Workforce readiness, hands-on learning, and flexible credentialing are no longer peripheral conversations in higher education. They are central to how institutions are being judged on value, relevance, and outcomes.

In this episode of Changing Higher Ed podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Jarred McNeely, Provost and Chief Academic Officer at Sonoran Desert Institute, about how applied, skills-based education can be delivered beyond traditional campuses without sacrificing rigor or quality.

McNeely shares how SDI redesigned hands-on instruction for distributed learners by moving labs into students' homes, rethinking assessment around demonstrated competence, and investing heavily in faculty training and support. The conversation explores what these approaches mean not just for trade and technical programs, but for institutions across higher education facing increasing pressure around cost, completion, and workforce alignment.

This episode is especially relevant for presidents, provosts, and academic leaders evaluating how applied learning, credential flexibility, and faculty systems can evolve to meet today's student realities.

• Why hands-on learning does not require centralized labs
• How lab kits, video-based assessment, and staged progression support skill development
• What it takes to train and support faculty in distributed, applied programs
• How simulation and practicum models expand access without lowering standards
• Why stackable credentials better align with real career movement
• The role of critical thinking and problem identification in applied education

1. Learning should be assessed by demonstrated competence, not physical presence
   
   
2. Faculty training and support systems are the primary drivers of instructional quality
   
   
3. Flexible, stackable credentials reduce student risk while supporting long-term engagement

Read the transcript or extended show summary:
https://changinghighered.com/reduce-student-debt-risk-improve-employability/

#HigherEducation #WorkforceDevelopment #AppliedLearning #HigherEdLeadership #ChangingHigherEd

Empathy is easy to talk about and harder to practice when the pressure is high. In higher education, leaders are often navigating conflict, fatigue, and urgency, which is exactly when empathy gets misread as weakness instead of treated as a leadership competency.

In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Laura Parson, Associate Professor at North Dakota State University and founder of The Empathy Classroom, about building empathy as a practical skill leaders can use without surrendering standards or authority.

Parson breaks empathy down into usable behaviors, including perspective-taking, emotional self-management, and question framing that reduces defensiveness. The discussion also addresses "empathy light," when leaders perform empathy for external outcomes instead of practicing it authentically, and why that approach erodes trust.

This conversation is especially relevant for institutional leaders who want stronger communication, better decision follow-through, and a healthier leadership culture in environments where people are stretched thin and reactions run hot.

• What empathy is as a competency and how it differs from sympathy
• Why empathy does not require agreement or abandoning standards
• How to reduce defensiveness through better questions and language choices
• Self-other distinction and why absorbing others' emotions accelerates burnout
• Mindfulness and emotional literacy as leadership tools
• "Empathy lite" and how performative empathy undermines trust
• How leaders can develop empathy through practice, role play, and scenario rehearsal

• Reframing accusatory "why" questions into curiosity-based questions that invite explanation
• The "waves" metaphor for managing constant emotions as a senior leader without burning out
• An executive's post-meeting reset ritual to physically "shake off" emotional residue
• Using breath work or box breathing after emotionally charged interactions

1. Model empathy visibly so others understand what it looks like in your environment.
2. Listen, demonstrate that you heard what was said, and reinforce it through action.
3. Treat perspective-taking as a discipline by learning to see issues through multiple stakeholder lenses.

Read the extended show summary or transcript: https://changinghighered.com/empathy-in-higher-education-leadership/

#HigherEducation #HigherEducationLeadership #EmpathyInEducation

In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Dan Predoehl, assistant dean of Extended Learning and director of the Emeritus Institute at Saddleback College, one of the nation's highest-performing community colleges.

The conversation focuses on why enrollment challenges persist even at strong institutions and how treating enrollment as a shared responsibility—rather than a system with clear executive ownership—creates fragmentation across admissions, student services, academics, and outcomes. Dr. Predoehl explains the Chief Enrollment Management Officer concept and why a cabinet-level role is increasingly necessary to align enrollment strategy with institutional mission, student success, and long-term viability.

Drawing on experience across community colleges and four-year institutions, the discussion examines how enrollment, retention, completion, workforce alignment, and equity outcomes are shaped by leadership structure—not just tactics.

Topics Covered:

• Why enrollment is a system, not a department

• How diffused responsibility undermines retention and completion

• The limits of presidential oversight without executive enrollment ownership

• How workforce alignment strengthens enrollment strategy

• Why open access increases the need for strategic focus

• The role faculty partnership plays in sustainable enrollment management

Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leaders:

• Enrollment outcomes reflect system design, not individual office performance

• Retention, completion, and workforce alignment are core enrollment responsibilities

• Institutions risk long-term instability when enrollment lacks clear executive ownership

This episode is especially relevant for presidents, provosts, enrollment leaders, and senior administrators looking beyond short-term fixes toward structural solutions to enrollment pressure.

Read the transcript and extended show summary:
https://changinghighered.com/chief-enrollment-management-officer-in-higher-education/

#HigherEducation #EnrollmentManagement #HigherEducationPodcast

Institutional transformation in higher education is often described in broad terms. At Stevens Institute of Technology, Dr. Nariman Farvardin describes transformation in operational terms: disciplined strategic planning, academic realignment, and year-after-year execution systems that produced what Dr. Drumm McNaughton calls the Stevens Miracle.

In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Nariman Farvardin, President of Stevens Institute of Technology, about how Stevens achieved sustained success since he became president in 2011. Under Dr. Farvardin's leadership, undergraduate applications increased 294%, enrollment grew approximately 75%, research funding increased 199%, and the university invested more than $500 million in campus improvements. Stevens also reports first-year retention approaching 96%, graduation rates near 90%, and approximately 97% of graduates employed or in graduate school within six months.

Dr. Farvardin explains the institutional "secret sauce" behind those results: an inclusive strategic planning process that builds ownership across faculty, staff, students, administrators, and trustees, paired with execution discipline that keeps the plan active through regular progress reporting, annual written results, and objectives letters that tie leadership goals directly to strategic priorities. He also walks through Stevens' academic realignment, including the SUCCESS curriculum, which ensures every student graduates with foundational exposure to five areas: artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, sustainability, and data science. The discussion also covers student support structures that reinforce student experience and outcomes, including the first-year experience model delivered in 45–47 sections annually, with faculty serving as coaches for small groups of students.

• How Stevens used inclusive strategic planning to build campus-wide ownership and momentum
• Why execution systems matter more than a polished strategic plan document
• How Stevens keeps the strategic plan active through regular updates, annual reports, and objectives letters
• What the SUCCESS curriculum is and why it represents academic realignment, not a one-off initiative
• The five technology areas every Stevens graduate is exposed to through SUCCESS
• How the first-year experience course operates at scale and why it supports retention
• How Stevens operationalized student-centered service so student issues are owned, not deflected
• Why transparency and shared responsibility improved faculty engagement with change
• How Stevens uses honesty about what did not work to keep planning credible
• What presidents and boards should focus on if they want transformation that holds over time

• A leadership execution model that breaks strategy into smaller goals, distributes them across divisions, and updates them annually through objectives letters
• A first-year experience structure delivered in 45–47 small sections (20–25 students each) with faculty serving as ongoing coaches
• A student support expectation that staff "own" the student's problem until it is solved, instead of sending students office-to-office

1. A well-designed strategic plan paired with disciplined execution is essential, even when it requires difficult and unpopular decisions
2. A strong, functional relationship between the president and the board is critical to sustaining momentum and leadership effectiveness
3. Trust-based working relationships between leadership, faculty, and staff are required for long-term success and leadership sustainability

Read the transcript or extended show summary: https://changinghighered.com/stevens-tech-strategic-planning-transformation/

#HigherEducation #StrategicPlanning #UniversityLeadership #BoardGovernance #StudentSuccess

Higher education enters 2026 under conditions that are no longer hypothetical. In this 8th annual end-of-year episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton is joined by Tom Netting of TEN Government Strategies to review how the predictions made at the end of 2024 played out during the 2025 operating year and what those outcomes mean for institutional planning in 2026.

Rather than offering speculative forecasts, this episode uses 2025 as a calibration year. When predictions materialize, they remove ambiguity. They clarify which pressures are structural, which risks persist, and which leadership assumptions are no longer defensible. For presidents, boards, and senior leadership teams preparing for 2026, this conversation provides a grounded planning context based on conditions already in motion.

Topics Covered

• What 2025 confirmed about federal policy instability, accountability, cost pressure, enrollment volatility, and governance risk

• Why the Department of Education is likely to remain in place through 2026 and why its continued existence should not be mistaken for stability

• How redistribution of authority across federal agencies increases compliance complexity for institutions

• Where student loans are likely to move within the federal system and why institutions face growing exposure to borrower outcomes

• Why broad student debt forgiveness remains unlikely and what limited relief options may realistically emerge

• How accountability is shifting toward program-level scrutiny and the implications for academic realignment

• Why accreditation reform remains unsettled and why leaders should treat accreditation as a strategic risk factor

• Workforce Pell expansion, quality oversight challenges, and the risk of fraud and abuse in short-term credentials

• The growing role of states in accountability as federal capacity contracts

• Research funding as political leverage and the planning risk created by funding uncertainty

• Polarization as an operational challenge affecting enrollment, safety, governance, and public trust

• Technology, AI, cybersecurity, and NIST compliance as board-level responsibilities

• Enrollment, demographic decline, cost escalation, and financial pressure entering the 2026 planning cycle

• Mergers, closures, and structural collaboration as necessary adaptation strategies

Key Planning Judgments for 2026

• The Department of Education will persist but continue to shrink and fragment

• Student loans will move further away from the Department, increasing institutional exposure

• Accountability pressure will intensify, particularly at the program level

• Accreditation reform will remain unresolved beyond 2026

• Workforce Pell will expand, bringing both opportunity and heightened oversight risk

• Research funding will remain politically vulnerable

• Cost pressure will continue to drive consolidation and closures

• Technology and cybersecurity will demand sustained leadership attention

This episode is especially relevant for presidents and trustees navigating compressed decision timelines, thinner margins for error, and declining tolerance for ambiguity. The focus is not prediction for its own sake, but clarity about the forces institutions must plan around as they enter 2026.

#HigherEducation #HigherEd2026StrategicPlanning #HigherEducationPodcast

In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Ashley Finley, Vice President of Research and Senior Advisor to the President at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), about the findings of the 2025 AAC&U Employer Survey and what they reveal about employer expectations for higher education.

Based on nearly 20 years of longitudinal research, the 2025 survey challenges many of the dominant public narratives about the value of college. Employers continue to express strong confidence in higher education, place equal importance on workforce preparation and citizenship, and increasingly emphasize adaptability, judgment, and civic capacity as core professional requirements.

Dr. Finley explains how employers view civic skills as workplace competencies, why mindsets and dispositions are now baseline expectations rather than "soft skills," and how AI is reshaping what it means to be prepared for an uncertain future. The conversation also addresses generational differences among employers, the growing role of microcredentials, and why institutions must model the agility they expect from graduates.

This episode is especially relevant for presidents, trustees, provosts, and senior leaders navigating political pressure, workforce alignment, and questions about institutional value.

Topics Covered:

• What the 2025 AAC&U Employer Survey reveals that public narratives often miss

• Why employers see preparing informed citizens and a skilled workforce as inseparable goals

• How civic skills, including constructive disagreement, translate directly to workplace success

• Why motivation, resilience, initiative, and self-awareness are now baseline hiring expectations

• How employers think about AI readiness beyond simple tool proficiency

• Which student experiences increase hiring likelihood beyond internships

• How employers evaluate the credibility and value of microcredentials and certificates

• Generational shifts in employer expectations and what they signal for the future

Three Takeaways for University Presidents and Boards:

• Institutions must communicate learning outcomes more clearly, including mindsets and dispositions, so students can articulate who they are becoming, not just what they know.

• Career-relevant experiences extend far beyond internships; leadership roles, campus employment, and community engagement carry significant employer value and are often more scalable.

• Agility must be modeled institutionally. Employers value adaptability, and colleges and universities cannot promote it in students while resisting change themselves.

Bonus Takeaway from Dr. McNaughton:

• Employers continue to value higher education and the four-year degree, despite political rhetoric and cost-driven narratives suggesting otherwise. This disconnect presents both a risk and an opportunity for institutional leaders.

This conversation offers data-grounded insight into how employers actually view higher education—and what leaders can do to align strategy, communication, and culture with those expectations.

Read the full transcript:
https://changinghighered.com/strategic-insights-2025-aacu-employer-survey/

#HigherEducation #HigherEducationLeadership #AACU #EmployerSurvey #WorkforceReadiness #ChangingHigherEdPodcast

Higher education communication is no longer a marketing function. It is a strategic discipline shaped by political pressure, governance risk, and real-time public scrutiny.

In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with David Maffei, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Americas at Staffbase, about how university presidents and boards must rethink how communication functions inside their institutions under today's crisis-driven conditions.

Drawing on more than two decades of enterprise and higher education communications leadership, Maffei explains why internal communication now determines external credibility, why preparedness is the defining variable in crisis response, and how fragmented communication structures quietly undermine institutional trust. The discussion also explores how technology and AI amplify leadership discipline rather than replace it, and why presidential communication can no longer be delegated.

This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, boards, and senior leadership teams navigating political pressure, public scrutiny, and rising expectations for transparency, alignment, and trust.

• Why internal communication now drives external brand credibility
• How crisis preparedness exposes governance strength or weakness
• Why internal notification must come before public announcements
• How political pressure reshapes presidential communication risk
• Why communication is now a core presidential competency
• The role of ego management in institutional leadership
• How siloed communication tools fracture institutional alignment
• Why unified board and presidential signaling protects credibility
• How technology and AI magnify leadership discipline
• Why communication is now embedded inside strategy, not downstream from it

1. Preparedness determines whether crisis strengthens or destabilizes trust.
2. Internal communication discipline now shapes external credibility in real time.
3. Unified signaling between presidents and boards is no longer optional.

This episode offers practical, governance-level insight into why communication performance is now inseparable from institutional performance — and how higher education leaders can protect credibility under sustained pressure.

Read the transcript or extended show summary:
https://changinghighered.com/higher-education-communication-strategy-crisis/

#HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast #UniversityLeadership #HigherEdCommunication

Higher education is facing a growing disconnect between public perception and the realities of campus life. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Peter Murphy Lewis, CNN political analyst, filmmaker, and director of People Worth Caring About, about how institutions can reclaim their narrative and rebuild trust through authentic human stories.

This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, trustees, and senior leaders navigating public skepticism, political pressure, and communication environments where external voices often define higher education's story.

• The forces driving negative public narratives about higher education
• How political rhetoric and social media distort campus realities
• Why families respond more strongly to human stories than to data or institutional claims
• How student and faculty voices build credibility across audiences
• Ways to adapt a single story for parents, prospective students, legislators, and alumni
• The importance of short-form storytelling for modern communication channels
• The CARE framework (Confront, Amplify, Reshape, Evergreen) for building narrative strategy

• How the documentary model helps institutions show their value through lived experience
• Using student and faculty stories to counter assumptions about campus culture
• Why a 45-second authentic clip can strengthen trust more than a polished statement
• How major industries changed public perception through narrative work (e.g., Formula One's "Drive to Survive")

1. Talk about the elephant in the room.
2. Talk about it through a story — show, don't tell.
3. Eat that elephant one bite at a time. You can start tomorrow with your cell phone or an intern. One day at a time. One bite at a time.

Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/reclaiming-the-higher-education-narrative/

#HigherEdLeadership #InstitutionalStrategy #HigherEducationPodcast