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’ll 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 Dr. Rafik Mohammed, provost and VP of Academic Affairs at Cal State San Bernardino. Rafik, welcome to TRANSFORMED.

Rafik Mohamed:

Thank you, Joe. Happy to be here to chat with you today. What do you want to talk about?

Joe Gottlieb:

So, glad you asked Rafik. I want to talk about how you are leveraging stakeholder buy-in for better, faster change. But before we dive into that, please share a little bit about your personal journey and how it has shaped your perspective and the passion for the work that you do in higher ed.

Rafik Mohamed:

Sure. Don’t mind sharing with you, Joe. So let’s see. Originally I’m from Washington, DC and I bring that up just because it’s relevant to kind of how I ended up a, an accidental administrator. I I grew up in the DC area right outside of DC and mostly in Silver Spring, Maryland. Had parents who always emphasized the importance of education. So I always knew that I was going to go to college. Initially I, in, in high school, I took a, a, I took a law class and I took an accounting class. I loved both. So my initial major in college was accounting. And my intention was to go on pass the c p a exam, get a jd and become something very exciting, like a tax lawyer <laugh>.

Rafik Mohamed:

And ultimately that didn’t happen as, as, as you can see what changed it for me was largely the social context of where I was at that time. I was, it was, I was still, I went to college in dc I went to George Washington University from undergrad. And it was at the height of the war on drugs. And so there was a lot going on around me with regard to disparate applications of criminal justice kind of racial strife and things like that, that that drew my attention away from ledgers and amortization and things like that. So I started focusing more on I still intended to go to law school, but was still thinking, was thinking along the, along the lines of public defense or civil liberties kind of, kind of a law career there.

Rafik Mohamed:

Long story short I took a, I took a class with a professor by the name of William Chambliss, who just to me, seemed like some other professor. But the, the, it, it turns out he had a profound impact on my life. One day after class, he asked me what I was gonna do, <laugh> when I finished college I didn’t, I thought I was in trouble, so I didn’t say anything. And he said he said, lemme guess you’re gonna law school. I said, that’s the plan. He said, have you ever thought about going to graduate school? And I hadn’t had no idea what you did in graduate school, <laugh> but I sat with him, talked with him for an hour that night changed the course of my life. And so, wow. So that, that’s, that’s kind of how I got into higher ed. Began my career as a faculty member. Never planned to be an administrator. And I can, you know, tell you more about that later if you care. But that’s, that’s essentially how I got where I am today.

Joe Gottlieb:

Very interesting. And that actually, that’s a perfect sort of ending to the, your story to begin this story about what we’ll talk about today. I think it sets the stage right, nicely. So, ’cause I know you’ve worked in at least three very different institutional sort of cultures and contexts. And, and the way I’d like to start today is just to ask you to characterize those differences and their impact on, on managing change. How, how managing change felt a bit different in each of those environments.

Rafik Mohamed:

Sure. That’s a, that’s a great question. So I, for graduate school, I, I, I came out to the West coast to attend University of California Irvine. In part because William Chalis knew some people out at U C I who he thought I would work well with, but also that they had a program that was an interdisciplinary program that really spoke to my research interest at that time. And so I didn’t know anybody on the West Coast, but came out to California. My intention was be out here five years, get my PhD and get back to DC as quickly as possible. I’m still in California, <laugh>, that didn’t work out as planned. But when I was finishing up my dissertation at, at U C I I started applying for positions. I knew I didn’t want to go a research one route because I had started teaching as, as a graduate student, and fell in love with kind of being in the classroom with students and really responding to all that they gave me.

Rafik Mohamed:

And so I was looking for places where teacher scholar mattered. I applied for a position at the University of San Diego down in the city of San Diego which is a private Catholic university tuition dependent Catholic university down in San Diego. And so that’s where I began my career. And I was there for 10 years. I started off as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, and ultimately was the chair of the department there at, at U S D in terms of managing change at that institution. The interesting thing about U S D relative to the other places I’ve been since was that it was, it was, you know, it was, it was a singular university <laugh> that responded to a board. So it wasn’t part of a system. And, and therefore it was far less bureaucratic.

Rafik Mohamed:

There was a lot that you could get done easier than, than I f found you could at, when, when I was in Georgia and when I’m was back in California, I’ll tell you about that in a second. But the bureau, the layers of bureaucracy were less. And, and, and, and I also found that as a Catholic university, if you could tie something to the mission it was a lot easier to get resources to affect change, but also to kind of move maybe not the whole university, but certain initiatives forward fairly easily. The one thing I will say is that as a tuition dependent institution the students are kind of viewed much more as consumers and, and as customers. And so there was a resistance to certain kinds of change, even if it coincided with the mission, if it could negatively affect the bottom line, right?

Rafik Mohamed:

Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So there was that like, kind of sticking point in terms of change and, and managing change that, that you always had to kind of grapple with. I left U S D after 10 years for a position at Clayton State University. The reason I left U S D, it was pretty simple. I loved working there. I thought it was a great place to grow up as a faculty member. But I wanted to work with a more diverse student population. I wanted to work in a public university setting. And the job that I moved over to, which was chair of the Department of Social Sciences, was a bigger position, much bigger department interdisciplinary and things like that. And so Clayton State was a smaller campus, but part of a big system. It was a regional comprehensive campus in, in the university system of Georgia serving southern metropolitan Atlanta mm-hmm.

Rafik Mohamed:

<Affirmative> and about 7,500 students or so when I first got there. And and, and the difference at Clayton State, I learned really quickly, was that <laugh> the, the university system of Georgia was a had a very strong central governance model. <Laugh> chancellor’s office dictated all with some, you know, minor exceptions. If you were University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, they kind of could march to their own beat from time to time. But the other 33 campuses at that time in the U SS G were, were, were, were kind of driven by the Chancellor’s office. And so change at the campus level was actually challenging. Even if you were looking at issues of, say, technology, a lot of the platforms that we used at Clayton State were given to us by the Chancellor’s Office, rather than you know, rather than us being asked for input on should we, you know, move from Blackboard to desire to learn or whatever the case was.

Rafik Mohamed:

And so that was kind of interesting to me. And, and, and, and, and certainly different from how I experienced things at University of San Diego. So I was at Clayton State for six years ultimately transitioned to Dean position Cal State California State University, San Bernardino much larger university system. The largest four year public university system in the country serving approximately a half million students across 23 campuses. And I, so I was Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Year, which was the largest college between US and Natural Sciences at, at C SS U S B. And, and I was expecting the chancellor’s office to operate. And in terms of change, much like the U s G the university system system of Georgia that wasn’t the case. <Laugh> I used to teach classes on criminology and I would talk about the criminal justice system as a system in name only, because it really ties together all of these different operations under one large umbrella.

Rafik Mohamed:

And, and, and that’s kind of how the California State University system operates. Where the chancellor’s office is there, there are edicts that come out and they control kind of the larger purse strings, but the individual campuses have a fair amount of autonomy. Also, we are a highly unionized system. And so there’s change can be challenging if you don’t have buy-in from the various collective bargaining units. So, so you know, that on the one hand, you know, being a part of a big system is a, is a, is a good thing because you know, there, there, there is direction. But on the other hand, when you know, you have the different bargaining units and you have the different campuses that are operating fairly autonomously it can be, it can be a little bit challenging to manage change just because, you know, everybody rightfully so, has an opinion and, and they can exercise that opinion. So, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s been interesting, but it’s been good.

Joe Gottlieb:

That is very interesting. Just a, just the basic differences between those three environments. When I first heard you talk about that, I really felt like that was a, a, a nice foundational way to start, right? Because everyone’s gonna find themselves in probably one of those three settings or something quite close. And it does really set part of the context. So now, let’s, let’s shift into then how your role was a little bit different, but also often the same at these three different spots, because I think that’s gonna also speak to some of the unique examples and, and, and suggestions you’re gonna make a bit later in, in the discussion. So, how, how did your role, how did, how was your role similar and how did it change across those three places?

Rafik Mohamed:

Sure. As you know, the really at, at the macro level I think I’ll focus on the difference first. It’s just my, you know, kind of my, my position changed over time from you know, being purely a faculty member to being you know, kind of middle management to a member of, of the univer of the university cabinet, right? Right. So, so with that, you know, the scope of my job has changed and gotten bigger. And, and also the, the bullseye <laugh> on, on, on my back has gotten much bigger. And, and that’s a, that’s a, I guess, crass way of saying accountability. There’s more accountability. But but, you know, I, I, I will say that with respect to, you know, how my role has been the same at all three schools I I’ve always been a part of the kind of the, the, the teaching and learning function of the institution.

Rafik Mohamed:

From my earliest days at U S D I was I, I don’t wanna say dragged in, I was <laugh>. I willingly went along with requests for me to be a part of larger campus-wide initiatives. You know, as, as I mean, I, not to go too far down this path, but when I was hired at U S D, they, they didn’t have currently, at least when I was brought in, and, and this was 1999, there weren’t any black tenure track faculty at U S D Wow. Zero <laugh>. And, and so I was hired along with two other folks as part of this, as in, in my cohort in different departments, in different colleges. But because of that, you know, I was kind of pulled in, for example, early on into every campus initiative having anything to do with diversity, right?

Rafik Mohamed:

<Laugh>. And so you know, I was, you know, and, and I was asked to be the advisor of the Black Student Union and all this other stuff. And, and, and I willingly and happily took on those responsibilities, but it, it did kind of initiate me to kind of how, you know, as a faculty member, it’s easy to kind of just stay in your department and focus on that. But this pulled me out at a very early stage into into kind of larger institutional operations. And, and toward the end of my tenure at U S D I was, as I said, I was department chair for my last three years there. And I, you know, was, had the, I was invited to serve as a member of the strategic planning committee for the College of Arts and Sciences. And, and ultimately after I left, U S D was actually offered a position to come back as the associate Provost for diversity and inclusion.

Rafik Mohamed:

But I just moved to Georgia, and I was like, well, I’m not turning right back around. So but, but, but, but I say that just to say that, that it was it was, it was a great opportunity to kind of see the larger scale of how the university worked. And then that was a nice transition into Clayton State, where, as I said, I was the chair of the Department of Social Sciences there. And, and the chair position there was different from my previous chair position in that a lot of the responsibilities, and I can say this as a former dean, and a lot of the responsibilities that ordinarily would be managed by the Dean’s office were delegated out to department chairs. Mm-Hmm. And so we functioned in many ways as, as assistant deans involved in business operations involved in, you know transitioning to more kind of tech technological applications, more online classes, better online classes and things like that.

Rafik Mohamed:

We had, we, you know, we, we were directly involved in a lot of those things there. So, so, and also some of the other things I had opportunities to participate in, like like fundraising and, and advancement development, marketing, things like that, that ordinarily department chairs, chairs aren’t that directly involved in. And so it provided me with a really good opportunity to, to, to kind of do those kinds of things. And then when I left Clayton State, came over to California State University of San Bernardino as I mentioned, I was the dean of the College of Social Behavioral Sciences for my first seven years here. And, and, you know, obviously in, in that position, you, you’re, you’re much more directly involved in overall institutional operations, change management and, and that balance between kind of you know, kind of the, the, the, the, the day-to-day functions of the university and the kind of the needs of the students and the faculty and the staff.

Rafik Mohamed:

So there’s been a lot, there’s been a similar thread in, in, in that, from an early stage I was involved in, in larger scale institutional operations. But certainly now my job is <laugh> almost a hundred percent focused on that. I, I’ve said the provost job is, is I never wanted to be a provost in, in significant part because it takes me away, farther away, or about as far as far away as possible as from, from the things I got into higher ed for, which was really, I loved working with students, and now I only see them when they’re walking by my window, right? <Laugh>. But, but I have a, I have a great opportunity to really directly impact their education through working with the leadership team of, of, of academic affairs to really try to affect positive change.

Joe Gottlieb:

Well, the downside of leadership and, and and success in that regard. So it, it happens to good folks. So, you know, I, I’m glad you went through that because it, I think it really sets the context for both at an institutional level, but even at a role level, how you’ve been, you’ve been kind of seeing the different angles on both the delivery of the product teaching and learning to the students, right? As well as the administrative functions necessary to, to, to operate as an institution and how, and how those need to be managed as a sort of a portfolio. And then ultimately, I know also you’ve always been involved with the strategic planning activities at each of those institutions in that role. So it’s a great vantage point for you to, for you to now cite some examples. So let’s dive into that.

Joe Gottlieb:

So what are some of the specific examples of how these different contexts with state system and without impacted the, the campus at hand, the institution that you were at at the time, and their ability to manage change? And let’s go ahead and say, particularly related to technology, we’re gonna zoom out on that topic a bit later, but let’s go ahead and dive right into some of these technology related projects that you did encounter in this role seeing these different facets and how it, how it was different a across, let’s just go maybe at least the Georgia versus C SS U system.

Rafik Mohamed:

Sure, sure. And you know, and I’ll say very, very briefly about University of San Diego as a private institution you know, that was doing fairly well. Disruption <laugh> wasn’t necessarily encouraged. I mean, you know, positive change was encouraged, but, you know, anything that might be disruptive to the model was not encouraged. And also, faculty had a loud voice at, at U S D, not unionized, but had a loud voice there. And so, so in terms of you know, I just, you know, speaking of technology very quickly, it, you know, things like U S D was a, was a lot about tradition. In fact, there used to be a restaurant on campus called Traditions and, and, and, and so anything that seemed like it was going to alter how education was delivered was kind in a, in a technological way.

Rafik Mohamed:

Initially when I was there was Sean. So, for example, there was a a defacto policy banning online classes. They’ve since moved away from that. But y you know, when I left there, I don’t recall a single online class. And this was in 2009 Mm. Administered from the, from, from any of the academic, the traditional academic departments. So that was interesting being, you know, where in a private institution where, where tradition and kind of brand mean, mean a lot more. But, but moving forward into kind of contrasting the university system of Georgia and the C S U the Cal State system, you, as I mentioned, with respect to the s d of the, the U s g University system of Georgia the decision making, including in, in terms of managing change related technology, was was, was very top down.

Rafik Mohamed:

So, you know, from one year to the next, we would be told we’re using a new payroll system where we’re using, using a new core scheduling system, or we’re using a new L m s or <laugh>, you know, so, so like, I, I used the example of Blackboard before there was no conversation or, or the transition from Blackboard. There was no conversation that I recall <laugh> as a, as, as a campus or with our campus about moving from Blackboard to desire to learn. And I, you know, I thought desire to learn was a, was a much more user-friendly system than Blackboard was at that time. But ultimately, it proved really disruptive because it was just a, you know, a a a product rollout, you’re gonna use this, figure it out rather than, you know, how can we make this work?

Rafik Mohamed:

How can we get buy-in? So I know as a department chair, in terms of managing change around this particular technology there was, you know, there was a lot of helping to kind of calmly bring faculty along who were kind of affected by, by this disruption. Another example in Georgia was at, at one point, we had three different, it was simultaneous. We had three different platforms for advisors to use. So <laugh>, we that, that overlapped and didn’t talk to each other. And it was just really you know, and, and, and faculty were heavily involved in advising at, at Clayton State. And chairs were heavily involved in advising Clayton State. And so to have to try to work between these three, or among, among these three different systems really wasn’t the most effective way to go about ensuring our student success.

Rafik Mohamed:

And again, those were things that were given to us by, by the U S G, and they were, they were, you know, they said by the Chancellor’s office, and they said, you know, use this <laugh>. And so we did even if it was well intended, you know, like, this is gonna help promote student success or whatever. It was just kind of, you must do this the Cal State system. It doesn’t operate like the university system of, of Georgia in that way. As I, as I mentioned a lot of the decisions about technology, for example, they’re, they’re centralized technologies that we all have to use, but a lot of the decisions about technology are really up to the C I o the president cabinet of, of the individual campuses. I, I think the, the tagline coming, I was the last meeting I was at, at the Chancellor’s office the I believe it was the interim chancellor who said this that, that the, the new way of thinking about the Cal State system is one system in 23 universities where the old way was one university with 23 campuses.

Rafik Mohamed:

So, so, you know, that suggests a considerable amount of autonomy. And, and that’s really what I’ve, what I’ve, what I’ve realized, I came in thinking the Chancellor’s office was kind of all powerful. And really the chancellor’s office is, is more about facilitation here in the Cal State system. And, and so with respect to technology it’s, it’s good in a way, and that you can figure out what works best for your campus, but it’s also, there’s some shortcomings there. I mean, first of all, if you just think about volume, if you have the largest system in the, in the, in the world, <laugh> you know, saying, we are all going to adopt x, you know, platform just in terms of, of leverage, bargaining power, things like that, with a, with a provider you, you have, you, you, you have the ability to control cost, I think in a way that’s a little bit different and demand service in, in a little different way if you’re that big of a customer.

Rafik Mohamed:

Whereas if it’s individual campus, and we do have central conduits, but I’m just using that as an example. Also the other advantage is you, you know, there is a sense of you can get what works for your campus, because while we have 23 campuses, they’re not all the same. Mm-Hmm. Our campus, for example we have, we, we, we have, I I, if I’m not mistaken, the highest, the highest need rate in the, in the C S U, in the Cal State system, meaning 82% of our students are on aid mm-hmm. <Affirmative> you know, we, 85% of our students are first in their families to go to college. And so, you know, what our students experience as first generation college students, many of whom come from lower income families, is different from what a student at say Cal Poly San Luis Obispo might experience, where their, their demographics are, are, are, are significantly different.

Rafik Mohamed:

And so the ability to kind of, as a, as a campus, as part of a system, you know, to, to, you’re still able to leverage the size of the system Mm. Certain advantages, but to have that autonomy, you know, that, that, that, that can be, that can be advantageous. I think the, you know, the challenge is that <laugh> you know, it, it just can, you know, it, it, it just can create this kind of chaos though, when you have not only different campuses, but different, when I first got here, you had different colleges that were doing their own, they were kind of had their own little orchestra playing with around technology and the C I O who’s still here, who’s wonderful, was really working hard to kind of bring it together to a more kind of centralized focus. So kind of what we were experiencing at the system level was also playing out here on campus with respect to technology.

Joe Gottlieb:

Really interesting. So, just to maybe catch a few points of emphasis there. So in the, in the Georgia system, you, a couple of examples there, where a top-down approach that lacked stakeholder management as a, as a principle of, of the way you go about managing change, really in the, in the case of like D two L kind of squandered some of the technical benefits of that solution just because of the way it was done, right? Like, so here you have maybe a better technology, maybe it’s a great choice, but, you know, alienating lots of adoption and or, you know, folks that ultimately can benefit from this. So interesting to point that out. And then meanwhile, in the C S U system it, it’s big and it’s so, it’s so big that it kind of probably needs this ability to adapt at the, at the campus or university level. And yet, in the case of, I know your transition from Blackboard to Canvas culture was a big theme. And so stakeholder management was a big thing that allowed you to see a very different sort of approach and, and perhaps set of outcomes. Care to elaborate on that. Sure,

Rafik Mohamed:

Sure. Yeah. So we, we used to, when I first got here, we were a blackboard canvas, and we are now a canvas campus. And, you know, the initial declaration that we were gonna do that we didn’t, it wasn’t like we experienced it in the, at, at Clayton State, Clayton State, you’re gonna be a D two L campus, here you go, <laugh> here, you know, we knew it was coming but there was an opportunity for us to really kind of roll it out in a way that incentivized training that got buy-in from faculty that kind of explained to faculty and students why, you know, the L M SS was changing and the benefits of this new system. And, and in terms of the, the, not just the little bells and whistles, but how it spoke with other systems on campus, how it allowed for better data collection and analysis and things like that, right.

Rafik Mohamed:

Which, you know, it, it, it gave, it gave us time as a campus to really kind of say, these are the benefits, you know, who’s coming with me? <Laugh>, you know a little Jerry McGuire moment, except a lot of people came with right? <Laugh>. So, so there’s still people who, who, who didn’t, who, who weren’t responsive to the change. But we were able to get a, a, a critical mass of people behind this transition because of the process of rolling it out here, and the awareness that, and I think we’ve learned from, from past mistakes you know, internally and looking externally as well of what happens when you, when you, you know, when you, when you don’t manage change correctly, or when you when when you don’t properly consult with people who, who are gonna be directly affected by mm-hmm. Some kind of change, whether it be technological or otherwise.

Rafik Mohamed:

And so here it was, it was, it was a lot smoother. Again, still met with bits of resistance. It was also, I think, in the midst of Covid and everything else. So it wasn’t necessarily the ideal time but it, it, it it, you know, now it’s, yeah, it wasn’t as disruptive for sure. The other thing that, just going back to the university system of Georgia for a second, you know, I, I recall that it was, you know, part of the problem also was even if they were giving you a great system to work with, the, the rate of deployment of new systems <laugh> seems so frequent that it was hard to get people to really invest in something because they were like, oh, the chancellor’s office is just gonna give us something else in two years, and we’re gonna have to learn that.

Rafik Mohamed:

So even our, our professional advisors on our campus, we were developing a, a larger cadre of professional advisors when I was there. You know, they were, they were having a hard, hard time buying into any particular when we first became an e a B campus. Sure, it was great. But ultimately the question was, how long are we gonna be with this until some other system is comes along and we’re told we have to use that, right? And so it was, it was that change was not necessarily, and, you know, it might be radically different there. I haven’t been in the U S G in eight years, but that change was, was, was, was disruptive just because of the, the frequency of change.

Joe Gottlieb:

Mm-Hmm. So it sounds like in both the case of, of better if you measure the total value experience by those adopting the new system, and in the case of faster, if you measure time to value, it seems like that checks out in terms of the different approach that you enjoyed at the, in the C S U example versus in this case, you know the Georgia system example.

Rafik Mohamed:

Yeah. There, I mean, there were times in, in, in Georgia where, you know, you appreciate sometimes, you know, people telling you this is the way things are gonna be, because then the, you don’t have to deal with as much of the change management piece. Like, it’s like, this is it, this is what we have to do, let’s suck it up and live with it. But, you know, ultimately, if you’re looking at, at the end result, which is people really investing in a system, in a software and a technology you, you know, to, to, to use the carrot rather than the stick has, you know, ultimately we’re here for student success, and that has better outcomes for our students.

Joe Gottlieb:

Well, we’ll come back to carrots and sticks when we talk about strategic planning and, and the context around that. But first, let’s take a little stop on the topic of, you know, how does your institution’s c i o leverage this stakeholder buy-in approach to, to, let’s say, accelerate, enhance the better and the faster, faster and better, in this case, technology related change. Maybe you can give a little background on sort of, you know, your relationship with, with your C I O and, and, and, and how you perceive that at work in your environment there.

Rafik Mohamed:

Sure. Our, our, our C I O is a, is a wonderful man, and I, I, I keep, jo, I always joke with him that I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’ve known him for eight years, and he is just a really nice person. So I think, you know, whenever you’re implementing significant change, and I’ll explain the change that he was brought into implement I, if you don’t have the right personality behind that, you’re doomed. And <laugh>, and he’s someone who, he’s kind, he listens really well. He’s responsive. Mm. And, and, and, you know, kind of results driven. And so he’s been here a little over, I think a little over 10 years, his name Sam Sacker. And, and his, his whole, we joke about it, but when he was exclusively the C I o, his position just changed a couple of months ago. So he is taken over both technology, but also administration and finance. And so he’s, he’s, he’s doomed, but <laugh>,

Rafik Mohamed:

But he, his, his mantra was, you know, this is the world-class i t s division, right? So he is a world-class customer service. He would just, every time he, he had a platform, he was like, we are going to provide world-class customer service to this campus. When he came in and I can’t recall if it was right before he got here, or right when he, when he got here, but there was a, a full audit of it on our campus that had find that, you know, you don’t, with audits, you want as few findings as, as you can. And there were a lot of findings, <laugh>, <laugh> on our campus, because in significant part, all of our IT services were decentralized. There was a central it but you know, I came in as dean of a college, and we had our own IT operation.

Rafik Mohamed:

We had our own lead in it. We had our own budget for it. We did our own purchasing for it. We, it was, it was, and, and that began kind of organically because our institution experienced relatively rapid change. And so growth over a period of maybe 20 years. And so colleges were just responding to, to the demands of this change. And also rapid change in terms of increase in you know, in, in technology. I mean, technology, as you know, <laugh> is, is, is changing very quickly. And so, you know, the colleges needed to be responsive. And so when, when Sam first got here he, he encountered a a lot of silos with respect to, to it. And he was told by the president because of the audit, you need to fix this. <Laugh>.

Rafik Mohamed:

And Sam was wise enough not to just come in and, and bulldoze. He he, he, he listened to folks and he went about a plan of gradual change which I think was, was, was really smart. In terms of, and I don’t mean this in a manipulative way, but managing the stakeholders. He got to know when I first got here, he got to know me well, he got to know what what he got to know my personality, which is important and, and got to know what I was hearing from the college, and then worked with me to test drive gradual centralization to, to really help protect our, our security. And, and, and and, and to protect that’s the main thing. Like the, the, to, to protect the, the security of our information and things like that on our campus, in any case.

Rafik Mohamed:

So Sam, Sam really had to go, you know, had to go in this listening tour, had to listen well, had to be responsive. The other thing that Sam always says that I think is just critically important, <laugh> as the the VP for its slash CIO was, you know, he’s like, I’m the only one in my division who’s allowed to say no. And so what he did was he, you know, he got his staff to buy into that vision of world-class customer service, and that the answer’s always yes, or Let me talk to someone else and see what we can do for you. And I really do think that that helps Sam really focus on the issues of, of data security inconsistent softwares across colleges and things like that to, to, to bring about the gradual centralization of it. So to point out, even in, in our college, we managed our own servers and now all of the servers are centrally housed. And so but it took time. It took, it took him getting to know the various stakeholders. It took him getting to know what made the individual leadership folks tick and, and to work with them in that regard. And he is really nice. <Laugh>

Joe Gottlieb:

<Laugh>. Well, I love hearing you articulate these these reflections on the c i o you’ve been working with now for almost a decade. And because it, even for CIOs that I know enjoy, are part of our audience, it, it just helps paint a picture, right, of, okay, this is in your case you’re, you’re, you’re provost, you’re like the quintessential customer of such things. And, and having this ability to articulate this, this this, this experience about what’s going on with it there led by Sam is, is, is awesome. So let’s, then we’ll shift gears one more time. Now. I wanna, I wanna come back to that strategic plan. And, and so many institutions really struggle to make progress on strategic change because their strategic plans, they’re too lofty, they’re unmeasurable, they’re pie in the sky, they’re underfunded, right? They’re, they’re asking people to do more with, you know, on top of their day jobs. How do you see Cal State San Bernardino different to that, and what role does stakeholder buy-in, play in, in that difference that the approach going on there?

Rafik Mohamed:

Yeah. So, so with, with us the strategic plan really is it’s, it’s a rational strategic plan. We just went through we we’re just rolling out our new strategic, our new five-year strategic plan right now mm-hmm. Because it went live a couple of weeks ago when, when faculty returned and students returned to, to, to campus. And our president’s been adamant about really having tangible, measurable goals in the strategic plan. Not like a bunch of low hanging fruit that can just symbolically say, look what we did. But really things that, that, you know, there, there are stretch goals in there for sure. But things that are retainable if we really focus on it. Mm-Hmm. The other, the other thing that’s been great about the two other things that have been great about the strategic planning process here at C S U S B have been number one, when I first got here, they just rolled out the previous strategic plan.

Rafik Mohamed:

Everybody had a copy of it. So everybody, I mean, I, I, I was handed probably 10 different copies of it in my first year. The bound copies, the nice ones, like, here, this is your Bible, you know, <laugh>. But, but, but it wasn’t one, it, it, it, it wasn’t, I, I’ve been a part of strategic planning processes where that document was meant to be on the shelf to be pulled down when WASK or SACS or whoever came by and said, see, we have a strategic plan. And that’s not the case here at all. It is, it is a collaborative process in developing the plan, and it serves as the, as the roadmap for what we are going to do for the next five years. And what I always tell people is critically impart important. It also serves as the guide for resource allocation.

Rafik Mohamed:

Mm-Hmm. So if, you know, we, we are in the land of finite resources, and so what you’re asking for money for or doing isn’t consistent with the strategic plan. You’re gonna be hard pressed to get internal funding to support what you’re doing. Whereas we had a meeting two days ago, a cabinet meeting the other day, where we spent two hours looking at year one of the strategic plan and, and, and figuring out how we were gonna allocate over a million dollars to strategic planning initiatives for this year. And so it’s, it’s a really, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a night and day kind of approach. And I do think that if properly done a strategic plan that is that has tangible goals, is supported with material resources and has collective buy-in, I really do think that that can effectively guide institutional change.

Joe Gottlieb:

Great to see that happening. It’s, it’s really a breath of fresh air. There’s been a lot of struggle in this domain, and you know, we see a lot of that, but it’s really, it’s really encouraging to see a culture operating in that fashion. So now let’s bring it all the way back to the student. So we’ve been talking about stakeholder buy-in, and if the student is the ultimate customer or the ultimate beneficiary of what we’re doing in higher ed, how do we think about, how do you think about stakeholder buy-in when you think about the, the mission serving students and, and students themselves as stakeholders?

Rafik Mohamed:

I say it all the time that, and I mean it sincerely, I’ve heard, you know, that, that, you know, without students, we, what are we here for, you know, <laugh>, and I don’t mean that like, you know, even just in, I mean that in any way you want to interpret it mm-hmm. <Affirmative> it can be in a philosophical way. It can be in an I ideological way, or in a very practical way if our students up and leave, right? We don’t have jobs. You know, you, you just ask anybody where the demographic cliff has already hit in, you know, or, or even during covid when, you know, it seemed like every week smaller institutions were closing their door for lack of students. You know, we have to be responsive to students and attentive to, to the needs of our students. On top of that, you know, as I already mentioned in terms of our student population here at C S U S B and throughout the C S U, frankly you know, we, we have the opportunity to provide social mobility to provide new ways to think about civic engagement, to provide a whole new world to folks who aren’t coming from college going cultures and backgrounds.

Rafik Mohamed:

Right? Again, 85% of of our students are first in their families to go to college. And so, so, so we are in, you know, we, we do have the capacity to really make a difference. And, and, and, and, and I think oftentimes when you’re looking at institutions, you’re looking at change and you’re dealing with bureaucracy, it’s easy to lose sight of that because it’s like, we’re focusing on this and this, and this. I often use the analogy of the end of King Kong when he is like hanging on to the, I think it’s the end of the movie. It’s been a long time hanging on to the Empire State Building, and he’s swatting away like all these little planes that are flying in him or whatever. And that’s kind of how I view ad administration in higher ed. Sometimes. It’s like, this crisis is coming at you, this crisis is coming at you.

Rafik Mohamed:

But if you center your students and remember that you are here to help make not just them and their lives better but the communities that come from and everything else better, I think, you know, you, you, you, you’re, you’re on the right path. And with that said, in terms of change management you know, you have to get them to be a part of the process, not that they get to dictate it. You know, I, I sometimes, you know, there, there is the language of, of students as customers and certainly in, in, in, in a way they are, but I, I prefer to view them as, as partners or collaborators. Mm-Hmm. Because it’s not like, you know, I’m, I’m not your barista. You’re not coming into Starbucks saying, I want this, and <laugh>, you know, with this kind of milk and whatever but instead we’re building this together mm-hmm.

Rafik Mohamed:

<Affirmative> and so, so you, in order to build something that works for them, you have to listen to them. You have to, you have to help inform them, and you have to let them be a part, a part of the conversation as you are managing cultural change. I, I just think that’s essential. The second piece as a, a, a, a colleague and friend of mine, the former dean of our college of business used to always say he’s like, it’s simple. It’s not the what, it’s the how. And so if you want, you know, we have a campus of 20,000 students and I don’t know not 4,000 employees or something like that, <laugh>, right? You know if, if you want to move the needle <laugh> to get students behind it, to get those 20,000 people behind it is, is a, is a really powerful force, is say no to, regardless of what station on campus is regardless of how entrenched your resistance is, and I’m, I’ve seen it on, on every campus I’ve been on, when students get behind something it, it would behoove you as the administration to be responsive.

Rafik Mohamed:

And so the key piece to, to managing change in that respect is number is, is not just irrationally mobilizing students, but you know, convincing them, helping them understand the value of a particular change. How it’s going to not just benefit them, but benefit the people that come behind ’em. I’ll give you one quick example. We have a brand new extension of our student unit. It’s like, I forgot how many tens of thousands of square feet. It’s beautiful. It’s got a bowling alley, it’s got a pub, it’s got all kinds of stuff, right? That is funded by student fees that the students themselves voted to fund. Wow. It’s, the administration had no role in it other than facilitating it. The students themselves voted to fund this because they saw the value in this, not for them. ’cause When they voted for it, they were paying the fee, but they weren’t gonna live in that building, right? Mm-Hmm. It was for the people who came behind them. Wow. And so you get people invested in, in, in, in this value proposition. And if it’s real and if they can see it, you know, then, then you have, you have a, you have a good chance of it succeeding and, and it being positive,

Joe Gottlieb:

Super powerful. I love that notion of student as partner level stakeholder. Great way to, great way to cap this. So let’s summarize, what are, what are three takeaways that we can offer our listeners on the topic of leveraging stakeholder buy-in for better, faster change?

Rafik Mohamed:

Let’s see, A few takeaways. You know, I think first of all, in order to be effective, leaders need to understand and consider kinda the whole context of, of strategic change. A a and, and, and that begins at, at the system level, but actually, you know, drills down to the granular, granular level, like you know, to, to kind of really think critically about how individual folks are gonna be affected, you know, going back to our C I o I think he, he does a great job of, of thinking about this, this larger puzzle. And, and understanding that, you know, one <laugh> that a, that an individual faculty member who might lose their administrative access to, to their computer, that that person could be a great point of resistance unless you, you know, and, and throw the whole operation off, compromise all of your security unless you really understand like kind of their role in so whole system.

Rafik Mohamed:

So leaders have to consider the whole context of, of strategic change. Second thing I would say is, is regardless of whether it’s an academic affairs change, an administrative administrative change or, or a technological change or, or all of the above you need to build good relationships with the people who and again, I don’t mean this in a manipulative way, but, but you need to build good relationships with the people who are gonna be affected by this change. And that doesn’t just happen when you roll the change out. That is, again, going back to Sam, our c i o, the first thing he did with me when he got here was not tell me what we were good, what he wanted to do. He got to know me. Hmm. And because of that relationship, you know, I trusted him mm-hmm. And trusted that he wasn’t just trying to do something manipulative or to advance his own career, but that he was looking at the greater good and looking at how this would affect us, our system, but most importantly, how it would affect our, our students.

Rafik Mohamed:

So building those relationships and securing buy-in it takes time, <laugh> but it is, it is most definitely worth that extra effort if you want to, if you want to affect positive change. And if you want to do it kind of more quickly. The last thing is just in respect to strategic plans. Again, I’ve seen super lofty strategic plans. The lofty part of a strategic plan is the vision statement. <Laugh>, you know that can be great. It’s like we aspire to be, you know, on Mars as a university or whatever, but but really a strategic plan needs to be a practical roadmap to strategic change. And, and, and has to be measurable, has to be accessible, has to have buy-in in the development process and, and has to be supported materially. You know there’s the saying of you know, where you invest kind of shows what your priorities are. And so you know, you have to get behind it as, as an institution. But at the end of the day, you know, all change is about relationships. And as Larry Rose said, it’s not the what, but the how

Joe Gottlieb:

Great stuff. Rafik, thank you so much for joining me today.

Rafik Mohamed:

Oh, it’s absolutely my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Joe Gottlieb:

And I want to thank our guests for joining us as well. I hope you’ll have a great day, and we’ll look forward to hosting you again on the next episode of TRANSFORMED.