EDUCAUSE Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference 2007. Summary: Aligning IT Innovation with Institutional Strategic Priorities

Summary:

Opening General Session  

Aligning IT Innovation with Institutional Strategic Priorities

Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, President, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

2007 Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference

January 17, 2007

Baltimore, MD

 

Abstract

Higher education is entering a period of great change where student access, affordability, and institutional accountability will increasingly dominate our institutional strategies. This talk will focus on a presidential view of these three issues and discuss ways that technology may shape them, as well as how current and aspiring IT leaders can help their campuses innovate and succeed in this time of change.

 

President Hrabowski opened his inspiring presentation with remarks of thanks to Brian Hawkins, President of EDUCAUSE, for his work over the past ten years and especially of the importance of the EDUCAUSE grand challenges initiative for Higher Education information technology. [See http://www.educause.edu/E06/program/9155?PRODUCT_CODE=E06/FS04 for more information and a link to a video of “The EDUCAUSE Grand Challenges Initiatives” presentation at EDUCAUSE 2006.]

 

President Hrabowski suggested that the issues for accountability as we align information technology with the strategic priorities of our institutions are many. He asked: How do we respond? What should CIOs do?

 

He recommended that we all read Daniel Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind, about society moving from the information age to the conceptual age. He quoted ideas from the book as follows:

”Ours has been the information age of the “knowledge worker,” but that is changing. We are entering a new conceptual age animated by a different form of thinking and a new approach to life. Our brains are divided into two hemispheres. The left hemisphere is sequential, logical, and analytical. The right hemisphere is nonlinear, intuitive, and holistic.  Today, the defining skills of the previous era, the “left-brain” capabilities that powered the information age are necessary but no longer sufficient. And the “right-brain” qualities of inventiveness, empathy, joyfulness, and meaning increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders.  Professional success and personal fulfillment now require a whole new mind.”

 

President Hrabowski continued to discuss our need for a “whole new mind” as we begin moving from information age to the future conceptual age. Right brain activities will be more important than left brain sequential thinking in this new age.   Skills our students need will change. Skills that we need will change.

 

He talked about issues that surround expanding access to higher education for all. We need to ensure that our students can graduate and have the skills to succeed. The economy is driven by what we know. What we know is a product of the best and the brightest minds. More and more we will need to think about how to attract from other parts of world as well as our own to have the benefit of the best minds from around the world. 

 

At this time only 67% of our undergraduates will graduate. There is a hunger for knowledge. The real problem is that there is a lack of emphasis on education in our country.   We need to give people the opportunity to have good jobs. A college degree is the best way to insure getting a good job. Only about 25% of adults have college degrees now but this is an improvement from 1957 when only 11% had college degrees.

There was a greater understanding of the value of education in the past and a decline in these values now.

 

A few facts from President Hrabowski’s talk that relate to our coming student bodies and our work.

 

He said that we need to find ways to connect what we do in higher education with what happens in K-12 in order to respond to many of the coming challenges.

 

He asked: How does the current educational picture affect us? There is a significant decline in the number of IT interest/major/grads in spite of great IT needs ahead. The IT job market will soon begin to look like nursing and education do today.

 

He believes the critical challenge is to diversify by gender, race, and more. Humans tend to think in terms of what they see in front of them. They don’t think about other possibilities – possibilities that may help us see new solutions and perspectives. We need to build these new communities. We need programs that focus on building communities that teach us to work in groups. Working together will be key to success for everyone. 

 

UMBC established a highly successful Center for Women in Technology [http://www.umbc.edu/cwit/]. There were efforts in the past that garnered additional women in technology but one reason for the decline in women entering technology programs in this age is that schools thought the job was done and stopped spending money to continue to recruit them. We need to identify opportunities and devise programs to take advantage of them. 

 

President Hrabowski encouraged us all to be role models for IT and IT in higher education. He suggested that we highlight the opportunities and careers one can have in our fields. Many have heard off-shore sourcing and use this as a reason not to go into technology fields and we don’t give them a picture of what will be here for them.  We need to talk about the great opportunities that they will have.

 

In addition, President Hrabowski noted the need to connect disciplines via IT.

We should be working in teams and talking in English. Translating will be an important part of our jobs.   He listed the following areas as those of particular concern.

 

He said that this is no time to be defensive about reports such as the Spellings Commission report [http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/index.html]

We need to look at what is important and what can we do. Problem solving and critical skills are not easily assessed. No Child Left Behind is not working. What can we do?

 

He suggested that students learn best in different ways, but reminded us that classes are still overwhelmingly taught in traditional ways – a single way – that is the text savvy classroom style. We need to more emphasis on research on learning and work towards appropriate changes indicated. One way is to find energy and excitement in education and connect them. He mentioned the use of student portfolios to track students’ true competencies.

 

According to President Hrabowski, our real challenge is that the academy is slow to change. In Higher Education we are to seek the truth, ask and answer the questions, but we, ourselves, rarely look in the mirror. We’ve not been successful therefore in making the right changes. If we’d been successful then companies would not have to develop their multi-million dollar training programs.

 

He asked: What are the best practices? Students change faster than we do. How do we rethink our approaches and implement quickly to meet their needs? Can we use the curiosity which engages students? How can we consistently look at what we are doing and find best practices? How do we give different students different ways to learn? ELearning should be a priority but we must work with faculty to help them learn new ways to teach. We need to use faculty curiosity as well as student curiosity but we must allow the faculty to tell us they are curious or have a problem we can help them with. The only way we can change attitudes and presumptions is by persuasion. In this way, President Hrabowski says, our jobs are like a President’s – we must persuade.

 

He also noted that checking grades and self-assessment is a top reason why students like course management systems.   Towards accountability we should look at overall student success, and that our students can write and speak well and can work in teams to solve problems. We think math should be “solvable” but some things need a different perspective. He offered a problem from the Baltimore Sun.

 

“29 kids in class 20 have dogs 15 have cats. How many have both a dog and a cat?”

We learn by struggling and thinking through problems. He asked:

How can we help faculty and administration think about problems in a different way?

 

President Hrabowski offered comments on leadership amidst the challenges we face every day:

 

 

He said he would love to film a PeopleSoft implementation documentary. It would be just people’s faces after he’s said “PeopleSoft.”   He went on to explain that the greatest challenge they had was implementing PeopleSoft. But because people trusted their CIO, they got thru it okay. It came down to relationships. No one pointed fingers when things did not go well. Instead they said, “We have to find out what’s wrong and fix it.” Execution in leadership is the systematic process of regularly discussing the hows & whats, assumptions, doing assessment, linking strategy to operations, and linking reward to outcomes. “In the spirit of execution,” healthy relationships were the most important part of the process at UMBC. The CIO was trusted.

 

IT leaders must participate in the life of the campus. IT is everywhere and we must be problem solvers and guide our campus partners in non-threatening ways. It is important for us to see the broader picture, understanding national trends and what other institutions are doing, and work to broaden the view of our own community. Communications skills are critical to this effort. We must be translators not intimidators.

 

Finally, on leadership, President Hrabowski said, leaders have to be able inspire. It is not just about managing. Our stories are important. He referenced a Dolly Parton line from “Steel Magnolias” where she is commenting on another’s life, “There is a story there!”  He asked: How did we get where we are? Who made a difference in our lives? It is important to tell our stories and answer the question: Why are we in Higher Education instead of the corporate world?   Connecting across generations is also important and has everything to do with why IT is important in these issues and how we can make our stories come to life and inspire others.

 

Returning to the need to educate more and more students, President Hrabowski said that we need to look at issues of affordability and accessibility via our “whole new mind.” 

 

Paradigm shifts need to happen. We need to build trust while shaking things up.

He asked: “Where do we find the time to make the changes that will save time?” and offered a few ideas. One idea was to provide release time to work on these issues and to write grants to get the necessary funding.

 

Revamping courses is important and we need to teach to what students need to know today and this includes math and science. It is very expensive to attend college and live on campus. Many work while in school and often do work related to their fields of study.

He encourages us to use the apprenticeship model and to connect our students to good jobs to pay for the education they are getting.

 

Again, working with faculty in the persuasion mode is the most appropriate and successful way. Don’t force all incoming instructors to use IT. If forced, they’ll find ways to get around it. Have conversations –…PERSUADE!   He said there are two types of people in the world. Some people can suck energy out of you and other people energize and elevate us. IT professionals need to be positive problem solvers. Everyday each of us has a choice as to which group we will be in that day. Do we energize or do we not?

 

President Hrabowski closed with these words:

 

Biographical information about President Hrabowski is available at http://www.umbc.edu/AboutUMBC/president/.