Like Leading a World-Class Orchestra: The FLEXspace Community
A Q&A with Lisa Stephens
This year at EDUCAUSE 2022, Lisa A. Stephens accepted the EDUCAUSE Community Leadership Award for her "leadership in exemplary cross-institutional innovation and collaboration." The award recognizes her full career and accomplishments from a wide range of projects, but her leadership in founding and guiding FLEXspace stands out as her flagship project.
Stephens is the assistant dean of online education at the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and a senior strategist for academic innovation in the Office of the SUNY Provost. For more than 10 years she has been at the helm of the Flexible Learning Environments eXchange, FLEXspace.org as its executive director and a guiding light for the vibrant FLEXspace community. This global community has grown to over 6,000 members from 1,600 individual campuses and K12 districts in more than 75 countries. Here, CT talks with Stephens about her EDUCAUSE Community Leadership Award for 2022, and about leading the FLEXspace community.
"Leading this community is like being the conductor of a world-class orchestra."
—Lisa Stephens
Mary Grush: Lisa, were you surprised to receive this award?
Lisa Stephens: Absolutely, it's a career highlight for certain! And it's really humbling be nominated for an EDUCAUSE award, because there truly are so many other fine efforts underway that support higher education and do so across multiple campuses.
The EDUCAUSE Community Leadership Award recognizes an effort that benefits everyone by going across campus boundaries, and that's really the basis of FLEXspace. It's key to the way we work.
The EDUCAUSE Community Leadership Award recognizes an effort that benefits everyone by going across campus boundaries, and that's really the basis of FLEXspace.
Grush: So those who participate in FLEXspace are part of a bigger picture, while working on projects that may place an initial focus on their own institutions…
Stephens: Yes, and FLEXspace responds to a need from all facets of higher education concerned with learning environments — to help teams explore the innovations and solutions of respected peers. And I think we're all by nature dedicated to the bigger picture. Isn't that one of the great pleasures of working in higher education? It's being a part of a broader community with a common purpose.
Leading this community for FLEXspace is like being the conductor of a world-class orchestra. Everyone has their instrument and their part to play. But the result comes together like a beautiful symphony… music to my ears, certainly!
One of my nominators told me the dossier highlighted a number of initiatives that I've been involved in, both at the University at Buffalo and more broadly across SUNY. But FLEXspace is really the centerpiece because it's such a far-reaching project.
So, while I was surprised to be receiving the award, I really wanted to accept it on behalf of the entire community including all the people who have helped develop and grow FLEXspace over time.
Lisa Stephens accepts the 2022 EDUCAUSE Community Leadership Award. Photo by Jensen Sutta (jensensutta.com). Courtesy EDUCAUSE, with permission.
Grush: It may be huge, by the numbers of participants and all the data it collects, but FLEXspace seems to take the complexity out of sharing the stories of all these implementations and spaces among the community.