Note: This interview in the Weekly Wisdom Series originally aired on January 16, 2024 as part of the University Innovation Alliance’s Innovating Together Podcast, appearing live on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The transcript of this podcast episode is intended to serve as a guide to the entire conversation, and we encourage you to listen to this podcast episode. You can also access our summary, along with helpful links and audio from this episode.
Shonda Gibson:
We didn't design the system, right? You didn't, I didn't. The university president that's at a university right now did not build that university and set up that system the way that it is. I didn't set up the Texas A&M University system, right? It's a system that we've inherited that was created, and it was designed to get the results that it's getting today, and Deming told us that. And I'm a continuous improvement junkie, so that's my philosophy on everything, is looking at how did the system get built, what does it look like today, and where is it ineffective? And that's not a blame. That's not looking for where do we go back and point a finger and say, "You did this wrong, and so now our students are failing and our system is failing these students, and so where do we improve?" It's focused on that improvement piece, not just the who did it and why did it get done that way.
Bridget Burns:
Welcome to Innovating Together, a podcast produced by the University Innovation Alliance. This is a podcast for busy people in higher education who are looking for the best ideas, inspiration, and leaders that will help you improve student success. I'm your host, Bridget Burns. Each week, I partner with a journalist to have a conversation with a sitting college president, chancellor, system leader, or someone in the broader ecosystem who's really an inspiring leader, and the goal is to have a conversation to distill their perspective and their insights gathered from their leadership journey. Our hope is that this is inspiring and gives you something to look forward to each week. This episode, my co-host is Inside Higher Ed co-founder and CEO Doug Lederman.
Doug Lederman:
In this week's program, we're welcoming Dr. Shonda Gibson, who's senior associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the Texas A&M University System. Shonda, welcome.
Shonda Gibson:
Thank you. Good to be here.
Bridget Burns:
Well, we're excited to chat with you to learn about your wisdom and your experience, which is very deep, but I also think it's super timely, given the emphasis I'm seeing around the role university systems can play in student success and improvement. And, when we first met, I was coming to give a keynote to all your campuses, but when I came, I was just sharing that my observation was that the campuses in your system were operating differently, as if they were actually trying to pull together on student success instead of being told to. There seemed to be a lot more collaborative spirit, and I just think, in general, it's a place where this is actually happening and that we could learn a little bit about what's in the water, what are you doing there?
Shonda Gibson:
Yeah, yeah. What's the magic? Yeah. I would say that, and noted, not every system is the same. I do think that that's a really important point, that there are systems across the United States organized very differently. Some are very top-down. Some are very loosely organized. I like to think of our system as a membership of willing organizations that are together. And so, when I came to this job six years ago, that's how I tackled it, was my job is not to come to the table to be the smartest person in the room or to tell very smart people what to do. My job is to go find those smartest people and bring them around the table, and let's lay out a problem and then let's look for some common solutions and some ways that we can work together.
I think that we've set it up a little bit differently. We've built out communities of practice that are focused on specific functional areas, if you will. One thing that you talked about was a high level of competition, and I think that, if you set this up in a real competitive way across the system, they are competing for resources. They're competing for students. They're trying to be very, very guarded in their area that they're serving. And so, if we don't do it right at the system level, where we're pulling people together in a way that we're keying up collaboration and cooperation, then we can actually drive more competition, and to your observation, where people just refuse to work together.
I think that I'm super lucky, because I have a lot of really great people who understand that there's other really great people at lots of campuses who have gone through some very similar challenges and problems and are encountering the same barriers, and if we put our heads together, we can certainly come up with better solutions than we can if we're just all alone out here trying to do it by ourselves. I do think our system is uniquely positioned to do this work, and I do think other systems can position themselves to do the work, but I do think that it takes building a culture where that environment supports that type of engagement.
Bridget Burns:
That's great. Sorry, Doug. I was like, "I bet you want to go to competition within systems or just how to use competition for good, it seems like." That's what that brought up for me, Doug. I don't know what came up for you.
Doug Lederman:
Yeah. I guess, well, one of the questions that occurs to me when you talk is, I think one of the things that makes it possible for systems to avoid that competitive nature is when there is true differentiation in mission of the participating institutions. And there are systems that, putting aside all the other questions about systems, about what their roles are, how much authority they have, et cetera, there are places that are better at forcing or encouraging differentiation, and then there are others that are just set up well because the institutions are different. And I'm just curious how you think about the differentiation of the institutions in the system and how you focus on what's common and what they all need to do even while acknowledging the differences among them.
Shonda Gibson:
Yeah. I probably take a little bit of a unique position on this, because you hear about the uniqueness in higher education all the time, "We're so special and unique here, and this is the thing that we're dealing with, and it's different than everyone else, and our students are so different than everyone else's," and I don't buy it. I think that we have way more common problems and issues that we're dealing with than we do this a unique thing that we need to really get focused on and be guarded of.
In Texas, I'm working with 11 universities across the entire state of Texas that range from 2000 students to 80,000 students, campuses that are focused on just a two-year completion all the way to doc level, multiple doc-awarding focused campuses. And every geographic region has some very unique things, pockets of differences that are there that do present very unique challenges, but I would say, if you move to another geographic area, they've got just as unique of an issue that they're dealing with as well. But the bottom line is this. In Texas, we have 4.2 million people that have some college and no degree. And so, for me, that's what drove me into this work, was how can that be, that we have that many people in a state who started something and didn't finish it, and then we play it off like it's the student's fault?
That's where I've done a real deep dive with our campuses, is flipping that conversation to what can we do better? Where have we failed our students? Where do we have policies and procedures and practices and issues? And so that begins to erode that competitive lens that we were just talking about, because now we're talking about are you fighting for 4.2 million students across 11 universities? Okay. I don't think we have a high level of competition then. If we got them all, we couldn't serve them.
And we broke down some data, and one of the early conversations with enrollment management, for example, was if we look at five years and we just get a snapshot of how many students came to us and then left, it's about 80,000 students that we need to get back and get completed to some sort of credential, and those 80,000 students, we could open a whole new university. I look at it like that. When we start talking competition and we start talking about all this uniqueness, I'm still here saying, "I think we need to be fighting for the students that we're just not serving well in the first place, and so let's get there and focus on where we do have these common issues." That one, for me, is one of the biggest ones, especially when you think about equity implications and the data that show that we have pockets of students who we're just serving well.
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Bridget Burns:
I'm going to yes and, and I think you're both right, because when I think differentiation, I think about, when systems are excellent, they are extremely clear about each institution's job to do. I don't know that that always happens. I think that you have a lot of systems, or you have a lot of governing entities that don't get in trouble, do a good job, move up in the rankings. I'm going to look at a couple. You look for the signals that you're doing well because often you are dealing with publicly appointed, but not professionals who are trying to oversee these really complicated things that do really good things, but their guardrails are ... you know when there's a footfall.
I think that not always do systems give the job to do clarity that we need, but the other is that I agree with you that all campuses have the exact same problems, and yet we actually don't need them all doing the exact same thing, but the competition comes in around the things that trigger jealousy, which I still believe is the most powerful force in higher ed. There's a certain number of microphones, a certain number of resources, and unfortunately, right now, with the anxiety around enrollment, there is a trigger around students as a place of competition. But if you're clear about your job to do in terms of, "We offer these things, we serve this community, we provide these things, we serve these students," I think that part is where I think alignment between exactly what both of you were saying.
Doug Lederman:
Yeah, especially when, and again, I think where you started, Shonda, in terms of focusing on that some-college-no-degree population, as soon as you turn the attention to that population, as you said, a lot of the "Oh, well, we're dealing with a shrinking number of rising 18-year-olds," just falls away, and that's where the differentiation and the competition tends to be most acute in a lot of places. And so, I think, I am curious, do you feel like you are succeeding in getting many, if not most, of the institutions to focus on that population more than they have in the past? I'm assuming that the flagships, as is the case in most places, they're pretty focused on the 18-year-olds, but you've got a bunch of other campuses that don't necessarily need to if you can get them to move in that direction, or encourage them to move in that direction.
Shonda Gibson:
Yeah. I think there's always going to be a need to focus on building that strong freshman class and serving that student population that wants to come to your university and live there and have that very unique freshman experience, four years, and really live there. And I think that is your 18- to 24-year-old student, but then you've got this other pocket of students that are forgotten at most campuses, and they just have not had the attention that's been needed on re-skilling, retooling, setting them up for social and economic mobility in the future, because our universities just haven't been well positioned to be flexible enough to take care of that student, and that's where we see the biggest opportunity.
And to your question, yeah, we have made huge strides in this area. I would say, six years ago, you could probably ask any enrollment manager and they would say, "We have a specific focus on building a strong freshman class." We have done a lot of work in the space of transfer and acknowledge that, yeah, we have a lot of work that we can still do there to clean up that pathway into our university. And then we've got some really good stuff going on in grad recruitment, enrollment. There's our three real pockets where we focus. And I think the fourth one that really had little to no attention was on this recovery of students who had previously come to us and now are stopped out, need to get back and get a degree completed. We've done intensive work in this space over the last five years and really done a deep dive around investigation of our own policies and procedures and practices and what barriers have we put up?
If you look at a university website today, you'll find a button that now says, "I'm a returning student," and I think, six years ago, you wouldn't have found that. Even three years ago, you probably wouldn't have found it. But they've really made great strides in that space. And I have a university right now that would tell you that they would've had declines in enrollment had they not been focused on this population over the last two years. Yeah, I think we've made really good progress, and we've got a really good story to tell there, one of my most proud things that we've worked on across our system.
Bridget Burns:
Feel free to. I just love the idea. My dream is campuses compete for this in terms of not numbers, but quality of experience for those students, because part of the problem is that you have these enrollment management decisions that are being made separately from the academic programmatic decisions. And so, we're trying to offer the same old MBA, the same old, "We're going to give you a night class." And it's just the first step of design is empathy, and we actually need to understand what these students need, and they are not a monolith. And the nuanced approach that's going to be needed to meet 4.2 million, no chance one university does it alone, no chance.
But that's where the collaboration piece really matters, is figuring out how many prototypes can you have in the field right now trying to figure out, especially in the future of AI, how we adapt learners, how we evolve, especially when someone's in this particular demographic? Anyway, I think it's great, and I love that you have encouraged campuses to pursue such an important critical need for the future without the shame/blame, banging them on the head. I just feel like that's not the vibe that really works, and that was what I detected when I came, was the campuses were actually united around a sense of urgency.
Shonda Gibson:
Yeah, yeah. And we build from a place of we didn't design the system, right? You didn't, I didn't. The university president that's at a university right now did not build that university and set up that system the way that it is. I didn't set up the Texas A&M University system, right? It's a system that we've inherited that was created, and it was designed to get the results that it's getting today, and Deming told us that. And I'm a continuous improvement junkie, so that's my philosophy on everything, is looking at how did the system get built, what does it look like today, and where is it ineffective? And that's not a blame. That's not looking for where do we go back and point a finger and say, "You did this wrong, and so now our students are failing and our system is failing these students, and so where do we improve?" It's focused on that improvement piece, not just the who did it and why did it get done that way.
I think doing it that way, it eliminates that thing that you're talking about right now, which is that seeing as, "Oh, I've done all this wrong, and I did it and it's all me, and now I want to just abandon ship because it's too hard to deal with psychologically." I don't want to be blamed for everything that's going wrong in higher ed, but I do want to own the piece that, today, I can dig deep into our policies and practices, and I can see where we have barriers.
And then I think, as a leader, and this is one of the things I share with the groups, the hardest part is putting your ego to the side and saying, "Okay, this is not about me." It's not about what you were talking about earlier about getting to the microphone, being the one to be able to speak. It's not about that. It's about me being able to bring 11 people to the table and get all of them to speak, finding their voice and positioning them where they can then inspire others to continue to do this work. I think that's the core of it.
Doug Lederman:
I think you've just segued nicely to largely where we wanted to go next. I know Bridget was just chomping at the bit to get you to start talking about yourself as a leader, since that's what this podcast is mostly about. But I guess maybe talk a little bit, if you could, about – well, before we do that, I guess maybe last question, before we get to that, is thinking about what you just described, what is it that you think people in positions like yours, and other leaders in higher ed, what do we most need from them, and by extension, from higher education as an enterprise right now, and as a leader, how do you see yourself going about bringing that about? What do you think the country and learners most need from higher education right now?
Shonda Gibson:
That's a big one. Well, I think today's learners require innovation. I think that's the most obvious thing. And I think that we have to admit that our solutions that we were using yesterday are just not effective anymore. Everything that we are looking at, even historically, we're like, "Wait a minute, we just need something else," because if we keep repeating what we've done, we're not making strides. I think, as leaders, we just first have to be honest with ourselves and don't gloss over that painful data that's out there that shows our pain points and our failures as leaders. I think we have to be willing to own it. And one thing, Bridget, that you've said several times when we've had the opportunity to be in the room together, as you say it, something like, "Listening to someone criticize you doesn't make that criticism true."
Just because somebody said that doesn't mean now you've got to get your ego in it and start fighting. It just enables us to listen and learn and grow. And so, I think listening to the national conversation that's out there, that's how I take it right now, Doug, is just listen to what is out there, and then we learn and grow from it, but we don't have to get defensive and create some kind of marketing campaign to combat it. I don't think that's the first answer.
I am in a place right now where I'm going to tell you my biggest strategic focus right now is on the impact of faculty. I really, truly think the emphasis right now has to be on the professional development of faculty and tooling them up to be able to do that first thing that I just said, the innovation piece, because if we don't teach them how to enhance teaching excellence and to enhance and use innovation, I think that we've failed as institutions. And so when do we think faculty are going to just magically go out there and create time in their day to figure out how to use AI in teaching our class that I've taught for the last ten years very effectively, but now I've got this AI thing I need to grapple with, and where's my example – my example and ideas – and how am I supposed to have time to be able to grapple with all that?
That's where I see, as leaders, that first of all, I think we need to recognize that faculty, I think, are the key drivers of change in higher education, inside the classroom and in the curriculum. And, to your point earlier, Bridget, the curriculum, the programs, the academic programs, are coming from them. That's where the ideas are, that's where the connection to the market is, and that's where I think we need to spend some space, is how do we teach them to include high impact practices inside of a new academic program that you're developing and think about the student that you're going to be working with? And it's not an 18-year-old, so how do you do all that when your whole experience in higher education was you went to school as an 18-year-old, you had a normal four-year experience at a university, and then you were successful. You didn't have all the barriers and troubles and challenges that these other students did, and then now you're trying to create a system that serves these students well.
And so we've just built this circular logic there that doesn't work. I think deep diving of faculty, focusing on innovation, teaching, and training. And then the other one that I think is super important that's been left out of this discussion is department leaders. Those are the key people. I think there's some research out there right now that says that 80% of decisions that are made at a campus are made by department chairs. Who's working with them? Who's helping them to see how to do exactly what we want to do here, which is serve a different population, morph ourselves and grow into what America needs in higher ed in the future?
Bridget Burns:
I feel like it's like you've been inside my inbox or my head. That's where our next projects are. This is breaking news on there –
Shonda Gibson:
Good, good. Give me a call.
Bridget Burns:
– that we're trying to work on this piece of that faculty should not have innovation done to them. There needs to be process that supports a community practice and engages them in the experimentation, the vetting, the pressure testing, and figuring out what's the microdose for innovation for faculty that works, given that they don't have extra time? Do you need to buy out classes, how do you do it, and what are the innovations that actually are ready to scale, versus the things that get the hype and demand the headlines, but aren't necessarily going to work in a multitude of environments? We should follow up, because we're about to launch an initiative with faculty fellows specifically about this, and then also the idea of going to the next layer down, beyond presidents and provosts, to deans and chairs, because the approach to innovation has to be different. Our work is always start with the user in mind, start with empathy, and so we have to first understand them and what they actually want instead of what we think they want. But that's super timely.
I do want to shift to you and your career before we go, which is what's been the most surprising thing about your career, given our audience has that just gotten a taste of just how deep your understanding and expertise in this area is? But you, as a human, did you see this happening for you, or what's been the curve ball?
Shonda Gibson:
I laugh about that all the time. I'm like, "I had no idea this job even existed." If you would've asked me back in 1980 when I was thinking about going to college, what in the world am I going to do in my future, it wouldn't have had anything to do with this. And I think the most surprising thing to me has been the transferability of the knowledge and experiences that I've had through everything that I've done, which you couldn't have told me that, whenever I was 18, that everything you're learning now is going to transfer through the rest of your life and there's going to be these linkages in your career.
I'll tell you a quick story. Back in the early '90s, I was in corporate management before I came into higher education. I should probably tee that up. I had about 20-plus years in corporate operations management, and then I transferred over into higher education. I've had about a dozen years in higher ed, and doing the same kind of thing that I did in corporate, but doing it here in higher ed. This company that I was working for was located in North Carolina, and they sent me to a training in Texas, and it was a total quality management training, so TQM back in the day, and man, I was just like, "This is my thing. I love this, this whole continuous improvement philosophies," and really a lot of what you're talking about getting there with the people, building a culture, supporting. This is everything. I'm eating it up.
But then I go on and I do my work, and then fast-forward 25 years later, I happened to be in an economic development corporation project and there's all these deans and faculty sitting around the table working on this project, and I'm like, "Wow, I'm impressed. I like this. I like that world they live in." I was drawn in, and I was brought in to do a continuous improvement project. And then, fast-forward again, I ended up leading a quality enhancement plan for a university and leading institutional effectiveness.
All through this entire thread, that training that I had way back in the early '90s, actually was hosted at the very same university that I ended up leading the QEP for almost 30 years later. And I'm like, "Okay." You want to talk about transferability of skills and knowledge and experiences? That was pretty shocking to me that that happened. And then, today, to move into a space where I feel like I'm creating a space for 11 universities to truly focus on continuous improvement, innovation, and transformation, to be thinking about the future, I just never dreamed that path would've existed back then. But now I see that it's that unexpected linkages that I think is most surprising.
Bridget Burns:
That is serendipitous.
Shonda Gibson:
Super fun. Yeah.
Doug Lederman:
Amid all those experiences, can you identify, and maybe it hasn't happened yet, maybe it's still ahead of you, but can you identify what you're most proud of as a leader, there's a singular achievement or a type of something you've gotten really good at? What are you proudest of so far?
Shonda Gibson:
And Stephen Covey is someone that I've read a lot and I really like his work, and if you look at the seven habits of leadership, I like the eighth habit that's been added, which is finding your voice and helping others to find their voice. And I think, if I would've looked back, the area that I've grown the most in over my career is that, that if I'm most proud of anything, it is me being able to help people to find their voice, and for me to even continue to find mine. That's number one, that I think, in higher ed, the thing I'm most proud of right now is that I feel like I've brought faculty and departmental leaders to the core of the conversation around student success, and my concern, ten years ago, is they weren't in the conversation. And so, if I was to stop there and retire, I feel pretty good. Those two things, I'm most proud of.
Bridget Burns:
That was the fourth wall. That's very unusual. One of the things we always like to do, that our listeners love, is to end with the best advice that has been valuable to you in your career. I'm curious what that advice was and who gave it.
Shonda Gibson:
Well, way back, whenever I first started in corporate management, one of my old bosses said, "The best thing that you can do is avoid solution-itis." Don't come in and have a solution right off the bat. Dig deep for the root causes of whatever it is that's going on, and have a willingness to expose that, and then let's tackle it, blow it up, and rebuild it, whatever we have to do. But “avoid that solution-it is” will help you along the way because, as a leader, you're not going to always be the one at the – "Oh, I've got the best idea, let's do this." And so, I've tried really hard to keep that close as I've grown and moved into all kinds of different positions.
And I think the other thing, moving into higher education, that's a tough one. To come into higher ed after being in corporate management for a long time, it's a little different world. And so, I had a supervisor, Mary Hendrix, and she was a vice president of Student Access and Success at Texas A&M University Commerce, and a mentor for me and a person who really helped me to figure out how to transfer into higher education. And she told me that the most amazing thing about working at a university is that you're around a lot of really smart people. All the smart people, they're all here. And, in many communities, you're going to find that there's more doctorates at that university than you're going to find in entire regions of a state. All the really smart people are here, and the way that you can distinguish yourself is to be kind and always keep the students at the top of your mind. And I was like, "As I move on into higher ed, that's the thing I'm always going to keep closest to me, is you can be around a lot of really smart people, but you don't always find the kind people who are really thinking about the students."
Bridget Burns:
That's a wonderful way to – I guess I was going to wrap there, but I'm curious because of that perspective and bringing Covey in, is there a leadership book that has been most valuable to you in your career, or a book that you find yourself recommending the most when people are thinking about leadership?
Shonda Gibson:
Yeah, Covey's work, any of that, I think that's really helped to keep me grounded. There is another book, though, that I've recommended to a lot of folks in the last couple of years. I accidentally met this guy, Dan Heath, and he wrote a book called Upstream, and it's this different philosophy about don't get stuck in the cycle of responding all the time. Try to back up and get upstream and figure out what the problem is to begin with. And he actually has an example in education about we spend all this time downstream, and we create all these programs and practices, and we're plucking drowning students out of the river all the time, so just like here we are, we don't have enough people to get all the students out of the river. And he said, "When do we ever stop?" And somebody just backs up and goes upstream and says, "Who the hell is chucking all these students in the river?" And I love that. I think Dan's onto something there to help us in higher ed to refocus and get upstream.
Bridget Burns:
That's wonderful. All right. Well, thank you so much, Shonda Gibson. We've really enjoyed this conversation. It's been more focused on student success and systems. I feel like we've covered a lot of really great topics that will be super timely for our audience. Thank you for spending the time with us. This has been really rich. And, as always, Doug, thanks for being an excellent co-host. We'll see you all.
Shonda Gibson:
Thank you both.
Bridget Burns:
All right. See you.
Bios of Guest and Co-Hosts
Guest: Shonda Gibson, Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Texas A&M University
Dr. Shonda Gibson became Associate Vice Chancellor of the Texas A&M University (TAMU) System in 2018. This followed two years as Associate Provost for Institutional Effectiveness and Research at Texas A&M University-Commerce. She served in a variety of roles at TAMU-Commerce, including Interim Vice President for Student Access and Success, accreditation liaison for the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Executive Director for Institutional Effectiveness and Research, and Executive Director for Global Learning and Quality Enhancement Plan. Dr. Gibson also served on the Texas Affordable Baccalaureate Program Advisory Committee, where she helped create and implement the state’s first competency-based degree offered by an accredited public institution. Additionally, she led the Institute for Competency-Based Education, a collaborative focused on experimentation and research to advance the understanding of competency-based education. She holds four degrees from TAMU-Commerce: a bachelor’s degree, an MBA, an MS in psychology, and a Ph.D. in educational psychology.
Co-Host: Bridget Burns, CEO, University Innovation Alliance
Dr. Bridget Burns is the founder and CEO of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA). For the past decade, she has advised university presidents, system chancellors, and state and federal policy leaders on strategies to expand access to higher education, address costs, and promote completion for students of all backgrounds. The UIA was developed during Bridget’s tenure as an American Council on Education (A.C.E.) Fellowship at Arizona State University. She held multiple roles within the Oregon University System, including serving as Chief of Staff and Senior Policy Advisor, where she won the national award for innovation in higher education government relations. She was a National Associate for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, and has served on several statewide governing boards including ones governing higher education institutions, financial aid policy, and policy areas impacting children and families.
Co-Host: Doug Lederman, Editor and Co-Founder, Inside Higher Ed
Doug Lederman is editor and co-founder of Inside Higher Ed. With Scott Jaschik, he leads the site's editorial operations, overseeing news content, opinion pieces, career advice, blogs and other features. Doug speaks widely about higher education, including on C-Span and National Public Radio and at meetings and on campuses around the country. His work has appeared in The New York Times and USA Today, among other publications. Doug was managing editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education from 1999 to 2003, after working at The Chronicle since 1986 in a variety of roles. He has won three National Awards for Education Reporting from the Education Writers Association, including one for a 2009 series of Inside Higher Ed articles on college rankings. He began his career as a news clerk at The New York Times. He grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and graduated in 1984 from Princeton University. Doug and his wife, Kate Scharff, live in Bethesda, MD.
About Weekly Wisdom
Weekly Wisdom is an event series that happens live on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It also becomes a podcast episode. Every week, we join forces with Inside Higher Ed and talk with a sitting college president or chancellor about how they're specifically navigating the challenges of this moment. These conversations will be filled with practicable things you can do right now by unpacking how and why college leaders are making decisions within this unique and challenging time within higher education. Hopefully, these episodes will also leave you with a sense of optimism and a bit of inspiration.
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