Wendy Colby (Boston University) on Building a Unified Online Student Experience

On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, host Amrit Ahluwalia was joined by Wendy Colby to discuss the need to expand and scale online offerings, and the changing workforce dynamics that leaders need to keep an eye on. 

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Voiceover: Welcome to Illumination by Modern Campus, the leading podcast focused on transformation and change in the higher education space. On today’s episode, we speak with Wendy Colby, who is the Inaugural Vice President and Associate Provost of BU Virtual at Boston University. Wendy and podcast host Amrit Ahluwalia discuss the need to expand and scale online offerings, and the changing workforce dynamics that leaders need to keep an eye on. 

Amrit Ahluwalia (00:33): Wendy Colby, welcome to the Illumination Podcast. It's great to be chatting with you.

Wendy Colby (00:37):Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Amrit Ahluwalia (00:39):Absolutely. Well, you are the inaugural vice president of BU Virtual. It's a new vision, it's a new approach that Boston University is taking to the online space. What led the university to launch the unit?

Wendy Colby (00:52):Yeah, well thanks for that question. I'm really excited to be part of Boston University to have the privilege of working with our schools and colleges across BU really in the advancement of our online programming for bu. And this has really been part of our efforts to reach new segments of learners across the world. So what's really interesting for BU is we've long been an innovator in this space and almost every sector, right? If you think about healthcare, you think about business sustainability, climate change, data science, you name it. And so we have world renowned faculty and staff, and we also have a history of leading online programs. So we've been in this business for the better part of the last 20 years, largely through our continuing education unit, which is called Metropolitan College at bu. And we have a variety of programs here that range from computer science and criminal justice and public policy.

(01:42):And we were also among the first to introduce a new online master of social work program some years ago. But we also recognized at BU that models have been evolving and we had the opportunity to expand online in new ways, and we wanted to think about it more in terms of scaled ways. And so BU made a very strategic decision to elevate our focus to establish a unit through both the president's and provost office, so at a very senior leadership level here to really put online on the map and make it a vital part of our 2030 strategic plan. So that shows you how focused we are on this as really a strategic initiative for the university. I also want to say that I think the pandemic really accelerated the call for innovation and digital transformation inside our university and inside universities in general, I think is certainly what we are seeing.

(02:32):So beyond the walls of the classroom. So there was a recognition that we can serve a wider range of learners so that they have access to courses and programs. And particularly for those students who might never have the opportunity to come to Boston, we are reaching them in new ways and really upskilling and reskilling. And so I think there's never been a more important time to think about some of these new models, to think about how we attract the workforce and really extend our online programming at scale. And so again, very much a strategic effort for BU and really a focus on how do we put this together in a way that will bring together our colleges and universities and amplify the impact for all.

Amrit Ahluwalia (03:15):Absolutely. And to that topic, I mean, when you start to think about this level of alignment and you start to think about this level of, not centralization, but maybe consolidation, how important is that work to creating a more central streamlined and a more unified experience of being a student, an online student to Boston University as opposed to when each department kind of operates in their own silos?

Wendy Colby (03:46):Yeah, it's a really great question. On the one hand, we still want to honor the focus that each of our schools and colleges has as it relates to whether you're in our business school or you're in our school of public health or you're in our computing and data science center. But if every one of those schools is replicating what they do when it comes to instructional design or enrollment management or the way technology supports online operations, it becomes really ineffective. And moreover, you can't scale.

(04:17):And so what we try to do is bring that expertise into one place, certainly continuing to leverage our core technology, leverage our teams across instructional design and work in partnership with our faculty. So we have world renowned faculty and staff, and so we want to bring them center stage with us, but in a way that will scale. And so we also look at how we scale around a learning facilitator or teaching assistant model as part of our programs. And so we have an expertise, we bring an expertise here in online, which is very different from traditional university operations. I often say you can't just copy paste from traditional to online. And so I think finding ways to coordinate these activities across the university in ways that scale can scale and sustain really, really important.

Amrit Ahluwalia (05:12):Absolutely. It's so interesting coming back to the topic of scale, how central scale and effective scaling is to this work. It's something I remember we did years ago with Paul Leblanc talking about the unbundling of different roles within the institution. And the point he was making was that if folks can spend their time and energy focusing on the things they're experts in,

Creates the opportunity for the institution to become greater than the sum of its parts. I mean, I'm massively paraphrasing here, but that was the idea. And it's interesting to see that in action where you've used the term, we bring in expertise and I think it's a critical component of thinking about the future university because it really is about how do we leverage multiple expertises in a way that benefits the student.

Wendy Colby (05:56):Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right Across our university, again, we've done so many great things that I think are entrepreneurial in nature in each of our schools and colleges, and perhaps that's where online started as well. And now let's harness the power of that so that students have a common digital experience, something that I like to call it, be worthy. Whether you come into our online MBA program or online master of public health program, you have a similar experience in the online world. That's where I think we can bring a level of expertise. The best online is not just turning on Zoom.

(06:37):The best online is when you have that kind of combination of really understanding what are the learning objectives, what are the learning outcomes? What will that overall student journey be? How am I going to collaborate with my peers and with my faculty members or with my learning facilitators, what does that look like? How do I enrich that experience? And so we look for ways that we're really, I'll call it catalyzing that digital experience, paying a lot of attention to that student journey, bringing the best of those elements in an immersive way to students. And again, I think that's really important. And it also helps demystify for many, including faculty that we're just taking a residential class and putting it online.

(07:18):So this is a different model to meet students where they are today and to have an experience like this mirror the kinds of experiences they have in other parts of their digital lives.

Amrit Ahluwalia (07:28):Absolutely. And it's such a key point too, that when students think about the experience they're getting from a post-secondary institution, they're not comparing it to Boston College or Tufts. They're thinking about Amazon and Netflix and GrubHub and those kinds of experiences. I am curious, what did it take to get this off the ground? I mean, it's a massive collaboration and I'm also going to be stealing a little bit from your upcoming session. Now we're together in Washington dc we're at the EA acro conference focused on micro-credentialing. You're presenting on the work that you did to create that alignment. So I'm curious, how did BU virtual build those relationships with the registrar's office, the continuing education office, to really help folks see what you were bringing to the table and where that relationship could stem from?

Wendy Colby (08:17):I think it's just as you said, right? It is all about partnership and it's all about collaboration. And our work too is a very collaborative effort. And while this was spawned by the president's and provost office, which I think really helps from a leadership perspective,

(08:32):You can't underestimate, right? The energy you need to put into developing out those relationships. So one of the first things I did when I joined Boston University was form a BU virtual advisory group. And this consisted of deans and senior academic leaders across the institution as a way to elevate awareness, refine our focus, do this in a collective way, right? Get ownership, get buy-in. This isn't just what the leader of virtual is leading. This is an initiative that is led by the university. So I think that partnership piece remains really vital. I think what also has helped us is the early success. We've seen in some of our, what I'll call our new online at scale initiatives, really new business models, if you will, for the university. And this started with the launch of a new online MBA program at scale. So we also offered this at what we call a disruptive price point at a $24,000 price point.

(09:31):And very different than what you see in traditional models in our portfolio, in our business school, we of course have a residential MBA, we have a part-time MBA, and now an online MBA. And we have just seen tremendous success with this program. And I think it has elevated for our campus and for our community, the possibility, the potential of a very new business model. Initially, it did have resistance from some of our faculty members and our staff on what would this mean? Would we cannibalize other programs? We haven't seen that at all. In fact, it's opened up brand new segments for the university and students from all over the world. These are students who are directors, they're VPs and organizations today. And so it's been really wonderful to see that dynamic coming together and also as part of our own access mission, this way to open up opportunities students we would not otherwise attract.

(10:27):So I think that served as a good model for us, and we've now expanded that into several others. So again, collaboration with our business school. We then collaborate with our school of public health there. We have also launched a new online master of public health, also at a disruptive price point. We're doing the same in data science. We're focused on areas where there are high demand signals in the space and as a way to elevate and grow the portfolio for our schools. I'm particularly focused at the graduate level. One of the big trends we are seeing across our space writ large in universities is softening of graduate residential programs. And so I think that's creating some motivation for our deans and our academic leaders to say, we've got to look at other options. Students want choices. They want mobility. They want flexibility. They don't want to step out of their day to day.

(11:18):So I think that is what has really helped catalyze. Finally, I would say that I think building the alignment and capability is also really critical to delivering quality programs at scale and sustaining that growth. And we have had to build muscle here, and I talk about that a lot, and especially in critical areas, whether it's instructional design, faculty support, learning, experiences that matter, enrollment management, marketing, the broader technology ecosystem to support all this for online. And we do this with staff, we also do this with partnerships. And so I'm always reminding my teams that the residential online operations do work differently

Wendy Colby (12:01):They have to coexist. And while there's a lot we can leverage, we're not trying to be out on an island here. There are also very different expectations that have to be part of that journey. And as I talk to many of my colleagues at this conference and elsewhere, I think this is a common theme, how you make space in what can be very traditional universities to develop and grow a more innovative at scale online operation that can be sustained over time. So that's a work in progress, and I think it's often a muscle that we have to build.

Amrit Ahluwalia (12:35):It's a fascinating perspective, and you'd mentioned sort of the concerns around cannibalization being offset very, very quickly by the recognition that, oh, we're actually attracting very new learners that we wouldn't have been able to access anyway. How important was it to have some early wins, especially as it relates to bringing in new audiences of learners to creating or maybe doubling down on buy-in to the project of BU virtual in general?

Wendy Colby (13:08):I think it was super critical. And I think the opportunity for our university, I will say again, we've had a lot of history with online and we've had a very proactive dean in our continuing education school, which is called Metropolitan College. And we've had quite a lot of success with our continuing education programs. But as you might expect, often in continuing education programs, they tend to mirror a little bit more of what I would call residential to online. We take a residential program, we turn it online, it follows the same calendar. There's often a fairly high touch with faculty and staff and support in this new online at scale model. We had to really think about this differently because now we're reducing our price point, but to reduce our price point, we have to look at how we support that and sustain that at scale.

(13:54):And also with the high quality that we want to continue to maintain as Boston University and with the rigor we want around our programs. And so this is why the online MBA program really was so critical. It was one of the first identified, we looked closely at demand sectors and what would drive enrollment. What's really interesting today is I watch this program now in entering its third or fourth year and continuing, we just hit our highest cohort size ever this past fall is it's become a very competitive market, right? Online programs are part of almost every university portfolio, over 750 online programs. That number keeps growing, right? That exists today. And so I think our ability to showcase that we could drive a program at scale where by the way, our retention rates in these programs are 95% or more. So the programs are doing really well.

(14:53):We're also attracting students. This was an interesting data point for us. The recent cohort, only 16% of our students are coming from Massachusetts. And while there's still often a regional trend around online programs, we're seeing an increasing global base, a national base around these programs. So it's really been fascinating to watch that. But I think all the learnings that have come out of that, all the things that we had to do to really put the, I'll call it the ecosystem together around operating that program, it's helped us to then look at how do we do this in other programs as well? And I think it's also built this sense of community, built the knowledge base. Now there's a, how can we do a program like that? And so that's a bit of what I often call these education sessions. One of the things I'm most proud of at BU as well still being relatively new there is I'm often bringing together people across our university who've never met before. There were not always options to come together to say, oh, you are doing enrollment here at this school versus that school. How might we come together? And so what I find when you bring these folks together, magic happens. There is a lot of energy and enthusiasm. I think we have, like I said earlier, a real entrepreneurial spirit for how we do things differently. Absolutely. But you got to keep moving that muscle, right? It's hard. 

Amrit Ahluwalia (16:16):It's neat, right? You're almost designing these informal communities of practice based around these excellent that different folks have. That's really cool. And it leads into, obviously you're an innovative leader. You've worked in all different segments of the post-secondary industry over the course of your career. What are some of the key things that you're doing to ensure that programming and credentialing does keep pace with market demand? As you laid out, you are a demand-based organization while at the same time making sure that there's a strong alignment with the academic quality and excellence of the university itself.

Wendy Colby (16:51):Yeah, it's such a great question. And I'm often drawing on my previous experiences. Sometimes I call myself more of a business person in university clothing. And increasingly what I see is you need the marriage of both, right? The academic and the business side to really think about how you're growing a portfolio of programs. And so I think it's really important first to look at the market and to look at the segmentation and what's happening in the labor force today, and what are the skills that will be needed and where is the student demand and how can we reach those learners who may not be just seeking a degree, for example. It's one of the reasons we're at this conference and how do we stay with them throughout their learning journey. So I look at the shifts we're seeing today, a recent report out of McKinsey calls this the AI and data economy.

(17:37):So I am thinking a lot about the shifts that we'll need to make to upskill and re-skill learners. There's a lot of dialogue even at this conference around those who might have pursued more non-traditional paths and have prior learning. And how do you equate that now, particularly in more traditional universities that say, well, we need to have the bachelor's degree for you to matriculate to the graduate degree. How do we think about the role of certificates and credentials as part of that pathway and as a way to stack into a degree if a degree is your pathway of choice? And so I think about choice a lot employers, and we're starting to work pretty closely with employers too, and look at ways in which we might create things like corporate tech degrees and certificates to again satisfy the workforce because the workforce is also looking at universities like ours to bring that academic innovation and to bring the credibility. And so universities should play a vital role in that, but we have to open the conversations and do this together, not have this divide between this is workforce and this is university, and never the twain shall meet.

(18:46):So I think you can have this quality at scale and the kinds of partnerships I think that we're forming and bringing together, what does it mean to be innovative, provide quality, have the rigor, but also recognize that speed and flexibility and skills on demand and relevance, that's workforce essential.

Amrit Ahluwalia (19:05):Yes.

Wendy Colby (19:05):And so I think this is a work in progress. What I have found is the more I bring the workforce in and some of the industry players in, and we start to see skills and demand, I've even had some of my colleagues say, wow, it's a brave new world out there, and we better embrace that. So it takes, I think this new mindset it takes, universities are changing, there's transformation underway, and how can we be a change agent in that process while also ensuring we maintain our brand reputation, our quality, our rigor, all the things that got us to the place we are today.

Amrit Ahluwalia (19:46):I mean, it's kind of interesting too. Sure, there's a level of demystifying that you're actively doing where I think in the higher ed space, especially at the university level, especially at sort of tier one R one institutions, the concept of workforce feels somewhat beneath the purpose or the mission of the institution. But the more folks actually understand what goes into an up-skilling or a re-skilling experience, the more folks actually start to engage with professional learners. It's a very different mindset that you start to adopt as you demystify what this actually all looks like.

Wendy Colby (20:21):Yes. And perhaps it's also how you amplify the great things that are already going on across the university. I find pockets everywhere where we're doing internships globally, working with major companies around the globe, but it's also isolated. It's often isolated just to that particular need. And now let's think about how we might really open up some of those partnerships in a way, again, for scale, for growth to reach more learners inside of these workplaces. And so I think that is the opportunity we have today.

Amrit Ahluwalia (20:53):Absolutely. So as a leader, as someone who's got a pretty keen eye on what's going on, what are some of the key trends that you are watching that you expect to have a pretty lasting impact on our space?

Wendy Colby (21:05):Yeah. I think there's so many of them. I think one of the big ones everyone is obviously talking about is AI that will obviously have a big impact. I just spoke on a panel on AI and generative chat, GPT and Generat about weak or so ago. So we have to think about jobs, we have to think about skills. We have to think about impact and how we apply AI to learning, to enrollment trends to jobs. I think that will be a big thing. The other, I think common element for all of us is what we're seeing in terms of demographic shifts, the demographic cliff, we all talk about that we're all facing the changes due to the birth rate, what that means for universities, even for selective universities like mine, and how are we attracting, we talk about this a lot too, more first generation students, those who may have not followed a traditional path, and then how do we also extend into the adult workforce?

(21:57):And so I think these are new segments that we're all trying to better understand an approach and for the new skills and jobs that are changing at an accelerated speed, how to play a role in that for on-demand, learning for more partnership with industry and the workforce to marry skills to what the future jobs will be. I think there will be more pressure on career focused learning, stackable relevant modern formats, how we make that whole journey work. And for universities, we touched on this a little bit earlier, how are we embracing new models? So creating new pathways, new revenue streams, how to diversify and think about diversification in our overall portfolio between residential and online or even hybrid types of formats so that we're really meeting the learner where the learner is today. And I think so much of this, I think a lot about is how you accelerate and catalyze the change and to be those change agents to really be driving transformation.

(23:02):What does that mean? So that we don't get stuck in the inertia of our traditional models that may sustain many of us for some period of time, but we have to look at the signals that I think are going on right now relative to the changes in these markets and jobs changing. And that means a constant revitalization of our portfolios, not just hanging on to perhaps the programs and courses we've had for some period of time or a program that might've had three or four or five enrollments. How do we think about that differently? And so that's what I get excited about. That's where I think there's huge opportunity. And I think universities have this power, this opportunity, this obligation to really rethink and be the leaders and the pioneers in this change movement, right? Absolutely. So that's what I hope to do. I feel like I'm really trying to innovate with our teams from the inside out. Often the innovators will tell you can only innovate from the outside in, and I've been on all sides, but when you have the powerful force of a university like we do, I think there is this opportunity to look at how might we drive this transformation together.

Amrit Ahluwalia (24:20):Absolutely. Well, Wendy, I mean that pretty much does it on my end. And this is the stage of our podcast where we shift gears a little bit. So if someone's out to dinner in Boston, where do they need to go?

Wendy Colby (24:31):So I will say to you, I'm still fairly new to Boston. I moved to Boston from the Chicago area about a year ago, but I'm going to pick a small place called Barcino, and it's in Brookline. It's entirely employer owned. Now, what I love about it is I lived in Brookline for about a year when I moved to Boston. And so it was right in my hood, right in my neighborhood, and you'd run into colleagues, there'd be students serving you at the table. It's a bit of a BU company town area, but a lovely place. And you can sit at the bar, you might meet a doctor from our med campus. I've met new people just going into Barcino. So very friendly, very inviting, and a local neighborhood kind of place. And the hostess there is a lovely woman named Sam, and she often would say to me, here's how you remember her name, Sam, I am.

Amrit Ahluwalia (25:23):Awesome. Now I'm going to throw you for a bit of a loop. Then. If someone's out to dinner in Chicago, where do they need to go?

Wendy Colby (25:29):Oh gosh. Unfair. Let's see. A favorite place. I do miss my Chicago pizza. Deep dish pizza. Leona's Pizza.

Amrit Ahluwalia (25:40):Okay. I can respect that. Wendy, it's been a pleasure. Hey, thank you so much

Wendy Colby (25:44):For your time. Such pleasure. Thank you so much. I've enjoyed it.

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