Everything feels a bit surreal to me these days—and it has nothing to do with AI or Taylor Swift’s cat. It’s just hard to believe that the UIA is now in its 10th year. We launched in October 2014 and were privileged to have President Obama announce our big stretch goal of awarding an additional 68,000 undergraduate degrees above baseline over the next decade. As you know, we’ve already blown past that goal. The chart below shows that our founding 11 members have awarded an additional 143,000 degrees.
Take a minute to appreciate that. We’ve more than doubled our initial goal, and in the process helped 143,000 people become better skilled, more knowledgeable, and more competitive in the global marketplace. The credit goes to the tremendous teams at each campus, starting at the top with the university presidents and chancellors who established the vision for the UIA, set it into motion, and have supported it every step of the way.
Degrees are only one marker of success. We’ve successfully rolled out 10 multi-campus collaborative innovation initiatives and are currently harnessing everything we’ve learned to implement a DFW academic recovery project (that is blowing me away with its early results and potential to transform higher education well beyond the UIA.)
We’ve also learned how to grow our network while maintaining our commitment to quality, collaboration, and accountability. Nine new campuses have joined our founding universities, expanding our reach and bringing their own ideas and experiences to strengthen our work. Beyond our formal expansion, the UIA Lab is broadening access to everything we’ve learned.
The hidden crown jewel of this whole effort is the UIA Fellows program. Fellows are the circuitry that keeps everyone connected across campuses. They lead much of the day-to-day collaborative interaction, in addition to serving as UIA ambassadors at their institutions. We’re incredibly proud that over the past decade, many Fellows have moved on to other leadership roles within the UIA and beyond, taking what they learned about student-centered innovation and spreading it to new campuses. (This interview with a small group of fellows left me inspired and hopeful about the future.)
I could go on and on (and I will, if you run into me in person), but as we near our 10th anniversary the big question we confront is: What’s next?
Our presidents and chancellors (who comprise the UIA’s board) and I have been dancing with this important question in recent weeks. The conclusion we’re coming to is that we need to take stock of the current moment, understand what our students, our states, and our country need from us in the next ten years, and build on our success to make the American Dream a reality for far more people.
We will keep you updated as we undergo a deliberative process to synthesize everything we’ve learned to refine our work and clarify the unique contribution the field needs from us.
- What I can tell you is that we will always be led by our member institutions. The presidents and chancellors of the UIA founded this organization, and they will always direct our shared vision.
- Our work will continue to be data-driven and require trust, vulnerability, and transparency around things that might feel taboo in other circles. We will remain dedicated to learning from failure and creating an environment where campuses can unpack those lessons and help save others from having to make the same mistakes.
- The UIA will probably continue to grow, so long as we find other institutions who share our passion and commitment to doing ambitious and meaningful work that requires hard decisions and transparency.
- We will keep beating the drum for collaboration as the best path forward, and root for others committed to the same goal no matter how they pursue it, because silos don’t help students.
- In 2024, we will create another (long awaited!) UIA Summit—and this super summit will be the culmination of ten years of innovation, collaboration, learning, and groundbreaking insights. Like last time, we will make sure the event leads to actual transformation and real work, with collaboratives forming (with momentum we can carry forward through post-event support and the UIA Lab.)
In the late fall, after the election, we will unveil our vision and our next ambitious goal. It will inspire hope (and come with credibility, because the leaders guiding the UIA have accomplished and exceeded everything they set out to do in our first ten years.)
So yes, it’s a bit surreal thinking about the fact that we’re nearly ten years into our UIA experiment. And it’s kind of amazing to think about all we’ve accomplished so far. But most importantly, it’s exciting to realize how much more we can achieve for students. A decade in, and we’re just getting started.
|
Learn with Us
Must-Reads
Events to Put on your Radar
Stuff We Love