Each year, I look forward to reviewing the results of Jane Hart’s Top 300 Tools for Learning and to submitting my votes for a personal Top Tools for Learning list. I haven’t quite been writing up my list every single year (missed 2020), but I did submit a top 10 list in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021. I haven’t come across too many others’ 2022 Top Tools for Learning votes, yet, but did enjoy reviewing Mike Taylor’s list.
I avoid looking at the prior year’s lists until I have identified my votes for current year. Once my list was finished for 2022, however, I did compare and realize that I had left Zoom off for this year. Given that I use Zoom pretty much daily for meetings, teaching, speaking engagements, and podcast interviews, I suspect this is one of those things where Zoom has become so integral to my life that it’s become like water that I can’t see because I’m swimming in it.
Another thing I realize as I reflect back on the current and prior years of voting is how much every single tool I use fits into a personal knowledge mastery system, which I have learned so much about from Harold Jarche over decades now. Harold Jarche writes:
Personal knowledge mastery is a set of processes, individually constructed, to help each of us make sense of our world and work more effectively. PKM keeps us afloat in a sea of information – guided by professional communities and buoyed by social networks.
PKM is the number one skill set for each of us to make sense of our world, work more effectively, and contribute to society. The PKM framework – Seek > Sense > Share – helps professionals become knowledge catalysts. Today, the best leaders are constant learners.
Below are my top 10 Tools for Learning for 2022. Jane Hart’s survey methodology has shifted over the years. She now asks us to list each tool and then identify which of three categories we most often use it for: personal learning, workplace learning, or education. Mine overlap quite a bit, within those categories, but I’ve done my best to pick the context in which I use it most often.
1. Overcast | Personal Learning | PKM-Seek
This podcast “catcher” app is a daily part of my life and learning. Overcast received a major design overhaul in March of 2022, which led me to reorganize my podcast playlists to take full advantage of the new features. In October of 2021, I wrote up my podcast favorites, in case you’re interested.
2. Unread | Personal Learning | PKM-Seek
While Overcast is for the spoken word, Unread is primarily for written pieces. Powered by real simple syndication (RSS), Unread presents me headlines of unread stories across all sorts of categories, which I can tap (on my iPad) to read, or scroll past to automatically mark as read. I use Unread in conjunction with Inoreader, which is a robust RSS aggregator that can either be used as an RSS reader, as well, or can be used in conjunction with an RSS reader, such as Unread.
On a related note, if you like the idea of information flowing to you (via RSS) versus you having to go find it – and you like to cook – check out the app Mela. I switched to it in the past year and haven’t looked back.
While the first three tools I mentioned were all about seeking information, Raindrop is all about sense making (in the present and future) for me. It is a digital bookmarking tool. I wrote about how I use Raindrop in late 2020. I continue to see daily benefits with having such a simple-yet-robust way of making sense of all the information coming at me on a daily basis. Raindrop recently added the ability to highlight text on a page you have bookmarked, but I haven’t experimented with that feature much yet. If I want to do something with annotations and highlighting, I tend to gravitate toward Hypothes.is, a social annotation tool.
5. PollEverywhere | Education | PKM-Sense
When I started in a professional career in the early 1990s, I used to work for a computer training company. One regular thing that would happen with less-experienced instructors would be them standing at the front of the class, asking if everyone “got it” or was “with them.” As you can imagine, many times people either didn’t realize that they were lost, or they were too embarrassed to admit it.
Polling tools like PollEverywhere remove the barrier of people not realizing that they don’t understand something, or for those are reluctant to share their confusion publicly. PollEverywhere also has features to support team collaboration, asynchronous and/or synchronous polling, and can integrate with a learning management system (LMS). I primarily use PollEverywhere for formative assessment, allowing people to respond anonymously to the questions being posed. I subscribe to the Present plan, which allows me to have up to 700 people responding at one time on a given poll question. People in an education context who needed to create reports and access archived poll responses would likely need to go with an Individual Instructor premium account, or department/university-wide plan.
6. Padlet | Education | PKM-Sense
One of many collaborative tools I enjoy using is Padlet, a virtual cork board. I use Padlet to create a shared vision for a class or a team, to create a crowd-sourced music playlist for an event or class, as a parking lot, and to collectively come up with ways to extend learning. This year for our faculty gathering, we have Padlet boards for virtual collaboration and have also printed out posters (with QR codes that point back to the Padlet boards) that people can respond in person to using sticky notes. I love the blend of the analog and the digital that is possible using this approach.
7. Loom | Education | PKM-Share
The past couple of years, Loom has become a part of my daily computing life. It is a simple screen casting tool. Record what’s on your screen (with or without your face included via your web cam) and as soon as you press stop, there’s a link that automatically gets copied to your computer’s clipboard which is now ready to paste anywhere you want. I use Loom for simple explanations, to have asynchronous conversations with colleagues and students, to record how-to videos, and to invite students to share what they’re learning. If you verify your Loom account as an educator, you get the pro features for free.
8. Canva | Workplace Learning | PKM-Share
My use of the graphic design website Canva has evolved over the years. I started by using it to create graphics and printable signs for classes. Now I also use it to create presentations (which can include embedded content, slides, videos, etc.). As I just revisited Canva features in writing this past, I discovered even more things I wasn’t even aware that Canva can do.
I find the pro version worthwhile for both work and for Teaching in Higher Ed, as having the ability to include an entire team of people and have everyone be able to access a brand kit(s) to achieve consistent colors, logos, and other brand assets is a game-changer. We haven’t experimented as much with branded templates or comments and sharing, but there’s so much to benefit from with Canva working collaboratively. The free plan is also quite generous and worth signing up for, even if you don’t wind up upgrading to Pro or Canva for Teams.
9. WordPress | Workplace Learning | PKM-Share
The Teaching in Higher Ed website has been on a hosted WordPress site for so long, I can’t even remember where it resided prior to WordPress. My friend and web developer, Naomi Kasa, has helped keep the site beautiful and functional. One of my favorite features of the site is the page Naomi created with all my upcoming and past speaking engagements. It is great having all that information in one place and to see the collection of resources keep growing over time. Take a look at my resources page for a recent speaking engagement and how I embedded a Canva presentation, which includes use of embedded content and video.
10. Blubrry | Workplace Learning | PKM-Share
If you are going to have a podcast and you want to efficiently and effectively get it released to the majority of the various podcast players, you are going to need a podcast hosting company. We have used Blubrry for years now and appreciate its reliability, ease of use, and integration with WordPress.
Your Turn
Would you like to submit a vote with your Top Tools for Learning? You can fill out a form, write a blog post, or even share your picks on Twitter. The 2022 voting will continue through Thursday, August 25 and the results will be posted by Tuesday, August 30, 2022.
On this podcast episode of Higher Ed Without Borders co-hosted by Edu Alliance Founders Dr. Senthil Nathan and Dean Hoke speak with Dr. Jim Henderson, President of the University of Louisiana System.
Dr. James Henderson, President of the University of Louisiana System, a multi-university campus system with an enrollment of approximately 90,000 students. Prior to being appointed as President of the System, Dr. Henderson served as President of Northwestern State University. He is a native of Shreveport Louisiana. He received his Master’s in Administration from the University of West Florida, and his Doctor of Management degree from the University of Maryland – University College.
In an October 2021 newspaper article in the Acadiana Advocate, Dr. Henderson’s wife Tonia discussed her husband and love of learning. “Jim has “gone through a lot of schooling” during their marriage and he is a constant reader. He earned his master’s and doctorate while they were married. He also has routinely taken coursework where available — he oftentimes takes Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs — most recently one in Irish literature. “He’s always trying to learn new things,” she said.
His penchant for lifelong learning made an impact on their three children; only the youngest lives at home now. She says she gets inspired by watching him use his time so well. He allots time for work, family, and his own study.”
Senthil and Dean discussed with Dr. Henderson about the university system and his views on education and leadership.
Comments and Suggestions:
Higher Ed Without Borders would love to hear your ideas for future topics and guests. Connect with Dr. Senthil Nathan or Dean Hoke on LinkedIn. You can also visit the Edu Alliance website. To hear the entire series please subscribe to Higher Ed Without Borders on your preferred podcast platforms such as Apple, Spotify, or Google. The podcast is sponsored by Edu Alliance, an education consulting firm located in Bloomington Indiana, and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
We assist higher education institutions worldwide on a variety of mission-critical projects. Production support was provided by White Rabbit Printing and Design.
If your organization wants to know more about how Edu Alliance can best serve you, please contact either Dean Hoke or Dr. Senthil Nathan.
July 5, 2022 by Dr. Candace Goodwin – Although every industry has undergone significant changes over the past several years, higher education has been impacted more profoundly. When the pandemic hit, traditional colleges and universities were abruptly forced to adapt their mindset and move toward thinking differently, scrambling to transform standard brick-and-mortar programs into online or hybrid delivery modalities. Colleges and universities that already had successful online programs could pivot quickly and sustain student enrollment. Universities unable to make these changes rapidly faced many challenges.
High education leadership teams were confronted with workforce challenges they had not faced before. The changes in the economy, staffing shortages, healthcare concerns, loss of international students, diversity, equity, and inclusion were all simultaneously impacting higher education. College leadership focused on enrollment as their highest priority and lost sight of how the pandemic influenced staff and shaped their expectations and preferences. Employees were seeking out empathy, remote work, and flexible work hours and wanted to feel more connected than ever.
As the environment of higher education leadership becomes more complicated by outside events and shifting employee motivations, the benefits of executive coaching only increase. High- quality executive coaching balances organizational priorities like enrollment with the leadership development and insight required to move those priorities forward. Executive coaching is an essential problem-solving tool for higher education executives seeking support balancing leadership challenges and understanding the higher education landscape from both the 30,000 ft elevation and the 100 ft elevation.
1. Executive coaching activates and animates wisdom.
Many executives and aspiring higher education leaders lean most heavily on their level of intelligence. Clayton (1982) defined intelligence as the ability to think logically, conceptualize, and abstract from reality. Intelligence focuses on how to do. It helps leaders accomplish and achieve.
By contrast, Clayton defines wisdom as the ability to grasp human nature, which is paradoxical, contradictory, and subject to continual change. Wisdom provokes a person to consider the consequences of their actions on themselves and the effects on others.
Wisdom helps people decide whether to pursue a course of action. Higher education executives work in concert with many others. It is incumbent on all higher education leaders to work with their wisdom.
The difference between intelligence and wisdom can be described as knowing what vs. knowing how. According to Stenberg (2005), knowing how adds creativity and experience to our knowledge. While an executive has proven intelligence, the wisdom gained by learning from various experiences provides multiple points of view at their disposal to solve problems creatively.
It is no longer sufficient to only have intelligence and management skills to make high- level and far-reaching leadership decisions. Wisdom is a crucial component of good leadership. Staudinger, Lopez, and Baltes (1997) found that individuals who discussed life problems with another person and reflected on the conversation before responding out-performed others. Executive coaching can make the difference in that kind of wisdom and more.
An executive coach for higher education helps college and university executives activate and animate their wisdom. Executive coaches guide leaders to go beyond reporting metrics and learn ways to increase their wisdom through natural reciprocity, investing in their team, and developing new leadership traits. The result is a higher education leader able to make more creative and cultured decisions that are the best for university and college leadership, staff, and students.
2. Executive coaching galvanizes conscious and intentional conversations.
There are two conversations we have every day. One is with other people—and one is in our heads. Having conversations with other people can feel fraught in this increasingly complicated world. Higher education executives need to ensure their conversations are conscious and intentional. Executive coaching can help!
Conscious conversations encourage connection and overcoming differences. The basis is hearing and understanding instead of judging as right or wrong. Participants in a conversation of this nature must be fully present, listen fully and respectfully, keep an open mind, and be patient. It is important to understand that conversations of this kind are a skill to be learned and built upon. There is always room to improve communication as a leader.
Intentional conversations are purposeful and planned. Being intentional means being strategic in how to communicate, what to communicate, and to whom. Intentional conversations can make staff members feel valued and ensure that conversations are productive.
With an executive coach, higher education executives can build confidence in their ability to have conscious and intentional conversations.
3. Executive coaching stimulates creativity.
With the landscape for higher education rapidly changing, a successful higher education executive needs to move beyond the same old, same old. It is time for creativity in all aspects of leadership. Nothing helps creativity like the collaboration that comes from partnering with an executive coach.
Most executives could benefit from switching things up and taking their leadership off auto pilot. A significant outcome could be developing a flexible mindset and considering new ways to get things done. A lack of creativity could result in missing opportunities for innovation and growth. Working with an executive coach helps open the door to explore innovative ideas and getting excited by new, creative possibilities.
4.Executive coaching creates “emotional safety.”
Having emotional safety means feeling secure enough to be your most authentic self, and isn’t that the ideal for all employee-leader scenarios? Who wouldn’t want to bring their real selves to work? Well, that takes work. Emotional safety is an important aspect of having a satisfying connection. Connection is increasingly vital to today’s workforce. It is worth the investment.
Higher education executive coaching cultivates emotional safety so executives can get the most out of their experience. Our brains constantly detect whether a situation is safe or dangerous. When people experience safety, they are better listeners, able to collaborate more, innovative, creative, and able to connect with others. Emotional safety has positive effects that flow to others.
Emotional safety encourages freedom of expression and increased compassion. A skilled executive coach can help guide you to understanding and increasing emotional safety.
Executives and leaders in higher education benefit from the investment in high-quality executive coaching. Coaching is transformative—helping leaders leverage their best selves. An executive coach empowers creativity, impact, connection, and influence. Great leaders have great coaches—everyone can use that kind of support! Especially leaders working in higher education.
Levine, Arthur and Pelt, S. “The Future of Higher Education is Occurring at the Margins.” Inside Higher Education, 4, Oct. 2021, https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2021/10/04/higher-education- should-prepare-five-new-realities-opinion
Staudinger, U.M., Lopez, D. F., and Baltes, P. B. (1997). The psychometric location of wisdom-related performance: Intelligence, personality and more. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(11). 1200-1214,
Sternberg, R. J. (2005). WICS: A model of leadership. The Psychologist- Manager Journal, 8(1), 20-43.
Sternberg, R. J. (2005a). WICS: A model of leadership. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 8(1), 20–43
Dr. Candace Goodwin a member of the Edu Alliance Group Advisory Council is a culture strategist and the CEO of Organizational Leadership Partners, an organization that helps leaders achieve exceptional results through the alignment of organizational priorities and culture. Candace’s expertise in culture, employee engagement, emotional intelligence, and leadership development provides guidance to leaders who desire to create an environment where people can do their best work.
Dr. Goodwin has a Doctorate in Organizational Leadership, an MBA in Human Resources, and a Bachelor’s degree in Finance.
Edu Alliance Group, Inc. (EAG) is an education consulting firm located in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, and Bloomington, Indiana, USA. We assist higher education institutions worldwide on a variety of mission-critical projects. Our consultants have accomplished university/college leaders who share the benefit of their experience to diagnose and solve challenges.
EAG has provided consulting and successful solutions for higher education institutions in Australia, Egypt, Georgia, India, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Nigeria, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, and the United States.
Edu Alliance offers higher education institutions consulting services worldwide. If you like to know more about how Edu Alliance can best serve you, please contact Dean Hoke at [email protected]
May 29, 2022 – Higher Ed Without Borders a podcast series dedicated to education professionals worldwide announced its opening guest will be Dr. Ehab Abdel-Rahman, Provost of The American University in Cairo. The series is hosted by co-founders of Edu Alliance Dr. Senthil Nathan in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and Dean Hoke in Bloomington, Indiana. The episode will be available on June 7th.
Each episode is a half-an-hour-long conversation with international thought leaders that will enlighten and provide some new thoughts on critical issues facing higher education globally. You can subscribe to this free podcast series by going to Higher Ed Without Borders or searching for “Higher Ed Without Borders” on your preferred podcast app.
Podcast Guest Dr. Ehab Abdel-Rahman
Dr. Abdel-Rahman is the Provost of the American University in Cairo (AUC). The university founded in 1919 has over 7,000 undergraduate and graduate students from over 60 nations. He is the Chief Academic Officer and provides administrative leadership and oversight for all academic components of the University. As Provost, he has twice led the re-accreditations of AUC by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) and the National Authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Education “NAQAAE”.
He also spearheaded the development of AUC’s Strategic Plan, and in 2020, AUC’s QS World University Rankings moved up 25 places, placing it amongst the top 1.5% of universities worldwide.
Dr. Abdel-Rahman holds his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Physics from Helwan University in Cairo and his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Utah.
Future Guests Include
Dr. Allen Goodman, Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of International Education (IIE)
Dr. Frank Cooley, Chancellor Purdue University Global
Dr. Jim Henderson, President, and Chief Executive Officer of the University of Louisiana System
Dr. Gil Latz, Vice Provost of Global Strategies, and International Affairs for The Ohio State University
Dr. Mariët Westermann Vice Chancellor of New York University, Abu Dhabi
Co-Host Biographies
Dr. Senthil Nathan is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Ltd in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Since the founding of the company in 2014, Senthil has been involved in numerous advisory & consulting projects for higher education institutions and investment firms.
After spending a decade in the USA on research and engineering design projects, Dr. Nathan joined the Higher Colleges of Technology in 1993, the largest higher education institution in the UAE. He served in various positions and from 2006-to 2014 was Deputy Vice-Chancellor / Vice Provost for Planning & Administration. Dr. Nathan has been involved in numerous advisory and consulting roles in education/training & development engagements. In 2014 he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the National Institute of Technology in India. He is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Livingston University in Uganda. Dr. Nathan is an accomplished speaker and presents at educational events worldwide.
Dean Hoke is Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Group in the United States and Co-Founder of Edu Alliance Ltd. in the United Arab Emirates. Dean has decades of progressively responsible and visionary leadership roles in higher education, communications & online learning. He has led numerous initiatives that have created innovation & positive change in the higher education & non-profit sector. He has worked since 1974 in senior positions in higher education, broadcasting, and online learning.
He participates in numerous advisory & consulting projects in the fields of international education, branding, business intelligence, and online learning. He is an active speaker and writer in the field of global higher education and distance learning. Dean is a member of the Board of the American Association of University Administrators, the Franklin University School of Education Advisory Board, and is a member of the Board of Advisors for Higher Education Digest.
Edu Alliance
The podcast is a production of Edu Alliance an education consulting firm located in Bloomington, Indiana, and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Founded in 2014 Edu Alliance assists higher education institutions worldwide on a variety of mission-critical projects. The consulting team is accomplished leaders who share the benefit of their experience to diagnose and solve challenges. They have provided consulting and executive search services for over 35 higher education institutions in Australia, Egypt, Georgia, India, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Nigeria, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, and the United States.
A special thanks to:
White Rabbit in Bloomington, Indiana is the production partner providing graphics and audio support.
Higher Education Digestis the media partner for Higher Ed Without Borders podcast. The Digest is an independent Higher Education Portal and Magazine.
RJ Thompson talks about Higher Education as a professor and marketer
In this featured interview interview, meet RJ Thompson, MFA, the Director of Digital Marketing at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration at the University of Pittsburgh.
Many professors and graduate students aren’t sure what the marketing and communications offices at their universities do. That’s why I invited RJ for this featured interview.
What’s it like to be on the staff side and the faculty side of a university?
Awards and accolades have been helpful for RJ’s career, why to put yourself up for more awards.
Learn how to be more creative, especially if you think you’re not creative at all.
Many professors and researchers have fear or anxiety about sharing their accomplishments.
Do you want to know how to get better students? RJ has a secret to share with you.
RJ’s story is inspiring. From his frankness about what professors can get from being open with university communication teams, to opening up about living with an invisible disability, this featured interview is a can’t miss. Watch, listen, or read the interview below.
Jennifer: Hi everyone, I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to The Social Academic. Today we’re recording the new featured interview. Actually this is the last featured interview of 2021. So, welcome RJ Thompson. Could you start us out by introducing yourself?
RJ: Hey, thanks Jen for having me, this is really great! And I’m so glad you saved the best for last.
Yeah, my name is RJ Thompson. I am the Director of Digital Marketing for The Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh.
And on top of that, I do a number of other things. I do market research. I do graphic design.
I teach graphic design at Point Park University and the Community College of Allegheny County.
And starting next semester, I’ll be teaching in the business school at Pitt, teaching advertising.
So, I’m kind of all over the place.
And if you’re listening or paying attention, you might’ve seen me through the HigherEdSocial group and the Marketing and Communications (MarComm) group by HigherEdSocial. So I’m everywhere.
Jennifer: That’s exactly why I wanted to invite you on this show and why I wanted to feature your interview especially. Because so many professors, grad students, researchers that are connected with universities out there don’t really know what the marketing communications teams at universities do.
And you’re someone who is on both sides of the aisle.
So, could you tell me a little bit about what you do?
What does a higher education marketing and communications professional do?
RJ: Yeah, you know, to your point, it is an unusual divide, especially like between
design and marketing professors
and design and marketing teams
For as many similarities as there are, there’s many differences.
On the staff side, primarily what we do is, we’re a marketing and communications department. Our work includes, promoting
our programs
the business college and its programs to prospective students
so there’s an enrollment piece to that.
There’s also a heavy public relations component where we’re trying to promote the goodwill and works that we’re doing to not just the local, but the greater regional, national and global communities.
And also along with that on the communication side, we’re doing a lot of internal marketing and communications to our students, to the broader university, University of Pittsburgh.
It’s all inclusive. So, if you needed admissions campaign, we’re gonna work with the admissions team to produce that.If it’s for social media, we’re gonna develop out that social strategy plan, but also the ad spends, the ad spend strategy and execution.
If we’re putting together a magazine, alumni magazine, we’ll work with philanthropic and alumni engagement to produce that.
So, we are at the center of all of these deliverables and we collaborate with the different corresponding units to help them get their messaging out and ultimately create value for the students and alumni.
That value manifests as, primarily as
brand reinforcement
brand management
making sure that the reputation of their degree not only maintains but exceeds and grows.
So, that’s really what we do.
And myself as the Director of Digital Marketing, I am responsible for designing and maintaining our web properties be it our primary website, our micro-site, PPC [Pay-Per-Click] campaigns.
I have responsibility to our social media and also our digital advertising. If it’s digital, I own it.
Jennifer: So, it sounds like you’re working with a lot of different teams. You’re working with people across the university and with your own team in order to share good things about the
University
Student
Alumni
Community
And it really takes that kind of all encompassing approach to really communicate the amazing things that universities can do.
RJ talks about leaving his tenured position and how he loves continuing to teach
Jennifer: Now, it’s really interesting that you’re able to do that and also teach. You have this real passion for teaching and really helping students get to the next place in their careers. Let’s talk about your teaching.
RJ: Sure, so the first part of my career, I’ve spent 13 years on the faculty side.
I’ve taught at so many different institutions. The last one that I was at Youngstown State. I was there for seven years. I was tenured faculty.
To make a long story short, the commute from Pittsburgh to Youngstown, it’s about an hour each way. It was really starting to wear down my body.
I missed a lot of time with my daughter who’s six, so, a decent amount of her infancy I missed.
And one of the things that Youngstown is experiencing now is significant brain drain and enrollment decline. If you look at the data, you can kind of sort of see that coming.
So, I got out about in the summer of 2019. That is when I left the university.
HigherEd is my life. It’s where I belong. It’s where I fit. I never want to leave this industry. I always wanna be on the teaching side. I’m loving the staff side.
But unfortunately, when I decided to transition out of Youngstown State University, there weren’t any full time tenure track positions available in Pittsburgh.
I decided to try something new and pursue the staff route and it’s been amazing actually. It lets me do both things, so I get the salary I want with a good work-life balance. As a part of that balance, it also gives me the time to do a lot of
Side teaching
Freelance
Extracurricular stuff.
And, I made this remark to my wife the other day: “I’ve never felt so liberated.”
When you’re on the faculty side, especially when you’re chasing tenure and promotion, you are always doing some kind of peer reviewed research, peer reviewed projects that help you build your reputation, build your bona fides. Those are typically passion projects you don’t necessarily get paid for. They take an extreme amount of time investment. And I felt like I hit a peak at Youngstown State University.
That’s when I switched gears. When I became staff side, I started taking on more practical work, freelance stuff. I started doing more professional development and certifications.
I read a book! Let me be very clear, you would think that that is like, why is that at such an important point? Some faculty don’t have time to read, I never did. I never had time to actually sit down and read a book, be it fiction or non-fiction. So I have time for that now.
And all the other crazy things that I do that you would see on LinkedIn,
getting involved in HigherEdSocial
starting the competitions
painting a mural
being a poll worker
like I’m just checking off the bucket list stuff. And by the way, you’re absolutely allowed to criticize me for having poll worker on my bucket list.
Jennifer: No, I think that’s so exciting and yesterday must have been a good day for you. This interview was recorded live on November 3, 2021, the day after United States elections.
RJ: It was a long. It was long, long day. For sure.
Jennifer: You know, you’ve done so many things and I just, I’m so glad that you came on this The Social Academic to talk about it. Because, even though you’re talking about how much time that took, you’re still teaching. You’re still doing this and keeping this as part of your life.
You’re working with faculty, you’re working with graduate students to tell their stories through some of the marketing work that you do.
I mean, you really are able to do it all.
So, when you talk about liberation, when you talk about the freedom that this job gives you, it sounds like one of the things that you love most is being able to work on all of those things.
Whereas before maybe your focus would only been able to be research as like the main priority.
RJ: Yeah, yeah.
When it comes to liberation, it wasn’t just the ability to do new things and different things, but it was also the ability to explore my creativity in an area that mattered, in something that mattered a lot.
I’ve become disillusioned with freelance work over the past number of years and a lot of it has to do with clients that I call the low hanging fruit. These are typically the clients that want the world on a shoestring budget with a deadline of yesterday. That’s really stressful for a design faculty person chasing tenure and promotion. So I just decided to put that stuff away.
Awards are important to RJ, why to put yourself up for awards too
RJ: When I came to the business school at Pitt, they’ve got such a great marketing team, but they always had limited capacity to really just rip the lid off of it, go for broke and do some really strategic and creative things.
And, they just let me go. That resulted in a profound amount of accolades. Like I was, not to brag, but just to illustrate the point…
The websites I designed for the business school, back-to-back award winner in the Best of American Web Design by GDUSA [Graphic Design USA], which is one of the top…[Jennifer clapping]. Thank you…one of the top periodicals for the design industry.
Being able to meet folks like you and speak at conferences and help #HigherEdSocial build their foundation, it’s just exciting.
Jennifer: Wow, bragging is one thing that I actually wanted to talk with you about because when we first met, you had invited me on onto your podcast and you had mentioned that awards were something that were important to you.
Not only important for you, but important to put your team up for it, to encourage other people to apply for awards.
I love celebrating with you. I see your news on social media, on Facebook, on Twitter. It’s exciting when something good happens to people. I enjoy seeing that and so, I love cheering you on.
Can you tell me more about looking for awards and why that’s important to you?
I’ve been a competitive graphic designer for 25 years
RJ: Yeah, so this is layered.
The first part is, I’ve been a designer for 25 years. I’m 36. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid. And graphic designers tend to be very competitive people.
They need to be because, they’re competing against each other for jobs in industry and industry typically tends to choose the most talented people.
So, I’m fortunate in that I’ve been doing, I’ve been a designer my entire life, and I know all facets of it. I don’t claim to be a master of any of them, but, you need me to animate something, I can do that. You need to do some video, I can do that. I have a Jack of all trades vibe.
Being able to work in the different aspects of design and compete with others is exciting to me.
And what I get out of that is, it’s not necessarily a satisfaction, it’s like a justification. It’s more like, “hey, you know, you said you could do it and you did it.” And you put all of the work in to get to that point.
Accolades were the foundation for RJ’s career
So the Pitt Business website, when I redesigned it, it took 13 months. That’s all I did every day. It was a real labor of love and I was proud of the work. It’s also important to me that when you do a project like that, you don’t ever do it alone.
To reinforce the point that you made about getting people to submit their work, I made sure that my entire marketing team had their names on that project. My marketing team save for my designer, are in their early career. It’s important to get them those accolades because that’s the foundation for the rest of their career.
I would not have been able to get where I am and doing what I’m doing, had I not pursued design competitively. Those accolades got me my next job and my next job and opened up so many opportunities.
It opened up teaching to me, frankly. I won an award for a book I made. A faculty person happened to see it, and they’re like, “you should teach.”
Four months later I got a teaching job.
So, it’s kind of proof positive. There’s the benefits you get from asserting yourself and putting yourself out there as a competitive person, a high performance kind of person. I think that is attractive to a lot of different people.
RJ has cystic fibrosis, an invisible disability
The third part is, I’m a person with an invisible disability. I have a genetic disease called cystic fibrosis.
Had you met me when I was a kid, I was scrawny and frail and sickly. Over the years, I’ve gotten better and now I’m on gene therapy and my symptoms are gone. I’ve made amazing, great strides in my self care.
But I had a doctor tell me once, “you’re not gonna live to see 40.”
I’m 36.
Now, what that doctor doesn’t know is that I’m actually immortal and I’ll never die.
But what that did was that motivated me to shoot for as far and as wide and as fast as towards my goals as I could. I mean, in high school, I was moderate student, average, but when I got to college, I made it a point to like be A’s across the board. I knew that grades would not necessarily matter when I entered the industry. It was more about personal pride and the stakes that I put into performing.
I put all of my effort, all of myself into my work.
Even at the college level, I got awards there that led on to internships at agencies and the like. It’s been a beneficial thing for me.
At the end of my career, I want to be able to say, I didn’t get to everything I wanted to, but the things that I did get to, I did really well at.
And then I can wipe my hands of it and put it away and go build a bird house or something. Whatever retired people do.
I don’t think I’ll retire ever. Even if, you know, once a designer, always a designer, I’ll still be making something.
Building CommCentered, an archive to celebrate Higher Education Marketers
RJ: So, CommCentered is an interesting little story that started with another inventory that I built. One of the things that I like to do is, I like to understand systems comprehensively, holistically, and I like looking at trends and commonalities.
Myself and one of my colleagues, a retired computer science professor, one of the things that we did was we did an inventory of all of the logos of municipalities in America with populations of 10,000 or above.
We collected thousands of logos, thousands, and I put them into an archive. I was able to look at everything and say like, wow, when you look at the 4,000 logos or whatever it is that we found, half of them have a specifically designed brand concept and then the others are municipal seals.
When you start to really narrow the focus, and understand why half was the way that it was,
and the other half, etc, you learn that it came down to a lot of like complex things like
Elected leadership
Municipal governance
Laws
How communities were financed
That was an informative lesson for me because the company I run is called Plus Public. Part of our work is in branding communities. So I wanted to understand why some of these communities don’t have good marketing.
That inventory was very informative with respect to that.
Are you a professor, researcher, or Higher Education staff member communicating publicly for your school? Whether you’re working on marketing and communications at the program, department, college, or university, HigherEdSocial is an amazing professional society you should join. RJ and Jennifer are both official members of the HigherEdSocial Community, join them!
The sense that I was getting was that a lot of these folks did not have a great swell of pride in their work. Even in the little tiny corners of the world that they work, they may not have had a lot of pride in their work because their messaging is very highly overseen.
Their protocols for how to communicate with people and in some cases, especially on the social media side, it’s kind of a thankless job.
I want to celebrate those people. I want to celebrate
The work that they’re doing
How they’re doing it
Why they’re doing it
The concept of having to advertise education is fascinating to me. This is an act that people learn something new every day, whether or not they are trying. That’s just a part of the human experience. So, the fact that we have to advertise it is just really compelling to me.
Taking that concept and then also wanting to be the biggest cheerleader for these people and celebrate their work led to CommCentered.
When you layer in that brand’s inventory for the community brands inventory, I basically did a study where we took all of the institutions, HigherEd institutions in every state and we looked at the commonalities.
Every state has their own set of trends that some correlate to others. Some do not. It’s been really, really informative.
Right now I’m finishing my series of 50 posts on the brands of HigherEd, just for the United States. And I have plans on expanding that globally.
You know, when you told me that this project had suddenly been created, I was shocked because last time we had spoken, you had said that you were gonna be updating your personal website.
We’d actually chatted about it and you had this plan. Then all of a sudden, there was this massive archive, this big website that really can help people around the world understand more about HigherEd Marketing. That can really celebrate their work in a way that the public can see, that each other can see. It was astounding that you’d created this massive project.
And you’re also working on these other things. You have your job, you have your teaching and here you are creating this non-profit project.
I was just so amazed by you. I think my heart grows bigger every time I talk to you, because you’re so generous with what you give to the world.
RJ: Well, thank you for that.
There was one lesson I learned a long time ago is that nothing happens until someone gets excited. Leave it to an advertising guy to say that. But it’s absolutely true, and I believe that wholeheartedly.
Whatever effort I put into something, I hope that it excites people double the effort that I put in.
Fortunately, I kind of have a knack for choosing the right things. Sometimes I don’t, but for the most part I do and it’s always exciting to build community around common threads.
The thing with people in HigherEd, I think most of them would stay and talent would be retained at a higher frequency, at a higher rate, if certain conditions were met relative to just the work, the daily working life and the process and the experience of those types of jobs.
With CommCentered, it was really important to me to not only be a contrast to some of the other HigherEd marketers that you’ll see out there. I didn’t wanna tell people how the work was done. They know how the work is done.
I wanna show them what work was done. The thinking here is a picture’s worth a thousand words.
If you see one logo, or if you see one ad campaign, that’s gonna kick off a spiral of new ideas for the people that are looking at it.
I also have an additional point to that but I think is a propos. On Twitter, on social media, even in the HigherEdSocial groups, there are a ton of people that assert themselves as HigherEd marketing thought leaders. I’ll use the term know-it-alls as positively as possible.
There are a lot of authors that assert their knowledge and wisdom and it’s valuable. But it consistently skews more towards :here’s the roadmap, here’s the foundation, here are some of the strategies. And that’s where it ends.
Okay, well, thank you, I loved reading your 400 page book. The fact that the strategies and the roadmaps are great, but what have people done with it? I wanna see what people have done with it.
CommCentered, I wanna feature the work that people are creating so that they can understand the context or the outputs of those roadmaps and get inspired on their own.
A bad impression of someone else can create something completely original
The last part of this is I love voice actors. This is a really unique hobby of mine. I watch cartoons with my daughter and I’m able to pick out, oh, that’s Rob Paulsen.
Jennifer: You can recognize them.
RJ: I can recognize the voices, even if they are doing a completely different voice. If you listen to some of the podcasts from voice actors, they love their jobs so much because all they do is play. Playing to them is doing a bad impression of someone else. So it’s additive.
For example, if I did…and I won’t do any impressions, I won’t embarrass myself to that degree…But if I did an impression of Christopher Walken, and it was terrible. That’s okay, because I’ve just created a new character, something completely original.
I can intentionally do something bad and create something really good and funny out of it. That was one of the other inspirations behind doing the archive, the logo inventory, featuring, doing assessments on social media ads and all of that stuff.
When I look at your work, or someone else’s work, I judge it. I’m like, damn, that’s a good idea, I really like that. How can I take that idea, if it’s a box, how can I push one side in and rotate it and make it my own? It needs to be malleable.
So, and the last part to that is that concept, that theme is absolutely part and parcel to who I am as a person and how I teach creativity.
That’s kind of the overarching through line of my entire life and career and teaching career too.
Professors and researchers, do you think you lack creativity?
Jennifer: You teach creativity, I really like that. A lot of professors, a lot of graduate students don’t believe they have creativity. It doesn’t matter what field they’re in.
You talk about creativity as something that can be taught. I think that a lot of those people who feel like they don’t have creativity actually do, and maybe they don’t necessarily recognize it in themselves. What do you think about that?
RJ: So there’s kind of an anecdote or a dosh that I share with my students: I can teach you all the software in the world, but if you can’t think creatively, then all of that knowledge is not really useful.
You’re solving problems that are very finite and technical. And dare I say, just kind of binary, yes or no one way or the other.
Creativity is something that can be, you can be born just with this incredible intrinsic creativity, but you have deficits in other areas.
I relay a story to my students where I’ve always been an ambitious, creative person, even when I was like a five-year-old. When I was four or five, I opened up my parents’ typewriter, typewriter, and I made stories. I pinpecked at the keyboard.
Then I moved on to a neighborhood newspaper. Five, six years old doing this. Who does that? I’m sure it does happen. And I’m not saying that I’m special by any means, but it’s at least indicative of how my creativity manifested organically, naturally.
There are some people that feel that they are not creative at all. And to them, I say, you are creative, but you are maybe a different aspect or facet of creativity.
For the most part, the problem is that people don’t understand the steps in which to be creative. One of the things that I teach them is how to solve problems using a creative inquiry. That’s essentially also an aspect of design thinking.
I had mentioned the project, I didn’t tell you what it was that kicked off my teaching career. It was a book called Thompson Design Methodologies. It was all about all about solving problems visually. This is something I deal with with my clients.
If I’m making a logo for you, Jen, what’s one word that you would want your clientele to associate you with? Let’s say, it’s integrity.
What does integrity look like as a box or a shape rather? Is it a rectangle? Is it a triangle?
Is a triangle proportional? Or is it skewed?
If you had to hold it in your hand, how heavy would it be?
What’s the texture?
Ask really abstract questions to fire up the creative parts of their brain and purposely getting them to zag instead of zig
If you’re always zigging on something, you’re always making the same type of choice. If I put you in a box and make you do something different, that is forcing creativity on you, because you don’t know what comes next.
Then as you branch out from there, every decision you make is based on an unknown output. It’s a lot about challenging conventions, challenging your comfort zones. I talk a lot about fear and the boxes of fear and complacency and all that stuff.
Once people start to really understand why they are in the box and they can’t get out of the box, once they start to understand that, they realize that this isn’t like some tried and true foundation for making creativity happen. It’s more of an understanding and recognition of their own hesitancies and character flaws that they perceive that they have to work out of.
It’s more psychological about them as a person and then once you kind of overcome some of those things, solving problems isn’t hard, it’s fun. If you know how to solve those problems, you have a 12 like a step process and your process is built with error and experimentation built into it, then your work becomes more fun.
But the best thing of all is that your work becomes more informed and it’s of a higher quality so much so that you start solving problems unlike anybody else.
When your employer sees help deeply and immersively you understand a problem and how you use that deep immersion to create a unique and amazing and equally immersive solution, they don’t wanna lose you. I could go on and on, but it’s absolutely true.
It’s one of my favorite things about teaching. Seeing people really break out of the box and rise above and into their careers and meeting their self-concept.
This idea of the idealized self-concept. Who are you in your most ideal sense? If you can use these design methodologies, these creative problem solving tactics, you can get closer and closer to that thing.
If your dream for your career has always been to be a director of digital marketing, and then when you get there and it’s like, oh wow, I was able to get there using these tactics and techniques, what do I do next?
Some people may not have envisioned the next thing beyond that ultimate thing. So it’s liberating in that respect too.
Facing backlash from colleagues when sharing good news (and why to share your accomplishments anyway)
Jennifer: One of the things that you brought up while you were just talking was fear and anxiety, and it actually reminded me that I wanted to ask you about that as it relates to awards that you’ve won.
Professors that I work with and people who are in my courses, feel really anxious when talking about their awards on social media, especially sharing it with their department, even internally. There’s a lot of anxiety when it comes to that.
Have you ever experienced any backlash for sharing your awards?
RJ: As a matter of fact, yes. It’s what led me to leave my tenure teaching position. It’s unfortunate that it worked out the way that it did.
One of the things that I dealt with specifically was, I put all of myself into my work. And I believe in my work whole heartedly. When you put me into a position where you basically say, ‘Hey, in order to get tenure and promotion, you have to have peer-reviewed evaluations of your work. Part of that are competitions, juried exhibitions. That’s part of the game. That is the game.’
I made it a point to put all of my effort into playing that game well.
And I did, so much so that I received one of Ohio’s highest honors in art. I received an art award from the governor and I got to meet him and his wife and everything.
What that did was the community that I was in, they celebrated that work. Because the thing that I made that got me that award was ultimately for the Youngstown region. It celebrated them.
But on the faculty level, all that did was breed jealousy and resentment and inferiority complexes shot through the roof. Because I was junior faculty, that was used against me.
Instead of seeing that as an opportunity to build into my energy, collaborate, let’s share our successes together…
Instead what happened was, some of my peer faculty grew resentful. They grew jealous. They use tactics to essentially punish me.
They made sure that my tenure process was hell. On paper I was very tenurable, so, that’s one of the reasons why I got it. But I know that the spirit of celebrating your peers was not there.
A lot of that came back to graphic design was a popular major. The professors that were jealous and resentful of me were not in graphic design. More importantly, they didn’t understand the forest for the trees. I was responsible for bringing a lot of new students to the design program and also those fine art programs.
And I realized that, that summer of 2019, I didn’t wanna leave tenure, I fought so hard for it. But no amount of tenure or promotion was going to be worth the mental stress and anxiety that they would place on me just by virtue of wanting to do my job really well.
Jennifer: Especially when it’s for, in this specific instance, this is for the community, this is something that you were doing for the town of Youngstown.
RJ: Yeah, they basically said I was trying to be a showboat. And I was being obnoxious with…
I’m a marketer.
I understand how branding works. I understand how marketing works. If I’m gonna put all of my effort into something, I wanna make sure that people know about it. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Frankly, for some of the folks that are concerned about, if they’re too timid to promote themselves in their work, I completely get that because of what I went through. And I say to hell with them, rise above it.
If you submit your work to a competition and you get acknowledged, the people in your life, if they’re worth keeping around, they will celebrate your efforts. They will support you.They will champion you. And you will do the same for them in return.
If they don’t do that for you, then you need to consider your place in that community.
Do I want you to leave that community? Absolutely not.
But it is much easier to leave a situation than it is to change an entire community of people that ultimately don’t want you to be successful. They want the successes that you captured for themselves.
And no one wants to be around folks like that. No one grows when resentment breeds eternal like that.
The benefits from an award hopefully exceeds the criticism you get
RJ: If you believe in your work, you put yourself into it completely, and you have some money to spare to put it into a competition or any peer reviewed situation like that, do it. Because the benefits you get from it will hopefully far exceed the criticism that you get.
To give you an example, when I did that work for Youngstown and got the award from the Ohio governor, I had a number of communities knocking on my door saying, we want you to replicate that work here. We’ll pay you a market value for what you do. We’ll defer to your expertise. We just want good work and you’re a proven commodity. Okay, let’s do it, and so we did.
In the case of just to switch gears real quick, in the case of Pitt Business School, it was really important to me that I was given so much freedom and latitude to essentially do what I felt was best from a marketing perspective, from a design perspective. I was able to completely reboot all of our marketing collateral.
I didn’t do it alone, and I wanted people to know in my college that my marketing team, the one I’m on, is the best. We’re the best ones for the job.
I also wanted to tell all the 300 some odd marketers at the University of Pittsburgh that we’re the best marketing team on campus. And we did it two years in a row. When we do that, we say, yeah, we believe in our work enough to do this.
Let us help you. We will do this because we’re colleagues, because we want to see you succeed as well.
So you build a spirit of camaraderie in this community and rising tide lifts all ships. The ultimate goal would be, hey, my marketing team give some advice to all the different colleges at Pitt and maybe they come out with some better looking work and they see increased enrollment and everybody prospers. So, that’s kind of the intent.
Let me just say that, I think for my supervisors, for my marketing team, they like the acknowledgement. It makes them feel good. It builds confidence in their work and it energizes them to do more ambitious work or more involved work.
It’s not just going through the motions anymore, we’re building something. And it’s that paradigm shift that has caused a lot of our success and just good feelings about our jobs.
How professors and researchers can work with universities to better promote their work
Faculty are busy, there are only so many hours in the day
Jennifer: Thanks for sharing that.
Now, I wanted to ask for the professors and researchers out there, what are some ways in which you as a marketing department have collaborated with them to tell their stories?
RJ: You know, I think, I would say first off, and I know many HigherEd marketers can relate to this. There is a perception in a well-founded perception that faculty generally are too busy to participate in marketing efforts. To an extent that is true. And there’s nothing wrong with that because they’re doing their jobs, right? We only have so many hours in the day.
Part of our goal is we want to celebrate our faculty as much as we celebrate the outcomes and career goals of our students. Fortunately, we have very proactive, productive faculty that are doing world changing work. And they understand the value of marketing that, and they work with us to do that. But it doesn’t mean it’s easy,
It’s not often easy to work with your faculty, to get what you need from them.
Build your reputation within the community, faculty, and student body
If you’re a faculty member and you open yourself up to being promoted, the work that you’re doing, you want it to be signal boosted, because that builds your reputation in your
Community
Faculty
Student body
Be open to letting us help you signal boost your work.
We can do some amazing and creative things if you just give us the time of day. Give us a couple hours every week and we will work our asses off for you.
Collaborating with marketing and communication teams takes reciprocal respect
It’s reciprocal and it’s a reciprocal respect and understanding that in order for collaboration to be successful for all stakeholders and all beneficiaries, you gotta put the time in.
And we have a lot of faculty that are writing books, we just won an $800,000 grant from one of our marketing faculty won this massive grant. We wanna put that out into the world, so, let us help you.
If you’re a faculty person, and you’re wondering how to get promoted, work with us. Respect our work. Respect our capabilities. You don’t have to do it alone. We champion our entire community.
I think that is the best way to do it.
And don’t be afraid to shout your accolades from the roof. It’s okay!
Our students want professors that are doing amazing work.
When I was a tenure track, and even still to this day is on the faculty side, I always show real world practical work that I’m doing because it contextualizes the professional experience for my students: “Oh, wow, he’s still doing something. That’s awesome I can learn from him because he’s still in play.”
Let us in, we’ll tell your story and that will create ripple effects all through our marketing.
Learn a secret to getting better students for the classes you teach
There’s also another basic sort of formula here: The more you help us promote you, the better the students you’ll get.
Every faculty person wants better students, every single one. It makes the teaching experience more enriching for them and for us. We don’t necessarily like having to go through the lecture, here’s the homework assignment, go on your merry way. We don’t wanna go through the motions, if we don’t have to. We have a profound amount of knowledge to share.
If we have better students, they’re gonna be more engaged and more interested in learning those little details, those anecdotes from practice or whatever.
It makes faculty feel good about their job and about the work that they do. So, I think that that is an operative sort of thing to think about.
Avoid going through your dean or department chair
Also consider the opposite, you don’t participate, you ignore us. That makes our lives a lot more difficult because we’ve got to track you down. If you don’t respond to us, then we have to talk to the chair or the dean. Then the dean and the chair come down on you. No faculty person really ever wants to talk to their chair or dean. I kid, I kid. But it’s true. It doesn’t have to come to that.
So just work with us and we will do what we can 100%.
Jennifer: I think that’s such an important sentiment. It’s gonna take work on both sides.
You guys have so much expertise, you’re hoping to share with the faculty who wanna promote themselves and promote their research,
I think that’s wonderful. But it sounds like maybe faculty really don’t know what to expect, they don’t know what the potential is for themselves.
So, there are ways for you to celebrate them, but the faculty need to be more open about it in order for you to even be aware of each other.
RJ: So, on that note, one tactic that I’ve taken recently is I’ve added all 125 of our faculty to LinkedIn. I track their profiles because they’re more prone to update their LinkedIn and self-promote versus telling us.
As soon as I see something, it’s going over here, and then I just traffic control the content. And that actually brings in another point where…
Marketing and communication teams what to make it as easy for professors as possible
Hey, faculty, we wanna work with you as much as possible, but guess what? We wanna make the process as easy for you as possible.
If we need you to record a video, we’re gonna script the whole thing, put it on a teleprompter. You come in, spend 10 minutes with us, read it and you’re out.
You have to go teach their classes and depending on your institution and mine, rankings are extremely important. We need our faculty in the classroom, teaching our students well so our rankings go up, so our student body becomes more enriched and we pull in better prospects and everybody wins.
Jennifer: So if faculty are more open about their accomplishments with their marketing teams and more willing to put in some effort, in order to help those marketing teams promote their work, then it can make a big difference for everyone.
The faculty can get better students, the student body can hear more awesome news about their faculty, and it can really reach a larger audience. I see lots of HigherEd posts about professors, about scientists and researchers, being shared with much wider audiences than just the community. It can reach people around the world. So, this is great.
Your university would love if you join Twitter or other social media platforms
RJ: And you know the next step to that is, they see the results and then they decide to be proactive and really participate.
If I could have 125 different Twitter accounts for every single faculty member and they were off and running and doing really well with it, awesome. Oh my God, the marketing ecosystem that would be working with would be profound and huge. And yeah, It would probably be stressful as hell, but we would have 125 of our biggest advocates out there in the world telling other people how good our programs are. You know, and that’s good branding.
But they’re researchers. By virtue of the description of their positions, they’ve gotta be researching. They’ve gotta be teaching and writing grants, and that’s what they do.
Social media doesn’t have to take all of your time. Just a little bit of practice talking about yourself, maybe talking about your research and sharing it publicly is going to make a big difference for you.
“Eventually I hit a wall…this has all been done before,” and persevering through that feeling
Jennifer: RJ, I’m so glad we’ve had all of these conversations. We’ve talked about your work as a director of marketing, we’ve talked about Plus Public, your business. We talked about CommCentered. We talked about what it’s like to be a faculty member at the same time.
Is there anything else that you’d like to share or chat about before we wrap up?
RJ: I’m all over the place with my interests, but they are mostly HigherEd specific. And I walk on both sides of that HigherEd dividing line.
I’m on the staff side and I’m on the faculty. It’s the best place to be as a marketer because it lets me understand what my audiences want. It’s a very organic transition of data and learning. My marketing savvy helps me teach better, because it’s vocal, it’s public speaking, it’s presentation of my PowerPoints and other things.
On the opposite side, I’m learning how to better communicate with my students, but also prospective students, so they they’re mutually beneficial.
With my HigherEd research on CommCentered, now I’m getting some of that research on the faculty side that I can apply to the staff side.
One thing that I’ve been struggling with that I wanted to share was, and maybe some of the faculty listening can understand that. I often say when the muse speaks, listen. It may not always make sense. It may not always be compatible.
I often have these moments where I’ve just got, the gears are turning in my head, it just randomly clicks on and I just start writing ideas down. Like last Saturday, it was a birthday party for one of my daughter’s friends. I was sitting in a Chuck E. Cheese and I’m at a table by myself with a notebook, like a super nerd and ignoring everyone else and I’m writing down pages of notes, just things that are firing through my head. My energy is like, “oh my God, this is so awesome. I think I can do this.”
Then I eventually hit a wall and like, I look at my notes and I’m just thinking like, this has all been done before.
So if you’re out there and like, you feel like you have this energy to like write a book or a series of books or contribute to the knowledge base in a big way, you actually can and you should.
Don’t be afraid of imposter syndrome or that you feel like everything that has been said or done, can be said or done, has already been said or done.
One of the things that I did was, I reached out to a few people and I said, I’ve got this energy, I know what I wanna say and how to say it, but I don’t quite know the format. Alexa Heinrich, our friend in HigherEdSocial, she said, “Everything that can be said or done in accessibility has been said and done.” The difference is her perspective on it. And she recognized that upfront. Learn about making your social media posts more accessible on Alexa’s website.
That was for me really hard to swallow, to accept, because I come from this faculty academic side where original thought is highly coveted and valued, and I just couldn’t quite get there for whatever reason, confidence issues, self-esteem. I just didn’t have a good mentor to help me guide through this process. And Alexa just, she nailed it.
I was feeling really down on CommCentered, because I hadn’t blogged in a while.
And then I talked to Amy Jauman, who’s the Chief Education Officer for the National Institute for Social Media. Who wrote quite literally a book, this thick on social media. And I said, how did you get to that point? She basically said, “oh, I just sat down at the computer and started writing.”
And I’m like screw you, get out of here. I don’t wanna hear it, I don’t wanna hear it.
But she gave me some really great advice, and then I started to turn the gears a little bit and I’m like, okay, CommCentered should be what it already is. It’s a website. It’s active. It’s an archive. It’s the only inventory of HigherEd logos on the internet.
I’ve already checked the boxes, but because of some lack of objectivity or lack of confidence or something, I feel, I felt like it wasn’t original. And sure enough it is.
It’s one of the reasons why you and I connected and we keep circling this conversation.
As I’m starting to get my confidence back…And if, again, if you’re an academic researcher and you hit that wall where you think no one’s gonna care, this is why you have to stay the course and continue on.
Randomly, I got an email from a journalist at the Australian equivalent of The Chronicle of Higher Education. He’s like, ‘Hey, I came across CommCentered, and it is absolutely stunning. No one else, I’ve never seen anyone do anything like this, period.”
All of a sudden my soul left my body and all of the energy that I took from the universe came right back into my body and I started writing those blog posts.
The other parts of his message was, I wanna have you speak on these topics at Australia’s biggest HigherEd conference. And I wanna have you be a panelist. I wanna learn more about that work. So we got the ball rolling. But that’s not where it ends.
Where it ends is to present day where, I looked at his website and all of the articles and I’m thinking, the Marketing and Communications sector of higher education is gigantic. There are over 9,000 universities globally. But there’s no centralized knowledge base for those people.
So now I’m looking at all right, well, CommCentered was just a champion for the work. CommCentered 2.0, can be something else entirely.
What that is just yet, I don’t know, but it could be big on that scale.
So, stay the course, researchers, what you’re doing absolutely has value.
Jennifer: Ah, thank you so much, RJ. I have loved this conversation. Thank you so much for joining me today.
RJ Thompson, MFA is an award-winning marketing and design professional. He is Director of Digital Marketing at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration at the University of Pittsburgh.
Before joining Pitt, RJ was a tenured Assistant Professor of Graphic + Interactive Design in the Department of Art at Youngstown State University. Previous to Youngstown State, RJ taught at Carnegie Mellon University, La Roche University, and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. Continuing his career in education, RJ has been an Adjunct Professor of Graphic & Interactive Design at Point Park University since 2019 where he was responsible for writing and teaching the interactive design curriculum. In 2020, he began teaching at the Community College of Allegheny County.
Outside of marketing, design, and teaching, RJ is also the Co-Principal and Creative Strategist for +Public, a Pennsylvania-based social enterprise that focuses on cultivating community and economic development impact through the creation of branded communication platforms, creative place-making, and storytelling initiatives for communities-in-revival.
Throughout his career, RJ has received many accolades for his creative works: In 2015, he was one of several recipients of the National Endowment for the Arts “Our Town” grant, valued at $100,000, for the INPLACE (“Innovative Plan for Leveraging Arts & Community Engagement”) project. In 2017, RJ received a “Best of Marketing Award” from the Ohio Economic Development Association for his efforts in rebranding the City of Youngstown, Ohio. In 2018, RJ was accepted into the prestigious Cohort 2 of the National Arts Marketing Project, a program supported by Americans for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. In 2019, RJ also received a scholarship to join the National Arts Strategies Executive Program in Arts & Culture Strategy through the School of Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2019, RJ was honored with the Ohio Governors Award in the Arts in Community Development, the state of Ohio’s highest recognition in the arts sector. Recently, RJ was the recipient of a certification scholarship from the National Institute for Social Media and received accolades from GDUSA and the University & College Designers Association for “Pitt Business Backstory” and “Business.Pitt.Edu” websites. RJ is presently a board member of the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Marketing Association.
I started producing weekly Teaching in Higher Ed podcast episodes in June of 2014. Since that time, a new episode has aired each week. This is something that I’m both proud of – yet a little horrified that I have got a streak going that may not be sustainable (or make sense) in the long run. As of today (October 2), I also have another streak going… I’ve closed my Apple Watch rings for 334 days straight. That means I’ve done at least 30 minutes of cardio, stood for at least a minute for 12 hours, and burned at least 440 calories during the day. I’m thinking it might be healthy if I were to not focus as much as I have been on maintaining either of these streaks and give myself a bit of a break. But I plan on sticking with them both (if I can) at least until the end of 2021.
A few years ago, Dave and I switched hosting companies for our podcasts. That’s why, instead of this being a list of the top 21 episodes of all time, I’m sticking with the top 21 since 2019. Someday, I might go back and combine the data from before the switch and now. However, for now, I’m keeping it simple.
Top 21 of the Most Listened to Episodes since 2019
Episode 324 – Teaching Effectively with Zoom with Dan Levy (2020)
Episode 309 – Hyflex Learning with David Rhoads (2020)
Episode 263 – Recipes for Effective Teaching with Elizabeth Barkley (2019)
Episode 320 – How to Be Together in Learning Online with Jesse Stommel (2020)
Episode 258 – Paying the Price with Sara Goldrick-Rab (2019)
Episode 316 – Designing for the Uncertain Fall with Maria Andersen (2020)
Episode 254 – Stop Talking, Start Influencing with Jared Horvath (2019)
Episode 291 – Learning Myths and Realities with Michelle Miller (2020)
Episode 314 – Culturally Responsive Online Teaching with Courtney Plotts (2020)
Episode 295 – Online Engagement Through Digital PowerUps with Travis Thurston (2020)
Episode 256 – Creating Wicked Students with Paul Hanstedt (2019)
Episode 296 – Toward Cruelty-Free Syllabi with Matthew Cheney (2020)
Episode 273 – Engaging Learners in Large Classes with Bonni Stachowiak (2019)
Episode 264 – Serving Hispanic Students with Melissa Salazar (2019)
Episode 271 – The Missing Course with David Gooblar (2019)
Episode 269 – Removing Learning Barriers with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) with Jennifer Pusateri (2019)
Episode 290 – The Productive Online and Offline Professor with Bonni Stachowiak (2020)
Episode 282 – Using Challenges to Motivate Learners with Mike Wesch (2019)
Episode 277 – Intentional Tech with Derek Bruff (2019)
Episode 253 – Spaces and Places (and Nudges) with José Bowen (2019)
Episode 259 – Intentional and Transparent Assessment with Natasha Jankowski (2019)
Other Popular More Recent Episodes
Here are some other more recent popular episodes from 2021:
Here’s my 2021 list of favorite podcasts, organized by category. At the end of the list, for the first time, I select ten shows that if I was only allowed that many to listen to each week, I would choose. Note to self: Why did you do that to yourself? Note to readers: Because I listen to a podcast, doesn’t mean I agree with what is said in episodes… I appreciate having my mind-expanded, yet do find that I sometimes wish some of the people I listen to would do a bit more of the same, which you will read about a little toward the end of this post.
Teaching and Higher Education
Tea for Teaching – “…a series of informal discussions of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning. Hosted by John and Rebecca, who run the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the State University of New York at Oswego.” I’ve learned so much from John, Rebecca, and their guests over many years now.
Gettin’ Air with Terry Greene – Terry prepares for each interview with care and asks authentic questions about open education.
The EdSurge Podcast – I tend to listen more often to the higher education focused episodes. Jeff Young is an excellent interviewer who understands the higher education context well.
Lecture Breakers with Barbi Honeycutt – “…a place where college professors… share innovative teaching strategies, practical ideas, teaching tips, and resources to help you break up your lecture, energize your classroom, increase student engagement, and improve learning.”
Think UDL – thoughtfully hosted by Lillian Nave. Each episode leaves me knowing more about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and ways to support learning more effectively.
Teacher of the Ear – Formerly named HybridPod, this show is hosted by Chris Friend, who now teaches at Kean University in Union, New Jersey, U.S.A. We can look forward to a new episode about podcasting as pedagogy later in October.
News and Politics
Make Me Smart with Kai and Molly – “Each weekday, Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal and Molly Wood make today make sense…. Break down happenings in tech, the economy and culture.” I listen to Make Me Smart almost every weekday.
Pantsuit Politics – “…a podcast for real conversations that help us understand politics, democracy, & the news – while still treating each other like thoughtful human beings.”
Political Gabfest – Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the week’s politics in an entertaining and informative way.
The Ezra Klein Show – Weekly conversations about “something that matters.” Ezra is a phenomenal interviewer and I find myself waking away from each episode with an issue that will capture my thoughts for some time to come.
The Daily – “Twenty minutes a day, five days a week, hosted by Michael Barbaro and powered by New York Times journalism.”
Post Reports – “The Post’s premier daily podcast, featuring unparalleled reporting, expert insight and clear analysis, every weekday afternoon.”
This Land – “The award-winning documentary podcast This Land is back for season 2. Host Rebecca Nagle reports on how the far right is using Native children to attack American Indian tribes to advance a conservative agenda.”
What a Day – “Big news. Short podcast. Can’t keep up with the flood of news every morning? We’ve got you covered.”
Pod Save America – “A no-bullshit conversation about politics hosted by Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer and Tommy Vietor that breaks down the week’s news and helps people figure out what matters and how to help.”
On the Media – “WNYC’s weekly investigation into how the media shapes our worldview.”
The Dig – “… goes deep into politics everywhere, from labor struggles and the political-economy to imperialism and immigration.”
Technology
Mac Power Users – “Learn about getting the most from your Apple technology with focused topics and workflow guests. Creating Mac Power Users, one geek at a time since 2009.”
Connected – “Weekly panel discussion on Apple and the impact of technology on our lives.”
Upgrade – Upgrade looks at how technology shapes our lives, from the devices in our hands and pockets to the streaming services that keep us entertained.
Automators – “Automation makes your life easier and everyone can do it. We tell you how.” The show is Mac-centric, though it also covers web services that enable automation.
See more technology-oriented podcasts that I listen to under the: Podcasts I Pay For section.
Mind-expanding Shows
Scene on Radio – “…two-time Peabody-nominated podcast from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.” This is not one of those shows where you have to go back to the first session to understand what’s going on now. However, earlier seasons were breathtaking and life-changing. I still regularly think about Season 2: Seeing White and Season 3: Men and highly recommend them, in addition to the current season of Scene on Radio.
Hidden Brain – “Hidden Brain Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.” Thanks for recommending it such a long time ago, Isabeau Iqbal.
This American Life – “This American Life is a weekly public radio program and podcast. Each week we choose a theme and put together different kinds of stories on that theme.” (One of the all-time greatest podcasts!)
Code Switch – “What’s CODE SWITCH? It’s the fearless conversations about race that you’ve been waiting for. Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race with empathy and humor. We explore how race affects every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, food and everything in between. This podcast makes all of us part of the conversation — because we’re all part of the story.” Thanks to Rob Parke for recommending this show on Episode 126 of Teaching in Higher Ed.
Business, Economics, and Leadership
Planet Money – “The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, “Meet me at the bar and tell me what’s going on with the economy.” Now imagine that’s actually a fun evening.”
Marketplace – “…helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. “
Coaching for Leaders – “Leaders Aren’t Born, They’re Made. It’s a myth that leadership skills can’t be learned. Almost nobody is a born leader. Most leaders I know learned how to lead through the school of hard knocks, good training, years of hard work, effective coaching, and great mentors.” (Hosted by this guy I know – who I happen to be married to – Dave Stachowiak.)
The Look & Sound of Leadership – Candidly, if I hadn’t have had this podcast recommended to me by Dave (my husband), I may not have listened. Given that we both have doctoral degrees in organizational leadership, let’s just say that one of us (that would be me) doesn’t always gravitate to doing a bunch of listening on the topic in my “free” time. Tom is a fantastic storyteller and coach, however, and I’ve learned a great deal from him over the years. “Using an uncommon blend of storytelling and coaching, Tom Henschel created a unique and influential podcast. Eavesdrop on a monthly coaching conversation and get practical tools you can apply the minute the episode ends.”
Women at Work – Produced by Harvard Business Review. It sometimes goes on hiatus for a while – but it is well worth browsing prior episodes. Excellent interviews to helps us all fulfill our potential with excellence and joy!
Worklife, with Adam Grant – “Organizational psychologist Adam Grant takes you inside the minds of some of the world’s most unusual professionals to explore the science of making work not suck. From learning how to love criticism to harnessing the power of frustration, one thing’s for sure: You’ll never see your job the same way again.”
GTD – “Our GTD podcasts are here to support you at every stage of your GTD practice. … The podcasts include personal and professional stories, as well as practical tips about GTD systems for desktop and mobile, using apps and paper. Start listening now and you’ll be well on your way to stress-free productivity.”
Focused – Great productivity show, hosted by David Sparks and Mike Schmitz.
The Productivity Show – The team from Asian Efficiency helps us up our game on this practical podcast.
Life and Faith
Unlocking Us with Brené Brown – When this podcast moved to Spotify, I dropped my listening frequency way down. But each time I consume anything by Brené Brown, my life gets better.
On Being – “A Peabody Award-winning public radio show and podcast. What does it mean to be human? How do we want to live? And who will we be to each other? Each week a new discovery about the immensity of our lives. Hosted by Krista Tippett.”
Everything Happens with Kate Bowler – “Life isn’t always bright and shiny, as Kate Bowler knows. Kate is a young mother, writer and professor who, at age 35, was suddenly diagnosed with State IV cancer. In was, insightful, often funny conversations, Kate talks with people about what they’ve learned in dark times. Kate teaches at Duke Divinity School and is author of Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved).
Kelly Corrigan Wonders – “…a place for people who like to laugh while they think and find it useful to look closely at ourselves and our weird ways in the hopes that knowing more and feeling more will help us do more and be better.” Her episode with Anne Lamott nourished my soul right down to my core. Another vital episode was her conversation with Tressie McMillan Cottom, which explored Tressie’s “thoughts, emotions and deeply ingrained habits when it comes to money… both new and old.”
Another Name for Every Thing with Richard Rohr – Despite the podcast ending in March of 2021, I still go back and listen (or re-listen) to older episodes. “Another Name for Every Thing with Richard Rohr is a conversational podcast series on the deep connections between action and contemplation. Richard is joined by two students of the Christian contemplative path, Brie Stoner and Paul Swanson, who seek to integrate the wisdom amidst diapers, disruptions, and the shifting state of our world.”
The Evolving Faith Podcast – Despite having ended in late October, 2020, this is another show I go back to revisit regularly. These are timeless conversations about faith, belonging, identity, disability, embodiment, wonder, politics, empathy, injustice, and courage.
The Holy Post – I did not think I would like this podcast at all. Multiple friends recommended it. Still, I resisted. When I finally listened, it quickly went up near the top of my listening queue, each time a new episode was released. “Conversations about culture, theology, politics, and living a thoughtful Christian life.” Each episode starts with a few news-related items, including occasional bits about “news of the butt.” Then, Skye Jethani interviews a guest, including a recent interview with one of my all-time favorite Christian authors – Philip Yancey.
Podcasts I Pay For
The overwhelming majority of podcasts remain free in 2021. However, some podcasts have ad-free options, while others use some form of a subscription model. I pay for two podcasts (one directly; the other, as a part of a broader, content subscription).
Dithering – A podcast hosted by Ben Thompson and John Gruber, two technology experts. They air episodes twice per week that are exactly 15 minutes in length.
MacStories – I subscribe to Club MacStories Premier, which includes a number of subscriber-only podcasts, as well a a number of other geeky benefits for Mac and iOS users.
Attempt at a Top 10
Narrowing down all of the wonderful podcasts, above, to just ten is incredibly hard to do. The world of podcasting is rich with compelling content. Additionally, I enjoy some shows because they are “easy” to listen to – in that I don’t have to think very hard while taking them in. I’m trying to be realistic about which ones I tend to move to the top of my listening queue versus ones I “think” I should be listening to more. I suspect I would change my mind on this attempt at narrowing my favorites down to an arbitrary number of them, were I to compile such a list tomorrow.
MacStories – I’m cheating here, a little, since there are multiple MacStories shows under this umbrella.
The Holy Post – While I continue to hold out hope that the hosts will continue to experience an evolving faith in their lives (perhaps even by listening to the Evolving Faith podcast back catalog?), the combination of lighthearted conversation in the beginning, along with humor and humbleness has me moving this one to the top of my queue more often than I might like to admit.
Teaching in Higher Ed – Kidding about this one. But I do listen back to every episode, always trying to get better at what I do. It’s hard to listen, often, but I force myself to do it, in the interest of continuing to grow my ability to have these conversations about teaching.
A research project on refugees and enrollment in U.S. higher education is underway. Any assistance in either completing the survey yourself, if you meet the criteria of course, or forwarding to and informing prospective research subjects would be great. Note that I am not involved in this research…just helping to spread the word. More information available at https://bit.ly/3gzHsWs
Audio from a podcast interview that I did with the Efficiency Exchange back in April at Jisc‘s DigiFest event. I had a cold, hence the reason why my voice is a bit off. Hope you enjoy this quick clip.
2015 is surely one of the most momentous years in a long time regarding debates about tenure, academic freedom, the Wisconsin Idea, budget cuts, etc. Yesterday’s balanced article (‘Tenure or Bust‘) by Colleen Flaherty, in Inside Higher Ed, is but the latest of a series of nuanced pieces Ms. Flaherty has produced this year about the unfolding of higher education debates in this Midwest U.S. state of 5.75 million people.
While I’m immersed in the tumult as a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I can’t help standing back and trying to look at the big picture. Studying, living, working, and visiting a range of other countries, including universities in Canada, England, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and France, as well as being based in the U.S. since 2001, often engenders a drive to compare. And when comparing and reflecting upon what this wonderful university and the state/national higher education system (systems, in reality) has to offer, I increasingly think too much is taken for granted, or assumed. This is a relatively risk-oriented society, and I’m struck by how many people (including many of of the people leaving comments below ‘Tenure or Bust‘) assume the system is ‘broken,’ resiliency can be counted upon, and mechanisms to turn the system on a dime exist, if searched for long enough. They also ignore path dependency, and prior developmental trajectories and agendas, the ones that have led us to where we are now, a nation that has some of the strongest and most dynamic universities in the world. Problems and weaknesses exist, of course, but people in Wisconsin and the U.S. more broadly don’t seem to know just how many other countries are desperate to create just the types of universities that exist here.
And what are some of the deep (core) principles and conditions that have led to the creation of so many world-class universities and higher education systems (at the state-scale) in Wisconsin and the U.S. more broadly? This question brings me to the words of Hanna Holborn Gray, the esteemed president of the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1993. In conference panel comments reprinted in the Summer 2009 issue of Social Research, Hanna Holborn Gray deemed universities to be a very important and special institution:
…the only institution in our world, that is, as it were, commissioned to always take a longer-term look. The only institution in our world that is commissioned, so to speak, to concentrate on the mission of discovery and learning, and the transmission of learning, on the elaboration and interpretation and debate over important ideas, over what is most important in the cultural world.
Emeritus President Holborn Gray then begged the question: “What is it that makes that profession or vocation possible? And what is it that makes the institution in which it is carried on a genuine institution?”
When for any reason, in a university on private foundation or in a university supported by public money, the administration of the institution or the instruction in any one of its departments is changed from an influence from without; when an effort is made to dislodge an officer or a professor because the political sentiment or the religious sentiment of the majority has undergone a change, at that moment the institution has ceased to be a university, and it cannot again take its place in the rank of universities so long as their continues to exist any appreciable extent of coercion. Neither an individual, nor the state, nor the church has the right to interfere with the search for truth, or with its promulgation when found. Individuals, or the state, or the church may found schools for propagating certain kinds of special instruction, but such schools are not universities, and may not be so denominated.
Genuine ‘universities’ like the University of Chicago and those that make up the University of Wisconsin System are associated with conditions of autonomy, and are spaces that respect and uphold academic freedom. And from the faculty perspective, academic freedom is significantly realized via the mechanism of tenure, which enables faculty to focus upon things like “establishing revolutionary theories about economics” (one of Milton Friedman’s many contributions in Chicago), the sustained basic research that underlies the creation of the iPhone (that the University of Wisconsin-Madison contributed to), challenging research questions related to democratization, authoritarianism, sexuality or violence, complex global challenges such as climate change, and so on. And in so doing, these faculty members (in association with staff & students) play a major role in creating the conditions that have helped us facilitate the formation of one of the world’s first university-linked technology transfer units (WARF) in 1925, through to generating research activity and spin-off firms that has made the Madison city-region one of the US’s most advanced industrial bases (according to the Brookings Institution in 2015) — a now common process of geographical concentration that the World Bank and others (e.g., David Warsh) note is inevitable, but defacto functions as ‘engines’ for regional and national economies.
I have no doubt the vast majority of the University of Chicago’s current faculty would make the same argument I am above: after all, that great university’s leadership has been doing so since it was founded 125 years ago in 1890. Visionary leaders like William Rainey Harper and Hanna Holborn Gray were aware that the long and challenging road to build one of the most dynamic and powerful higher education systems in the world depended upon more than platitudes about ‘academic freedom’ – academic freedom actually had (and has) to be realized each and every day.
