EdUp Innovation: Episode 9, Dr. Melik Khoury, Unity Environmental University

Dr. Khoury's Path to Unity and 10x Growth Brad Fuster and welcome to the Add Up Innovation Podcast. Today's guest is Doctor Malik Corey, President of Unity Environmental University. And if you are following innovative universities in the United States, Unity is an institution you must know. Doctor Corey has been at Unity since 2012. He's been president and CEO since 2016. And under his leadership, they've experienced 10X growth, no small accomplishment. Prior to Unity, he had a very extensive career in higher Ed working mainly in enrollment management. Doctor Corey, welcome to the Add Up Innovation podcast. I'm so excited to dive in with you this morning. Speaker 2 It's absolutely my pleasure, Brad. Always fun talking with a colleague. Speaker 1 Thank you. Thank you. So if you don't mind, could you just start by giving us a little bit of your career journey and how you came to Unity Environmental University? Speaker 2 Sure. I started my career in higher education in the University of Maine System. I worked for a small regional campus up north called University of Maine at Fort Kent. I also worked for The Maine campus in Orono and you know, like most career academics kind of went all across the country and then came back to Maine in 2012. Unity back then was a small private residential college with just under 500 students and looked like an opportunity to really make a difference and an impact. Speaker 1 Are you originally from Maine? Are you a Maine kid? Speaker 2 I am a first generation American but I did immigrate to Maine so I do call Maine home. Speaker 1 Awesome, awesome. How Unity's Governance Model Fueled Unprecedented Growth So for those of us who are following your growth and your trajectory at Unity, you know, we're, we're sitting here wondering how you how you did it. And you are one of few examples of an, of an institution that can go from 500 students to many, many thousands of students. Despite all the pressures on higher Ed and despite the, the enrollment demographic Cliff and, and all the pressures, you've been able to thrive in a otherwise really challenging environment. And reading some of the content you put out, I know that governance is sort of and getting the governance right at the institution is, is a big piece of your success story. So take us on the journey. Talk to us about the governance reforms and innovative things you've done with governance that allow that has allowed unity to really explode. Speaker 2 Sure. I mean, I think it's important to always do the caveat that, you know, the governance that we ended up adopting at Unity is unique to what Unity needed at the time. I'm sure that any institution will have its own nuances. However, you know, for me, having gone through a number of different institutions, public, private, you know, large R1, online residential, what I realized is that we really took a governance model that was only designed for a very small, elite capacity based industry and we tried to emulate it. We tried to mass produce it. Yeah, and I think many institutions see that as the Gold Star. But but if you think about it, demand, supply, niche aren't the same. It's not the this this industry is not a monolith. And so the idea that one university with 500 students and little to no endowment has to have the same governance as an institution with like $1.6 billion endowment or an institution that has doctoral programs versus a Community College. I started to realize that while the national rhetoric was around financial modelling, it really was around governance and operations in order to really figure out what your mission is, instead of this idea that, you know, everybody says, you know, the American dream, get an education. Yet we in this industry work so hard to tell people they can't be admitted. And so for us, it was trying to say, what were we trying to do? And our Board of trustees at the time were really trying to provide unprecedented access to kind of sustainability and environmental science education and a four year residential model just was not providing that level of access due to affordability and the working adult and the like. So we we really started to look at our bylaws, our operating model, our governance and we realized that we were designed like a traditional institution of these of yore to protect against change. And so we had to really augment our governance to prioritize adaptability and the ability to change process to meet outcome instead of the more historical and legacy approach, which is how many different ways can we stop a change from happening. Speaker 1 Right, right. Speaker 2 And I think that was the beginning of our transformation. Practical Steps for Reforming Traditional Governance Structures It's definitely not A1 size fits all model and I think institutions certainly treat it that way. I don't know if you're familiar with Brian Rosenberg's book. Whatever it is, I'm against it. Resistance to change in high, right? I had Doctor Rosenberg on the show and we talked about exactly this, how the governance model in higher Ed is set up to to prevent change. So how did you go about it? How did you the governance model is also set up to avoid changing the governance model. So how? How did you get that done? Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, it started with first. You know, I, I actually held up a mirror to our trustees and ask them why was it that my predecessors were unable to implement change? Because as you know, the rhetoric in higher education, we always come down to the, the efficacy of the data communication style transparency. You know, kind of like the greatest hits of like Smurf, right? You say it and you stop change. And my predecessors were brilliant individuals. But what we were able, I was able to show is that the the operating model and the governance model that they had did not actually allow them to affect change, but only influence it. And who was ever going to vote against their own schedule or calendar? It was also important to to really have a deep dive with the board of trustees as to what is their role. Were they philanthropic? Then we needed one set of institutional perspective in governance. Were they strategic? Were they operational? I mean, of course they're always fiduciaries, but what exactly was their role? And putting all of these in the first, you know, the the first principle, every time there's a different problem, created a real confusion. So after the board themselves determined that they were a strategic board, then we had to look at what was their role, scope of authority versus the president's. Once that was delineated, then we went through a series of kind of reviews of our bylaws policies, and what we realized is that there was no way to affect change. There was only a way to influence it. And once they decided that we did not want to go by the way of many colleges today, which is, you know, you've heard, you hear it a lot. We closed with pride. We shut down with dignity and because of their real passion for access to education. So we started to bring in outside expertise at the time in governance and organizational design and, and organizational structure and organizational culture to say what is what, what is it that we want to do and how do we change the way we work. And as you can imagine, we started for the 1st 18 months with the traditional approach, testing the idea of getting, you know, the, the, the, the complete buy in and the vote using the process itself. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 As you can imagine, that didn't work. Speaker 1 Right. Highly contentious so. Speaker 2 Then we had to make the tough decision, were we going to change it and, and, and, and then, and then kind of be ready for the aftermath. So what I did is I, I, I shared with our board of trustees and many on the campus the potential issues that we, that was going to arise when we went down this path. I mean, you see it now, there's always the outcry and most of the media treats these as isolated incident. But if you look at it very carefully, there's a pattern of behaviour that stops change. So we laid that out. And so as these things started to happen, the board had confidence that these things were a normal part of the chaos that happens as part of the change process, right? Current state, desired state, the chaos to the middle. Speaker 1 Right, right. Speaker 2 And we also provided some internal processes before any decision was made to thoroughly review all of the concerns to make sure it wasn't performative, to make sure it wasn't the same old. And granted, back then we were early adopters of this. Now it's common knowledge, but we really had to create the side boards and then also created a single point of focus for the change and that was the CEO, right, right. And so as we, so as we started to create the prioritization of policy documents, as you can imagine, that was not well received by many, but also welcomed by others. So the magic was, how do you get to the other side before things fall apart? And things were not easy for us. I mean, for the longest time, there was a significant amount of sustained outcry. But as things started to gel together, as growth started to happen, as we started to realize the true access and affordability that we were looking for, things started to normalize. But it really all started with with the idea that in order for change to happen, we had to go to a real disruption. And how do you prepare for that disruption without falling back to old adages of, well, you know, people are mad, so let's get back to square 1. Speaker 1 Right, right. Just some quick fire questions on this. Does Unity have tenure? Faculty tenure. Speaker 2 We do not. We actually have redefined the construct of a faculty position into 6 distinct jobs, allowing us to truly be as nimble as possible and in creating the the needs to create services, create products, create advice, create curriculum. And so we do have instructors, we do have advisors, we do have curriculum designers, we do have instructional designers. We do have academic administrators, but instead of the more traditional one, faculty. And then you work around the course releases of the governance. We've really turned them into positions, giving us a lot of flexibility. Speaker 1 Love it and I'm assuming no unions or unionized environment. Speaker 2 Back then we had a more traditional approach of a faculty, a position that was a like an independent governance, which in some ways is at least, you know, at least unions have some tie into the institution. But currently, no, we do not. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, lots of parallels between our institutions and we are absolutely watching you as our aspirational point to be in in the next 10 years. Very similar thoughts on faculty, on tenure, on unions and on on governance overall. Unity's Enterprise Model for Agile and Scalable Innovation So with the governance firmly in place, so really a great lesson in change management. Once once the dust settles and, and you have the ability to be nimble and agile and flexible and, and move forward, you start innovating. And this is really the story that I think Unity is nationally known for. Lots of innovations with respect to 90 credit degrees, the class calendar, tuition, the financial model, enrollment model, student success. Talk to us about, you know, how you laid out that strategy and what you're most proud of at this moment. Speaker 2 Sure. I mean, if you think about it, most presidents or CEOs when they come in, unless you are trying to make the current product that you're doing, which in most institutions is residential semester based, the preponderance of your employees already have full time jobs. And so the idea that they're going to do everything that they're going to do and then on top of that, they're going to have to create something new and then make sure that something new does not upset the apple cart with what you're currently doing. I think is a is a flaw in the change process for folks who don't understand or have never experienced kind of product development, because until recently, we've never really looked at our curriculum. We've only looked at adding majors and taking away majors, but the system is the same. So we created like an enterprise model, if you that we call it, where centralized services compliance and assessment kept our current model and ring fenced it. And then really instead of creating pilot programs and then pushing them back into the very, you know, atmosphere, it couldn't grow in really. I, I came up with the idea of independent verticals that are controlled by the, by, by the parent company, by the system office, you know, choose your analogy. But each and every one of our subsidiaries is allowed to have its own PNL, its own governance, its own calendar, its own tuition, its own pedagogy. Because if they're going to be different, they're serving different audiences. And so by creating kind of that model, we were able to keep what was working intact and start to build these new verticals and pro. And that way the folks who are already working on one thing that was working did not have to be bothered by it and we could make these independent changes without disrupting the entire organization. And this dual operating system of a kind of like a system office, if you will, who are different goals and their goals was to create more of these. We're able to be a little bit more objective in creating the guard rails and the guidelines and the key performance indicators of newer verticals instead of just what many colleges try to do, which is try to create all of these new things within the organizational system that was designed for a traditional semester model, primarily for full time, primarily for freshmen. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. So whole new system in place, right? Like we, we get rid of the typical garbage can model of, of strategic planning where everything kind of goes into it and some good things come out of it. And you build these independent kind of universities within the university, each one tasked with innovating in their area. Speaker 2 Yes. And even within traditional system offices, system campuses, all those actually have the same operating system. I mean, most of the time the difference is either majors or location, but you really have to. For us, we really said it's not about just location, it's about modality, it's about pedagogy, it's about audience and giving the online asynchronous folks absolute freedom to hone their craft without having to compromise with the residential folks and allowing the residential folks to really focus on their Expeditionary and in person pedagogy without having to compromise with the online folks. And, and, and then have the system office make sure we have a really good outcomes driven kind of ways for the students to be able to go in and out without having any, you know, disruption of this doesn't transfer and the like. And even something as simple as asking our students to apply for each one of these verticals as independent institutions so that each one can have it's own handbook, it's own catalog, it's own tuition, really allowed us to create the perception of if you're in a residential program, this is what your services are, this is what your expectations are. If you're in a the commuter program, if you are in a online program. And that allowed us not to have this blur of expectations from everything from schedule to tuition to services. And it also allowed us to change the expectation of the faculty and the staff because the faculty and staff of a residential program have different expectations than some of the other verticals that we do have. Leveraging Salesforce and AI for Scalable Higher Education Right, right. Wow, Really a lesson in how to gear up and scale up and create a a whole new system very different from the way other smaller institutions think and operate. So of all the innovations, when you compare Unity to the school down the road or some other environmental university that's out there, what are the innovations that you're most proud of? Speaker 2 Sure. I mean, I think it's always, I think the, the, the reimagination of the academic roles into more singular type jobs as a primary that has allowed different folks to be able to really lean into what they're good at. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 2 Has really given us the level of flexibility with curriculum and product and support that I think the more traditional one size fit all position doesn't really do. I think the idea of an order of operations where first you define the audience, then the program, then the modality, then you bring in the people to build it is it sounds really simple. Speaker 1 Seems like common sense, right? Yeah, but but universities generally do not operate that way. Speaker 2 Creating the tech stack that allows us to be able to create these verticals without it being arduous. Speaker 1 Yeah, Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about your tech stack? I know that you're using Salesforce as your sis. We just recently did the same thing and I know Vadim is a common friend of ours. Talk to us about that decision having having sales force as the SIS. I think you were the first institution in the country to make that decision and now some are following suit. Speaker 2 Yeah, we were the first to implement the Education Cloud as our and we call it an IS because it really is this idea of data is the key to the future. I think too many institutions have advancement data, recruitment data, academic data, registrar data, the Excel sheet in the Dean and students office. And we really felt that in order to provide unprecedented basically support for our students, analytics for our administrators and data for our curriculum designers, faculty members and advisors to follow, we needed to create a centralized data mindset that is, that is differentiated but integrated. So we implemented Education Cloud as our IS system. And then we also were the first to implement agent agent force as our kind of AI agent that we are trying to build over the life cycle of a of a learner from prospect to plan giving and we're kind of building it little by little. But the whole idea was a fully integrated tech stack that allowed us with the integrated LMS with Canvas, with credentialing software. I think right now we use a credible also the idea for each and every one of our subsidiaries to choose a different LMS depending on what they're doing. And really rethinking this idea that if we are, if we've got this tech stack where we can launch a program anywhere in the world in person, hybrid, synchronous, asynchronous, it really changes the game to going from a college built on capacity to a college built to scale. And, and that's kind of what we're trying to do. And I think, you know, when, you know, talking about earlier about our governance change, when we shifted away from voting and committee work as a way to make decision making, to rule, scope of authority and collaboration, it changed the mindset of how decisions are made. But it also, I will tell you, it was very difficult, not because of an unwillingness, but because most of us in academia were never trained. How do you get through collaboration and create a system when you're not looking for the vote? So those are some of the innovations and technologies combined that has allowed us to be able to identify audiences and build. Dr. Khoury's Vision for a Differentiated Higher Education Sector I love it. I love it. We are, you know, we are in an embryonic stages of a lot of what you're discussing with, with Salesforce, with our governance very similar. I have meetings with the faculty and we talk about things and we decide things and then we execute things together. There's not a lot of voting and there's not a lot of overly cumbersome layers of, of governance and it allows us to move pretty quickly. And I'm sure you as well, I want to shift the conversation a little bit to the national trend with the kind of multiple failures we're we're seeing in higher education, which is really never been louder. You know, I two years ago was about 1 institution a week, about 50 a year were closing or consolidating with pride or whatever flowery language you want to put around it. And now it's somewhere around 2 institutions a week, about 100 a year are either closing or consolidating, in my opinion. Some of it, you know, it was stuff that happened 10 years ago that now on the other side of COVID is kind of like the runway's done and it's just playing out. But a lot of those institutions had runway had were in the, the situation that unity was in with 500 students and a little bit of money in the bank and with some really solid leadership and some of the moves that you made could turn it around and could have 10X growth like you've had. And then I look at organizations like Ask you and CIC and ACE that are kind of the inherent organizations of a lot of our institutions and the leadership that they're providing with respect to innovation or in quotes innovation, which is really largely incremental change on the existing model. Unity has developed an entirely new model. So if you had a microphone right now to speak to Ted Mitchell or Marjorie Haas or Chuck Welch or any of the people who are leading these organizations, what would be your advice to help them help the sector and help hire it survive? Speaker 2 That's an excellent question. Well, I'm very, very proud to say that with the transformation that we did and in some of my writings, we know we changed everything, the order of operations and the like. Speaker 1 We. Speaker 2 We were very, we worked very carefully and very closely with our accreditor and we work very carefully with the Department of Ed to make sure that every decision that we were making was in full compliance with all of the standards and the Department of Ed. And I'm very proud to say that we've done the 10 year reviews and we've come, we were, we were hailed as an innovative institution. I think sometimes we look at the the advice I would give is we really need to bifurcate higher education industry into sub sectors and stop creating the standard of the elite, the R1 and the heavily endowed as the model for others to emulate. Speaker 1 Right, We can't get there. We shouldn't even try to build our systems after Harvard and Yale. Speaker 2 Yeah, you know, because if you think about it, the R1 institutions, their primary focus will always be to generate knowledge. The elite liberal arts institutions, their job is to really do the big thinking and the writing and and and the ethical impact. The rest of us, especially those in the mid tier institutions, our job is to take that knowledge, to take that thinking and apply it to the population. And so to say that those three need to have the same governance, the same rhetoric, and I think it's part of the problem. It's like saying, you know, a Sunday league basketball player should that should be playing at the same level as somebody from the NBA, Not that one is better or worse. It's just different. Or another example that I've used is like recently one of our sister colleges announced its closure, Sterling. Speaker 1 Yeah, right. Last week it's. Speaker 2 Heartbreaking. And somebody was like, oh, well, look, Berea is a is a work college. I'm like, well, give sterling $1.6 billion endowment and then see how well they do. So the advice to our colleagues is 1, we really need to look at the different missions of these types of institutions and create governance and operational structures to support them and stop telling everybody they should look like a Harvard or a Middlebury or a Georgia Tech. That's number one. Speaker 1 Yeah, it's even a tacit implication. It's not that people are saying you should look like Harvard, but but you're trying to operate like Harvard, and that's the aspiration tacit. Speaker 2 Because that's the governance model, right? Whether the association of governing boards or CIC and the like. I think the other piece for that too is I think a lot of folks just assume that the traditions in higher education is regulation. The the, the lesson that we learned at Unity is a lot of what was viewed as the accreditors won't allow it, that this would allow. It was actually institutional policy, institutional tradition. And I think we don't do a good enough job as organizations to not assume that the two semester model, the faculty Senate, the staff not working in this, you know, like the the old coming of age experience is the gold standard and everything else is secondary or substandard. I think that's that that was the biggest take away we did at Unity is there was no real university and then alternative revenue stream. Every one of our audiences deserves a model that works for them, and one is not better than the other. They're just different. So this monolithic approach to education is hurting everyone because you've got young faculty members who work at these mid tier institutions who think that they should be like a Tier 1 institution. It doesn't make them better or worse, but I I'll give you a human example. If me and my friend are both starting out in life and he or she or they have a billion dollar trust fund and I need to make a salary to pay the bills, we can't both expect to make the same life decisions. Speaker 1 Yeah, of course, of course. Speaker 2 So we need to start to normalize that alternative approaches to to govern an institution, to operate an institution to provide learners who can't afford the four year model or the semester model, not to look at something else as less than. Speaker 1 Yeah, we. Speaker 2 Are confusing pedagogy with quality. So I would encourage them to take a giant step back, but, you know, separate the different types of institutions. Let institutions choose where they want to be, and then allow them to operate differently with a singular focus. Those who are there for access, those who are there for exclusivity, those who are there for research, and those who are there for the American rumspringer because they can see it. Speaker 1 Yeah, it's, I mean, look, it seems so obvious when you say it. It seems so obvious when you lay it out, yet there's 4000 institutions in the United States and the majority of which are struggling right now, are hurting because they cannot make the changes that they need to make like like you were able to make at Unity. But I think the clarity with which you speak and the lived experience that you have now, this is not just an idea at SFBU, this is an idea. We are, we are taking some risks and we are looking at the sector and making some changes. At Unity, you have proof of concept, you have proven that this works. And I'm sure it's not perfect and I'm sure you're continuing to, you know, trip over things every day and fix them. But you've had tremendous success in an otherwise really struggling sector. So I think the entirety of the US is going to be looking to Unity and to you to figure out what changes they can make in part or in whole that mimic a lot of what you've been able to accomplish there. Preparing Leaders for Change and Cultivating Institutional Identity So I really appreciate you sharing your insights with us today. I end every episode by asking guests what they're reading right now. And that can either be for pleasure or for growth or for fun or out of necessity. I am reading a book right now out of necessity, but I'm curious what's on your night stand? Speaker 2 Absolutely. Before I answer that question, would you mind if I just shared one more piece of learning from us that I think to your point about Asian advice because of? Speaker 1 Course the floor is yours, yeah. Speaker 2 I think also the way we train our academic administrators has to be transformed. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 2 There is an illusion that communication style and the idea that if you just communicated better and created better processes, things would change. I think I look at some of the trainings about young administrators for Deans, for VPS, for presidents. I look at hiring practices. I think that that is something that needs to change. I think. I think most of those were designed in an era where our job was to curate and keep the status quo and not and and and not to make change. Speaker 1 So how would you change it? What? What changes would you want to? Speaker 2 See. Well for for one, I don't most most most administrators aren't trained to take any sort of criticism they are not designed to like. How do you stop anyone from making change? You threaten them with a vote of no confidence. Speaker 1 Right. Yeah, the nuclear option. Speaker 2 You send a strongly worded letter with ambiguous accusations in order for them to worry. We broker on reputation, not on outcome. And I, and I think the way we hire, the way we train, one of the hardest things for my own team is how do you work it? And you see, we are successful and we are. But most of my team, when their peers see how we operate, how we work, how we make decisions, we are alone in an island. I actually feel quite strongly that my employees don't have a lot of peers because everything that we are doing is viewed as an affront to the academic lifestyle, cadence and order of operation. So these organizations have to trade. What does it mean to actually be a supervisor? We don't do supervisor training. We don't do conflict training, and so that's just something to think about and even how we choose our presidents and our CEOs, right? Speaker 1 Usually the least threatening candidate. Speaker 2 Thank you the least. And many a times even those aspiring to be presidents view it as a combination of their hard work and their life work, and they get this rude awakening. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 2 And so, you know, I think one of my articles, the presidential graveyard, is something that I think got a lot of attention because I actually feel bad that we don't prepare academic leadership because we still view it as I will take my turn instead of I am in charge. Speaker 1 Right. Yeah, 100%. My, the last podcast that I just dropped last week was with an emotional intelligence expert named Carolyn Stern. And I read her book as a common read with my leadership team at my previous institution, largely at the department share level. And these were folks who were great academics, great teachers that were suddenly thrust into a leadership position where they're now they're managing people and they're managing their former colleagues and peers with absolutely no preparation to do that. And that is like the operational level of the organization. And we throw these folks in there with basically a wish and a prayer. Good luck. And we, I agree with you, we have to do a better job arming academic administrators for the institution to function really well. Any other thoughts on that? Speaker 2 Yeah, no. And for the book I've been reading, there's an old, there's an old book. It's a few years old now. But we as an institution, every time we reach a new milestone, we kind of do a, a restructure because, yeah, what I found with scale is it the, the one model doesn't scale beyond two or three thousand students at a time. You have to rethink. And right now we are in the, we are in the place where we're trying to figure out how do we differentiate as an organization so that that people. Because if we're going to grow anymore, we're going to have to attract the kind of employees who want to work here and not the kind of employees who once they get here, realize we are not that institution that has kind of that robots rules of order. So there's a, there's an old book that I am kind of re reading called Blur. And it's like it's a marketing book and it, and it talks about how when we all use common language, kind of this idea that we have to really differentiate. And so I'm trying to figure out how to use that to really look at institutional identity, not just from a recruitment or fundraising perspective, but from a, from a way for us to differentiate ourselves. So the next you know, 200 people who come work at Unity do not come in hoping that we are they can bring the old world with them. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, Love it. We're having very similar conversations about hiring here as well. We want to find the right fit employee that that belongs here, not just at a university. And we, we really don't care how many other universities they worked at. In fact, that's a detriment in some cases. So Doctor Corey, 25 minutes goes by so quickly. I want to thank you so much for your generosity, your time today, all the work you're doing at Unity Environmental University. We are watching. I am personally watching, I think the entire country and those on the bleeding edge of innovation and higher Ed are watching the work you're doing at Unity University. And we're super excited for the future to see where you take the institution next. So thank you for your time today. Really appreciate