880: Championing Equity in Challenging Times - with Dr. John J. “Ski” Sygielski, President & CEO, HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: 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 today. My name is Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson and I'm filling in today for the amazing, incredible, and world-famous Dr. Joe Scelzo. I sometimes guest host for him and this one is a special case. Really excited to bring you a great show today with two fabulous people. One is my guest host and the other is of course our wonderful guest. I'm an educational workforce leader and a trustee for San Jacinto College in Southeast Houston. You can follow me on LinkedIn to see what else I'm up to. As I mentioned, we have an outstanding co-host today.

Dr. Maureen Murphy is the former president of the College of Southern Maryland where she served for five and a half years. I would and you should consider Maureen a community college expert. Her service to two-year institutions is so incredibly impressive. Take a look at her bio on LinkedIn. It is fabulous. I'm so happy to have you here today, and to share our connection of service to community colleges and what community college in particular. Welcome.

Dr. Maureen Murphy: Well, thank you. I'm happy to be here, Michelle.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Awesome. Friends and family out there, just so you know, I'm a trustee at San Jacinto College. It is my pleasure to introduce a former president of one of our campuses, South Campus. Maureen served in that role for how many years, Maureen?

Dr. Maureen Murphy: For a little over five years. It was a wonderful experience. San Jacinto College is a leader in community colleges, as you well know, and it was an honor, an honor, an absolute honor to be there.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Awesome. I'm sure you missed the Houston weather, which we call air you can wear. Let's bring in our guest, another community college expert in his own right, Dr. John J. Sygielski, who goes by Ski, I'm told, is the president at Harrisburg Area Community College, which is a multi-campus institution serving 11 counties and 65 school districts. Welcome, John.

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: Thank you very much and good afternoon.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Good afternoon. We're gonna jump right in, John. Tell us who you are, what you do, and why it's important.

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: Well, I go by Ski and I am president of the largest, oldest, and I think finest community college in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And my job is to be the cheerleader for the college to make sure that everyone in our 11 county service region, 65 school districts are served well and in the ways that they need so that they can promote themselves into careers that are meaningful and are life-sustaining for the individual and their families.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Very good. Excellent. I love that you say chief cheerleader. That motivation piece is something that I'd like to dive into a little bit. We know that the people that we employ, right, as leaders need to be those frontline chief cheerleaders, but sometimes we can forget that faculty and staff also need a chief cheerleader. So what's it like at your institution when it comes to making sure that you have the capacity through motivation of your internal leadership for your folks to address the needs that students have?

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: Well, we try to make sure that we're staying in touch with our three different, four different constituency groups and understanding what it is that they need at any given time. We know it's very fluid and we know that in light of pre-COVID, COVID, COVID plus, however we're referring to it right now. I don't want to say post-COVID because we're still dealing with COVID and probably will. So until they come up with a new name, but I think it's important for us to understand all four of the groups. And for us, we have faculty, we have classified, and then we have administrative professional and finally students. And so what we try to do is make sure that we're staying in touch with those groups. I meet with the constituency heads once a month to try and get a read on what's going on and then providing resources, not necessarily monetary, but resources to help them, the constituency leaders, help their constituents. 

And so I have a Thursday Zoom session every Thursday from 3:30 to 4:30 for the entire college community. We have 1,500 employees and they are able to come on and hear a few minutes of some updates from me, mainly having to do with general assembly work. And then we move into some type of professional development for a few minutes on some aspect of the college. And then we do a kudos section where we will provide kudos to whoever during that week deserved it, who went over the top in service to the college community and we recognize them there. So those, maybe not a lot of specifics at this point, but at least trying to keep our finger on the pulse of what is or is not going on so that we can adjust the sails, proverbial sails accordingly.

Dr. Maureen Murphy: Ski, I'd like to jump in here and I think you are hitting on something that's really important. Behind what you just said is that at community colleges, we are a little bit different from other kinds of organizations and we're very responsive to all of our constituencies, which also allows us to be pretty darned creative. I'd like you to share some of the creativity that has come out of HACC, especially during the pre-COVID, COVID, COVID plus all of these eras. And what do you see emerging from your institution that has helped you and your organization to meet the needs of the students and their families?

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: You know, I think first and foremost, professional development would be key. I think it is important that we have been able to adjust. And you remember Maureen, you were still in the seat when COVID started. Be able to adjust, so critical. Again, back to understanding what the constituency groups need. Our faculty, like so many faculty around the country, did a phenomenal job in transitioning from close to 90%, if you will, in class to being out of class for at least a year or two in our case. And so I do think that professional development has been critical in helping our employees stay current and also think about the future. 

You know, one of the things while we were in the thick of COVID, the conversations were such as we are not going back to the pre-COVID days. We are gonna make sure that we continue to be innovative. All of that and we have I think you know we look at artificial intelligence how we are slowly starting to integrate artificial intelligence into our coursework especially and back for our English students we have a small committee of faculty that are looking into ways that we can use artificial intelligence the cabinet is talking about ways we can look at it from an organization's perspective but as far as new programming that was critical to us during the pandemic.

What is it that our community is needed? A lot of it had to do in healthcare. That's probably our largest area. One third of all our students are involved in some healthcare field. So we've come up with a couple of new healthcare programs. Also our fire public safety area, police academy, EMT. That's been an area that we've expanded quite a bit. And then certificate programs, because we know that less and less individuals are looking for a degree and are looking for those short-term certificate programs so that they can get out into the workforce have been critical for us. 

The biggest thing, and I'll leave you with this, again, not probably novel, but at least something that we're focusing more of our efforts on is how we're integrating our non-credit workforce development training into or with our credit workforce development programs, classes, that type of thing. That has been something that we have worked on. It'll be about a year now where we combined workforce development and academic affairs, which does work on some campuses. And so we have focused more of our efforts in that way to find how can we do more of the meshing together of those programs in novel and novel and unique ways that are competency based than it is seat time.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: That's an interesting thing. That is something that we have been looking at across the country. You know, at the Association of Community College Trustees conferences, we have all been talking about non-credit to credit alignment, right? And how to break down those barriers so that they are not separate systems for students that are trying to get a, you know, short-term credential, a stackable credential, a micro-credential, not trying to isolate them from the academic side of things where they could easily, you know, turn that into a completion of a industry recognized certificate or a degree, you know, and on to transfer. So I commend you for bringing that up early on. I think it's something we should all be engaging in. 

I like the idea of the PD. I think that's amazing. I think that it's something that we need to increasingly focus on as we talk about motivation, sustainability of our human resources, right? Faculty can get tired, mid-level leaders in particular is who I'm passionate about. They have a huge weight upon them of balancing the needs of the executive leaders that they have, the programmatic responsibility that they have, and then motivating all of the faculty and staff that they have. So that's a heavy load. And then of course you have your front-facing staff. They need professional development as well. But all of that translates into keeping the students we have in addition to recruiting the students that we don't yet have, right? All of those efforts are enrollment in some way, right? 

Talk to me about the enrollment challenges and solutions that you have implemented at your community college. That is something that all of us are always looking at almost daily to keep our programs alive.

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: So from our perspective, first and foremost, I want to say that we have a phenomenal vice president for our student success and enrollment management in Dr. Chrissy Davis-Jones, an Aspen scholar. She's been with us now about three or four years and has brought a lot of her national experience and exposure to HACC. And so let's start with some of the higher end. We've taken a look at and are taking a look at our policies, our procedures, and especially in our policies, looking at ways that we can eliminate some of the systemic racism that exists in those policies still from when they were created in the 60s or 70s or 80s even, because I wanna make sure that it is easy for a student to get into our place and hard for them to get out of here. And I think right now it's a little reversed where it's a little hard to get in and maybe easy to get out. 

So that's the thing, she, Dr. Chrissy Davis-Jones and her team have worked tirelessly to look at ways that we can continue to refine our services to our students and to make sure that it's as seamless as possible and that it's as easy as possible to go through that. So we have spent a lot of time in financial aid and some of the forms that we have had, some of our new student orientations, we have revamped in many ways. And so we are looking at ways in our systems and our structures that will make it much more student friendly, student focused as opposed to employee focused and ease for our employees. And so I think we've made some very serious movement in a positive way that helps the students. 

And case in point is throughout the semester, I will visit classrooms. The first week, I usually will visit anywhere from 50 to 70 classes. And I stop in there and ask them three very quick questions because I do not want to waste the class time. But it's how did we do? What could we do differently and do you have any other comments? And I will say that what's been wonderful, I've been here almost 13 years and I've done it every semester. What I am just delighted in, in the last couple of years especially is the trajectory was moving upwards when it came to financial aid and advising and all the rest of that. Because of the good work that our student success area has done, I get no comments really on things that we can improve. 

Like this morning I passed by a microbiology class that I had not been in and I know we only have three weeks left and I asked those three questions to the students and there was dead silence and I know it's the end of the semester and they were probably eager to get back to talking about protein and all the rest of that. But I finally said to them, I said, you know, if there are no questions, you know, give me some thumbs up and all of them gave thumbs up and that didn't happen three, five, seven years ago. I would take a notebook and I would have pages and pages of things that would be written on there, which were great. I mean, you know they're treasures and take that information back to the vice presidents and then have them work with their teams to take care of it. Always worked and it was great and I appreciated it. Well, now we don't have to really not totally, but we don't have to focus as much as we once did because I think the important issues are being addressed.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Outstanding. Maureen, you had a question.

Dr. Maureen Murphy: I do. I'd like to jump in. I applaud you and your team for the work that you're doing, particularly in looking at structural racism, which does exist in our institutions. How are you as an educational leader continuing to promote that message of diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging when a lot of the political climate is absolutely against it? How do you keep promoting that value?

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: Well, again, let me start at the top. We have 19 board members. And those 19 board members have been committed to DEIB. We call it diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. So they have been committed to that for years, even prior to George Floyd. So we've been doing a lot of work before George Floyd. You know, I sometimes chuckle a little with some of my colleagues, Maureen, you did too. We finally got a chief diversity officer. Well, we've been doing that for years. So what I find interesting is the board of trustees is very supportive. They give millions of dollars. A couple of years ago, they gave a million dollars to our DEI efforts. And we're in our second or third year of that four year initiative. And so it starts with them. They've been very positive about that, very supportive. They formed a DEI committee of the trustees. And just last week, that committee of trustees visited one of our campuses looking at our men of color program, our advising program, a variety of the programs that support our students. 

So I am very proud to work with a group and for a group of 19 committed volunteers who find DEIB to be critical in the community college space because we are here for every one, underscore bold, right italicized. So it starts for me. We host a every Tuesday, it's called Truth Tuesday and all of my vice presidents and I come together. And so our chief diversity officer and myself are the chief diversity officers of the college, if you will. And so we host what's called Truth Tuesday. We will take a reading, we will take videos, we will take whatever. And we try to spend a few minutes. Each of us has that responsibility every Tuesday. So today we had a presentation by our VP of academics who talked a lot about education and where it's at in Pennsylvania. Again, reminders about how our students of color suffer in so many ways, lack of resources, discipline, all the rest of that. So it's a reminder. But then what we end up doing is taking that and seeing how are we impacting those concepts? How are we integrating them into the college? So the question today was with all this that we're knowing about with discipline that happens in the high schools, et cetera, more for students of color than not. What are we doing to make sure that we have as best we can as human imperfect people, imperfect organizations? What are we doing to make sure we are creating that culture and inviting warm, supportive, encouraging culture for everyone? 

I will say Maureen that lately I've been called into some of our legislators offices regarding our DEIB efforts. And I will say I am not backing down at all. There was legislation last week that was proposed that would limit the conversation of DEI in our K-12 and in our institutions of higher learning. And so I've addressed that with several of our legislators. A couple of them have called me in and asked me to spend more time concentrating on white males than our students of color. And I will just say we will agree to disagree on that topic because this is so critical for us to continue our work. I'm delighted to say that we have many legislators in our district that are supportive of it. And we have a governor that is very supportive of that work. 

So I think Maureen, I am emboldened by first of all, my 19 bosses. Second of all, it is a part of who I am as a gay man. That is, I find very important that we talk about diversity and not just a sexual orientation, color and all the rest of it, but also to talk about learning styles, to talk about poverty, to talk about a lot of the issues that many don't seem to talk about because we are the community college, we need to do that. So I will say that I will also on our Thursday Zoom sessions, we will talk about DEIB issues in my Wednesday emails to the college community. There are times that I will publish some things about our DEIB efforts. And I know that those emails are being sent to some of our legislators. And I welcome the opportunity to talk about why DEIB is here, is here to stay and is so necessary, especially in central Pennsylvania, which is maybe one of the most racist and bigoted areas I've ever lived in. A beautiful area, wonderful people, but there is an undercurrent of racism and bigotry that we as the college, the community's college is working to eliminate. And I know it's a lifetime effort, but it is something I am passionate about. I am committed to my senior staff is and of course the board of trustees is as well.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: John, I have to say that while you were talking and saying so many outstanding things and I'm going to highlight before I get to my point, the bravery, but it's necessary bravery. It's required that we address these issues. And the multiple touch points that you have with your faculty, staff, and students, the way that you ensure that there is a collective and that community feeling, the way that you address legislators and the way that you champion what needs to be done, you know, in leadership. But mostly I was thinking how I succeeded as a first generation Latina from poverty, despite all the barriers that I experienced in higher education, not seeing myself in faculty, staff or leadership, not having poverty as an issue that people addressed, not having anyone ask if I had basic needs resources or not having groups to join that were related to my culture. I succeeded despite, and I was just so moved by listening to you thinking what would college have been like if I had succeeded because a leader intentionally removed the barriers. My heart is just both full and very heavy because this is what should be happening across community colleges where we accept 100% of the people who apply. Maureen, you're gonna have to take over because I'm about to lose it here in a second. I appreciate you so much, John. That was a lot. That was a lot of good stuff.

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: Michelle, you brought up something here that I wanna say. We have an addressing poverty, and I believe that so much of this is not new, and we're not the only ones doing it. I know we have two things, we have a state program that's called KEYS, it's an acronym, I never remember what is, Keystone Center. It's dealing for our students who are on SNAP benefits. We also have a care center. The care center is looking at helping our students with food and housing insecurities. And I have to tell you, talking about heart being full and ready to lose it and all the rest of it has to do with those people that are in those two programs because they are doing God's work, Buddha's work, Mohammed's work in working with students who otherwise wouldn't be able to come to the college. 

You know, Maureen and I were brought up in the time where community colleges are truly the on-ramp to higher education. And we've got to make sure that we have those wraparound services for our students more today than ever before. How nice it would have been, and you're much younger than Maureen and I are, but how nice it would have been for us to have some of those wraparound services. I could only imagine what would happen if we did, but it is so critical today for us to offer that to our students and especially because of the economy and what's happened through COVID. We lost nearly 50% of our students and especially most of our students of color during the height of COVID. Now, many of them went to Chewy and Amazon to make 20 and $25 an hour, but what's happening now and we all call our students every semester before registration to find out why they have or have not registered. We're finding more of those students coming back to us now. So they've come to realize it was great to make that money, but they know there's no future there as a career. Now they wanna come back and do what they do, but we need to continue to try to provide those resources to our students. 

And Michelle, the last thing I'll say is, as a Latina and others as black, mixed race, whatever it may be. You know, as a gay man, and I grew up in a time where that was never spoken about, I'm hyper sensitive about resources to people who are different because we are not as homogeneous as we once were. And we need to make sure that in and out of the classroom, we're providing that professional development to help individuals understand. I am not everybody has to accept a lot of stuff, but they have to understand and realize that we are here to help change lives, destinies, and family trees. And we have to get out of our own bias and our own issues to be able to help that next generation, if you will, and our average age is 25, like most community colleges. We got to get out of the way so that we can provide those resources to help all those students succeed in whatever that goal is for them.

Dr. Maureen Murphy: Exactly. I think you raise a very important point. I think all three of us on this podcast know from personal experience that education isn't necessarily a straight line and that it's how it was designed originally was not for any of us. It was for a very narrow, narrow sector of the population, section of the population. You know, having said that, community colleges have to accept that our students are going to behave as you suggested, Ski. You talked about students who stopped out for economic needs. Seriously, if somebody is going to offer me a whole lot of money to work part-time, and my family needs food and I need resources, I'm going to do that and school can come later. So how is it that we build an organization that is ready for students who stop in and stop out. And how do we keep them feeling like they're belonging because that is so important, knowing the reality of this trajectory.

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: Yes, and my comment to that Maureen is we have to stay close to our students and we have to understand what it is that our students need. We have to truly be customer centric because our students today different than maybe Michelle's time and for sure your and my time. There are a hundred thousand options and I give everybody credit. I mean there's a way for everyone to gain a certificate or a degree in any way you want from anywhere in the world you want. So what makes us different? And we have to make sure that we're listening to them and providing what they need, not what we need. And we all know in the institutions we run, there are people that wish things were like they were in 2019 and 2020, or even 1999 and 2009. And we are never going back there, nor should we. Because with the changes and all the options and opportunities that are available, we have to stay very current, very relevant, and provide our students what they need. 

The last thing I will say is, I do chuckle a little, and the team is great about this, but we'll be talking about a variety of things. And every now and then, the students never come up. So if you were to go into our boardroom now, we have placards on the board table of students with little quotes, and the photos around the walls in the boardroom all focus on our students. And then there's a little sign, is it good for our students and good for our communities. And what I'm trying to do is when all the meetings happen in there, that we're focused on why we're here. And then it's somewhat different than we historically have experienced. And we know that colleges were going through downsizing, merging, all the rest of it. You know, the angst that occurs there are people who came to that institution thinking they were gonna spend time like their family members for 30 years of that institution and then retire. I don't know if any of us are going to have 30 years at any one institution anymore because of how fluid education is. And it should be. 

Merge a little of Google's certificate and of this and that with credit, with non-credit. Will credit be the coin of the realm long term? Who knows? Is two years for an associate's degree, three or four years for a bachelor's. What about competency-based? What is AI going to do? What is a lot of the other technologies that are out there now going to really change it? I laugh and this will be the last thing I say. I laugh about our apprenticeship programs. There are a couple of apprenticeship programs that are competency based. Great. Amen. But there are so many that are still traditional, you know, years to be a journeyman, seven years to be a journeyman. We can put that down an awful lot if we were creative and open to not worrying about, you know, a variety of things. Again, I think that's all the things we need to. And for those early implementers and those innovators, bravo, let's go. But we all know in academic institutions, they might not be the majority. And so I think what we have to do is we have to help maybe that middle group to understand why it's critical for us to make the changes necessary to address the needs of our students and our employers.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: I love that you say that. Those short-term credentials are what's grabbing students right now. I agree. I also believe that not just because we're told as trustees what's coming, but also because industry is telling us that there is no value in keeping a student out of industry for four years for them to learn about an industry that is pivoting every six months. Right? And so those short-term credentials, those stackable credentials, my understanding as a lifelong educator and now as a trustee is that there's so much more bang for the buck of a student who gets a 30 hour credential and then goes into the workforce and then comes back and gets another 15 hour credential and then is able to pivot. Like if it's cybersecurity, well, I also might want to do an AI course, right? And then they're really crafting not just a career but they're also crafting, I'm gonna say, a happy life, you know, an interest-based life that they can be engaged in because they're having options and choices and not being captured in a four-year program that is going to isolate them from the best of what's happening in industry. 

So speaking of industry, what are your most, your biggest or your favorite industry connections at your community college? You mentioned Google, you mentioned Chewy, I guess those are local, but you also said that a third of your students go into healthcare, is that right?

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: That is correct. And so our biggest partners are our healthcare providers. Maureen, probably no different than where you were at. That is the burgeoning, that is the greatest need right now is in our healthcare. And we have three hospital systems that we serve in our 11 county district. And then we have rehab hospitals and we have, you know, of the variety of the nursing homes, retirement communities, et cetera. A lot of retirement communities, especially in our southern area towards the Maryland border. Anyway, so there's a huge need. So healthcare is number one. The other area has to do with our finance, our banking, our insurance, and the other has to do with some of our light manufacturing. And those are probably three of the areas we do focus a lot of our time and energy on as well. 

We have a great relationship with our hospitals and with our banks. And so they do an awful lot. For example, the hospitals give us hundreds of thousands of dollars for scholarships. And there's also a component for our students of color. But a large bank here provided us with a six figure gift to increase the number of students of color in our paramedic, EMS, EMT, police and fire academies. Because that has been very difficult to get students in those programs that look like the communities we serve. And it's still with that, with a gift that we got from the bank, which would provide free tuition for those students to get their certificates, we are still having a very difficult time attracting students of color into those programs. So we are working hard in that, but it is difficult. But that just shows you the commitment again of our community, community leaders to our DEIB efforts because they see the good that it can produce. So those would be some of the groups we work with in our workforce area.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Quick question, John. Sorry, Ski. This is hard for me. We're going to be friends eventually. It'll feel natural. What is the demographics of your college? Just curious, because I've seen something related to the EMT, just low enrollment of people of color, and I'm curious.

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: So for our demographics, we're pretty typical. We are 70% white. And after that, we look at our Hispanic, our Latino and Hispanic communities as our second largest. And like a lot of people, it's our fastest growing. We took a look at some numbers from 10 years ago to see completers within our students of color and our Hispanic Latino students saw the greatest completion rates from any of our students of color groups, which is very exciting because again, that's our fastest growing group. Then our African-American group and then our Asian and then our mixed race. So, yeah, that's what we are.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Just a personal story, I have a sister-in-law who when she was in college, high school actually, she became fascinated with the idea of becoming an EMT. She has always been so excited by sirens and emergencies and just loved those things and was passionate about going into them eventually. She wasn't allowed. As a Latina, that just wasn't seen as a career where she would be safe. And so I just wanted to provide that insight. That's not unusual. Though you may, nursing would be okay. Nursing is fine. EMT is a little bit more challenging, problematic, and maybe has a stigma associated with it and that, you know, has a connotation of like an unsafe environment. But that's just something that I saw in my own family and I see in my own community that I wanted to offer.

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: Michelle, I will say to you that in talking, I've gone into several of our communities in the zip code areas of places that we're really trying to help let them know about some of the opportunities. And many of them have told me personally, you know, I think it'd be a great career, but it isn't a safe career for me. And so I want to do that. I am pleased to tell you that we have several Latinas who are in the program. Awesome. We're excited by that. That's wonderful. But again, it's been difficult and I think it's surprised all of us, especially with the bank that put a lot of money into this, they're a little disappointed that we're not able to use that money. So we're beginning some conversations about how might we be able to move some of that money maybe into our nursing program and others that can attract our students of color into those programs or other health. 

The problem I've always faced is everybody talks about nursing and that's our best program. We're the largest provider of nursing education in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We have a lot of... I know 1,200 students in our nursing program at four of our five campuses. You know, nursing isn't the only health field. I think more... You know, we fail our students at times because, okay, you didn't get into the nursing program or you decided that blood and nursing wasn't for you. Well, we are better at it, but we have to remember to remind people that there are other programs like diagnostic medical sonography, dental hygiene, radiology, et cetera to do a good job in letting those students know that nursing may not have been it, but there's a plenty of other ways to be in helping profession.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Absolutely. John, I hate to wrap things up, but we're going to move on to our last two questions in the interest of time. Is there anything that we have not covered that you want to make sure that our audience hears about your institution or your efforts as a leader? And then the last question will be, what do you think the future of higher ed is?

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: So to answer your first question. Maybe your first question and your second question are kind of tied together. What are the thoughts, many of thoughts that I'm having surround how do we integrate artificial intelligence into our classrooms and into the operations of the college? We are all novices in that area because it is just emerging. And I know it's been out there a good year or so. And maybe some of the four year research institutions have a better handle on it. I just came from the American Association of Community Colleges annual convention in Louisville. And many of the sessions focused on AI, artificial intelligence. But I will say that most prefaced their comments by saying, we're just getting into it. We just formed the committee of faculty. We just this. And so I think that is an important piece that we as leaders in our fields need to really spend some time making sure we understand how it can be integrated internally. 

Now, we also know that it's a bit scary because one, it's unknown, it's emerging, and I think there's a bad rap that it gets on many people who would say, I'm gonna lose my job because of it. Well, maybe, but it's also gonna create other jobs. And so what we need to do back to what I talked about with competency-based and with AI, how is that going to help supplement, how is it gonna help enhance the coursework that students are in? Will it help minimize the time that they need to spend, that kind of thing. Which then leads me to your second question. I'm very excited about the future of higher education. And I'm excited about it because I'm really not sure it's going to look like it does today. You know, we are selling property, we are leasing property, because I believe we're not going to need the same footprint, physical footprint that we had five, 10, 15 years ago. And I think that's exciting. 

I personally think that we are going to be smaller institutions. You know that's scary, but we're going to be much smaller institutions and we're going to be much smaller institutions and we know what that means and there's going to be pain associated with that. But with the world getting smaller and with the base of individuals who are going after traditional college education degrees, we know that's getting smaller. We know that certificates are increasing. AACC just published a report that showed the increase in certificates. We are going to seriously have to look at how we're gonna revolutionize higher ed. And that isn't gonna happen overnight. We know this is an organization that's been around for 400 years. And we all know how difficult it is to change that. But I think the world, thanks to COVID in many ways, I think is coming at us so that we aren't gonna have the luxury of time or to stand on the laurels of yesterday. We are truly gonna have to look at what is gonna keep us current and relevant for our communities, employers and others, how are we gonna stay relevant? And I really think that means we are gonna be blowing up, we're gonna be disturbing the traditional view or the traditional structure of higher ed as we know it today. And areas that maybe I find the entrepreneurial, the innovative to just be exciting. And I am so glad to be in higher education at this time, because two years from now, I really struggle with some of our peers who are saying, oh yeah, we're putting a five and a 10 year strategic plan together. Well, that's nice, but we're doing a year and year, two, three years maybe. Who thought of the pandemic when you did your strategic plan in 2018 or 2019? How much did you put in your plan about COVID? 

And so we really have to look in the shorter term and stay very nimble and agile. And I don't think we have, you know, we have all prided ourselves on community colleges, being agile and nimble. We're not in some cases, we're all the different than a four year institution. And so we really need, and that's the other issue is we have to look at that continuum of education from pre-K to grave. I know there's all kinds of, all kinds of, you know, ways that we can talk about that, cradle to grave is something we have to think about. And the last thing I will say in regards to this, cause you can tell I get excited about it.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: I love it.

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: Is this idea that the students that we are getting now, because we are hitting that infamous proverbial cliff of high school students, the number of high school students that aren't there as they once were, we are looking more at those adult students who have some college and no degree, or at those adults who may have nothing, but might be able to benefit from getting a certificate. You know, in one of our communities, it's the Apple capital of the mid Atlantic. And the companies there, the Apple companies came to us to say, we need a down and dirty program that can get these people to know how to fix the conveyor belts, do the robotics, all the rest of that. And we came up with programs that will do that very quickly. And so those are the things that we need to do. And many of the employers will tell you, and I know both of you have heard it from employers. You know, we love the idea that they're going to learn about history and they're going to learn about anatomy and all the rest of it. But here's what I need. I need an employee right now. If we're going to be competitive internationally, I need an employee who may in four or six weeks have basic skills that I can use. And then, you know what? We'll send it back, get the history and the math and all the rest of that. But I need a productive employee now. 

Well, how does that really throw a lot of us on our heels or on our heads? Because that's not really the way it's been. We educate it. We got the degree, if it mattered or not, and if it was viable or not within that industry, and then they went out and relearned everything. Well, it's very good today. And that's why advisory committees, which historically have not been very effective, they meet what, twice a year? And it's their, they're an old boys group that came together for drinks and dinner or whatever. Now it's been critical and I see it in so many of our advisory committees. They're so relevant now and current because we have people who are in the fields, I think of our human services, our nursing, our manufacturing, our welding, they're there in the center and it's just beautiful to get their input and it's really changed some things that we internally who got secure think, oh man, I really have to do some things differently. So anyway, I'm excited about these, I think it's a great time to be in higher ed, I think it's a great time to be in ed because why don't we get those K to 12 people on campus?

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Exactly, oh gosh, yes. You're speaking my language and before I turn it over to Maureen for any of her closing thoughts and then do our outro, I just want to say Joe and Elvin, I know you're listening because you have to edit this podcast and produce it to get it out into the web world. When we do have an EdUp Experience Conference, national EdUp Experience, actually international EdUp Experience Conference, I'm going to recommend that Ski be the opening keynote speaker. This has been phenomenal, so much fun. Your passion should be bottled for all. I think it's so important that our leaders be excited about education and not scared and not so much worried that they be bold and empowered to make decisions, that they have short-term thinking in the best possible way, that they be constant motivators and cheerleaders. So it's truly been an honor to learn from you and listen to you today. Maureen, do you have any closing thoughts before we end and John, want to say one more thing?

Dr. John J. "Ski" Sygielski: Michelle, the one thing I will say Maureen, sorry, right before you say something. You know, Michelle, if I had the time, I would like to write articles on courage because I'm finding from my peers and having listened to many of my peers Maureen's peers last week in Louisville, the courageous leaders are those who don't have to be liked. They're the ones who have to make those difficult decisions that Maureen was her whole professional career, especially as a president, and courage is what's needed because there's an awful lot of things that most of our people are not gonna like because it is change. But I have to tell you, that's why it's so important to have Michelle, you and people like you as board members who understand where we are and where we need to go and support the president in making those very hard decisions. And I was thinking about a mentee I talked to yesterday. And I finally said to her, said, you know, if you wanna be liked, sell ice cream or walk the dogs because this job today is different in many ways than it was five or 10 years ago. And we have to have the support of our boards because without the support of our boards and especially presidents or emerging presidents of color, have a more difficult time in getting that second job than a person who would maybe make the same decisions. So I think it's critical these boards of trustees stop their game playing, stop their infighting, stop their politics, really understand the mission of their institution and support the you know what out of each of those presidents.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Absolutely, absolutely. Well said. Maureen.

Dr. Maureen Murphy: Well, actually you have made it very easy for me to say what I'm going to say. I've been retired now for a little bit over a year. And what I said to myself when I retired was, it's time for me to go, but I have every confidence that the work is going to continue because of the passion of people like both of you, that you really care about our institutions, about our students, about our communities. And I think that it has just been an absolute pleasure to listen and learn today from both of you. So thank you for this opportunity.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Thank you, Maureen. Folks, we have had such a great conversation and I'm glad that we could include you in it. I think we would have had it even without you audience. As much as we love you, we really had fun just amongst the three of us today. Oh gosh, we joined on community colleges and our collective passion. And today these leaders showed how important strong leadership is and how much it matters. Thank you to our guest host, Dr. Maureen Murphy, and many, many thanks to Dr. John J. Sygielski, as he is known to me now as well, President of Harrisburg Area Community College. Thank you for the enlightenment. Thank you for the conversation. Thank you for your passion and for your service. Folks, remember to like, follow, and share the EdUp Experience podcast. And as we say around here, you just EdUp.