Michael Edmondson (New Jersey Institute of Technology) on The Continuing Education Revolution in Higher Ed

On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, podcast host Shauna Cox was joined by Michael Edmondson to discuss how central credentials are to the future of education and the importance of agility and AI literacy for both learners and staff to succeed. 

Transcript

Shauna Cox (00:02):Michael, welcome back to the Illumination Podcast. I'm so glad you can join me for this conversation.

Michael Edmondson (00:07):Thank you, Shauna. Thanks for the invite. It's great to be here again.

Shauna Cox (00:11):So we are here to talk about the state of continuing education, which is going through a wild rollercoaster, and we at the evolution have recently released our report around it, but I want to get your perspective on it. So I want to kick off our conversation and ask, what is your perspective on the current state of continuing education?

Michael Edmondson (00:31):Yeah, it's a great question. So I think there's a couple of different ways to look at this. I mean, as the associate provost for continued learning at NJIT, I see nothing but opportunity because the world of non-credit, non-degree credentials, continuing education has a lot to offer and it just has not been leveraged by most institutions the way that it can. So from that perspective, I see opportunity from another perspective, if you're taking a look at maybe something from the four credit side, if you've only ever been on the four credit side of a campus, you're probably unfamiliar with the non-credit side. And because of that, and I've experienced this firsthand, people don't understand the value that you bring. So I think the best way to answer that, the question is the state of continuing ed is from what perspective? I think there's a lot of education and still has to take place. I still educate faculty members and staff members on what continuing ed is and what a non-degree credential is. In fact, I'm given a presentation at a conference, oh God, that's next week. I should finish that presentation on the world of non-degree credentials. And then I call it the subtitle, is The Future of Higher Education. I think there's a lot of potential there. And interestingly enough, non-credit has been around for over 150 years.

(02:08):In the early part of the 19th century, you had like Seeum Institutes around the country, then you had Granger Institutes in the middle of the 19th century, and then you had settlement houses and other institutes of non-credit learning around the country. And what's fascinating is once the four-credit just dominated the landscape, non-credit took a back back seat. But I think that's changing now, especially in the world of ai.

Shauna Cox (02:42):Absolutely. And I know you kind of mentioned for credit, not for credit, and we know that the modern learner of today is becoming a lifelong learner. They're not here for two or four years. They're here across their lifetime, all those things. So how should institutions evolve their enrollment strategies to better support that lifelong learner?

Michael Edmondson (03:05):So the first thing they need to do is come up with a paradigm or a model. The one I like is it's so simple. I'm a big fan of simplicity is from K to gray. So from K to grade means, oh, you're an institution of higher education. That's great. You can get a college degree there, but your new model should be from K to grade, which means, oh, you offer something for pre-college students, for elementary school and middle school, high school, we offer programming. And then what does pre-K or KD gray for those that are experienced and even in retirement. So I think you should look at, and this is a big paradigm shift, and this is way easier said than done, but instead of looking at just students, universities need to see the learners.

(03:55):And there are some schools that don't allow non-credit enrollees to be called students. It's just what's not permitted. It's a little crazy, but, and I have always said, look, there's a shortage of people that want to go to college. There are a shortage of students. I don't think it's ever coming back. I mean, just the demographics alone doesn't support any substantial increase, but there's no shortage of learners. And if people want to learn and they do and you'd like to support that population, it's a nice way to extend your mission because most universities have a mission of educating people, citizens, preparing them for the workforce, and you can get the added benefit of, yes, it's a new revenue stream. It's not just a cash cow. It actually serves a lot of purposes. And I always remind people that look at your mission statement, what are your values? What do you value as an institution? And if you value empathy and support and kindness even that so many institutions do, then you'll provide non-credit program that can help people that would not otherwise have access to it.

Shauna Cox (05:27):Absolutely. And I think one component of this is understanding your learners, who they are, what their needs are as it continues to evolve, honestly, every single day. The other side of it is making sure that your programs are relevant. People can stay competitive when using them, that they're aligned with the industry. So really what I'm talking about here is data and how we can leverage it. So how can data be used to ensure CE programs are staying relevant and impactful for all of these learners?

Michael Edmondson (05:57):Sure. It's a great question, Shauna. The easiest answer is to say every day there's more data coming out. So the great thing about being alive now is if you're running a CE unit or non-credit unit, right? All you got to do is set up a Google alert and in your inbox you'll get all this data every single day like I do. And what the data are telling us right now, the data is telling us three things. One, as you just said, people need to be lifelong learners. So it's great that you have a college degree, but that what you learned is outdated pretty quickly. We already know medical knowledge, for example, doubles every 73 days in this country. So it's great you went to med school and that's wonderful and that's amazing, and you got to keep learning. And that's the same with every profession.

(06:49):So you've got to be a lifelong learner that that's what the dad is telling us. Number two, the data is also telling us that AI is going to replace some jobs a hundred percent, but it's also telling us the data that it's not just going to take over your job. There are going to be people that know AI that will replace people that don't know ai. The data are pretty clear on this. So you need to be AI literate. And also if you look at the world economic form, the Future Jobs of the Future report that came out in January of this year, what's really interesting is one of their core skills, and this is the third thing the data tells us, is something that man has always needed to have from day one, which is resilience and agility. So if you don't have an agile way of thinking, I think it's going to be very difficult to navigate an ever complex marketplace and career network. I think it was the LinkedIn learning report that just came out. The world of work is changing, something like that. That also came out in January and it said, look, people used to have 12 jobs in a lifetime. Well now you can expect to have 24, so you can expect to have twice as many jobs as previous generations because the nature of work is changing. So I hope that made sense, the three

Shauna Cox (08:17):No, absolutely. And I think that dovetails nicely. You mentioned the world of work, and I want to look at the world of work at the institution behind the curtain and ask what is, in your opinion, because we don't have a crystal ball, but what is the future of staffing in CE as the demands and complexity continues to grow?

Michael Edmondson (08:38):That's a great question. If I had that crystal ball, Shana, thanks for having a hardball there. So are you talking about just the future hiring within CE units? Yeah, I think that is going to be tied into the university, your institution's own approach to HR and the flexibility that's going to be required. I do think there's going to be a new level of nimbleness that's going to be required for human capital. A lot of, I won't say a lot, but right, there's many people that like to say, quote, that's not my job. I'm not sure if that's going to hold water in the near future

(09:20):Because jobs are going to come and go. They are going to change. New AI tools will come into play, and it would be great to have a sense of, Hey, I need six people to run my team or 20 people to run my team. But at the end of the day, because of the world changing world of work, there might be people on the other side of campus that need help. And if I can use an AI tool, not to replace, but to maybe augment some of the work people on my team are doing because they need to get over there and help those people, I think that's what we're going to see. But there needs to be a lot of nimbleness and agility around that because people get so used to just doing their little job. But look, just right before we started this podcast that I got hit with a Google alert, Rosemont College in Philly, my hometown is closing or merging with Villanova, right? So that's the second school, and that's called the mainline area. Philly Cabrini College, where I went to school closed last year, Villanova purchased that property for its law school campus. So schools are going to close and they're going to continue to close. So those that are going to focus in on a sustainable future, or also they're going to need an agile workforce so people can pivot and do roles that they previously hadn't thought before because the world of work is changing so rapidly.

Shauna Cox (10:54):Absolutely. And looking at this higher ed or continuing education ecosystem, we talked about the data and understanding our learners and our industry. We've talked about the staffing and where institutions need to pivot. And then the other component I think that's really important is the technology and the use of the technology in today's society. So how should institutions leverage technology in order to enhance that modern CE experience for their diverse set of learners?

Michael Edmondson (11:23):Yeah, so there are so many tools right now. So that's one of the problems is where do you start? So what we're doing at NJIT is we're launching a new workforce readiness model, and one of, there's six skill domains that overlay the traditional hard and soft skills. And one of the things that we're launching, to your point, leveraging the new technologies is an AI literacy micro-credential in early May of this year so that people can have a baseline understanding. And then we have one for AI for educators as well, because there's a huge debate, right? In the world of education from K through 12 to university professors, should students be able to use an AI tool? You've got, it's the whole gamut to no, absolutely not to. Yes. Let me as the teacher professor, show them how to use it. So I say all that to say that before you leverage the new technologies, I think you need an understanding of what it is.

(12:26):My experience has been people don't have an understanding of what AI is. They think chat GPT is the only AI tool, and that's clearly not the case. And we've been using AI actually for some time in our lives. People just haven't recognized it, if you will. And also, where are we going, where in the next few years will these tools? But sure, into, I think any head of a CE business unit needs to make sure that three things are happening. One that they train their team on the AI tools. They have to do that. They have to know what the AI tools can do and how to help 'em save time. Two is you have to have new programming. The beautiful thing about a non-credit business unit is you can move pretty quickly. So you've got to launch non-degree credentials that help people learn about the new tools almost on a quarterly basis because it is changing so quickly. And you can do that in the world. And the third thing, and sometimes this is easier said than done, is to connect with the faculty at the institution to say, Hey, this is what we're doing. Can we partner or collaborate some way? I've got some great faculty that want to collaborate with us, and it's wonderful because we're all kind of, we're in the same boat, rowing in the same direction. But those are probably the three things that I would focus on.

Shauna Cox (13:54):Amazing. Well, Michael, those are all the questions I have for you, but I'm just going to throw in if there's anything else you'd like to add about state of ce, what's going on, what you guys are doing, anything that I missed or advice you want to share with other CE leaders?

Michael Edmondson (14:09):Sure. Yeah. No, actually thanks for that NJIT in the fall, because the world was changing so quickly. Nikki basca, our director for the Center for Educational Innovation and Excellence applied to and got accepted into the American Association of Colleges and Universities AI Institute. So Nikki put a team together and the AI test force needed to put a plan together for the A CNU AI Institute, and they had to put a plan together on what to do on campus. And so what Nikki's team did is they created a list of AI standards. And these standards are available on our website, and it is for a simple purpose, which is every MGIT student, regardless of your major, should be able to meet these 10 AI standards. And so then what I did was I said, okay, working with the provost office, we designed ten two hour microcredentials to support the students if they wanted to learn about each of the standards. And I think schools are going to have to, I wouldn't say raise the bar, I think just say, look, students as you graduate into this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world, this VUCA world where uncertainty is going to grow ever more, so with each passing year, you should be able to meet these standards and schools have to provide clear guidance and also the support. So I'm really proud of the work that we've done in that space as we look to launch people out into this ever-changing marketplace.

Shauna Cox (15:56):Absolutely. I think it's not even raising the bar, it's just setting a baseline, just

Michael Edmondson (16:01):Right, setting the baseline

Shauna Cox (16:02):For everyone for success. And I love that you mentioned, you said that this is available on your website, correct? The institutions?

Michael Edmondson (16:09):Yeah. So if you just Google NJIT AI standards, you'll find it. And like I said, we're releasing the microcredentials in well early May. It'll be free to the NJIT students, and then we'll be able to sell for anybody else that would like to take it.

Shauna Cox (16:25):Amazing. So our listeners can check that out and follow you along on your socials and with the school to see how everything's going and learn from you. So Michael, thank you so much. But again, before, this is my final question to you.

Michael Edmondson (16:38):Final final. Okay.

Shauna Cox (16:40):Most important, of course, in this podcast episode that you are in South Jersey. If someone's coming to town, where do they need to go to eat?

Michael Edmondson (16:48):So a really good place if you like Italian food is Gia Murillo's. It's on Haddon Avenue in Haddon Township, and they got an amazing bar and happy hour, and they have a wonderful menu. So I always recommend Gia Murillo's

Shauna Cox (17:00):Amazing. Italian is always a classic. Michael, thank you so much for talking to me today.

Michael Edmondson (17:05):Thanks, Shauna. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much.