892: LIVE from Jenzabar's Annual Meeting (JAM)⁠⁠ 2024 - with Devin Ray, Enterprise Application Services Manager, Edgewood College

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Welcome back everybody. It's your time to ed up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. This is Dr. Joe Sallustio here live at Genzobar Jam 2024. Jam Jam Jam. I like that one. It feels good to press it. Jam. Genzobar Jam. We're here at the Gaylord Texan Resort in Dallas, Texas. First podcast of the day here at Genzobar Jam.

Elvin and I got in, we were having a contest to see, well, we weren't having the contest, the airlines were having a contest to see which one of us could be delayed longer. Elvin won. He got in at 1:45 AM. I got in at 1:15 AM. So we're a little tired, but we're going to make this work, although we're running on fumes, but that's when we make a lot of mistakes and mistakes are fun here at Genzobar Jam. See how that works? We just mask all our mistakes. I'm going to hit this button every time somebody messes up. Jam. Feels good. 

We're here. There are lots of people just getting in. Things are getting set up. These conversations are going to be fresh. It's been a year since we've been at Genzobar Jam. So we're really excited to catch up with old friends and I've got one with me today. Let me make sure I bring him in appropriately. I actually got things ready for him.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is not working out the way it's supposed to, but I will get there eventually. Yeah, we'll do enough of these together. You might recognize the voice. Ladies and gentlemen, here he is. He is the one and only Jeff Elliott. He's senior director of product management at Genzobar. Jeff, welcome back.

Jeff Elliott: Joe, thank you so much. Great to be here. Elvin, nice to see you all. It's been a year. It's been a long time, too long.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: It has been too long. Great to be back. Now that I'm more ready, thank you for that. I wasn't ready. It was going to be something like this. Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, Jeff Elliott.

That goes with the jam Barry White. I like it. Jeff Elliott. Anyway, that was what's supposed to happen. But you know, I like it though. Thank you. We've got a guest with us today. We want to get into the conversation. I'll be more ready for him. Ladies and gentlemen, let's bring him to the microphone right now.

This is going to play. So I'm sure he entered a wedding reception. He is the enterprise application services manager for Edgewood College and you're on the mic. First one on the mic. What's going on, Devin? How are you?

Devin Ray: I'm doing great. This is exciting. I'm glad to be here.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You're breaking the ice. You're the first one. Now people are going to walk by and go, what is that guy doing? Why is he on the microphone? Devin, tell us a little about Edgewood College, where you are located, what you do, how you do it.

Devin Ray: We are a small liberal arts college in Madison, Wisconsin. In my role, I work in IT as the manager of enterprise application services, but really we're the group that tries to bring the vision together of all of our interconnected solutions, do the integrations between our student information system and all the other products that we have and make sure that our college is kind of pulling together in a similar direction.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Are you in the cicada zone at this time?

Devin Ray: We are at the north end of it. I heard they're just starting to emerge up by us. We haven't caught the full brunt of it. I think we only get one of the two kinds that come out this year.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, they get one of them. But we've got both. I live in St. Charles, Missouri. Just a quick story. Yesterday I was mowing the lawn and apparently these cicadas like deep sounds like lawnmowers or Barry White. So these deep guttural sounds, they will start flying around. So I was mowing the lawn on my riding mower. Super lazy, but I'm doing it. And I had them flying at me. I had a couple that had made a home on my hat. You know, they're all over anyway. I get them all off. I spray down the mower, it's all good. Walk inside and I'm like, I feel a little weird. One was sitting right on the back of my neck. And I thought, you know what? Isn't that just ironic?

It's kind of like how IT works in schools, right? There's always something that has to be focused on. It's a big job these days, right? There are lots of little cicadas flying around you. There's data security issues. There's student data that needs to be protected. There are applications. There's artificial intelligence. There are so many areas, applications. "I want this, Devin. I need this. I want it. Give it to me." How do you manage all this? Especially with a lean IT team?

Devin Ray: Well, it really comes down to being able to develop a roadmap of where you want to go. That's critical so that you have folks that are all trying to move in the same direction. Even though we do have centralized systems, there's always going to be those add-ons and those added value areas that people want to look for. So having a roadmap and a project plan and a project pipeline is really critical to be able to bring those in in an organized fashion, to integrate them in an organized fashion, and make sure that those releases are successful so that people actually get the full value out of what you're trying to introduce.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Jeff, I mean this is hard being in IT these days.

Jeff Elliott: Sure, of course. And you know, you've got a lot of the added burden now of, I think for all the right reasons, schools moving to being hosted and managed for a lot of the security, for a lot of the data protection, all that. But that comes with new technical challenges, access to data reporting. I've been on, I can't tell you how many meetings with Devin and it's hard too because higher ed can be like herding cats. Not only do you have to have all the technicals in order, but you have to bring the people together to execute. Right. And it's not Devin's people who execute. Devin has the vision. Devin has the plan, but you've got to find a way to bring all these people together, share the vision, share the value of what we're doing and why it's so positive. And even then it's speed bumps and potholes and it is really, really hard for IT folks.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You know that's a good segue. I should actually pay you for that because it was so good. I agree. Edgewood and you had this evolution of technology. Now what brought you to the idea of a single vendor solution? Why was that a necessary step in evolution for your college?

Devin Ray: Well, a lot of it is around operational efficiency. With having a limited amount of staff, especially over the last decade as we had the demographic crisis and then what the Census Bureau is saying that there's even over 2010 to 2021 there's 12% less students even entering college immediately after high school. All of that kind of leads into this. There are fewer resources, the budgets get tighter, fewer people trying to make things happen. It's not that your services go away. You still have to register the students, you still have to provide all the same services you did before even if it's a smaller number. And so being able to not have all those disjointed systems, bring everything into one system where you can create that operational efficiency, where you're all kind of helping each other out with different aspects of what we're all trying to accomplish, bringing that all into one location really is critical in order for that to be successful. 

And then when you're not just trying to stay afloat and tread water and trying to look towards the future, having all of that information in one place where you can look at it, analyze it, make plans around it, is so much easier if you're in a centralized system where you're kind of speaking to one source of truth in order to make those data-informed decisions and try to take you where you want to go next.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You know, so your partnership with Genzobar has evolved too. Talk a little bit about that. Maybe, Jeff, you can jump in too, because the evolution of partnership is important. Because this is something that needs to be said. At some point, partnerships matter. And at another point, when you need to take a step up in evolution at your institution, you have to survey what other opportunities are out there. It's a responsibility of an institution to say, I need to shop around every little bit. And the vendor has to keep selling to you, I guess maybe is that right? Through relationships, partnerships, through evolution, through investments in their technology to say yes, we're gonna keep giving you what you need. So keep choosing us. 

Yeah, you know, that's important. It's kind of like, yeah, we've been with Genzobar for 20 years. We've been with so-and-so for 20 years. But that's 20 years of delivery over and over and over or else if it wasn't you'd switch. As somebody who is in IT, you'd switch to always looking at what else is out there, new growth areas, and who's kind of leading the way in the landscape and where we need to go next. Why did this get to this point, this evolution, this partnership, or how did it get to this point, and how long have you been dealing with Genzobar yourself, and tell me about it.

Devin Ray: I've been working with Genzobar directly since 2008. I was involved in a conversion for an older Genzobar product to the Genzobar EX at the time. So that was kind of my introduction. And so after getting, you know, sitting through an entire summer, it was like 16 weeks of training on every module that they offer, it gave me a really interesting kind of insight into the background of not just what things look like from the IT perspective, but how all of the different offices are going to play into using this product. 

And so that really helped in my own professional development, being able to position myself in an area where I could see the bigger picture, see how this is all supposed to work together, at least through Genzobar's vision, how that matches up with how Edgewood does things. And then be able to have those conversations with Genzobar to say, okay, these are the gaps that I see. This is where we are going to need to be in X months. And what are you doing that's going to make sure that we can get across that finish line?

Dr. Joe Sallustio: And Jeff, you always have to deliver. Always. You know, and sometimes the answer is no. Devin and I have had those moments, right?

Jeff Elliott: I think, Joe, what you hit on earlier is what is so important in this. It's what Genzobar tries to take so seriously, and that's the relationships, right? The alternative to a single solution or a single vendor is best of breed, right? That's what the industry would call that. And it's not just about APIs. It's not just about does data move. It's about a team at Genzobar who understands Edgewood and Devin and all of Devin's users' needs and all that stuff. And it is so much more complex to pull these different disparate systems together. 

And you know, we do that as part of our construct, as part of our design, to do a lot of that work. And, you know, that's where listening to users is so important to us, and hearing those problems and hearing those challenges, and trying to create a single system, for the most part, that solves a lot of that. Not perfectly, not always, right? And Devin and other users like Devin will come to us with challenges and the answer will be, yeah, you know, that's a little specific to Edgewood, but you know, it's a great idea and concept and let's figure all that out. 

So those relationships are crucial. I mean, you know, at Genzobar, I'm part of a team that is support and it's PD and it's all the different teams and they always bring clients forward and go, here's what this team is going through right now. You know, what can we all do to help? And that's, I think, at the heart of it. It isn't just about the technical APIs, it isn't just about can the data move, it's about that relationship and that partnership. And it's something we try really, really hard, hopefully to a lot of success, to maintain and balance. And that's what I think helps schools like Edgewood feel comfortable moving forward with us, is we've had those discussions. We've had some hard discussions. We've had some light discussions. And you just don't get that when you try to glue together all of the best of breed that a department saw at a conference and wants now and doesn't understand what the work takes and what goes into managing all that.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Tell them like it is. You know, Devin, just as I'm hearing Jeff talk, I'm going, how many systems did you need to bring into one to move to a single vendor solution? The timing makes a huge difference because I don't know how many systems you need to bring into one, but you might have contracts all over the place. You have different lengths. You can get out of some, you can't get out of others. You know, there might be an investment to do something like this and you let your other contracts run out. Can you talk about that criteria process? Like, what, first of all, how do you think about that? Right. So if you're talking to somebody right now that's going, I want to move to a single vendor solution. Well, it's not that easy. The timing all has to be worked out. And then how did you choose the vendor? Like, what was the criteria that you said this is the criteria that we're going to have to choose this vendor who's going to be our single vendor solution? A lot of questions in there. I know. Yeah. That's called rapid fire. Devin, you know.

Devin Ray: A lot of it is just looking at where we sit in terms of resources right now and what is going to be the most impactful for the institution. People always say, what are the big rocks that you can move right away? And focus on those first. What is the biggest impact that we can do with the least amount of impact to our ability to continue to serve people as we go? But it's a delicate balance. And we've straddled those lines for years with some products where we're kind of one foot in one product, one foot in the other as we're trying to get things going. It's not always a straight line. 

That's hard because users, right? Well, I'm not going to use this new thing if I have my old thing that works for me right now. I don't want to use a new process. Yeah, well, but also, I mean, we've experienced tons of turnover. And turnover in leadership positions where you know, we think we're headed in one direction and then two months later we're going somewhere else. 

So it's always... You kind of try and pick a North Star and figure out how and be able to, you know, in the college politics, talk about, be able to speak really truly in a way that they understand about how if we are able to move in this direction, use this configuration of tools in this way, we can accomplish what you want to accomplish. We can also provide the efficiency that we're looking for and provide that student experience that we're all hoping to provide.

When you're in an area where you have four or five different products all trying to dance around a certain subject, that student experience is really disjointed. And we always say in higher ed that it's the student experience, the students first, how do we make this about the student? And it's really hard. You really have to keep telling people to step back, take a look at when we say student experience and student first, what does that actually mean? How do we actually make that a reality? And it's not just easier for our faculty and staff. What does this student experience look like in reality? And when you can paint that picture and sell that to leadership, it helps kind of grease the skids for getting you moving in the right direction.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: What do you want to add to that, Jeff?

Jeff Elliott: So well said. You know, again, it's organizing because when you first asked your question, I'm sitting here going, yeah, Devin, how do you mentally organize for all of that? And it is such a challenge because, you know, there's, we're all human beings, right? Like, yeah, I want to help the students, but Devin, I don't really want to learn a new system. You know, and you just, even if it's subconscious, you get pushback, you get divisive, you get things like that. 

You know, I know a lot of times when I try to work with folks in these moments, Devin, I thought you said a really good point about, you know, what's our North Star, right? Like I work with a lot of schools, obviously in my role. And sometimes it's like, well, we're a community college and I'm like, okay, well, you know, you're getting them ready to move out to the four-year school and yet you register for them. You know, is that you being true to your mission? Is that you being true to that North Star?

What I've always enjoyed working with Devin and the folks at Edgewood is there's a lot of synergy on that campus for that. I think Devin and his team have always done a great job not only mentally organizing how, but really trying to get folks invested and wanting to do it. At the end of the day, you know, if you don't have the support from above, it's really hard. It's really hard to execute that. It's really hard to get 200 people aligned on the same grassroots move.

Devin Ray: Well and when some of those pathways, they aren't all the same. Like right now we are going through a major shift at Edgewood. Yes, we are a small on-campus liberal arts college, but we are in the process right now of starting up, we've just basically gone worldwide. We, through an OPM partnership, are offering graduate programs.

And we, in the last six months, we just brought in over, I think, 350 new students into programs that we didn't have eight months ago. That's amazing. And so being able to still deliver an education through a traditional pathway, but then also bring in this whole different population of students, you have to then go back to, okay, what is our overriding message? What are our core values? And how do we make, even though these students are coming at us from different directions and looking for different things and having different expected outcomes, again, that North Star, what does that look like? What does that mean to the institution? And how do we continue to make, are there enough opportunities in the software that we're using to allow all of those different visions to be still moving in the same direction?

Dr. Joe Sallustio: And Joe, that's, you know, you asked earlier about some of the challenges, right? That's the other thing that a lot of our clients are facing is how do we stay relevant? How do we keep our head above water and how do we evolve, right? Artificial intelligence. Well, that's coming too. And again, getting back to that single vendor experience, you know, we have a team at Genzobar who all of us have worked at some time or another with Devin and the folks there. And, you know, that type of flexibility is something that we listen for. We try to accommodate. But again, if you're trying to, you know, you've got one department who says, well, we're going to evolve by doing this. You know, what does it do when it gets to student registration? What does it do when the student goes to pay their bill? It's all that stuff that we have to think of ahead of time that hopefully, again, give campuses like Edgewood that flexibility to kind of eight months ago go, hey, you know what we should try? And we're able to kind of help them execute on that vision. I'm glad you brought it up, Devin.

There is this whole student first or meet students where they are. There's so many ways to say that and there's so many lies around it. It's a conversation for another day. But I see it all the time people who I talked to even in the institution I came from where you say student first, but not really. Not really student first. We'll say it but when it comes down to doing something or investing in something that's student first, you go, well, we can't do that right now. And so there is a kind of a big smoke and mirror piece around what student first means. And it means different things to different people, which is what makes your job so hard is because you have to manage all the systems that the people need to do their job of what student first means. So you have to sift through all of that.

Jeff Elliott: Provide the product. So I don't envy you. I don't envy anyone in IT these days because of artificial intelligence, because of security risks, and all the things you have to watch out for.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: And it makes me ask you this question, and that is what you see for the future of higher ed. And what do you see in the future? What's the industry going to look like?

Devin Ray: Well, the methods of delivery are certainly going to change. Meeting students where they are, that what we are providing, the things that are of value to those students is changing. But also the students' expectations are changing. Generationally, looking at the different generations, Gen Z's expectations versus the ones before, they're willing to pay more for a personalized experience in their education more than any other generation before them. And I think that trend is just going to continue to grow in that direction. And so evolving from a one-size-fits-all solution to something that can still provide that consistent student experience but consistent in an individualized way is going to be a very prominent theme, I think, in higher education going forward.

Jeff Elliott: And Joe, we saw that in working with Devin in that program you're talking about, Devin, right? It was your first foray into that. And we're sitting and talking about curriculum. And it's, we have the traditional version of this. We now have the non-traditional. And they're different, it's the same major. Different program, different courses mix in, different versions, different offerings. It is really just kind of evolving.

And Joe, it's interesting, like I will lead a discussion later this week on student success. And one of the things I always say in there is, you know, you want the institute to succeed. You want your school to succeed, but don't ever confuse an institutional success strategy for a student success strategy. Those are not the same things. They can be aligned, and that's the goal, right? But, you know, I've seen schools who will say, you know, I'll say, what's your student population look like, Devin? Well, we have traditional students, non-traditional students. We're about 48% female. That's not where we're at anymore. And I think, Devin, that's at the heart of what you're getting at. Now we have people who are going to enroll in a class when they have money because they're not going to float loans. The tags we attach to students now have all changed.

Devin Ray: Yeah, your residential student who takes mostly online courses.

Jeff Elliott: Exactly. But you still count them as a residential student. Then you need different program versions. So you say program version to people, they'll start sweating if they know what's going on in the SIS.

Devin Ray: Absolutely.

Jeff Elliott: And again, you get back to how do I coordinate all of that when you're in Devin's role. So I'm with you. I don't envy Devin, his role, someday on campus. But I also agree. I think that's where we're going.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Well, there you have it, everybody. This is the conclusion of the first episode here at Genzobar Jam 2024 with my guest co-host, hopefully multiple time guest co-host as he's here. He is the one and only Jeff, the one and only Elliott. He's senior director of product management at Genzobar and our guest today. No, he is your guest today. He is. He's Devin Ray, Edgewood College Enterprise Application Services Manager.

He gets more exciting music. Devin, thanks for coming on. Did you have a good time, even though you got to talk about IT?

Devin Ray: No, this is great.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Good. All right. Well, there you have it, everybody. You've just ed-uped.