823: LIVE from ⁠InsightsEDU⁠ 2024 - with Andy Benis⁠, Associate VP, ⁠Los Angeles Pacific University⁠, & ⁠Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon⁠, Vice Provost of Operations, ⁠Point Loma Nazarene University⁠

Joe Sallustio: Welcome back, everybody. It's your time to up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. You won't know it from this recording, but this is the second introduction I've done for my guests because I got it wrong. I don't leave in every mistake when I mismatch the person with institution. Sometimes we do have to record them, but we want to get it right. We're getting it right here. Insights EDU in Phoenix, Arizona, conference hosted by Education Dynamics, talking all about online students, recruitment, marketing, retention and everything that you need to know if you're in the business of serving adult students.

There's people here that are giving me the business so far and one person in particular who continues to make fun of me for my mistakes. Ladies and gentlemen, my first guest, he's Andy Benis. He's AVP of marketing, interim VP of enrollment at Los Angeles Pacific University. Andy, welcome back now a second time to an EdUp mic.

Andy Benis: Thank you, Dr. I forgot to introduce myself that time.

Joe Sallustio: That's OK. I think I've done enough of these people might know who I am. I'm going to get this introduction right. I'm going to restate what I said before. This person honored to have her on the microphone. She's been a huge supporter of the book of the podcast for a really long time. She comments. She's just very, very positive and we appreciate her. She's Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon. She's vice provost of operations for graduate professional studies at Point Loma Nazarene University. Got it right the second time. Awesome. Yes. Jamie, what's up?

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: It is great to be here. This has been a long time coming for you.

Joe Sallustio: I have to say your title 10 times fast because that's a mouthful.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: It is a mouthful. But I feel like that you - it's been a long time coming. You've read the book, you know the book, you've been supportive. You've listened to podcasts, we've exchanged, we've talked. How does it feel to be to be here?

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: I feel pretty cool. And I can't wait to get a picture and tag it.

Joe Sallustio: Bullseye. Nice. Definitely going to do that. I love those. That was actually Jamie, for those who don't know. That was not a sound effect. We were pre-recorded. She can dig deep when she needs to. All right, Andy, let's start with you. Tell us about Los Angeles Pacific University. What do you do and how do you do it?

Andy Benis: Geez, what do we do and how do we do it? If I could summarize that. Well, the short history is we were the online division of Azusa Pacific University, a traditional residential faith-based campus in Southern California. At one point, they added the School of Adult and Professional Studies, which at that time included the seven regional campuses in Southern California. So it ended up being instead of Azusa Pacific Online University like well we can't leave online in there if there's seven regional centers. So they renamed it University College at Azusa Pacific University. And that's actually when Jamie and I met because she came on board running all the student engagement teams.

And then - and I know we'll get more into this I don't want to give away the whole story now but there was a mutual decision between the leadership of both groups because we were so unique in our structure, our cadence, six, eight week sessions a year, rolling enrollments, 100% online, was so different structurally and operationally that it would be better if we separated. And so we actually pursued and got our own regional accreditation as a separate institution and resurrected the name Los Angeles Pacific University, which had existed all up until 1965.

So here's your fun fact for this episode. Azusa College and Los Angeles Pacific College merged in 1965. They kept the Azusa from Azusa College and the Pacific from LA Pacific and made Azusa Pacific College. And then fast forward to '82, they became Azusa Pacific University who we now know and love today. So when we spun off, we resurrected the name Los Angeles Pacific University. So we are a totally independent institution, regionally accredited 100% online. We are separate 501(c)(3) but our sole member is APU. So we're affiliated.

Joe Sallustio: I see. So we consider ourselves sister institutions, but not part of the same institution anymore.

Andy Benis: Tell them like it is. Yep. So Jamie and I went through the brand transition, which was - we still bear the scars.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: Yes, we do.

Andy Benis: And a little PTSD from that whole process, because launching a new university is not for the faint of heart.

Joe Sallustio: It's not for the faint of heart. A lot of market penetration, especially, you know, I mean, there's just so much competition in the online environment. Getting that market share is really hard. It's funny, and Jamie, I'll get to you in a second, but I, at my institution now, I am implementing six more frequent start dates. We're a traditional calendar. Eight week terms, rolling enrollment. So going kind of the other direction and putting it into a traditional university. It's been very difficult to get there. Just to get people around that idea to go, okay, well, those vacation schedules that we had in the traditional structure, they don't really exist for online students, they're going to do their homework on Christmas. And so we have to have some support somewhere. It breaks brains, it breaks policies. I mean, they're so - so that separation is one of the ways to get there. Because there's a big question on coexistence of traditional and non-traditional models. It runs crazy deep because you talk about course design, you talk about operational cadence.

Andy Benis: So in financial aid folks, there's no such thing as packaging once - it's nonstop packaging. I mean, we're in Southern California. So I think the beach analogy is a fair one, right? You're trying to catch this wave of a new student start your new class, a new session starting, you get tumbled by the wave, you come up from under the water and there's another wave of need behind it. So every week is fast in terms of new students and packaging and getting applications done, getting files completed, getting cadence. Replication, you have to be really good at replicating your policies and the processes over and over and over again, without mistake or else the student pays the price and it's very hard to keep up that cadence when you're used to something else.

Well, and Jamie will know this because she's doing it now too. You know, you're basically maintaining the plane while it's in the air. You cannot land and pull it into the hangar to do maintenance. You have to do it as you go. So that's preparing for the next academic year's catalog, whether it's fixing courses or course design or delivery or you're implementing a new system, you know, you're bringing in a new piece of software that you have to implement in your processes and all of sudden you can't stop. Well, we have to onboard a new email marketing platform. We have to, you know, adjust the student information system. We got to change the CRM. You can't just stop to do that. You're doing it while you're doing everything else.

Joe Sallustio: Speaking of speaking of maintenance, I have to ask you, Jamie, what it's like to have the maintenance of Andy's energy and maintain, you know, just dealing with that all the time.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: I will have to say, though, there's a lot of people we work with that don't have energy. So it's refreshing, at least for a three-day conference.

Joe Sallustio: Tell us about Point Loma Nazarene University.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: Well, after coming from LAPU, where we separated from an institution at Point Loma, I joined at a time when they were trying to determine what their graduate professional studies was going to look like. So we have actually expanded over the last few years launched fully online, moved into the eight weeks. It is epic. It is like it's exciting. And the staff are like, when do we stop? And the answer is we're not going to ever. We keep going.

Joe Sallustio: No way.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: And this year we launched six programs. I mean, that's a really big deal. Yeah, what's different than LAPU - we're actually merging back into the traditional so all of our academics are now together. And so operations are separate, but academics are together.

Joe Sallustio: So even with those challenges, which that's exactly what I what I'm dealing with.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: Yeah, it's very difficult. I mean, I talked about like, Hey, can I get another start for program? And it's like, why? Why not just fall?

Joe Sallustio: No, because the students will not wait, they will not wait for you. They will go somewhere else.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: Exactly. Exactly. So those are the conversations we're having, but so different and unique from the separation that took place at LAPU.

Joe Sallustio: Talk about what you guys are doing here at Insights EDU. What are you hoping to gain? What are you here to do? What's going to be a successful conference?

Andy Benis: Well, Jamie is so good at the takeaways. She takes furious notes. I'm trying to keep up with her takeaway-taking of the takeaways. You know, it's like anything else. If you can reflect on what you're doing and figure is there a better way to do it? Are there insights? Well, first of all, half the value is just realizing you're not crazy for being frustrated by the things that frustrate you. You're surrounded by people who are frustrated by some of the same things. So there's that.

Joe Sallustio: I like your style, dude.

Andy Benis: Right. I love that voice. But the flip side is then also being grateful when you see other folks that come from institutions that are really struggling, like they're two miles back down the highway and you're like, we've been there. We've done that. We're past that. So grateful for where we are because we have figured a lot of this out and are doing it well. And I'm - you love giving advice at lunch or a cocktail hour, whatever to folks who are not quite there yet. Because you know the battle they face when they go back to their institution and try to convince the fresh ideas and do this and then to get back and you get the inertia. No. Yeah. Thanks for coming back. Now sit down. Let's keep going with what we're gonna keep doing. We've always done and it'll be great. Trust me.

Joe Sallustio: Yeah, I think that's - I had an old boss when I was at DeVry University who called it spitting into the fan of humanity. It's like I've got this great idea and this great energy. And then all of sudden they just managed to let the air out of the balloon with politics, bureaucracy, silos. And you're like, when's the next conference? Because I need to get pumped up again.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: Isn't that the truth?

Joe Sallustio: What about you, Jamie? What are you looking to take away from here?

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: Well, I've already been messaging my team about scheduling meetings on what we're going to be applying.

Joe Sallustio: Always the boss. That is amazing.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: But they have a thing they said it's called the idea jar. And so they said I only get to do one out of 20 ideas.

Joe Sallustio: In which I've said it's been a while, so I get to do more than one, but it will be debating what we do. But I came with the marketing team. Marketing does not report to me. So we're gonna actually put together a report of all of our takeaways that we can apply and then start to decide which ones we want to do first.

Joe Sallustio: Now you said you're putting a report together. Now I have to put a report together because people are going to listen to this and go, Jamie gave her institution a report. Did you do a report for LAPU, Andy? And I'm going to have to do a report.

Andy Benis: You stop screwing around. I want to thank Jamie for upping my workload. I was going to sleep on the flight home. I have to do a report.

Joe Sallustio: You guys have a charismatic relationship, I would say. You've worked together for how many years did you guys work together? How long was - you got there when? 2017, 16?

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: We were just under two years together.

Andy Benis: Was that it? But we went through the brand change together. And that changes people.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: The scars run deeper than two years.

Joe Sallustio: Yeah, because it's, I mean, you're - you guys call each other and go, this is what I'm dealing with.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: Yeah, I'm dealing with this.

Joe Sallustio: Is this an outlet for you?

Andy Benis: There's the occasional text chain or LinkedIn thread. Yes. We have another mutual colleague, Dr. Frank Rojas, who was also there.

Joe Sallustio: Why do I know that? Why do I know Frank? I think I know Frank.

Andy Benis: You know Frank. If I showed you a picture - yeah, that guy. Frank is phenomenal. He's a great higher ed leader that will forever be my only claim to fame as I was Frank's first boss in higher ed. So as he achieves bigger and bigger things, I still lay claim to being the first one to usher him into higher ed. But no, that overlap was, you know, Jamie coming with her experience when she did. And same with me, I had come back into higher ed after being out for good eight, nine years doing other things. And just a collaboration of the minds and Jamie is a big picture thinker and a strategist who knows just looking at something from an arm's length and goes, something needs to change fundamentally about how we do this. And so I found in her immediately a kindred spirit as far as that went, because I'm like, we absolutely have to do this better or do it well. So yeah, we were the first in first out for those six months of that transition. We were the ones that in early. I think the brunt of that load was on the two of us and our teams.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: Yeah, the battle scar, we're brothers in arms is what that was.

Joe Sallustio: Colleagues, in arms. Can I say brothers? Sorry. Persons in arms. Brothers, sisters from another. I don't know. We're them in arms? Don't know. We need to go there. Jamie, you're here where you're attending sessions for about online learning about recruiting adult students. You guys are both disruptors to say you're creating change in your institutions. What does everyone need to know about creating change in higher ed to serve adults because it's not the same as serving a traditional student. And everybody's trying to do it. And it's like, okay, well, we don't have as many traditional students as we want. So let's just go get some adult students. We're just gonna go get them. We're gonna start marketing to them. We're gonna go get them. We're gonna, you know, there's so much that people don't think about - what's some of the advice that you would both have for those schools out there looking to serve an adult student, thinking they can do it, that they have the infrastructure, but not thinking through all of the parts. What are some of the parts that you just go, yeah, that was one thing that I didn't think about?

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: That it's not just the academic program. I mean, you have to have the right programs for your institution, for your market. But you also have to have the student services. You can't compete without knowing their expectations are different. They're not going to stand in line for two hours and then be told you're on lunch and they're going to come back. So I think equal effort on how you serve the student outside of the classroom absolutely has to take place because they are customers. And we've talked about this. People don't always like to - aren't you faculty?

Joe Sallustio: Just said students are customers.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: I know I do teach as well. How dare you, right? We have to look at them that way because they are - it's so easy to jump to another institution. And so if we take that for granted, they will jump and we'll lose them.

Joe Sallustio: Yep. Yep. And I think that it's funny to be in these sessions. And you've got great speakers from Google Salesforce, right, let alone all the guys from Education Dynamics. And whenever they talk about you have to meet the student where they are, and they do use the c word for customer. And there's literally a twinge in the room sometimes. But well, but we're higher ed. This is not a business. We're higher ed.

Andy Benis: And that student-centric customer-centric - you have to meet them where they are. For so long, we've been "well if you build it they will come." No, no, you have to serve them. Yeah, look at that beautiful bell tower. Look at that building with the ivy on it. This has stood here for 150 years and you just want to smile sweetly and say no one cares.

Joe Sallustio: I don't think so. They don't care. So it's - you know, college football's version now the transfer portal. I'm not happy I'm leaving.

Andy Benis: That's true. They're making decisions sooner. You saw the admissions and enrollment folks in the general session panic when they talked about how quickly students are making decisions, how few universities they're actually checking out before making a decision. And there's, in some cases, some genuine panic on like, I don't know how to do that. And so my short answer would be a change of mindset. You cannot have the, well, do you know who we are? No one cares. What can you do for them that adds value in the long run?

Joe Sallustio: Student experience is phenomenal, but online is a different animal. Can't, people aren't going to spend $40,000 a year to find themselves, you know, while playing guitar under the oak tree in the quad. Like it's a new day and a lot of folks are slow to get it.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: Well, and then the online market, everybody is your competition. So you can't just go, well we out-beat this. We have better brand than that. You know, the two schools down the street, you have to write into it. And I'm not going to look at you, Andy. Okay. It's you Joe, Dr. DJ for short.

Joe Sallustio: Don't do it. That stuff sticks.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: But I think you have to recognize you are competing with everybody and you're competing with the giants. So you have to do it like them to serve them as quick as you serve them. All of those pieces you can't ignore.

Joe Sallustio: I want to go back to what you just said. Students are customers and I know I truly believe that we don't think higher ed - we as an industry don't realize that we're having to sell to those students every single day with every interaction. Even think about in the classroom, okay, student gets a bad grade. No one is saying for the student to get a good grade. If the student earned a bad grade, that's fine. But what services do you offer to help that student better their grade on the next test? If those services are not there, that student will go, you know what, I'm not getting support. I need to go somewhere else. It has nothing to do with academic quality and everything to do with what you provide after.

Andy Benis: No one, you know, when you look at term structures and you look at programs and you talk about CBE or non-standard term or non-term, no one has ever said that they're trying to reduce - you know, guys, we really need to reduce our academic quality when we offer this to these students. No one has ever said that. What they have said is what happens next? And if you don't have what happens next, if you don't have the supports pre and post for adult students, they will leave. And that's a fact, isn't it?

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: It is. And I - that's a fact. That's a fact.

Joe Sallustio: There's twice. Twice. I just wanted to double down. I didn't mean to cut off the president.

Andy Benis: The issue of student success and student support. I know at LA Pacific, we've got a student success model, a coaching model. And I know, you know, your division has a similar thing, where it's not just an after - it's a before during and after so our success coaches are part academic advisor. Here's the course that you should take in what order to complete on time given everything you've transferred in, yada yada. A degree audit, if you will. And then an academic plan, and then they're part life coach. Like, hey, I'm a single mom working and trying to do this. This is really hard. And they just need somebody to vent to. In our case, as a faith-based institution, they would offer, hey, can I pray for you? And the student will take them up on it or not, because you know. And a missing piece on retention is that building self-confidence in the student is actually how you retain them. Retention isn't like, please stay and let me get you these things. It's don't give up on yourself. That's what retention really is.

And being willing to have the non-academic conversation. Because there's a lot of times like, well, unless you're here to plan your courses, I can't help you as opposed to, well, tell me what's going on. Have you tried this resource? What about that resource? Did you know that in the MyLAPU app, there's a channel for working moms - go socialize in the app with some other fellow students who are working moms. Offering that support that's beyond just the classroom is massive because these people are not juggling just school. It's work, family life. The adult student is a moving target and school is probably third, maybe even fourth on their list of life priorities. It's not the 18-year-old who moves into the freshman dorm, stays for four years, wears the sweatshirt, goes to all the football games and is a lifer to this brand. And school is number one and on their social everything, social media life in general, their -

Joe Sallustio: We're third or fourth in their lives.

Andy Benis: That is correct. We have to meet them where they are.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: Yeah, I was just - we have the same model. So we're also doing that. And we've built our retention plan on proactive advising theory, because we want to catch problems before they become problems.

Joe Sallustio: Preemptive strike.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: Yes. So when I started, we - I did an audit to say like, how many students are getting a touch point in a three-month period. And it was like 19%. Never forget that 19%. Because I was like, we can't say we're high touch and have higher cost and then not be reaching out to all the students. But it was more of a, they'll reach out to us. So we've totally changed that. Now 100% of students are getting regular contact, even if it's just to say, hey, I see you got an A. Like we need to be reaching out to them too, making sure that they have the support or at least the encouragement, which I think is huge. We don't want them to be a number, right?

Joe Sallustio: Marketing's hard. You're marketing - I have that bumper sticker. Yeah, marketing. Sorry. We're talking about marketing here. What's that? What's coming for marketing? What's - how do you market better? And that's a really important and insightful question I'm asking. How do you market better?

Andy Benis: You know, it's the most prevalent but ambiguous question because it's one of these - in normal brand competition, it's an awareness thing, right? There's a value proposition. We just went through our accreditation visit to re-up with our accreditors. And so one of the questions is differentiation. And it's getting to the point where when we first launched in 2010, being online was pretty innovative. Online, flexible, affordable. What school are you talking about now? Right. Back then, that was like, wow, that's awesome. Now it's like, well, we can add. So it's - no one of those makes you unique anymore. It's some combination of all of them that makes us - in our case, you add the faith-based piece, you add the high touch success coach model. And so no one thing - we're fully online asynchronous. Okay, well, you're not alone. But when you bundle it all, okay, now there's a little bit of a unique value proposition.

But the "me too" thing is a very real thing. So how you get something more special, it has to be - it's more personal than ever. Now, if there was ever a difference between marketing features and benefits versus meeting them where they are, it's, you know, the testimonials matter, the ROI still matters on all these slides, we've seen in all these reports. How much does it cost and how fast can I finish? That story hasn't changed in decades. It still remains the issue. The only way you're going to capture their attention is by being out there somehow, digitally, traditionally, whatever advertising marketing you've got to do to get in front of them. And then have a story to tell that resonates with them. You can't just say, well, we're so great. We have this, we have this, we have that. What can you do for me if I'm a prospective student? Is this the right place for me to get where I want to be? And do I sense that you get that? Because if I don't sense that you get that, I'm moving on.

Joe Sallustio: What's coming for academic innovation, Jamie? Because when you say academic innovation, not every institution has an academic strategy. What are we going to do to serve these people? It's kind of the same old, well, let's look at this program. Let's get it through these committees. Academic strategy I find to be lacking when you look at the learner and what they want now - what's coming in your mind academically as you look at AI and learning and pedagogy and all those things?

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: My first thought is uphill battle because it's helping people see that academics is not just one size fits all. I like to use the analogy of music and how we enjoy music like going to a live concert is so fun but not everyone can afford it. I can listen to the radio, can choose to pay for Pandora, I can listen to it on Spotify, I can download my own music. We have to be able to be thinking about all the different ways people want to consume education, not just this one size fits all. And it doesn't mean that music is any less impactful if I listen to it on Pandora, it just means I'm just taking it in differently. So like you said, academic quality, it's not going to be reduced in these other formats.

Joe Sallustio: It's different. It's different.

Andy Benis: Well, in the accreditor, like if you're going to run something in a different academic format, you still have to assess - your accreditor is going to come in and ensure that you're assessing that - by the way, anybody that goes, could the accreditor - I don't know our accreditation BS BS BS - I mean, I've interviewed the accreditation presidents and they all go please innovate, please innovate, but do exactly what you say you're going to do. And we're going to make sure that you're doing what you say you're going to do. But you could do whatever the heck you want.

Joe Sallustio: So don't tell, we want you to innovate.

Andy Benis: Absolutely. Well, our industry is plagued with, you know, one leg tied to the anchor of the way we've always done it. Right. That phrase itself, academic innovation is an oxymoron. We have the knowledge they need to come to us for the knowledge. Well, that's being turned upside down daily. I mean, I just downloaded the Gemini yesterday and started playing with AI through the app. And I'm realizing how long we're probably a week, a month - I don't know how long until you can customize your own curriculum.

Joe Sallustio: Yep.

Andy Benis: And say, Hey, set up a six-week curriculum for me to teach me all the basics in whatever topic. I don't know. It has access there already. It has access to all of the internet. All the knowledge in human history. Like, I don't know, maybe that tool will do what we're doing in the classroom. And if we don't innovate or rethink how we're doing this quickly, I think a lot of people are gonna be caught off guard.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: But I think it goes to like employers, we - higher education exists to empower and equip the current and future workforce. So we can't take employers out of it.

Joe Sallustio: You just say work in context of higher ed? How dare you?

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: I know. Thinking about employers. Imagine that magic. It's not just about my classroom. So I - what I like about AI, it's like a calculator, right? Didn't mean I didn't have to learn math just meant hey, I can lean into that, but I still have to apply it. I still have to know the formula. So same with education. We have to rethink about what matters. And with this generation - they want application. They YouTube it. They can do it in two minutes and they're thrilled. So how does education start to come like that?

Joe Sallustio: Yep. And there's a - we're on a collision course between technology, corporate America, right? And the education industry. I mean, there's this collision course on - there's a reason Amazon is investing millions to educate their own workforce. Come work for us. There's 100,000 jobs to choose from. We'll train you, we'll teach you and yeah, you could potentially have a job for life because we're going to train you in our ecosystem. Large corporations are going to do that on a larger, smaller scale their way. And at some point, the trends that we're seeing about people are second guessing the value of higher education. It's specifically because of the disconnect between the education and the application in the real world.

Andy Benis: Yes.

Joe Sallustio: Andy, any final words?

Andy Benis: Final words? Your final words before you die?

Joe Sallustio: About Los Angeles Pacific University.

Andy Benis: Okay, I thought like last words - that final words is different than last words. Okay. Because I thought, my God, am I going to get it right? Make sure you get it right. It's gonna be on my epitaph.

Joe Sallustio: All right.

Andy Benis: No, I think the challenge to folks who come in, not willing to totally rethink everything they're assuming. I think so many of us come in unaware of our assumptions, right? Any given moment environment, the way I'm doing something. I'm walking in the door with some assumptions about how things should work, how they have worked, what I'm comfortable with. Right. We used that joke yesterday. Look, it might smell, but it's my cornfield shoe. And I love wearing my cornfield shoes. Everyone's small. You have to back up and say, wait, is this the right way to do this? Is this where things are moving? Am I truly adaptable or am I just saying that? But then not. You know, I think a lot of folks in these sessions are being challenged to think differently. And then when they go home, force other people to think differently too.

Joe Sallustio: Jamie, final words.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: Okay, so I think my team would say that Jamie and change are equivalents. And so I think it's just being willing to change and always learning. So in our division of the university, we're a learning organization, we're always looking at trends, we're always looking at data and what's on the horizon. I don't know how many times I'm screenshotting things from online, you know, from my social media to our marketer, like we need to be talking about this. So I think it's always looking on the horizon and then being willing to change. And if you're not looking on the horizon and you're not willing to change, it's that partnership together. You're going to slowly go down the road.

Joe Sallustio: Ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here. My amazing guest today, Andy Benis, he's AVP of marketing and interim VP of enrollment at Los Angeles Pacific University. Andy, thanks for being on EdUp mic.

Andy Benis: Thank you. And I got to go to report now on my takeaways. Thanks, Jamie. More work for you.

Joe Sallustio: And of course, the amazing Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon. I think this is probably a little overdue. Vice provost of operations for graduate professional studies at Point Loma Nazarene University. Jamie, thanks for finally getting here.

Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon: I guess we just had the right point in time, just like anything else.

Joe Sallustio: Perfect. I loved it. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, you just had EdUp.