Glendalí Rodriguez:

I wanna highlight a process that I implemented called the Comprehensive Academic Plan. So this was the first time our university is, you know, over 130 years old. We had not done this intentional, comprehensive effort to really set that roadmap for our institution into the future. So that process, we wanted to look, you know, five years out. And to do that, we worked as a pretty diverse team. So there were 16 people that came together. So ultimately then when you have those goals, you start to figure out what are some action items that you can do in response to that? And we integrated this into our strategic planning process. So we’re, we’re mapping the goals, but first doing an inventory. What other action plans at the university level are kind of tackling some of these issues? Our goal wasn’t to duplicate efforts. Instead, it was to re, re like Reshore, right?

Glendalí Rodriguez:

Shore up that, yes, this is something we still need to do, but then also identify gaps what came up that we actually don’t think we have anybody tending to. And that’s what we focused our energy on. So we have, you know, nine things over the next five years that we’re working on. We didn’t try to tackle all nine at once. We worked once again to really distill this down, and then through that strategic planning process, we’re investing resources, right? So, so as we identify these action items, we are working really hard to identify some resources to make them happen, and we’re holding ourselves accountable to providing how we’re doing on each of these at least once a semester, hopefully more often in, in terms of just closing that loop.

Joe Gottlieb:

That’s Glendalí Rodriguez, provost at the University of Wisconsin Stout, articulating how she and several extended teams are working a comprehensive academic plan. In concert with the institution’s existing strategic plan, we talked about the importance of program advisory committees to guide what’s needed for each program, the data needed to drive good decisions about change, and the commitment required for consistent reviews, prioritization, and communications necessary for success. 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 Glendalí Rodriguez, provost at the University of Wisconsin – Stout. Glendalí , welcome to TRANSFORMED.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

Thanks, Joe. Happy to be here. What do you wanna talk about today?

Joe Gottlieb:

Well, I would love to talk about comprehensive academic planning in the age of polytechnic velocity, but first I’d love for you to share a little bit about your personal background and how you got connected with the work that you do in higher ed.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

Great. Looking forward to the conversation. So I am a Spanish bilingual, Puerto Rican father was first generation college student, and I was raised just really hearing the value of education, right? It’s gonna open doors to opportunity. It was gonna help me just be more successful in life and give back to the community and, and really be part of a better world. So as I started my path, I actually didn’t think I was going to be a higher education professional, but I did go into the field of architecture and there’s some parallels there. So as an architect, I was working on things to really build a better space, a better environment, working across with a lot of people. Architects don’t design things just for themselves. And when the opportunity came up to teach, I joined the University of Wisconsin Stout in 2005 as a faculty member in the construction program.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

I really thrived working with students across different programs in a very applied way. So architecture, getting our students out there in the community of Menominee and working on service learning projects and solving problems. Pretty soon I started getting invited to different leadership roles here at Stout from department chair to then working with curriculum and the provost office. And long story short, I’m now provost of the institution, and I like to say there’s really great parallels with being an architect because I’m constantly working with diverse stakeholders, trying to ultimately serve our students and, and build student success to set them up to, for all the opportunities, right? That that can come their way.

Joe Gottlieb:

I love that story. I love the parallel with architecture. It’s such a rich field. I actually wanted to be an architect when I was a little kid. So I can relate to what might have been, but really interesting how you got drawn in closer and closer. It sounds like a very organic fluid pathway that just felt right for you.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

It did. I, I think so. You know, looking back, I, I really couldn’t have predicted where I’d be and, and I do, I use, you know, design thinking, problem solving skills, communication skills on a daily basis. And you know, higher ed is complex, so, so it’s a great, great match for me.

Joe Gottlieb:

Those skills come in handy in higher ed, <laugh> <laugh>. Okay. Well, let’s set the stage for this discussion. Share a little bit of background on University of Wisconsin Stout. I’m sure you know, some of our listeners may not know too much about it.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

Sure. So the University of Wisconsin Stout is the state of Wisconsin’s Polytechnic University. So we are one of 13 universities, part of the University of Wisconsin’s system. We have approximately around 6,000 on campus students, a little over a thousand 1200 online students. But I wanna talk a little bit about our Polytechnic designation. So we’re different. We’re not a comprehensive, we’re not an R1 research institution. We are a polytechnic, and we like to define that hopefully with, with a really easy way to remember. Through ABCs, we focus on applied learning, we focus on business and indi industry partnerships which, which really help us guide our work so that we can deliver a career-focused education. So A, B, c, applied learning business and industry partnerships and a education. One of the other aspects that I think makes Stout really unique is that we are the only four year university to have been awarded what’s called the Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

And I bring that up because part of what we’re gonna talk about when I think about the you know responding to the velocity that we find ourselves in is about at, at its core being really smart with, with our resources and strategic planning efforts. So that’s an, a unique attribute to, to UW Stout. And when I started as a faculty member, it was just day one, just really seeing how I could take our students work on real projects, connect with employers and businesses in the community, and really make sure we were teaching providing an education that set our students up to succeed.

Joe Gottlieb:

Because you’re a polytechnic, this starts to set up some challenges, right? So you’re, you’re drawn to bring applied learning to students, and as the market continues to pick up pace, the requirements that students would have to be successful in that market it begins to change. And it’s, it’s changing faster and faster. So isn’t it true then that maintaining pace becomes a bit of a challenge you have to solve for?

Glendalí Rodriguez:

Yeah, so absolutely. So when, when I mentioned applied learning, right? We’re, we’re trying to deliver and, and facilitate a learning experience that’s really, really relevant. So how are we doing that? It’s through those relationships with business and industry program advisory committees, different infrastructures that we have. But on the flip side, also, as we look internally, we’re trying to move quickly. And that challenges often you know, just preexisting communication structures for, for a university. And, and if you think of the different stakeholders, faculty, instructional, academic staff, professional staff, university staff, you know, we’re all doing this work together. So how are we communicating as this evolution is occurring and it’s only getting faster and faster? So I can give you some examples of, of some challenges. So it’s everything from, if you think about just the infrastructure piece. So space constraints as we need to be helping our graduates have more access to emerging technologies, learn how those technologies are impacting work processes that impacts our learning labs, our learning environments on campus.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

So you know, an example I can give is choosing really strategically, which, which classrooms can evolve, become you know, a computer lab with newer technologies in there, or we need more maker space opportunities for, for things to just really keep, keep to keep evolving. Public higher ed don’t necessarily have very quick construction opportunities to, to implement those changes. So you’re thinking about how to evolve and respond to those needs in a seamless way so that our curriculum can then continue to evolve into those, those those new aspects of, of the degree or of the programming. Another example is often we have you know, accreditors that, that might have a change. So in, in our area of dietetics and nutrition, for example, so to get licensed as a dietician, you now need to have a master’s degree.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

We offered a master’s degree, we offered an undergraduate degree, but rather than really add more time to, to delay for a student to be able to get that credential, we had to think smart. So how do we create an accelerated program, a three plus one? So now what you could, could have normally taken, you know, six or seven years, we’re trying to get it so that there’s a path for a student to see how that licensure is, is available to them in a, in a shorter timeframe. And that takes a lot of work, <laugh>, it takes a lot of people to kind of, you know, both make sure that it’s a quality educational experience, that we’re meeting accreditation standards, and yet we’re responding to that licensure change and, and all the ramifications of that.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

So you essentially have, you essentially have both, you know, you’re responding to external constraints and, and evolutions that are occurring in the market. You’re responding to the internal structures of accreditation and, and all those curriculum approval processes. You’re also working within the confines of limited resources for your spaces and how those can respond to learning environments. And they should also say in the online environment too. So, so we have, you know, a portion of our students that never step foot on stout’s campus. So how are we delivering applied education online? And often that’s because they’re working professionals. We’re working with them in a much more personalized, customized way. It’ll be working on projects that benefit their work situation, their work environment, and, and doing that you know, virtually versus versus in person.

Joe Gottlieb:

It’s fascinating that that frontier seems really new and and ripe with opportunity. That is, what does applied learning look like? Let’s say in, in a, let’s call, let’s use a business setting. I’m not, I don’t know if you have a programs that are kind of get into the specifics that I’m about to talk about, but rather than seeing the challenge of taking lab environments that are needed for applied learning and putting them online, right? That’s true for all the things that you want to keep doing, that you’re doing today online. But if instead you open up, well, what would this approach look like if we took the things that are very innately online already and created an applied learning environment there where it will be even easier? Because that’s the point, right? That’s the, that’s the environment where that’s going. I imagine you’re, the set of muscles that you have for attacking these things are way more developed than the average institution. So does that, is that, is that a frontier for you?

Glendalí Rodriguez:

For sure. I mean, I think covid accelerated that. So we have, for example, we have one of the only plastics engineering’s pro engineering programs, and how are we gonna be delivering plastic engineering related curriculum online? And that really took the, it, it took us to that next step of looking at what aspects of our lab can then be shared virtually. How do you start to communicate between perhaps a student who’s in this lab is being basically being the arms of the student that’s tuning in online, right? Yeah. So they’re talking to the student worker or this lab assistant and saying, okay, I want you to do this or that, and the student’s doing it live in the lab, and then the student, the other student’s responding to how it’s going. Or another example, one of our programs that’s growing really rapidly is our early childhood education online track.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

So we have teachers that are in the classroom working to get their licenses and, and going through an education program as well. And so how do we enable there to be virtual you know, observations occurring and things like that, that virtual instruction piece to help this, the, a teacher essentially complete their licensure requirements. So everything from a very technical side to also, right, you know, things tied to like an education profession. We, we balance that. And I, I really attribute that to our commitment to listening to the market and external stakeholders, our alumni, our graduates, and just really a commitment to evolve with what, with where the needs are.

Joe Gottlieb:

It’s fascinating. I mean, the first of those two examples that you just gave still in plastics engineering, it’s still a hard physical science, a thing that has to go on. But what the example you articulated really reflects the specialization of our society. There’s gonna be someone that has a need for a new plastic or, or, or a plastic application, and they’re gonna be naturally outsourcing that to a plastic fab outfit. And so both of those roles are super important in our vast business ecosystem that needs to be populated by, by graduates, right? And scaled by graduates. And so your ability to actually not only train on each, but train on them together in a, in a, in a dynamic collaborative environment. Really cool. Okay. So that’s exciting. Let’s talk about how you go about orchestrating this, the portfolio of change needed to keep your portfolio of academic programs current with this ever advancing horizon of, of need.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

Yeah, so, you know, first of all, I, I don’t do it alone and I don’t do it in a vacuum. It, it’s really critical to work as a village to, to get this stuff done. So I, I wanna highlight a process that I implemented called the Comprehensive Academic Plan. So this was the first time our university is, you know, over 130 years old. We had not done this intentional, comprehensive effort to really set that roadmap for our institution into the future. So that process, we wanted to look, you know, five years out. And to do that, we worked as a pretty diverse team. So there were 16 people that came together and we looked at, we, we really made it an inclusive process to listen to different pieces of data, really respond to data. So just wanted to highlight, you know, we did an environmental scan, so kind of looking out to see how do our peers, what are they doing, how do we compare if we’re looking just at that type of environmental information, but then also an internal survey.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

So listen to our current employees, our current students, faculty, staff and, and what, you know, what, what are they saying about the future and how, how we can meet the needs in the next five years. Then we also had data from what we call our program advisory committees, which I’ll talk about a little bit more in detail. But essentially those, each of our academic programs has an, a program advisory committee. We call ’em pacs, PAC but it’s comprised of employers, recent grads faculty and staff and, and students. And, and we’re, we’re convening at least once a semester, oftentimes informally through other venues, just how are we doing? What are you seeing in, in your industry? How are our students meeting those needs? What, what gaps are you seeing that we can try to start to address? So we had lots of data there.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

And then we also had in-person focus group meetings with different stakeholders. We invited our two year college partners, our statewide partners at the system level. You know, just really trying to understand what, what, how they see stouts could continue to meet goals into the future. And then the last, but not least, we, we invited Inco prospective students. So we had data on people who had inquired about Stout both at the undergrad and the graduate level. So we sent a survey instrument to them too. So, so what made you think about Stout? If you and didn’t end up coming here, why not? If you did come, what interested you? So we had a lot of, a lot of data. So once all those pieces of information came in and we’re sorting through it, it ultimately informed five focus goals that we, we identified as a university community really.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

And throughout that process, we, we shared early drafts of those focus goals to gather even more input. ’cause It’s really important that you don’t catch people by surprise necessarily. You wanna kind of walk them along the same path and know we weren’t gonna be giving them, you know, the hundreds of pages of, of data, but it was really having more conversations, helping educate each other on what we were seeing, what we were learning because that, that was really important. So people understood we weren’t pulling things out of the air we were responding to, to what we were seeing and what we were projecting. So ultimately then when you have those goals, you start to figure out what are some action items that you can do in response to that? And we integrated this into our strategic planning process. So we’re, we’re mapping the goals, but first doing an inventory.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

What other action plans at the university level are kind of tackling some of these issues? Our goal wasn’t to duplicate efforts. Instead, it was to re re like reshore, right? Shore up that yes, this is something we still need to do, but then also identify gaps what came up that we actually don’t think we have anybody tending to. And that’s what we focused our energy on. So we have, you know, nine things over the next five years that we’re working on. We didn’t try to tackle all nine at once. We worked once again to really distill this down, and then through that strategic planning process, we’re investing resources, right? So, so as we identify these action items, we are working really hard to identify some resources to make them happen, and we’re holding ourselves accountable to providing how we’re doing on each of these at least once a semester, hopefully more often in, in terms of just closing that loop. So going back to trying to work very quickly, you’re working quickly, but you’re trying to communicate often. I think a good rule of thumb is you’re supposed to share something seven times for somebody to maybe remember that they heard it. So, so you can just imagine we’re, we’re working through all of this, and it takes a village and, and takes a, a really strong commitment to, to work doing some hard work.

Joe Gottlieb:

Yeah, I love hearing about how you not only use lots of data for your comprehensive academic planning effort, but then you very intentionally looked at how to incorporate and integrate with the strategic planning cycle. And so just, just outta curiosity, was the timing of your strategic planning cycle a a little lucky or unlucky there? Like how did that come to pass?

Glendalí Rodriguez:

So one of the reasons I I, I attribute that we won the Baldridge Award back in 2001 is because of our strategic planning process. So I, I think it’s really strong in that area. So our strategic plan, you know, has a cycle, but it also allows there to be things that can kind of come in off cycle too. And that’s really important because you can’t, you don’t wanna say, oops, we can’t get to this now because we just finished having all these other conversations. So, you know, so I, so I, I bring that up because, you know, it, it worked really well and you know, it helped us, it helped us gain momentum with, with what we had identified, well,

Joe Gottlieb:

You’ve just said it, the, the option three is it wasn’t Locke, it was intentional because our strategic planning capability is flexible enough to incorporate new information, and that’s really, really key, right? So that, I think that to me is the, is the biggest failing of most strategic planning, planning efforts that exist today in a traditional form. And I, I see more and more institutions really striving to find that better, that increased agility. ’cause It’s a necessity and, and you guys are doing it systematically, which is super exciting. So I wanna double down on this this topic of how you are doubling down on advisory committees to really expand your awareness of how each program might need to change to meet emerging requirements. Tell us, tell me more about that.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

Yeah, so so as I mentioned, so we have a program advisory committee for each of our programs. So we have, you know, 72 <laugh> programs. It leads to a lot of, a lot of networks. With, with, I would say we have advisory committees anywhere from like five to 25 people on each. So, so you have a range. And that I think also reflects that sometimes a program is, is really we have differences in programs. So I can give you an example, like our construction program, I think has one of the most robust and longstanding program advisory committees that at one time had almost 40 members on that, on that committee. And, and, you know, within the realm of construction, you have those different sectors, you know, that, that you could, you could start to see a diversity of the companies coming, but then ultimately our degree is very management focused.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

And so we’re, we’re trying to really lean into the leadership aspects that are needed across that sector. We have other, other programs like our management program, our business management program. There’s so many unique industries that are looking for that skillset that, that it’s kind of a different approach within, within that advisory committee structure. But still at the core of these conversations, which happen, you know, typically once a semester we’re, we’re talking about what, what are you seeing in the industry that’s, that’s changing and how can we address that? A great example I can share in our plastics engineering program, you know, plastics and sustainability are, are often there’s a tension there. And we have, you know, we, we have this commitment to sustainability and how is our plastics engineering program working to showcase that they’re, they’re committed to that too.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

So that led to very intentional changes in both you know, the, the kinds of projects that we’re doing in plastics engineering, the way we’re talking about it even the, the kind of, you know, machines that we have where, where we’re talking a lot more about how to res recycling aspects of, of plastics and how students are actually creating filaments from down, you know, basically down cycling recycling plastics and then using that. So, so all of these conversations are happening at least once a semester. And, and what I wanna share though is, you know, that was, that’s kind of the polytechnic approach is to, to have that commitment to listening and convening and responding to industry with, you know, something like AI that’s accelerating the, the need for those conversations in a way that’s really pushing stout in new ways. And often, you know, you have industry and, and stout where we’re saying, okay, so, so how are we gonna do this? And how are we gonna do this together because it’s a brand new landscape that we’re in on top of just the normal pieces that, you know, normal pace of change that we were trying to respond to.

Joe Gottlieb:

So are you, I imagine you’re using, you’re turning to AI to help you with that very challenge because, you know, it’s it’s an interesting dance that everyone’s going through right now. It’s fascinating that you really can start to harness the disruptor to help you address the disruption, right? Because it can formulate things, it can go, it can get through the TDM and, and anyway, that sounds really, really fun. That would be a whole nother topic, <laugh>. So let’s let’s let’s now talk about your favorite proof points that demonstrate that your approach is working. I’m sure you have some good examples, and I’d love you to also sprinkle in a little texture for where either a, a failure point or an obstacle helped you learn and refine your approach.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

Yeah. Well, when I think about a good example of, of a proof point that, that demonstrates what we’re doing is working, I, I, I’ve got two examples on the student success piece. It’s our career placement rate. We have, you know, 99% placement within six months of graduation for our students. And we’re, we’re really proud of that. We feel like we’re an outlier and very, very strong data to support just the success of our students, which is critical. And then I think just in terms of, as a provost and on the functional side, we’re able to evolve programs. So that might be redirecting a program. An example I can give there is our fashion and retail program as evolving into fashion and product development program or sunsetting programs when it’s necessary. So we do have programs that we’ve, we’ve suspended admissions and eventually closed and, and then launching of new programs.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

We’re, we’re really excited about a, a new program in game and media studies that’s going to be going up for approval next week. So, so we’re, we’re able to do that. And it’s, it’s in a very transparent and open way with the campus. And I, I don’t, I think for, for if there are other higher ed administrators listening, the last thing you want to do is, is to end up with some negative PR around program modifications that a university’s making. And I’m really proud that, that we have a, a really great approach to, to that. In terms of challenges, you know, I think one of the things we heard in our comprehensive academic planning feedback and data was, and, and you hear this I think in, in other sources, is just how we should be moving more towards microcredentials and unbundling of degrees and, and how are we delivering that?

Glendalí Rodriguez:

Well, Stout had a lot of, had a lot of certificates already, but we’re doing a deeper dive because those enrollments aren’t there. So, so what is it that we need to be doing? How do we need to be shifting, how we’re defining a certificate you know, and, and, and even badges and, and things like that, those microcredentials and what is it that, that the external world is really gonna value and, and see as an asset for our students to leave with in hand? ’cause Our enrollments just aren’t, aren’t where we expected them to be. And, and so that’s an area that we’re working to improve.

Joe Gottlieb:

Yeah, I I, that’s a very interesting one because you’re right, there has been this, this grand challenge or assertion that the unbundling of degrees is gonna unlock all of this more fluid employability by virtue of skills that can be applied. And you would think you guys would be in a position to really make that work. I suspect you’re gonna crack the code earlier than others, but I also imagine that some part of that narrative is a bit intellectual and people still have their patterns, right? So employers, while they want more and more of them are starting to release their obsession with degrees, it’s still a thing. If you’re ever lazy about hiring, you’re defaulting to degrees. Unless you’re really making the effort to find the people that are gonna fit well and have right skills, well that takes testing. It’s a higher bar to then not use that crutch, right?

Joe Gottlieb:

Just like, you know, SAT scores, let’s admit it, right? We’re a useful proxy for a lot of things, and yes, it’s true we could maybe do a better job without them, but only if we invested in the time needed to, to really really get into that more nuanced evaluation. We digress. But it’s interesting that those micronet credentials are a, a frontier there that you’re willing to acknowledge is yeah, needs to be tuned further. And I think that’ll be an interesting opportunity going forward. Alright, why don’t we bring this to a close. What are three takeaways we can offer our listeners on this topic of comprehensive academic planning in the age of polytechnic velocity?

Glendalí Rodriguez:

So I would say it starts with, the first one is you have to take a systematic approach to really hear external parties like employer partners, community partners in a way that you can act on. The second is program advisory committees are key to balancing, you know, the diverse perspectives that are necessary to keep informing program evolution. And the last one is integrating your approach to comprehensive academic planning with your institution’s strategic planning is key.

Joe Gottlieb:

Great summary. Glendalí, thank you so much for joining me today.

Glendalí Rodriguez:

Thank you. It’s been a pleasure

Joe Gottlieb:

And thanks to 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.

Joe Gottlieb:

Yo, stop the music. 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 were 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@Higher.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.