The Connected College Podcast with Elliot Felix cover art

The Connected College Podcast with Elliot Felix

The Connected College Podcast with Elliot Felix

By: Elliot Felix
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The Connected College Podcast provides leadership strategies for student success. Join Elliot Felix for insightful interviews with higher ed innovators along with the stories, stats, and strategies he's learned as a consultant to 100+ institutions. Let's create better connected colleges and universities where students find belonging, feel supported, and connect their courses to rewarding careers.Copyright 2026. All rights reserved. Career Success Economics Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Christa Acampora and Julia Lapan on How Career Design Enables Student Success

    Christa Acampora and Julia Lapan on How Career Design Enables Student Success
    Jun 23 2026
    How can career design transform student success when integrated directly with academic courses and advising, starting in the first year? How can higher education institutions shift student mindsets from passive box-checking to true agency and self-discovery where every experience is an experiment or prototype they can reflect on and learn from? How will AI change the “products” of career development like a LinkedIn profile or a project portfolio and what does that mean for students? We talk through these with Christa Acampora the Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Julia Lapan the Director of Career Design and Discovery at University of Virginia. Episode highlights include: [5:56] Redefining Success Beyond Graduation Statistics - True student success focuses on human formation and life authorship rather than just employment data. [9:36] Scaling Career Design via First-Year Curricula - Integrating self-discovery directly into mandatory first-year courses provides equitable access for all entering students. [14:57] Shifting Mindsets from Box-Checking to Agency - Helping high-achieving students move past rigid, linear plans by framing the future as a series of prototypes. [21:22] Utilizing the Commonplace Book for Self-Reflection - Introducing practical tools that help students track their curiosities, values, and real-world experiments. [25:54] Human Formation in the Generation of AI - Recruiting students into their own learning by focusing on human capabilities that machines cannot replicate.
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    31 mins
  • Antwon Foreman on How Entrepreneurship Enables Student Success

    Antwon Foreman on How Entrepreneurship Enables Student Success
    Jun 16 2026
    How can higher education institutions expand the definition – and impact! – of entrepreneurship beyond the startup to maximize student success? What skills and relationships can students build and how can they apply them whether they start a company or a non-profit or work within a larger business as someone who know how to actually get things done, by creating, communicating, and solving problems? How can colleges and companies build mutually beneficial ecosystems make this happen? We talk through these with Antwon Foreman, the entrepreneurship professor and Founder of the social business support-u.org. Episode Highlights include: [3:04] The Social Business Model - Training students to solve real problems for major clients helps rapidly expand their resumes and campus ecosystems. [8:35] Redefining Student Success - Setting a multi-pronged goal of a job offer, graduate school acceptance, and business ownership before senior year accelerates development. [9:59] Broadening Entrepreneurial Frameworks - Shifting the entrepreneurial focus away from tech startups allows institutions to engage diverse academic majors. [16:47] Levering the Gig Economy - Modern students use digital platforms to bypass traditional career paths and protect their financial security. [23:01] Cultivating Corporate Intrapreneurs - Employers navigating an AI-driven economy require highly adaptive professionals who look at corporate roles through an ownership lens.
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    26 mins
  • Ellucian Live Presentation and Panel Discussion on Workforce Development

    Ellucian Live Presentation and Panel Discussion on Workforce Development
    Jun 9 2026
    How can institutions bridge the gap between traditional academic programs and dynamic labor market needs? How can you move from one-off internships and class projects to build true partnerships? What role can data, technology, and systems play? What strategies can you use to combat organizational silos and institutional risk-aversion? In this special episode from a session at the Ellucian Live Conference, Elliot Felix presents the whitepaper he partnered with Ellucian on and then facilitates a panel discussion on these questions with Noah Brown from Ellucian, Rupa Saran from Coast Community College District, Antwon Foreman from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and Norman Palmer from Complete College America. Episode Highlights include: [6:10] Elliot Felix shares highlights from the Ellucian whitepaper “Understand, Align, and Partner so that Students Succeed and Employers Excel” [16:15] Noah Brown talks about how colleges can build the trust with companies to enable workforce development even when proprietary technology is involved, for instance with electric vehicles [18:13] Antwon Foreman reveals the power of using co-curricular activities to build interest, momentum, and trust that sparks curriculum change and in the process reach 6,000+ students annual [27:10 Rupa Saran discusses the development of a common cloud among California Community Colleges so that they can share data and avoid reinventing the wheel at each institution [29:35] Norman Palmer shares the importance of lowering the stakes through pilot projects to make it safe to fail fast, learn, and improve – and doing this not alone but with peers and partners so you can learn together.
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    39 mins
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