Episode 116: Ellucian Live Presentation and Panel Discussion on Workforce Development
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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.
Bridging the Higher Education Employability Gap: A Roadmap for Modern Workforce Development
The landscape of higher education is undergoing a profound paradigm shift. For decades, the traditional university model operated on a straightforward premise: provide access to education, and career success would naturally follow. Today, that linear path is fractured. We are currently navigating a highly disruptive moment driven by rapid technological advancements, shifting demographics, and evolving industry demands. Higher education institutions are no longer just responsible for academic instruction; they are now increasingly held accountable for post-graduation success.
With data from the World Economic Forum indicating that 44% of workforce skills will be disrupted by 2030, and reports suggesting nearly half of college graduates find themselves underemployed, the stakes have never been higher. To ensure academic relevance and student upward mobility, leadership must learn how to seamlessly connect the courses students take, the skills they build, and the jobs they actually want.
The Six Big Insights from the Workforce Development Whitepaper
Building a truly connected college requires deep integration between student aspirations and labor market realities. The foundational framework for this transformation relies on six institutional steps: understanding the macroeconomic and demographic disruptions hitting higher education, gathering continuous quantitative and qualitative data on student and employer needs, mapping academic competencies directly onto clear career paths, actively developing faculty comfort with experiential learning, cultivating deep partnerships with external industry leaders, and fully integrating work directly into the student learning experience so that career development is no longer treated as an afterthought.
Understanding and Aligning the Needs of Institutions and Employers
Silos must be broken down to align student supply with employer demand. This process goes far beyond reviewing static, annual labor market reports; it requires building active feedback loops between campuses and corporate ecosystems. For example, George Washington University partnered with a business publication to host cybersecurity roundtables, connecting faculty directly with industry professionals to inform curriculum development in real time.
Similarly, San Francisco Bay University co-created a new general education track with dozens of regional professionals, focusing explicitly on transferable, durable skills like working in global contexts. By matching institutional offerings with local economic targets, colleges ensure that graduation leads to an immediate, rewarding career destination.
Leveraging Advanced Systems, Data, and Emerging Technology
Sustaining workforce alignment over time requires breaking down the technological silos that trap institutional data. Too often, student interest metrics, local wage data, and learning platforms exist in entirely separate software ecosystems. The future of alignment lies in unified, AI-enabled data structures.
Forward-thinking initiatives, such as the California Community Colleges' common cloud data platform, demonstrate the power of consolidating and cleaning data from dozens of distinct districts into a singular data lake. When institutions combine localized labor market insights with wage transparency, students gain a clear, metrics-driven view of their future promotion paths and return on investment from the moment they enroll.
Turning Strategy into Action: Implementation Advice from the Field
Moving from institutional strategy to execution can easily stall out due to analysis paralysis and risk aversion. To overcome these hurdles, campus leaders should shift away from pitching massive, high-risk programmatic overhauls and instead focus entirely on launching small, highly measurable pilots.
By establishing a clear demonstration of impact first, it becomes significantly easier to secure broader institutional buy-in and scale the project later. Whether utilizing experiential assignments inside current syllabi or scaling up extracurricular ecosystems, keeping the analytical focus squarely on the student experience ensures that all operational logistics naturally fall into place.
Embracing the Collaborative Path Forward
Realigning higher education with the modern workforce is an ongoing journey rather than a one-time project. By maintaining an unwavering focus on the student, leaning into bottom-up leadership, and utilizing localized data, colleges and universities can tear down internal barriers. The institutions that move swiftly to foster robust industry dialogue and embrace iterative pilot frameworks will not only navigate this disruptive era—they will actively define the future of workforce development.
Episode 116 Transcript
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Elliot Felix: So let's start off with some introductions. I'm Elliot Felix. I'm a student success author, speaker, and consultant. I've been lucky enough to work with more than 100 colleges and universities and help more than a million students, and I lead the higher ed advisory practice at a company called Bureau Happold. And I'm also the author of a book called The Connected College, which is an encouraging evidence-based playbook to help folks break down silos so that students can succeed. And I'm really excited to share the insights from that, from my practice, from the white paper, and hear from our great panel today. With that, let's introduce ourselves.
Noah Brown: Thanks. I'm Noah Brown, currently serving as a senior advisor for workforce for Ellucian. Prior to—Thank you... joining with Ellucian, I was a senior advisor at the US Department of Education, and prior to that, a past president and CEO of the Association of Community College Trustees. So I allegedly know some things about pathways, workforce development, and the nexus between higher ed and employment.
Antwon Foreman: Hello, everybody. My name is Antwon Foreman. I originally owned a consulting company. We had focused on entrepreneurship consulting, scaling, ecosystem building. Now I juggle that with actually teaching innovation entrepreneurship and being a director over an entrepreneurship center at North Carolina A&T State University. The center actually engages six thousand out of fifteen thousand students on campus, three thousand students from other campuses. We've collectively helped seventy-two student businesses make seven point eight million in revenue in the last three years and positioned about six hundred students into six-figure positions at graduation in the past three years. So I do a lot of experiential learning and bridging that with the in-class extracurricular activities to make sure that students are actually ready for the workforce and not just educated about the workforce.
Rupa Saran: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our exciting session here. My name is Rupa Saran. I'm the Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Technology Officer for the Coast Community College District in Southern California. Our district is comprised of three colleges, and we serve about close to 50,000 students. And I also lead our California Community Colleges system-wide initiative. So I'm not sure if you're aware, we're the biggest system in community colleges in the nation. We serve about 2.2 million students. So one of the initiatives that I'm leading for our system is called Common Cloud Data Platform. And bottom line is we wanna bring everyone's data, standardize it, and let's not do it 116 times, because that's the number of colleges we have. And we'll talk about it more and more during our discussion. And I also just finished the term for board president for Chief Information Systems Officers Association. Again, there are 73 districts, so there are 73 CTOs, so we collaborate, we share ideas, and what can we do to help all of our colleagues and, ideas and things like that. So with that, I'll pass it on to my colleague here.
Norman Palmer: Thank you so much. My name is Norman Palmer. I am the Director of Technology and Innovation at Complete College America. But prior to coming to Complete College America, I have a pretty lengthy history with technology. Started out in the military, did that for about 21 years. After that, I spent some time as a director in Washington, DC for the Department of Homeland Security, running IT operations for the department. And then after that, I had the opportunity to go and work for Northrop Grumman, where I was in charge of all software development for the corporation. My last big project that I worked on was the Webb Telescope. I had five software developers on that project. After I left that, I went into consulting and did executive, and I still do a little bit of executive-level consulting. But I was privileged with the opportunity to come to Complete College America, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that really focuses on really helping all students in America get through college on time, on budget, and with a certificate or degree in their hands that will provide upward mobility in their lifetime. So I'm really glad to be here. I did a lot of work with the Gates Foundation and that's how I got engaged. My wife encouraged me to start giving back. Part of the reason why I'm even here today is I wanna give back and do some good.
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Elliot Felix: So we have a great panel, and to jumpstart this discussion about how to align the courses students take with the skills they build and the jobs they want that employers need, we're gonna walk through this six-step roadmap. And it grew out of great conversations like the one we're gonna have today, interviewing folks, conducting a roundtable from a variety of different institutions, community colleges, continuing professional studies programs, four-year, and in different roles provost, president, student affairs, academic affairs, technology. And you can download it and I'm gonna give you the cliff notes, as it were, and hopefully get you excited about applying the roadmap on your campus. So let me walk through the six big insights from the white paper, and for each of those, I'll give you a kind of an institutional perspective and an example of this happening in action. I think the first thing we heard from folks was you've gotta understand how much is changing in higher ed. It's a disruptive moment, and some of the disruption is coming from without, right? Demographics, technology. Some of it is coming from within. For instance, as institutions take responsibility for post-graduation success, right? You might have thought about access was 1.0, and then student success was 2.0, and now post-grad success is kinda 3.0, and that's an important step. As you're trying to make that step, understanding the data is really critical. The World Economic Forum estimates that 44% of skills will be disrupted by 2030, right? We also know that, roughly 50% of college grads are underemployed. We know that more than 8 million students want internships, and only 3.6 million get them, and of those, only about 2.5 million have the kinda quality of supervision and structure and skill-building. So once you understand where you are, then it's really about understanding student and employer needs and creating that Venn diagram about where they overlap, and that's quantitative, it's qualitative, right? It's looking at labor market data. It's convening roundtables. It's talking to people, and it's not just doing it once. It's kinda getting in the rhythm of doing that on an ongoing basis. A great example of that, one of the institutions involved was GW. They partner with media to do in this case The Washington Business Journal, to do a cybersecurity... well a variety of roundtables, but a cybersecurity roundtable, and it does a bunch of things at once. One, it's a way to bring folks together, build relationships, see what's next, what are they hearing, what are they looking for in their talent, but it's also a way to connect faculty directly with industry and kinda do some of that development in real time. Once you've understood—understood the needs which of course is an ongoing basis, then it's really about doing that kind of alignment and understanding the skills, understanding the competencies, mapping it out over a journey to a career path, make sure it leads to a rewarding place, and and of course not doing that in a vacuum. A great example of that, San Francisco Bay University created a new kind of gen ed curriculum, 10 courses. They all start with how to, like how to tell your story or how to work in a global context, and they developed that with 47 different folks in the Bay Area, constant feedback and iteration to connect the student supply with the employer demand. Once you've understood the needs and you've aligned the curriculum it doesn't all happen magically, right? There's a development process. Faculty may not be comfortable with experiential learning, like we're gonna hear about how you've made that happen, I think. Or active learning, or they might not have the relationships, or the relationships might be fragmented, right? You might have your alumni relations team and your corporate relations team and your center for teaching and learning all having different sorts of conversations that need to be brought together to help faculty deliver on that. And a great example, Metro State has, I think based on NACE and other great resources career-aligned competencies, and their Center for Teaching and Learning is all about helping faculty align courses to those competencies, which in turn align with careers. But of course, that alignment, that development only goes so far if you don't have the partnerships with the folks that you're trying to work with. And that might be working with them on an experiential learning project. It might be recruiting them for an internship or a full-time role. It might be sponsoring a research project. It might be anything in between. It might be continuing in professional ed. So it's really about building those partnerships and getting that flywheel turning. And one of our participants had this great great program, the Learning Partners Program in Athens State which is a completion institution upper level, 100% transfer, and they have partnerships with local industry where you have direct enrollment, discounted tuition, and you can manage that as a relationship and work with those folks in lots of different ways in the classroom on a career path. And finally, once you have the curriculum, the development, the partnership and you get that flywheel turning, the best way to keep it turning is by integrating work and learning, right? Not thinking about these things as separate, but thinking about experiential learning, thinking about how career development is woven into the curriculum. Fun fact only twenty... Or maybe not so fun, but only twenty-four percent of students take a career development course in their four years or two years of undergrad. So a lot of where this is getting stuck is we have this old model that you develop career-ready competencies in spare time that you don't have, as opposed to integrating it into—into the student experience and integrating work within learning. So those are some of the insights you can find in the white paper and hopefully put into practice. But it's one thing to hear about these insights and these strategies and gloss over a case study. It's another thing to hear from the people that are doing it every day. And so I'm really excited to do that listening right now. And we're gonna go through the first question, and it's really about where our panel sees gaps or sees alignment between curriculum, co-curriculars, between the student experience and industry needs.
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Rupa Saran: So it's not only about the gap in curriculum, which we know there is, but I think there is also the visibility gap between the curriculum versus the workforce development or the labor market, what they're looking for. So that where the huge gap is, and how do we design it? How do we bring it back? And I think even in your white paper, Elliot, you shared about it, it takes long time to go through the curriculum development, approval. You approve at your district level, it go to this, chancellor's office level, and then it comes back. By the time that curriculum get approved, we're done. That, that there, there's no new thing coming, right? Yeah. So we have to be really moving so fast. One of the examples that we actually did at our district was, I'm from the technology side, so I'll give you that example. So Mac users, we have, we deploy Mac machines, but the management of that is, the backend tool is called Jamf. And that's not really taught because on Microsoft side, Cisco side, they have all these certifications. But on the Mac side, there is no certification. It's really hard to get people to do that, so we start talking with Apple and it's like how do we design this? We want to have this certification program, and we actually moved really fast. Within a semester, we got the program. The reason we got it is because we partner with Apple and Jamf, and that's where I think those are the silos that we have to break and bring the industry leaders and design it so that we can actually push it out, then students can start, learn and then actually go get a job.
Noah Brown: I'm gonna add on to that. The first thing is we have to realize we don't own the monopoly. There are lots of players in this world. There are for-profit providers, there are third-party certifiers, there are industry, there are labor unions, and on. I heard just recently that we now have 1.5 million industry-validated certificates. None of those were created in higher education. They were all created externally. So that kind of begs the question as I move around the country and talk to presidents and look at programs and talk to employers, it begs the question, which was actually raised in the presidents panel this morning, are the programs that we currently have even relevant to where the world of work is and where it's moving very quickly? Related to that I hear a lot from higher education leaders and others that they don't necessarily know what the skill sets are that employers are looking for. And in fact, having talked to a few employers, they can't tell me exactly what the skill sets are that they're looking for. That's a challenge, isn't it? So when I was working in the Department of Education one of the things that was handed to me was thinking about all the infrastructure investments that the then administration was making. And so I talked to a lot of colleges about this. I'll give you one example. If you're looking at electric vehicles—there are a lot of colleges in southeastern Michigan, which is where I grew up, that would love to really up their game on EV production repair and troubleshooting and so forth. If they talk to GM, Ford, or Stellantis and say, "Hey, can we get one of your cars so that the students can work on it?" The answer is no, you cannot, because it's full of proprietary software, and the last thing we're gonna let happen is a bunch of young, eager students to start tearing into this and putting it out on social media or TikTok or whatever. I'm not a social media guy, so I may be dating myself. Okay, forget TikTok. So one of the things we started talking about, which I think is a model and some of you may be pursuing, is, okay, fine. How about we do this? And I think some of those colleges are now working in this area. Let's do this. Let us have you bring the faculty and the students to the shop floor, go inside the four walls, look at the stuff, learn the stuff, sign NDAs, whatever it is has to happen, train those students up so they get a real industry-verified certificate, and then hire them at the end. That way, the students are getting the skills, they have access to the technology, they're earning a real industry-verified credential, and they get a job, which last time I checked is, I think, what all of you would like to see your students get at the end of the day.
Antwon Foreman: I probably should preface this before I go deeper into it. I teach—entrepreneurship innovation, but I do it differently than most institutions do. Most institutions use a VC-based model where they basically talk about how to legalize the business, how to get funding, and the curriculum is wrapped around that. The way I teach entrepreneurship innovation is I teach them how to create value systemically. If I can teach them how to create value, communicate value, position value, and leverage value, it doesn't matter if they go corporate or they work for themselves—they know how to navigate the ecosystem. And another huge piece about being an entrepreneurial mind in that way is you tend to look at what you can control, not what you can't. And I think JSON—oftentimes we look at the curriculum factor, and we know how long it takes to get a curriculum through higher ed. But we overlook the ability to position these things into assignments within the current curriculum and in their extracurriculars. Yeah. Everything I do in my center is completely extracurricular. So when I say we engage 6,000 students in some way, shape, or form on our campus, that's completely through extracurricular, non-engaging directly with the curriculum for the most part. The way I've been able to change the curriculum development actually is bringing faculty and bringing employers into the extracurricular activities, having them engage, and then the light bulb goes off naturally within them that they want these activities in their classroom, and then partnering with them to actually go through that process. As someone who is not high on the academic totem pole—I've been able to navigate that through that influence to actually start doing curriculum changes. We currently have six different degree paths right now just in the business school that they're looking to revamp because of the things we're doing in the center. They were a bunch of extracurricular activities, and now they wanna ingrain so every student has access, whether that is Mindset Master Classes, whether that is hands-on experiential learning, whether it's DoD projects and governmental projects that we do, or whether it's pipelines into our study abroad programs and other programs that we have. I think we overlook the ability to do bottom-up leadership—as we wait for top-down leadership.
Norman Palmer: Something that, that really interests me in this space I haven't been here long, I've been here for about six months now but something that I often reflect on are the durable skills that need to be acquired by students in general in order for those skills to be transferable in the workforce. So my undergrad is in philosophy. I'm a Morehouse grad, and one of the things that I always refer back to are the formal rules of logic when it comes to implementation of any type of curricula. And that, that's... I think that's fundamental to anything that we're driving towards is driving towards some form of truth, right? So modus tollens, modus ponens, fallacy of asserting the consequent, the circular argument, those types of things when we think about higher education and their application. We at CCA, we have a program that we're currently running, it's called the AI Readiness Consortium, and we're doing it in partnership with the Axom Collaborative in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So we do a lot of work with Harvard and MIT on this subject. And currently, we have five consortia that we're working with. We're working with CUNY Tri-C out of Cleveland, we have Pikes Peak Community College Colleges I believe they're here in Denver. And then we also are working with Metro Atlanta the Metro State Community Colleges in Atlanta, but I'm saying all that to say that we have found ways to partner with both private industry and directly with community colleges to work directly with those companies that are doing the hiring. So they're working directly with the community colleges using an AI-based platform to connect, as you stated, need, and business value. So institutions of higher learning are gonna have to rethink some of that. I think that the pedagogical shifts towards those durable skills are gonna be fundamental and foundational as we look forward and we really start implementing artificial intelligence capabilities into institutions of higher learning. And there's so much more that we're gonna discuss today, but I think that's some of the foundation.
Elliot Felix: So we've just heard about these examples of alignment in action, and I think a great place to go next, if for no other reason than that's the next question we have prepared is to understand the role of data and technology in creating and sustaining that alignment. So I'd love to hear from our panel the ways you're using data and technology to make all the great things you mentioned happen.
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Antwon Foreman: For me, like I said, I look at what I can control first. So I look at it from a student perspective. As a faculty member and as a director I engage with the students, but I intentionally make sure I'm collecting data based on those students' interest, what are they looking at, what kind of businesses they wanna work for. For example, I know how many students wanna work for corporate, nonprofit, start their own, and/or work for a social enterprise. I know the areas of interest those students actually wanna go into or learn more about. And I correlate that and kinda communicate that with employers to figure out that need. And honestly, I treat the employers more like a partner than I do an external individual. And bringing them in to have those conversations, having some directly with the students to reinforce what we know is gonna be coming up. But also using that almost like a qualitative research measure, that as they're talking with students, I'm able to collect that data, document it, and feed it back into a lot of our data systems to figure out how to rearrange our extracurricular activities, but also who to pair those activities with. We use four different kind of digital systems to figure out and collect that data across the board with student activities to go through that process.
Noah Brown: I would say what's very exciting and what is beginning to happen, and I would consider it's the holy grail of data and integration, is the ability for institutions to understand fully their labor market, what's going on, where the jobs are coming from, where they're going, and for students then to be directed in those areas marrying up curriculum and programs that align beautifully with that. And then the most important piece, which people often forget, is coupling it with wage data. If you're like me, when you were ever interviewing for any job or looking at any job, probably first and foremost in your mind was what would the job pay? And then make an assessment if you thought you were gonna be paid commensurate with your value. Now, the good news is it's happening. There are some things happening here, I know, in Ellucian where they're beginning to look at how they integrate those data. There are other platforms that do that. But for me, as I said, the Holy Grail really becomes when a student can enter an institution, understand fully all the opportunities, the pathways they need to pursue, and what those jobs pay, and what their future holds in terms of promotion. And I think this will be the most exciting combination of data, curricula, and guided pathways that we've seen certainly up to this point.
Norman Palmer: I see it in a couple of lights. Curriculum is definitely gonna have to shift the way I see it with regards to the overlay of artificial intelligence. And, one of the challenges that institutions are having in my experience with Complete College America is everybody's asking where do I begin? And that challenge really starts with an understanding of what the technology offers, that it is not a silver bullet or a silver arrow. It does not solve all of your problems. There are use cases that you need to align to, to ensure that technology is going to spur the type of innovation that you need in order for your institution to be attractive to those employers that are out there that are gonna be hiring your students. So that's a big part of it that I'm seeing. So institutions are going through this institutional transformation, and it takes time to to address that. But we have to find a way to speed that up in a meaningful way, I think.
Rupa Saran: So my dear friends, I do have a solution. So the reason I wanted to hear all my colleagues and I wanted to talk about what we are actually doing and bringing the value. So when you were speaking, you said you go to four different systems. And you were talking about the connections with labor market, you're talking about the innovation. Bottom line is we have data, we have technology, but it's siloed, right? And we have to merge it. So in the beginning when I did my own intro, I mentioned about Common Cloud, the data infrastructure that for California Community Colleges that we're building. Bottom line is we're bringing the data, and we started this project as a demonstration project. So with any technology, especially if you wanna do system-wide, it's, you can't just start the whole shebang. You have to like, "Let's make sure, will this work? Let's demonstrate." And especially if legislators are funding, they wanna make sure that you're gonna deliver. So we started off that way with our state chancellor, Chancellor Christian, and we literally demonstrated. We started with six districts. We added seven more districts. So we have data from different systems. So my district uses Banner. There's some colleagues in PeopleSoft. We brought that data in and standardized, cleaned. Now there is a data lake available to us that is AI-enabled, right? Just using any data won't work with AI, so we have to bring it to that level. And now we can start integrating. So whether it's the labor market, whether it's the salary, whether it... whatever it is, jobs. So if we can start bringing everything into that lake—that's the solution that we need. So I'm very excited that we started, and then we will start bringing more and more integrations to the system.
Antwon Foreman: Another thing I wanted to add is copywriting—oftentimes we can get so focused on national partners—that we don't look at local partners. Yep. Yep. Exactly. And we can slip into a pattern accidentally in higher ed in harvesting talent and potential, and not developing and activating talent and potential. And if we really wanna do that, we have to go down on a local scale and make sure there's opportunities across the board and engagement across the board throughout the entire ecosystem and every type of student.
Elliot Felix: I think that's a great point. And we're gonna open it up for questions in a minute, but before we do, and to give you all time to formulate amazing questions I have a final kind of lightning round question for our panel. It's often a fine line between struggle and success, so I would love one piece of advice you each have, quickly on successful implementation. What's the one thing you would... if you had 30 seconds to tell someone about trying to replicate or learn from your success at their institution?
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Norman Palmer: Thank you, Elliot. Really I really think that it's failing... I shouldn't say failing fast, but I will say it. Trying, right? A lot of times we have analysis paralysis and not getting our thoughts enacted. So I think that it's essential that institutions of higher learning really start working with the technology, being open to a collaborative discourse, seeing what your partners are doing at other institutions, and having that real robust dialogue on what works and what is not working, and continue to iterate off of that. Really simple.
Rupa Saran: So don't wait for the perfect time. It's never gonna be a perfect time. And start with small, like what I shared with demonstration piece. Demonstrate first. Make sure that it's gonna work, then you can scale. And the most importantly, the lens has to be the student. So if you keep your lens focused on the student, how is this gonna benefit? Literally, it falls everything in place. So that's what my advice.
Antwon Foreman: One thing I've learned is how much higher ed institutions are honestly very low risk. And because of that, I know that is an understatement. You noticed that, too? Yeah. But because of that, I do not pitch potential. I don't pitch programs. I only pitch pilots. And I find the champions I need to figure out to coach them and to go through that process so we can get the data to prove the impact. And if I have to, I'll be the champion that's needed to make sure it goes through. But what I've learned is once you can get the numbers and quantify and show that impact, the flood gates begin to open magically randomly, because they can see the potential in the numbers, and not just wait on it.
Noah Brown: I'll just share what Master Yoda has taught me. And that is, "Do or do not, there is no try."
Elliot Felix: Which is a, an interesting compliment to Norman of saying, what you gotta do is try and fail. So I love it. We have a little tension on the panel, and maybe in the audience too. I don't know. But all. Good advice. And and going in through the side door with pilots, I love it, and extracurriculars. So what questions do you have for our panel about how we connect the courses students take and their extracurrics the skills they build, the jobs they want that employers need?
Audience: Thank you, everyone. I think rightfully this has been a local discussion, aligning local institutions with employers. But at what point does this bridge out into either regional or statewide conversation? Or I'm from New England, and even a wider regional, if there are institutions that can't find those employers for a match, or conversely, if there are employers that are looking for skills and they can't find them locally, are they gonna look elsewhere? Does this ultimately become a competitive game? or?
Rupa Saran: It's okay. I can—So for us we start with local. We have in our region there are four districts, so we engage with the employers there at that level. But to your point, if that is not working, then we can go to outside our region because these days a lot of things are virtual. You could do what you need to do, especially with technology. So that's like our thought process, and that's how we engage, too. So even for our students, it's okay, we have talent, we can have apprenticeship for them, but it doesn't have to be local. It can be either, up north in our state or maybe, nationally, too. But it's just that you have to get those relationship built and all those labor market to come to you and then have that, that discussion.
Antwon Foreman: For me I actually started federal. So I started on the national level federally, and then worked my way back down to local doing projects that I could bring the community in on. And then en-engaging with both national and local employers through those activities that allowed me to get that leverage to get into the curriculum. I think oh-oftentimes we overlook that path in that our governments have issues they're trying to solve—that our local federal state... we do a lot of work with the DOD. I've helped them with their university engagement strategy nationally and a lot of the other agencies. I think it's finding the in. And I think the other thing is we know that our students have value. We know that our institutions have value. But one thing I knew I needed to do, especially as a HBCU, was prove that value to the ecosystem so they're willing to exchange something for that value. And once I found that in for me governmentally and with certain targeted organizations, they became the evidence and the pilot to spread that out on a national and on a local level.
Norman Palmer: I was... In response to your question quickly I would say the SHEEO's office is a really good place to start on the state level. Your local, your congressman or congresswoman talking to those congressional offices, stumping. I spent some time on Capitol Hill last month with 12 congressional offices and five senators. We had a robust discussion around workforce and alignment on opportunities for our learners, and that we need to do something on a national level because there are just too many gaps right now. So I... and I do agree with you. You start local. But it's important to also have the federally mandated policies in place to help gird and enforce moving in that direction.
Elliot Felix: As we think about our next question, the one thing I'll add is you mentioned competition. I think differentiation is a really important thing that hasn't come up yet. And whether it's, your focus on EVs or whatever the specific application might be, unless you have something different to offer, then you're competing for the same students and the same employer partners. But the moment you have some kind of differentiation, some kind of positioning then you can actually complement each other, and then you can much more likely play on a national stage because you're doing something specific and different. Other, another great question. Or even just a mediocre question. No. This is gonna be great, I'm sure. Oh, no pressure. Huh? No.
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Audience: This is actually for Dr. Foreman. I heard you earlier speak about how you were connecting entrepreneurship with study abroad, and the students are earning. I think I would just love to hear a little bit more about that, and I think people would benefit from hearing about that. So if you could expound on that would be great.
Antwon Foreman: I created basically an entirely different study abroad model away from traditional study abroad. Anybody who's been abroad on study abroad know it can be expensive. Those trips for two to three weeks can range from 4,500 to 7,000. If you're going for a semester now, it can range sometimes up to 20,000 for those trips. But what I learned overall was, and especially looking at data, is that study abroad actually increases a student's likelihood of graduating in four years by over 70%. Wow. It increases their likelihood to get a higher salary by literally another 70%. The exposure that happens in study abroad is not just transformative to their mindset, it's transformative to their career path. So once I fully understood that, I was like, "How do I make it more accessible?" And the way I did that was creating a class structure where students actually write the business plan, the execution strategy, and they start the business in one semester. In six months, it's going from 30 to 40 students who some of them don't even know each other. They collectively make a business targeting a certain product. For example, for Dubai, we do perfume and cologne. Brazil, we do coffee. For Japan, we do tea. They go through the full startup process and make on average 45 to 60,000 a semester that goes back toward paying the study abroad down to make it more accessible for everyone in the class. Nice. And then we go overseas, and instead of doing obvious traditional museum visits and cathedral visits, we meet with employers and suppliers, and they actually have class assignments where they have to negotiate with these individuals to make sure they have a supply chain network that when they finish the class, you have a business in your back pocket. So if they go corporate, great, but if they ever need a business to make revenue for themselves, sustain themselves, they already have a prepackaged business on the back end which increases access, it increases social and economic mobility, but it also increases their engagement, and it changes their mindset across disciplines and gives them the confidence to be successful.
Elliot Felix: That's amazing stuff. Join me in thanking our panel. Yay. Thanks for listening to the Connected College podcast. Go to Elliot felix.com for more information about my book, the Connected College articles I've written and talks I've given. There's also tools you can download information on upcoming events and information on booking me to speak at your institution or organization. Please support the podcast by rating it and reviewing it wherever you're listening. Let's create connected colleges where all students succeed.