This interview was originally recorded on January 13, 2023, as part of Leoni Consulting Group’s All Things Marketing and Education Podcast.
Access this episode's show notes, including links to the audio, a summary, and helpful resources.
[Start of recorded material 00:00:01]
Elana:
Hello, and welcome to All Things Marketing and Education. My name is Elana Leoni, and I've devoted my career to helping education brands build their brand awareness and engagement. Each week, I sit down with educators, EdTech entrepreneurs, and experts in educational marketing and community building. All of them will share their successes and failures using social media, inbound marketing or content marketing, and community building. I'm excited to guide you on your journey to transform your marketing efforts into something that provides consistent value, and ultimately improves the lives of your audience.
Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of All Things Marketing and Education. This week I am sitting down with Bridget Burns, the CEO of University Innovation Alliance. For those of you that don't know what that is, UIA for short, it's a multi-campus laboratory for student success innovation. We will talk all about what that is, but what they do is they help university leaders dramatically accelerate the implementation of scalable solutions. What they're all trying to do is increase the number and diversity of college graduates across the country. Okay, so we're going to get into a lot of that. I know that's a mouthful, but she is doing some awesome work. I'm so excited that she decided to say yes and come on our show. Bridget, you are someone I truly admire in the education space, and I want to say this from my heart. I do feel lucky that you said yes to the show and that we get to work alongside you. You are doing, without expletives, a ton in the space and making such a huge difference.
Bridget:
Thank you.
Elana:
I want to talk a little bit more about Bridget, and then we'll talk about what we're going to be getting into in the show. Dr. Bridget Burns, she has been named one of the most innovative people in higher education by Washington Monthly magazine. She has helped all of the UIA campuses make significant progress on behalf of their students, including increasing their low-income graduates by 46%, and increasing graduates of color by 85%. This is huge. Her work has been highlighted in national outlets like the New York Times, Fast Company, 60 Minutes. She was featured in a really cool documentary called "Unlikely." I don't, where is that, Bridget? Is that on Netflix?
Bridget:
It's on Amazon.
Elana:
Amazon. It's very good. Take a look at it. Today is a special show, as we typically don't talk about the world of higher ed as much as I'd like, and I love that we are going to be talking about it, because we talk a lot about K-12, what we're doing, what are we trying to prepare students to do and be, and then it just drops. I'm excited we get to continue that conversation into the world of higher education today. Today, we're going to be talking about all things community and collaboration. We're going to talk about equity and access, and just awesome leadership advice. Bridget has a podcast, we'll talk about it later, but she has the privilege of talking to so many inspiring leaders in higher education, and education as a whole. Before we get into it, I want to talk about Bridget just a little more. At LCG, we've worked together for now a couple of years. Time has flown. I remember when we first had our get-to-know-you call, and it's been a couple of years now. What Bridget's bio doesn't say is that you are a hilarious person.
Every time I get on a call with you, I end up laughing. You have such witty jokes, and it sometimes takes me a bit. I'm like, "Oh, that's really funny." I end up laughing every single time I'm on a call with her. She is a visionary. I come back from some of our calls, Bridget, I'm like, "Wow." It takes me a bit to catch up with you at times, but you are so visionary. You are so strategic, and I think you have this innate gift where you just are naturally, and it sounds cheesy, but I feel like you're naturally an inspiring person. People come to you and go, "Oh, I feel like I'm walking a little bit better. I'm inspired." I just wanted to tell this world, and I know that they will get this from talking to you, but know that I don't take it lightly, and I find you as such an incredible human. The few times I get to interact with you, because I believe our Porter, our Director of Joy, gets the most of it, but I'm like, "Wow, wow. I want to be like this woman when I grow up."
Bridget:
That's so kind. Honestly, it's just the opportunity to do this work that I gather all the wisdom and insight, and I'm just merely reflecting it to the world. I sit in a very privileged spot, being able to have people's trust in me about what they're struggling with, what's working, what's not. Most of the time, the insights I bring are really just things that I've picked up along the way. I think my job is very similar to Seth Godin's. My job is to notice things, and to pay attention. Yeah, I appreciate that.
The funny part, I do really aspire to be hilarious, but one of the factoids to start with is, I actually had to start doing standup comedy for this job, because at some point I realized that people didn't probably want to just hear me talk about my organization, and I needed to bring additional value. Nobody wants to just hear you talk about how great your work is, so I had to find a way to... How do you do comedy? I want it to be something very akin to Patriot Act, merging really smart stuff but actually lighthearted and funny. Anyway, I actually have been a paid comedian. I've actually done paid standup comedy.
Elana:
Wow.
Bridget:
That's the real dream. I think I got $147 once. I'm quitting my job, and I'm just going to go out on the road and live on that $147.
Elana:
Well, that makes more sense now. I'm like, "God, she's just really funny. She's bringing in the zingers throughout." It helps for everything, collaboration. You're right, we can talk about ourselves all day long, but we're all humans, and we need to be relatable at times, too.
Bridget:
Well, I mean, the keynotes that I do are so much more palatable because people otherwise would tune out mentally because I talk about hard things, and so I have to find jokes that are about mainly my life, which thankfully has plenty of fodder, because the stuff I talk about is hard. Yeah, anyway, that wasn't where I wanted to start, but I'll take the compliment.
Elana:
Let's rewind it a little bit. Your journey to where you are now, for me, was very inspiring to hear. We have other folks in the EdTech world listening, and people on the ground in classrooms, educators, and I find your journey to bring hope. It feels like if, "Gosh, her story, I could do it too." I'd love for you to share a little bit about how you came to be.
Bridget:
Well, I am Exhibit A for the kinds of students that we work to try and improve higher education for. I ended up here because I got bit by the higher ed bug early on, because it changed and saved my life. It changed my family's life, and it changed my view of the world. Really, all I want to do is pay it forward, because I grew up in a very low-income family in rural Montana, and did not have guidance and support to be successful in college. Really struggled to navigate my journey of K-12 and ultimately higher ed. It took me a lot longer to complete. It took me a lot more money, a lot more student loans. I always share the stories of how weird it was to grow up in the particular family I grew up in, which was not particularly pro-higher education necessarily. Navigating higher ed was really difficult for me, and because the experience of higher ed was so transformative, I basically never left. I think if you ask my family what I do for a living, they would tell you I'm still in college.
My journey begins there in terms of having such a difficult experience and thinking, "It shouldn't be this way." It being so transformative, for instance, my first college classroom I walked into... I grew up in a, what feels like a cul-de-sac of racism and homophobia in rural Montana. The first classroom I walked into was at a community college, and the professor was trying to stop the Aryan Nations from marching in downtown Coeur d'Alene. That's my first exposure, my first dipping of my toe. He ends up with a broad community coalition, and they end up succeeding in stopping it. Now, obviously we have far deeper issues that we need to wrestle with as a country, but when your first exposure to higher ed is discovering that one person's life really can make a difference, was that was it for me. My purpose is really to just make it so that it doesn't matter the family you're born into or the zip code you grew up in, that you should have that same light bulb awakening opportunity. My career journey comes straight out of that.
I was very fortunate that, after community college, which I stumbled to a four-year institution, Oregon State University, and just really grace and incredible... People have been incredibly kind to me. That's what's happened. A year and a half after I walked onto the Oregon State campus, I was elected student body president. A year and a half after that, I was appointed by the governor of Oregon, even though I'd only been in Oregon for a little over two and a half years, or I guess three years at this point. A year and a half after that I was elected or appointed by the governor of Oregon to the State Board of Higher Education. Now I'm 22 years old, and I'm involved in the hiring and firing of college presidents. You go from poverty to that, and it's a wild ride. That's just the beginning, and I learned so much. I saw that higher ed there -- the problems felt like they should be solvable. We literally have all the smart people, this should be fixable. It also became clear that there was a lot of infighting that was unnecessary.
There was a lot of turf protectiveness. There was a scarcity mentality. Later I went on, and I became the senior policy advisor and later the chief of staff for the university system after finishing my master's in public policy. It became clear, over time, that there were all these factions. It's true in K-12, too, and frankly in EdTech, there are groups and this idea of, it's student versus staff, versus faculty, versus president, versus administrator, versus policymaker, versus lobbying group, et cetera. What happens is, it creates the perception of a lot of activity. We feel like a lot of things are happening, and it's just this unnecessary divisiveness, when the truth is, we're all on the same team. It's a huge distraction. My job as the chief of staff for the university system was to advocate for the universities and the legislature. I had to learn how to do government relations. That was super awesome. So fun. It was like 360 chess at all times.
At some point, I kept seeing the same problems, and I started hearing this buzz around innovation. I wanted to know, is there really something different about certain types of leadership? Is there really something different about innovation elsewhere? I didn't know if it was real or hype. I was gifted with the opportunity to go on an ACE fellowship, which is baby president school. I went and shadowed the president of Arizona State for a year, Michael Crow, who's one of the most innovative presidents in the history of higher education. I came there trying to find out, "What's real here? How is it different? Why is it different? I see all these others who have the same amount of money, who have the same resources and opportunities, but they're not doing what you're doing." I learned a lot from President Crow about, he really showed me what real leadership looks like. I learned a lot about innovation and finding out it truly is real.
There are some strategic differences about how you spend your time, what you focus on, what you talk about. Throughout my fellowship, we formed the Alliance. I was essentially free labor to help launch this effort that initially just started as a group of presidents trying to figure out if they could try and scale and work together, and over time, has become a cultural movement in higher ed to try and change the value system and the behavior of a sector that frankly needs to live up to the promise of what it is we're here for. I've been here now for almost ten years. Yeah, it's almost coming up on ten years soon. It's incredible work, it changes every day, and the people I get to work with are the greatest gift. I really do get to work with the best people, and not just the chief joyologist.
Elana:
She's talking about Porter. Thank you for that. I've listened to some of your keynotes, but the way you described it connect a little bit of dots for me. It is in life. It's like, sometimes opportunities then build on each other, and sometimes it's a little bit of luck and chance, unfortunately. I know that some of what your work is doing is, it shouldn't be about who and what you see and do you happen to be in this place at this right time? That's an amazing sequence of events to get to where you are now.
Bridget:
I'm a classic case of, there's all these mistakes I've made in life that if I make one less of them, I don't end up where I am. I told you I had a hard time in high school. I barely eked out of high school with a 2.3 GPA, because I focused exclusively on trying to win a state championship in debate, because I had been told that winning a state championship was the only way that I would get to go to college because I had to find a way to pay for it myself. That was what my dad told me. If I had not done that, if I had not built those skills, I would not be where I'm today. Those are the skills I use every single day. It taught me how to think. It taught me how to be articulate. It taught me how to be always prepared, and I can handle pretty much anything thrown at me.
If I hadn't built that backbone of skill and curiosity about the world at that moment in time, and I had instead left with a 4.0, I wouldn't be where I am. It's always been because of the generosity of other people. I can't even count the number of times that someone took kindness on me and helped. "Hey, here's the fork that you use." It's the little stuff that's like the coded language that, people were very kind in helping me transition from what I grew up in, into navigating a space that for a long time I was just trying to fit in and trying to seem like, "Hey, no, I'm also one of these smart people." Then eventually, I figure out I don't have to keep this imposter thing up, I could just be myself. It's cool. It took me a long time to get there.
Elana:
It's inspiring to hear that you had that, because I have that entirely, and I come from not a similar background, but very low-income incarceration, and I always felt like I didn't belong at the table. It wasn't until I embraced truly who I was and used that as, "Okay, my vantage points is, what I bring is unique, and no one else can bring that. That is my strength." It took like, gosh, 30 years or something. It took too long.
Bridget:
It's little doses of courage that you have to give yourself. I didn't tell anyone that I grew up in a low-income family until I was probably 32. I never spoke publicly about it. I never told my story. People are like, "Oh, why are you so comfortable telling your story?" Well, because I literally had to do it despite my voice shaking for years. I didn't do it for a very long time, and I worked really hard at it. I also didn't understand my story and its connection to my work for a long time. I couldn't zoom out, it was too close. It was like right here. Yeah.
Elana:
I'm doing a lot of head nodding, yeah. Well, why don't we get into your work as the CEO of the UIA. I view what you're doing a lot of the times as, "Well, I can't believe they're doing that in higher education." Many people would think what you're doing, if they're not close to this, as somewhat impossible. You're getting institutions that sometimes even compete with each other, to collaborate with each other. I would love to hear from you on just what have been your lessons learned around this work? I know that is a hard generic question, but maybe start from the beginning of assumptions you made, and lessons along the way.
Bridget:
I think there's a lot in this work that ports to other places, and it really starts at the core of understanding that it starts with design. Everything is perfectly designed to get the results it does. Higher education is perfectly designed to get the results it does. That includes our belief that it's individual. That you, moving ahead, you get the reward. Your institution, focusing on ourselves, rather than actually thinking and behaving like a true system or a sector, and actually thinking from a collective mindset. It was perfectly set up. It's like a Hunger Games, elbows out. You're not good enough. You didn't go to a fancy enough institution. The best, easiest way to move up in terms of the things that quote, unquote, "matter," like rankings, is to exclude poor people. Those are all design functions. Our work starts with, you really got to see the system for how it is, not for how you fantasize it to be, and recognize those design elements.
For us, we start with the element that higher ed was never designed around students, and it was specifically never designed around the students that the future economic competitiveness of our country demands that we do a better job serving: low-income, first-generation, and communities of color. If you recognize that it's not designed around students, the question it begs is, "Well, who is it designed around?" Originally it was designed around the faculty, but honestly these days, it's a hybrid of administration, and I would say the biggest design element in our sector, and I would say probably K-12 as well is, what are we being asked to do? Who is asking us for that new report? Who is asking us for what data? All of these requests, we never get the chance to pause and have any sense of intentionality or space to think about, well, how could we build this that so in a way that was actually helpful for our work, that would actually help us do a better job for our students? We never get time to actually work on our work. I would say that's the first piece, it's all about design.
If you can see the forest from the trees on that, it's probably the most profound piece. All of the data I could talk about of where we're failing students, it's perfectly designed for us to fail those students exactly. Therefore, we're going to have to design something new. That doesn't mean throw the baby out with the bath water, that means we have to change the way we work every single day, one step at a time, bite-sized pieces, bite-sized doses. If you do it alone, you will fail, because it's just really difficult to trudge up a hill against design and against the system. If you make it so that you're part of a community of practice where you're actually not alone, and where the work can be a little bit lighter and a little bit more sustaining, we're going to be successful. Michael Crow says this, so it's not just me being horn tooty, which -- I love the word horn tooty, by the way -- is that this is the only place where real systemic change is happening in higher ed.
I think a part of it is that, first, it's always about the design, and it's also based on this understanding that we all have the same problems. There's a thing called isomorphism that a lot of folks probably already know about, which is essentially these big, bureaucratic entities often are replicating each other's design, because we see that as a signal of what good is. Most people are trying to think that they're the Harvard of something. We think Harvard is good, so we're going to mimic what Harvard has. Okay, well, what offices does Harvard have? How do they behave and operate? Where do they seek students? All of that. All of higher ed is trying to replicate essentially a model elsewhere. That model has a value system that's slightly toxic. Underneath all of that, we recognize that if we have the same design relatively, that means we have the same problems. That is actually a unifying beacon to build collaboration and community that can actually be the vehicle to drive the change that you need to address the design.
I think those things are true regardless of the sector. That it's about design, that as much as we are all obsessed with thinking that our special problems are unique and different, they're not. There can be different variation, flavor, size, scope, modality, but at the end of the day, shared problems, they are a unifying space. If you can bring people together and you leverage a lot of the expertise from Brené Brown around building communities that start with real vulnerability, that it's built on acknowledging that, "Hey, I'm not really as perfect as I'm putting out there," you make that feel good. You really pay attention. That's the third thing I would say is, pay attention to how things feel. Have the experience of everything you create, then you can actually address some of these bigger problems.
An example of that, our convenings are designed actually in a way that makes probably mid-level staff and administrators who've never really been treated as VIPs, we treat them as VIPs. We design everything around them to actually get what they really need to be more effective. We want them to leave with a new idea, a new ally, and new inspiration. We want people to leave feeling like they are reignited for the work. It doesn't matter if we're putting on a call on Zoom, or if we're doing a presentation. Like I told you, I learned standup comedy to make my keynotes better. It's about the people you're trying to serve. Be obsessed with the audience you're trying to serve, and be less interested in what you think they want. People will tell you what they need. Your audience, who you're trying to serve, if you focus, if you shut up and then actually listen to their questions, that's your curriculum. They know what their problems are. They don't know that their problems are universal. You're going to help them with that. If you focus on making the experience of solving those problems actually feel good, to feel emotionally positive, to be invigorating, then you're going to be able to create a real systemic change by enabling people to clarify the problems, realize they don't have to reinvent the wheel.
They actually can borrow lessons from elsewhere. They can scale things that work, and they can implement in a way that isn't isolating and lonely, because we know that community, inspiration, and purpose are, we think, design principles that you start all of your work around. If you come to a UIA thing, we want to make sure that it creates a sense of community. You leave feeling clarity around your purpose. You leave inspired and believe it's possible, because I think that's probably one of the bigger pieces around change is, it's nobody's job. We think it's the innovators. Your job is to do your job, not to change your job. Nobody has time to do change work. If change work doesn't feel good, and change work isn't in itself a validating, invigorating experience, you're not going to do it. I think those are pieces, I would say, about lessons learned that anyone could use and should use in the creation of work that is going to drive systemic change.
Elana:
Yes, and there's so much you said that I would just encourage people just pause this and rewind, and maybe put her on slow key, because she says so many good things in a row. I was like, "Oh yes, I want to talk about this, this, this." My biggest question from what you said is, it's hard to get started with this work. It requires that level of vulnerability, like you said, in sharing and realizing collectively it's about what we're trying to do as a whole and not about what, maybe in K-12 terms, too, my district can do. I show that my district is exceeding all expectations, and this leads to this and this for me. We don't have a UIA in K-12, right? From the district-level perspective in K-12, if I'm a school leader listening to this, maybe is it something informal as a PLN where they start talking and collaborating? Is that enough?
Bridget:
I think that, one, anyone could do this, because we shouldn't have been able to do it. I told you I was free labor. There was no money, and this was started when a group of presidents had an idea. I didn't have real authority to do any of this work. This is about listening and being obsessed with the customer, being obsessed with trying to solve the problem for people. I think that you start with any community that exists, and trying to drive a conversation around two things. There are two reasons you should ever do collaborative work and no other reason. Stop whatever collaborative you're doing if it's not this. Number one, shared problem. What are your shared problems? What are the things that you actually are struggling with together? Two, what is the big challenge that you can only overcome and achieve together?
Those are the two, for me, touchstones to drive all collaborative work. If you focus on those as the core North Star in your conversations in an existing community of practice, you will see that there are things that you could be focusing on that would probably be more invigorating, that would probably give you more space for pitching and catching ideas around how you could actually make your work feel the same way I just described. There are a lot of collaboratives that exist out there. In fact, we borrowed a lot from K-12. I mean, we went to Carnegie's Improvement Science workshop to try and scaffold the initial design of our work. That's primarily about K-12. It's actually really struggled with higher ed.
I recently spoke with the Ed-Fi Alliance, which they have folks who are in a relatively collaborative space implementing technology tools together and data systems together across school districts. There is stuff out there that exists. Again, just focus on those two twin pillars, shared problems, big thing we can accomplish together. I would also say, you got to create space or seek out space where you can have thoughtful conversations with peers who are going to exist in a space of abundance for a moment with you. What I mean is, it's sometimes hard to... You get invited to stuff, and you can just feel the palpable sense of scarcity in the room. We're all thinking we're not enough. We're all thinking we don't have money, that we're all stressed. Okay, yeah, that's actually a shared problem space. That's something you guys could talk about.
If you could shift to vulnerability instead of, here's the reason why we can be defensive and protect our silos. You want to be able to seek out community, and you want to focus on... If you could dream big for a moment, what's the actual thing that needs to happen in our space? In K-12, there are a variety of things that need to happen. In EdTech, there's a ton of stuff that needs to happen. In higher ed, we have a segmented sector that is not designed around the people we need to serve. The economic competitiveness of our country is at stake if we don't figure out how to make it so that we truly are the engine of social mobility that we have said we are. That we are regardless of equity gaps. That we eliminate equity gaps across the board by intentionality and design. That's something that's a huge thing no one can handle on their own.
In K-12, there are big, meaty problems that, I would say, focus on those. I mean, you can really pick. There's a lot, and there's a lot for us too. I would also offer a piece of advice that, I'm very deep but narrow. I know exactly what my work is and I know what's not my work. I could go off and engage in the same kind of blame shifting the rest of higher ed does whenever it is not really ready to have a hard conversation about what it's responsible for. They often will shift to, "It's K-12's fault. Oh, community college. Oh, it's pipelines. Oh, government. Oh, lobbyists. Oh, it's funding." All that is discharge your responsibility to actually sit through that discomfort of figuring out what stuff you could actually be changing with what you can actually control. Those are just some things I would say in response.
Elana:
That framework, especially those two pillars of the questions really solidified it for me. I'm like, "Yeah, I don't know anyone that could say no," because there clearly are shared problems, and can they only accomplish it together? Really, really helpful in terms of prioritizing it, because like you said, people have the jobs, they'll go through the motions. They need to make sure that they have a way to prioritize it.
Why don't we jump over to another topic that you are close to in your work, is equity and access. We talk a little bit about this as it relates to K-12. We've had educators talk about equity and/or sometimes lack of equity as it relates to K-12, but can you talk a little bit about the state of higher education? It's changed a lot since you all have been at work, but you've talked and hinted about where it is and what it's designed to do. Can you lay the framework for people that aren't as close to higher education?
Bridget:
Yeah, so if you were born into poverty in the 1970s, you only had about a six out of every 100 chance to get a bachelor's degree. If you were born wealthy in the 1970s, you have, well, almost 40 out of every 100 got a bachelor's degree. Those numbers now, especially for low-income people, relatively unchanged. Fast forward. When I say equity gap, I'm talking about that gap between that 40 and that six. Now, low-income folks, as much as we've talked about progress, and innovation, and there's all this stuff and activity that's happened, those numbers are hovering around 12. 12 out of every 100 people get a bachelor's degree. Now, we can talk about how the bachelor's degree has to improve, how we have to really address it, listening to what the public has to say. Those are separate. I'm not one of those deniers. I think there's plenty of place for enhancement and innovation, but wealthy people are closing in on 90. 80% was, in 2012, of folks who were born in a wealthy family that you would get a bachelor's degree.
Again, that gap's 40 to six, and now it's 80 to 12, or it's actually closer 90 to 12. When I say equity gaps, it's only grown. The good news, I guess, is that wealthy folks are doing a lot better getting a bachelor's degree. We have to change that lower number, and that crosses race, that crosses generational status, that crosses everything as a touchstone. I'm not saying that you only focus on income, that was our first focus, but we've expanded that focus to include racial equity, to focus on generational status. I think there are a variety of other identities that we need to focus on, and that again, it's about the design. It was not designed for those communities to be successful. It was designed with this iconic 18- to 22-year-old, able-bodied, typically white, typically from a family with resources, typically with great advice. That's what, if higher ed was designed ever, if there was a student in mind, and it was never actually even designed around those students. That's just a sense of, we've made relatively little progress when it comes to the big picture.
We now have a demographic problem where we have very few 18- to 22-year-olds, but the design of higher ed is still relatively focused on that population. We actually need to shift to focus on adult learners, on people with some college, no degree, things like that. When it comes to race, those equity gaps are massive. When we're talking to Black, Latina, Latino, Latinx and indigenous populations compared to whites, I mean, it's massive. The gaps are huge, and we aren't making progress at the level we need to, first generation to second generation, if your parents went to college. I would say, the stuff that you hear in K-12, that is hard. We have that same hard story. For us, I would say, a touchstone is that for the first time in US history, low-income students are the majority in public K-12, so we know that the pipeline of those younger students coming in are going to be more low-income. We really have to center low-income, first generation, and students of color, in our design.
If we make it work for them, it will work for everyone, because the things that get in the way for those students are the things that would actually trip up other students. It's poor communication that your system is actually never designed around the customer at all. It's totally confusing processes that put the burden of responsibility on students. There's a variety of things I could talk about here. Our data systems are not connected in the same way that K-12 struggles with. The people who need to do their job don't have the information they need to do their job well. All of that. At best, we are playing defense, and we need to play offense when it comes to paying attention to when a student hits a trip wire and is possibly not going to remain in college. We need to intervene at that moment and actually sit down and pay close attention.
The good news is that we actually know how to do this. We don't live in a world in higher ed where the question is, if only. Or, "Gosh, if only we could figure that out." No, no, no, someone already has. It's actually been all figured out. All those stories that we've always needed that are evidence that change is possible, they exist now. Within the UIA, we have multiple institutions who have eliminated their equity gaps by intentional design and not just excluding poor students, which is how most institutions would. Georgia State's one of those early examples, eliminating race and income as a predictor of outcome. We have other campuses, University of Central Florida, we have UC Riverside, who have all made massive strides in that same direction. What we know is you can be big and good. You can address your equity gaps in a real, intentional way that is by lifting the water level for everyone. Those ideas that work to do that can scale from place to place. That's underlying all of our work, is trying to do that work.
Elana:
When you talk about the gap widening on the high level and then also talking about progress you've made with your members of the UIA, I'd love for you to drill down a little bit because people go, "Okay, good, that's cool, but how?" I know how is a longer conversation, but I wonder if you could just surface up one of the projects that you're particularly proud of to show that it's hard, but if you focus, you can make a difference.
Bridget:
The results for the UIA, just so you know, that my campuses, we started with 11 universities that were a collaborative, and now we're on 15, so we've slowly over time added more. We have half a million students, 170,000 students of color, 130,000 low-income. When I talk about our numbers, they're not just small numbers. Those are much larger than say, the entire Ivy League combined, the entire top 50 liberal arts colleges combined. We have managed, in a matter of, eight years or it's almost, again closing in on ten, I guess. Publicly in terms of when we set our goal, we set our big public goal in 2025 that we were going to graduate at least 68,000 more graduates than our stretch capacity at the time would allow. I'm talking about the original 11 institutions, so I didn't just add more campuses and claim them as a win.
Of those originals, we said 68,000 by 2025, we're now at 118,000 and it's 2023. We have massively out-shot that goal. We've also increased our graduates of color by 93%, and our low-income graduates by 50%. Those are unheard-of gains that are dramatically outpacing the sector. When I say progress is possible, that's what I mean, but the way that we do that work. I always describe our work to folks on the street as, I kind of run a Weight Watchers group for universities to be good at something they've never been good at, which is helping low-income, first-gen, and students of color. If that analogy works for you, great, and if it doesn't, ignore it. We have data-sharing transparency, set a goal, just like at Weight Watchers. You weigh in once a week on the same scale, but we do it once a year and it's just about your equity gaps.
If you make progress, we celebrate you, but if you don't, we don't shame you, because we don't think shame is a vehicle for change. Our campuses have, for almost the past decade, been trying to hold each other accountable and share what they're learning. The three buckets of how we work together as a collaborative are, innovation, scale, and diffusion. Innovation, what problem do we all have that we want to work on and try and build a solution for? Some examples of that, is coming up with a 21st-century model of career services to actually address college-to-career readiness. Black student success. Turns out predominantly white institutions, there's not a specific model for them to just follow to drive systemic change. There's a variety of other approaches for innovation.
The big bulk of our work is scale. We take an idea that has worked one place and we try and port it, and adapt it, and riff on it to our other campuses. Predictive analytics, which is basically your data systems being set up so that your people would know when a student hits a trip wire and you can intervene right away. We scaled that from two campuses to 11. We then went on to proactive advising, which is basically going from defense to offense. The way that works right now in higher ed, and you might have experienced this, is that, when something gets messed up, when you register for the wrong classes, you miss some deadline, you have a hold on your account, those things happen all the time and students have to handle them alone, and the institution usually doesn't even know they're happening.
You go in to an advisor when you're forced to. In our world, how we think it should be is that, your data system should be set up that every Monday your advisors get a report of every student who's hit a trip wire that week, and they exclusively focus their attention on reaching out to those students using thousands of advising hours that week, and addressing the issue before the student even knows there's a problem. That's the most obvious difference is, what if we've all had these things happen in our academic career? I know I did. What if they actually were paying attention? When I was 18 years old when I started college, I thought the adults would be watching, and they weren't.
The systems are not set up for higher ed professionals to actually know what's going on with students in real time and have the capacity to do anything about it. Well, students are customers, and I know people aren't comfortable with that, but they were paying thousands of dollars to go here. As a student I thought, "If you told me to take out this much money in student loans, obviously you're going to be keeping an eye on me and make sure I'm getting my value, right?" That's not happening. That's where I end up really struggling, but most students do. Address that. Make it so that the professionals who have already given their lives to higher ed, that they have the information and resources they need to intervene and address things as they pop up.
Then, we also need to design our whole system based on every one of those pop-ups. "Okay, well, clearly students keep hitting this one thing. Well, let's take a step back and redesign it." That's what I mean by scale is, we take it from one campus to another, and it's not because we try and cut and paste, because I don't think every campus has to have the same approach. With us, our difference is our beauty. Our difference is our greatest strength. I have 15 institutions with different leaders, different governance style, centralized, decentralized system, not part of a system. Their interpretation or application of a different innovation is actually where they're going to riff on it, they're going to evolve it, they're going to need to make changes. That's the stuff that I want to pay attention to. That's how we figure out how this works for everyone.
Then, lastly, the piece about diffusion is that, we partner with you and a variety of other folks to make it so that the whole world is wiser for the work of the UIA. We create meaningful, useful breadcrumbs, again, designed around the consumer. Not designed on us telling you how great we are, designed on your problems. "Here's step one, here's how to help you along the way." We create playbooks, we create content, we try and make it so that this work is accessible and everyone benefits from the wisdom that's generated.
Elana:
When I first got introduced to your organization, I think even at that time two years ago, you were doing lives across all the social platforms, keynoting on webinar panels. I was like, "Who is this woman? How does she have time for doing all of this? This is not normal for higher education." It was amazing to see that diffusion in action. Being able to partner with you to even accelerate it more has been a joy for us. I know our time is limited here, I'm trying to pick and choose some of our best questions here.
Let's jump into EdTech a little bit more. For the EdTech professionals listening, I know a lot about low-income students' needs and students of color's needs. For EdTech in general, it could be focusing on pre-K, K-12, or higher education. What types of EdTech do you see actually helping them succeed the most? Do they have common characteristics at all? What do you wish they had more or less of? I know I'm throwing them all at you, but I know that you can handle it, 'cause you go on a roll with this, and I know you have answers to this.
Bridget:
I would just zoom up in that, it's not any one particular solution, it's the broader posture of EdTech, which is, you have to know that this all scaffolds up to venture capital. Venture capital wants to fund products, not services, because products are cheaper and services are not, okay? You're also dealing with in K-12 and higher ed, a place where you absolutely are understaffed. The capacity problems, exhaustion, burnout, all of that's real. That's step one, is recognizing that you have a sector that believes that products will solve when you don't have enough people to staff the existing system. That's the real issue. Venture capital needs to recognize this, that there's money to be made in service. Start with an understanding that too much of EdTech is obsessed with spending 80% of its time perfecting its product, and 20% on project management and onboarding. That number needs to get closer to 50/50 for it to be successful. Whatever you offer, understand, especially in this ecosystem where in this environment with understaffing, teacher shortages... No, you cannot focus 20%. It's going to have to be a lot more, and it's going to be seamless and easy.
The third piece I would say that's a broader systemic issue that's contributing to all of this is that you have to stop talking about your product. I don't care. Don't tell me about your product. I don't care at all, 0%. What I want you to do, and I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm trying to get through to you because I actually care about this, and I care about EdTech, because I really believe that it's a necessary vehicle for us to get to where we need to go. What happens is, too often I have founders or I have folks from companies pitching me on what they do, and they never stop to ask me about my problems. Stop talking about your thing and ask every educator about their problems. They are the customer. If you want to build something that's of value, be obsessed with the customer, truly obsessed. They will tell you everything you need to know. They will tell you what the problems are.
They will tell you what their questions are, and if you actually pay attention instead of finding a way in between them taking a breath to insert your product, if you instead recognize that they are... Empathy is the first step of design. Spend more time listening, less time talking. The piece about designing products, I would say, also think about who you hire. Don't be hiring someone who used to work in sales for Microsoft. Don't do it. Don't do it. You need to hire someone who is a former teacher who left. You need to hire a former academic advisor. Someone who knows how to speak our particular flavor of bureaucracy has and has chosen to leave. You need someone who understands how to navigate the sector. There are a lot of people, there are a lot of roles, that lack a next step, and they aren't paid very well, and they are looking for opportunities. I've been saying this for eight years, hire people from education and higher ed to be your sales support and service, because they understand the complexity of living in the ecosystem that you're trying to sell to.
Again, empathy's the first step of design. You need to find ways to embed and spend time in school districts. Spend time listening to these people. Do not jump to your, "We're the Uber of that." I don't care. I can't tell you enough, I've been saying the same thing and I've known, I've seen technology products and services that have listened, and I've seen how they've had rapid scale and I've seen others that don't. How the UIA goes, goes the country when it comes to EdTech products. Whatever we use, we're agnostic about vendor, but we've seen the difference between them. There are vendors who've made billions, I'm not even saying, not just millions, billions on this work and particularly on the case study of inferring that they work with UIA. There are great companies that really care and are willing to implement these kinds of things. Again, it focuses on service, on putting the customer first and listening and designing for them, and also hiring people who actually are of the culture. Yeah, I don't know if I answered your question, but those are my thoughts on it.
Elana:
You did so well, and I was head-nodding over here like crazy. I feel like sometimes I'm being blunt and rude when I say, "We don't care about your product." They may never eventually care about your product. They care about the challenges that it potentially can solve. They don't trust you to begin with, so you got to build up trust somehow and potentially just get back into the why. Why are you here in education in the beginning, and start providing value beyond your product as well? I talk about that to companies all the time and they're like, "Wait, of course they care about our product. This is our baby." Then they start getting into that feature-itis curve. "We just created this new feature."
Why? Give me a use case of why it adds value to a current challenge. If you can't do that, you just wasted time and money developing a product for product's sake. We see this all the time in EdTech. I know we could talk about this forever. Then, I love your recommendation on hiring educators, hiring people with backgrounds, with that nuance, with that language, with that understanding. It's critical. You got to trust, you got to have people that have that background knowledge. The system is somewhat designed to exit some people, unfortunately. In our podcast, we talk with a lot of educators that have made that in classroom to now working in tech, in universities, and whatnot, too. We'll put a list of those shows in the Show Notes as well if people are curious.
Bridget:
I hate to contribute to the exodus, but at the end of the day, there's talent out there and they understand students, and we should leverage that expertise to the long game ensure that we actually solve the problems facing students in the future. I feel bad, because again, the design problems of both higher ed and K-12, not really thinking about the experience of the professional, and really thinking from an empathy mindset has made it so that there's that mass exodus. There are solutions. Again, focusing on community inspiration and purpose, and actually recognizing that there are massive parts of the workforce who are being exited because of systemic design flaws around childcare. We know that these things could be solved. Just don't want to be the bad guy in terms of saying, "Hey everybody, go get hired by EdTech."
Elana:
No, and it's something that I always provide caution to EdTech as well too, is that... I go both ways, and I talk in detail with Porter about this too sometimes. I say, "You know what, Porter? If they made up their decision to leave, they're going to go to any other company, so I might as well help another company pick them up, too." There is a point where someone's mind is fully made up because the system unfortunately is designed to exit some people. It's a nuance, it's hard.
I would say, let's talk lastly about your experience with Innovating Together, your podcast. For those of you that don't know, she has a recurring podcast. It goes live on all the channels. We'll put it in our Show Notes. You interview sitting college presidents or chancellors, and you get to talk to them about really hard things, and they are some of the most inspiring people I've ever listened to. You've done a lot of shows, but are there a couple shows that stick out to you that you're like, "Wow, that advice was on point, and I still think about it today." There's so many leaders in education that are facing things that they've never faced before and never -- and it continues beyond the pandemic. What stood out to you that you think might help our audience?
Bridget:
One of our first episodes was with Michael Crow. Now granted, I'm biased, perhaps because he's my boss, but he is actually an incredible leader underneath all of that innovation stuff, too. When we interviewed him, it was the first weeks of COVID, and he described leading in that moment akin to sailing.
Elana:
I remember.
Bridget:
That analogy has just been so profound, which is like, listen, I get that the circumstances around your work might be harder in this moment, but you're just a sailor and this is just sailing, and you just happen to be in choppy winds and choppy waves right now. Or, you can go back in there sometimes and it's smooth seas and smooth sailing. You're all sailing. You're sailing just the same, every time. You have to adapt those circumstances and you have to focus on that. At the end of the day, I'm still just sailing. These are just different circumstances. Go back to the essentials, the nuts and bolts of your work, of how you do this work. Well, when people are freaking out and they're like, "I don't know how to lead in this moment," yes, you do. Yes you do. It's just like sailing. You've sailed in calm seas, now these are just choppy waters. I just thought that was really great advice for anyone.
Elana:
As a novice sailor, I keep building on that and say, "Gosh, in really bad winds we reef the sails," which means you take part of the sail down because if the wind is so high, you will start bearing the rails, which means when you start peeling so much, your boat starts taking on water. You actually have to trim your sails and reef the sails, so you have less to work with, but you're still sailing. You're just saying, "Okay, I'm going to get through it, because the storms don't last all the time." Unfortunately, in K-12 in particular, and I know in higher ed, it's been one storm after another and totally, that's hard.
I just want to finish off here, Bridget, around one thing we ask all of our guests. It inspires me to learn what inspires you. The question is around, when you have these days that you are just feeling truly depleted, what do you do physically, intellectually, that fills your cup again and gets you ready to go back to the field and get people to collaborate that might not initially want to collaborate and work in higher education? What helps you?
Bridget:
I mean, it's always helpful if I can be around students. That really puts coins back in the bank for me. I believe it's everyone's responsibility to engage in some form of personal and professional development every day. Maybe that's not for you, but for me, I listen to a podcast every day when I walk to work. I'm listening to books on tape or on audio. I'm trying to consume knowledge to feed my own soul so that I have something to give others. I have to make sure that my emotional and mental space is not depleted, because I can't lead from emptiness. First, I would say, you got to believe that. You got to take care of yourself. Freeman Hrabowski told me, "The job, number one of leadership, is take care of yourself." For me, that's getting up at 5:00 AM and going to Pilates and whatever, and making sure I meditate, and do all of the essentials to just be a functional human being for Bridget.
There's a lot of things out there that I, it depends on what the day is that I'm adjusting to. I think music is incredibly powerful. Put on a killer playlist and jam out. Go for a walk. I walk on a treadmill desk all the time just to make sure I'm stimulating myself with endorphins while I'm Zooming. I take real responsibility for the energy that I bring to work, knowing that it's something I have to manufacture. Taking care of myself is a responsibility. It's job one, to be a good leader. At the end of the day, I just happen to have been fortunate to wake up and be in this space where the people I work with are amazing and I really love them. Not in a creepy, weird way, but I really love the people I work with. The people who are drawn to this work, it's purpose-driven work, and they're incredible. They passionately care about students. They are selfless, they are kind, they are funny, they are committed. I would just probably hang out, talk with a member of my team, or talk with one of our campuses.
On Monday, I'm going to North Carolina A&T. I love that I get to do that. I get to go to campuses and spend time. My job is to just listen and learn. I get to be a student of change, and learn how that's showing up for them. I would say, everybody, you could map this out for yourself of when you have felt like your cup is full, and map out the kinds of things you were doing at that point in time. Then, you need to engineer and design your day to have micro doses of those experiences. For me, that includes journaling every day. That includes, again, meditation. That includes exercise, always. I mean, I'm not winning any awards, but for me it's about move your body. Then, also just know that, there's some times where you need to walk away and you let your brain breathe. Then, you got to stop trying to force it, and then you can come back and summit the mountain tomorrow. I think, a lot of grace, and surround yourself with really good people.
Elana:
Yeah. Well, thank you that, I mean, you gave a well-rounded, all the things you do. Gosh, I always look like, "Yes, I need to do that more. Yes." I hope it inspired all of you to take away even just one little thing. As people in education, we should all be lifelong learners. I love how you say you develop yourself personally and professionally, and you make that a priority in your life. I love that. Bridget, I just want to say thank you again. Thank you for joining. I loved all the insights you were able to provide for our audience. I've learned so much. Even though I work with you and have worked with you for two years, I feel like I've learned so much in this podcast. I know our audience will.
EdTech folks, please rewind what she said to you. I was like, "Yes, yes, yes." Head nod. With everything in this podcast, I hope there's so much that we throw at you. Just pause, take a moment to reflect on one thing. One thing. It could be a mind shift change. It could be, "I want to do this one small action. Oh yeah, Bridget says she takes a walk to work and does a podcast." Whatever it is, I hope that you bring the lessons that we try to give you into your day so you can be more productive and more happy. Thank you all for joining us.
Bridget, why don't you quickly tell people how they can get in touch with you?
Bridget:
Well, I used to hang out on Twitter @briburnsedu. You can still DM me there, those are open. Our website is, theUIA.org, and we have a variety of resources and tools that are available that you can download, including playlists, podcasts, and our playbooks. We have a newsletter that we produce that we think is the best newsletter in higher ed, and has an incredible open rate to attest for that. That's once a month, and you can sign up on our website. We're available, we have a YouTube channel that's very vibrant and thriving, and I think those are the spaces we hang out.
Elana:
Yeah, those are mostly the spaces --
Bridget:
Or our Podcast, Innovating Together.
Elana:
The podcast, for sure, and their newsletter. I have to say a little bias here, but one of the sections I love is a section called Stuff We Love. For all of it, it could be self-care, it could be stuff in your office, it could just be random stuff. I love all your recommendations. A little carrot to get people to sign up for the newsletter. I'll put all of the links in the Show Notes. Thank you again, Bridget. For everyone saying, "Gosh, where are these Show Notes?" They're at leoniconsultinggroup.com. Two Gs, leoniconsultinggroup.com/41, so the number 41. We'll put in all of the resources, we'll also do a good recap of what Bridget spoke about if you're more of a visual learner that needs to say, "Oh gosh, what did she say about equity and access, and what were those facts? We'll have a lot of that in the Show Notes as well. Thank you all for joining. We will see you all next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care.
Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. If you liked what you heard and want to dive deeper, you can visit leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcast, for all Show Notes, links, and freebies mentioned in each episode. We always love friends, so please connect with us on Twitter @LeoniGroup. If you enjoyed today's show, go ahead and click the subscribe button to be the first one notified when our next episode is released. We'll see you next week on All Things Marketing and Education.
[End of recorded material 01:02:47]
Elana Leoni, Host
Elana Leoni has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation, where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.
Dr. Bridget Burns, Guest
Named one of the “Most Innovative People in Higher Education” by Washington Monthly magazine, Dr. Bridget Burns is the founding CEO of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA), a multi-campus laboratory for student success innovation that helps university leaders dramatically accelerate the implementation of scalable solutions to increase the number and diversity of college graduates across the country. She has helped UIA campuses make significant progress on behalf of their students, including increasing their low-income graduates by 46%, and increasing graduates of color by 85%. Her work has been highlighted in national outlets like The New York Times, Fast Company, and 60 Minutes, and she was featured in the documentary “Unlikely”. Bridget received her Doctorate of Education in Higher Education, Leadership & Policy from Vanderbilt University.
About All Things Marketing and Education
What if marketing was judged solely by the level of value it brings to its audience? Welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, a podcast that lives at the intersection of marketing and you guessed it, education. Each week, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, highlights innovative social media marketing, community-building, and content marketing strategies that can significantly increase brand awareness, engagement, and revenue.
Rate, Like, and Subscribe
Let us know what you thought about this episode by rating and reviewing our podcast. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let us know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the podcast to be notified when we have more content to share with you.