How can you implement evidenced-based practices for more engaging and equitable teaching and learning across research universities? What systems and process within them need to change? How can universities collaborate with peer institutions and with employers to get better outcomes? We discuss these questions with Julia Michaels, Director of Development and Strategic Partnerships at UERU, the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities.

What role can mentoring play in student success? What are the surprising attributes that make for a good match? How can mentors connect students to other support on campus and online? How can data inform effective mentoring, reporting, and retention? How can working with a partner bring expertise, consistency, and scale? We dive into these fascinating questions and more with Erin Mayhood, CEO of Mentor Collective.

How can you get beyond the doom and gloom headlines to talk through how institutions can be more hopeful about their futures? How to build trust in those futures? What role can pilot programs and projects can play? We discuss these with Greg Pillar, Assistant Provost for Academic Affairs at Gardner-Webb University and author of the white paper “Rewiring the Academy: Leading with Hope in an Age of Chaos” and the "Field Notes from the Academic Edge" Newsletter

How can you transform higher education through human-centered design? How can you listen to people and gather insights that inform and inspire changes to programs and policies? What role can design play in helping institutions get real results to improve their student experience? We dive into these questions with the Radka Newton, Michael Doherty, and Jean Mutton, co-editors of the great book Transforming Higher Education with Human Centered Design.

How can you go from disparate technology systems and student services to a unified, personalized, and interactive digital hub to better support students? How can these bring together the services and information students need to drive engagement and retention while saving time and reducing costs? What is the role of AI in supporting students? We dive into these questions and the digital transformation needed to make it all happen with Chase Williams, CEO and co-founder of Pathify.

How can you use the data you already have (but aren't looking at) to predict student success? How can you create incentives to drive the adoption of high-impact practices? How can you build caring, mentoring relationships that increase student success? We dive into these questions with Jeff Doyle, Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life at Southwestern University and prolific blogger/poster of "Deep Thoughts on Higher Ed."

How can you combine people and an AI-powered virtual assistant to provide wraparound student support? How can you do this in way that makes things easier for the staff and faculty supporting students rather than adding more platforms and passwords? What are the right student success measures for institutions and how to you tie detailed data to the big picture? We dive into these and other questions with Melvin Hines, co-founder and CEO of Upswing.

What are the competencies employers want and students need? How can you redesign your general education curriculum to deliver on those? As you do, how might you integrate AI, foster experiential learning, and engage with industry? We talk about all this and more (like a 90 credit hour degree!) with Brad Fuster, Provost at San Francisco Bay University where they are really reimagining what a university can and should be.

How can you reimagine student employment as experiential learning? What projects can students work on to learn and grow while helping their university? What skills and relationships can they build along the way? We dive into these questions with Julia Allworth who founded and leads University of Toronto's Innovation Hub which trains students in design thinking and deploys them as consultants on projects improve the student experience.

How can institutions collaborate to share courses? How does this enable focus and differentiation? What do you have to change from mindset to culture to operations to make it happen? We dive into these questions with Josh Pierce co-founder of course sharing platform Acadeum. Along the way, we use the analogy of travel to think about the student journey – and see what can be learned from the travel industry itself.

How does an unconventional path to the presidency offer new perspectives? How can colleges and universities equip students to lead lives of meaning and purpose? How can leaders balance tradition and innovation to create living learning communities? How can students own their experiences and belong? We dive into these questions with Suzanne Rivera, President of Macalester College

How can you create and operate an Honors College to make a big place feel small? How do you get the scale right to balance quantity and quality? How can you balance giving people what they want versus what's good for their growth and development? We dive into these questions with Sarah Holtan, Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences at Carroll University and Host of The Get Down to College Business Podcast.

Instead of silos and separations, we need colleges and universities where all students feel a sense of belonging, courses lead to rewarding careers, students have the support to succeed, and everyone works together to make this happen, To learn how, listen to the introduction to The Connected College in this free preview of the audiobook. It's an encouraging, evidenced-based playbook for busting silos so that students succeed.

What are the big ideas in The Connected College? What are the barriers to collaboration for student success and how do you get over or around them? I recently had the chance to give a keynote talk at the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities where I answered these questions and more. I talked about strategy, structure, and culture as barriers and went through case studies on how to address each while responding to trends reshaping higher ed.

How can you bring people from different countries and cultures together to create a better world? What are the evidence-based practices to promote interaction, strengthen communities, and take risks? How can you improve empathy, understanding, and communication? We dive into these questions with Shaun Carver, Executive Director of International House at the University of California Berkeley.

How do you define student success? What role can technology play in student success? What data do you need to understand the student jounrney and make better decisions? What can colleges and universities learn from other industries? We discuss these questions and more with Joe Sallustio, VP of Industry Engagement at Ellucian and Host of the EdUp Experience podcast.

Who are their students, what are their needs, and how are they changing? How can you redesign your policies and processes to increase students success at scale? We dive into these questions with Terry Brown, VP of Academic Innovation at AASCU, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

How can you capture students' voices? What are the success stories that spark change? How can you act on this information and inspiration? We discuss these questions with Melissa Ezarik, Editor at Inside Higher Ed leading their Student Voice surveys and Student Success News Hub.

What are the forces changing how college and university boards work? What does good governance in higher education look like? How can boards effectively balance oversight, insight, and foresight? We dive into these questions with board governance consultant and host of the Changing Higher Ed Podcast, Drumm McNaughton, sharing insights and examples.

What are the forces reshaping college athletics? How can institutions respond? How can they better support student athletes to enable their success? We discuss these questions and more with professor and podcast host Karen Weaver from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and the "Trustees and Presidents: A Podcast for University Leaders On College Athletics."