Dick Senese (Capella University) on Making Higher Ed Flexible and Accessible Through Competency-Based Education

On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, guest host Shauna Cox was joined by Dick Senese to discuss the value of competency-based education and how to make education flexible and accessible for today’s working adults. 

Transcript

Voiceover (00:05): Welcome to Illumination by Modern Campus, the leading podcast, focus on transformation and change in the higher education space. On today's episode, we speak with Dick Senese, who is president of Capella University. Dick and podcast guest host Shauna Cox discussed the value of competency based education and how to make education flexible and accessible for today's working adult learners. 

Shauna Cox (00:30): Well, Dick, welcome to the Illumination Podcast. It's great to have you here. 

Dick Sense (00:32): Well, thanks. Thanks for having me. 

Shauna Cox (00:34): Not a problem. So, just starting off at the top, why is industry wide interest in competency based education growing? 

Dick Senese (00:44): Um, I think for a variety of reasons. I think we all, you know, long ago started talking about how, uh, we were becoming a knowledge based economy, right? And knowledge is growing. And so competencies help ensure that, uh, professionals and people in the workplace are attuned to the most recent kind of information skills and, and, you know, professional dispositions that are needed in the workplace. I think another reason is it's kind of concrete. It can be made transparent, right? There's less room for obfuscation if we say, you know, here's this degree program or this certificate and here are the competencies associated with it, and here are the ways in which person A demonstrated those and their level of proficiency at demonstrating those. So I think it just makes things clearer, keeps education more relevant and more up to date. I mean, those are, I think, some of the main reasons that we're seeing the interest in cbe. 

Shauna Cox (01:45): Absolutely. And you know, Capella University, they're not jumping on the band bandwagon right away. You guys have had a flex path model for what I hear now is in its 10th anniversary. So congratulations on that. Thank you. Um, so if you don't mind just talking a little bit about what motivated the university to create this model and how has it grown and gained momentum over its 10 years? 

Dick Senese (02:10): Yeah, sure. Well, you know, first off, Capella's 30 years old this year. So while Flex Path is 10, the university is 30. So it's a third of our entire 

Shauna Cox (02:19): Big anniversary year. 

Dick Senese (02:21): Huge anniversary year, right? We have cake every day, no <laugh>. Um, what really, you know, motivated us was the same motivation we've always had, right? To find a way to serve working adults who are seeking to advance in their profession by making education as flexible, affordable, and ensuring it's professionally relevant. The FlexPath model, while uh, you know, the curriculum is competency based, so is our guided path curriculum. So it's all competency based. What FlexPath does is it allows learners to do the courses on their own time and at their own pace. And the, the competency-based curriculum lends itself to that kind of pacing. Um, and that's what we call FlexPath. It's truly a, a major innovation in how to think about making education accessible. You know, so often accessibility ends at admission, but accessibility has to be extended to the day-to-day life of learner, the student. What are they experiencing? How can they fit this into their life, especially for working adults. And you know, that's kind of what motivated us, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and we saw an opportunity to really lean into something new and innovative that we had hoped, you know, uh, would work. And I think we've proven it out over the last 10 years. Mm-hmm. 

Shauna Cox (03:46): Absolutely. And so what kinda impact are you seeing on the student retention from this model? 

Dick Senese (03:53): What happens with Flex Path is we're seeing, you know, faster completion rates by programs because people can elect to do the program kind of at their own pace, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and about half, about 50% of bachelor's students will go faster than their counterparts in the traditional online program. So for every FlexPath formatted program we have, we have a guided path program, which is traditional online formatting. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. We recently did a study where we compared equally situated learners students in each of these programs through a method we call propensity score matching. You can read about it in the white paper if you're interested in the methodology, but the point is it allows us to test the model and it eliminates that criticism of, well, they were just self-selected. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So these are the same at the beginning, right? Half of the bachelor's learners go faster, you know, um, just over a third of the master's learners go faster. 

Dick Senese (04:58): Now, when we started this whole thing, we assumed everyone will go faster, <laugh>, right? But the truth is people like the flexibility since it's a whole nother level of agency and control and allows them to juggle all the things that are going on in their life. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? So we're seeing some really, um, improved time to completion. And we're also seeing, you know, higher graduation rates. The study we just released is a follow-on to a study we did five years ago, cuz five years ago we had fewer people in it, <laugh>. And you know, it might be early adopter bias, right? So how do we eliminate that? Well, if we redo the study, we eliminate that and we're seeing graduation rates that are faster by about 30% for those students who identify as white. And about TW just over 21% actually. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> for those students who identify as black or African American. So really impressive kind of results <affirmative> that I'm really proud of. All of us are here at Capella. Mm-hmm. 

Shauna Cox (06:00): Absolutely. And it's certainly, you know, an admirable model to follow. So for those who may be looking to change the way they do, introduce more, you know, CBE e at their inter institution, what are some of the challenges that might come with introducing this, you know, new business model within, you know, the traditional structure of higher education? 

Dick Senese (06:23): Well, I think you have, you have two sources of challenge, right? You have some internal to whatever institution you are and external. So internally, you have to be sure that the culture supports a laser focus on learner centrality. How we do things should be in the best way for the learner, even though it may not be the traditional schedule, right? Because I mean, in the United States, there are, depending on, you know, who you talk to, I suppose some are 30 to 40 million adults without a college degree, right? Well, how do we create a system that allows for those folks to complete while they maintain family, military, community work, other kind of commitments. It's sort of obvious, but it needs saying the system that produced 30 to 40 million people without a degree is not gonna be the format in the system that's gonna help them complete mm-hmm. 

Dick Senese (07:23): Absolutely we need, we need some new options, right? So that's number one is you have to have a commitment by the organization. At Capella, we've always been focused on this question, how do we become a leader? How do we innovate? How do we lead the way in new ideas and designs to provide high quality education for this learner population, the student population? Um, and then externally there are of course challenges, right? I mean, the way financial aid is structured, the whole idea of the credit hour as the most important thing to measure right? Now, you know, Shauna, I don't know where you went to college and but when I, when I went to college, right? I was measured by the seat time. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? So I took, you know, interpersonal communication com 1202, that's actually the course number by the way. <laugh>, it was three credit hours. 

Dick Senese (08:17): It meant Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I was measured on, did I sit in that seat, right? Competency based model. And in a, a direct assessment competency-based model, which FlexPath is I'm measured on, can I demonstrate the competencies of that course? Can I demonstrate the competencies of that course at a sufficient level of proficiency? And at Capella we use four levels cause we don't believe it's one and done. And we give people multiple opportunities to demonstrate each of the companies. So it's a challenge cuz externally people are still focused on that credit hour, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and people are still focused on, you know, the, the policies and the procedures around financial aid. All of that is still geared toward a credit hour. And you know, what we think of now is the traditional age college student, 18 to 22. But that's just not who's going to college nowadays. It's just not mm-hmm <affirmative>. So we have to just get real with ourselves about needing to come up with new models and, and we're really proud of this direct assessment CBE model that we call flex path. Mm-hmm 

Shauna Cox (09:29): Absolutely. And I kind of wanna circle back towards, you know, something that you just said when it comes to the traditional student not being the traditional student anymore. So with the model that you have and you know, looking at a broader sense, the shift towards a new era of higher education, how are you adjusting the way that you're engaging with your students? 

Dick Senese (09:51): Yeah, that's a big one. That's something we think about every single day, right? In our flex path model and in the white paper we release, we discuss this learner support ecosystem that we wrap around, right? Whether it's academic coaches, faculty qualified graduate teaching assistants, the way that we ask faculty to set up engagement opportunities. It could be office hours, it could be just proactive engagement. And we do the same with our guided path programs. You know, we want it ultimately education is an interpersonal enterprise mediated by technology or not. You have someone is learning and someone is helping that person learn. And the closer of a interpersonal relationship and feeling of support and engagement you can create, the learner will be more motivated. They'll learn, they'll commit, they'll find the grit to make it through the tough stuff. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Whether that's, you know, managerial accounting or differential calculus or statistics, right? 

Dick Senese (10:57): Because someone sees them, someone knows them, someone respects them, someone expects them to do it, right? And that's really important for a lot of our learners. You know, a lot of first generation college students don't have that kind of support in their social life. Not because their friends and families don't support them going to college. Hmm. But because they don't know what that experience is. And that was true for me in my own life, you know, first generation college student, my family was hugely supportive of me going to college. They had no idea what it could mean if I was taking 17 credits a quarter versus I was taking 12. So really, really decreasing that and wrapping around that kind of support and engagement is really important. And you know, we really pride ourselves on innovation. We have a learning lab at Capella in 2020. 

Dick Senese (11:51): Amidst everything else that was going on. I use this example often cause I'm so proud of the team. <laugh>, we ran 21 pilots of new ways to engage new technologies, new approaches, new processes. 14 of them failed. I'm very proud of those 14 cuz we learned something, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> and we ave and we scaled the next seven. It's that kind of thinking where you always put the learner first and you always have this idea in mind that engagement will lead to commitment, will lead to continuation, will lead to learning, will lead to graduation. And that's our approach. 

Shauna Cox (12:30): Absolutely. And I mean 14 out of, you know, you said 21 mm-hmm <affirmative>, those are still pretty good odds to still have the seven that um, you know, still went forward out quite honestly. I think even just having one is still great. Um, I 

Dick Senese (12:44): Think so too. I couldn't agree more. 

Shauna Cox (12:45): Yeah, absolutely. And so just looking, you know, towards the future, obviously we don't have a crystal ball, although that would be really nice. But what are some of the trends that you expect to see with competency-based education and we'll say, you know, maybe the next five years? 

Dick Senese (13:01): Well, I think it's stakeholders in higher ed, whether that's learners, whether that's their families, whether that's employers who expect their workforce to have relevant skills for today. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, there's gonna be an increased focus on time to complete. You know, there's gonna be an increased focus on affordability, right? Because in a lifelong learning culture, it's not one and done. So you're always gonna be learning, you know, and with FlexPath as an example, we use a subscription, uh, model. People can take up to two courses during any one period of time and they pay a flat rate. If they complete one, they can take a third course during that same 12 week period. So there's an affordability component that we also measured that really was, was really exciting to see in with the, uh, learners that we studied because 58% borrowed less financial aid, 30 at the bachelor's level and 39 at the master's level. So incredible affordability, statistics. Mm-hmm <affirmative> incredible time to complete statistics. So I think that's important. The professional relevancy is important and institutions of higher ed have to attract a broader swath of learners from all age groups and work experiences. And they're gonna have to come up with models that fit the learner's life. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it's not about the institution's calendar anymore. You know, it's agency to the learner. How can we help this fit into your life? And I think Flex Path is a really exciting model for that. Mm-hmm. 

Shauna Cox (14:40): Absolutely. Well, Dick, those are all the questions we had for you, but I am gonna throw a little curve ball one at you at the end here. So how we like to end all of our podcasts is with a very important question. So in your local area, local city, what is a restaurant that you would recommend for anyone visiting? 

Dick Senese (15:03): Wow. That's a great question. <laugh>, you know, and I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which, and in the Twin Cities area has just a wealth of really good, really good restaurants. And I hate this question cuz I love so many of them. Um, so hopefully the snow in the Minneapolis will be listening to me here. <laugh>. I am going to go with Moroccan flavors. Ooh. So I live in a rehabilitated Sears building. Sears and Robuck built in the 1920s. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in a condo. And on the ground floor is like a food hall. And inside that food hall, which has lots of great restaurants mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's Moroccan flavors. Amazing. So come to Minneapolis and we'll go to Moroccan flavors. 

 Shauna Cox (15:55): Amazing. I love it. Well Dick, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. It was great having you. 

Dick Senese (16:02): You bet. Nice to talk to you. Take care. 

Voiceover: This podcast is made possible by a partnership between Modern Campus and The EvoLLLution. The Modern Campus engagement platform, powered solutions for non-traditional student management, web content management, catalog and curriculum management, student engagement and development, conversational text messaging, career pathways, and campus maps and virtual tours. The result innovative institutions can create learner to earner life cycle that engages modern learners for life, while providing modern administrators with the tools needed to streamline workflows and drive high efficiency. To learn more and to find out how to modernize your campus, visit moderncampus.com. That's moderncampus.com.