827: LIVE from ⁠InsightsEDU⁠ 2024 - with Doris Savron , Vice Provost, University of Phoenix

Joe Sallustio: Welcome back, everybody. It's your time to up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. This is Dr. Joe Sallustio back with you again, again, again, again, and again, maybe 16 or 17 times now here at the Insights EDU Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, hosted by our great friends at Education Dynamics. And I am excited, ladies and gentlemen, to talk with my guest today for a number of reasons. You're going to know why I'm excited when I interview her.

But I do want to remind everybody, if you're not here at this conference to talk about the future of marketing and enrollment for online students this year, you need to decide right now to come next year. The insights that people are gaining are incredible, incredibly positive, and some that are concerning about the trends for online students and the fickleness, perhaps, that they have as student consumers or customers, dare I say, of education.

And that's something that we're going to discuss as the panels move throughout today: what does student-centric mean? Is a student a customer? You have your opinions. You know I have mine. We think our guest has some opinions on these things, too. Ladies and gentlemen, let's get her on the mic. She is the future Dr. Doris Savron, Vice Provost for College Assessment and Curriculum at UOP, University of Phoenix. What's going on, Doris? How are you?

Doris Savron: I'm great. Thanks for having me.

Joe Sallustio: You just came off a panel so they didn't give you time to breathe and you're here on the podcast with me. How are you feeling?

Doris Savron: I feel good. I think we had a really great discussion. It was fun to engage with the audience and fellow panelists.

Joe Sallustio: What came out of the panel that you thought was really good discussion that people are thinking about right now?

Doris Savron: I think people have a couple of concerns. One is just the pace of change and how to still operate in that change while serving and doing the things that you have to do to just make things work. And then I think the other one is just time and resources. Like, how do I continue to keep my teams engaged and still address all of those things that are coming at us? Skills and how employers are responding and shortages in jobs and everyone's online now. How do I do online? So it's a lot.

Joe Sallustio: You know, University of Phoenix, I was saying this last night to a group of folks, one of which got her graduate degree at Phoenix and the other gentleman got his undergrad degree at Phoenix. And we were talking about online education, elitism, and quality, and all these things. And I said, you know, the UOP at one time did what no other university in the history of the world would ever do, which is have over half a million, I think it might've even gotten close to 700,000 students, some ridiculous amount of students, because the time was right and they were primed to serve an adult student. They really blazed the trail on how to do it in the first place. All the rest of us learned from UOP and now 100,000 students or 90, 80 somewhere around there.

I think you guys have - times have changed, but the mission of UOP has not and how you have innovated to serve adult students has not. We've been blessed here to be close with Bill Pepicello, who is the former president of University of Phoenix. And then I just co-hosted with Peter Cohen, the past president of University of Phoenix. Innovative leaders, but focus on serving the adults and that hasn't changed. Can you just talk about the state of UOP and the mission today?

Doris Savron: Yeah, so our mission remains the same. It was really important to Dr. Sperling to really make sure access was a priority for the university. We served a need, like you said, long ago of non-traditional students that needed to advance their skills in order to grow their careers and financially benefit from that and, you know, improve their families long term. So that has not changed. We continue to see the need. We're now adult learners and what was non-traditional is actually considered the norm today.

So it really is about meeting the need of the stakeholder, but then also it's important for us to really meet the needs of what employers are saying is needed to help them be successful. So the noise around, you know, we can't find the right talent, the skills, how do we respond to that in a way that is true to our mission, but also then supporting students and being ready to take on those jobs that employers are saying are hard to fill.

Joe Sallustio: And I know from past interviews with folks at Phoenix, it's like, how do we get the curriculum to map to the job? And then how do we get you the job? How do we make sure, you know, how do we guarantee, if you will, that you're going to get a job? You're Vice Provost of Curriculum, Assessment and Curriculum, right? How important is the curriculum? How much input might be the best question? Do the employers have through whatever channels someone like you who's going, okay, we got to look at this curriculum a different way?

Doris Savron: Yeah. So first, I'll say you can't guarantee a job, but you can certainly focus on relevance of what we're teaching to meet the needs of what employers are telling us is important. So we really look at the market, you know, the data. So what are employers through their job postings saying is relevant today for skills? We're also looking at what some of the research white papers are anticipating for future skills. AI is a big one now, right?

How are the jobs going to change? What skills are going to be needed to do and use AI in different places like marketing or K through 12 and building curriculum and assessment? So we take that and we look at the specific credential. What are we trying to prepare somebody for for that specific credential? What types of job titles? What are the skills needed for those job titles? And then we map those particular skills into the curriculum.

So you'll have, let's just take the MBA program. So anyone who is prepared and coming out of an MBA program is trying to meet the needs of being a manager, director level. Those skills require X, Y, Z. So leadership is one of them. So to lead, you have to be able to manage change. You have to be able to build teams. You have to be able to manage conflict. So we build those particular skills into the different courses and then we assess them so that we can then have a level of confidence the student has been able to demonstrate that. So for us, it's important all the way down to course level outcomes to be able to make sure we're talking about introducing, assessing different skills that are going to be important to employers.

Joe Sallustio: I want to pick up, not pick on you, but pick out something that you said. When I use the word guarantee and you had this response that you can't guarantee a job, I want everybody to listen because what you don't know for institutions that have a for-profit tax status or a career college, literally the regulations around what you can say and certain words you can use or not use are very specific. And you can't use the word in a nonprofit. You can do whatever the heck you want. That's one of the things I realized when I moved from for-profit into nonprofit. I was like, I can't do that. And somebody would go, well, we do that all the time here. And I was like, I find it hard to believe. But it was true. You get trained in universities, colleges with the for-profit tax status to say, OK, can't say that. Can't do that, and still have to operate with precision to serve adults with more regulation, unfair regulation, eyes, and microscopes.

Phoenix has been under that microscope for years because of its size. And I know you guys are going through a lot of change too with how Phoenix will be moving into the future. How are you doing internally? How is everyone doing internally with the uncertainty that that kind of stuff brings on?

Doris Savron: Well, I think opportunity, I think it's in our DNA to always be looking outward. What do we need to do to continue to get better? So I would say, you know, the regulations have made us better. We have to be able to really look at, you know, what's the purpose of that? What is it trying to solve? And then how are we making sure we execute on that? It just forces us to just keep getting better and better. I don't even like the word force. It actually really prioritizes us to really pick the right things to put resources behind.

Joe Sallustio: Forces you to do it until you embrace it. Once you embrace it and you go, this is gonna help us, it's really easy to meet those.

Doris Savron: I just really love the people I work with. There's just an innovation spirit. I feel like we've carried on Dr. Sperling's spirit of like, hey, this is a challenge, we're gonna take it on and we have the confidence level to be able to solve it. And we do that by keeping students at the center, who are our students? How does that align to our mission? And then what problems are we trying to solve?

And then building that into our processes, whether it's curriculum, whether it's through the enrollment process, whether it's through academic advising, whether it's through policies that we have to make sure are there to both protect the student and make sure we're at the right levels to maintain our accreditation. But I feel like it's built into our spirit. I feel like a challenge is something that inspires us to like, OK, what are we going to do? How are we going to address this? We just have incredible leaders that are so passionate about serving our students.

It's what's kept me there 23 years and then to hear the stories from students about what it does for them. I mean we bring life-changing... Yeah, we bring in students to our regular meetings to hear directly. How are they experiencing what we've built? Like meeting the needs. What are they hearing that... what's working? What's not working? How do we continue to make sure their voice is in the middle of okay double down on this for me.

Joe Sallustio: We keep students at the center. We're student-centric. We put the students... It's like in the old... we've talked about this this week where you had schools that were online flexible and affordable and now you know that used to be a real differentiating factor but now a lot of schools are online flexible and affordable and there are many schools most schools that say we keep students at the center or student-centric or student first. How would you actually do that at Phoenix? Can you give us a couple of examples? You gave one with bringing students in your meetings. Is there a sentence you have to start out with? Like, if I was a student, then is it a testing philosophy? Can you give me an example of how you see that manifesting itself?

Doris Savron: Yeah, so there's a couple of things. Like, what problem are we trying to solve? It always keeps us focused, right? What are we trying to address? Because there's lots of things we can do. We don't have unlimited budget. And we want to really make sure it has the right... We're solving the right problem, and it's going to have the right impact for students. So it's definitely, and then how does it align to who our students are? So we're constantly looking at data to say, who's enrolling? What are the factors of success? What types of students do we have?

Yes, so what are their needs? So we listen to them. So they have an opportunity to fill out a survey at the end of every course. We collect that information from the front end, our advisors. What are you hearing? What questions are they asking? What's important to them? Our marketing teams do research to really, so a lot of what we heard today and yesterday resonates with what we're learning too, to be able to really make it a seamless experience. Get them the information they need, when they need it, so that they can make a good decision and determine if we're a good fit for them. And then once they're in, we need to make sure that we're helping them understand what resources and support that they have while they're going through their courses, so that they can achieve the career goals that they have.

Joe Sallustio: That is amazing. One of the things that people don't realize about University of Phoenix is the amount of graduates that they had over all these years, to the point where when these conversations come up about, you know, where you graduate from, it takes the job that you have, or, you know, these kind of things. And people don't realize like UOP has more graduates than like 90% of the universities in the country because of it's... it's a staggering number. I don't even know what the number is. I don't know if you know the number. I'm not going to put you on the spot. But there's a ton of graduates from UOP all across the world in big time, high level decision making positions. Can you just talk about impact?

Doris Savron: Yeah. So I don't know what the current number is, but years, a few years ago we hit our one million alumni stat. So obviously that's grown since. But so this is this is the fun part. A million alumni, a million. Over a million now. But this is a fun part. So like I'll be at conferences or sometimes I'll wear University of Phoenix at an airport or I'll be at an event and people will say, hey, I graduated with a degree. I'll be at different meetings or sitting on boards and people say, hey, I did my master's online or I did a master's at this campus. So we know that there's, and that's why the mission is so important to us, making sure we address and teach the appropriate relevant skills because we know the kinds of jobs they're going to take. We know the kinds of places that they're going to work. They're affecting communities around the country because of who we reach through our online programs and credentials. So we want to really...

Joe Sallustio: It burns me up is when people and it happens frequently in the circles that because I interviewed a lot of people in this podcast, they had come with very different, differing perspectives. And I'll hear somebody talk about well, universities like Phoenix or those like this lower quality, blah, blah, blah. And I go, No, regionally accredited, same. Lots of graduates.

Same in fact, programmatic accreditation.

Doris Savron: Yeah, programmatic...

Joe Sallustio: Look left, look right, probably one of the two people on your left or right has gotten a degree from University of Phoenix. So you say those things out loud, and you actually don't know who you're hurting, you're hurting your own reputation by saying something like that. Because people that you're helping you make decisions might have their degree from University of Phoenix or a school like it. It happens often in the nonprofit side, call it the when your nose is up in the air on the nonprofit side, and you don't have your eyes where they should be. Do you hear that anymore? Or do you guys just say we're focused on the student and we don't care about all that noise?

Doris Savron: Well, I mean, when I first started with the university 23 years ago, there were a lot of... there was a lot of noise that you can't do quality education online. Who knew? Everyone's online today. Surprise. And then so we are focused on serving the students we serve like we... we know that there's... if we do... If we really pay attention to who we serve and we stay true to the programmatic accreditations, accreditations commitments we made for how we align those programs, the outcomes and what students are gonna be able to do after that, that's really what we're paying attention to. I mean, we can't control people's thoughts or opinions. You know, you can say there's a lot of angst and anxiety around AI, but AI could be used as an efficiency tool. It doesn't have to replace human beings and the work that we do, but it could enhance the work that we do that continues to evolve and really make, we've been using AI for decades. So it's how do you really take tools, use them for impact, and then just make sure that you don't lose sight of the ultimate mission, which is serving our students and making sure they're prepared and are able to reach the career goals that they want to reach.

Joe Sallustio: People who work for University of Phoenix and people who've graduated from University of Phoenix are very proud. They're very proud of the work they do. They're very proud of the education they received. How about your team, the work you're doing? Is there pride? Is there still that same level of pride to serve students? How do you take that pride and that success and look to the future when it comes to curriculum and assessment and what's happening for the future of higher ed to keep that momentum going?

Doris Savron: I am incredibly proud of the work that we do. I wouldn't have stayed here 20 years... I wouldn't still be... wouldn't have stayed if you weren't proud. I'm also a first generation college graduate. My parents never got an opportunity to finish high school. They came to the US for future family benefits. They wanted to set up their future family in a place where they knew there was more opportunity. And so in some ways, like when I first joined University of Phoenix, I was associate faculty member at a new campus. And I thought, I really love this mission and what they're trying to do. They're serving a population whose needs are not being met right now. And I want to be a part of this. And as the campus grew and the organization grew, I just decided to take on different job opportunities because I saw the impact that we've had.

Joe Sallustio: Amazing.

Doris Savron: Transforming students' lives. You know what, what job can you go into every day and know that every piece of work that is done in that organization could lead to transforming a family, future generations of families. So people are excited. I mean, yes, there's... it's high pressure. We move fast. There's a lot to respond to to make sure we're continually adapting to what the market is saying is needed and what students are telling us they need. But we're doing some really exciting things in the curriculum work with the skills mapping and making sure we continue to make that transparent to students. We're building career tools over top of that so that students are able to see that and understand what that means and, you know, it highlights the things that they can do to increase their opportunities to meet their goals.

Joe Sallustio: Do you think that's the future of education, the skills mapping, the degree skills mapping? You think that's where... you think the employers with, you know, the degree value, the degree doesn't have value? Well, we have to make it have value by mapping it to what students are going to do when they're done.

Doris Savron: Yeah, I mean, we've always looked at relevant skills and found and put those into curriculum. I think it's the way you make it transparent, the way you align assessments, the way you connect that to tools that students can use, the way you teach them to... how to... that they need to career, what they need to be thinking about to be ready. Yeah, all of that should connect. I do feel like employers are continuing to say, if you don't move fast enough to help us solve this problem, we will do it ourselves. We've seen them build their own curriculum. We've seen them build their own training. So, so I don't think the value of degrees will go away. I think there's tracks and jobs that are gonna need higher levels of learning. I think the way those are delivered and potentially how you attach other tools over top of it to support students in an online format and in knowing that they're also full-time employees in other places, you're gonna just have to get creative about how do we continue to evolve to meet those needs while still maintaining the quality and assuring that they're learning what they're supposed to be learning.

Joe Sallustio: What else do you want to say about UOP? Open mic, anything, talk about your staff, talk about stuff you're doing, anything you want to say.

Doris Savron: Well, I'll definitely give a shout out to the entire team, the leadership teams and the teams that are doing the hard work to make sure we're evolving and adapting. I'm excited for the things that we're working on. You know, we are focused on really making sure we respond to what we've heard the last two days. We've been doing it for years is making sure affordability is at the center of how we serve students, making sure they know how they can be successful to reach those career outcomes and then continuing to just listen and adapt. So I'm excited for the work we're doing.

Joe Sallustio: Well, I'm honored to have you with us today. It's been great to talk with you. Ladies and gentlemen, she's my guest. No, she's your guest today. She is the future Dr. Doris Savron, Vice Provost of College Assessment and Curriculum at the University of Phoenix. Did you have a good time today?

Doris Savron: Thank you for inviting me.

Joe Sallustio: Ladies and gentlemen, you just EdUpped.