Student-Centered Design Starts With Simplicity

Cameron M (00:47.726)
Welcome back to the President’s Forum Podcast. Today we’re talking about student centricity, what it looks like to design programs, policies, and supports around the realities of today’s learners, and what actually moves the needle on persistence, completion, and time to credential. President David Scable is back with us to share what Excelsior University is seeing and what’s working. David, thanks for joining us.

David (01:20.546)
Thanks, Cameron. Good to be with you.

Cameron M (01:22.786)
So when you think about student centricity right now, what’s changed most about who’s who today’s learners are and what institutions have to get right to meet them where they are?

David (01:33.484)
Well, about twenty years ago we started talking a lot more about adult students. So I wouldn’t say that today’s different in that regard. I think what’s different about students in general, whether they’re adult students or more traditional age students, is that they’re very much focused on the value of their education. And many students interpret value by what type of job they’re gonna be able to get after they they graduate.

In my opinion, they tend to be too narrow in their definition of value of higher ed because you get a lot more out of higher ed than just a good job. But today’s many students, that’s what they’re focused on.

Cameron M (02:15.873)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think that we can find the value much more than just our earnings, but also that’s yeah, that’s what students are often focused on. So I think that’s a good point. if you had to pick one or two student success initiatives that have had the biggest impact on persistence and completion at Excelsior, what are they and why do you think they work?

David (02:38.571)
Well, especially when it comes to adult students, what adult students don’t want is to be confused. And what often confuses students is too many choices. So where in a typical curriculum students have

general education requirements, they have core requirements, et cetera, et cetera, and then they have to choose courses towards their major. What helps adult students is to have a very clear path of courses that they have to take. Because whenever I talk to a student, the first question that the student asks is, what do I have to do to graduate? And the next question is, and how much is it going to cost and how long is it going to take?

And so giving them a clear answer for what do they have to do is really important. So many students, especially adult students, transfer credits in because they’ve gone to other schools. So helping them understand how many credits are going to transfer.

How many classes they have to take, in what order they have to take those classes, and don’t confuse them with a bunch of choices. Help them make very clear decisions and put together a clear plan. So I think that’s step one. Step two is just really good support structures for the students. So academic advising is important, but for many adult students, so is success coaching.

Cameron M (04:08.075)
Mm-hmm.

David (04:08.887)
helping them understand how to be better at managing their time, how to be better at managing their finances, how to juggle work and family and school and all of the responsibilities that they have. A lot of people just need a little support. So I think that’s the other really important piece.

Cameron M (04:27.137)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. That d that advising and the coaching is so important and and trying to be maybe proactive instead of reactive. So how do you design those advising and coaching practices so that it can be proactive and it can help these adult learners that are juggling so much?

David (04:48.331)
Well, we certainly do a lot of research. there’s plenty of research that’s been done out there about student success and student motivation, student persistence. So it’s important to be familiar with the literature. But nothing beats talking to students, asking them what do you need? how are you doing? are there things that are preventing you from persisting? Are there things that we as the institution

Can do to help you succeed. So it’s being real with students and having really genuine conversations.

Cameron M (05:25.675)
Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s the best way to go. That’s really important. sometimes some of some decisions we make that have a really big impact seem small on paper. Can you give us an example of a policy or program design choice that might have seemed small on paper but makes a real difference in reducing time to credential?

David (05:49.262)
Credit transfer is always top of the list, making sure that credits will transfer. Sometimes an institution will say, well, you know, English 101 will transfer, but English 102 will not.

Whereas at many schools, English 101 and 102 might be the same class. So being really thoughtful about facilitating credit transfer, making it easy for students to understand how trans that credits transfer, and then expediting that credit review at the institution so students understand what they will still need to do, how many credits they need to take right from the beginning when they’re interested in their in the program. The other thing that’s really

Important is being as clear and simple about financial aid as possible. Many students are mystified by financial aid, it’s a scary process, and they need a little help in understanding how to fill out a FAFSA and how to apply for aid, what pockets of aid might be available to them, because in addition to federal aid, many states have state aid. So really helping students navigate that world of financial aid.

Cameron M (07:05.579)
Yeah, financial aid is such an important one. And also the credit transfer. I remember back in the day trying to transfer myself and and that was always that was a scary time trying to figure out what I could what I could bring with me. So that’s a very, very important thing. now let’s look ahead. What’s one support you think more institutions should be building or rebuilding to better serve today’s students over the next couple of years?

David (07:34.667)
Well, I’ll tell you what we’re focused on at Excelsior. So what we’re focused on is creating partnerships with other institutions that help students function within a network of schools so that much of the bureaucracy is taken out of the mix for the student. So for example, we were just talking about credit transfer. If you imagine a what I call a constellation of institutions that a

Cameron M (07:37.249)
Yeah.

David (08:04.591)
Agree to make transfer seamless for students, for example. So a student can take a class at this institution, a class at that institution, and graduate from the third institution without loss of credit, without loss of time, and without loss of money. That’s really important. So I think those kinds of partnerships are going to become more and more prevalent as we go down the line because it’s an important part of.

Of being more competitive and schools have a lot of competition right now. It was not something that schools needed to worry about 15-20 years ago. And so you saw really poor credit transfer processes. So I think that’s one area that’s likely to change a lot over the next, say, five years.

Cameron M (08:53.803)
Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And this this constellation is also so helpful for the students and access in time to completion. So I think that’s that’s really an important work that that we could see implemented more throughout the country and and in in the higher ed. David, I think that wraps up our conversation today. Thank you for joining us. For our listeners, you can see more from us at

PresidentsForum dot org and on our social medias. David, thanks for joining.

David (09:28.653)
It was a pleasure, thank you.

Cameron M (09:30.126)
Thanks.