Strategic Growth in Online Learning with Jill Buban

Work Forces

Jill Buban is Chief Growth Officer at Arizona State University's EdPlus. Buban discusses the challenges and innovations in digital education and online learning, and shares her insights on creating scalable digital teaching models, forming strategic partnerships with corporations like Starbucks and Uber, and adapting online education strategies across various institutional sizes. She emphasizes the importance of research, development, and change management in higher education.

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Transcript:

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces, I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine. And we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin: Let's dive in.

Julian: Today we're excited to have Jill Buban on our podcast. A champion for adult learners, Jill's the chief growth officer at Arizona State University's EdPlus, an enterprise unit focused on the design and scalable delivery of digital teaching and learning models. Her career includes impactful roles at Ed Assist and Fairfield University, where she led significant digital education initiatives. Jill has also contributed to the Unizin Consortium and the Online Learning Consortium, and is a celebrated figure in higher education. With a PhD from Lesley University, she's been recognized as a top 100 edtech influencer. Thank you for taking the time to join us today, Jill.

Jill Buban: Thank you, Julian and Kaitlin. Wow, I think I need you to do every introduction that I have. That was great.

Kaitlin: So to kick us off today, Jill. Building from the intro, can you please tell us a bit about your current role?

Jill: Yeah, absolutely. So I have to say, I feel like I've really been blessed over the past couple of decades to learn from so many people. Julian mentioned my work at two consortiums, which led a lot to some of the work I've done in consortium building and networking and bringing people together. But just having the opportunity to meet and learn from so many people across the post-secondary and edtech space has really allowed me to not only understand the market, but see where my strengths and values are. So coming most recently from Ed Assist but Bright Horizons, which is an education intermediary company, and really being there to strategize around the opportunity for corporate America to use education benefits not only at institutions, but what it looks like to connect them to quality institutions. Built a consortium there actually of those like-minded quality institutions, and thinking about strategic outcomes at institutions. And so that was massive scale, a thread that also runs through my career, serving about half a million learners a year. So figuring out work works for adult working learners at that scale. And most recently, really excited to have joined the team at EdPlus at Arizona State University. So in my current capacity, I do work with a lot of partners still. Very proud to be working with their large corporate partner, Starbucks, as well as Uber. And then we do some other work in the corporate space as well. But also brought in to work on a team that's envisioning what it looks like to partner with other like-minded higher ed institutions to help them learn how to scale online, education technology and innovation. So it's very messy. All of what we do and Kaitlin and Julian, and I know you know this, Kaitlin, especially from your background, but innovation sounds really sexy, but it's messy. There's a lot of failing and learning from failures and then moving forward. So who better than EdPlus, who I think is globally renowned, to be able to bring their advisory services to other like-minded institutions and try to help them think about how they can innovate and scale. So that's a big part of my role. And then consulting on different marketing and enrollment initiatives and thinking really strategically how we look at what we're doing. You know, I think we tend to put growth in a box and we're growing by enrollments, but how do we grow thinking strategically around the landscape, geographically, the right students for ASU, and around our goals and programs.

Julian: Jill, can you tell us about some of the current projects you're leading and or consulting on and excited about?

Jill: Yeah, absolutely. I think I kind of mentioned I love bringing people together. So the work in terms of partnerships is really interesting to me. And it's not only bringing people together. So meaning, you know, corporate America and education and being in between and strategizing with them. But it's really thinking about these adult learners who are coming back. They're taking a chance on themselves. They're taking a chance to go back to school while balancing all that life gives them. And of course the jobs. So how can we at ASU provide them with the degrees and skills to excel, to catapult them to the next level in their profession, to make their kids you know, clap at graduation, all of those things? So, that really is exciting for me because it touches on so many of, I think, my strengths and interests. And every partner looks different. There's different objectives, you know, whether it be healthcare or Starbucks, whatever it may be. So definitely that, but I'm really excited as we continue on this journey to work with different higher ed institutions. I think there's so much value and promise there. As we see the kind of OPM market collapse, I think there are many people watching that and wondering what's happened. But I also look at so many schools that relied on this OPM model to bring their school kind of to the online market. With that kind of falling apart, an absence of any type of support. Is it a consortium that comes in to help? Is it organizations like the Online Learning Consortium, Quality Matters, but who can continue to help these schools understand how they can get into the online arena, what's right for them, and then thinking about innovation. As I said, it's messy, and what does it take to innovate? What does it take to scale? Is your school right to scale? So I'm really excited about collaborating with different institutions around those ideas.

Kaitlin: Touching on that latter project a little bit, Jill, what are you consulting on? And what are you learning across different higher ed institutions about what's working in innovation, as you think about online learning?

Jill: I have worked at different size institutions. So bringing Fairfield University online and bringing technologies and digital capabilities looks a lot different at that size school than it does at say an ASU or a SNHU or working at Ed Assisist with Western Governors and say UMGC. So every school's size and what their objectives are really kind of dictates what that innovation looks like. So how fast can you drive? How far can you go? What makes sense for that institution? A smaller institution's goals to scale online most likely shouldn't be the same size or definitely shouldn't be as a huge R1 or let's just use the big 10 schools, for example, that were in the Unizin consortium. That's probably not realistic. So it's thinking about how do you acquaint your faculty with technologies to aid in the pedagogical practices of online? And how do you scale that across multiple programs? And how do you make a plan to scale maybe number of programs, but not exponential number of students? How do you talk to institutions about what their geographic market is, right? A small north eastern school to say they're going to go into the California. California is probably not a good example. Go into a Salt Lake City or Arizona, probably not the best spend marketing-wise. So some of these strategies, I think, are really interesting. And then the whole idea around innovation, it's not just scale and best pedagogical practices. When we look at the work we're doing at EdPlus, innovation means research and design. So we're very much..ASU is very much focused on equity and inclusion as a whole university, and really solving social problems at scale. So globally, how can we work on things that will have great impact, not only for ASU learners? So I think of the work that in our hub, we're focusing on STEM. How can we solve the deficits in math and science? So that's a big part of research and development. And then we have other projects that are going on globally. But it is a lot of testing, piloting, and being able to say, this doesn't work, and trying something new. And that, bringing it to another institution and thinking about having these faculty relationships that will work with you and It's work. So it takes time. It takes that relationship building. And it takes that ability to keep on going on and moving on. And that's one example. I mean, the other that I think is so interesting is the work around UX and AI and really just continuing to test in terms of innovation, in terms of what I think part of this whole ecosystem of innovation we don't think about is the user experience, which should be at the heart, right? We're going to be approaching 100,000 students at ASU online this year, so really thinking about having that learner at the center isn't only the academics and the student support, but it's that journey that they're taking and how can that experience be most beneficial as opposed to frustrating. They're taking 15 minutes to you know, say get through an application or get through any type of learning opportunity. They could be spending that with their kids or like driving soccer practice, right? So trying to make that experience as least frustrating, ease of access as possible. In terms of, I'll just add one more thing, because I can't open my phone or anything without seeing AI, right? So I think we're all, yeah, we're like anxious to test and be able to implement and use AI, but also in a very smart way. So that's that also like, let's really test, let's understand what it means to the users. Pilot often internally. Learn what's happening before we just bring that out to a student experience. Because again, that student should be at the center. So with innovating, I guess that's a long way of saying there's a lot more than just scaling and bringing things to online. It's figuring out all of that R&D user experience and testing behind what you're bringing and why you're bringing it to the learners.

Julian: This is a tall order for many institutions, right? I mean, you've been at the center of this. You get it. You know how to do it You've seen them come and go. And I'm assuming there, I know that many of our listeners are probably like, wow, how do we become a partner? So I'm interested to hear about what is it that EdPlus is looking for in its partners? What do your ideal partners look like?

Jill: Right now we're saying, really like, I think it's very important to be a like-minded institution, very much mission aligned. So when I mentioned inclusivity, equity, and common goals, this is something that's really the basis of any partnership. But having common goals and institutions that have the desire to do some of that type of innovation work and really put the not only put the effort into that, have the teams to do that. So we're kind of looking at what does it mean to be successful? What are those, I hate to use, I know this is a dirty word in education, but what are those education products that are a great fit that we know work? And looking at this whole, like I said, ecosystem and who is a fit to think about using such an ecosystem to move forward? I'm sure we've all been in kind of partnerships that go south. So I think the big part is that evaluation. And I don't know, going on a few dates before we get engaged or sign a contract.

Kaitlin: So I'm curious to go circle back. You mentioned this concept of growth and various definitions around growth. And what does it look like? And then the connection really to innovation. And I think innovation, as you said, is so exciting, but I think sometimes we can measure it, we can think about something new and innovative and maybe not measure it the right way. Like, what does success of this new thing look like versus something that's much more established? So I'd just be curious to hear a little bit more about how you're thinking about growth and your chief growth officer role and how you think about measuring it across really different types of initiatives, some that are perhaps more defined and established and others that aren't really innovative and on the cutting edge.

Jill: EdPlus has an exceptional team. We've grown to over 700 people and the leaders of each of those people, like I'm obviously not doing this alone. When I talk to UX, we have a chief UX officer and very engaged across the leadership team and the team in general, but we have amazing people that are far and wide with all the expertise here. So it's kind of fun being in that innovation space and kind of the growth space and thinking of what can we do if this is a target for growth or if this is a concept for a partner, how can we get there? And engaging, it could be research and design, it could be our, we have an action lab that does research on almost everything we do and publishes that research. So how do we engage kind of all of the different cogs to make it move forward? In terms of growth in general, enrollment growth is set very, very high up in the institution. So that's figuring out what levers to pull to move that. And then, like I said, what I think is really important is ensuring it's not just growth that we see at some institutions, like, oh, can we get to X number of enrollments? It's how do we generate quality enrollments, people that are really ready to persist and come back, and that we can support? At our heart, ASU is a Research One institution, our degrees are taught by full-time faculty online and are the same degrees that we offer on campus. So it is a rigorous degree. And so trying to, when we think about growth, it's not just like get them in, it's how do we try to understand who the learner is and who is the best fit at ASU and who will persist. Because we know there's nothing worse than an adult deciding to come back and then having them fail quickly, and I would hate to see that. But that's just enrollment. When I think of other initiatives in terms of growth, I tend to strategize around, you know, what would it look like if we had a consortium of like-minded schools? And what's a number that could really be impactful and have shared learning experiences and conversations and start to help each other and work in that consortium way. So thinking about how do we step into goals? I mean, 20 years ago, I think I was creating my first course in Blackboard, and I always still go back to backwards design. So what do I look like two years from now, 18 months, even six months from now, and try to be realistic? And to your point, Kaitlin, everything's not huge gains. So that can be smaller. I think with corporate partnerships, to me, it's really listening to what is a partner's goal and how can we make small increments towards that goal. Never like over-promising, but really thinking about if you want a more equitable workforce, what does that look like? So that's just an example. Or if we wanna add microcredentials or non-credit, what portion of your workforce does that work for? So it's growth. So we're always saying we're adding something, but how will it actually work? Just because something's out in the mic, like I said with AI, out in our LinkedIn and everything we listen to and read about, it doesn't mean that it's applicable to everyone. So trying to make that work, I think, is part of strategic growth, not just growth.

Kaitlin: Really helpful just to hear you talk about all of the different aspects of growth. It's such a complicated topic, and I can only imagine the complexities in your role. I know. I'm thinking, oh, wow.

Julian: So speaking of complexities, then what are some of the more challenging aspects of growth? I don't know, or the lack thereof.

Jill: It's interesting. I'm a very reflective person, and I'm so grateful. I have such a great network, not only network and post-secondary ed and colleagues, but those that have become really good friends, and some that we touch base once in a while, others that I might text every day. But have this network of people to think about what are some of the challenges. And in reflecting, for me, most of these roles come with a big portion of change leadership, change management. To make growth happen, you're bringing people together to collaborate. It may not be comfortable. Um, you know, everyone has their own initiative they're driving towards, and you're asking them to be a part of something bigger or think differently. So I think the most challenging piece in my reflection is continually stepping into kind of these innovation growth mindset roles, and it's, it's a lot of change it's in, and so it's kind of being able to be more at agile in that change and identifying like maybe when it's like a wave sometimes when the wave is going to hit you. So I'd really say like that's maybe the most challenging, the challenging part. It's like bringing the unity, the collaboration around the ideas, keeping people energized and new ways of thinking.

Kaitlin: Right, that change management piece can't be understated. What does it look like to bring people along and build momentum and build buy-in?

Jill: Absolutely.

Kaitlin: The kind of thing that you can't just say, we're all going to do this now.

Jill: And to something we were talking about earlier, that's different at every institution, right? So it's understanding that culture of the institution and then how maybe do you apply certain criteria, objectives to that model. Becauseeverything's different.

Julian: There's so many variables. And from large, as you said, from large institutions to smaller and never a dull moment, I'm sure.

Jill: No.

Kaitlin: So as we start to wind down our interview, Jill, we would love to hear from you about some practical takeaways for our listeners, specifically around how our listeners can be forces in their own work as they think about innovation or growth or implementing online initiatives. You can take the question in whatever direction you want. But just what can you do to help? As we think about more the practical components and steps, what our listeners could maybe take away.

Jill: Again, like kind of in reflecting in my career and fighting like changes uncomfortable, right? So a lot of these roles have been uncomfortable. And just by way of I've been in the SUNY system, I cut my teeth, I've been at a for-profit, small private, and now ASU. So no matter the size, type, label, impression of the institution, I think number one, it's kind of like, hey, you're not crazy, you have great ideas. Don't let anyone make you feel otherwise. But find your people. There's going to be people, if you are a change agent by nature, if you are an innovator, you have a lot of ideas how things might change. Find people across the institution that you can have conversations with, or maybe first it's just within your department. And then you can maybe start being a catalyst for some of these to happen. They don't have to be at huge scale to your point earlier, Kaitlin. They can be small initiatives that can make a world of difference for learners. Right. They could, they could be changes in your, you know, LMS. It could be a matter of that or how you're structuring things in the LMS. It could be how your success coaches reach out to learners or your advisors or whatever it is. There's, I think there's always ways that higher ed can adapt to the changing landscape and it takes people to be able to be confident with those ideas and bring together like-minded people to talk them through, because there's oftentimes too that the innovators are like in the corner banging their head against the wall. So it's like finding people, but then I would also say, you know, at a certain point, I was fortunate to kind of find a group outside of my institution too. There's a great professional group called HAIL, Harnessing Academic Innovation. And I've just kind of found my people there and we can call each other, we can talk through things and that's wonderful, our Slack, we have a Slack channel. So I think it's really like to endure this kind of mindset, it's finding like-minded people and not being afraid to keep pushing forward being confident in your ideas and thoughts and keep testing them.

Julian: Yeah, so it yeah, it really is sort of building these communities both within and among

Jill: Absolutely institutions. Mm-hmm. And you find you know, there's so many ways. We could all probably name different conferences or consortiums to join and different ways to be involved. But I think that's super important too, to keep learning. I should have mentioned that in that last bit, but to keep learning. I mean, we can't be stale with our thought in order to be in this space.

Julian: So to ensure that people can keep on learning, how can our listeners follow and learn more about your work and keep in touch?

Jill: Please like reach out to me on LinkedIn, send me a message, connect. I probably have almost one conversation a week with someone I've never talked to about this space and I love to have those conversations with folks at institutions around the country. So I love to meet other people and learn about them. And if I can help along the way, that's great.

Julian :Just want to say thank you so much. This has been a really great conversation. Amazing to hear about, you know, your work, your thinking, your perspective, your new gig and good luck with it. You know, we'll definitely be following you closely and would love to double back. You know, when you have even more stories to tell about these partnerships.

Jill: Of course. Yeah, it's been good to see you guys. This was fun.

Kaitlin: Thank you, Jill, so much. We really appreciate it.

Kaitlin: That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Work Forces. We hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our producer, Dustin Ramsdell. Work Forces is available on Apple, Amazon, Google, and Spotify. We hope you will subscribe, like, and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends. If you have interest in sponsoring this podcast, please contact us through the podcast notes.