an interim role. You know, somebody like Art Levine Brandeis, writers like shaking shit up, Yeah. Speaker 1 I'm Ted Mitchell at BCE. Like he's just leaving it all on the field. You know, it's just, it's just going out blazing. So yeah, that is a person who's at A at a moment in their career where they can really make change. And that that is what higher Ed needs. That's what students need to be successful right now is not the medieval structures that have worked for, you know, centuries and now are no longer relevant. So I love that you and I are totally aligned on that thinking. Personal and Professional Reading for Higher Ed Leaders It definitely comes through in the book. We are 28 minutes into a 25 minute episode. So it's time to ask the final question. Elliot, what are you reading right now? And I'm guessing, I mean by the 600 plus references that are in your book, I'm guessing you're constantly reading for professional growth. But so if there's anything that's on your night stand, we'd love to know. But also, if you're reading anything personally for pleasure or, you know, watching something cool on Netflix, you know, we're just curious about that. Speaker 2 Well, I read two kinds of two kinds of books and, you know, tons and tons of articles and white papers and consume tons of podcasts. But one, you know, the books for pleasure are all you know what you might call movie books where it's a you know, it's kind of an action fiction page Turner like the Gray Man series or the Orphan X series. And I book 10 of and 15 of those, I think, respectively. But but for higher Ed, you know, I'm always I'm always curious about these things. And I'm I'm diving into the new book no confidence. So apropos of our conversation, the Chuck Ambrose, Mike Nitzel. Speaker 1 Chuck is great. Also Ed Up podcast host and yeah, that book is on my list and no confidence. I didn't it's it's not have not ordered it yet but it's in my Amazon wishlist. Speaker 2 Yeah, I they're going to be on my pod. So I got an advanced copy and so far so great. So. Speaker 1 Awesome. Yeah. Well, thank you, Ellie. It's amazing to pick your brain and learn from you. You're certainly adding to the body of knowledge that people are reading as we try and navigate to landscapes and higher Ed. We really appreciate you. Appreciate your time, your podcast, your book, everything you're doing, all of you listening to Add Up Innovation episode 23, Elliot. Felix doing amazing work. Go check out his book. Really appreciate having you, Elliot. Thanks so much.