Campus Technology Insider Podcast October 2021
Listen: Embracing Innovation, Technology and Culture Change for the Sake of Access
00:13
Rhea Kelly: Hello and welcome to the Campus Technology Insider podcast! I'm Rhea Kelly, editor in chief of Campus Technology, and your host.
The pandemic accelerated digital transformation and the adoption of new learning models at many colleges and universities — but higher ed culture has some catching up to do. While institutions traditionally measure change in decades, we're now in a time when flexibility, innovation and risk-taking are key to student access and opportunity as well as institutional survival. In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Dr. Mark Lombardi, president of Maryville University, about why the business model of higher ed is broken, the importance of lifelong learning and technology's role in moving universities toward a better future. Here's our chat.
Dr. Lombardi, welcome to the podcast.
01:12
Mark Lombardi: It's great to be here. Thank you.
01:15
Kelly: So you know, throughout the pandemic, we've seen such an acceleration in digital transformation, you know, embracing new learning models, providing more services online. Do you see this as the university of the future maybe becoming a reality?
01:30
Lombardi: Oh, absolutely, I think, you know I tell people that the calendar may say late September 2021, but it's really September 2025 — the pandemic accelerated us into the future. And we're seeing that future reality coming to bear: that is, you know, leveraging technology, students operating on multiple platforms online and in person and on ground, and utilizing those digital platforms in a really effective way for teaching and for learning and for experiential learning as well. So yeah, we are here. It is fascinating, sometimes for people a little disquieting, but it's also exciting, because these multiple platforms in the online space operating together, are going to open up huge avenues of access and opportunity for millions who've been closed out before.
02:25
Kelly: Yeah, it's like we've been through a time warp and hopefully for the better. And you mentioned multiple platforms, technology platforms, like what are those? Or what do those look like?
02:37
Lombardi: Well, you've got, you know, you traditionally, people think of on ground and online. And that's true, but it's really much more than that. The there's, there's immersive online educational experiences similar to the ones we provide here at Maryville University. There's also increasingly virtual and augmented reality platforms within an online space. And obviously the evolution and development of the metaverse, which is coming, it's already here in many ways, but it hasn't really fleshed itself out yet, is also going to be a space where, where students can enter into a fully three dimensional, this metaverse space. And we can do amazing education and learning in that space. Not yet. But we will be able to do that.
03:21
Kelly: Is higher education culture changing to move toward this future? Or does it kind of still need to catch up?
03:28
Lombardi: Is that a trick question? Because …. No, higher ed culture is way behind this. It's really, higher ed culture, which worked to some extent in the 19th and 20th century, has not changed fundamentally. So you think of the higher ed culture today is mid 20th century. And here we are, and it's 2025, according to my pandemic, post pandemic clock. So, yeah, the culture needs to shift dramatically, in all the ways. That's something by the way at Maryville we've been very effective at doing, is shifting the culture into a much more innovative, startup, risk taking kind of culture, and it's, it's really thanks to a lot of young, innovative faculty and the staff, who have really embraced, you know, the kind of fast moving, mobile, flexible kind of approach in the culture that lends itself to taking advantage of these amazing digital tools and platforms for one singular goal, right? And that's the education and great student outcomes so that students can go on and graduate and have successful careers. So you know, always keeping the eye on the prize, but realizing that the culture in higher ed has to dramatically shift. When I'm asked to speak around the country virtually or in person about higher ed, invariably the conversation turns to how to shift and change the culture.