Few will disagree.  From student recruitment to degree completion, student success and degree completion have risen to become some of the most pressing issues in higher education.  And the ed tech community has done everything possible to take ownership of these challenges.  They have applied their expertise to building an incredible, if not overwhelming, solution set of applications to target and destroy as many components of the problem as possible. 

On the surface, this is great news. 

But the bad news is lurking just below the surface. 

The solutions are rarely reaching the true students in need.  Product development and distribution plans often lack alignment with the true and complete set of stakeholders.  With an eye on the traditional 18-22-year-old full-time on-campus student, the typical sales rep makes a beeline to the Office of the Provost or the President.   Overwhelmed with inquiries, the reception is often frosty and, soon, the school is moved several notches lower on the Salesforce prospect list. 

Rarely, if ever, is the first or even second knock on the door of the most entrepreneurial and innovative office on campus, the School of Continuing Studies.  An office with an equally looming student success problem.

I know this to be true because I had the privilege of sitting behind both doors during various phases of my career.  I was the dean of the graduate programs for part-time students.  And I was the Vice Provost for Student Affairs.  Same institution, same opportunity for being on the receiving end of the sales pitches.  My phone rang regularly in the Provost’s Office.  My phone rarely rang in the dean’s office.  Same institution, but the offices were serving different segments of the student population.  Ironically, my part-time students dwarfed the numbers of full-time undergrads, but that seemed immaterial to the ed tech sales reps.

As a leader in continuing education,  I was a speedboat alongside the ocean liner.  And as the Vice Provost for Student Affairs, I was the ocean liner and I dwarfed the adjacent speedboats.  The speedboats were entrepreneurial and innovative.  The ocean liner was luxurious and lumbering.

One unit was market smart and the other was mission centered.

The ed tech firms knocked on the door of the ocean liner and were summarily rebuffed.  The same ed tech firms walked right by the door of the speedboat – yet it was wide open.