854: LIVE From Ellucian Live 2024 - with John Leever,⁠ Executive Director of Enterprise Applications, ⁠National Louis University⁠

Joe Sallustio: Welcome back everybody. It's your time to up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. Yes, we are making education your business here in San Antonio, Texas, at the Convention Center. I don't remember the name of the Convention Center, but it's a big Convention Center. There are lots of people here at Ellucian Live. This is my second podcast of the first day. They put me right to work. Jess Weston, my handler who helps me schedule all these episodes, is off right now doing her thing with Ellucian, but she is a joy to work with. I'm happy to be here and catch people before they start to experience the brilliance of this conference and find out why they're here, what they expect, what they want to take away, and what are the things that we're dealing with in higher education today that bring people out for a conference like this.

I've got another gentleman in front of me that's going to answer every single one of those questions that I just put forward if he can remember them all, because I don't ask him a second time. No, I'm not going to do that to him. Ladies and gentlemen, here he is. He is John Leever, the executive director of enterprise applications at National Louis University. John, what's going on?

John Leever: I'm here at San Antonio. Really excited because of Ellucian Live. We were invited to come because of a project we worked on and we won the Elite Award.

Joe Sallustio: Tell us about the Elite Award. What is this?

John Leever: So, Ellucian sponsors awards. They encourage people to do different things with technology. Our award is actually for improving staff performance, you know, helping staff do their work better. Our project was around an LMS system, learning management. We have the data coming in, we know the courses that are there, but the content wasn't there.

Joe Sallustio: So, a big issue was they were manually doing this and having huge issues, wrong data, faculty were upset. A lot of things and it has cascading effects, right?

John Leever: Exactly, a lot of upset people. So they came to the IT department, which I'm executive director of, and said, "Hey, we need something."

Joe Sallustio: And what did they ask for?

John Leever: They wanted a way to be able to load that data into the LMS. So it's really about the content. I mean, we have the courses, we didn't have content. You have an English 101 course, that faculty wants to use the one he taught last year, he doesn't want to have to redo all the stuff.

Joe Sallustio: Don't mess up with my class.

John Leever: Yeah, don't waste my time, don't make me put in my name again, I don't even want to type that. So we built a system which lets them choose which course they want to pull down, whether it's one from last term, two terms, or if they just want to use the shell that the instructional designers built in. And it automatically fills in the information that they need.

Joe Sallustio: So it's auto-fill? Pre-populates the content?

John Leever: All they have to do then is just unlock it and make it available to the students.

Joe Sallustio: Amazing! That is pretty cool. So before we dive into that a little bit further, tell us about National Louis University. Where are you? Who do you serve? How do you serve them?

John Leever: Okay, so we're in the Chicago area. We have campuses in Wheeling, Chicago, and a campus in Tampa. One of the big programs we have... By the way, the music started when you started telling your story. Did you hear the music playing in the background?

Joe Sallustio: Yeah. It's perfect timing. Go ahead.

John Leever: All right. So one of the big programs that came about about four or five years ago, maybe a little bit longer, was to bring in students who couldn't afford to go to universities. And the president at the time, and I know you've interviewed her, maybe she's told you the story, but it's a good story. She went to the staff and said, "Hey, how do we do this so we can make this affordable?" So for the price of Pell and the Illinois MAP Grant, students' tuition's covered.

Joe Sallustio: Whoa, that's amazing.

John Leever: Yeah. We're not, you know, they have to pay living expenses, some other expenses, but it's epic.

Joe Sallustio: Yeah. It was a shock to me because I came from a different university that raised prices every year, you know, and this was like very common amongst higher ed institutions. You need more money. You put it onto the customer. That's the way it works. Well, that's any business really. But you know, it was, wait a minute, we're not going to do that. They turned it around and okay, we do have a situation, we deal with it. You know, it's a blended course, so a blended program, part online, part in person. So the students are getting big experiences on that.

John Leever: So, that sounds, and I actually know about this program because I know about National Louis University. It also created a pipeline of students who weren't going, there were many students that weren't going to end up going to college and they saw a path forward because of the affordability factor, which we know is huge right now.

Joe Sallustio: Exactly. In information technology as the executive director, what does enterprise applications mean to the layman here? Like enterprise applications and what does it mean and what are you doing on a daily basis?

John Leever: Okay, enterprise applications or ERP as it's colloquially known is bringing multiple different modules together, connected all together. So we've got Ellucian's Banner product, we have the finance module, the student module, the financial aid module, and the HRM payroll. So when a person comes to National Louis, whether they're a student, a staff, or faculty, they have one ID. That is a person. You can be multiple roles. You could be a faculty, you could be a staff, you could be a student and a faculty, or a student and a staff, but you have one ID.

Joe Sallustio: So that makes it cleaner to connect everything together when you're getting your payroll, when you're getting your financial aid, when you're getting students. So it's all right there. So that's where the ERP gets really strong. My role is really around automating. I spend a lot of my time meeting with users. We have meetings every Monday where we contact the directors of each department and discuss their projects. We give them updates on what we're doing, how it's going. They come back with new things they want to do and we make it happen for them.

Automation is one of those things where I feel like sometimes you expect things to be automated and you find people are still doing things manually and you go, wait a second, how could you possibly be doing that manually?

John Leever: Well, some things people still do manually and you have to, there's a fine line between, you know, I'm a technology guru and I know we can automate that too. I'm in control of this process and I don't want you to touch it.

Joe Sallustio: Right? So there's some inertia that we have in higher education. How have you dealt with that personally, professionally to move your institution forward from a technology perspective?

John Leever: Yeah. I mean, you hit it on the mark. We, there's always some people who are stuck in that mode.

Joe Sallustio: Yikes.

John Leever: Yeah. And, I say the same thing. I mean, when somebody describes this process that's manual and this and I go, you're killing me here.

Joe Sallustio: You're killing me, Smalls.

John Leever: Yeah, exactly. I mean, we can do this. A lot of times it's, break it down, show them what we can do. But then you're gonna, then am I gonna have a job anymore?

Joe Sallustio: John, you're gonna like now I'm going to feel like I'm not in control of something. That is what typically happens. You know, that there's a control factor, right? There is definitely a lot of people who think they're going to lose their job.

John Leever: Yeah. We turn it around and say, well, now you can do the job of talking to the student.

Joe Sallustio: The job you're supposed to be doing.

John Leever: Right. Well, why are you wasting time running jobs or, you know, checking reports when we can do that for you?

Joe Sallustio: 100%. Yeah, I love that. That's so true. I feel sometimes we get so wrapped up in systems, we forget that we're all supposed to be serving a student, but you get, oh, nobody else can do that except for me. So I've got to spend time over here doing this manually when you can automate things, when you can go to your users and say, what is it exactly that you need to eventually improve the student experience? And the student expects a certain amount of technology now, right? I'll say like, you can go to Netflix tonight. I bet you how many people are gonna be watching streaming video in their hotel room and you're gonna skip the intro. That's how fast we won't even wait for an intro anymore. We expect Uber to show up within four minutes and pick us up and we open and shut the door and don't have to do a single thing.

But when you go to hire, you can transfer money in your bank account in 30 seconds or less. You can move $5,000 bucks around. I mean, I can't, but people who have $5,000 could. But in higher ed, you can't do some of those things with that frictionless experience. That's got to be top of mind for you on improving the service to students.

John Leever: Well, and if we improve the service to staff, which we had done with that project, we are ultimately improving the thing to the students. One of the key things to what we do for the students is make sure that that course is available two weeks before the start of the term.

Joe Sallustio: Nailed it.

John Leever: Getting that out there, getting the course information into the thing made that happen. So now I'm a student, I can access all these materials, I can see what I'm looking at, I can get in there and futz around and can look at quizzes, you can look at your readings, you know what's coming up, you know what kind of course it's going to be, and it's available. So there's a reduced chance of getting in the course and then bam, I've got an assignment due in three days, right?

Joe Sallustio: Right, exactly. And then, you know, then they're struggling to, well, am I going to drop the course? Am I going to withdraw? How am I going to do this? This is lunacy. I know it's crazy, but we'll do it anyway. I love it. So what do you expect to take away from the conference? We're here on the first day. I guess it even started yesterday with some things, but today most of the users are here or coming in. There are lines everywhere at the hotel to check in. There's a solar eclipse coming in our direction. So many people are interested here. What are you here to do and to learn?

John Leever: I want to know where Ellucian's going next. Because that impacts where we're going to take things. What it's going to do for the staff, what it's going to do to help that staff help the student. Being in IT, I'm like one step back from directly with students. But I know my work is critical to what everybody else is doing.

Joe Sallustio: Tell them like it is. So when you leave on Thursday or Wednesday? Actually, we're staying until Friday. We're staying for lectures. You gotta explore while you're here. Explore San Antonio. This is a successful conference on Thursday, if what happens for you?

John Leever: If I know where Ellucian's going, if I can believe that they're going to get us there. My day, every day is review, you know, what the users in my university want, what National Louis is trying to do. And National Louis is doing very amazing things. They started a nursing program. We just incorporated a new program from another university that had to close.

Joe Sallustio: That is amazing.

John Leever: I know, we're growing and we're growing in dynamic ways.

Joe Sallustio: The right way.

John Leever: Right. We're expanding our programs. We're not just, you know, spending money. So if I can learn that Ellucian's going to be coming out with something new for us, I need to know that. What are they going to have that's going to be new? I just attended a session about Ellucian Communicate, which is a replacement for their BCM product, Banner Communication Management. And they were asking a bunch of questions about what do we want?

Joe Sallustio: Really?

John Leever: Yeah, they took it to us not to just here, I'm going to give you a product and you get to use it. They're saying, what do we need? What do you need from us? And we'll build it.

Joe Sallustio: Right. I mean, that's the idea. Tell us to take us home, if you will, at the end of this episode. What else do you want to say about National Louis University? It's too early for me to get tongue-tied because I have to like do 16 more of these over the next two days. What do you want to say about National Louis University, the work that you're doing, your partnership with Ellucian, the conference, anything at all? Open mic.

John Leever: Well, I mentioned earlier about the program where we're bringing in freshmen students with just Pell Grants and MAP Grants, the Illinois State Grant.

Joe Sallustio: It's inspiring.

John Leever: Yeah, it definitely is. There are also, I mean, we helped out. We purchased Kendall College from Laureate Group. School was about to go, you know, say we're closing it. No, we said we're keeping it. We're going to bring it in. Argosi had a problem. We brought them in. We're... Nivine Megahed is our president and she's encouraging. She wants us to grow. And, you know, the goal is 20,000 students. That's a huge goal for us to get there.

Joe Sallustio: You need technology. How many students you have now?

John Leever: Between seven and eight.

Joe Sallustio: OK. Yeah. I mean, you know what? Stretch goal. There are not many institutions that are going to be able to achieve a goal like that. You have to have forward-thinking leadership that's ready to just disrupt and make bold decisions. You have to have the technology. You cannot do it without the right technology. It will not work right because AI is going to help allow you to widen your net, so to speak. So to your point, you have a motivated president, you have a motivated team, you're on the right path. Technology is going to help bridge that gap between where you are now and the 20,000.

John Leever: Yeah. And National Louis has been using Banner since 2000.

Joe Sallustio: Wow. 24 years on one computer system. I don't think any company has got that record.

John Leever: Right. You know, it's a commitment to using it. The users are doing what they have to do to keep the business going. We went through a pandemic. It didn't affect us. We grew during a pandemic.

Joe Sallustio: Yeah, it's amazing.

Well, I hope you have a great conference here, John, and that you get to learn all the things that you want to learn. Ladies and gentlemen, he's my guest today. No, he's your guest today. He is John Leever. He's executive director of enterprise applications at National Louis University. John, we hope you had a good time here. You'll remember this, hopefully, when you go home on Friday. You'll go, it's your first podcast. It's a memorable moment. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you know what you have done. You've just ed-uped.