884: Redesigning Higher Ed for the Future - with Dr. ⁠Nan Travers⁠, ⁠& ⁠Dr. Holly Zanville⁠, Co-Leads, ⁠Credential As You Go

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Welcome back everybody. It's your time to ed up on the Ed Up Experience podcast where we make education your business. I am your host today. My name is Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson. I'm filling in as I sometimes do for the amazing, incredible and world famous Dr. Joe Salustro. I am the vice president of education and workforce at Outreach Strategists and also a trustee at San Jacinto College in Southeast Houston. You can follow me on LinkedIn to see what else I'm up to. 

I'm going to bring in our guests today. They are special guests who have a special connection. The first is Nan Travers, director for the Center for Leadership and Credential Learning at State University of New York, Empire State University. She's also the co-lead at Credential As You Go. Welcome Nan.

Dr. Nan Travers: Thank you very much.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: And I'm thrilled to introduce my other guest, Holly Zanville, research professor at George Washington University, co-lead of Credential As You Go and lead of the Learn and Work Ecosystem Library. Welcome Holly.

Dr. Holly Zanville: Hi, so glad to be here.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Well, I'm glad to have you. Tell me, one of you tell me about your special connection, co-leads of Credential As You Go. Let's start there.

Dr. Nan Travers: Well, I'll start. So thank you so much, Michelle. Holly and I've known each other actually for over a decade and have spent many, many hours talking about the direction of higher education and where we really need to go. The Credential As You Go initiative started, it's been in place for about five years. And one of the things that we were very concerned about is that if you look at the numbers of individuals who have some college and no credential, it's over 40 million, which boils down to one in six adults in this country that have some college and no credential. There's another two out of six that don't have any college experience.

And so it really comes out to a little bit more than half of the adult population. This is really concerning because if somebody doesn't have a formal credential, they're not recognized for what they know and can do, and they're actually treated as though they have nothing. Yet we know that these adults do have a lot of knowledge and skills. And so we really were concerned about how we can look at this from a systemic point of view, looking at how we can do real systems change.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: This is not individuals that the issue is. The issue is that we're not finding good ways of capturing what people know and can do and credentialing them. So you're saying that it's a systems issue, not a, you know, that on the other side of it, a motivation issue or a, you know, get up and find your way through it, pull yourself up by your bootstraps issue. It is about the systems that we create to capture that population of people whose lives would be improved through.

Dr. Holly Zanville: To use your metaphor, if you were going to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you'd have to have a closet filled with like a thousand shoes. You wouldn't know what to put on because we have a very complicated, chaotic postsecondary system and it's getting worse, not better. We're in an age in which workforce needs are changing. We have an array of credentials, of micro-credentials and digital badges and short-term credentials and questions about the degree. It is really difficult for folks to figure out how to navigate. And furthermore, our system is not set up well. 

So we heard one of our, we work very closely with three states in Credential As You Go with Colorado, New York, and North Carolina. And there was a riddle that the Colorado folks have been presenting to their folks as they talk about Credential As You Go. And the riddle is, what do you have if you have about 120 credit hours? And the answer is you have, roughly speaking, about a baccalaureate degree. What do you have if you have 119 credit hours? The answer is nothing. Because we don't credential learning less than whatever the gold star or the gold standard that traditionally 200 years ago, higher education set up. That doesn't work in a modern 21st century workforce postsecondary system.

So when Nan and I have been talking about this for more than a decade, we've been saying, you know, we don't have a fair system. What about the 40 million plus? How should the system be redesigned? And we're not the only ones asking these questions. There are several initiatives that are underway, which is another problem, which is around where do we get information about these problems? But I think this is the core issue is how does the US and many other nations are working on this too, not only the US, but how does the US change or redesign our postsecondary education system to be fairer and to recognize the changing role of credentialing along with the changing world in employer hiring around skills-based hiring or what happens if folks are questioning the degree. So this is the space we're in in Credentials You Go, which is really another, a short phrase for the concept of incremental credentialing, recognizing learning that occurs along the way, which we think is a fairer, better system for 21st century workforce needs.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: You know, I'm coming to this conversation, which I completely agree with. You gave me chills with the baccalaureate riddle that I will never forget in my life. I'm a community college practitioner, right? That's my experience is community college, developmental education, stackable credentials, non-credit course options and credit course options, short-term degree plans. And so in my world, this is a common language, right? We talk about micro-credentials. We recognize the value of those. So at the university level where you are, what is the conversation? Are you making waves? Are you getting any pushback? Are you illuminating an area that has not been thought of in traditional?

Dr. Holly Zanville: I'm going to push this one to Nan, but we're dealing with the entire postsecondary system, community colleges and universities, third-party providers and employers. So the space for incremental credentialing is very, very broad and it's not necessarily sector specific, but Nan, you take it from there.

Dr. Nan Travers: What I was gonna say is that we are working all the way from non-credit to credit and in the credit world all the way through from associate degrees up through the graduate levels. And what we're not saying is we want to get rid of the degrees. What we are saying is that we need to have additional credentials as well. That just having those credentials are not meeting the needs of our adult population out there. When we started this work, we looked, we did a landscape analysis in terms of what was happening with credentials across the United States. And as you just mentioned, you know, you were talking about, you know, non-credit to credit micro credentials, a lot of different things that you were just mentioning. And so we wanted to get a handle on what were people doing. 

From that, we developed a framework and the framework has been revised through some pilot work and some continued work in which we found that there are six, tendency of six approaches that we see. Some of them are doing overlap of the approaches, which we expect. But the six are, one is we've coined learn as you go, which is really about skilling, upskilling and re-skilling. The second one is specialize as you go, where people are developing specialties. The third is the stack as you go, which is what you were talking about with stackables. But we were finding that some of the credentials aren't necessarily stackables, especially if they're skills focused. And so we needed to capture that bigger. The fourth one is transfer as you go and really thinking about how we can have credit mobility, but also credential mobility as we go across institutions and within institutions. The fifth one is partner as you go, really thinking about how higher education and industry can come together in partnership. And as part of that, also thinking about the embedded credentials, industry credentials that can happen with an academic environment. The last one, the sixth one is we called retro as you go, because as we started to look at, again, over 40 million adults that have some college, but no credential, is that there are patterns of certain courses that they've already taken, and those also should be credentialed. So being able to look back and saying, okay, what can we credential that they have already, which also creates a pathway for them to continue instead of thinking of themselves as a failure.

And then embedded in all of this is prior learning assessment, really thinking about the ways in which we can recognize learning that's acquired outside of the traditional academy and incorporating that as well all the way through, not just as a prior piece. And then the last part is auto awarding. What we've noticed and have found is that there are a lot of barriers to individuals obtaining those credentials that are really transactional barriers. They're not having to do with not actually having acquired the knowledge and passing courses and things like that. And so why do we put those barriers in place when somebody has met the requirements of a credential? Why can't we just award them that? And so altogether, that's what we are working with all the institutions. We have the main group, as Holly mentioned, that we have three states that we're working with, Colorado, New York and North Carolina. And then we also extended a network in which we have 54 members in the network, which include eight state systems, 44 institutions and two accrediting credentialing agencies. So we're really looking across the board in terms of the different ways in which we can do these incremental credentials.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: You know, a couple of things popped up for me. The idea of prior learning, I'm going to call it appreciation, right? So you have engaged at some point. Maybe you were in your early 20s and you enrolled at the community college and you fully intended to transfer to university and life sent you in another direction. And so the idea that you can validate those learning experiences and recognize them where a traditional institution would say, you got to take it again. I think that is so inclusive and respectful, not just of the students experience, but respectful of learning, which does not go away just because you did it 20 years ago. You learned, you passed, you completed the course. That's so valuable, right? So right now, at this moment, you are superheroes to me. You're going to probably ascend to goddess status by the end of this, but a question that I had, is there any aspect of competency-based credentialing in your program?

Dr. Nan Travers: So we are finding that institutions are approaching many different ways. So some are doing it from a competency perspective. Some are doing it from a course perspective. Some are doing it in terms, for example, embedding an industry certification and then building the kinds of things around it in order to kind of round out a credential. So we're finding that there are many, many different approaches. And as a result, in our resources, we've created, I think we're at 13 playbooks that address all these different areas, thinking through what an incremental credentialing system would look like and providing lots of examples.

We've heard from a lot of our institutions, they want examples of what each other are doing. And so we've been really putting together a lot of examples for people so that we can really be able to show you can do this from a competency perspective. You also could take the perspective of taking a degree and modularizing it and turning that into, let's say, four microcredentials that as you progress, you get the microcredentials and the degree. And so there's these different kinds of supports that we feel that are really important ways of being able to address the way in which people can learn and be recognized for that.

Dr. Holly Zanville: I would add one thing is that we don't have a level playing field in many ways, but particularly around how courses and programs are delivered. So in a competency sense, some disciplines because they're somewhat regulated or guided by national competency standards like nursing is, many of the IT areas, cybersecurity, many of those are essentially competency based programs. And because actually they're global, in many ways, the skills and companies are global. So they have more guidance. And because of that, at the campus level, it's easier for the faculty because they're going to be accredited along those lines. It's easier for them to establish competency based credential squares and some of the other discipline areas, they're not guided so much. I would say the liberal arts is not exactly guided by national competency standards, like some of the professional oriented disciplines are. 

So one of the things we're dealing with in this really complicated, thinking about all those different bootstraps in our closets, one of the things we're dealing with is the fact that at the institutional level, it's very different at one campus because some of them might have more career oriented disciplines, some not so much. And so there are lots of different kind of delivery modes and we're having to accommodate that along, you know, working with a lot of our partnerships. So it's one of the interesting challenges that we're all dealing with.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: So I'm glad that you addressed the technical aspect of it because that popped up in my mind naturally like so there's licensure, right? That state licensure that you have to achieve. And so that is a very different model. And I like your approach there with that. And then a lot of what you're talking about when you said, Nan, the idea of putting this learning, these traditionally four year or two year degrees into modules, right? It made me think two things. One, think about the way that we address higher level degrees, masters and doctoral programs. Those are compartmentalized into specialties, dissertation writing, right? They're compartmentalized. They're very much in modules.

The other thing is the way that you're describing the type of work that you're doing sounds like it's really heavily based in pedagogy and andragogy and learning theory and how we learn best. I don't know if that's part of your work, but for me as an instructor, it sounds like you understand that these short-term learning experiences where you can do formative assessment have successful experiences and then possibly build momentum that it sounds like your clientele would experience success because of the structure of the programs that you offer.

Dr. Nan Travers: So I would agree with you on that. We definitely have been informed in terms of looking at the whole learning process and thinking about the best way people learn. And being able to recognize people is actually extremely important in the learning process. So what we had noticed is that when learners have to go long stretches before they actually get recognition, that can be very difficult to keep your motivation up, especially because life is out there and happening in all its different ways of happening. And it can be very difficult when you're trying to deal with so many different things. So by having these smaller incremental credentials, by having that recognition in a formal way that can then you're able to say, well, look, I actually do have this knowledge. I have talked to so many people who have not completed college and or have a degree where they feel as though, I always hear people say, you know, I wish I could have finished or, you know, I'm not as good as the next person because I don't have a degree. They're always apologetic about themselves. And we have a system that doesn't lift up. Like you already know things, let's recognize that. And then, yes, you can learn more. And so we really need to think about how systems can really help people move forward.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: I love it. I mean, this is heart work. This is work of the heart. This is really aiming to improve people's lives. I appreciate that. And Holly, I'm gonna let you speak, but after that, can you just kind of address for me the connection between the, let me make sure I get this right, the work ecosystem library and credential as you go?

Dr. Holly Zanville: Sure. So it's one thing, I just wanna offer you one more riddle that actually came from Colorado that speaks to the issues that Nan was just speaking about. So one is, look at this picture of a typical college campus with all of its nicely landscaped paths. And then the next picture shows you the one that has the paths that the students have made where they cut across the grass. And it's the reason why they cut across the grass is because they had a shorter path. They were interested in a shorter path and we need more on and off ramps. So this is not lost on us that we're in the middle of re-landscaping.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: I love it.

Dr. Holly Zanville: People go to school. So these are the, we're sort of reaching for things we know. We've all seen this, but this is very meaningful. So we're trying to look at the future through the eyes of students, through the eyes of faculty, through the eyes of employers who are looking for people given shortages. Could you send us people faster with shorter term credentials and they can still continue, but we can't wait five, 10, 15, whatever the number of years is.

This is the challenge I had and one of the things is as we as faculty have been developing these short-term credentials and this is a segue to the library. They've said, well, we've heard that I won't name the state, but a state is developing something called a general education core and they're going to give, they're going to grant a digital badge for the completion of that. So another state says, well, we're interested in doing that, but we would like to call it a certificate. Then the third state says they're going to do that, or they actually are doing it, but they're going to call those a microcredential. So a faculty member from one of the states said, well, what's the difference? Is it okay? Can we call it anything we want? And so, so here, so this is a library question because one of the things we've been doing in the Learn and Work Ecosystem Library is at a time when AI bots are coming on strongly, we go to people's websites. A lot of the websites are not kept up or they're difficult to get through. We don't know where you get good information other than people calling Nan and I late at night or early in the morning and say could you tell me who should I talk to about this or that? Where do I go to get this information? And I have a good lot of insights because journalism has been so impacted by changes in the economy. So it's hard to think that even journalists can keep up and we've had journalists ask us these questions.

So we have felt for some number of years and as Credential As You Go was getting going that it would be wise if we had information we could provide to faculty and presidents of colleges and others about where do I go to find out about lots of other initiatives that are innovators in the siloed way in which we all work in a decentralized US system? Where do I go to get information? Who are the organizations that are working in the space? Who should I collaborate with if I want to collaborate on something? What are the glossary terms? What do these terms mean? Can you give me a little background? I don't have enough background. I don't really understand what the Learn to Work ecosystem even is. 

So the library has really developed as a tool to provide information in a rapidly changing information age, knowing that the bots at some point are going to pull from websites and others. But woe to all of us if we're going to rely on the bots to put together good information from everyone's websites. Because we know what websites are.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Yes. We know absolutely and I'm an audience. I just wanted you to know that I pulled up the Learn and Work Ecosystem Library and so you can look by topic. You can look by initiatives. You can look by organizations. So I thought you know I'm just going to go with the trades and I typed in plumbing and it took me to more websites on the trades. It took me to how much you can earn according to what trade you go into organizations associated with the trades like this is...

Dr. Holly Zanville: You should get a glossary on what skilled trades even are. Not everyone even knows that or knows what initiatives are working in that space. And it's a Wiki model. It's a community-owned model. We're open to bringing in content. We have a librarian and we're constantly trying to improve it. And we're making it available to folks. It's a free information source to, particularly to faculty and others who are having to develop these credentials. So they would know about the range of efforts going on and the many other innovations. 

So there are more than 900 artifacts and we're rapidly growing. And literally in a few weeks, we're gonna have our own AI bot. We're trying to decide if we should call it anything, a particular name. But at any rate, so to make querying easier, because we've found some people don't even know what terms to put in the search box. So we wanna make a more conversational querying and to synthesize information. So you put in some words you knew, Michelle, what words to put in. Not everyone does, but when you got, say, eight or 10 things coming up in a search, the next stage is to have something synthesized. So you could have a one to two page synthesis of what that might mean, answer the so what question. So that's where we're headed with the library. And we feel like these efforts, along with the many other efforts that are underway, will help us redesign a better system to serve students and institutions and employers and policymakers who are investing in a better higher ed system?

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Two things. One, I got so excited and thought, just I'm reading this list of organizations or initiatives. And as soon as I look at one, I think of someone that I know who's doing this work, right? So a career development incentive program in Colorado. I know someone who's working on that here in Texas. Career Pathways and Workforce Intelligence Network. I'm working with the Gulf Coast Workforce Board right now. This is fascinating and it's, you know, there are many organizations and states represented. I think this work is just mind blowing. It's very, very exciting. Competency-based model clearinghouse. my gosh, that's like encyclopedia heaven. This is very good. This is very exciting work. 

The other thing that I thought was, you know, you talked about industry and the length of time that students are caught up in the learning process in order to get the credential and how it can seem so far away. What we're hearing as trustees, and I've mentioned this before on this show is, you know, the association of community college trustees, we have industry coming to us and telling us you cannot capture them for that long. Industry is changing way too fast for you to keep them for four years. And then they end up on the other side of it. And there are three evolutions behind cybersecurity. There are three evolutions behind the biotechnology. And so this is an affirmation of industry and it really allows for that connectivity between higher education systems and industry. I think this is disruptive in the most positive way possible. What challenges have you experienced?

Dr. Nan Travers: Well, I think one of the challenges has been to help people really get their heads around this, which is one of the reasons why helping the credential as you go, we've developed so many resources to try to help systems and institutions really think about this and having all these different examples, which is a growing piece for us and will continue to grow because people really need to help think through how could this you know, what's happening, but what could this mean to us? On the ground, what does this really look like? And in fact, we've heard from many of our partner institutions, we really want to know what it, we understand this, but what does this mean for us? How do we actually do this? And so I think really helping people understand the resources and getting the word out so that people can use it, as you just said, with the library.

You know, you weren't aware of that, which we're glad you're now very aware of it. But it's a tool there for everybody to be able to use. So what we're finding is there's just right now so many initiatives going on, so many possibilities that it's really kind of overwhelming for people. And when you still have to get up and do your day work and work with learners and keep things going, it's easy to let these things go for another day, which a lot of it doesn't happen because of the way the workload works. And so trying to really figure out the best ways to communicate this and to really help people have their fingertips on the resources.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: What I was thinking while you were talking was how as a faculty member in the space where I was in, and we know that I just did an op-ed for the Hechinger Report on the idea that the pandemic created this enormous swell of students lacking basic skills in reading and math. And so colleges and universities are going to have to be prepared for developmental support, right? Remedial support for these students. And so in my space of developmental education, I get excited by pathways that can provide opportunities for my students, right? I have my student Martha, who was 46 and had three kids. Right? She wanted to learn English and finish a degree and get into teaching and find her own pathway now that her kids were older. And this kind of work I'm looking at your... I see a credential here, infant and toddler childhood certificate. This kind of immediacy is not just exciting for the student, right? I appreciate that. But as a faculty member, I would be excited. I would be an audience, you know, to illuminate this too, because we do get frustrated in the classroom. We do get tired of the old 16 week semesters, right? And even though it's hard to teach an eight week, right? Even though it's hard in the summer to teach a five week, even though it's hard to do a winter mini in three weeks, the payoff for our students is always worth the effort that we put into it. So I would think that faculty would be very energized by this. How do you connect with them? What is the work with faculty on this?

Dr. Nan Travers: So we've actually been working very closely with faculty at each of the institutions that are part of Credential As You Go and having regular meetings with them to really talk through what is it they're trying to do, where do they need supports and really getting an understanding of again, what does it mean to have this happen on the ground? One of the things that I wanna point out also, and we can even use that early childhood education certificate that you were just mentioning, is that it's also very exciting for the industry partners. And so what we're finding is that the institutions are able to work very closely with industry and start aligning the credentials with the jobs. And we have seen some great success where they... there's a couple different schools that have done this, where they have said, when you get this, let's say micro-credential, that gives you the eligibility for this level position. And when you get the next one, it goes to this level position. And they've actually worked with their industry partners within their local areas to work that out. So not only are we developing educational pathways, we're also developing work career pathways but bringing those two together.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Well, you're educating industry too.

Dr. Nan Travers: So it really is bringing it all together. It's the learner, the institution and the industry all coming together so that with the whole purpose of helping learners be able to move forward and also continue their education and become employed.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Very good. So what are you proud of? I'm gonna ask you that and then we're gonna start moving into our close and I have two questions that we always do at the closing. But what are you proud of and how do people get connected to you?

Dr. Holly Zanville: So one of the... Go ahead, Holly, why don't you go ahead. I would say I'm proud of the fact that, maybe this sounds counterintuitive, I'm proud of the fact that we've identified a lot of the challenges and a lot of the things that are not working well. Because I don't personally think that you can make a lot of change until you know what isn't working well and why and so that we can move ahead. So we'll look backward, look forward and try to predict how the future's changing, particularly with the onset of technology. The unfairness of is how easily accessible are you to this array of credentials based on your zip code? Because you live near faculty who are making a lot of changes, but down the road they're not. So in my mind, our ability to try to impact larger scale, a bigger footprint, recognize we're all linked together, to me is part of it's not only a challenge, but I'm pretty proud of how far we've come along with many other partners and we're not the only ones doing this kind of work. So I feel pretty good about the fact that we've identified the need for it. We're gonna continue to need better information to inform us, whether they're anecdotes and or better to have database information and that we've identified many willing partners, even if they're in different fields where they're... the emphasis has been faster on them to make those changes that we're helping to carry some flags around the importance of redesign. So maybe that's the one that I'm most proud to be part of.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: You should be. How about you, Nan?

Dr. Nan Travers: Certainly. And so when we started this five years ago, not many people were really talking about this. And we started this as a national movement. And I would say it has really become a national movement. We hear it all over the place and we're so happy. Whether people are engaged directly with the Credential As You Go or not, people are moving in this direction. And so I feel, you know, one of the things that I'm really proud of is the fact that we've been able to help with that conversation, to help develop resources around it, and we can help applaud where people are going with it. And so I really think that you know, this is going to become the normal way that we do higher education, which really excites me. And, you know, we just really encourage people to go to our website. So it's, you know, credentialasyougo.org and really think about the kinds of resources that are there and be part of this national movement in terms of really thinking about how we can transform higher education to better meet the needs of today and tomorrow.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: When you think about all the variety that we have in the adult world, like, you know, in children too, the variety is, it's what capitalism is built on. Like, that's why you can get into the market is because no one wants just one type of whatever, right? We all want different types of everything. And, and when you look at commerce, for instance, and how people can now buy something on Amazon and do four payments, right? Like the old layaway system, everything is changing. Everything is going to modules. And right. So why shouldn't education have that too? Why shouldn't people have variety in education? I think that's great. So my second to last question is, what did we not cover that you want to be sure that our audience hears? And then funnily enough, you said when you started Nan, that you're worried about the future of higher education. And so to close what we always ask on the Ed Up Experience podcast is what's the future of higher education? So what am I missing? And then if you'd answer the last question, then we'll move to our closing.

Dr. Nan Travers: Well, so one of the things that I really like people to take away from this is I think an understanding that we really have to make some changes here so that more people are recognized for what they know and can do. That the current system actually excludes people, and yet they have valid knowledge. And so to really meet the needs of our economy, to really look at the way our country needs to be able to move forward, we really need better ways of recognizing people in a formal way so that we don't leave it to the individual to have to have that resume that somehow didn't get put in the no pile because you know, if you don't have a degree, a lot of people get put in the no pile, but they may have the ability to do the job. So really thinking about how can we really look at the purpose of all of this and being able to move that forward.

Dr. Holly Zanville: And I would offer a final riddle, and that is to all your listeners, go to the library and say, is there something missing? Are you not there? Or if you're there, maybe we didn't capture the information quite the way you wanted it. So you can send us, we have electronic format forms at the bottom of almost every entry. You can submit it to us because we, this is a community owned information source. Our ability to do well in the future. This is, I think one of the successes of the future will be, can we all pull together, share information and all do better because of it. And so in my mind, whatever it takes to do that, I don't know if it's going to take AI chat bot to inform us all. Maybe it will 15 years from now, but I don't think anytime in the next few years, we better be careful. So I feel like as a community, we need to take responsibility for sharing information, making sure it's accurate, knowing who to call. So we'd ask your listeners, go to the library, especially if you're not there and want to be there, get in touch with us. We would love to hear from you.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: Very good. And I love you said, you know, I don't know if it's going to be AI or whatever. It's going to be people like you who care. It's going to be people like you who are brave and who say we're going to take take this work on ourselves and we're going to create something new and we're going to think about who is not at the table and we're going to bring them to the we're going to move the table to where they are is essentially what you're doing right. I appreciate it so much. Nan, will you close us out with what the future of higher education is?

Dr. Nan Travers: Well, thank you. From my perspective, the future of higher education is that we really look at our role as being essential for lifelong learning. That people, when they finish a credential doesn't mean that they're finished with higher education. That there's always continuous needs for learning more, being credentialed more, and being connected. So I really see that the role of higher education where it's shifting to is being able to really help that movement of knowledge and skills and being able to really kind of promote new directions and new ways of recognizing people and teaching people and credentialing people. But that curriculum is going to keep evolving. It always has evolved. And so the role of higher education is to really make sure that that evolution continues. As the world changes, how do we let education stay the same? We can't. We cannot.

Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson: This has been such a great conversation. I really think that you should come back in six months and do an update on the show. And I'd love to host that and see how much movement and how much traction and who else has joined and how much bigger you've gotten. I'm honored to have interviewed both of you folks. We have been talking to Nan Travers, Director for the Center of Leadership and Credential Learning at State University of New York, Empire State University and co-lead of Credential As You Go. We were also joined by Holly Zanville, a research professor at George Washington University and the co-lead of Credential As You Go and the lead of the Learn and Work Ecosystem Library. I've checked out both websites during this show and I've just been fascinated.

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