Alin Vrancila:
AI has changed the game. And in partnership with axio.ai Jessup University is the first university that partner with a, with an industry expert in ai and said, how can we re-envision completely how learning happens online? And so we started with what are the needs of the student centered and how can we build an experience for the student that is so revolutionary that the student can, feels empowered to actually really pursue their education And important aspect here, remain a lifelong learner in partnership with the university. The secret sauce here is that we have developed, developed a teaching agent, which means that AI now can actually provide you the content, start a Socratic MA method of learning or back and forth conversation. And the most important part of this is assesses in real time if you have acquired that knowledge.
Joe Gottlieb:
That’s Alin Vrancila, CEO of Jessup Global and former provost at Multnomah University, which is now part of Jessup University. He’s talking about their learning management system that has been completely reimagined around the student and neogogy, a new educational framework designed for the digital age. We talked about how this new system is transforming higher education by having interactive conversations with each student while assessing that student’s mastery of the material and throwing off vital data that saves administrative time and equips faculty to complement the learning process with their personal knowledge and expertise. We also talked about how Jessup piloted the system with highly reputable faculty so that they could lead by example for their academic peers. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Joe Gottlieb:
Welcome to TRANSFORMED, a Higher Digital podcast focused on the new why’s, the new what’s and the new how’s in higher ed. In each episode, you will experience hosts and guests pulling for the resurgence of higher ed, while identifying and discussing the best practices needed to accomplish that resurgence. Culture, strategy and tactics, planning and execution, people, process and technology. It’s all on the menu because that’s what’s required to truly transform.
Joe Gottlieb:
Hello, welcome and thanks for joining us for another episode of TRANSFORMED. My name is Joe Gottlieb, president and CTO of Higher Digital. And today I am joined by Alin Vrancila, CEO of Jessup Global and former provost at Multnomah University, which is now part of Jessup University. Alin, welcome to TRANSFORMED.
Alin Vrancila:
Thanks, Joe. Happy to be here. And I’m curious, what do you wanna talk about?
Joe Gottlieb:
Well, I’m glad you asked. I want to talk about your thoughts on how to turn a necessary merger into a tectonic shift in teaching and learning. But first, please share a little bit about your personal background and how you got connected into the world of higher ed.
Alin Vrancila:
Joe, I’m very happy to, to be with you today. I am actually a first generation immigrant to this great country. And I came from Romania when I was 25. That’s where I had my first, what I call spark moments. Any educator will tell you that our desires to build this spark moment in any student where they just get excited about life, about future, about potentials. And I’ve experienced that when I was 14 years old with an educator, with a a, a true educator. I was a failing student when I grew up. And all of a sudden my mom took me from a soccer game and took me to this educator and said, you need to teach this kid this. Something’s going on. He’s not gonna have a future. And in just three months, that educator just completely changed my life, and I’ve been on an academic track and on a learning track ever since.
Alin Vrancila:
So that experience for me shaped who I am. I have a undergrad degree in computer science. Did quite a lot of startups in the tech field and a master’s science, a master’s program in global studies invested a significant time part of my life in South Sudan and a nonprofit in South Sudan and PhD research in online learning and artificial intelligence in, in higher education. And I can tell you, none of none of this would be possible without that spark, without that moment. So for me, education is freedom. That’s why I’m, I’m, and I believe I’m a freedom worker, Joe.
Joe Gottlieb:
I love it. I love it. That’s a great background. And so it suits well this conversation we’re about to have, which is ripe with a whole lot of change and adaptation. And so let’s dive right in. Multnomah’s recent merger with Jessup University was really driven by a confluence of challenging conditions for small faith, faith-based institutions. Let’s set the stage by describing those conditions as you see them and saw them.
Alin Vrancila:
So I was able to, I’ve been in Christian higher education for the last almost 15 years of my life. Now, now that’s become a significant part of my adulthood and, and what it means to be a professional. I worked for 10 years for, for almost 10 years, for nine years and a half for Moody Bible Institute. And Moody Bible Institute was the first Bible college in America, the strongest brand, a very strong brand. And even at Moody, we have seen a significant decline in the marketplace share in enrollment management. And here’s, this is the first Bible college that one of the strongest known brands when I moved to to university, I moved there to actually help ’em build online learning and grow in online. And this was, this was in 2019. This was just a few months or or less than six months before the pandemic hit.
Alin Vrancila:
And when I did that is I came, I was passionate about this institution to see if we can grow it, but I quickly learned that the history of almost 90 year history of, of Multnomah was really coming to a significant challenge. And it was exactly how you, how you said it, it was really a confluence of many, many challenging conditions. So Multnomah went from 2012 to 20 to 2022. It went from almost from a thousand students to 500 students. Yet the budget actually stayed flat almost for the entire time because we had a major donor that kept the budget flat. So it was basically like you had a disease, but you took Advil and you didn’t feel the symptoms or the conditions necessarily, but you never addressed the actual root cause of your decline. And that, that immediately, so for, and, and what I’ve learned through this process is assets really do not save your institution in, in higher ed. It might save a business, it might save a lot of things out outside of higher education, but assets do not necessarily, if you cannot fix your model, your business model, your programming, your academic, it’s going to be hard for you to really come back from that.
Joe Gottlieb:
Fascinating. So here you saw the student count declining, but the budget wasn’t impacted because you had a donor. And so this masked the root cause of the student decline. And before you had uncovered the root cause, you were literally forced into a merger out of necessity. So given that, what synergies propelled Jessup and Multnomah together both in terms of what you saw as a hypothesis for coming together, but even as you took action to execute on that, on that merger,
Alin Vrancila:
I, I do want to, and thank you for this question. This is, this is an important question I do wanna mention. I do want to mention that one of the reasons that I think was important, it was a key moment in that journey, is that in the time that I was at Multnomah almost six years, Multnomah had three presidents. So there was a president for 10 years, and then there was a president for nine months. And then there was a president that actually really re got Multnomah back from a complete, really broken moment where he was completely stuck. The budget was not there. We got to a point, I told I told the creditors in a conversation I had with them, we got to a point where Multnomah could not afford to close because it takes a lot of resources to close.
Alin Vrancila:
I, I will tell you this, I’ve made a, a vow to myself that I will never close a Christian university ever again. I Lord, please. This is a prayer actually. I’m sorry, Joe. I’m using your PO as a, as a praying chapel. But it was a, it was a significant process. It was actually a significant and a very costly process. Yes. So the president, the last president we had Dr. Jessica Taylor, she really brought the community together. She, she incentivized and made the community the community come back into the reality of where we are. And basically, she was the one that found a connecting point between a very like-minded institution. Jessup University is only three year younger than university. The mission statements were almost really like very close in the, the challenge in the partnership of the church and the, the idea of, of launching transformation leaders.
Alin Vrancila:
So there was quite a lot of synergy, and there was a one very key person that connected these two presidents. Dr. Jessica Taylor usually says there’s no there’s no dating site for presidents that want to merge their institutions. So the network really becomes quite important in the way you connect. That’s how Jessup got connected to Multnomah. And the story went quite fast. Actually. I really think it was textbook best experience of merger process all the way. When you get to the, the final details, that’s where it gets really complex. Who’s going to keep what all that, the merger complexity, but the contribution of Multnomah to Jessup was almost flawless.
Joe Gottlieb:
Yeah. So let’s talk about some of those contributions and then the synergies that that existed between the two institutions then.
Alin Vrancila:
So Multnomah was able to actually enter in a contribution agreement with, with Jessup is there, if there’s anybody listening to us and you’re considering this, the contribution model is, I would say, the fastest, easiest model from a university to another, because what you’re doing is, instead of starting a merger process that is very regulated by the federal government and really scrutinized significantly, what you are saying is, I have gotten to the point where I would like to contribute all assets and important detail here and all liabilities. So make sure you do your due diligence and you see what the liabilities are <laugh> before, right? But you’re contributing all assets, intellectual property, human personnel property physical property, anything of the institution. I am contributing it to the, to the other university. If it wasn’t for the Department of Education, really looking very deeply and very scrutinizing every detail of the teach the teach out agreements and the transfer of students, which I applaud them for being very rigorous there. The students have to be protected. But mah and Jas were quite really looking with the holistic view of protecting the student. If he wasn’t for that, that process would’ve been less than three months. So an entire university after 90 years could have been contributed to another university in a few, in a matter of few months.
Joe Gottlieb:
So that addresses a lot of the mechanics about the way you did this via a contribution agreement. And and just to reiterate, right, this was all the assets being picked up by Jessup but I also know that, you know, the location was of interest to Jessup and also some key role players that could factor into the merged entity’s future. Talk a little bit about those synergies as well, please.
Alin Vrancila:
Yes, Multnomah is sitting on close to 25 acres of property. And, and that is a very key location in Portland. It’s an up and coming neighborhood. Multnomah County is definitely, it’s, it’s 15 minutes away from downtown Portland and 10 minutes away from the airport 15 minutes away from Washington State. So you’re in between two states, you’re close to port downtown, and it’s a significant location with multiple assets, soccer fields, all these, all these kinda things. So there was definitely a good, a good investment. I would say that there’s no discussion there. That was a good investment. Also, Multnomah had a significant amount of experts in the field for the, the, the, the size of our community. It truly brought in a significant amount of experts in multiple fields. We had here a, a global reputable Hebrew studies program that was recognized globally for many, many, for many years. We’ve had here professors that were at the foundation of the Bible project at the launching of the Bible project. And I shall not be in any way humble in your podcast. This is not a place to be humble. To say that my role, knowing that they already have a provost, my passion went back to saying my actual passion was to invest in online education. That’s where I invested most of my studies and research. And clearly they, they took my position over and I was able to transition there as well.
Joe Gottlieb:
So glad you were able to be open about that because it, it does play an important role here, and it’s what we’re talking about because shortly after the merger, you became very involved in leading a new approach to pedagogy that Jessup Global is now bringing forward. So I want to give you an opportunity to describe that because I believe, and I think I know you believe it’s very innovative and, and could be a model that many wind up emulating over time.
Alin Vrancila:
Well, what attracted me to Jessup was that Dr. Jackson was and is a visionary. It came to Portland, single handedly, moved the whole community from Portland and saying, I, I would like to, to contribute this university to us. He’s constantly looking at growing the ecosystem of Jessup University. And in partnership with him, we developed the concept of called Jessup Global Jessup global, overseas online learning, overseas international learning, and now oversees what we call JSA + AI, this JSA + AI, this initiative has now launched, we’ve been through a pilot phase and is recognized as, as being the first higher ed university in America. We, we will stay for America. It’s a big enough place. I would definitely question on, on the global scale if there’s anything like this happening that has launched the first fully AI enabled learning management system. And that has happened in, that happened in a matter of four to five months from ideation to market, which really, I think that alone speaks volumes of the, of the flexibility of the value driven and the value that you just places on in innovation. That’s basically what, what Jessup Global is in this innovation. And Joe, do you want me to unpack Jessup Jessup plus AI a little bit? Yeah,
Joe Gottlieb:
Let’s talk a bit about that. And I may even have some follow up questions, but I wanna let you have a chance to, to take it from the top.
Alin Vrancila:
So in, in my journey in higher education and, and especially in online learning, I, I was always left wanting on where the current learning management systems are. I, I think they got sloppy. I hope they don’t, they don’t take this personally that I’m telling you this, but, but for the, for 20 years, they’ve never really questioned the, the concept, the why do we have a learning management system and what’s the purpose of the learning management system? It, it, for me, it was a glorified project management tool, used to do a checklist of the things that a student has to do in the class. And it really didn’t, I did not think it met all the pedagogical challenges of an online learner. That’s all the way until AI comes on the, on the table in six months, AI takes the world by storm is replicating and duplicating itself globally.
Alin Vrancila:
It’s, it’s really changing everything and capitalize on capitalizing on this. It was a huge opportunity to say, how can we bring this new emerging technology and filling all the gaps that the learning management systems existing on the market. And I can name, there are four major ones, and then there are a thousand smaller ones that have never broken more than a thousand clients or stuff like that. And all of them together, I have not seen one that really would actually change the game, right? So it was a game changer. It was replicating the same type of features, but maybe with just a better interface. AI has changed the game. And in partnership with axio.ai Jessup University is the first university that partner with a, with an industry expert in ai and said, how can we re-envision completely how learning happens online? And so we started with what are the needs of the student student centered and how can we build an experience for the student that is so revolutionary that the student can feels empowered to actually really pursue their education and important aspect here, remain a lifelong learner in partnership with the university.
Alin Vrancila:
And that’s basically the environment, jessup.edu/ai. You can go to jessup.edu/ai, read all about it. You can actually test it out. Come and join us and see what we’ve built there. But I a, an adjunct professor can teach up to 500 students. The secret sauce here is that we have developed, developed a teaching agent, which means that AI now can actually provide you the content, start a Socratic MA method of learning or back and forth conversation. And the most important part of this is assesses in real time. If you have acquired that knowledge, that is what I consider the everything else. Again, we’ve built a hundred features that are really, really cool. Those are cool. This one is groundbreaking that AI can actually assess that a human a person in front of that, that tool in front of the, the platform and the learning management system has actually acquired the knowledge from the system and from the content that we have provided. That is the groundbreaking development that we’ve done there.
Joe Gottlieb:
We’ll be right back.
Emily Rudin:
Hi, I’m Emily Rudin, Chief Client Officer at Higher Digital and proud sponsor of the TRANSFORMED podcast. Higher Digital is a full-service, product-agnostic consulting company, providing strategic, functional, and technical expertise to help colleges and universities navigate digital transformation successfully. We believe true transformation isn’t about forcing change, it’s about unlocking the potential already within your institution. Our expert teams specialize in creating tailored solutions for your unique challenges, enabling meaningful and measurable progress. Higher education is evolving faster than ever. How is your institution adapting? Let’s start the conversation today. Visit Higher.Digital.com to learn more.
Joe Gottlieb:
And now, back to our program.
It sounds very exciting and I can’t wait to learn more. One of the things that I, I think you’ve also told me in the past is that all this is being done in a way that really reimagines, reactivates via Socratic method, this learning process for the student, but in a way that the instructor be they adjunct or otherwise, that’s a, that’s a efficiency comment, I’m sure. Right? Can, can be, can be present, can be, can be a role player in this. Their role can vary depending upon the student and the circumstance as informed by this capability. And that seems to be important because it allows us to embrace it and find new ways to leverage the value of our faculty.
Alin Vrancila:
Yes. Along the way, it, the first challenge we’ve had is clearly to look at student-centered needs and to reimagine the way students learn. And immediately it actually challenged the role, challenged the role of the faculty. The faculty. Now in, in an AI enabled, LMS is a mentor slash expert. They have to have expertise in their field. It, it’s almost mandatory. You have three, 400 people in, in your class that actually are in different levels of, of knowledge with maybe adult learners. And now they have access to content and they can ask the AI agent anything they want. The remedial work that can happen here is significant. So if they start a master of science in computer science program that we’ve launched recently, if they don’t know the basics of that, they can do all that remedial work before they even start their class. So then what it truly is the role of the faculty, they’re the expert that can provide information that AI does not have or the student does not have.
Alin Vrancila:
They can say, in my 20 years of expertise in the industry, here’s something that AI will not teach you. Here’s how this is going to impact this. If you do this, this is what’s going to happen. Right? That predictive I call this General Stanley McChrystal call this in the book team of teams is one of my favorite concepts, really, because if you think about it, he wrote a book on how the, the most efficient army in the world at that time at least, had to reinvent itself completely from scratch because they were fighting a war. They’ve never, they’ve never fought before, right? They’re in the Middle East and, and in front of him is an enemy they’ve never met before. And they had to completely change the culture of the US Army. So he, he generated this concept of leading as a gardener, creating an environment of radical growth in which the student is almost forced to grow.
Alin Vrancila:
You can’t scream at a, at a seed or a tomato to grow mm-hmm <affirmative>. But you can definitely remove any obstacles in that place that would prevent that fruit or that tomato to grow, right? Or fruit and tomato, the same thing. So I, I really like that concept. So the student, the faculty now has data points on the student and how they learned that they’ve never had before. Mood aptitude, how fast they’ve learned. If they’re cynical, if they’re not cynical, if they copy, they, if they cheated by either copying from other ais or actually from other sources, they see that in real time. They also see the pain points in the course very clearly. If there’s a seven module course, they can see down to each lecture where is the student struggling? And now they can come in real time and say, I’ve recorded a video, or I’m actually going to unlock and get you unstuck from that place.
Alin Vrancila:
So learning is much more iterative, which is very, very much, very much more natural to how we learn in a seven week class or a eight week class that we have right now. Students have to read something, they have to post the discussion board comment. Everybody thinks the discussion boards are the hallmark of education. Hi, you’re so great. Thank you so much. Two plus two is four. Oh my goodness. That’s fantastic. It’s very stale. And then they have to put an assignment, they have to write a paper to what they’ve read, and the faculty will give them feedback in seven days and will never come back to that if they got it or not. It’s a one, it’s a hit and run. They don’t come back to that concept, right? In this area. You can actually have a conversation with the A agent multiple times and the faculty gets a chance to see, you’re truly struggling with is now I need to have a conversation with you.
Alin Vrancila:
Mm. Schedule, open schedule, office hour. I get to see the data points in real time from, from this. So it’s a significant change. Another thing that we’ve done that that it’s important here is we really are underestimating the administrative tasks of faculty and how much that those administrative tasks are taking energy from the faculty through this platform. We have minimized significantly any administrative task of any administrative person, including faculty. We are able to cut anywhere between 50 to 70% of all the administrative processes from a suspect all the way to an alumni in the entire ecosystem of learning. That is significant.
Joe Gottlieb:
Yes. I’m so glad you mentioned that because it, it really ends up attacking an unnecessary burden via smart automation that once again puts more bandwidth into the hands, more time and energy into the hands of faculty doing what they love. I also wanna make a connection here to something we’ve been talking about. I’ve been talking about to a lot of guests about, and it’s been an ongoing conversation in higher ed for quite some time, which is this notion of transitioning from sage on the stage to guide on the side. And what strikes me about this approach is that it really invests in a new model to enable the student to really iterate through a learning process. That that then also frees up the professor to be a guide on the side. We just kind of address that. But even if they haven’t made an adjustment, I’m, I’m, I’m guessing you tell me if I’m wrong, even if they’re doing their usual presentation of lecture materials in long form, which we know is hard for a student to completely comprehend and, and to internalize and utilize this approach is maximizing the value of that by helping the student iterate through either exercises or efforts to then determine how the student is, is, is making progress.
Joe Gottlieb:
And so to me that just strikes a new chord in the ability to wade into this knowing that everyone’s gonna be a bit different. Faculty will take to it in different ways. Am I, am I reading too much value into that? Or, or does that, is that accurate?
Alin Vrancila:
No, it’s very accurate. And, and what I want to point out is every time we talk about innovations, somehow somebody sitting in a classroom right now in a traditional classroom feels that they are left in the dust or they’re left in the, in the, in the past. And that’s not the case. I always tip my hat to people that have made it work and they have taught with excellence in traditional fashions in online classes. And, and truly tip my hat to that. I am very harsh on systems, very kind on people. Systems have to be really scrutinized and criticized and people have to be awarded their space for, for their contribution and how they brought learning to us. But you are correct, Joe. We are every, somebody said, every, every dollar that the government spends is taxation, whether it’s in taxes or inflation.
Alin Vrancila:
Same thing with the student. Every hour we put in administration, every hour we invest in all kinds of systems is an hour. We take away from the time that the faculty can spend with the student. And for me, this is the groundbreaking. If I am going to give a faculty or an adjunct if it’s online, or if it’s a full-time faculty back 10 hours a week of administrative tasks that they didn’t have to do anymore. And I’m going to challenge them and say, I would like you to put all those hours in one-on-one times with students, every faculty member would look at that value proposition and say, thank you so much, I’ll take it. Where do I sign? Because they’re there for the students.
Joe Gottlieb:
Yes. This is a good segue into a, a question that I have on how will Jessup help its faculty embrace this change?
Alin Vrancila:
We were truly blessed at Jessup University to have some reputable faculty. And and I am very, I’m very keen on this word reputable faculty that have actually accomplished much in their field of expertise. I’ll give you, I’ll give you three names if you don’t mind. Dr. Ed Rice, he oversees the computer science master of science and computer science. The computer science department. He was named the CTO of the year in America recently by the CIO magazine. Wow. He’s one of the founding fathers of the internet. He’s a just university. And he is, this is key, this is very key for me. He is one of the pioneers of our tool called JSA plus ai. Dr. Aaron Hill significant nationally recognized expert in the legal the legal aspect and AI in for, for legal for, she’s a, she’s a lawyer. She oversees our paralegal certificate.
Alin Vrancila:
And then we have Dr. Mark Ellis. He oversees the master of science in management leadership. And he’s leading our innovation just plus AI in the, in the business area, accomplished bus serial entrepreneur with actual textbooks written in the business for a significant so highly reputable people. And I told them in the recent meeting we’ve had with them, we’ve gone for a few months with them iterating with us. I said, you had the most to lose from this. Hmm. You had, if there was an up and coming faculty getting into a new environment, nothing to lose. It didn’t work. It didn’t work. They move on and they continue their, but a reputable faculty staking their entire reputation and their entire tenure and academic research and tenure on a failed project stings a little bit more mm-hmm <affirmative>. And, and even in a pilot. And they really put their, because they’re, they believe so much of how much this platform can truly transform the landscape of education.
Alin Vrancila:
That was crucial for us in, in this, because the rest of the faculty look at reputable faculty and say, if they’re willing to put their academic record, an academic track record of excellence on this, I’m going to pay attention to where this is going. So it’s important to get the early adopters. It’s important to get conversations. And there’s a lot of misconception of a faculty. I’m a faculty member or ranked faculty member. I’ve been in the higher ed for 15 years. Faculty have their own love languages, but what we have to give to them is that they’re very smart people. Hmm. These PhDs are not pushovers. They’re very smart people. And they’re asking really very you know, sharp knife questions. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And that’s why sometimes it hurts. That’s why administrators are like bracing themselves. When faculty ask questions, what they don’t like.
Alin Vrancila:
What faculty have never liked in the history of higher ed that I’ve been in, especially with the gen, with the emerging online education that has happened is when things are dropped on them and they’re asked to do something without any, any evolving of the academic conversation. When I have conversations with faculty, and this becomes a conversation about meogogy, which is a new pedagogy we’re developing on this, that’s a very different conversation than when presidents say we have to do online, because if not, we’re gonna disappear. Or that’s the cash cow. Or we have to do ai. ’cause Now this AI is the new gold rush and the faculty are whiplash into, we have to do this and we have to do this. Instead of having a conversation of how has learning changed. Mm-Hmm. And how has your pedagogy changed? And do you think we need a new pedagogy? And why would we need a new pedagogy? We just finished writing Inges Global together with a group of brilliant people, a white paper on Neogogy, and we came up with the term, so the last pedagogy was Cybergogy was developed a few months ago, and all of a sudden we need a new pedagogy because of the, the rhythm of change, but also because of the massive change in the tools, the learning management systems that we have that impact our pedagogy.
Joe Gottlieb:
It’s exciting. I’ll have to check out that white paper if you can share it. So I want to ask you one more question before we bring this to a close. And that is thinking about its evolving structure and its evolving approach to its strategy. How will Jessup University be transformed by this new capability?
Alin Vrancila:
It’s a very good question. And I can only answer let me give you a, a mathematical answer. 20% of it, <laugh>, we don’t know yet all the unintended consequences, but I can tell you some intended consequences. Jessup has separated just a global into a branch campus to give it a chance to be a laboratory for the rest of the, the the system. So right now at Jessup, we have three areas. We have Jessup University, we have Jessup Global, and we have Jessup Foundation. And I really like the visionary structure of that. I think Dr. Jackson is on point with the fact that he has created a foundation that is looking at startups, that is looking at business ideas, that is looking at the marketplace, the shifts, the changes there has created Jessup Global to capitalized on what I consider to be the next frontier of, of learning in America is international, is global.
Alin Vrancila:
I’ve, I’ve learned this from a trusted mentor that looked and said, if you were to recreate Liberty University today or Grand Canyon today, or you know, all these largest, those are no not going to happen today. The next frontier is the world. Hmm. So those big, big universities today, 120,000 students, 130,000 students, you know, 50,000 students, those are hard to recreate in this environment. It’s going to be easier with the new technology, with the new emerging, but I really believe the future of higher education in America is opening the borders to the world. The world is much smaller today than it was yesterday. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And that being the case, Jessup is positioning themselves to be able to respond to the US market. Jessup Global is looking at international learning, online learning, no frontiers, no limits. And then preserving, and I think it’s a key here, preserving the value of face-to-face education, not just conserving, but preserving.
Alin Vrancila:
Preserving. So really protecting what we believe to be a significant formation at Jessup. Education is not just informing, forming, but it’s also transforming. We’re looking at transformational leaders in partnership with the church. That being the case, I believe face-to-face has its, its value, has its place. And being involved in all these three areas is where I believe it’s, it’s a very strong place. So just a global has has been the laboratory and is allowed to really push the agenda without now having to change the entire ecosystem at Jessup before I am able to have an academic conversation with faculty to say, lessons learned, these are the things that we have learned through this business. Exercise, academic exercise, learning exercise. This is what the learners are saying, these are, the faculty are saying, we are truly learning from this before we’re able to roll this out and saying, can we adopt this modality, this neogogy in the entire system of, of Jessup University right before we do that transformation.
Joe Gottlieb:
Super exciting. Okay. In summary, what three takeaways can we offer our listeners on the topic of turning a necessary merger into a tectonic shift in teaching and learning?
Alin Vrancila:
You have heard it here first at Joe’s podcast here on TRANSFORMED. I love this transformed education transformed ed. Number one, if I were to give numbers pastors talk about numbers so people remember number one, higher education has changed, is not changing has changed. I think you’re, you’re spot on, Joe. The tectonic shifts of higher education. You have maybe felt a little bit of your furniture shifting in the house. What I’m telling you is it changed the whole landscape of the continents. So higher education has changed. There was new pedagogies, there are new groundbreaking technologies. There are new learner expectations. And whoever’s driven by the student is already sensing that, is already feeling the pressure coming from that. And clearly there are new marketplace realities. So the number one takeaway that you can fear from me, somebody that has been through a school closure here, this please, universities that are not adapting today will really have a hard time justifying their existence tomorrow.
Alin Vrancila:
Another point that I wanna make significant here is mergers and acquisitions. I now, I want faculty to pay attention to me. If you’re a faculty member anywhere in this world, this is for you. Mergers and acquisitions in higher education are an undeniable reality, which is a new challenge for us in higher education. It truly is. And why did I call out faculty? Joe? Why did I call them out to pay attention to me is because I believe faculty members might be the most vulnerable population in mergers and acquisitions, acquisitions in higher education because it takes a faculty member anywhere between six months to maybe two years to land a job. And when changes happening, if a university can can contribute themselves to another university in three months, and all of a sudden that reality explodes into so many cons, considerations, you really have to look, keep an eye on where things are going.
Alin Vrancila:
So merger, acquisitions, undeniable reality. And then the most exciting thing for me right now is properly applied. I really believe, and I’m, I’m going to put this in underlying bold, italic, let me use all the, all the things and highlight with yellow, right? I’m an educational person here. I’m, I’m definitely a teacher at heart. AI properly, properly applied. This is the underline, properly applied, well designed, thoughtfully processed AI and artificial intelligence will, can and will help institutions deliver on their mission with greater value for students. I believe this today and I think I’m gonna be proven right tomorrow.
Joe Gottlieb:
Great summary. Alin, thank you so much for joining me today.
Alin Vrancila:
Thank you so much for having me. This is so exciting and thank you for what you do in the educational space.
Joe Gottlieb:
Oh, I’m thrilled to do it. And I wanna thank our guests for joining us as well. I hope you have a great day and we’ll look forward to hosting you again on the next episode of TRANSFORMED. Hey, listeners have transformed. I hope you enjoyed that episode and whether you did or not, I hope that it made you stop and think about the role that you are playing in your organization’s ability to change in the digital era. And if it made you stop and think, perhaps you would be willing to share your thoughts, suggestions, alternative perspectives, or even criticisms related to this or any other episode, I would love to hear from you. So send me an email at Info@Hidher.Digital or Joe@Higher.Digital. And if you have friends or colleagues that you think might enjoy it, please share our podcast with them as you and they can easily find TRANSFORMED is available wherever you get your podcasts.