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Personal Reflection from Tom Black: Strategic Partner, Higher Education

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I am forever a student.  I am curious about everything, and new discoveries—learning things I didn’t know before or making new connections—are a rush.  So why wouldn’t everyone want to feel the same?  Early in my career, I became a 12^th grade American History teacher.  At 21, I set off to Omaha, Nebraska to help integrate a segregated city and show my pupils what discovery looked and felt like.  It was idealistic of me to think I could make a difference, but it was after all the Age of Aquarius and anything seemed possible.

As an educator, I learned very quickly that before students can have my learning and discovery experience, they needed help in removing the many barriers in their lives.  Of course, many I could not change, but some, I found, I could, especially in the classroom.  So, I set a course for using whatever means I could to find or invent to remove obstacles and enhance learning.  Often that meant bucking the trends, the current ways of doing things, or changing how one viewed situations.

After graduate school, where I went to sharpen my skills in removing learning barriers, I was recruited into the registrar profession, where the largest barrier for learning involved technology and the management of change to accept new technology.  Throughout my over forty years working within the profession, I was able to affect changes to the student learning experience, both directly and indirectly, through the adoption of  touch-tone course registration; establishment of the first office internet site in 1994; creation of the digital all-in-one ID card; implementation of EDI transmissions and data standards generally; early adoption of digitally signed PDF transcripts with embedded links; implementation of electronic portfolios; advocacy for and early adoption of  the comprehensive learner record; conception of the digital PDF diploma and certificate; and the support and mentoring of four student start-ups:  CourseRank, ClassOwl, institutional Smart Phone Apps; and, yes Stellic.

It is the latter engagement with Stellic that pulled together all the knowledge that I had acquired in reducing barriers to learning.  What the three co-founders conceived was a first-in-class digital experience for empowering students to take control of their learning journey.  The software is a paragon of “design thinking”, where the design and functionality meets, often exceeds, the expectations of the students.  And, applying those same design principles, the college and university professionals, including registrars, advisors, administrators, and faculty experience the same easy-to-navigate digital platform.

I am now captivated by how through an elegant software platform that not only eliminates the drudgery of institutional navigation has the potential to increase students’ economic, social and cultural capital at the same time.  Learning, especially in pursuit to a degree, no longer is just a proposition of “retention” or “completion”, it is now one of discovery: of matching nascent and forming intellectual interests with the often-hidden institutional gems of knowledge, skills and outcomes of the curricula, writ large and other non-curricular, sponsored activities of the Academy.  As a result, students can focus on enhancing their economic capital, and with guidance offered through the engagement with professionals on the platform, can improve their social and cultural capital, the ingredients for improving their overall social mobility.  This powerful tool does more to augment the work of the many professionals and faculty than any Ed Tech technology that has come before it.  It’s one thing to be operationally excellent, and there are many tools that are, but to be transformative, enhancing the student experience beyond their expectations, that is worthy of rapt attention.

Without hyperbole, we are experiencing a sea change in the public’s perspective on the value of Higher Education.  Over several decades, I watched what was thought to be the envy of the world to almost become a pariah within American society.  If that sentiment is too strong, I definitely can assert that higher education and its promise has become negatively politicized.  People are questioning the value of the degree, the marketability of select majors, the return on investment, the integrity of its inquiry by asserting that it is has its own socially engineered agenda.  In addition to this phenomenon, there are real demographic changes affecting regional institutions, and the much-anticipated enrollment cliff has arrived.  Finally, there are millions of former students frustrated and holding onto abandoned or stranded academic credits who would like to realize their benefit—to upskill, reskill or simply fit into the ever-changing economy—if it were possible.  This is all very chilling and overwhelming, and it is causing stress and trauma for the students, faculty, administrators and staff.

For me, now is the time to act, to change what we’re doing and do it better than we’ve done it in the past.  We need to adapt to our current situation.  Students and staff need to be empowered.  Students need to be more vested in their learning, and staff need to be more impactful, even with fewer resources and less time available.  Stellic is more than a transformative software platform.  It is also a learning organization that is dedicated to realizing the learning aspirations of students and to listen, develop, support and standby the stakeholders within Higher Education helping them to be more effective.  Higher Education needs this tool and this dedicated organization.  It is composed of “students”, just like me.  Why wouldn’t I join them under the current circumstances to contribute to one of the best solutions to advance learning in Higher Education?

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