Episode 105: Champlain College Retreat Interview with Provost Monique Taylor
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What does it look like for an institution to be truly connected? How can design thinking help us define problems and create solutions together during times of seismic change? How can leadership move from managing risk to green-lighting progress to create a transformative campus experience? We dive into these questions in a special bonus episode where Champlain College Provost Monique Taylor interviews Elliot Felix at their annual college retreat.
In an era of seismic shifts in higher education, institutions are facing a pivotal moment. From the lingering effects of the pandemic to the rapid rise of AI, the traditional "playbook" for university management is being rewritten. Recently, Elliot Felix, author of The Connected College, sat down with Champlain College Provost Monique Taylor to discuss a radical yet practical approach to these challenges: applying design thinking to the entire campus experience.
Breaking Down Silos to Enable Student Success
A truly connected college is one where the individual parts—facilities, finance, technology, and teaching—work in harmony rather than in isolation. For many institutions, the greatest barrier to student success isn't a lack of effort, but a lack of coordination. When departments operate as silos, students are the ones who feel the friction.
Elliot Felix argues that we must rethink how colleges are organized. By viewing the institution through the lens of design, we can focus on understanding the actual needs of people. This means creating feedback loops where career services are connected to coursework and experiential learning is supported by cross-disciplinary collaboration. When we define the problem before jumping to solutions, we create a more grounded environment where students can thrive.
Why Design Thinking is the Future of Higher Ed
Design thinking is more than just a buzzword; it’s a mindset of empathy and iteration. Felix highlights four key tenets: focusing on people, making synthetic connections, co-creating solutions, and prototyping. Instead of the traditional "waterfall" approach to institutional change—where a massive plan is launched all at once—colleges should move toward an "agile" model.
By running small tests and gathering feedback through pilots, institutions can scale success without the fear of massive, irreversible failure. This approach lowers the stakes of innovation, making it "safe to try" new ideas. Whether it's a new space, a service, or a staffing model, the goal isn't immediate perfection, but continuous improvement based on the student and faculty experience.
Building a Community of Success
One of the most profound takeaways from the conversation was the idea that student success is inseparable from community success. Provost Monique Taylor pointed out that while institutions often focus heavily on student belonging, they must also design for the wellbeing of faculty and staff.
Champlain College’s "Champ 101" program is a prime example of this in action. By integrating mental health literacy and self-care into the curriculum, the college addresses the rising concerns of the post-pandemic age. However, for a college to stay connected, that same level of care must be extended to the practitioners who make the mission possible.
Summary: Moving from Idea to Implementation
The journey toward a connected college is both a challenge and a calling. While the external pressures on higher education are significant, they also provide an opportunity to reaffirm the meaning of education as access to opportunity. By embracing design thinking and fostering a culture of collaboration, colleges can move beyond the "great idea" phase and into effective implementation, ensuring that every student has the transformative experience they deserve.
Episode 105 Transcript
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Elliot Felix: This is a special episode in January. I had the honor of visiting the campus and being the keynote speaker at Champlain College's annual retreat. It brought together faculty staff at an administration to learn and apply the connected college playbook. We capture the great conversation I had with our amazing provost, Monique Taylor, about topics like managing risk, making decisions, communicating effectively and more. We talk about what it means to be a connected college and university. We spotlight the exciting things already happening at Champlain and across the country and offer advice on moving from ideas through implementation. I hope you'll enjoy it. Let's dive in.
Elliot Felix: Welcome to the Connected College podcast. I'm your host, Elliot Felix. I've helped more than a hundred colleges and universities change what they offer, how they operate, and the way they're organized to enable student success. Join me for insightful interviews with higher ed innovators, sharing the stories, stats, and strategies to create better connected colleges and universities.
Craig Winstead: Today, my friend walking to the stage right here, Elliot, Felix. No, he said no. Walk on music. Yeah, I like that. So Elliot brings a unique perspective to higher education. He's not just an expert, he's a designer that reimagines the entire college experience. For two decades, Elliot has partnered with over a hundred institutions from Carnegie Mellon to MIT. I'm from Pittsburgh, so Carnegie Mellon, yay from NYU to NC State. Applying design thinking to revolutionize the spaces where students learn the services that support them, and the technology that connects them. His work has directly enhanced the educational journey of more than 1 million students nationwide. Let me say that again. 1 million.
Craig Winstead: His latest book, which you all should have on your table right now, The Connected College Leadership Strategies for Student Success was recently recognized as one of the top 10 best books in higher education for 2025. Let's give him around for that. I think that's beautiful as we chart Champlain's path forward building on our strengths and experiential learning, innovation and student-centered education, Elliot's perspective could be more timely. His work affirms the bold direction we're taking while opening our eyes to greater possibilities ahead. So today's conversation with Provost Taylor, we'll explore how Champlain can continue leading the way in creating the connected transformative experience our students deserve. So without further ado, I give you Provost Taylor and Elliot Felix. Thanks very much.
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Monique Taylor: Elliot, it is really great to welcome you to campus. It's good to see you again and I really enjoyed talking with you earlier in the week and I'm very excited that our community has the chance to spend some time with you this morning. And then smaller groups throughout the day. Some of us have read Connected College or started Reading Connected College. Thank you to Jen Nichols who's made sure that we have lots of copies available. Bethany Dietrich tells me that the library has already put in the order, so the book will be available for circulation through the campus.
Monique Taylor: We're in this work with you. I would say even for those who have yet to read the book, I want to call out two things. One Champlain makes an appearance on page 145. So yay for us for being in the kind of work that you recognize as innovative and pushing higher ed forward. And then the other thing about the book is that the chapters are presented to us and they range from facilities to finance, technology to teaching data, to board work and governance, career enrollment, all the pockets and spaces of our campus. There is truly a place for everyone in this conversation about connected college and I really love and appreciate that.
Monique Taylor: I wanna start by posing a big question for my colleagues here today and our colleagues who are with us online. As you listen, really be thinking, what does it look like for an institution to be truly connected? What does it look like for an institution to be truly connected? Our speaker is here. Our speaker will go. Those of us who are teachers know that the best job that we can do in helping you as learners is to hand you those big questions so that you carry them forward beyond the moment. And I would say that if you keep that question in front of you through the semester that's in front of us, what does it look like for an institution to be truly connected?
Monique Taylor: You have something really to hold in your hand, to focus your eyes at as we walk through work that is transformational, that is transitional, and we all know it can be exciting. It can be rewarding and it can be really heavy and really difficult. And we all know we've had struggles and challenges and moments where we wake up and walk every day through the good and the bad. But keep that question in your hands, in your heart in your thinking, what does it look like for a college to be truly connected? Because that is a path that we have committed ourselves to. Elliot Felix, kick us off here. Why this book? What inspired you to write and just share with us some of how you got the words in the pages here.
Elliot Felix: First of all, I'm really excited to be here and I'm excited to hear what you all have to say and think about the book, and I hope it's helpful. To help you create a more connected college at Champlain. And really the impetus for the book was finding ways to be helpful. I've been lucky enough to work with more than a hundred colleges and universities and help them rethink what they offer, how they're organized, how they operate. But that's only so many folks. And as I go around to different colleges and universities, I see so many smart, well-meaning, hardworking people trying to help students succeed. Like all of you. But sometimes the structure, the technology systems the, maybe the lack of strategy get in the way.
Elliot Felix: And I really wanted to create an encouraging evidence-based playbook to help folks work even better together to help students succeed. To do the kinds of things that you all are so focused on, like experiential learning, which you can't do very well without that kind of collaboration, right? You have to work across different disciplines. You have to connect with companies. The career has to be connected to the coursework and so forth. You have to have those feedback loops. And so that was really my goal, to be as helpful as I can in helping all of you help students succeed.
Monique Taylor: I like that idea of the evidence-based playbook. Can you say a little bit about the way that you set up these chapters, you invite us right from the start to jump in and jump around and mix it up? Why is that the approach?
Elliot Felix: There's 678 references in the book. Let's go through them one at a time. No, there is a lot of evidence and examples in the book 'cause I, I feel like what people need now I think it's been a hard year. It's been a hard five years. It's been a hard 25 years. And I really wanted to set the book up to provide that encouragement, to provide those examples, to say, Hey we've got this, we can do this. And as you said, for people to see themselves in the book. If you imagine the org chart of Champlain College, each box kind of has its chapter, right? There's administration, there's assessment, there's academic programs, academic support athletics, advancement. And then there's even some things that don't start with a careers, it facilities enrollment management.
Elliot Felix: And I imagine this very much as a choose your own adventure, for instance. You might start, wanna start with your function, the thing you're most familiar with, to feel grounded. Or you might wanna start with the thing you're least familiar with, right? And I wanna learn more about so that I can collaborate better. And so each chapter starts with a profile of an innovator or innovators. And then has three big ideas and then has a bunch of tactics about how you can work across the different functions. And my background is actually in design. So I was very much thinking about how design solves problems for people. And organizing the book with different personas in mind.
Elliot Felix: Designing the book with that in mind. So there might be the accomplished leader that knows about everything but enrollment management or there might be the emerging leader that kind of grew up in a discipline and now needs to look out and across and look at these different chapters. Far be it for me to dictate how you should read a book. I wanted to give people permission to use it in the way that was most helpful for them.
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Monique Taylor: So very postmodern or yeah, Tarantino to splice the story in that way. But I think what you also give us the ability to sit comfortably with is that we've been trained in, we bring experiences in the areas of the college that make up the whole the parts that make up the whole. And sometimes we need our people and a retreat to that space to really think about who we are and what we're doing in academics, enrollment facilities. And at the same time, I think one of the values exercises is asking people to really think about those departments, those colleagues, those places where you've had the opportunity, or you might be that person who's really helping pull others along into your work.
Monique Taylor: So I like that mix and match because for me, when I first opened the book and I read it a few times 'cause I had to be studied to be ready to talk with you. But my impulse was, oh, I'm gonna read academic affairs and then student affairs and I'm gonna go in order because old fashioned reader. And then I realized, no, I wanna actually go right into something that I really don't feel comfortable, that I know enough about. And I started at the end and zigzagged my way back and it was then giving me the opportunity. Even if you don't read the book, think about the relationships that you're having as you bounce around the college.
Monique Taylor: You start at home, you move somewhere else, you've moved to that place, you move back to some other place. Really the opportunity to just think about what we're picking up and learning about building a college of the future when we take the time to expand our boundaries. So I love the setup. You remind me that in the design thinking background that you have, I think this is something that will resonate with a lot of people in our community. Why is design think so important and the designer in you such an important voice and perspective that you're bringing to the college work?
Elliot Felix: People, a lot of people talk about how it's the classroom experience, it's the out of classroom experience, and it's how you put them together. And I think you all are doubling down on that in really exciting ways. For me I had so many amazing classroom experiences in my own education. I started off in architecture and I still remember to this day probably the best class I had was an English class. And we walked in and with almost no context or instruction. It was an English class on collage and it was about collage as a literary and cultural medium. And the instructor, professor Lynn, this is maybe 30 years ago he said, come in, take out a sheet of paper and on one side, write a story that reads like a landscape. And then turn it over and then write a landscape that reads like a story.
Elliot Felix: And then he left the room and he said, I'll be back in half an hour. And every, we all looked at each other and it was that kind of stretch assignment that I think is so formative. So I had amazing classroom experiences, but also I was always involved in student government. And when I was at MIT, it was an amazing place. Still is. And, but was in a time of transition. And so the student government got together and we did a survey of all the students. We did town hall meetings. We actually did benchmarking, comparing ourselves to other departments. And then we went to the student body and said, this is what we're hearing. These are maybe what the issues are and let's brainstorm solutions.
Elliot Felix: And then we went to the dean who was brand new, and she was just absolutely delighted that we weren't just coming to complain, but we are actually coming with solutions. And she said, these all sound great. So we really elevated the thesis as a capstone project and we changed the schedule around so people could cross enroll. And we actually doubled the pay of TAs because it had fallen way behind departments. That was design thinking in action because we were focusing on and trying to understand people and their needs. We were making connections, we were defining the problem before jumping in to solve it. We were creating the solutions together.
Elliot Felix: And what's interesting is the consulting work that I do every day is pretty darn similar to what I got started doing as a student. And I think that design thinking, mindset, tool set skillset is so valuable at a time like this when there is a lot of change, when there is a lot of uncertainty, when there is the need to work together to define a problem, to come up with solutions and then actually to put them into practice.
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Monique Taylor: So part of the advice then to our community is to think in design as a way of bringing forward solutions.
Elliot Felix: Yeah, absolutely. I think within the book I talk about four big aspects of design. And it is understanding and focusing on people. It is making those connections thinking synthetically right, to connect to understand how you might co-teach a course or how you might collaborate with a company. And then to create those solutions together and to try things out, to prototype things, right? I know you have a lot of sophisticated gaming and cyber here. So to put it in those terms, to go from waterfall to agile, right? And to say, let's do small tests. Let's get feedback, then let's scale up our success. So I think prototyping and piloting is a huge part of it. So those are the four tenets, let's say of design thinking or human-centered design. And I don't think you have to be a designer to put them into practice.
Elliot Felix: I think it's a mindset and it's a way of solving problems for people, I think, which is ultimately what, why we're all here, right? We wanna create remarkable transformative learning experiences and change lives.
Monique Taylor: Thanks for that. I think again this is something that resonates for many in our community who bring that mindset, the solving problems for people approach. And I actually went back last night to the point where Champlain sits in your book. And I wanna read it. I also want to flip it a little bit because you flip away you talk about us as a college, a community of higher ed practitioners, designing institution, designing for students, and the more I read all of these books, I think that we forget to pay attention to designing for us. Designing for ourselves. You all are people too.
Monique Taylor: And we put, we are such a loving, caring community. We do think about student belonging and inclusion, but a lot of the focus is on students, the enrollment, bringing them here, the retention, the belonging. And it's the colleagues that I want us to think about. And so I wanna actually look at where you call us out with being an inspiring example of the mental health and wellness challenges that surface after pandemic. Champlain College is an example of a school that implemented a first year course centered on health, wellness, and academic preparedness to address rising concerns regarding mental health among college students.
Monique Taylor: I want us to think about ourselves as colleagues in that. What are the things that we're also implementing along the way to think about our own health and wellness, that we designed strong systems to support students, but have we made that space for thinking about ourselves? This is a reference to what we call Champ 101 at the college. The course integrates mental health literacy, self-care strategies, and academic success skills into a cohesive curriculum. You've called out, we're all very much aware. These are really challenging times in the world, America, higher ed but that practice of managing stress, fostering healthy relationships, I think also sits in part of this design work. We don't wanna design too much, we can't be too busy.
Monique Taylor: We don't wanna get beyond the capacity of what we can do in service of students if it's taking us out as humans and as colleagues. And you then you point to some of the great statistics that we've seen from the success of that program. And I go into that as a way to flip it out back for the community because I think it shows, we know we can. We know that we can put this kind of attention to the level of care that this really stressful moment in the century calls on. But it has to be about us as a college community too, because we're also serving populations that have incredible challenges and high needs. So I like that design. I do see it coming into our academic design, the college design work, but I also want us to think about problem solution for us as a community for the colleagues.
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Elliot Felix: I think that's a great prompt. And in the administration chapter, one of the key points I took away from Sanji Sethi who was the president of MCAD where I also served on the board, he talks about student success is only possible with community success, with faculty success, staff success, board success, and they're all related. So I appreciate you calling that out, and I, may I, can I ask you a question? As you're thinking about the future, as you zigzag through the book, like what are you most excited about?
Monique Taylor: Oh my gosh. It's a great question. I think again, it is no secret that this is just a really challenging time in the world and especially for higher ed. We have lived through the pandemic. I arrived at the college talking about the transition through the pandemic as a portal. And I think we're still in this kind of post-post pandemic age. And in terms of the students who come to us, we know that they're carrying from earlier years academic skills and social skills delay and disruption, the mental health challenges are there. We know that people question the value of a degree that the AI challenges are putting us in the moment of huge seismic technological change.
Monique Taylor: It's really tough and I spent close to two decades of my career before I came to Champlain working in some pretty challenging environments overseas, designing higher ed for the future, but designing in environments shaped by military occupation and war, drug war, conflict and violence, Chinese authoritarianism, and I don't back off and back down and don't give up. What makes me excited is that the need, the reason, the meaning of education as access to opportunity, as the impact that we make on economies that are local, regional, national, and global, the way that education is designed to shape citizenship, leadership to help people live better, happier, longer lives, I think is really important.
Monique Taylor: And in the face of all of this challenge, what really excites me most is having found a home in a community with colleagues in a college where, again, if you look at the values that define Champlain, we're not done. We're not backing off, we're not backing down. And we have our eyes on the future because I think maybe many of you are like me. You work in higher ed, you work with students, you work in an environment shaped by teaching and learning because it's a passion and a calling. And the work has purpose and meaning. And the fact that the design that we're doing is fabulously inspiring. That's what excites me. But it is really challenging and I think the excitement has to come from people just really digging in to channel together why it's so important what we do.
Elliot Felix: That's exciting stuff. I think you can work for a company, you can work for a cause, you can work for a calling and each one, maybe each step along the way has a greater impact and a greater responsibility. And I think it is a challenging time, but I think the impact you can have is pretty extraordinary.
Monique Taylor: We just heard two of our students talk about the values we've transmitted, the soft skills preparation, the opportunities that we've created, and just in those short 20 minute moments, there's where the inspiration sits. That's what motivates me. That's what I think is really exciting.
Elliot Felix: I'm still learning about all the great things you all are doing, but it strikes me that there are a lot of great things and whether it's the flexible curriculum, the career focus, the connection to industry, the collaborative studios, those all I think are very exciting ways to create the kind of impact you're talking about on student success and on the communities you're a part of. I'm really, I'm pulling for you. I'm excited to see how these things turn out.
Monique Taylor: So give us a little more wisdom and inspiration. You talk about risk that we have to get beyond through risk in order to realize innovation. And I want you to just sit with the risk bit for a moment.
Elliot Felix: I was joking earlier that this feels like a TED Talk or Paula Abdul, which is great. But one of my favorite parodies of a Ted Talk was done by The Onion, and this guy gets up there and he talks about how his world changing idea is a car that runs on compost. And he makes lots of big gestures and lots of pensive moments and poses. And he says, step one, come up with the idea to create a car that runs on compost. Step two, make the car. And then he says, we're already halfway there. And I think we have a lot of good ideas, and now we need to couple them with good execution and good implementation.
Elliot Felix: And the relationship to risk does sometimes get in the way. One thing I find, if I'm doing a workshop on a new space or a new service or new system, new staffing model, I'll be really direct with folks about, hey, remember, the goal isn't perfect. We're not trying to come up with a perfect solution. The goal is to come up with something that's safe to try. Or when you're making a decision distinguishing between a reversible and an irreversible decision, that can also be incredibly helpful.