EdUp Innovation: Episode 29, Dr. David Rosowsky, Arizona State University

Dr. Rosowsky's Role in ASU's Future Vision excited to connect with him today. David has had a long career as a structural engineer and faculty member. He was Provost at the University of Vermont for six years. He was vice president of research at Kansas State for I think three years and is now at Arizona State University as the senior advisor to the president. Arizona State, as you know, is a beacon for innovation in higher education. And when I saw David make that move to ASU, it just made perfect sense. So David, welcome to the show. How you doing? Speaker 2 Thank you, Brad, and thank you for introducing me first and foremost, as a structural engineer and a faculty member that that warms my heart. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. David has authored hundreds of peer reviewed papers on structural engineering. His background, I think, specializes in the stress point of wood and what wood can withstand. I was in Mexico on vacation last week watching some guys fix my resort as I was reading your bio and thinking I'm. I'm going to call David because I I'm confident what they're doing is not right. Speaker 2 I thought you just wanted me to come down and see Mexico. Speaker 1 Well, also an opportunity there that would be a a fun podcast to do so David, it's great to have you on the show and pick your brain. A lot of the work you do with Michael Crowe is kind of future casting or future proofing the directions of Arizona State. And I know that you can't divulge all of it, but I'm curious if you could let us peek under the hood a little bit, Tell us about that work. Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I was, I was brought in by by President Crow to to give him some extra Gray matter, some extra capacity particular around science and engineering. But but when you say future proofing, future casting, future visioning, basically what we're saying is our engine of innovation as as an enterprise, it's not slowing down. In fact, if anything in the last couple few years, it's, it's picked up in pace and it will continue, you know, in into the decades ahead. So if that, that brand and that engine of innovation is going to continue for decades, then we need to start planning with some of the major initiatives will, will look like and, and what some of the new directions might be, what some of the bold aspirations. And by the way, with President Crow, bold aspirations always become realities I've noticed in my time here. But he, he has the ability to not just see down the road, but see through walls and see around corners. So he has a tremendous instinct. And then often he'll, he'll, he'll come to me and say, can we flesh this out and what might this look like? And and let me noodle on that for a while and then bring a design forward that we can then begin to shape, you know, according to what his priorities are. Positioning ASU as a Strategic National Asset Yeah, see, it sounds like super fun work. I, I know a lot of my listeners on that up innovation are probably thinking like, I'm jealous of this guy's job this. Speaker 2 Is my dream. I wake you up every morning and I say the same thing. And I, I've been privileged to work at, at really so many phenomenal institutions and have held so many different roles in leadership. I could make a very compelling case that this is the best job in higher education. It certainly is for somebody with my background and my interests at this stage in my career. Speaker 1 Sure, sure. So Arizona State, you know, has, has redefined higher Ed in, in many ways, early adopter in the online space with the Ed plus programs and Michael Crowe really, I think revolutionized what a modern State University can look like. And and one of the most successful presidents by all measures really out there today. What are some of the things he's thinking about that you can talk about? Speaker 2 Well, right now, we spend a lot of time, frankly, navigating the rapid changes that are coming out of Washington. So we spent a lot of time understanding the new guardrails that are in place and then finding ways that we can put the university in a, in a, in a position to both be successful and sustain the level of support that we've been able to enjoy for the for the last few decades. But all the while, and consistent with one of President KO's priorities, we're trying to position ASU not just as a, a national innovator or an exemplar or any of those which which I'll accept, but as a, as a, as a, as a strategic national asset. So truly a National Research university in service to the nation's highest priorities. And that, you know, that comes at a time with, with great change in Washington with, with, you know, rapidly shifting landscapes and, and our approach is to dig in and, and find ways that we can continue to be valuable to the country, serve the nation's highest priorities. In addition to our mission to Arizonans and to the state of Arizona and in addition to our mission of, of, you know, access and affordability and, and meaning, all of which is wrapped up in the ASU charter. Speaker 1 Amazing. Reimagining Higher Ed: The 60-Year Degree So five years from now, is there anything that we could be, Is there some seismic shift that we could see in higher Ed or see ASU leading in certain ways? Speaker 2 Yeah, I, I certainly hope so, Brad. And let me take this hat off and put this hat on. You know, I, I, I don't want to speak for ASU, although I, I do believe in my heart and my bones that ASU will continue to be at the in the lead on many of these things. But you know, I, I'm speaking now personally, somebody who's given a lot of thought to this. And in the last four to five years, I, I really hope that we, we breakthrough all of the, the, the barriers that have been holding us back, some of which we've created for ourselves. Some of them are just long standing and we just accepted them as, as immutable forces. But for example, the 18 to 22 year old, that can't be the, the, the obviously the sole market. It, it probably won't even be the largest market. And I think we have to wrap our, our heads around that. And I think that presents tremendous opportunity. I, I believe university should be entering into lifelong partnerships with their graduates. And I've written about this in the 60 year degree. I think that the combination of those two ideas has the potential to address revenue needs, public trust and public confidence challenges as well as our value proposition or our social compact if you will. So I think those are some of the most obvious. I think getting away from the academic calendar that continues to plague us, it's an artificial constraint. And then frankly getting out from under the four year degree or the six year iPads measurement or whatever it is, I think that that that made sense when it made sense. But right now, it's clear that stopping out and stopping back in actually shouldn't only be tolerated, it should be encouraged. Speaker 1 Right, designed for that. Speaker 2 Absolutely so I, I these are the kinds of things I think will breakthrough. I will say, Brad, and again, this is something I've, I've spoken about before with others, you know, we're in this meta crisis era or sequence of crisis after crisis after crisis. And I, I, I've been doing this long enough that I've sat through these. So in 2008 with the financial crisis, you know, we, we really trimmed, we did a lot of trimming in higher Ed and, and, and really cut to the bone a lot of programs. But what we did is we probably eliminated whatever margin existed in, in our, you know, fat in the system, whatever you want to call it. But then as, as soon as we recovered from that, we, we did everything possible to snap back to the way we were doing business before. Same thing happened with the COVID pandemic, right? We, we, we, I was amazed at what college and universities did, they pivoted online. They, they learned how to have remote advising. They, they, they managed new levels of flexibility and, and new modalities of teaching and learning. And they did it brilliantly. And yet, you know, you couldn't get back to the way it was before quick enough once once the pandemic had had had moved through. And, and I think that was a really a lost opportunity. And I do think well in the the current climate in which we are all living and working here in the United States, I think of that as the next set of challenges, that maybe this will be sufficient and large enough and impactful enough that we will finally breakthrough some of the things that I think have been holding us back. Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm very, very well said. Designing Degrees with Stackable Credentials & Gen Ed San Francisco Bay University, one of the first in California to roll out a three-year degree, 90 credit undergraduate degrees and also love the idea of the 60 year degree lifelong learning. Once you're our student, you're our student forever. Come back, refresh, take more stuff. I love the idea. We're we're not doing it currently, but of a lifetime tuition. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. So ASU, you know, again, tends to, to lead in a lot of these spaces and, and, and there's something very similar to the concept of the 60 year degree that's being piloted here right now through our, our learning enterprise that I, I, I would encourage people to keep an eye on because I think it's going to be wildly successful. One other thing I had love to see happen in the next 5 years, You know, this whole concept of, of stackable credentials that's been around now for, you know, we're old enough to know what started a few years back, but still hasn't really caught on for a variety of reasons, real and perceived. But, but in fact, I think when you think about the degree being something that's attained over a period of time that may not be as short as four or five or even 6 years. And you think about the, the fact that people are going to be changing careers so many times during the their work working years, the the idea that stackable certificates can be used to create virtually any degree if the degree is still the, the, the. Speaker 1 Coin of their own. Speaker 2 Yeah, right. Which I think it will be. But there's, you know, people talked about, you know, stackable credentials for a master's degree. I would posit that you can do any degree with stackable credentials. Imagine an undergraduate degree that's, you know, 4 micro certificates or certificates in, in, in, in, in your major, two others in in related field, 2IN what we might now call Gen. Ed and and then, you know, maybe one or two that are free and clear for the choosing. Same thing with the master's degree, 3 to 4 stackable certificates, even a doctoral program, you have so much for teaching, so much for research, so much for public engagement. If that's part of your doctoral work or publication or or or whatever the case may be. I I think that the stackable credential stackable certificate has way more power than people are are really giving it. Speaker 1 I agree with you, I think a lot of universities have have gone in the wrong direction in terms of designing it. So they took their MBA or they took their degree that already exists and then they broke off pieces of it and said, hey, I wonder if I could sell this as a crumb rather than like tear the whole thing up and design from from the bottom up, as you're saying, in buckets. Here's a Gen. Ed bucket, here's this bucket, here's that bucket. And they stand alone at by design. They stand alone and then also interweave to ladder you up to a a a full accredited degree. Speaker 2 And I think there's a lot of I, I love the model and I've I've been noodling on that on on my own a little bit for, for the last year. But there's a lot of power in how we keep things in, in proper perspective and in check with this stackable certificate or micro credential model. For example, let's say you had a Gen. Ed, you know, a A6 pack of classes, Gen. Ed or, or what you know, maybe they're better names in general education today. But you take my, my point. You can't just keep adding courses to the bucket. So if, if, if another course becomes a core pillar, a core priority for the institution up from the faculty, then they have to decide, OK, what's what comes out correct. And that way you don't have this sort of, I always say universities are really good at addition, very bad at subtraction. Speaker 1 Worse. We never were terrible at it. Yeah. Speaker 2 So I, I, I, you know, and I've seen Gen. Ed, you know, portfolios, you know, kind of expand without bound and, and I and, and, you know, I think this is a way to sort of keep things in proper, in proper perspective. Essential Core Skills and Future-Proofing Competencies Love it. Yeah. I've seen the same things you have. It's academic turf protection. And everybody must take art history, you know? Really. Do they? Everyone has to take art history, you know, so. Speaker 2 Actually, I'd love for everybody to take art history A. Speaker 1 Lot of these books are art history books here. So I I'm a big fan. The the problem is it's not comprehensively thought through, right? You know, no ones looking at the entire general education experience. Everybody's looking at their little piece of the pie. Speaker 2 And you know, frankly, the, the way we set ourselves up and the way we, we portray the flow of revenue in universities, there's there's, there's perverse incentives to want my course to be a general education. Speaker 1 Of course, yeah, whether or not it meets the outcome. Speaker 2 Exactly. Speaker 1 Yeah, the Gen. Ed here, by the way. 10 courses, no choice, designed comprehensively as a suite of all, like every student will take 10 classes. They all have how to titles. Speaker 2 I think that's brilliant. I think it's brilliant. I think one of, you know, one of the things I, I said during COVID was that we, we needed to, this is when it was raging and we're trying to figure out how to respond. We need to severely limit the number of options for students. Speaker 1 And design them to to be exactly what they need. Speaker 2 Exactly. And I think that part of the problem is with with the curriculum again, the bounce back to what it is again today, part of, you know, unless you're in a highly structured curriculum, I'm an engineer that's a highly structured curriculum. There's just, there's, there's almost too much flexibility and it can be, even though that's a lovely thing, it can be overwhelming to students and, and you really want to make sure they're making the best use of their time at university and their, the, their selection of courses. And here's where I think faculty can can can the faculty role can be critically important is in deciding what are those courses, not a drop down menu that everybody's course gets listed on. That's right. This is why this is considered a core requirement or Janet or whatever you call it. This is how it aligns with the institution's highest priorities. And This is why it matters to you as a will be graduate of this institution. Speaker 1 Yeah, for sure. The conversations I've had here, especially as we were redesigning for 90 credits from 1:20 and putting together the suite of 10 classes for Janet, it's like, it's like backpacking. You can't take everything in your house with you, right? You just. Speaker 2 Can't do that and. Speaker 1 You have to carry it. The student has to carry it. So what is absolutely essential to get you to the finish line and put that in the backpack. Don't put everything you own. Speaker 2 And here's where the 60 year degree logic has to come in. The everything that you need that should be in that backpack that may work for the next 5 to 8 years. OK, when you and I graduated, we had a career path. It was laid out in front of us. All of our peers did the same thing today. They're saying that the college graduate today is going to have 7 pivots in their career, 7 changes in job. Speaker 1 They need durable skills. Speaker 2 They need and durable skills that haven't even been invented. Speaker 1 Yet that's right. Speaker 2 So, you know, so even if we get the right Gen. eds or the right core literacies or competencies or whatever we call them, even if we get them right now, you know who's telling us they're they're the right things 20 years from now or even 10 years from now? Speaker 1 Yeah, you know, it's there's a lot of debate on this. If you listen to the rhetoric coming out of the AAC and U, they'll say, look, the classical liberal arts education provides durable skills to have the students read great books and look at great works of art and learn about about science in the natural world. And that will allow them to learn about something that hasn't yet been invented. And I don't know that that's true. I think that there's more on learning science now, like learning how to learn metacognition, emotional intelligence, these types of things that reading great books doesn't always make the message strong enough to students. Speaker 2 I'm actually a big fan of the Great Books concept. Speaker 1 Me too. I mean, look, I, I. Speaker 2 And I tell people I got the closest thing to a liberal arts degree in engineering that you could get. Yeah, Yeah. Is where I went to school and what I studied. That said, it's it's it's maybe we can call it necessary, but not sufficient. I do think it makes for great leader, great thinkers, great leaders, great citizens. Yeah. Great integrators, people that are, are as familiar with studying the history of our country as they are what could come in the future. I, I really do believe in all that. But I think like you said, there are other, I, I wouldn't say they're, they're those, those are giving you necessarily the durable skills, but I think they're giving you the foundation to continue to build the skills that you need throughout career. That said, there are a lot of other competencies that aren't covered in that core liberal arts curriculum and, and shouldn't be. I mean, that's a, it's a separate part, it's a separate kind of curriculum, but we need to make sure we have those as well. I mean, I was a big fan when I was in your role of making sure all our graduates had some level of financial competency, some level of, of well, we at the time we would have called it data science. But that's all changed now. Data science competency, some competency in human health and well-being and, and, and some competency in climate. Because I, I thought that very strongly that we needed as many educated people on climate as possible to, to tackle what we were going to be facing in the coming generation. And that didn't mean you had to believe this, that or the other thing. It just meant you had to had to know how to integrate. Integrate sciences, integrate data, integrate human human belief systems. Speaker 1 There's the engineer coming out, right? Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 Yeah, it's great. That's great. Yeah, awesome. Embracing AI for Higher Education Transformation We have to talk about AII Feel like I, you know, no episode would be complete without at least picking your brain a little bit on the impacts of AI in higher education. Certainly ASU is is all in as you say. Speaker 2 And that's what AI stands for here. Speaker 1 All in So how's it affecting the current students? How will it affect the future students at ASU and in the world? What's, what's, what's going to change, David? Speaker 2 Well, I, I, I don't have a crystal ball bread, but, but I, I would say what I'm watching, whether it's through the eyes of my, my college age children or through the eyes of, of my faculty colleagues or through the eyes of, of our, our really innovative leaders, whether they're academic leaders or IT leaders or learning specialist or otherwise. Is, is this is a really exciting time. So and so if you approach it as wow, this is amazing what we're going to be able to do and let's try this and let's try that it, it's just unbridled fun. Now the, the, the flip side, of course, is that a lot of people feel, I guess the nice word would be uncomfortable with it. Sometimes they'll frame their discomfort with it around some of the ethical issues that that they see coming down the Pike or some of the. Further digitification or whatever we call it of, of, of learning and, and perhaps we're giving something up to do that, but really a lot of people are feeling candidly threatened that, that, that maybe their, their role is going to have to change or in some cases their role may not exist or not. Speaker 1 Absolutely right. Yeah. It's terrifying and. Speaker 2 And it is very terrifying. But, but that said, if you read the same writers that that I read and I, I know that you do, you see a lot of hope and optimism. Actually, a lot of people are writing the, the, the need for faculty will be even greater, but not faculty as, as getting up and giving a lecture in front of a, a board, you know, And so if, if you kind of embrace that and you're willing to, you know, let your profession be changed and let your responsibilities to that profession grow, then I think it's really exciting. But I also don't think it's, it's, it's, it's necessarily going to shut us down in any way. I, I don't subscribe to the, the doomsday scenarios, particularly for higher education. It's just another one of these things that will change the way needs to change the way we need to do business. And frankly, we're we're ripe for that kind of disruption. Speaker 1 That's right. Yeah. I mean, David's a little bit older than I am, but both of us, when we went to school, there was no Internet and, you know, like there and that I say that to my, you know, kids who are in their 20s and they look at me like I'm from Mars. Speaker 2 I mean, I will tell you something. I took a programming class in my senior year of high school and it was with punch cards. OK, So that's the difference between you and me. And my freshman year it was punch cards until second semester and we got these these CRTS for the first time. So now instead of a teletype, you could you had ACRT. So we really witnessed that. I remember the first computer that I ever saw in a classroom when I was undergraduate was probably my junior, senior year maybe and was an Apple 2. Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean that. Speaker 2 And it was like, you know, world changing because you could you invert a matrix in seconds rather than you know. Speaker 1 Yeah, I had a Commodore 64 at home with a cassette. Dr. Yeah, Thought I was pretty cool. Speaker 2 Yeah, Yeah. I got news for you, Brad. We were. We were not cool. We were not cool, but neither were those computers particularly powerful or impressive. I mean, you think about what you know, what sits on your phone today or even today. It's it's remarkable. And, and the, the, the genies out of the bottle, right, or out of the barn, whatever you want to say. So I I say we ride the horse and and not not let ourselves get trampled by it, right? Speaker 1 My point is that the Internet was terrifying when it came out because you know, to librarians or to, of knowledge or content, because you know, you can just googled the answer and it, it, it did change higher education, but it didn't eliminate higher education and I don't think AI will do that. Speaker 2 Either no, again, I think a lot of the public confidence, public trust issue is, is of our own making. We had something to do with it. Not everything, but we had something to do with it. And I think having an opportunity for a disruption at, at the scale of what we, what we think AI will do for us, I think it's actually a good thing I do too, because I think we, we can, we can, as I said at the very beginning, we can make a better version of ourselves that has much more value to the people that we, we are seeking to serve and to communities that we we work in and ultimately to, to our, our States and the nation. Speaker 1 Agreed David. 25 minutes goes by super fast when you're having an amazing conversation. Exploring Alternative Futures with For All Mankind I end every episode by asking folks what they're reading, and this could be for pleasure, this could be for professional growth, it could be something you're watching on Netflix, even. Whatever you got, we're interested to know. Speaker 2 So I I I work for an amazing leader, Michael Crowe, and he gives me quite a lot of reading to do. Speaker 1 Homework Your job comes with homework it. Speaker 2 Comes with a lot of homework and I, I get about, oh, about, I don't know, a chapter or so into a book and I get another one. So I've read about, you know, 21st chapters over the last month or two. But I, but let me, let me take you up on, on something that I've been watching. It's not on Netflix, but it's on Apple TV, which I think is producing some incredible, Yeah, Apple's great, Yeah, just incredible content. So I, I am now watching season 5 of For All Mankind and that if, if, if, if, if you folks that are, are watching haven't, haven't tuned into that. That's, that's incredible. And it, for me, it hits all the things that that really speak to me like it starts in the era I think I was meant to be an adult in, which is the 1960s. It, it, it, it, it's obviously all about America's space program, which has always been a fascination to me. And it, it posits alternative futures, which is how I spend my, my career, it seems. So everything about it is and, and it's brilliantly, brilliantly produced and, and designed. So I, I, I just love it. And Season 5 is is incredible. Speaker 1 Awesome. Well, there it is. Episode 29, David Rosowski from Arizona State University. Thank you so much. We really appreciated