794: What the University of the Future Could Look Like - with Catherine Friday, Oceania Managing Partner, Government & Health Sciences, & Global Education Leader, Ernst & Young (EY)

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Welcome back everybody. It's your time to EdUp on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. I'm your guest host for this episode, Bill Pepicello, and I'm host of my own podcast called EdUp Insights and the author of the book Leadership on the Field of Play, which is available on Amazon. And today I'm filling in for Dr. Joe Sallustio. Joe, who's your usual host, but you know, sometimes Joe just needs a break. And so he asked me to come in and I'm the substitute teacher. Now today we have a very interesting special guest and we may have a guest co-host join us later. But our special guest today is Catherine Friday. And I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself with your own title when we get here, Catherine, because you're with Ernst & Young Oceania, but you seem to have several titles that go with your position. So first, let me welcome you. Nice to have you here.

Catherine Friday: Thank you so much.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Just let us know what that full title is.

Catherine Friday: Bill, you're right. I wear a couple of hats within the firm. I'm proud to wear all of them, of course. The one that I'm wearing when I'm chatting with you today is as the global leader of our education practice in EY. The other hat that I wear is as the leader of our government health and life sciences practice here in Oceania. And so I make sure that wherever they are, our teams are either serving education clients around the world or all of government here in Australia or in New Zealand. We're doing the very best we can for the institutions that we're proud to serve.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Terrific. Thank you very much. Well, to get started, I'd like you to tell us a little bit about Ernst & Young. I mean, many of us know Ernst & Young, but not as a higher education player. So, you might talk a little bit about the services and the industries that Ernst & Young is concerned with and where do you fit in with your position?

Catherine Friday: Yeah, look, I'd love to. Thank you. So you're right. People would know Ernst & Young or EY as one of the big four global professional services firms. So we have teams that do management consulting, strategy and transactions, tax and assurance services for clients all around the world. Our education practice delivers all of those things for education providers in about 90 countries around the world. So everything that the firm does, we will be doing for an education provider somewhere in the world, probably right now, given that the sun never sets on our practice, of course.

We are particularly focused on higher education. That's a particular area of specialization of ours. Some of your listeners may know the Parthenon practice, which is very well known in parts of the Northern hemisphere for doing a lot of strategy work and M&A work and public policy work as well. But outside of that, as I said, everything that EY does anywhere, we will be doing in the service of an education provider probably right now.

And it's my role to make sure that our teams around the world are all joined up, all holding hands the way that we should and making sure that the very best of us is taken to the service of our clients, particularly higher education clients, wherever in the world they may be. So whether it is serving a higher education provider in the Middle East or far North Canada or in Tasmania or London or wherever it is, to make sure that whatever that particular provider needs, the very best people from EY are at the forefront of delivering those services. And it's my job to make sure, as I said, that we're all connected up on that. It's also a fabulous part of my job to be overseeing and sponsoring a fair bit of the thought leadership that we do around particularly higher ed as well.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Wow. That's fascinating to me. And certainly, I'm sure it is to our listeners because it's not usually the context in which we think about Ernst & Young. So we need to find out a lot more. And I have been sort of scouring your website. And the thing that I'm fascinated by, there are several things, but it's the approach that you're taking globally. And there are a couple of phrases that I'm going to ask you to expound on for us. One is the human-centered transformational design, which you claim is a critical factor for the university today. What does that mean exactly?

Catherine Friday: Yeah, and that's an excellent question. It sounds like a mouthful of consultant speak, doesn't it? But where that comes from actually is research that EY did with the Oxford Saïd Business School two or three years ago, where we were looking at what are the critical things that make tech and digital delivery successful in any environment. And probably no surprise to your listeners, the things that really make a material difference to ensuring that organizational transformation succeed is designing for people. So having humans at the center.

So that's very much what we're thinking about here. So making sure that whenever any university seeks to undertake any particular change, but particularly those that are really big and really disruptive and probably involve an element of tech, that all of that is designed around the humans in the ecosystem rather than the opposite, which of course has been really typical of big transformations over time, where particular leaders in the organization will come up with a brilliant idea and try and push it through, but without actually considering what is the impact of this on, in the university context, students, teachers, researchers, and corporate staff, and not actually thinking about what the human experience of all of this should be. And that research that we did with Oxford Saïd a couple of years ago showed that there is a difference of up to 300% in the success levels of those projects that work and those that don't. And just taking that human design element makes all the difference. And of course, it's intuitively obvious when you say it, but it's not historically how big transformation projects have been delivered. And so that's very much at the heart of how we think about the work that we deliver with universities. Now, who are the humans that this project is intended to serve? And what should their experience of this be?

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Wow. Well, you know, it's one of the things that I talk about regularly on my own podcast, which is EdUp Insights. I'll get my all of my public service announcements here is the fact that a lot of what goes on in higher education, especially in the United States, is institution centered and not centered, not student centered. And I think that's why we see some initiatives failing here, simply because if change is being driven by the institution or by technology for that matter, and we'll come back and talk about that, I think that's just a recipe for disaster.

Catherine Friday: And I would completely agree with that. And that's certainly our observation as well, both in the US, but more broadly around the world where we work with universities as well. And probably until about the past four or five years, universities were really lucky in most markets in as much as they could almost have the mindset of, if we build it, they will come. And there was a sort of an assumed pipeline of students that would just keep coming into the sector over time. But in recent years, as you and your listeners would appreciate, a number of providers around the world have really started to experience some financial headwinds that they perhaps hadn't seen coming and weren't really well prepared for. So all of a sudden they've actually got to think differently about the way they deliver services to key stakeholders and to key customers. And I use the word advisably because I know a lot of university leaders shudder at the thought of students actually being customers. But of course, in many ways they are exactly the same as any other sector has customers and needs to think about what those customers or clients want or expect or in fact are paying for as part of their engagement. And all of a sudden, this really means that you need to start thinking about their service delivery in the same way as a number of other retail and consumer and financial services and even government agencies have been doing for some time now.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Absolutely. We're really seeing that change coming about in the United States because what institutions are realizing is that students are not just consumers, but actually they're informed consumers more and more, and they have certain expectations. Shifting a little bit, another really interesting concept that I saw on your website is building a digital identity to support vulnerable citizens. Now that's amazing. A couple of things I'd like to throw in there. First of all, of course, what do we mean by the digital identity? And do you find that it's more of a challenge in some parts of the world than others simply because of the access to technology?

Catherine Friday: Yeah, absolutely we do, Bill. And it's a great question. Of course, this digital identity concept is something that goes well beyond education, but it includes education as well. And so it's how do we make it simpler for all citizens, but particularly those who are underserved to prove who they are and therefore be able to get the right level of service from government agencies that they need. And all of us have had experiences where we have needed to prove our identity to multiple government agencies, even in our own jurisdictions by providing, you know, so many different points of identification, whether passports or driver's license or tax notices or rates notices or water bills or whatever it is, just to prove who we are. But for people who don't necessarily have the national language as their native language, for people who are potentially refugees, for people who are potentially living in low SES areas and don't have all of those sorts of information, the fact that they don't actually locks them out of receiving the very sorts of government support that our agencies are set up to deliver to them. So this is really about thinking about how do we rethink how people can identify who they are and confirm their identity with agencies so that they can quickly get access to the support and services that they need in real time without all of the drama associated with needing to recredentialize themselves over and over again.

Of course, we also see it in parts of the world, my home and yours included, where we are subject to things like natural disasters. So if your house burns down in a bushfire, or if you are inundated because of a flood and you lose all of your identity documents, again, how do you go about engaging with the right sorts of agencies so that you can quickly get access to grants or emergency housing or emergency medical care or any of those things that you might need?

So when we're talking about digital identity, it's really talking about what is sort of one form of identity that can be recognized by all layers of government, that is something that people can have on their phone that is sufficient to credentialize them with whomever it might be who needs to know who they are to give them the level of support and facilitation in their circumstances in real time. And we think that will make a huge difference for all citizens, but particularly those who are currently underserved by governments around the world. You ask an interesting question as part of that, which is, you know, are there some people who will do better from this than others? And yes, it's a really, really important question to ask and something that we are very aware of. So obviously access not only to digital technology becomes an enabler for that, it's a critical enabler for that. And correspondingly, you know, that only works if you have access to Wi-Fi or cell networks that can prove who you are as well. So part of the work that we're doing is to actually think about how can digital technologies be carried cheaply at low or almost no cost to the individual. And so that you don't have the issue of, you know, sort of the digital divide sort of further exacerbating access between those who have and those who don't. And also, of course, a really big part of that is digital trust.

So how do people have the right level of credentials on some sort of digital device that proves who they are, but that is also really low risk. So there is minimal chance of that data being hacked and exploited and used in ways other than the ways that it's intended to be used as well. So all of those are a big part of the work that we're doing at the moment, recognizing that citizens won't even think to or want to use this if they don't even trust the governments that they're wanting to engage with in the first place. So citizen trust is a huge part of this as well. So that's the overall problem that we're wanting to work with governments to solve for, recognizing that there are those challenges along the way.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Wow. Now I should interject here that when Catherine said her home and mine, I'm doing this podcast from Scottsdale, Arizona, and she's in Melbourne, Australia. So it's tomorrow morning where she is and it's late afternoon where I am. So to give you a context for that, the whole concept of a digital identity I find intriguing because I don't know of any other initiative anywhere that comes close to that. In the United States, we still do driver's licenses and things that don't have the sort of reach that the digital identity you're talking about bring for people. And certainly, you're enabling a reach for folks who might not otherwise have it, but it's something that you can carry with you, which in this day and age is really amazing. So if you're listening to this out there, listen up, because this is a great concept that I think needs to be followed up on in a variety of ways. And speaking about following up on it. Now, how do you see the role of a government in fostering this whole process?

Catherine Friday: I think the role of the government here is absolutely crucial, because obviously the government in many respects is ultimately the provider of services to citizens. And so that role is vitally important, but governments will only provide services to citizens when they know who those citizens are. So facilitating both the verification of individuals and then the provision of support to individuals is absolutely the remit of governments. And I guess also those agencies that will often form part of the ecosystem around governments as well. So I'm thinking here about massive not-for-profits like the Red Cross as a for instance, but being able to verify and validate who someone is is a really important part of their remit. But governments of course are also the custodians of these massive data sets across jurisdictions as well that should be able to coordinate the sorts of services that citizens need. So in a number of countries where your listeners are, they will have the same experience as I do here in Australia of needing to repeatedly prove my identity to a federal government, to a state government, and to a local government as well. And at the moment, those governments don't share information about me. And there are a number of reasons as to why as a citizen, I might be glad about that. But there were also a number of frustrations that I experienced as a citizen around that, because some of the support that I might need from my governments will come through all three layers of government and needing to continually reconfirm with all of those three layers, who I am and prove who I am and prove my need and prove my worthiness over and over again is really tiring. It's really cumbersome. It takes a big intellectual and psychological load for people to continue to show up and do that. And as we know, often people when they are under duress, whatever that sort of duress is, they simply don't have the time or energy to do that.

And so they find themselves underserved by the very agencies that should actually be there to catch them and stop them falling through social infrastructure nets that are designed to catch them. And so given that government, both is, on the one hand, the caretaker and the curator of citizen data, and on the other hand, the provider of citizen services, we see governments absolutely have a really key role in driving this and delivering this and also demonstrating their own trustworthiness as the keepers and curators of data as well. You know, we all know people will very happily share data on Facebook or TikTok or Insta or whatever and think nothing about it, but then might get all sorts of concerned any time any sort of government agency asks them for any particular data about themselves. And that's because in many countries there is a real level of mistrust between citizens and the governments that are there to serve them as well. So government has a real responsibility here, not just to be that keeper or curator of the data, but also to demonstrate its trustworthiness and to be abundantly clear with citizens about how that data is kept and safeguarded and the mechanisms around that and the right of the citizen to both offer data up to government agencies, but then also to withdraw that data when they don't want it held anymore as well.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Well, one really interesting and central concept to what you're talking about here is something, again, that I talk about in my podcast a lot, and that is the digital identity and building what you call the digital first culture has to do, I think, as far as higher education is concerned, integrating higher education into society in general. Which is a challenge that we have here, at least in the United States, there's society and then there's higher education, which stands apart in some ways. Now, unfortunately, given some of the social issues that are plaguing society today, those are spilling over into higher education. And I think that if there were a better integration of higher education with government and with politics, certainly some of the ills that we're seeing could be better addressed in a more common way within society. And I think it's just fascinating that this goes so far when we're talking about higher education, obviously, but you know, obviously this goes far beyond that. So in that way, can you talk a little bit about some of what your initiatives are, some of what you're doing in the education sector?

Catherine Friday: Yeah, look, I would love to. Thank you, Bill. And you raise really, really good points again about the way some in society see the division between higher ed and their own lived experiences day to day. And of course, when you talk to most people in higher ed, they have such a strong sense of public good and social value. And the reason that they go into higher ed in the first place is because they believe so deeply in the potential of research and education to deliver better social outcomes for everyone, directly and indirectly. But that, I guess that sense isn't always well understood or well felt more broadly. And when we start to talk to students, and in fact, we've just released a thought leadership paper that was based on interviews with thousands of students around the world. And we said to them, why do you want to go to university? What do you expect out of the experience? And almost universally, they said, we want to go to university because we believe it will improve our prospects at getting a job and connecting us to the real world. So for the students going into the sector, for them, there is a really practical and pragmatic reason to go into the sector. And that's because they see that it will improve their career prospects and their career trajectory. And so when they're looking for universities, they're not necessarily looking at things like global rankings, although that might be true for some international students, but certainly our domestic students when they are choosing which university they go to, it's based very heavily on the program, the course program. So what is being taught? And then secondly, and how is it being taught? And is it a really high quality on campus and digital experience? So is it what we're increasingly calling, you know, high flex or hybrid flexible? So will it meet me where I'm at as a student, will it give me a brilliant opportunity to connect with people who are both like-minded and who will challenge my thinking from a whole range of different backgrounds in a real world setting on a campus? And around that, will it give me brilliant digital content that will also supplement and complement the experiences that I have on campus and deliver those things to me in a way that I can digest in my own time and at my own pace. 

And we're seeing increasingly around the world that tertiary education students are balancing many other responsibilities and obligations outside of their straight learning experience. Dating myself a little bit here, when I was at university last century, if you're a full-time student, pretty much all you did was study and you might have a little bit of part-time or casual work that you did around that, but your primary focus was your full-time study load and you managed everything else around that. Increasingly with generations of students coming through now, we are seeing that flip a little bit. And they either have, because of the pressures of cost of living increases, the pressures of needing to accommodate additional housing prices, all of those things, more and more of them are needing to work outside of university more and more. So there is a lot more paid employment that our students are engaged in. They are also increasingly carrying carer responsibilities outside of their full-time study load, whether it's for parents or extended family or their own children. And many more students, and this is a wonderful thing, but many more students on our campuses today are also living with different types of mental and physical disability as well and bringing all different types of neurodiversity into campus life as well. All of which means they need their content to be delivered in ways that are different, are new, are flexible and are really, really high quality. So when they're looking for high quality teaching and learning, it's not just, do you have a flashy lab that I can use or do you have the latest and greatest lecture theater that I can sit in. It's a much richer experience than that, that they're expecting.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Exactly. And we're seeing the same thing here in the United States. In fact, it's been an amazing transformation. I was at university long before you were at a time when, you know, that going to the university was my job. Yes. And that's the way I looked at it. And I've lived through and been in a faculty and administrator watching this change in what's happening now and in watching higher education here, certainly struggling to accommodate. And it's interesting that it goes also to what we're talking about with students being consumers. Education isn't seen just as a public good. It's something to consume.

Catherine Friday: That's exactly right. It's a private good as well. It is exactly. Yeah. And of course, we're coming up to a time now where we are going to be having in our universities people who were born the year the iPhone was launched. So the iPhone was launched in 2007. Those kids will be hitting our universities nowish. And so they have an expectation that the world that they need will be in their palm. And they experience that in every other domain in their life. And if they can't get it from this university over there, but that university around the block delivers it, then that's where they're gonna go.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Yes, exactly. Now, how do you see and this is something that's really a hot topic in higher education, at least here in the States. What do you see the role of artificial intelligence being in building the digital workforce of the future?

Catherine Friday: I think it has a really, really important role to play. And I don't think anyone would disagree with that. I guess the question a lot of people are grappling with, is this a force for good or a force for evil? And I guess I come down on the side of it depends as to how it's used and how we manage it rather than allow it to manage us. And certainly in the higher ed space, I can see that it has enormous potential for good. It can absolutely do things like help translate lectures in real time for students into whatever their native tongue happens to be. It can support all sorts of learners with the provision of different sorts of content or traditional content in new and different ways. It can act as a lab assistant. If you're busy doing research, it can connect you to ideas that you would never have been connected to otherwise. I know a number of our universities in Australia, lecturers are asking university students to prompt an AI tool to give them an answer to a research question. And then the actual assignment is to critique the AI's research. So they're actually developing skills themselves in critical thinking and research and analysis and continuing to write, but using the AI as something to bounce off rather than taking its word as the final word on the subject. I think it can expedite a lot of really routine mundane non-value adding activities that all of us do and certainly for teachers and academic faculty as well. We're working with a number of universities that have introduced AI to provide chatbot services to students in real time. If you look at the whole schooling system in Korea now, every student has an AI tutor and every teacher has an AI supporter to help them with lesson planning and marking and things like that. So the AI does the first cut of lesson plans and then the teacher will correct and personalize based on what they intend to teach for that particular term or semester. So in terms of, I guess, taking some of the mundane, very non-value-adding activities out of everyone's life, I think it has enormous potential for good and I see that it has real potential application in higher ed as well. But yeah, as I said at the top, I think it's really important that we get ahead of it and we dictate the terms of engagement with AI and not the other way around.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Exactly. I couldn't agree more. I mean, I see AI as a tool and, you know, as educators and as everyone in society, you know, it's our job to manage that.

Catherine Friday: Exactly right. And it has the potential, like when you think about it, as I was saying, to give every student a personalized AI tutor based on data about my performance in my class today. So my AI tutor will know exactly how I went in geometry and how I went in English and how I went in history and all of those things based probably on my test scores from things that I've done this week. And so it will be able to recommend to me additional quizzes. It'll be able to check my learning. It'll be able to recommend to me extension learning. Give me animated videos about those things that I'm not that great at compared to peers in my class. So its ability to provide really bespoke and personalized support, for instance, in that example, is immensely powerful, but it's got to be in the service of the student.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Yes, exactly. So I want to go down a little bit of a different path here. We're talking about what from my perspective, and I've been doing this for 50 years, a real revolution in what's happening in higher education. It's the structure, it's the content, it's the role of faculty and administration. Everything is changing. And certainly the digital aspect of it is going to drive a lot of it as long as we keep it under control. So my question is, do you think that the universities of the past are going to be the universities of the future?

Catherine Friday: That's an excellent, excellent question. And I think based on current business models, no, but I say that with the caveat. I think those that are the global research elite are probably safe in their current business models for now. And say for the next five to 10 years, but even then they will need to change as well. I think everyone outside of that needs to really be thinking about who they serve, why they serve and how they serve now. And those things need to change in my view and in the views of I guess many of the universities that we work with around the world in a hurry because their whole value proposition is under a real question mark, both from the governments that fund them or the investors that fund them and the students that they're intended to serve. When there are so many other means for people to get access to high quality globally relevant data and information and universities no longer have the monopoly on access to high quality information, their whole value proposition has changed and it's changed really fast. You or I, Bill, can get access to high quality information, world leading information about anything that interests us with the click of a button. Terabytes of it is freely available for anyone to consume in real time. So under those sorts of circumstances, universities really need to think about what is our value proposition. And if all that it is, is proving, like accrediting that someone says, or that someone knows what they claim to know, then that's actually not one heck of a value proposition. There's gotta be a lot more to it than that. And a piece of paper at the end of the process possibly isn't worth the time cost or the financial impost.

So a lot of the work that we're actually doing with universities now is to rethink what is their value proposition? What is their area of specialization? What should it be? And how can they clearly communicate what that is to their intended market? And in fact, do they even know who their intended market is? Or do they just always take the same cohort of students from wherever? Because that's what they've always done without actually understanding why those students are there in the first place. So I think there are a whole lot of changes that universities need to make in a real hurry, starting with that whole piece around what is our compelling value proposition and to whom. And then related to that are other questions around, how do we then give to students and faculty what they're expecting of us? And digital will necessarily be a really big part of that.

Another part of that is how can we start to think about doing things with economies of scale behind them? And I know to a lot of universities that will be absolute anathema. It's, we don't want to be sharing processes and systems across the university and each of our colleges and faculties is special. And for some things that will absolutely be true, but for others, I kind of question it. Does everyone need their own payroll system? Does everyone need their own contract management system? Does everyone need their own sort of time recording systems? Or can those things be done better and faster and cheaper, you know, in different ways? And it's not enough just to think about cost cutting, you know, in terms of, you know, slicing travel budgets or selling off an oval somewhere. You know, it's got to be a lot more strategic than that. So, you know, just to really rethink how it is we deliver value as a university.

And then of course, the other big piece that we're talking about a lot and you and I touched on at the top is to really understand the humans that we are here to serve, both at a societal level, but also corporate functions. But absolutely, who were the teachers, who were the researchers and who were the students that were here to serve? And are we actually set up to do that in the very best way? And if universities aren't designing their whole strategy around that piece of humans at the center, they're going to be left way, way behind.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: I certainly agree with that. I mean, the basic concept that we're sort of dancing around here is return on investment.

Catherine Friday: Yes.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: You know, and it's always been the case in higher education that it's the only business where the business tells the consumer what's good for them and how much they'll pay for it.

Catherine Friday: Yeah. And how much they'll pay for it, whether they want to or not. Exactly.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: And I think what we're seeing here is that's getting turned on its head. And as you said, students now have options. They don't need to go to a certain university. They don't need a four year degree. I would assume that one of the things you're talking to universities about are certificates and badges and shorter term kinds of education that we're seeing becoming increasingly popular.

Catherine Friday: Absolutely, yeah. That's exactly right. And so I guess what we're seeing, you know, can find in some areas, you know, called micro credentials, those sorts of things. So, you know, smoothing transition between career paths. But, you know, in the current age, you know, on average people change not just job, but career between six and 10 times over the course of their professional life. They're not going to go back to university for a four year experience every time they want to make those sorts of changes. So again, micro credentials and short courses become really important in smoothing those transitions over time. And of course, some of those courses are provided by universities. Many more of them could be, but also many employers are also providing that sort of training in-house as well. So again, students and employees, learners in any capacity, however, as you said, they have options. So I could go to a provider down the street or the employer who's about to bring me on has offered me an MBA paid for in-house through a provider where they've already got a relationship. And all I have to do is consume the course content at my own pace.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Yes. And it's interesting that you said that institutions will say, we're special and our programs are special. Today, students are deciding what's special.

Catherine Friday: That is exactly right. Exactly right.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: And not seeing that value, not seeing that return on investment is really driving things. And I really I couldn't agree more that I think universities have the ability to pivot and to respond to what's going on. But at least here we have an amazing resistance to the change that needs to come about. And it'll be interesting to see exactly how that will happen. Because I think one of the key things you talked about, you might just say another word about it, is everything that you've been talking about is about access.

Catherine Friday: Yes.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: That's what is going to dictate the success, not just of students, but of institutions that are serving those students and the people like yourself who are trying to get this thing turned around.

Catherine Friday: Yeah, absolutely. And access and equitable access is absolutely at the heart of a lot of these changes. And I think where some universities haven't yet had the success that they were seeking in some of these really big changes is where they have forgotten the humans, you know, why are we actually making these changes? And the first humans that they have forgotten to engage with are their own faculty. And of course, in, you know, in so many parts of society, people value being consulted with, and you need to consult with them in order to get their feedback on ideas before any sort of change can happen. I think that is true by orders of magnitude more true in the university sector than anywhere else because academics by their very nature value their own autonomy and intellectual freedom. So they absolutely need to understand why is change being proposed? How is change going to be better for them? And what will they be able to do better and differently as a consequence of the change? And where universities have succeeded, it's by having those sorts of discussions really early and really upfront and ensuring that faculty are completely on board with the vision. Where are we going and why are we going there? And how will you be able to do things better as a consequence of doing that? And to loop back to your point around access and my point around equitable access, I think we'd be hard pressed to find an academic anywhere who didn't believe firmly in that as a really strong principle. But if it's not articulated in that way and they're not bought into the discussions around that, they will understandably be resistant to any suggestions that they need to do things any differently to the way they've always done them before. 

And if I just talk a little bit about some of that research that we've just done that I referenced earlier on, we asked students all around the world, what do you want from your university experience? And if you could spend money on anything, what would it be? And all of the students said, we would spend money on teaching our teachers how to teach us better. And when we asked the same question of faculty and we said, you could spend money on anything, what would it be? They said, we would love to better understand how to teach our students using the latest and greatest digital tools to make sure they have the very best learning experience. But we currently don't have time to do that because we are so caught up in the busy work of administration in the university and so caught up in all of the other expectations made of us that we don't have the time to deliver teaching or research in the way that we would best like to. So it was really interesting to ask that the needs or that I guess the described wants of both those cohorts, the students and the teachers beautifully overlapped. And yet like a central office at university, so the house of the funding isn't actually providing for that.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Amazing. And I think it also ties into the whole concept of lifelong learning.

Catherine Friday: Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. And there needing to be so many different modalities for that to be offered again. And teachers, we understand, would love to be able to provide that and would love to be able to ensure that anyone who wants to access their course content can do so and has a really high quality experience when they do that. But right now they're not set up to be able to do that in the way that they would like.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Yes. Well, we're winding down here. This conversation has gone by very quickly. And it's really interesting because I hope that everyone who's listening to this will be as enlightened as I have been as to what some of your initiatives, some of the forward thinking things that you have talked about. And certainly they can go to your website and explore some of these things if they would like to. But as we do wind down, there are two questions that we always ask our guests as we leave. The first is, what have I not asked that you'd like to say about what you do? And second, how do you see the future of higher education?

Catherine Friday: So great questions. So Bill, I don't think there's anything that you haven't asked, but what I love about what I do is that EY is a massive platform. We have globally 350,000 monumentally talented and brilliant people. And it is my great good fortune to work with many of them and bring them together to help support solving problems in the higher education sector, which is a sector that I am personally deeply passionate about, because I think it's through higher education that we will be able to lead into and start to solve the biggest, most pressing challenges that we globally face today. And absent that sort of thinking, that critical thinking and research, you know, as a species, we're gonna find the future really, really challenging. So the solutions to all of our problems are held within what higher education can deliver effectively for humanity. So deeply passionate about that and love the fact that through EY and the platform that is EY, we have some small role to play as part of that. And I think that possibly then goes some way to answering your second question as well broadly around the work that we're doing as well. But was there part of that that I haven't yet missed, or I haven't yet answered? Because I've been rabbiting on a bit and I may well have spoken around the question rather than directly answering it.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Yeah, I think we do have a view of where you see things going for sure.

Catherine Friday: Yeah. At least I do. If anybody else is paying attention, they will know too.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: Absolutely. And they're welcome to get in touch and I can talk more. That's great. Well, I want to thank our special guest today, Catherine Friday, who is a managing partner at Ernst & Young Oceania with special attention to global education, which we've been talking about today. And thank you very much for your insights, Catherine, and look forward to perhaps continuing this conversation in the future.

Catherine Friday: I would welcome that. Thank you so much.

Dr. Bill Pepicello: And with that, ladies and gentlemen, you have just EdUped.