HEDx

Siobhan Savage as CEO of Reejig joins Dr Nora Koslowski of MBS and I in the HEDx studio to describe the changes in the world of work. Improving the matching of employers' skills needs with workers' skills profiles is creating a lifelong learning revolution. The new revenue opportunities for tertiary education providers are extraordinary. Will our existing universities take advantage or miss out to competition from others?

Professor Aleks Subic as Vice Chancellor of Aston University unveils the new "Aston 2030" strategy from the heartland of the first industrial revolution. Partnerships with tech companies that are driving Industry 4.0 are central to plans to bring Higher Education 4.0 to the inclusive and transformational benefit of all.

Professor Martin Bean of the Bean Centre joins the podcast with co-host Sue Kokonis Chief Academic Officer of OES to discuss his new book "Toolkit for Turbulence" with practical advice for leaders managing ambiguity in higher education.

Professor Ann Kirschner, Interim President of Hunter College at City University of New York shares thoughts of how far all universities are away from omni-channel delivery of learning as she considers responses being considered to the Great Upheaval in Higher Education.

Brandon Busteed Global Head of Partnerships for Kaplan joins the podcast to discuss the changing value proposition and sentiment towards higher education and how this is creating a growing focus on lifelong learning.  He outlines how universities, employers and those facilitating relationships between them, are ensuring higher education meets students where they are at, not where we ask them to be.

Professor Alwyn Louw, Vice Chancellor of Torrens University of Australia and Jodie Davis, Registrar of Griffith University, join the HEDx podcast co-hosted by Ben Hallett of Vygo to discuss what is required for universities to comply with last week's legislation mandating student support policies to allow equity goals to be achieved. Data and integrated systems are vital for immediate action. And renewed purpose, leadership and culture change are the opportunity to do more than stir the pot.

Overcoming the barriers to student equity in higher education has much to learn from research and best practice.  Professor Sarah O'Shea of Charles Sturt University and newly-promoted Professor Paul Harpur of UQ and Universities Enable share insights into five principles that inform how we seek greater equity and inclusion for all of our students. At their heart is the issue of changing our culture.

Alessandro di Lullo as Co-founder of global EdTech investor Supercharger Ventures joins Dr Nora Koslowski of MBS on the podcast.  They outline the mindset changes needed by higher education leaders to embrace technology such that it becomes mainstream in future education offerings.

Associate Professor Paul Harpur of UQ, leader of Universities Enable and member of the Accord Ministerial Reference Group, joins HEDx. He makes the case for role models with lived experience to lead the debate about achieving real inclusion in higher education. In common with this week's referendum on a Voice to Parliament, the importance of listening to those with lived experience who have a real stake in policy changes, as we seek to undo disadvantage, are the changes to governance we need if a higher education system is to become truly equitable.

Roger Smyth shares his experiences from the New Zealand Ministry of Education in joining an episode of the HEDx podcast with Professor Giselle Byrnes, Provost of Massey University as co-host.  As our Australian Universities Accord final report responds to debate among our providers over what form of Tertiary Education Commission to recommend, what can we learn from experience and lessons across the ditch about how such a commission should be set up and operate?

Professor Clare Pollock as Provost and Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor at Western Sydney University (WSU) outlines how a university at the centre of Australia's growth is pursuing a mission based on local partnerships. Her story and the WSU story are at the heart of the accord process and it's issues. They provide a great example of a university in serving a local community can make a world-leading contribution on a global stage.

Jason Tabarias of Mandala partners shares details of a new report for the Coalition for Digital Learners of what students of today and tomorrow are looking for in their learning experience through technology. Students clearly have an appetite for more effective technology support to personalise, augment and self-pace their learning and engagement. Is our ability to give equity students in particular, the experiences they need, in danger of being the baby we throw out with the bath water of compliance?

Dr Nadine Zacharias as Managing Director and Founder of Equity by Design, joins Co-CEO of Vygo Ben Hallett as my co-host in exploring the technical, operational and leadership issues associated with responding to the unfolding picture and details of the Support Amendment Bill.  With consultation open for a further week or so this is a critical conversation for the sector to ensure it is ready to support growing numbers of students we seek from equity groups, to succeed from as early as January 2024 or face significant penalties.

Caitlin Gleeson, Global Leadership Development Lead at Canva joins Dr Nora Koslowski of MBS as co-host to discuss the changes in lifelong learning for leaders and graduates entering innovative workplaces such as Canva. The increasing scope for horizontal discipline and knowledge needs to be augmented by vertical capabilities in managing ambiguity and change. The case is made for different approaches by employers and new roles for and partnerships for higher education facilitators in meeting these needs.

Professor Rose Luckin of  UCL and Educateventures, joins with Dr Ant Bagshaw of L.E.K. Consulting as HEDx co-host in this episode. It dissects responses to the recent breakthroughs  of AI technologies. It surfaces global best practice in being vulnerable, experimental and proportional in finding higher education problems as starting points to explore how AI will impact us all. It offers a roadmap for practitioners, leaders, institutions and policymakers for the sector in exploring a future for higher education. In doing so it addresses a significant gap in the Universities Accord interim report.

Dr Nora Koslowski as Chief Learning Innovation Officer of MBS joins the HEDx podcast to share insights into how the combination of emerging AI technologies, and the changing world of work and future skills needs of employers are providing fundamental demand-side changes to the supply of higher education. She makes a case for much stronger partnerships between higher education providers and employers and innovative tech companies and outlines ways in which technological innovation will reshape the world of higher education.

Manuela Franceschini of Adobe joins a discussion involving Theo Farrell of University of Wollongong, Tiffany Wright and Rachel Bondi of Microsoft, Matt Kuperholz of Deakin and Sherman Young of RMIT about the missing focus on technology and generative AI in the interim report. How do we best realise a vision of "growth for skills through greater equity" when we are experiencing the equivalence of an "industrial revolution at 10 times the speed". What is digital fluency and what is the place of ethics? And how will the sector's eco-system best share experiments and lessons from failing fast from global best practice in a digitally transforming world?

Teri Cannon as Founding President of Minerva University reflects on the journey to build a different type of university that is intentionally global.  After 10 years of helping students from 130 countries learn in a rotation through 7 global locations in North and South America, Europe and Asia, Minerva as a private university has been named the world's most innovative university for the second year running by the World Universities with Real Impact rankings.It does so with no campuses or owned buildings, no research and no facilities of any kind that do not focus on the student experience. And it teaches global students to become global leaders with cities as places of learning and technology as a key enabler.

VCs Bruce Dowton, Andrew Parfitt and Alex Zelinsky and DVCs and VPs Clare Pollock, Theo Farrell, Merlin Crossley and Michelle Bellingan, as panellists at the HEDx conference in Sydney share "pithy" reactions to the interim report the day after its launch in Canberra. Something for everyone in a shift from a market-led to a centrally-led combination of collaboration and competition. Dr Ant Bagshaw of L.E.K. Consulting and Martin Betts as co-hosts, share a sense that the supply side has been offered many ideas while the demand side of planned growth has some issues that remain to be explored. What do we all make of the interim report?

Professor Mary O'Kane Chair of the Accord Review Panel joins the HEDx podcast for a second time through an interview with research partner HERDSA at a keynote plenary panel session at their annual conference in Brisbane last week.  In an interview by co-hosts Martin Betts and Christy Collis from the HERDSA Executive, Mary outlines her thoughts about submissions received, where her report is up to, what the key issues were that it addresses and what the process will be for the sector to engage with it after its release.  Fascinating insights traversing equity, diversification, collaboration, lifelong learning and VET/HE integration at this critical point in time for the biggest review of the sector in a generation.

Professor Sherman Young DVC at RMIT joins pedagogical evangelist Manuela Franceschini from Adobe to discuss digital adeptness and fluency. As technology moves so fast, the big questions appear to be posed by students and staff becoming unsure of what the boundaries and rules are anymore as we all seek new paradigms with new technology. What will learning look like as we all become cyborgs?

Tiffany Wright as Director of Education for Microsoft ANZ outlines how tech companies offer opportunities for partnership in the global mission to make education available to all.  The future of work is being increasingly influenced by and disrupted by technology and digital skills are becoming more important. Partnerships like that Microsoft has with UTS, Macquarie and TAFE NSW illustrate how a multi-sector dialogue can allow rapid technology advances to be mastered by HE providers and made available to lifelong learners.

Ginny Barbour as VIce-Chair of the Declaration On Research Assessment has led global efforts to find new ways to assess research quality. The aim has been to moderate commercially motivated efforts of commercial publishers to exploit science and publishing for their own commercial purposes. She shares her insights into the limitations of journal impact factors for diverse disciplines and how the university rankings are equally inappropriate in assessing diverse missions of universities in their broader purposes for the same reason.  Lessons for emerging efforts to enhance rigour in research assessment and research integrity from a pioneer and leader of open science in the mission of changing higher education for good.

Michael Fung as Director of the Institute for the Future of Education at Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico, is the architect of the Skills Future lifelong learning strategy in Singapore.  He shares thoughts on the global move towards lifelong learning and a competency based approach to the future of higher education and its relevance to the Australian Universities Accord. He shares lessons that are vital for us to hear in shaping the future of our HE system through once in a generation change.

Professor Vivek Goel as President of Waterloo University in Canada is leading an exercise to generate a vision for what Waterloo will look like at 100.  This 35 year future planning horizon is unheralded in global universities and generates a unique perspective on risk, culture, vision, mission and change. He outlines the opportunities this creates for differentiation and cultural change and the impacts this has on Waterloo and its partners and staff engaging with broader system-level change to allow the Waterloo culture to fit with the context in which the organisation works.

Professor KC Chua is President of Singapore Institute of Technology where he leads a differentiated institution of applied learning. In a system with two top 50 comprehensive research universities SIT pursues a different mission focused on skills, jobs and the needs of business and industry. And no one cares about its place in rankings. Does Australia need more places like SIT?

This episode has a report from the recent ASU+GSV summit where global innovators explored the brave new world of higher Ed technology. Hear from Michael Moe of GSV, Paul LeBlanc of SNHU, Ethan Mollick of U Penn and Laura Ipsen of Ellucian about how universities, tech companies and investors are collaborating to disrupt the future of higher Ed. And learn how you can get involved 

Professor Sanjay Sarma reflects on his experience as Vice President of Online Learning at MIT with empathy for students developed in his own time as an IIT student in India. He describes the background to and ideas in a landmark MIT white paper for a new kind of college where professors spend 80% of their time on teaching. What is it, what problem does it seek to solve, and where is this idea heading?

Scott Pulsipher President of the world’s largest fully online university in Western Governors University (WGU) shares the story of a unique purpose and business model. He outlines a relentless focus on outcomes for students as the big idea that emerged from WGU governors asking what if questions when it was formed. These questions were about the purpose, goal and design of education programs and its  pathways to opportunity to serve societal and economic need.

Professor Caron Beaton-Wells the Dean (internal) at Melbourne Business School joins the HEDx podcast to share lessons of how one of our most prestigious institutions is pursuing innovation in the higher education market.Outlining the use of technology, partnerships and new business models, the episode illustrates how even our most established and reputed institutions can also pursue radical change and innovation in taking a legacy higher education brand into the new world of lifelong learning.

Professor Mary O'Kane in leading the University Accord invites HEDx to be a facilitator and provocateur of big ideas into the biggest review of our higher education system for a generation. Immediately after the launch of the issues paper and an initial 6 week consultation period at the UA conference, Mary joins the HEDx podcast to invite its members and audience to articulate big ideas from within our sector and others, from Australia and beyond. Coming two weeks before our major sector conference in Melbourne on March 15th the episode provides an opportunity to the sector to bring big ideas to bear on key challenges that make up the new leadership agenda that HEDx has articulated through 65 episodes to date, and which a major government review is now calling for answers to.

Paul LeBlanc, the President of Southern New Hampshire University in the US, joins the HEDx podcast for a second part of his interview. He talks about his radical model of scalable higher education delivered by his staff who focus on the personal needs of their students. He draws from his recent book "Broken" to demonstrate the importance of his students and staff being seen and feeling they mattered.

Professor Paul Le Blanc is the President of Southern New Hampshire University and joins the HEDx podcast for the first episode of 2023.  He outlines a philosophy that's driven his institution and is influencing the sector to be truly distinctive by putting "Students First" which is the title of one of his two acclaimed books.

Professor Andrew Parfitt as Vice Chancellor of UTS shares his vision for the research and innovation ecosystem and the unanswered questions facing us all about lifelong learning as a Universities Accord and ARC Review process get underway.

Professor Nick Klomp VC of CQU and President of the Regional University Network tells the story of the development of the only dual-sector institution in Queensland from a regional base in Rockhampton with a physical and virtual footprint around Australia and beyond.  He argues passionately for the importance of teaching students in the region to stay in the region and about the role of a university in regional communities.

Associate Professor Jack Wang of UQ was Australian University Teacher of the Year in 2020. He outlines 7 phases of teaching innovation in Australian universities that he believes have left us in "no mans land" as students decline to join staff in empty lecture theatres. He shares the lessons of being a student and teacher in those 20 years for those facing the hybrid learning future.

Ian Dunn as Provost of Coventry University shares the secrets of success of the UK's top younger university for graduate career prospects. He outlines how a UK university has gained a global reputation for innovation and creativity with a focus on student inclusion and success. He describes how it was achieved through innovative and strategic use of EdTech and a clear strategy to ensure students succeed and educators are free to experiment.

Duncan Maskell VC of Melbourne University shares his passion for the public good purpose of our universities and his thanks for the commitment of his staff to keeping the university going as he enters the fifth year of his tenure at Parkville. He outlines how the university is reconsidering what shape and size it wants to be in the future rather than passively responding to market demands. And outlines how the nature of future education will be explored in an agile way across disciplines by staff he intends to empower to experiment, innovate and translate.

University of Surrey, UK Vice Chancellor and President Max Lu shares his experiences of putting in place a transitionary 3-year strategy to traverse the combination of Brexit and pandemic recovery to address the student experience, increase research impact and build an operational platform for future growth, together with launching a focussed philanthropic campaign to raise funds to support equitable student access. Some parallels with his prior experience as Provost and DVC R at University of Queensland with lessons for leaders elsewhere.

Professor Renee Leon reflects on her first year as Vice Chancellor at Charles Sturt University by contrasting leadership practices and culture between universities and the public service.  She reflects on how what she has learnt from the public service can be applied to improve culture and leadership in universities and how she has brought this to bear on the turnaround of her university and its new strategy.

Australian Entrepreneur of the Year for 2022 Linda Brown as CEO of Torrens University Australia johns the HEDx podcast. She shares her thoughts on the opportunities for private universities in Australia and globally to utilise EdTech and partner with connected employers. She advocates Torren's success in plugging the gap of industry relevant higher education for global customers, at scale.

The episode highlights her experience of having established Torrens as the first new greenfield university in Australia for many years. It has been our fastest growing for a decade and has come from nowhere to be the 4th largest provider of international education in Australia as a US-owned private institution.

Maria Spies as Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Holon IQ shares an update to their report on 5 scenarios for the future of higher education  by 2030. She outlines the priorities for the innovation agenda for universities for the path ahead and the need to keep moving at the same or faster pace as competitors to be positioned for disruption and transformation ahead.

Rick Shangraw, after 20 years at ASU, describes how their success story is founded on using enterprise to allow inclusive access to excellent education and research that serves end user purpose and communities.  He then articulates, as CEO of ASU startup Cintana, how that model is being taken to up to 50 partner universities around the world in seeking to democratise education for the benefit of society including his role as President of the American University of Kyiv in the Ukraine. These are lofty and differentiated strategic goals for sure.