Luke Dowden (Alamo Colleges District) on Transforming the Pathway from Enrollment to Employment

On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, podcast host Shauna Cox was joined by Luke Dowden to discuss reframing the term "Non-Traditional" and emphasizing inclusive design while aligning with post-completion outcomes. 

Transcript

Shauna Cox(00:02):Luke, welcome to the Illumination podcast.

Luke Dowden (00:06):Thanks Shauna. It's really nice to be with you and after so many years to be a guest again.

Shauna Cox(00:12):Amazing. Well, we are here to talk about what everybody has been talking about for that past couple of years of an Amazon like experience for traditional learners and sorry for nontraditional learners and how we can simplify their pathway into education. So I want to kick off our conversation and ask what does delivering this Amazon-like experience mean in the context of lifelong learning and why is it so critical for today's non-traditional learners?

Luke Dowden (00:42):So I would back up and say it really starts with design and how you think about design. And I have so many people to thank for just my exposure to design thinking. And one of the things that we do so well at the Alamo Colleges District in San Antonio, Texas is that we put students at the center of our design work. It's at the center of our mission. It's a part of our policies and procedures and it is the reason we are a two time Baldridge award-winning institution for performance excellence. But I think you have to start with who is it you're trying to serve and have you asked them, the longer I'm in higher ed, the more I realize I've been in the institution and I need to spend time with learners. And so that's my short answer to have we stopped to even say, well where are our students in the design process

(01:45):And where are learners? And I really don't use and talking about terms, I really have objected to the use of non-traditional for a long time because there are lots of initiatives I've been involved in the last 20 years. One of 'em was non-traditional no more. And I think we're living in that now where what was typically non-traditional or now are traditional students. They're in the mix. And we have the emergence now of different groups of learners. For us, the most recent group that we've focused on is parenting students. And that can mean a parent can mean many things, a single parent, it could be a person that has adopted a child or fostering a child that's now a parenting student. So I think really getting clear about terms, that's one point I want to make. And really making a commitment to situate learners in the design process of the Amazon-like experience, if that's even what they want is really important.

Shauna Cox(02:50):Yeah, absolutely. And I love that push for not using that non-traditional term. I think in my everyday life I personally like using the modern learner because that alone is such a broad term and it has so many different definitions to it. And I really love that you highlight the design behind a student experience because people want a student centered approach and things like that, but it's first. Okay, but who are your students? Understand your demographic, get them involved. And I think that's oftentimes missed even though it seems so obvious. Understanding your audience is really, really key here, especially as their needs keep adapting and evolving on a daily basis. So how can institutions reimagine that learner journey from discovery to enrollment to eliminate friction and kind of mirror the ease and personalization of e-commerce platforms?

Luke Dowden (03:47):So I'll really pick up on the personalization word. So if people are listening, they're like, okay, modern learner or working learner. But really at the end of the day, what does it mean? And I think when you start to personalize, you begin to look at design tools like, sorry, Shauna.

Shauna Cox(04:08):Okay.

Luke Dowden (04:09):You begin to look at design tools like personas, and I understand there are some negativity around persona work. I've talked about it in some other podcasts, but I think it helps you to get really focused about is it a parenting student? Is it someone that has lost their job and needs to upskill? Is it a person that's the traditional college route? If that's online, that's hybrid, just didn't work for them, they needed something faster. So beginning to segment, we have segments, right? Learner segments that we really want. So thinking about the learner segment, then finding those learners that you have already within your student population and asking them, we've learned a lot also from just having students tell their story. Just tell us your story, right?

Luke Dowden (05:01):The other thing that I've encouraged others and I would encourage your listeners is try to tap into the time where you are most uncertain about a decision or you are vulnerable and design from a place of uncertainty and vulnerability for the learner when you're designing for the learner. And I find when I go back to that person that how am I going to pay for this and what is the outcome going to be? And the pressure only amounts the longer that you're pursuing a degree. And I have a son now that's pursuing his bachelor's and did not go the traditional route, was at university, came back to community college and now is pursuing his bachelor's at one of our community colleges. And he's having a conversation now about what's the outcome going to look like? What is it for me? And I think one of the things that we must do a better job of is tracking post completion outcomes, what happens to our graduates?

(05:52):And also facilitating that completion to job, right? Completion the first job. Because we know by number of economic studies, the salary you make in your first job, your first full-time job is the trajectory of what you'll make over the next five to 10 years. It does the first job. Salary has such a long-term impact. So again, talking about personalization and thinking about the segment and then what is it that they're trying to accomplish and what is it that we are offering to them and then how do we connect them to opportunity? And I think that's higher ed's actually challenge now, right? Is that we're being asked very tough questions about tell me what the outcome is for the learner, each learner. So anyway, I hope that answers the question that you ask, but

(06:45):I think about that a lot is how do we do better for the learner? How do we help them compete and compete for them? And we've got several examples in our community college district where we've created internships. So we have a program called Alamo on the jobs where we will pay for a student to be your intern because we believe in paid work, we believe in the value of paid work and we understand the capital, the social and the employment capital of having an internship. And so we are paying internships for students to work in companies. So that's just one example of where we've just shifted the paradigm and it's no longer acceptable to have a non-paid internship. You know this from your own career and when I was coming of age, that was the way it was since you suffered through it, right? Because of the value and the paradigm shifted and I think is you see those paradigm shift. We also have to shift our designs and our investments. So hopefully that's a good example of what I mean.

Shauna Cox(07:51):Absolutely. And I mean I came out of school not too long ago and I think when I was at my institution it was very much we were on the cusp of the whole, what is an internship? Should it be paid, should it not be paid? Because my personal internship was not paid. There's only if you got that paid internship, you were really lucky. But I love that that is shifting now because I certainly agree that they need to be paid. And I love that you guys, if that employer's not paying for it, you guys will pay for it. So I think that really shows the value there and shows that ROI to those students. And I think what we're talking about here is two things, is there's that persona element, understanding your persona and then the journey and making that pathway for those learners, which dovetails so nicely into the next question because I think what we're talking about here is a lot of qualitative and quantitative data learner stories and then actual hard numbers that you guys are tracking. So what role does data play in personalizing that online learning experience and guiding learners towards programs that are better suited for their personal goals?

Luke Dowden (09:07):I'm really proud of our board of trustees. So in Texas community colleges have boards of trustees that are elected from districts in their city or their community. And we recently, our board approved a policy and procedure for how we will define a living wage, a family sustaining wage job. And we've made a commitment to not graduate students into poverty, meaning that we are going to take a hard look at labor market data, we're going to select a source of truth for that labor market data, and we are going to look at programs that graduate our learners into family sustaining wages because we live in the city with the highest rate of urban poverty and we will want to help our community members reach social and economic mobility. But that starts with taking a hard look at how do you graduate. So the next question is, so what happens to those programs where the first job isn't family sustaining wage, but it is the trajectory to future family sustaining wage jobs? I think then you look at, well what value can we add to those programs, right? Can you integrate a micro-credential? Can you integrate an internship or externship or a project based that situates that learner to move into that next job more quickly?

(10:36):Can you combine or look at your curriculum a little bit differently so the person comes out with an industry based certification and the degree, degree again to get closer to a family sustaining wage because not all very needed services in society lead immediately to family sustaining wage. So I think that type of approach of what is the value is number one, and then making that information available to learners. So if you go on our website, I encourage you to do that, Shauna is look at our programs, go through and search our programs. You will very clearly see job outlook, job prospects. Of course we don't promise jobs. That's a part of our accreditation. That's not what we are in the business of. And we are certainly concerned about consumer protection, but we are giving information to people to make more informed decisions about what does it mean when you're finished.

(11:34):And I think those are some very critical steps. Policy around family sustaining, program development and work that's about strengthening the opportunity levels of programs or some people say the value of programs and then helping students to those needed experience, micro-credential, internship, whatever it is. So they're more competitive when they go for that first full-time job. Does that make sense about data? Absolutely. That we are doing, and we have been doing this for a long time. Again, it's something that the Malcolm Balder's Foundation has complimented us on is looking at our completion data and are we doing things to reduce time to completion? Meaning that are we aligning curriculum? Are we making agreements not just, oh, I've got a transfer agreement with a university? No, we have program to program agreements. So we reduce the lost hours and we reduce the amount of hours that a student needs to take to complete a certificate or a degree program. So there's a network of initiatives that work together for the betterment of the learner. And there's data anywhere from what's the course completion rate, right up to how are students progressing to completion. There's, I'll call 'em a compendium of metrics that we watch to make sure that we are being being effective.

Shauna Cox(13:09):Well, and I love the amount of care in detail that you and the institution are putting into your learners. I can really feel from you speaking about it, about your learners and the processes that you guys are doing. You are really dedicated to ensuring that these learners are getting what they need and making sure that they have that successful pathway into that job. Yes, it may not be guaranteed, but you're doing literally everything you can to set them up for success to the best of your capabilities with what you have. And so I want to pull back the curtain a little bit and look at that internal process and staff resources are such a huge challenge and especially continuing education today. So how are institutions balancing automation with that human support to kind of meet those expectations of adult learners, modern learners, while maintaining a high touch experience?

Luke Dowden (14:10):I think this goes back to one of your other questions, and I didn't mention this and I just want to comment on it because I felt like your question about re-imagining the learner journey I missed something that was important is that you have to journey map. The other key to this, if you're a small continuing ed program, the biggest gift you can give yourself is journey map. What does the student experience from first learning about your program all the way through completing it and pursuing a position? And if you are using journey mapping, you're going to be ahead because you're going to consider elements you would've not other considered. You also have an opportunity to involve your students in giving you feedback on that journey, especially if it's a program that has maybe been very successful and then all of a sudden you are seeing enrollment declines. We know this happens in programs in terms of balancing the human support and automation. I think it's tough, I think, and I think with ai, we are exploring those tools now. And one of the tools that we have looked at it mimics some human interactions. And there's a real critical discussion about is that enough? Is that sufficient for our learner? And what is the role of the human? And when do we augment the human interaction? And I think it really starts with what is your principle about how much human forward you want to be? I think that is the discussion of the day. And I won't pretend to say we have those answers. I don't have those answers. I have an opinion, but I don't have those answers.

(15:51):But I think they're important questions, and I'm enamored by the questions around how does the, let's talk about AI, augment what our frontline staff are able to do, how does it make it easy for them to see trends in the students' course taking patterns in their early alerts, in their conversations with their advisors so that we can intervene sooner? So the goal, whatever staff you have is what will automation or ai, artificial intelligence, generative artificial intelligence, what will it give us that enhances the experience, not diminishes it, and it's got to be more than cognitive offloading. That's not good enough for our learners. So I think there are a lot of unanswered critical questions that I'm hoping, and I'm seeing these right at conferences and webinars that we're beginning to continue to peel back and certainly we're going to implement something at some point and then we're going to learn. And the next thing that I would say connected to your data that I think is most important is that we can't forget. We're learning organizations. We are, whether you work on the credit or non-credit side. And to me, I'm excited to see those false walls fall. It's learning. And we must continue to learn

(17:14):And share that learning. And I would say for us, our biggest example of that is our micro-credential work where we've published our guides, we've published our design work, and I think we need more sharing what we've learned from these attempts. And that is how we will find the balance that your question is asking about.

(17:36):And maybe that sounds too research. You sound like a researcher and you're at a community college. But I think that we have to be learner scientist. We talk about data analysts, but we have to be learner scientist. If we really fall in love with the science of learning, then I think we will find the happy medium. And I don't know if you've experienced this, Shauna, we have faculty, staff, students that have a range of emotions around AI and it's involvement, it's use in teaching, it's use in providing services, people's fear about how it will change their work and their lives. And we have to be attentive to all those as we have these conversations. But it shouldn't stop us from being who we are. And we've been for hundreds of years, which are learning organizations.

Shauna Cox(18:29):Absolutely. And I think all of those emotions around AI from one end of the spectrum to the other are very valid. And I think it's important too. My thoughts on the whole AI approach is just I'm excited for it. I love the idea of it, I love the efficiency that it can have behind it, but I don't think we can dive into the deep end just yet. I think we need to approach everything with caution behind security, the security behind AI and all those other components. I think as long as we approach it strategically, cautiously, there's so much potential that it can have. And not everybody's going to have the answers to the questions, especially around this subject, and I don't think they should. And if someone claims that they have all the answers, there's always going to be room for improvement to constantly adapt, evolve as technology's constantly doing that every single day.

(19:20):But the point that you made about collaboration I think is so, so key. And I'm so happy you said it because I don't think anybody should be gatekeeping. I love the idea of the collaboration. The whole point of the evolution is being a community for higher ed leaders to share their thoughts, opinions, strategies, learn from each other, bounce ideas off each other. So think that's so important. And you did mention the idea of trends with learners, and I think we can kind of broaden that out. And I want to ask, as learner demographics continue to evolve, what must institutions do now to future proof their online experiences, the institution and remain competitive in this lifelong learning ecosystem?

Luke Dowden (20:05):Yeah, I think for those of us that are brave enough to have these conversations, we understand there you are talking about being up against faculty unions in some states up against concerns over academic freedom. You have all those things as a backdrop of what I'm about to say. We've got to get serious about quality and quality assurance. And if I'm consulting an organization and I'm giving them best feedback, I'm going to ask, what's your quality assurance plan? Now show it to me in process and what does it look like and how do you assure that if you have 10 sections of a course, right? We have some very large online institutions in the United States, they have multiple sections of a course. How are you ensuring that student section one is the student in section 50 is getting the same experience as students Section one? I think about equity very much in that way, equity of experience, regardless of who the faculty member is, regardless of how technology mediated it is. We know some courses have high degrees of automation. So I think that is maintaining relevancy. One is, I understand people look at rankings. There's a whole other conversation we could have on rankings that's got value for some. But I think one is the quality of the learning experience. Two is the wraparound support.

(21:37):We are at a time where we need to support the whole learner. That'll help. We know was significant coming out of the pandemic, still have the ripple effects of that. Maybe house insecurity, food insecurity. We haven't even talked about internet access. So I not only the quality support, but then what are we doing to holistically support that learner? And when you're in online mode, it gets harder, right? It gets harder. And there's been online research forever that shows most online learners, and we're not talking about the very large online institutions in the United States, but most that are delivering their learners have some geographic proximity to that. But I think we have to really take a hard look at ourselves. I think this is where we get to turn the design process on ourselves and say, okay, what are we not doing? What is our data telling us? What is our quantitative data telling us? What is our qualitative data telling us? And then what have we done to change that? And then how are we measuring it in terms of measurement? You asked this earlier, one of the measurements we're using in one of our new wraparound support initiatives called Success Coaching is called Net Promoter Score. And I think a net promoter score is that just that one question has got so much value for are you delivering what's really needed and what are your detractors, which is a feature of responses in that dataset telling you about yourself.

(23:13):So I'm excited about data collection methods and tools like Net Promoter Score that can help us see ourselves differently, right? See ourselves as learner facing, I'll say the word that no one likes customer facing, right? And start to react in a more timely manner to what we're learning about a student's experience. And that promoter score can work with a small continuing ed program. It can work with a very large bachelor's program or a very large initiative around online student support.

Shauna Cox(23:49):Absolutely. And I think I'm biased. I like the term customer. I think it should be used students, learners. They're used to the e-commerce world. They are treated like customers in every other aspect of your life. I don't think HigherEd should really be any different. That is just my opinion that I'm throwing out there. But I'm just looking at that. We're coming up on time here. So I want to first thank you so much for all of your valuable insights here. And before I let you go, most important question of this podcast of course is going to be you are based in San Antonio, Texas. If someone's coming to town, where do they need to go to eat?

Luke Dowden (24:26):There are two. One is my dear favorite place. It's Don Rual Caritas. It's a wonderful place. They have a wonderful story. You can find their origin story on Netflix. They have the best pork carnitas in the city. I try to have it once a week and my waistline doesn't need it, but wow, it's enjoyable. Where is it? It's authentic, it's fresh, and just the vibe is so's so San Antonio. It's welcoming. It's respectful of our heritage. And so that's one. There's another, a little bit more upscale Mexican cuisine is Rosario's that I was recently introduced to that. I've had two fabulous meals there. So I would say both of those would be my go-to. Of course. It's a great place. We have lots of exceptional places to eat. Those are my go-to. The last thing I would say, just for your audience is that I'm at the Alamo Colleges District, which is a very large community college district in San Antonio, Texas, serving that 80,000 learners at our five colleges. And I'm the Chief online learning officer.

Shauna Cox(25:42):Amazing. Awesome. Luke, thank you so much for joining me today.

Luke Dowden (25:46):Sure. Thank you.