Solutions for Higher Education with Southern Utah University President Scott L Wyatt

As he begins the transition to his new position as Senior Executive Director of State Online Education, President Scott L Wyatt reflects on his service at SUU and future opportunities. Featured Quotes:It has become so much a part of my identity and my whole life, along with my wife Kathy. It seems that being a president of a university is not a job, it's a lifestyle. It's every day, weekends, evenings... my whole life is consumed in Southern Utah University and it's been a spectacular time.Scott L Wyatt, President, Southern Utah UniversityI hope that you, our listeners, have enjoyed this as much as we have. And because it's the last podcast in this form, I do hope that we quickly get back into the podcast in whatever version it is.Scott L Wyatt, President, Southern Utah UniversityLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

President Scott L Wyatt and host Steve Meredith talk to Dr. Frank Dooley, Chancellor of Purdue University Global, about Purdue University Global.Featured Quotes:I think that the biggest thing that has changed in the past year, I think the acceptance of online education has moved forward—and I mean by both faculty and by prospective students—has probably been moved forward a decade.Dr. Frank Dooley, Chancellor - Purdue University Global...we're serving a set of students, when you look across the country, that largely have been ignored by higher education for a long time.Dr. Frank Dooley, Chancellor - Purdue University GlobalLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and host Steve Meredith sit down with members of Southern Utah University’s faculty and staff to discuss how the University has adapted teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sylvia Bradshaw, Matt McKenzie, Johnny MacLean, Lynn Vartan, and Matt Weeg all share their perspective on the last year. Featured Quotes:I think all of these offices and probably all of the offices across campus have really learned a lesson in being nimble with the changing priorities as we’ve tried to address the challenges that…kind of the ever-changing challenges that have been confronting us. And I believe we’re going to take that nimbleness forward with us as we continue to be a leader in innovation across the USHE system and across the Intermountain West.Johnny MacLean, Assistant Provost for Faculty Affairs, Southern Utah UniversityI tell you, the most exciting piece of it that came from this, we are now absolutely paperless. You can imagine a grants office and the amount of paper that was involved…we had already started making that transition and when the pandemic came along, that was beautiful. We have no more stacks of paper anywhere, it’s lovely._Sylvia Bradshaw, Director of SPARC Office (Sponsored Programs, Agreements, Research, and Contracts) _Links Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes: Featured Quotes:. . . I think as artists, all of us are really enthralled by the unknown, at least I am. I think it’s exciting to discover new things, I do take the approach that I am forever a student. And so, I think learning about multimedia…I know a little, and just being thrust into a situation where you have to learn is exciting.Danielle Sheather, Assistant Professor of Dance, Southern Utah UniversityAnd all of these things that we’ve learned from screen dance, I do think they can be applied to live dance and I think it will make creative works moving forward, especially for me and for my fellow choreographers from this last concert, I think we have a richer understanding of what dance can be.Bailey Walker, Senior Dance Major, Southern Utah UniversityLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Solutions for Higher Education host Steve Meredith are joined by Peter Fuller, president of Workflow Academy. The trio discusses Workflow Academy and how it upscales students, preparing them for placement in cloud technology related careers. Featured Quotes:. . . a massive opportunity that I see, one that makes me try and partner with SUU and with other universities, I want to tap the immense talent pools that you’ve done such a good job of preparing. And the implicit message there is you’ve prepared them 80% of the way . . .Peter Fuller, CEO The Workflow Academy. . . I worry that higher ed might not be fast enough to build the infrastructure necessary to teach people what we have to teach. Because, I’m not saying it’s going away, but the immediacy of the talent need is right now. We need to make solutions right now.”Peter Fuller, CEO The Workflow AcademyLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith welcome Seana Murray and John O'Brien from the Microsoft Mixed Reality Team as we explore more Alternatives to Traditional Higher Education.  Featured Quotes:And so, the new [Case Westen University] medical school is going completely holographic, and they have taught already a number of semesters doing holographic anatomy and cadaveric research. And if I remember correctly, they had decided at one point that approximately…their students are getting approximately 30% additional recall by learning anatomy via spatially contextual holograms versus flat textbooks. And so, that is a huge uptick in recall, and particularly since these are our future doctors.Seana Murray, Business Program Manager, Microsoft Mixed Reality TeamThere are certain topics that it’s so much easier to teach and for people to appreciate if you can see it in three dimensions instead of on a screen or in a book—and I love reading, don’t get me wrong—but as human beings, we’re used to operating in a 3D world. We spot patterns and process information; our brains are geared to process information that way. And so, I think this is going to open up kind of a whole new frontier for history, for astronomy, for physics, for… you name it.John O’Brien, Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Mixed Reality TeamLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:Getting into our Spring 2021 theme of Alternatives to Traditional Higher Education, today's show we are joined by Aaron Osmond from Amazon Web Services. We talk about the educational avenues offered through AWS and how different paths of learning can be part of a total learning experience, not just "alternative" offerings.  Featured Quotes:Last year alone in the United States, there were 5.3 million open cloud jobs that were posted in the U.S. Of that, more than half of those jobs remained unfilled. We were not able to find students or existing industry professionals to fill those positions, and that problem is growing at a rate of 30% to 40% every year. There’s a huge skills gap.Aaron Osmond - Amazon Web ServicesFirst of all, the technology industry is clearly sending signals around its frustration with higher education and the slowness and, frankly, the lack of level of preparedness of students graduating out of our education system across the country - not specific to Utah . . .Aaron Osmond - Amazon Web ServicesLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:In the first episode of the spring 2021 season, Southern Utah University President Scott L Wyatt and Solutions for Higher Education host Steve Meredith introduce this semester’s topic, Alternatives to Traditional Higher Education. The two discuss the upcoming season and begin to dive into the variety of options available for people outside of higher education.  Links Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith talk with SUU's Provost Jon Anderson about the strategic planning process in higher education. They also discuss leadership and how a leader can get everyone involved in the planning and innovation process.Featured Quotes:And so, [according to the American Association of University Professors] it is the president’s responsibility to innovate for the institution and to push that, and the question then becomes, ‘How is that best done?’ And as you mentioned, it’s best done not by one person putting out new ideas and everybody jumping in line. A lot of that work has to be coming to a shared understanding of the changes that need to happen, and not specific policy changes that I’m talking about, but the changes that are driven by environmental conditions that put the long-term sustainability of the institution at risk.Jon Anderson - Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Southern Utah University. . . I’ll say in advance as we have this conversation that this work of shared governance is not efficient, and it is incredibly slow relative to dictatorship styles, and it is very time-consuming, but very healthy. And so, as we work through this, we’ve got to make sure that people who are engaging in it—and we’re asking, faculty, staff, everybody to engage in it—they have to know upfront it is going to take a lot of effort, it’s going to take a lot of time.Jon Anderson - Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Southern Utah UniversityLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:abcFeatured Quotes:I think we're going to have some real efficiencies around how we operate and how we do things for backdoor operations of an institution. It won't change the front, what the student is going to see, but when you look at HR, you look at IT, you look at cybersecurity, you look at auditing, you look at all of these back room functions of an institution, and we're complicating that by doing it 16 different times throughout the state. If you're a business person, you sit back and go, 'There's got to be a more efficient and effective way that we could even provide better services than what we're currently providing.'Dr. Dave Woolstenhulme, Utah State Commissioner of Higher EducationSo, I just think that is probably one of the most critical things we've got to get around is the competition thing. It's not a competition, it's what’s best for the student, and if they're better served at our friends across the street, let's walk them over there and make sure they're served there. And that hasn't happened in the past.Dr. Dave Woolstenhulme, Utah State Commissioner of Higher EducationLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith are joined by the entire Solutions for Higher Education team. From recording to distribution, this week’s guests cover all the steps in the podcast’s production. Bailey Bowthorpe, Libby Meredith, Natasha Johnson, Lexi Carter, and Jill Whitaker join in to share their part of the process and their favorite episodes from the years. Featured Quotes:For those of our listeners at home that tune in regularly, they know that the 2020-21 academic year is going to be focused on us talking about ‘how the sausage gets made’ in Higher Ed. Looking behind the innovations that we have undertaken and seeing where they stand and what things have worked and what things haven’t worked. And today, in celebration of this, our 100th episode, we decided to talk about how the podcast sausage gets made.Steve Meredith, Assistant VP of Enrollment Management for Graduate and Online Programs . . . this actually started as a means to try to communicate to the employees at the university some of the things that we're thinking about and answer questions and explore ideas. So, that's kind of how it started, and we started by bringing in faculty to talk about their research and innovations at the university and challenges that we face.Scott Wyatt, President of SUULinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with Rita Osborn, executive director of the Center for Rural Health to discuss Southern Utah University’s Rural Health Scholars Program. The program prepares students for graduate-level healthcare programs through academic and non-academic experiences.Featured Quotes: . . . the interesting message is you can have any major you want. You could be a music major and get to medical school. Many healthcare graduate programs appreciate that you diversified a lot of your undergrad experience exploring something that you’re passionate about. We have Spanish majors, psychology majors, nutrition majors, the whole gamut…business majors. So, as long as they're doing well in their sciences and achieve their science pre-reqs, then they’re fine.Rita Osborn, Executive Director of the Center for Rural HealthMany of our students just don’t know that they’ve got what it takes to do this, and so we come from this with an asset-based approach. 'These are the things that you bring to the table, and if you truly have the passion to do this, you can.'Rita Osborn, Executive Director of the Center for Rural HealthLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with SUU’s Dr. Eric Kirby, assistant vice president for student affairs and Ryan Bailey, coordinator of completion and student success. They discuss SUU’s main retention strategy, the Assistant Coaches for Excellence and Success (ACES), a peer mentoring program for first year students. Featured Quotes:. . . the ACES are basically the "one stop shop" for all incoming students, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The ACE contacts their incoming student within 24 hours of that student 'depositing' at SUU and basically says that much. "I am your one stop shop; I am your end all and be all of anything you need. I may not know the answers, but I'm going to get you where you need to go."Eric Kirby, SUU Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs. . . there's always been staff members, there's always been academic advisors, financial aid counselors, but this way, every student has another student where maybe they can ask the nitty-gritty questions, or, "You just did this last year, how did you combat tough roommates? Or asking somebody on a date? Or homesickness?" And they're getting feedback from someone who is in their own shoes which I think has been really successful.Ryan Bailey, SUU Coordinator of Completion and Student SuccessLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with SUU’s Provost Jon Anderson to discuss SUU’s newest innovation: a $10,000 bachelor of general studies degree program. They discuss the promise of online student growth and how this new program offers yet another path for SUU students to succeed.Featured Quotes: . . . as we did our financial modeling, we settled on a price point of about $79 a credit, which would allow someone to enter SUU Speedway Campus and finish a full bachelor’s degree for under $10,000. I believe we’re the first institution in the intermountain west to offer a full bachelor’s degree for under $10,000. The Speedway Campus only offers one degree program and that is a Bachelor of General Studies, either a Bachelor of Science or a Bachelor of Arts in General Studies. It’s a list of about 40 courses the student can complete to get to 120 credits and they can do that entering in seven week sessions.Dr. Jon Anderson, SUU ProvostI really, fundamentally believe that the broader the brand is, the more recognized the brand is, the more success that every modality will have. So, as people hear about SUU being successful in any one area, that begins to bleed over to lots of other areas and the whole institution begins to elevate. It’s true that the rising tide lifts all boats, and the same thing happens with the brand of an institution.Dr. Jon Anderson, SUU ProvostLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott Wyatt and Steve Meredith meet with two leaders from Southwest Technical College, Tessa Douglas, director of Dual Enrollment and Placement Services, and Will Pierce, Vice President of Instruction. They discuss the innovative partnership between SUU and Southwest Tech and how the two entities have developed multiple pathways for students to take courses at both institutions.Featured Quotes:The SUU students who come [to STECH] all seem to have really positive feedback about their programs. They’re really excited that they have an option to do hands-on type learning in addition to their academic learning at SUU. A lot of the Southwest Tech students who have moved on to SUU, have been really, really grateful because they don’t necessarily think they would have gone to SUU otherwise...Tessa Douglas, Director of Dual Enrollment and Placement Services - Southwest Technical College. . . we gathered faculty and administration at Southwest Tech and we said, “Let’s take a look at your [SUU’s] curriculum. Let’s pull together your syllabi, let’s pull together your…what textbooks you’re using, let’s get some examples of some of your assignments, some of your tests…. And we got all of that together, it was a monumental task.Will Pierce, Vice President for Instruction - Southwest Technical CollegeLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with Tawny Hammond, National Director of Learning Advancement for Best Friends Animal Society and SUU's Melynda Thorpe, Executive Director of Community and Professional Development. They discuss the SUU & Best Friends Executive Leadership Certification, the nation’s first university-endorsed animal services leadership program for working professionals as well as the importance of obtaining higher education in animal welfare.Featured Quotes:. . . it really goes back to an alumni banquet that we had here on campus and SUU was recognizing Julie Castle, CEO of Best Friends who is an alumna. I happened to be there in the audience…I was at a table at the back of the room. I remember where I was sitting, I remember Julie standing up there and her saying the words articulating the goal of ending the killing of animals in shelters by the year 2025. And when you hear Julie speak, she's such a captivating speaker and person altogether, but that really resonated with me and I turned to the person next to me and said, 'I think we can help with that.'Melynda Thorpe, Executive Director, SUU Community and Professional DevelopmentI think that our work with SUU has . . . made us better as an organization in that we're able to fulfill that goal of being a learning and leading organization in ending the killing of pets in our nation. It's given us a prestigious partner, an academic partner, a very logical partner when you look at geography.Tawny Hammond, National Director of Learning Advancement, Best Friends Animal SocietyLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith talk with Ken Hall, SUU School of Business Associate Dean, about the overhaul and growth of the MBA program over the last few years. They discuss the importance of maintaining quality between face-to-face and online courses and how holding the same admissions standards for all students - regardless of how they take classes - has really strengthened the program.Featured Quotes:It’s nice to see the numbers grow, absolutely, there’s a lot of positives that come with growth, but one of the things that I think we’re most proud of is our admissions standards have stayed the same and the quality—especially the quality of our online classes—has increased during this time.Ken HallLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith talk with SUU's Faculty Senate President Bill Heyborne about the Three Year Degree program. They discuss the initial concept, the ripple effect it had on campus - specifically among faculty members - and how authentic communication and using the brilliant minds available made the program setup a success.Featured Quotes:After you approached me about participating in this podcast, I started thinking about the things that have gone well, the things that haven’t gone so well, and as I thought about the things that haven’t gone so well from the faculty perspective, I then started thinking, “Well, what is it that these things all have in common? Why did they not go so well?” And the place where I’ve landed is: faculty are creatures of habit. And I don’t mean that in a derogatory way at all.Bill HeyborneWhat impressed me and what I learned from this experience, is that all I had to do was say to you and your committee in the Faculty Senate, "Whatever you want to do is fine." [ . . . . what I learned is that those who care the most about something have to be in at the beginning, not reviewing proposals.Soctt L WyattLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith kick off the 2020-21 season by introducing this year’s podcast theme: Innovation in Higher Education: Lessons Learned. They preview some of the topics to be discussed, like the partnership between SUU and Southwest Technical College and SUU’s Three Year Degree program.Featured Quotes:We don’t give salary increases for people that are creative, we don’t give a bonus to anybody like that. But as you move up the ladder and get to the top, so you’re at the point where you can be the most creative and influence change the most, it seems like in the public sector, that you also tend to irritate more people. And, as we say in politics, “Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.”Scott L Wyatt. . . disruptions always lead an organization or a person into being better or worse at the end of the disruption. So, that’s…and the approach that we’ve tried to take as a university is we are going to be better at the end of this pandemic.”Soctt L WyattLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:Author Christopher Corbett joins the podcast today as we discuss his book The Poker Bride.Featured Quotes:Mark Twain talks about not writing about mankind, but writing about a man and I was very interested in putting a human face on an experience that we don’t know that much about, and that is the experience of the Chinese in the West and more particularly, of Chinese concubines in the West. And that’s how I found Polly Bemis, who was and is now and probably always will be known in Idaho as 'the Poker Bride.'Christopher Corbett. . . when you’re looking at a story like Polly Bemis’, you really have to start at the end, not at the beginning. And the reason for that is quite simply that we know a great deal about Polly Bemis, and you’ve read the book, but we know a great deal about her because of the end of her life in the 1920s and ‘30s.John M. BarryLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:Author John M. Barry joins the podcast today as we discuss his book The Great Influenza and how relevant it is to the time we are living through right now.Featured Quotes:[The 1918] virus did go everywhere. The death toll is estimated at between 15 and 100 million people in a much smaller population. If you adjust for population, that would be equal to 220 to 440 million people today.John M. Barry[In 1918] they created a propaganda arm called the Committee for Public Information. The architect for that committee said that, “There is nothing in experience that tells us truth is superior to falsehood. All that matters is the inspirational value.John M. BarryLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith are joined by Dave Shively to discuss his book The Pacific Alone, the second installment in the Summer Book Club series. They discuss Ed Gillet’s journey across the Pacific Ocean and Shively’s process for gathering all the details and writing this book.Featured Quotes:You just keep moving forward and if things get bad, take a break. Stop and eat, make camp, and then you get up the next day and you keep moving because you know that you’re more capable than you thought you were.David Shively quoting Ed GilletWe expect comfort and all of our endeavors to be achieved with minimal effort. Yet, here is somebody who could have done the same experience, gone to Hawaii with minimal effort, but chose to take the absolute most difficult path.David ShivelyLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith are joined by SUU professors Dr. Daniel Hatch and Dr. Tyler Stillman to discuss the first book in the Summer Book Club: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. They discuss their interpretations of the meaning of life, the importance of relationships with others and being honest with yourself, and speculate about Viktor Frankl’s motivation in writing this book.Featured Quotes:It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.Viktor FranklA human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in the given situation.Viktor FranklLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:As part of the podcast series Solutions for Higher Education, SUU President Scott L Wyatt will lead a “Summer Reading Club” focusing on a new book each month. Readers who join the podcast will be given an introduction to the book by Scott Wyatt and podcast host Steve Meredith, who will be joined by an expert guest to give additional insight and context to the completed reading.Featured Quotes:. . . We've put together an interesting collection of books that we hope are all relevant to the time that we're in. And some of the books are new, some are old, some are really deeply thoughtful and some are just fun. But we think that it’s going to be a good group of books. And they’re all from kind of a different genre.Scott L Wyatt, SUU PresidentWell, and it’s a good time to be reading books. So, people are always asking us, "What are we doing with our time?" And the answer is usually, "We’re actually working harder than we were last summer."Scott L Wyatt, SUU PresidentLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit 6 feet apart and discuss SUU and COVID-19, how the coronavirus has impacted Southern Utah University and higher education.Featured Quotes:This generation that has been sometimes accused of being overly socially engaged on technology and not socially enough engaged face-to-face . . . is the most well-equipped generation of all time to be able to handle a pandemic like this.Scott L Wyatt, SUU PresidentIt reminds me that of all the things that we’re trying to teach, the character is probably the supreme. We’re trying to help people develop grit, the ability to face change, to adjust their lives.Scott L Wyatt, SUU PresidentLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith are joined by Beth McMurtrie, senior writer for The Chronicle for Higher Education. They discuss McMurtrie's article "Fixing the Courses that Everybody Loves to Hate" and how the student success movement has adjusted in light of Generation Z students flooding college campuses.Featured Quotes:This generation, Gen Z they call it, is an interesting one. They're quite practical, they're kind of skeptical, they’re very comfortable with being self-taught, they learn a lot of stuff from YouTube and other means, they don’t necessarily assume the teacher has all of the answers. So, they kind of…they're challenging them in a way saying, "Explain to me why I should care." And I think a good teacher should be able to do that, right? They should be able to stop and say, "This stuff does matter."Beth McMurtrie, The Chronicle of Higher EducationSomebody called what happens in the classroom a donut hole in the student success movement. People talk about nudges, they talk about chatbots, they talk about all sorts of things outside of the classroom that might keep students in college, but they don’t really talk about the core of their experience which is what happens in the classroom day in and day out. What are you learning? Do you feel engaged? Do you feel connected? Do you feel like you belong? Do you feel like you’re learning how to do college?Beth McMurtrie, The Chronicle of Higher EducationLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:Sophia Laderman from the State Higher Education Executive Offices Association joins the podcast this week to discuss the funding of higher education and how it has impacted tuition over the years. Featured Quotes:. . . if we go all the way back to 1980, funding was a lot higher, several thousand dollars per student higher. So, that means your average student at a public institution was getting a lot more state money for their education. And so, as state funding has gone down, tuition revenue has gone up and I think that’s what ends up in the news most often is increases in tuition rates that affect students . . .Sophia Laderman, SHEEO. . . there’s all this talk of a recession coming up, so with the next recession, it looks like funding will probably decline even further and that’s definitely concerning because . . . we might be at the point where we can’t really raise tuition anymore without pricing students out of the market and so it seems like there’s a big crunch coming up for the financing of higher education.Sophia Laderman, SHEEOLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:This week on the podcast we talk with Madeleine Rhyneer from Richmond, Virginia where she is the Vice President for Consulting and Dean of Enrollment Services at EAB. She recently had an article published entitled "No, Your College is Not An Exception" in the Chronicle of Higher Education and we just had to discuss that with her.Featured Quotes:One of the things that I've been challenging people with . . . in the last few months is to ask . . . , "What's your elevator pitch?" Which is the business way of saying, "What's the 20-second introduction to your university to a person who really doesn’t know you at all?" And most people sort of look at me like, "Oh my goodness." Or they'll go to, "Well, we're really friendly" or "We're small." And I'm like, "OK, friendly is pretty much table stakes in any kind of market where you're serving people and small is not a point of distinction at all.Madeleine Rhyneer, EABI feel like it's important to have honest conversations and sometimes they end up being pretty direct conversations to say, "Actually, to the public, we all do more or less the same thing, and we do it more or less close to them, more or less well or not-well, more or less online or in a virtual format." And that the traditional, 'If we build it because we're here, they will come,' that just isn't working anymore.Madeleine Rhyneer, EABLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with Rachel Fishman, Deputy Director for Research at the Higher Education Initiative with New America, to discuss the perceptions of higher education, including affordability, quality, and return on investment.Featured Quotes:. . . overwhelmingly people think [higher education is] not fine the way it is. We do ask a follow-up question to this that’s open ended that’s like, “Well, why do you feel that way?” And the overwhelming response is cost and affordability, which I think makes a lot of sense, especially given everything that we’ve basically seen in the news for the past four or five years where there’s a constant talk about student loan debt, how it’s 1.5-1.6 trillion dollars, what that means for a generation of students who now have debt and what that means for millennials and Generation Z mobility.Rachel Fishman, Higher Education Initiative with New America. . . never before have students been this invested in their education by having to borrow loans or having to front their own earnings or their parents’ earnings to help pay for it. And so, more people are in higher education than ever before and more are looking to see a serious return on investment because they’re making a serious investment of their own money.Rachel Fishman, Higher Education Initiative with New AmericaLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:We've invited Barbara Brittingham, the President of the New England Commission on Higher Education, to discuss what the downturn in higher ed enrollment is doing from an accreditation standpoint.Featured Quotes:. . . one of the things that the commission has seen (and Vermont is an excellent example of this unfortunately), is that when a small college closes, it is obviously very hard on the students and the faculty and the staff who work there, it's difficult for the alums, but it’s also very difficult for the local community because they have their campus that was a major employer in town, often it was a cultural center and has athletic facilities available to the community often and provided a lot of activity for the small businesses in town and the practitioners in town.Barbara Brittingham, New England Commission on Higher EducationMy predecessor used to say that ‘most [governing] boards want good news and a good meal.’ And I think a good meal is still possible, but I don’t know if the news is going to be good.Barbara Brittingham, New England Commission on Higher EducationLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:Michael Osborn, VP & Senior Analyst with Moody’s Investors Service, joins us this week to discuss the credit worthiness, financial liability, and growth projections of higher education.Featured Quotes:And I would say, while we moved it (the credit outlook for higher education) to stable, it’s not that we think everything is substantially better and that the challenges are over. In fact, this report doesn’t shy away from many of the challenges that are facing the sector. It’s that we think that there is stability in this “new normal” of higher education . . .Michael Osborn, Moody’s Investors Service…one thing that we’re looking at is a university’s program review assessment period. How often are they assessing or reviewing programs and what is the schematic for assessment and maybe taking programs offline, or adding programs?Michael Osborn, Moody’s Investors ServiceLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with Jon Boeckenstedt, vice provost for enrollment management at Oregon State University. They discuss the adjustments colleges need to make to stay alive over the next decade, including more transparency in pricing and reducing barriers to admission.Featured Quotes: . . . there was a Gallup Poll just a few weeks ago that talked about the American public’s confidence in higher education and how important it was or is or isn’t and the number who said it was very important has fallen from 70% to 50% in just three or four years. So, I think people are becoming less willing to put forth and put out that much effort and that many resources for the education that they believe, I think, is largely a commodity anymore . . .John Boeckenstedt, Oregon State University. . . we can kind of get by from year to year if everything external stays the same, but when those big things happen outside the university in society, or politics, or government, or economics, or just public perception, we’re not always well equipped to handle that dramatic, punctuated equilibrium.John Boeckenstedt, Oregon State UniversityLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:In this week's episode of Solutions for Higher Education, our hosts discuss the difficult decision colleges face to close down with Stephanie Niles, VP for Enrollment and Communications at Ohio Wesleyan University and immediate past president for the National Association for College Admission Counseling.Featured Quotes:I think for an institution to not take stock, to not be willing to ask the hard questions, to not be willing to really take a look at itself…what it does well? Who it serves? Is there another population it should be serving? Are there opportunities being missed? Are there things the institution is doing, programs it’s delivering, that are not as effective, are not resonating and capturing the population needed? I think each and every…almost each and every institution is in a position now to have to really take stock of themselves and ask those tough questions. I know my institution is currently in a position of doing that.Stephanie Niles, Ohio Wesleyan UniversityWe can’t think about just next year or just three years from now, but if we want to sustain the institution for 20, 30, 50 years and beyond, that’s going to be somewhat dependent on the decisions that we make now.Stephanie Niles, Ohio Wesleyan UniversityLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith discuss the upcoming shift in enrollment numbers at universities and colleges with Nathan Grawe, professor of economics at Carleton College and author of Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education.Featured Quotes:[Because of the financial crisis of 2008] Young families decided that maybe it wasn’t the best time to have children and fertility rates declined and, in fact, they’ve continued to decline through at least 2018. And so, that means that about 18 years later, we can expect there to be a smaller population of prospective students for traditional-aged college. And the declines we’re talking about are significant. We’re talking 10% to 15% nationally and in some parts of the country, much steeper than that. So that no matter where you are in higher ed, we can expect that in the mid-2020s, we’re going to see a significant reversal. And so, we end up sharing some burdens together and yet having distinct paths at the same time.Nathan Grawe, Carleton CollegeI wouldn’t be surprised to see many institutions . . . engaging more aggressively with merit aid and discounting. That kind of pressure can create pressure that goes upward. You might find that you compete well with another institution for a student in the current environment, but if you're competing with another institution that starts getting aggressive with discounting and offering financial aid, you may start losing students that you’ve become accustomed to winning.Nathan Grawe, Carleton CollegeLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith are joined by Eric Kelderman, senior reporter for The Chronicle of Higher Education, to discuss enrollment projections in the United States over the next ten years. They discuss the growth SUU has seen and the rippling impact decreasing enrollments will have on surrounding businesses, especially in communities where universities are the main economic driver. Featured Quotes:We anticipate that there are going to be winners and losers. The small, non-selective privates are probably the most endangered and we’ve seen several of those close in recent years. As you mentioned, I think the flagships typically tend to feel like they’re buffered from this a little bit and that may be the case and certainly the most selective privates, the Ivies, the Stanfords, places like that, are expected to continue to attract a significant amount of interest and applications to maintain their classes. And then further down the line we’ll see institutions like yours, sort of what we call typically comprehensive regionals. And we’ve seen a number of strategies that institutions around the countries have used to sort of try and ameliorate or stave off some of these challenges.Eric Kelderman, The Chronicle of Higher EducationIn Utah alone since 2000, if you average the tuition cost from all of the universities in Utah, the public ones…and we’re affordable. Utah is like the second most affordable tuition rate in the whole country, but even in Utah, tuition and fees have climbed 216% since the year 2000. And during that time, general inflation has only increased by 48%. People are considering this.Scott L Wyatt, Southern Utah UniversityLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:Today on the show we talk with Lee Gardner, senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education about the special report from The Chronicle for Higher Education entitled, "The Looming Enrollment Crisis." Gardner wrote the article "Weather the Storm" in the special report and today we're talking with him on the topic.Featured Quotes:Higher education is dealing with a lot of different issues and some of them are very thorny and difficult, but I don't think that any one of them feels as immediate for a lot of institutions as their worries about their enrollment. That’s critical to the enterprise for private institutions and especially now that state support is not what it once was, it's critical for public institutions.Lee Gardner, The Chronicle of Higher EducationAs we sometimes talk about in The Chronicle newsroom, ‘What can we stop doing?’ Because if you just keep adding things that you offer and adding things that you do and you don’t similarly expand your ability to do those things, then at a certain point, it's unsustainable.Lee Gardner, The Chronicle of Higher EducationLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Wyatt and Steve Meredith are joined by SUU's VP for Advancement & Enrollment Management Stuart Jones. They discuss the impending enrollment crisis all colleges and universities are facing and talk through a few of the ways Southern Utah University is combating that enrollment drop.Featured Quotes:Well, as we go forward from here, one of the things that we need to be very aware of is that the enrollment challenges that universities and colleges around the country are facing may come to us. It’s just that Utah is a little bit behind everyone else in the declining of students coming to college because we’ve had a higher birth rate than many other places and because of the economic activity in Utah, primarily in the center of the population, the Wasatch Front, a lot of economic growth up there. But our birth rate dropped in 2008 like everybody else’s and we’re going to see some changes in 2026. And so, part of this growth strategy is to have a running head start when we know that the inevitable disruptions are going to occur in about six years.Scott Wyatt, SUU President. . . I think the most important thing that we did [at SUU] is made enrollment our focus. I love what Warren Buffet says, he and Bill Gates were asked what the key to their success was and they both said the same thing—focus. That you cannot do everything but you can do virtually anything if you really set your mind to it.Stuart Jones, SUU Vice President for Advancement and Enrollment ManagementLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith are joined by Dustin Hansen, Sr. Creative Director at Electronic Arts, to discuss game design and game theory and how video games relate to learning opportunities and educational growth.Featured Quotes:. . . if I’m being really honest, my approach to education kind of follows my approach to game theory which is you have to let people experiment. You have to let somebody fail, and I was in a teaching, an art teaching position, one of the hardest things for any artist and I’m sure Steve will fit with this too because it crosses over to music very well, is artists are told to find their voice. What’s the unique thing that you can do to find your voice? And it just absolutely stifles people. It stops them in their tracks. So, my theory to that is the only way to find your voice is to fail at trying to be somebody else.Dustin Hansen, Electronic ArtsSo, when we’re asking people to really pause and understand language and we can’t truly speak their language—and I’m speaking as a game designer, not as an educator but I think there are some similarities there—when we’re asking them to speak in a language that we have defined, as a game designer, there’s a high, high correlation with failure there. But when you allow them to speak in their own experiences, that failure and that learning goes up dramatically.Dustin Hansen, Electronic ArtsLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:It’s Thanksgiving week and our podcast hosts dive into the history of this important American holiday, including the pilgrimage to America, religious persecution, Plymouth Rock, and the meal that started the strong tradition of turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie each November.Featured Quotes:So, here is the teaser for Thanksgiving dinner. When you show up for Thanksgiving dinner and they family is all gathered around, you ask, ‘Why did the Pilgrims come to America? To get to the other side.’ No, the actual answer is sort of to escape the Dutch. So, yes, absolutely they were seeking religious freedom, and they found it in Holland, but they couldn’t live an English village lifestyle in Holland. So . . . they were actually escaping the Dutch, not gaining religious freedom. I just think that’s such a fun little twist on the story.Scott L Wyatt, Southern Utah University PresidentThis is what they probably had. They certainly grew corn, so they had corn. They had squash, they grew beans, they had barley, peas, they would have undoubtedly had ducks and geese and wild turkeys. A lot of fish, so they probably had bass and blue fish and cod. Because they had a crop of barley, they had beer that they were able to brew. No forks or spoons, they would have eaten with knives and fingers. But that’s the first Thanksgiving dinner.Scott L Wyatt, Southern Utah University PresidentLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:In this week’s episode, President Wyatt and Scott Meredith spend some time with Stephen Lisonbee, SUU’s Executive Director of Regional Services. They discuss the Utah Legislature’s focus on training the rising generations to fill technical and skill-heavy jobs, such as engineering, medicine, business and education. Featured Quotes:I began working at a young age and by the time I graduated high school had four or five jobs. And those jobs taught me several skills that put me in a position where I understood how to work in the workforce. And currently, because of the recession we went through, a lot of our youth that are now coming into education missed those opportunities because they were filled by other adults and others. So, they’re needing to learn some of those skills and they might be starting their engagement to industry a little later, but we’re now kind of adjusting that. So, it’s interesting to see how important these jobs are for our students. Probably more so now than they once were.Stephen Lisonbee, Executive Director of Regional Services at SUUI was getting off of an airplane the other day and somebody complained to me about the Utah Legislature and I said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” We are receiving 50% of our funding from the Utah Legislature. There’s no state that I’m aware of that even come close to that . . . And that support comes to us for the real career-focused kinds of…the things that we think are career-focused like engineering and the medical careers and business and education, but it also comes to us for all of the humanities and arts and everything else.Scott L Wyatt, Southern Utah University PresidentLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:In a special Veteran’s Day episode, President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with the SUU Veteran’s Resource and Support Center Director Amanda Keller and Executive Director of the Bryce Canyon Association Gayle Pollock to discuss the history of Veteran’s Day, what life can look like after service for veterans, and the resources for veterans in southern Utah.Featured Quotes:In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. Generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field to ponder and dream; And lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Union Brigadier General, US Civil WarSo, there are a lot of unique challenges that they [veterans] face . . . when they decide to come back to school. They change from a very structured and very rigid daily life to not so much structure. They sit in classrooms next to the traditional 18 year old. They have different world views, they have this rich knowledge that our traditional students don't have - - and some of that knowledge comes with a little bit of baggage.Amanda Keller, Director - SUU Veterans Resource and Support CenterLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with Ryan Hagge from the American Academy of Innovation, and SUU’s own James Sage and Johnny MacLean, to discuss the balance between content and skills in project- and competency- based education.Featured Quotes:So, the classic example when people hear the word “project,” they automatically think “Science Fair” and that’s not really what we’re talking about here. The whole idea of project-based learning centers on student-led inquiry, research, and design. That means that you may pose this essential question, is what it’s called, this big question and then the student gets to really dictate the direction that they take that learning from there. And the question is such that it can’t be a Google answer, so, there’s no one side of the answer, there’s some current debate on the issue.Ryan HaggeI think about my family and that they work in their profession for many, many years and they developed skills in management or account or all kinds of skills and there’s no mechanism for higher ed to award credit for those demonstrated skills. So, being able to assemble a portfolio, being able to apply standards and then map competencies to college credit…Is a really transformative thing for higher ed. It really is innovative.James SageLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with John Louviere and Rene Eborn, AVP/Exec Dir for Academic & Instructional Services and SAVP for Strategic Initiatives at Utah State University, to discuss the innovative approach USU is taking to competency-based education, specifically with general education assessments and online course offerings.Featured Quotes:So, for instance, the student would register for English 1010 and . . . there’s a pre-assessment to see where they fall, and then there’s content and casing material that the faculty members have developed for these courses that the students then move through at different speeds and variables, and then they move into the next assessment and the next assessment on their own time during the term and they have that flexibility during the term. They can take the whole term to do it or they can do it in the first two weeks and the faculty member works with them individually to help them learn the materials and move through the course or to demonstrate their competence into the course.Rene EbornI think that the students that are coming to us now are different students than they used to be and they are very consumer driven. They do a lot of research before they come and then a lot of our adult learners are looking for that flexibility as well. And so, yes, I think it’s very much market-driven in that regard.Rene EbornLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with Paul Fain, writer for Inside Higher Ed, to discuss direct assessment, a type of competency-based education.Featured Quotes:I'm going to make a bold prediction here, but I think people should be watching competency-based education because I think the addition to kind of the growth of these programs and the kind of adopters who are trying this, that's one thing, but the underlying potentially transformative change to higher education on the whole, if it's more competency-focused, is enormous.Paul Fain. . . it seems hard to believe that someone won’t figure this out in a really scalable way. And just even the interest politically, and it’s not just coming from one side, they’re trying to do things differently. I’ve got to feel like something is going to happen.Paul FainLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:We're talking with Phyllis Hauptfeld with Academic Partnerships about SUU's plans to grow online degree offerings.Featured Quotes:. . . there’s no doubt that online is providing the kind of accessibility to students who are location-bound. I mean, the marketplace for your traditional students is about 3.5 million a year graduates. The adult learner, the online student, is 20-25 times that size.Phyllis HauptfeldI think most people that work at universities would be surprised how many consultants help with different kinds of things . . . . the world has become so sophisticated and I can think of a whole list of consultants that we work with regularly.Scott L WyattLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:This episode we discuss SUU's plans to lower tuition costs for online-only students in an effort to make an education more accessible.Featured Quotes:The hypothetical full-time, face-to-face student shows up, it takes 120 credits to graduate, if that student takes 15 credits per semester over four years, that student is going to end up paying $29,000 tuition and fees, we’re not counting inflation, it’s just $29,000 to get a bachelor’s degree. Then, if we take the hypothetical average online student, this is a student who is taking 7 credits because that’s all she can take, she’s going to take 17 semesters to finish from start to finish. And at $2,500 per semester, she’s going to end up paying $43,000.Scott L WyattThe driving motive [for SUU] is access and affordability, helping people move up. And as we have been talking about online, we’ve discovered that there are some challenges for online students to get in and get a degree, and one of those is cost.Scott L WyattLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:Dr. Megan Fromm, journalism teacher at Grand Junction High School, joins us on this week’s podcast to discuss the rethinking of general education requirements in education. Dr. Fromm penned the article “How We Could Radically Rethink the Core Curriculum in Higher Education” which the group references throughout the episode.Featured Quotes:I think we are most missing an interdisciplinary approach. I feel like we still have, and when I was writing this piece, I reference sort of this idea of, “What would a new core look like?” And I was looking at the core requirements, mostly at different Colorado Universities, and they’re still pretty siloed. You still have a class in humanities or history, you have a health and wellness, you have maybe government politics, and there just wasn’t a lot of crossover, and for students who are increasingly coming to universities looking for that specialization, it was hard for them to make connections.Megan FrommThat very specific topic, the idea of the First Amendment, was honestly one of the most compelling reasons that I switched to high school because I...my experience at higher ed was very similar to that incident that you described just in terms of feeling like, “Oh man, we’ve got to do a better job of explaining what this means and the burden of free speech.Megan FrommLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptArticle: How We Could Radically Rethink the Core Curriculum in Higher EducationFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes: President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith talk with Julie Hartley and Greg Benson, Assistant Commissioners of Higher Education for Academic and Student Affairs in the state of Utah, about the delivery methods for general education and the various competencies gained through general ed courses. Featured Quotes: For a long time, higher education was kind of seen as a gatekeeper of sorts. Something for people of elite status to have access to and not other people. And the teaching model is often referred to as “face on the stage” where a very smart person is up at the front just spewing out information for the students and the smart ones will grasp it and move through the ranks and the others will drop out and along the sideline. And there’s been a major shift in higher education and pedagogical strategies to being more concerned about teaching methodologies and making sure that the students are actually grasping the materials and that the faculty are educating them as opposed to weeding them out. *Julie Hartley * Are General Education courses themed and structured to foster success? Or are they unnecessary obstacles for students? Greg Benson Links Associated with this Episode: Transcript Follow Us: Solutions for Higher Education Podcast SUU Blog SUU Facebook

Show Notes: This week's episode talks with student government leaders Jeff Carr and Chris Westwood. We learn what drew them to SUU, how they decided to get involved with student government, and more about who they are. Featured Quotes: And then when I got to the university, I took a political science class, and I was an acting major at the time, and it was just fascinating to me and it was something that really just kind of drew me in. I switched my major and I started kind of thinking more along those lines, and so, when the opportunity came to get involved in student government, it seemed like a really cool way to practice a lot of the principles that I had been learning. Jeff Carr, SUU Student Body President I went to Zion National Park just last weekend and I try and do a hike or tennis every week as much as I possibly can, and you would really miss that if you were just looking down at a screen. You’d kind of get a fake reality, I guess. Something that’s not really there. And students need to put down the phone sometimes and just look at what’s in front of them. Chris Westwood Links Associated with this Episode: Transcript Follow Us: Solutions for Higher Education Podcast SUU Blog SUU Facebook

Show Notes: Dr. Jean Boreen, dean of SUU’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences, joins President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith this week for the last book in the Summer Book Club: Pride and Prejudice. They discuss the bridge Pride and Prejudice has built between classic literature and young adult literature and outline some of Jane Austen’s background as a successful author in the 1800s. Featured Quote: . . . there were women during the timeframe that Austen compared herself to who were being published, and I think in that way, she was very competitive and wanted to make sure that what she was writing could be held up against anything that was being written by any of these other female authors, as well as most of the male authors . . . Jean Boreen, Dean of Humanities & Social Sciences, Southern Utah University Links Associated with this Episode: About the Summer Book Club series Transcript Follow Us: Solutions for Higher Education Podcast SUU Blog SUU Facebook

Show Notes: Dr. Bryce Christensen joins President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith this week for the third book in the Summer Book Club: Tao Te Ching. The most translated book in the world after the Bible, the Tao Te Ching, or “Book of the Tao,” is a guide to cultivating a life of peace, serenity, and compassion. Through aphorisms and parable, it leads readers toward the Tao, or the “Way”: harmony with the life force of the universe. Traditionally attributed to Lao-tzu, a Chinese philosopher thought to have been a contemporary of Confucius, it is the essential text of Taoism, one of the three major religions of ancient China. Featured Quote: "I think we, Americans, even more broadly, Westerners in general, tend to be very agenda driven. We have things we want to do. And that can lead to what the British poet Elizabeth Jennings called, and I love her phrase, the phrase I’m about to quote, “A kind of tutored willfulness." Bryce Christensen, Professor of English, Southern Utah University Links Associated with this Episode: Bryce Christensen - Faculty Website About the Summer Book Club series Transcript Follow Us: Solutions for Higher Education Podcast SUU Blog SUU Facebook