Higher Ed Must Build a Talent Supply Chain to Fix Workforce Readiness

This episode of Signals in Higher Ed is sponsored by Podium Education, embedding real world, high impact experiences Into the Undergraduate Degree for credit and at scale. For more information, go to podiumeducation dot com. Hey, everybody. This is Darren Francis with Signals and Higher Education. Got another wonderful episode for you today. Today I've got with me Doctor. Steven Russell, the Chief Partnership Officer and Senior Associate Vice President for Career Outcomes at Bowling Green State University. Steve, welcome to the show. Hey. Thank you, Darren. That was quite quite the mouthful. You made it. Yeah. That title is probably hard to get on a, on a name badge at a conference. Right? Joke. Yes. Well, hey, thanks for taking the time. You know we're talking about experiential learning, and that the weekly cadence that we've had, we've been talking to peers of yours at different institutions, and also with some of the companies that are supporting experiential learning in the market today. And what I think is really great about today's episode is to dive into this, again, from the standpoint of thinking about how you can scaffold a career strategy and a curriculum at a regional state university. And none other better to discuss this with than you. I wanted to maybe start though, and go back to the beginning for you, because it seems to me that you stepped into this role, and it was a role that didn't exist the form that it does now. Right. Right? So there was a bit of molding and changing going on there. Take me back to before you said yes, what was the work you had been doing that made the university believe that you were the person to build this, and what made you believe it too? Yeah, that's a fun question. And I should first say thanks for having me today, and I've had the opportunity to see some of the wonderful guests, so I feel like I'm in a pretty exceptional company. So thanks for having me. Yeah, that's tricky. Why did they want to go with me? I think I was pretty transparent about my interests in sort of disruption and breaking some of the status quo. You know, we talked a lot about certainly I had spent a lot of time at the intersection of higher ed and industry. But I think more than that was I had had roles that ranged what BGSU was doing really well, which was in the student success space with a space that I think they wanted to grow into, which was more of that industry engagement space. So, you know, this was a really unique opportunity. And I think, you know, I was genuinely interested because of what this university is, the population of students that they serve, and you could just see such potential for continued growth and evolution. So, you know, I I hoped and prayed and crossed my fingers that, you know, I had the opportunity to be here. Yeah. I mean, it seems to me like like and think you're encapsulating it just really well with sort of the combined set of services there. But did you feel like what was specifically about their vision that really made you say yes? Yeah, I think the biggest thing about Bowling Green is that there's been really exceptional leadership here. And I know that sometimes feels like it's a really canned answer to say, but you know, the president of Bowling Green State University, Rodney Rogers, you know, has been at this institution for over two decades is on I think his eighth year of being president was provost before that. And I don't say that just to simply to say, Hey, I thought this was a low risk opportunity that, hey, we wouldn't have any turnover. But I think what it has done is it has sharpened a laser focus on what the strategy is here. And that's a gift, you know, when a leader can actually provide real tangible strategy, it gives people like me the ability to understand what I'm walking into, and commit to it and go all in on it. And so, laser focused strategy, and really strong leadership made it really an obvious choice. Can you describe a little bit about the the Cullen gift and the life design framework? Just curious. That feels like a very unique property and and opportunity at Bowling Green. Yeah, this has been a fun time to be at Bowling Green for a wide variety of elements, but I think one of them was that there was a commitment back in twenty twenty two from two separate donors who really came together and leaned into this idea that BGSU could be a national player around the idea of this implementation of this life design framework for all of our students. And so really had to think hard about scale and how we were going to get there. And those two gifts that came in Were the catalyst for sort of realigning the entire institution. You know, those gifts were exceptional. I was fortunate to just be with Mike Colleen, actually, maybe two hours ago today. So it's good timing to talk about this. But what I think but what they would also share with you is that's not the end of the game. Right That was really only the beginning. And so it was a catalyst. It was a powerful moment and it gave us a jumping off point. But you know, it also created an environment where there was a lot of additional work from a culture perspective to really align the institution with that as kind of a core pillar to our student success strategy. That makes that's great. That's great. You guys have actually gotten national attention. You're you're actually you're you're aligned and in an accelerator program with ASU around the work integrated learning side of things. And so I recognize that just a few months ago. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because that feels like that's probably an extension of some of the work that you're doing here today. Yeah. We love the team at University College there at Arizona State and have had a really you know, kind of budding longer term relationship with them now because we were also a part of a previous initiative around what was called the Work Plus Collective, which was a big focus on, you know, maximizing student employment on your campus as a model for career readiness as well. And so we went through that grant process with them and are now a part of this national work integrated learning accelerator as well. So you know, think we see really eye to eye and recognize that there's a need for universities to come up with some new models that support the scale of career connected learning. We also feel like we are a part of this to indicate that we weren't done after a couple of good years of having the Kulin hub gift come in and you know, we got some national attention for a couple of our efforts, but rather this was just the next thing we have to keep on innovating. And we knew a lot about this space going into it because of our heavy work with industry. You know, we were We were hearing leading up to this internships were drying up, we were hearing that the volume of them was reducing. And we were also hearing a bit of misalignment around sort of maybe that's a controversial way to say it, but sort of the end product for us, right, our graduates. So those employers were sitting at the end of the conveyor belt, we were dropping off this product to them and they were dissatisfied with it. And asking them, you know, what were some of those clear indicators of the successful graduates that they wanted to hire? And it was all about, well, did they do an internship in advance? And we laughed to ourselves a little bit, you know, on the idea of like the thing that you want more of is students who have done internships and the thing that you're reducing is the number of internships. And so, you know, a part of that really woke us up to the value proposition obviously wasn't quite aligned and we needed to get involved with other institutions who were like minded to really think about how do we tackle this problem? We're not magically going to snap our fingers and have enough internships for every student. So what do we do instead? We can't sit around and say, woe is us. We need to be proactive. And that's, I think the group of institutions that are involved in that work integrated learning accelerator are being proactive about what can universities do to step up. And it doesn't preclude need industry to step up alongside of us. It just means we can't sit back and be passive about it either. Yeah. Well and there's a couple of branches for of thought for us here. Right? We we could get into the curricular elements of how you're implementing this, but I I I'd like to to stay on your expertise around engaging with industry leaders in your community. When you sit down with a leader these days, what do they usually expect from the university, and where do those expectations fall short? Is it all around internship problem, or AI? Where are the real main issues beyond internship, I guess? Yeah. I think sort of a cheater way to respond to this question is to say it depends on who they are within industry. But I think if I dig deeper, typically it falls to one end of the spectrum. It is either a very simple transactional conversation about hiring some interns, which is clearly not going to be at scale, or it's a conversation with leaders in the organization who are sort of holding their breath in the conversation saying, Oh my gosh, I just assume you're here to ask me for money. And can we blame them for that? That's basically been all that's been offered to industry of why they would engage with the university. Now, of course, we have those exceptional institutions who have thought about, you know, some of their research portfolio and aligning that with industry and kudos to them for doing that. And I hope more universities lean into that, but I wouldn't say that's been the norm. So more often than not, I think the leaders are keeping their fingers crossed that nobody's shaking them down for money. And I think the rest of the team is just sort of like, you're from a university, I guess I'm supposed to talk to you about the intern that we have and kind of nothing in between. When you get the chance to meet them and dig in and you really can have them be relaxed and realize that, I'm here to learn about you, to learn about your business, to better understand your strategy, how you're differentiating yourself in your own market, you really learn that there are a lot more opportunities for a university, particularly a comprehensive institution to be able to support them on. It's a little bit of a slow process because it starts with actively listening to them And also then educating them on some of the things that we do that I think they're surprised by, you know, imagining that we are experts at, training up. You know, traditional eighteen to twenty four year old student that goes to work for them, but somehow magically, we've never thought that you could also train the rest of our population, right? You could continue to help us think through that learning and development dynamic. It's already an area of expertise. You know, why wouldn't we lean into that with you? I think the same thing goes for that of research and development space. I had a gentleman in here the other day and he's like, gosh, I just don't know if our company would wanna donate money to you. And I thought like, oh my gosh, that's okay. What I want is for you to decide to invest in your own R and D, but do it in a way that's really cost effective for you. And that's through a university rather than hiring an outside third party or investing in three more people on your team to lean into that research project. We can be a capacity builder for industry. I think you're hitting on it, but as I think about Bowling Green as a regional comprehensive institution, what I wonder about is, What do you feel like the superpower is of Bowling Green relative to having relationships with local employers as opposed to national employers? Because because you sit amongst industry and you can bring industry to the table and you've got these relationships, are are there ways in which your relationship with industry is just that much better because of proximity. I definitely think Or shared value. Right. Yeah, I think you hit on that, Darren. I think it is beyond proximity. We have some industry partners who are certainly right in our backyard, and those relationships are equally as strong. But we have partners who are not in our backyard, but have shared values with us and they can see that value proposition and they've leaned in. I think A, right size institution, I think is a superpower. I think the right set of programs, I think it does come down to if you're going to engage with industry, you have to acknowledge are your academic programs aligned with industry need? So right size, right programs and right place for us. We sit at what maybe not everybody in Northwest Ohio would deem as being a superpower, But you know, having worked for different institutions across the country, this is a pretty magical intersection of a lot of different industries in place that's growing. I think those three things combined are something we cannot ignore and we have to take advantage of. And it manifests for our industry partners in ease of navigation, right? Like a university that's really large in scale may be able to do something that is extraordinarily uniquely specific. And there is somebody in industry who probably needs that help, maybe in the research space or maybe a very hyper specific academic program. And they're going be able to find that it may be a very large R1 institution. But more frequently, what we imagine for our relationships with industry is that they need us for a lot of different reasons. And therein lies the value of the comprehensive institution. But the catch is, a university is only as good as you're able to navigate it. And so this something we've learned around our student population as well. We have to be able to create an environment that the students can navigate successfully and we need to do that same thing for industry. You know, I I think right size, right programs, right place is a is a really powerful sort of three legged stool for us. Yeah. Do do you feel like a a piece of of this is also urgency or just where the stakes are so high that that, like yeah. The stakes are higher, I would think, when you have that shared vision and you have that right place, right size, right program approach, but the stakes are higher for a regional comprehensive to make sure that those students are placed into that local community or to that right fit employer. How does, do you feel like there's more urgency maybe in your environment that also just propels you to be more innovative this area? I think the reality is like we're living in twenty twenty six, that sense of urgency has peaked, I did not get hired in twenty twenty six to do this work. And that's what I think has given us the edge is that we had strong leadership here who acknowledged that there was going to be value in doing this a number of years ago. So, you know, I feel fortunate that in many of the discussions where there would be a heightened sense of urgency, you know, we're not getting a committee organized to address this new topic, but rather we're building on foundations that we've already created. I think there's always been a really strong demand from industry to engage with universities. I think universities have made it quite difficult for industry to engage with them. And I think you asked me the question about why would they decide to hire me in the first place? You know, I remember sitting down with President Rogers, it was the final hour or so of a long interview a day and a half. And I think I said, you know, something along those lines of basically, you know, like you would be hiring a skeptic of higher ed into this role. And I think that's what I've become is, you know, I'm not a yes, man. I love our mission. I love what I think we can do, and I believe in in his vision and our board's vision. But I think I challenge that internally quite frequently. And, and I think that's okay. You know? I I think that's that's a healthy balance. I mean, you know, the word's out, Steve. People know that Bowling Green is actually kind of leading in this area. I think it's, and I I think it's it's it's exciting kind of knowing that a Midwestern university is actually innovating in the ways that you guys are. Clearly, you're continuing to iterate. I think it is sort of your, you kind of came into this from the outside, and have a different kind of perspective that really kind of supercharged the programs that you're over. Maybe give people a sense too, now that I think about it, we're talking about what's being accomplished at Bowling Green in this capacity, but talk a little bit about what is your team structure today? What was it when you came here? What did you need to adjust and what were some of the friction points that made that obvious to you that you needed to make some changes in order to grow to where you are today? Yeah. Yeah. I think when I came here, the team was a bit kind of decimated. I think the same feeling we have as a society about higher ed right now, we almost had about this kind of the space in these individuals at the university, right? There just wasn't quite the level of trust, the ROI on it wasn't as obvious and that had just caused kind of a quiet and slow divestiture from this area. And what was left were people that were diehards for the mission. They got it, right? They didn't need to be motivated, but they did need the next layer of that strategy that I talked about. You've got great leadership, they're driving towards something. What does that mean for you when you're in the role that you're playing? And how do I give you the respect and autonomy to make decisions because I've given you that strategy? When you get to the fork in the road, you shouldn't have to call me up and ask, hey, what am I supposed to do? You should know if going left or going right is going to be more meaningful for what we're driving towards. So I would say, we have a small team and we listened to them and we understood kind of their superpowers and we were fortunate that then we wanted to get on a growth path and there were some chances to kind of realign people into places that they could add a maximum amount of value to the team. And you went from five or so people who were hungry for that strategy to a team now that is well exceeded twenty, twenty five that are covering a wide range of activities on our campus. So now you don't think about this as purely a traditional career center or a career services team on a campus, but rather we have at any given moment, eighteen hundred students who are student employees on our campus, right? It's like forty percent of our workforce is our students. We had to reframe that into that's a way to drive career readiness for your students. We had to look at what wasn't working about the outdated model of a career center and realize that it had to become this idea of a hub that really empowered the whole campus to be responsible for career readiness. But you can't just tell people that that's their responsibility. A, they won't understand it or B, they'll think they're already doing it and be well intentioned, but be misaligned. And so you had to have this sort of core body that was doing that work and driving those efforts. And then I think the real unlock for us was developing this office of industry partnerships. You know, there had to be a really significant differentiation between the traditional employer relations models that were thought of at one point in time as kind of innovative, you know, in the career services space. And I think what happened over time in that evolution is they were doing good things, but almost looked at as like the kids at the kids table when the adults were making these other partnership decisions over here and those weren't aligned. And so creating an office that was really devoted to those partnerships at the highest level, but also ensuring that they had a very close relationship with the team that was driving career readiness kind of holds each other a little accountable and helps them understand that there is a push and pull there in both of those spaces that they do need each other in order to add the most value to the industry partner and to create a student that's truly ready to go. As I listened to you talk about this work, I'm, one of the things that I've recognized sometime last year kinda hit me over the head, was that in the area of career readiness and the work that it takes to support it, and we'll get into some of the curricular side in a second too, but or the curriculum side of it. But there's really no getting away from the fact that there's no difference in terms of the needs and the path towards getting the right outcomes for students, whether you're at a community college, a regional comprehensive university, or an elite R1 university, as I hear you talk about it, it just reinforces to me that you know you're on the right path university, if you're actually doing something similar to what Steve Russell's doing at Bowling Green. Because I think no, I just think that everything that you're discussing is really so holistically about the this you you at a at a regional comprehensive understand sort of the circle of life for a student, and what they need to get out of their education in order to actually have that return on investment. And you know what the industry needs in order to get out of that investment so that they have the return on investment. It's ingrained in the way you think and how you approach this. But I wonder if there are any things that you feel like you guys are doing and that you're positioned to do that I'm missing, that are different than what a more elite institution is doing or different than what a community college is doing? Anything come to mind that would help me differentiate these? Because I'm trying to It's rare that you can put the whole world of higher ed into a into a bucket in terms of an understanding. So I'm just curious what you what you think about that. Yeah. I mean, you know, you're you're gonna inflate my ego too much here. But I also have had the privilege of working with a ton of other higher ed institutions. I was on a call two days ago with a phenomenal community college in the New Jersey area that I just thought, wow, like you get it, you have the pieces to this puzzle and you are leading much more than maybe you're even giving yourself credit for, but I can flip that and think of a university that's got fifty, sixty thousand students who has come up with like some really innovative industry engagement models. And you're sort of like, ah, I'm jealous of that, that's really cool. Or, so I think there's gotta be some core principles to this work. And I think one of them is a phrase that a lot of universities have started to lean into and I think right idea, maybe I'm questioning the implementation of a little bit, which is this idea of like, we're going to have a front door for industry. That's a very popular topic. And what I've learned is that there are very few institutions who truly allow a unit to be that agnostic to the activity with industry. So we hear that and it turns out it's an advancement team. We hear that and turns out it's the research team. It's a clever way to position the work. It just isn't actually the reality at times, because if they were truly the front door for industry, they could accept any and all problems and challenges and questions and help an organization of any size navigate the institution. And for our team, I will tell you, like we are so far from perfect. We need to improve dramatically. But I will also say I'm really proud of our team because they come into work every day with their heads on a swivel. They will start their day with a conversation about a sponsored research program. They will pivot to talking about how are we getting students on a career track to go somewhere to thinking about an internship program to thinking about building a unique space together in a collaborative way and like everything in between. And so I think what we've done is focused on a meaningful, mutually beneficial relationship with industry with a big assumption that the indirect effect of that would be most impactful on our students. That if that industry partner was so deeply engaged in our work, that new roles would be created for our students that never existed before, new research opportunities would engage our students at an earlier stage, that that institution may even have people that they commit to us in terms of adjunct faculty and things like that. And that the student experience on the whole would be better, not because we focused on finding them more internships or hiring more career coaches, but rather because we leaned into the needs of industry with that assumption that it would circle back around. Yeah. Yeah. And and thus truly being a a a front door. I I can appreciate the the differences and people's perception of that that term too. Let's pivot a little bit into the strategy across just the undergraduate experience, right? Most institutions today in the US still concentrate career connected experiences at the back end of the degree. What do you think are the biggest challenges to undoing that model and to creating experiences throughout the four year experience? So what are biggest challenges to it first? And then maybe as you think about that, we could talk about, you know, where the real opportunities are, and some of things that you're seeing to be successful to introduce some of the career readiness early on, earlier on in a student's journey. Yeah, on the problematic side of things or some of the challenges that we've seen, maybe it would surprise people that like the place that I do not go is internal to the university. I actually look back at a lot of our industry partners and the greatest challenge is like, if you think about a model for this early and often idea, students need to be engaged in thinking about their career early and often. And we know that the most high impact practices for a student related to their future career have everything to do with actually engaging with industry. And the challenge incurred is that internships have been so ubiquitous that it's almost all industry knows. So the greatest challenge is actually acknowledging that we can do more than that. And then secondary to that is acknowledging that there is a compelling value proposition for industry to lean in earlier with us in that model of kind of co creation. So I would say like our greatest challenges are about educating industry and making sure we have a good value proposition for them to be a part of that process earlier on. I think when we look into our, across our institution, that is another superpower of an R2 institution, regional comprehensive. There are a lot of faculty who are very excited to work with industry. They understand that it's a little more interesting in the classroom to bring in a real world project. But that's still hard, That's still hard to do. And that's an area that we know as an institution that we have to build some capacity. So I know maybe a topic of ours today to talk a little bit about intermediaries and some of the education technology that we want to lean into to help ease that a bit. But I have to give a plug here for BGSU's life design program. Adrian Osten Moore, who's the associate VP and executive director of what we call our Radville Center for College and Life Design, has really enabled the institution to begin to have career related conversations much earlier with students, because we've given them a toolkit in their very first semester through this life design course that helps them navigate the institution. And it helps them start to address some of those things that kind of block a student from being willing to have career related conversations early. I don't wanna think about my career when I'm homesick. I don't wanna think about my career when I'm concerned about my roommate. We joke about these things. We think they're little, but when you're twenty years old, they're not so little and they block your ability to think about, should I be focused on an internship right now? Should I be thinking about finding a professional mentor? Should I go be involved in a career trek to go somewhere interesting? And so, I mean, the life design program at BGSU does far more than that. But selfishly, my perspective, I think that the ability to provide our students with a toolkit to navigate uncertainty and to make good thoughtful decisions with intention means that we now have a student population that's capable of starting to engage with industry earlier and better understands why they should do that. So as an institution who's been able to scale that program to one hundred percent of our incoming class every year, is such a gift to the rest of our team who's trying to do a lot of this other important work as well. Yeah, that's great. I mean, the life design program feels like it hits on multiple things. There's a lot of effort today to find ways to integrate in the first year experience something much more tangible like this in order to give students greater assurance that they've actually chosen the right major, in order to give them that sense of persistence that, Yeah, I'm in this, this is what I'm moving towards. And it feels like that's sort of where your life design program comes in. What about as the student progresses at Bowling Green through the rest of their time there? Does it go from life design to hopefully an internship? Yeah, we mentioned there's other intermediaries along the way, but what are types of experiences that you feel give the student the greatest amount of experience work integrated learning along the way? Yeah. I mean, I'll I'll tell you immediately one of the one of maybe the funniest things to me that I think we've learned from the life design program is if you teach all of your incoming students design thinking, they will use it on the institution. And so you cannot just teach that to your incoming class and walk away. This has to be integrated into the language that your faculty and staff are using And you cannot create programs that don't align with it because it feels confusing to the students. You start to take a student who has design thinking is sort of their anchor. And you've got to say, if I'm going to talk to you about your career, it has to be through the lens of design thinking as well. So when we think about empowering the whole institution to help support and drive career outcomes, that is done through a set of common career milestones for all of our students, which line up with the design thinking methodology. And so, talk your ear off for days and days about that particular topic, but what's interesting is, there is a component about embedding a lot of this into coursework. And I think the ideal state for some would be this idea that like career becomes unavoidable. But when I think is even more intriguing is that these ideas of focusing on my career becomes sought out by the student. And so as you start having students who are engaged in XYZ class, and they're thinking about it through the lens of design thinking, and they're thinking about how this connects to how they want to prototype their career, what's really fun about it is like you get faculty who are starting to think the same way, you get scholarship program advisors who are thinking the same way. And pretty soon we have something really special here, which sounds simple, but it is just like a common language around our campus. And that goes a really long way to improving the student experience is that each time they talk with somebody, it doesn't feel like they're starting over, right? Is that it's a continuation. So I think that's really powerful. I mean, I'll also say that, like this morning at eight am on finals week, I had eight faculty members over in our office talking about industry engagement and thinking about the alignment of some of working with this industry partner, how it was gonna support their students. And that for all accounts at many institutions would be like a really heavy ask. And that was just a casual like Wednesday morning for us, right? So I think we're less concerned about this idea of do you need to embed like sort of career connected learning into every single course across the curriculum everywhere? Because truth be told, when we start looking at all of our academic programs and we treat it as a full program, like there are already enough faculty members who have elected to be a part of this system and embed some of these things that if we really did that kind of litmus test and jumped into a random program and said, do you have work integrated learning as a part of your academic program? I don't know if we're gonna find a place that's hidden back in a dark corner somewhere that's like, no, we're not doing any of that. We don't like that. Right? So it's it's culturally embedded, which is arguably more important than sort of forcefully embedded. Yeah. No, I take your point that when both the student and the faculty are seeking it, as opposed to it being unavoidable, as the way you described it before, I think that's a strong sign that you've built something into a culture that is making things happen. If there was an area of constraint today, you've been pretty proactive. Where's the, if you could run the magic wand over the curriculum or over the student experience somewhere, where is the friction or where is the opportunity to do more that you're focused on today? Yeah. I think I love I love the way that Kemi, Jonah, has has provided this idea of, like, flooding the zone. Right? So I think like, are we in a good place today? Yes, but I think creating a versatile set of offerings that apply to all of our different student populations around work integrated learning is really the next step. I think that there is some excitement over this idea that we often talk about our industry partnerships with like all of the major really big players. And they have great relationships with us for certain reasons. But thinking through how do we leverage technology to scale work integrated learning opportunities for small to medium sized businesses that are right here in our backyard really excites me too because we can create a lot more working learning experiences and we can better our local communities and be a part of the economic development expansion and retention efforts, which ultimately then lead to the growth of those companies, which means more job opportunities for our students. So, you know, I think my answer maybe is just like everything, but in practicality, I would maybe boil it down to how do we drive project based learning as a way to scale some earlier stage work integrated learning opportunities for students in hopes that it has a lot of ripple effects across this system, such that not only the students are better prepared for industry, but also that we've actually impacted industry before our students have ever even gotten to them. Yeah, yeah. And then as you think about the evidence of your work, right? The evidence of the hard work that your team puts in, and the way you facilitate this in the culture on campus. Higher Ed loves to measure stuff, Right? We we like to we like to measure every every potential, you know, outcome and and such. But I wonder, there a is there a need to shift measurements to this is sort of a a philosophical thing, but I feel like if somebody's thought about it, it's gonna be someone like you. Are we measuring the right things at universities to really drive an understanding of the effectiveness of what we're doing when it comes to career connected learning? I'll answer this by saying that I've had the privilege of being in rooms with really smart people. So I'm not going to take any credit for this comment. I think in particular, Sequant at Arizona State has been really thoughtful in how he describes the evolution of student success in terms of what once was a prioritization and a goal and measurement around access. And I think we eventually evolved access into sort of completion, sort of retention, completion, graduation, and now we've kind of reached this outcomes era that we're in. So I think we're already at a stage where those measurements need to evolve. I think what is important more practically speaking for a higher ed institution is you're probably not going to move the needle by measuring like a first destination career outcomes rate. You're going to move the needle by going back into your system and measuring the leading indicators. And that's a hard thing. Like even on our campus, phenomenal culture around this space. But capturing all of the different types of work integrated learning, measuring those, factoring in where they should land in terms of like a set of milestones for your students, it takes a really significant amount of effort. And I do believe it's also going to take some unique technology to help us do that. So I don't need to hire a million data folks to achieve that effort. But I think that's what's going to move the needle for us. We cannot think about achieving our goals like one student at a time. We need to think it like that systems level and the sort of population levels. But in how we create those solutions through technology, we can drive the idea of like mass customization, right? Like because we understood and built the right system, we can make this feel like this activity is the right one for you, Darren, right now in this moment. And so I just think there's a long way to go in that space, but I think, you know, I want to stay connected to the leaders who are out there right now in this space who are who are doing that much better than than I am. I think that's a huge, learning curve for me. I love the efforts that we're doing. The culture we have is amazing. The engagement with industry, but when we really dial back into measuring those leading indicators, I think that's where we'll see the most meaningful outcomes for our students. Yeah. No, I think that would be amazing. And you're right that there's sort of a new frontier here, or just a reorientation I think that we have to have. It you know? It's it's I'm sure the data's there. We just have to prioritize it and and and begin to measure it so that we can say, hey, this data's important now because student needs to understand this at this level or whatever. So that's great. You've been generous with your time. I think the thing I like to ask everybody is just because this is such an exciting domain right now, thinking about work integrated learning and career connected learning, and also thinking about employer relationships that really tie all this together, Five years from now, if your approach is working the way you think it is, what do you think is different tangibly for the students, for institutions, maybe even your company partners? What do feel like is achievable in five years, just given all of the things that you guys have been able to facilitate culturally and relationally with employers? Wow, five years feels like an eternity in today's age of everything that's evolving. I guess maybe I'll answer you with kind of how my mindset has shifted in some of these partnerships that we've built. And it's around the idea of supply chain in that, if you were building a product as a company, and the raw materials that were coming to you were not at the right level of quality. If we were teaching a supply chain course, we would tell you to vertically integrate, right, we would tell you to go find a raw material supplier, you either purchase a portion of their company, to have a board seat, you do an MOU with them, some some type of contractual relationship to ensure the quality of your end product ultimately. And I think this is where there's going to be a very interesting dynamic between industry and higher ed is, are we going to start taking the supply chain management approach to talent supply chain that we already have in every other aspect of the business? And so what does that mean? Like, you could throw out really wild and crazy things that that are do do private entities, you know, somehow lean in to controlling stakes of these things? Or is it simply enough to just say we have deeper relationships and partnerships with the companies? You know, who knows? But I think something in that range is coming because we have to be engines for our local economies where the tax dollars are coming from. If we're not aligned at that level, I think it's going to be hard to bring back up the level of trust. In higher ed that we have seemed to have lost over the years. Yeah. It's actually a great area to probe deeper into on our next podcast episode together, because now you've got me really thinking, this is the space of public private partnership that has traditionally had mixed results, and for various reasons, but I think here again, if I can just put you guys on center stage at Bowling Green and what you're doing, you've got I'll keep going back to the life cycle of the student and the life cycle of the employer when it comes to engaging the university. You guys have the full three sixty vision of what's transpiring, and you actually, more so than many other types of institutions, can, I think, probably inform the right mix out of your division for a university? It feels like you've got the right data, and you potentially could be the ones helping to to shift and and architect such a such a vision. So I'll I'll put that on you to go figure out the next five years. Well, I I'm I appreciate, you know, the the nod. And I I will say, like, I have begged, borrowed, and steeled, stolen, you know, many ideas from wonderful exceptional people across both the higher ed industry, the tech industry, industry at large, like we don't always need to recreate the wheel. And I think one thing that higher ed does do well is, you know, a bit of a collaborative nature in things. And we've seen that with some of these grants that we've been involved in the willingness to share and create some of these playbooks. And so, we don't have all the answers, we never will. But collectively across, higher ed with what's going on today, we probably do have all the right pieces to the puzzle. I think finding ourselves in the right conversations with like minded people are what kind of put those pieces together. I do think we need to do it collectively like BGSU is a wonderful place and it will serve a really significant population of students who are in the state of Ohio and maybe our broader region. But, like, we need that everywhere for a national talent strategy. And I think we we have to do that work together. So I'm signing up to learn just as much as I hope everybody else is. And and maybe you can get enough of us on your podcast that we can just sort of piece together the clips and figure it out. I love it. I love it. I would I would I would be honored to be a part of that. Well, hey, Steve, thank you so much for taking the time to do this today. I really appreciate getting your perspective. Thank you, Darren. Yeah. It's it's been really fun. You know, hopefully, there was something useful in there, but I look forward to keep on watching the podcast and seeing everybody else that comes on to to give us, you know, their points of view afterwards.