Dr. Bridget Burns

Institutions Need Room to Experiment—and Fail—in Order to Succeed. This article identifies practical tips gathered from decades of work supporting innovation and change across a multitude of universities, and identifies the ways trustees should engage to support innovation.

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Better outcomes and graduation rates are possible for underrepresented and low-income students if we work together and share what we’ve learned.

Colleges can no longer allow career services to exist in oft-forgotten siloes on campus. To better prepare students for life after graduation — and help restore public confidence in the value of higher education — colleges and universities must reimagine the role and relevance of career services on campus and in the workforce.

The good news is that promising strategies and prototypes already exist, as does a growing body of research into their efficacy. Emerging technologies, from… Show more

Colleges can no longer allow career services to exist in oft-forgotten siloes on campus. To better prepare students for life after graduation — and help restore public confidence in the value of higher education — colleges and universities must reimagine the role and relevance of career services on campus and in the workforce.

The good news is that promising strategies and prototypes already exist, as does a growing body of research into their efficacy. Emerging technologies, from digital badges to virtual internships are helping institutions to bridge the gap. And, as it turns out, institutions may find that career services professionals have lots of great ideas about how to do this work, and have been patiently waiting for a chance to help ensure that fewer students miss their career connection. Show less

Institutional leaders have discovered that creating a culture of collaboration starts best at home. Institutions ready to work with one another often begin by giving faculty members and administrators more time to be creative, to reflect, to challenge conventional methods — and to share and build on one another’s ideas.

The most innovative companies in the world, after all, give their employees time to work on projects that are all about the future.

Savvy university leaders are… Show more

Institutional leaders have discovered that creating a culture of collaboration starts best at home. Institutions ready to work with one another often begin by giving faculty members and administrators more time to be creative, to reflect, to challenge conventional methods — and to share and build on one another’s ideas.

The most innovative companies in the world, after all, give their employees time to work on projects that are all about the future.

Savvy university leaders are making it clear that building successful careers at their institutions will require creative thinking and collaboration across departments and campuses. Their experience can inspire a new paradigm for collaboration throughout higher education.

Sharing simple ideas can have profound effects on outcomes. Many more current students will graduate from college if colleges and universities begin conversations with one another today. Show less

If we’re going produce the college graduates America needs and give all students a shot at a better economic future, it’s time to measure what matters. As a nation, we need to know which colleges are serving low-income students well. The goal should not be to praise or shame, but to find out what’s working and then replicate it.

Three ways we can start measuring what we truly care about:

1. Publicize measures of low-income student progress to identify those schools that graduate… Show more

If we’re going produce the college graduates America needs and give all students a shot at a better economic future, it’s time to measure what matters. As a nation, we need to know which colleges are serving low-income students well. The goal should not be to praise or shame, but to find out what’s working and then replicate it.

Three ways we can start measuring what we truly care about:

1. Publicize measures of low-income student progress to identify those schools that graduate large numbers and percentages of low-income students. Colleges know this information already, but do not share it publicly.

2. Develop rankings that highlight and reward the kind of behavior our country needs more of. Rankings might, for example, showcase universities that admit and graduate (in four and six years) the highest number and highest percentage of low-income students.

3. Make sure that awards and accolades for serving low-income students reward scale, not exclusivity.

Transparency doesn’t require a massive policy shift. State and federal policymakers can start by asking university officials to share the retention and graduation gaps between their low-income and high-income students. This would push more data into the public sphere — where it would be accessible to parents, policymakers, researchers, and journalists — and encourage universities to close those gaps.

Data sharing would jump-start the process of unmasking differences in college success rates between low-income and high-income students. And it would begin to de-risk the efforts of institutions that are working to make a difference for low-income students. Show less

This low-cost, low-tech tool brings people together to improve discrete processes and cumulatively create broader change.

Processing mapping is a concept that was first introduced in the 1920s. Over time it has become common practice in business, yet the concept has had limited use within higher education institutions. In this article, we describe the approach and how our member institutions are applying it to better understand and improve existing processes that often get in the way of… Show more

This low-cost, low-tech tool brings people together to improve discrete processes and cumulatively create broader change.

Processing mapping is a concept that was first introduced in the 1920s. Over time it has become common practice in business, yet the concept has had limited use within higher education institutions. In this article, we describe the approach and how our member institutions are applying it to better understand and improve existing processes that often get in the way of student success.

Redesigning colleges and universities around students sounds like an enormous undertaking, but it is really the sum of many small interactions and changes in many small processes that, taken together, can have a huge impact on student success. At UIA, our institutions are working together to support each other as they make these changes, but any institution can achieve the same supportive, collaborative environment among its own internal communities.

Using process mapping offers a model that simultaneously targets small, essential process changes and builds collaborative community. It's a tool that not only is low cost but also lets you identify places you could actually save money, time, and energy on your campus. And, perhaps more importantly, it's a way for people in your campus community to come together and feel like they're making a difference. Show less

In 2017, I’m hopeful that entrepreneurs and developers will take a page from the Seuss playbook by engaging with a multiplicity of stakeholders to understand and anticipate the implications and application of their work. Where can instructional technology inform analytics efforts? How will data-driven insights transform instructional practice? What challenge is technology solving for? Can it serve many masters?

Even the most well-intentioned colleges and universities have a hard time figuring out where to start on the path to improving student success and completion. Financial incentives that keep students on track toward graduation have, in many cases, proven effective, but they often don’t scale in an era of tight budgets. Emerging technologies promise transformation, but they can fall short in a world where financial or organizational challenges tend to stymie implementation.

Technology can have a powerful impact on college students’ success. But progress is slow. Initiative fatigue abounds. At a time when the potential for technology to transform higher education has never been greater, university leaders can be increasingly skeptical of the hype surrounding “the next big thing.” And with good reason. While tech entrepreneurs are quick to bemoan Byzantine procurement processes and risk-averse campus cultures, higher education’s anemic adoption curve may have just… Show more

Technology can have a powerful impact on college students’ success. But progress is slow. Initiative fatigue abounds. At a time when the potential for technology to transform higher education has never been greater, university leaders can be increasingly skeptical of the hype surrounding “the next big thing.” And with good reason. While tech entrepreneurs are quick to bemoan Byzantine procurement processes and risk-averse campus cultures, higher education’s anemic adoption curve may have just as much to do with tone-deaf pitches from entrepreneurs and a legacy of failed implementations. Show less

In the often-contentious discussions about the future of U.S. higher education, one idea garners wide agreement: our institutions need to innovate. Since collaboration is the driving force for most innovation, it follows that developing a successful model for collaborative innovation—for innovating together—is the most sorely needed disruption in higher education.

There was a lot of hype around big data in higher education in 2015. Colleges and universities, inundated with data from legacy systems and incentivized by renewed accountability pressures, have begun to link disparate information from across the campus. Historically limited to transactional data from registrars and student information systems, the application of data-driven decision making has begun to permeate all aspects of campus life and operations—as enterprising leaders harness… Show more

There was a lot of hype around big data in higher education in 2015. Colleges and universities, inundated with data from legacy systems and incentivized by renewed accountability pressures, have begun to link disparate information from across the campus. Historically limited to transactional data from registrars and student information systems, the application of data-driven decision making has begun to permeate all aspects of campus life and operations—as enterprising leaders harness predictive analytics to tackle bottleneck courses, power advising initiatives and share best practices with their peers. Show less

While much of the current conversation in higher education is focused toward what college and university presidents need to do differently to prepare for the future, there is not nearly enough focus on the value system imposed upon them or on how the rest of us in higher education can help them to be successful.