Prompt Engineering – It’s a real thing

I’m a Prompt Engineer! Well, that’s an overstatement, but I did successfully complete the course, “Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT.” It served a two-fold purpose for me. First, it provided a valuable opportunity to deepen my knowledge and understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) as I’m curious about how it will continue to disrupt learning and other aspects of our daily lives. Secondly, I found the class on Coursera, the largest Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) provider that offers more than 7,000 courses to more than 100 million students globally (19 million in the U.S. alone) in a variety of languages.

My prompt engineering course was taught by the Computer Science Department Chair at Vanderbilt University, and he was great. I was intrigued by the business model of charging just $49 per month until I completed the course. Initially, I had high hopes of completing the six-module course in one month; however, as is often the case for so many students, life got in the way, and the course took me two months to complete.

Given that most of my formal education occurred prior to the Internet (for real), I never considered myself an “online learner” and stayed away from pursuing any online offerings. However, I’ve been closely observing MOOCs for the past decade, witnessing their remarkable appeal to millions of people around the world. I was pleased with the convenience of blocking out an hour here and there on weekends to watch the video lectures, do the assigned readings, take notes, and complete the assessments.

It was interesting to assign prompt and audience “personas,” such as the role of a travel agent crafting a vacation itinerary, a 7-year-old requesting a bedtime story, a woodpecker learning to survive an Upstate New York winter, or an organization like MVCC reflecting on aspirations and apprehensions regarding its trajectory over the next five years. The practice of submitting prompts and asking ChatGPT to suggest improvements for those prompts also proved to be unexpectedly enlightening. It’s a strategy I hadn’t previously considered, but it sure makes sense and works quite well!

Some assignments were more interesting than others. I enjoyed the Few-Shot prompt pattern where I had to describe the input (such as a student needing to drop and add a class), instruct ChatGPT to “think” (for instance, securing the student identification number), and then direct it to take “action” (such as entering the student ID, securing the class schedule, and executing the drop/add process). With little effort, I essentially surfaced the basic programming behind an AI-enabled scheduling bot. This is why I love the slightly trick question — “What is the most important programming language for AI?” — the answer being “English.” It’s all about phrasing and leveraging the prompts to achieve the desired outcome.

The course went on to teach several different prompt patterns, including Game Play, Template, Recipe, Chain-of-Thought, Ask for Input, and Outline Expansion. My favorite, however, was the “Alternate Approaches” prompt pattern where I provided some context and asked for alternative perspectives or strategies. I thought of an AI career coach and described myself as a young college graduate interested in a 40-year career with distinct goals in a chosen field and asked for two to three job titles in four- to five-year increments throughout the 40 years. ChatGPT came back with four or five questions to clarify my interests, then provided an informative outline of three different career paths complete with relevant job titles to consider at each stage of my fictional career. Fascinating.

I still have a lot to learn about artificial intelligence — we all do. Its impact on our world is already palpable, and I believe it will only continue to accelerate disruption in ways that are hard to comprehend right now. Here’s an interesting opinion piece about AI (it may have the NYTimes firewall) and the importance of human skills in an uncertain future. While some people fear the potential negative possibilities of AI and others are excited about it (including investors in the stock market these days), I’m trying to stay tethered somewhere in the middle to see the pros and cons more clearly. Given all the unknowns with AI, one thing I do know is that I need to take responsibility for my own learning and continue finding ways to “muck around” in the messiness, building my understanding and honing my skills to successfully navigate an AI-enabled future. I hope you do the same.

If you have any questions or comments on this post, please contact me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu 

The Fourth Turning is Here

I apologize. I think this post might seem like a book report, but I can’t help it. I’ve been sitting on this since August, as my big summer read last year, “The Fourth Turning is Here” by Neil Howe, has stayed with me throughout these subsequent months. All 560 pages captivated me for weeks on rainy summer days and most every night before I closed my eyes. I’m sure my wife is exhausted listening to me weave it into any social conversation that lasts more than three minutes, but she's too kind to say so.

I first heard about the four turnings last June at our Strategic Horizon Network convening in Omaha that focused on the multi-generational workforce, and I made a pre-order for the July release. I opened the book expecting to gain additional understanding into the multiple generations in the workplace today — Silent (1928-45); Baby Boomer (1946-64); Gen X (1965-1980); Millennial (1981-1996); and Gen Z (1997-TBA) — but what I found was a completely new lens on how to examine U.S. history through generational archetypes.

The author opens with a clinical description of the highly divided and politicized current state of our nation and rationalizes it in a way that provides an odd feeling of comfort by normalizing current events as part of the “ancient Roman saeculum,” which says generally stable societies experience a repeating sequence of four turnings, each of which occurs on average every 20 to 25 years — or the general length of a long life. The four turnings repeat a continuous cycle of a High (generally good times defined by strong public institutions and high levels of conformity), followed by an Awakening (generally exciting, yet disruptive times defined by a weakening of public institutions and a shift from conformity to the individual), followed by an Unraveling (increasingly concerning times defined by an acceleration in the weakening of public institutions and an amplification of individualism), followed by a Crisis (stressful times of division where the public institutions are overwhelmed by the tribal fissures of individualism). The Crisis reaches a climax and is resolved by a restoration of strong public institutions and a shift to conformity that was required to successfully resolve the Crisis.

The four turnings are driven by four generational archetypes (4-minute video summary) that come of age in each turning. The “Artist” generation comes of age during the High (think of the Silent generation during the post-World War II 1950s). The “Prophet” generation comes of age during the Awakening (think of the Boomers in the 1960s). The “Nomad” generation comes of age during the Unraveling (think of the Gen Xers in the 1980s and ’90s). The “Hero” generation comes of age during the Crisis (think of the Greatest Generation during World War II and Millennials today). If you go back 80 years from today, you have World War II; 80s years prior, the Civil War; “Four score and seven years” prior, the American Revolution (or as the author describes it, our first Civil War when thinking about the Rebels and the Loyalists). Howe takes the pattern in the Anglo-American timeline back to the War of the Roses in England, circa 1455! He shows how the Gen Xers are the same Nomad archetype as Hemingway’s “Lost” generation at the turn of the last century and how the Boomers share the same “Prophet” characteristics of turning away from public institutions as the Pilgrims of 1620. He even spotlights how pop culture is reflected in these themes through movies, books, and music.

I consider myself a bit of a history buff, and if I liked reading in college as much as I do now, I probably would have declared it as my major. As much as I like to think I know about U.S. history, the four turnings opened an entirely new way to understand the dynamics and connectivity throughout history. The author draws some connection to the saeculum and the extent it does or doesn’t apply to European, African, and Latin American countries, as well as India, Russia, and China, but most of the book is centered on the United States. In 1991, Howe and William Strauss co-authored the book “Generations,” where they were the first define the term “Millennials.” In 1997, they collaborated again on “The Fourth Turning,” writing that based on historical patterns, the U.S. was likely going to transition from the Unraveling turning that began in 1984 to a new Crisis turning around 2008. At the time, they didn’t know what it would be, but forecasted (based on patterns) that it would be something big … and the Great Recession was pretty big.

Spoiler alert — based on historical patterns, Howe states that we are likely to see the current Crisis turning climax sometime around 2030. He mentions that unlike previous Crisis turnings, this is the first time we are moving toward a climax of the Crisis with the existential threat of global destruction. Indeed, that is true; however, I find it curious that in the last two cycles, the Crisis turning has strengthened public higher education. As the society transitioned from a Crisis turning of weak public institutions to a High turning of strong public institutions, the U.S. government passed the Morrill Act that created our land-grant colleges and universities in 1862 (in the midst of the Civil War) and the GI Bill in 1946 (immediately following WWII) that served as a tremendous catalyst for community colleges. Both historic legislative acts greatly increased access and changed the public higher education landscape over the following decade. While I’m certainly curious to see how this current Crisis turning reaches its climax and resolves itself into a new High turning, I’m even more curious and hopeful to see if a generational idea like the Morrill Act or GI Bill is realized to make the 2030s a transformational decade for public higher education.

If you have any thoughts or questions on this post, please email me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu.

Principles of Improv as Reminders for Modern Life

I’ve been a huge fan of Saturday Night Live since I was a teenager. I also love learning about parts of movies that were improvised, like most with Robin Williams, or the Anchorman comedies, or, as I more recently learned, classics like Casablanca and Jaws in which the actors were encouraged to create dialogue in the moment. 

Improvisation is underappreciated for its value when applied to the modern workplace. During my 30+ years working in community colleges, I’ve interviewed more than 500 job candidates, including a few who were formally trained in the principles and techniques of improvisation. Some candidates were more direct than others in surfacing their improv training to my questions, but I often reflect on the principles I learned through these conversations to remind myself of good habits necessary to thrive in the VUCA environment we experience on a regular basis. A few candidates gave great responses when I asked about their experience on a team and how that made them a good team member. Each described their training in these five principles and perfectly outlined the attributes of a great team member!

If you’re not familiar with improvisation, it revolves around several core principles that guide all who are trained in the field:

1. “Yes, and ... :” Accepting what’s presented and building upon it (Embrace Community)
2. Active Listening: Staying attentive to your scene partner (Model the Way)
3. Commitment: Fully engaging in the moment without hesitation (Model the Way)
4. Embracing Mistakes: Seeing errors as opportunities (Inspire Confidence)
5. Support and Collaboration: Working together to create a cohesive scene or narrative (Encouraging Excellence)

I think about the extent to which these five principles apply to how people show up for work each day. I’d say they describe most of us on our best days — working with what we have and finding a way to “yes,” actively listening to our co-workers, staying fully engaged and committed, seeing mistakes as opportunities, and focusing on support and collaboration with others to find a way forward in any situation. Our challenge is to remember these principles when we’re having an “off” day, when life may temporarily divert us from being our best selves.

As I reflect further on these five principles of improv, I can see MVCC’s Core Values inherently reflected in interesting ways. I see our Core Value of Model the Way in both “Active Listening” and “Commitment.” Embracing mistakes is all about our Core Value and the ability to Inspire Confidence, and being “Supportive and collaborative” is at the heart of our Core Value of Encouraging Excellence.

Finally, I think my favorite improv principle is “Yes, and …” To me, accepting what is presented and building upon it is a wonderful way of capturing our Core Value of Embrace Community, whether it be accepting our students for who they are and where they are in their journey and building upon that, or embracing our colleagues in the same way — finding ways to say “Yes, and …” — what an interesting and useful principle to carry with us each day we show up for the work in front of us in these disruptive and complex times.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu

A Million Reasons Why Sports Can Change Lives

Growing up near Flint, Michigan, sports were what got me out of bed every day. Gym was my favorite class in school; I would have loved to have it for all seven periods — learning math through statistics and writing stories about sports for English class.

When I got my first car, I turned the trunk into a locker filled with my golf clubs; a basketball; baseball glove, bat, ball, and cleats; tennis racket and balls; a good leather football and a nerf football to play in the lake or a friend’s pool; bowling ball; and a wiffle ball and bats — just in case. I never knew when friends might call to play something, but I was always ready. I played varsity golf and basketball in high school, and as graduation approached, I knew I wanted to play golf in college.

Neither of my parents attended college, but they were supportive of my dreams. I quietly wished I could go to the University of Michigan, but I certainly didn’t try hard enough to get the grades I needed. I heard about older kids from my school playing sports at four-year colleges, so I visited those campuses and was able to talk to the golf coaches. I learned that these small private colleges couldn’t give athletic scholarships because they were (what I later learned) NCAA Division III. I was good enough to make their teams, but the tuition was much more than my family could afford. I spoke with the coach at Michigan State who told me I was good enough to make the practice squad and get the “gear,” but I’d never play in a real Big 10 match. I thought my dream of extending my athletic career was dead, and I wasn’t as excited to go to college like most of my friends.

Toward the end of my senior year of high school, my golf coach encouraged me to talk to Stan Gooch, the golf coach at Mott Community College, a member of the National Junior Athletic Association (NJCAA). Coach Gooch said I could play in every match, get a full-tuition scholarship, and, if I worked on my game, I could probably walk-on at a four-year college. I grew up 11 miles away from Mott and had never heard of it. I didn’t know the difference between Mott and Michigan State. I spent that summer quietly avoiding conversations about where I was going to college because all my friends were going to universities.

From my very first class, I loved Mott. I loved every teacher and every class. The faculty knew my name and took an interest in my success by encouraging me to do well in my classes. I loved Coach Gooch and enjoyed playing on the golf team. In late December, I got a call from Mott’s basketball coach asking me to try out for the team based on a referral from Coach Gooch. The team had lost several players due to semester grades and other issues. We were down to six players, and I got to play almost every minute of every game for the second half of the season. It was an amazing experience.

Coach Gooch encouraged me to transfer to Oakland University, where I was able to walk-on the golf team and secure a scholarship for my junior and senior seasons. As a communications major at Oakland, I wasn’t sure about my career path. I told a mentor about the profound impact my experience at Mott Community College had on my life, and he encouraged me to pursue a career in community college education.

Motivated by this newfound purpose, I applied to the higher education program at the University of Michigan with an emphasis in community college administration. I started work as a research analyst at Washtenaw Community College when I was 23 years old, finished my Ph.D., and have spent the last 30-plus years working in community colleges and living life way beyond my wildest expectations.

I often tell people that many of the skills I use every day in my role as MVCC President were honed on the golf course and basketball courts in high school and college. My time at Mott Community College altered the trajectory of my life. The opportunity to be an NJCAA student-athlete was the driving force in my college choice, which set that trajectory in motion. For that, I am forever grateful.

I encourage you to donate $1 to the “Million Reasons Why” campaign — not just because of the ways that NJCAA athletics changed my life, but for the millions of student-athletes they’ve supported over the years and those they’ll continue to support in the future.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu

The Multi-Generational Workplace – This Year’s Core Workshop

We often take for granted that we have four different generations working side by side in the modern workplace. It’s an element that, if overlooked, can contribute to friction, miscommunication, and issues that reduce the vibrancy and positive energy in a culture. To address these dynamics, the multi-generational workplace will be the focus of this year’s MVCC Core Workshop, an element of our Employee Enrichment Program.

The years sometimes vary by experts, but the generations are generally labeled as Baby Boomers (1946-1964); Generation X (1965-1980); Millennials (1981-1996); and Generation Z (1997-2012). While individuals certainly have their own unique characteristics, there are general attributes, preferences, and styles that can be applied to each generation based on shared experiences and the context in which they were raised. With the acceleration of technology, some preferences between generations have become more distinct; however, each generation has wonderful assets and perspectives that add to the diversity and productivity of the workplace.

Our summer Strategic Horizon Network colloquium was titled “Engaging the Multi-Generational Workplace.” MVCC joined teams from eight other colleges in Omaha, Nebraska, to hear from the Gallup Organization and Quantum Workplace about the three million workplace surveys they conduct annually. We then visited Mutual of Omaha, Union Pacific Railroad, Nebraska Medicine Health System, and the Omaha Public Power District to learn about their strategies and insights on the topic.

During the Omaha program, I learned about the four turnings of history and recently finished reading “The Fourth Turning is Here” by Neil Howe. The author provides an update on his previous research that identifies four generational archetypes (Hero, Prophet, Nomad, and Artist) that have appeared over the past 500 years in the Anglo-American historical pattern. These archetypes influence the ancient Roman belief in the saeculum — a natural cycle of civilization that occurs in four turnings (High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis) over the period of a long life, roughly 80 to 100 years.

While one can identify shortcomings and certainly challenge parts of the framework, I do find it fascinating — just think about 80 years ago (World War II), and 80 years prior (U.S. Civil War), and 80 years prior (rethink the American Revolution as more of a Civil War between those loyal to the King and those of the rebellion). Here’s an eight-minute video where the author describes the four turnings and the generational influence in shaping them.

More directly related to the modern workplace, research from employee engagement surveys conducted by the Gallup Organization and Quantum Workplace has found that despite the differences between generations, individuals want the same things regardless of their age or generational grouping:

• Reasonable and fair compensation
• Flexibility
• Connection between their daily work and greater purpose
• Recognition for a job well done
• Opportunities to learn and grow

As a public community college committed to student success and community development, we strive to provide these five elements to the greatest extent possible. MVCC’s Core Workshop represents a unique opportunity for each of us to learn and grow. It’s a chance to have a shared experience with common information — usually just 60 to 90 minutes — with colleagues we may not interact with on a regular basis. I look forward to the conversations that come from this year’s workshop.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu

Reimagine | Redesign | Restore: A framework for an educated, skilled, and talented workforce in the Mohawk Valley

The Mohawk Valley region is a wonderful combination of urban and rural: left, right, and in-between; pervasive agriculture and semiconductor manufacturing; state-of-the-art healthcare and cybersecurity; inspiring professional sports and arts; the bedrocks of finance and insurance; storied history and the promise of refugees and immigrants. Our history is as alive as it is varied, and it will serve as the foundation of our future. The momentum in the Mohawk Valley is palpable, and many would say the future is as bright as it’s ever been for the region. Delivering on the promise and potential, however, will require an educated, skilled, and talented workforce for the future.

Creating the workforce for the future involves an increasingly individualized experience through a new educational model that clarifies options throughout extended career pathways with multiple on- and off-ramps for people to integrate education, learning, upskilling, and work more easily. In light of the demographic drought that explains workforce shortage challenges in most every industry throughout the country, it’s critically important to find more intentionally designed and inclusive educational program solutions for everyone to more easily find their way into skilled jobs with career potential.

It is within this context that Mohawk Valley Community College has developed a three-level framework to provide our region with a comprehensive workforce solution, offering abundant pathways for individuals to enter into sustainable, well-paying careers. By embracing the “Big Blur” framework from Jobs For the Future, MVCC is partnering with the Oneida-Herkimer-Madison (OHM)-BOCES and their component school districts to “Reimagine” the transition from high school to college. With new agreements related to more intentionally shared professional development and educational programming, as well as an innovative partnership for alternative education students, students will benefit from the blurring of lines between high school, college, and work.

The second level of the framework involves redesigning the student experience — a journey of organizational transformation that MVCC has been pursuing since 2018. From remapping curriculum to rethinking developmental education and moving from traditional academic advising to case management advising with wrap-around holistic supports and other disruptive strategies, MVCC has intentionally and effectively redesigned our programs, systems, and processes for a more individualized, efficient, and meaningful student experience.

Finally, restoring the promise of education is the final component to this framework for the future. For the past 40 years, societal norms in this country have fostered a collective narrative that attending college was the singular path to prosperity. While annual income data may reflect this to a certain level, the messaging became narrowly myopic in selling a four-year degree as the primary form of college when multiple options and pathways can yield similar results. Restoring the promise of education requires disrupting our assumptions about who has access to postsecondary education; what they need to learn; how the programming is delivered and paid for; and the pace and rhythm by which education is accessed across varying durations.

The Reimagine | Redesign | Restore framework is intended to serve as a guide for Mohawk Valley Community College and our partners to push ourselves and continue to disrupt our approach to education, learning, and workforce development in the region. This conceptual white paper provides more details for you to consider as we evolve our thinking to bring these elements to life in the years to come.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu

Surf’s Up — Learning to Ride the Waves While Weathering the Storm

Mindfulness leader Jon Kabat-Zinn is quoted as saying, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” I believe this captures our reality at MVCC — we are learning to surf, and surf well.

As I enter my 17th year as President of MVCC, I am continually inspired by the resilience, hard work, and caring manner of MVCC faculty and staff, and our collective ability to adapt. I feel like I’m just starting my third presidency — they all just happen to have been at MVCC.

The first period, from 2007 to 2014, was dominated by enrollment growth fueled by the Great Recession, strengthening systems, and building capacity. The second period, from 2015 to 2022, centered around increasing student success with our Guided Pathways reforms and, of course, navigating challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, it feels as though we are transitioning to a new era at the College — one likely filled with programs and services delivered at a speed and scale through partnerships we can hardly imagine today.

I find insight in Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami’s quote, “When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That is what this storm is all about.” Similarly, as an organization, we have undergone significant changes through numerous Guided Pathways initiatives to transform the student experience — all while enduring the COVID-19 pandemic, processing millions of dollars in stimulus funds to make up for lost revenue, and redesigning workflows and job responsibilities across departments to absorb a 9% reduction in our full-time staffing pattern by eliminating 35 full-time positions and laying off three existing staff members.

We’ve had to surf the waves as they came.

It’s not easy navigating our environment when the economy of Upstate New York has a 3.3% unemployment rate and a shrinking number of high school graduates. This is compounded with public and private four-year colleges lowering their admissions standards and accepting students they wouldn’t have considered five years ago — students who otherwise would have attended a community college. And the State of New York, which is supposed to provide roughly one-third of our operational revenue, gave us only $350,000 more this year than they did in 2008. Despite being part of a “historic” $163M investment for public higher education in the recent state budget, community colleges received the same level of funding as last year and were told to be grateful. Read more in my May 2 blog post, “Against the Odds.”

How do I know we’re learning to surf at MVCC? Well, at a time when the Gallup organization publishes research on employee engagement and says that workers are “burned out” and “disengaged,” last spring’s employee survey showed that 89% of full-time employees feel proud to be a part of MVCC, and 80% look forward to coming to work each day. This pride and enthusiasm show up in our collaborative efforts with school district partners to reimagine the high school-to-college transition, as well as our ongoing efforts to redesign core programs and services to meet individualized needs and restore the promise of education with our FastTrack Career Programs, specifically designed to serve adults who have fallen through the cracks of our educational system. I will share a more detailed white paper on this “reimagine, redesign, and restore” framework in a future blog post.

As we pursue the “re-work” strategies mentioned above, we know artificial intelligence (AI) is a game changer — much like the internet was 30 years ago. We recognize this moment and stand ready to meet it at MVCC. AI will be the primary focus of our organizational learning in the coming year with webinars, workshops, and crowdsourcing opportunities for faculty and staff to learn together and do what MVCC does best — scan our environment, analyze best and emerging practices, and adapt what works into our culture in ways that make us better and stronger.

As punctuated as the change of the last several years has been, I believe the coming year may be one of relative equilibrium — the calm before another storm if you will. It will be a time for us to navigate the intensity of the daily crunch, but also a time to take a collective breath to take stock of how far we’ve come and consider the next strategic arc for the College. It will also be a time for us to ask ourselves important questions that need to be asked in ways that will better position us with a sense of readiness for whatever comes next.

With all this in mind, as I think about MVCC and the future, I’m reminded of this quote of unknown source: “Fate whispered to the warrior, you cannot withstand the storm. The warrior whispers back, I am the storm.”

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu.

Hope vs. Optimism

In these challenging times, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the differences between hope and optimism. In the face of adversity or trouble, many of us have an inherent need to look toward the future with a sense of optimism or hope. It’s also important not to overlook the underlying issues that created the adversity in the first place. Somehow, we need to find a middle way that acknowledges the adversity and shines a light on a path forward through whatever darkness we may be facing at the time.

Reviewing multiple online dictionaries and AI models, I found some common themes on the two concepts of hope and optimism. Optimism can be seen as a general attitude or outlook that things will be better — without providing much in the way of specifics. Hope, on the other hand, is more of a feeling or belief grounded in aspects of a specific goal or outcome.

While I consider myself a generally optimistic person, I can more precisely say I have warranted hope — based on multiple facts — that the difficult budget process we just endured at the college is a pivot point for us. I believe we are now on a course of programming for the future and no longer rightsizing from the past, and here’s why I feel hope is warranted:

Our recent organizational climate survey showed that 86% of respondents are proud to work at MVCC and 86% also look forward to coming to work every day — every day. When we contrast that with the Gallup research that shows record levels of employee disengagement at work, it’s evident that there’s something uniquely good that resides in MVCC’s culture. The proposed budget for next year leaves the college in its best fiscal shape (absent the years with COVID stimulus dollars) since 2018 and maintains capacity with the major changes in recent years to enhance and support the core student experience here.

Additionally, enrollment is up 7% this semester over spring of last year. What makes this increase different is that we have a sense of why: Enrollment used to be something that happened to us, but the hard work and increased collaboration throughout the college to manage enrollment more intentionally has created a new-found sense of agency for us compared to the past. From annual scheduling to scaling guided pathways reforms to new programs like Fast Track, we’re seeing intentional efforts drive enrollment increases that fuel our fiscal engine.

I don't want to leave the impression that, in my sense of warranted hope, I am overlooking the hard work and added burdens each of us will face as we pull together to design a brighter and more sustainable future. My hope is squarely centered on my admiration and belief in the people at MVCC. It is the people — each and every one of us — working together, finding solid footing on sometimes shaky ground, and the profound sense of resilience I have seen in our employees over the years and continue to see daily, that will ultimately see us through.

At the end of the day, we all want to feel a sense of safety for ourselves and our colleagues. That is understandable, but in this ever-uncertain environment, we are managing a multi-variate problem — we have most of them solved but will be forever managing the others as they arise. MVCC has been studying and preparing for disruption for a decade, and it is squarely upon us. Fortunately, we have built organizational muscle and the capacity to anticipate and respond to change and disruption in productive ways. In addition to the reasons offered above, what gives me hope is that we have spent the last year not just minimizing the impact of very difficult financial circumstances or a pervasive sense of abundance in always finding a way forward, but we’ve become ever-more resilient and have evolved our collective thinking, strategy, and operations to be more intentional about shaping our future together.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu.

Against the Odds

There are times when an organization needs to grieve. As we face unprecedented uncertainty in our budget, and in the Higher Education space in general, this is one of those times for MVCC. When any organization is forced to endure layoffs, everyone is left with a sense of loss, a fear for the future, and a very natural questioning of the decisions that have been made and why it is that we had to make them. This is true for all of us — including me. So, as we take a moment to pause, to grieve, and to reflect as an organization, I wanted to give some context for the situation. Of course, context will not alleviate the feelings of loss that we, as a community, must work through, but I hope to situate that grief in the larger context. 

Thinking about this post, I asked ChatGPT “What does against the odds mean?” The AI model responded, “The phrase "against the odds" means to accomplish something or succeed despite facing difficult or unfavorable circumstances. It suggests that the chances of success were low or that the situation was challenging, but despite those odds, the person or thing was able to succeed. It is often used to describe a situation where someone overcomes significant obstacles or achieves something that others thought was unlikely or impossible.” I find it fascinating how I could not have chosen a collection of words to better describe MVCC’s financial circumstances.

Roughly 95% of annual revenue for community colleges comes from a combination of student tuition, county sponsorship, and state aid. The ideal is that the proportionate distribution would be one-third, one-third, one-third from these three funding streams — we are nowhere close to that ideal. What made me think about the notion of “against the odds” is the fact that MVCC continues to thrive and serve Oneida County despite the disinvestment from the State of New York.

Until recently, state aid for community colleges was allocated on an enrollment-based funding formula. When enrollment went up, state aid was supposed to increase and consequently, when enrollment decreased, so did state aid. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. When the Great Recession hit, enrollment increased, but the state cut our per student allocation with the rationale that we would make it up with the increase in student tuition and the promise that they’d restore the funding when the economy recovered. MVCC watched its state aid per student decline 12% from 2009-2011 and waited until 2016 to see the per student rate restored to 2008 levels. The Great Recession was an anomaly with historic increases in enrollment, so it was easily anticipated that community college enrollment would drop as people returned to work. Rather than stemming the tide, the state funding formula put community colleges in free fall despite our efforts to establish a “funding floor” otherwise phrased as, “Please don’t cut us.” As a result, the state reduced community college funding by 14% from 2015 to 2020.

The outcomes have been devastating. It wasn’t until 2021 that the state established a funding floor for community colleges — a funding structure that K-12 and SUNY state-operated four-year campuses have always enjoyed, and which both the counties and state are legislated to comply with. However, the state has not adhered to its legislated commitment, which means that MVCC currently receives roughly $353,000 more from the state than it did in 2008. Yet, we serve nearly as many individuals when considering the increase in part-time students and non-credit workforce training programs. In contrast, Oneida County has made good on its commitment and has increased its annual base support of MVCC by 18% during the same period. If the state would have simply matched the County’s commitment, MVCC would be receiving roughly $1.8 million more in our base budget, which is roughly close to the structural budgetary deficit we rally to resolve on an annual basis. Let me situate those numbers. We serve, if you take into account credit and non-credit programming, more than 15,000 students with a $50 million budget. When compared to the budgets of K-12 and public four-year colleges in New York, community college budgets are a fraction in total. It shouldn’t be this hard to serve the educational needs of our community.

The reality of the situation is that the odds are stacked against us, but as an organization we are more efficient, more resilient, and more creative than many of our counterparts. If anyone is positioned to triumph against the odds, it is MVCC. So, today we will grieve our loss and wrestle with the realities of the difficulties that we face. However, we also must look to the future, to know that as an organization we will heal, and as we always do at MVCC, in the long run, we will not only survive, but more importantly, we will thrive. 

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu.

Collaboration and Creativity are Necessary for Adapting to Rapid Change

Last fall I read The Great Upheaval: Higher education’s past, present, and uncertain future. It was an incredible read that synthesized many patterns, signals, and trends that have been surfacing in higher education in recent years. It’s just the latest in a series of books and articles with titles like Higher education at the crossroads of disruption and College disrupted: The great unbundling of higher education. These titles don’t even include the growing body of literature with titles like Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education or The Looming Higher Ed Cliff that feed newspaper articles like SUNY enrollment shrinks again and opinion pieces like For SUNY system, bigger isn’t always better.

Indeed, it doesn’t take much effort to sense that, in the lyrics of Buffalo Springfield, “…there’s something happening here…” but what it is, is actually clear — colleges and universities across the country, and particularly in the Northeast, will undergo significant disruption to the point that those institutions that remain 10 years from now, including MVCC, will look very different than they do today.

Did you notice that I failed to mention the advancement of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence (AI) platforms like Google’s Bard? Similar to musicians and comedians who honed their craft in small clubs before hitting the bigtime, AI technology has been toiling in various laboratories for the past decade and has now burst into the public eye as instant disruptions and are developing at lightning speed. Additionally, the most interesting series of articles and research studies explores the decline in the interest high school graduates have in pursuing a traditional four-year college path and questioning the value of a four-year degree. The Demographic Drought our country is experiencing has created a labor shortage in nearly every industry that has helped increase wages and is making shorter educational pathways into good-paying jobs more attractive.

New York has the highest concentration of private four-year colleges and universities in addition to the largest single public system of higher education in SUNY, which has 64 institutions — 34 four-year colleges and 30 community colleges — serving students outside the CUNY system in New York City with its 25 colleges and universities. All this higher education infrastructure is in a state that has lost enough residents through out-migration in the last decade to exceed the current population of North and South Dakota combined. Couple that population decline with declining birthrates, and it spells C-H-A-N-G-E. Graduation season next month will be the last for our neighbors at Cazenovia College, and it’s hard to absorb the reality that its closure is simply a signal of a much larger pattern that we’ll all have to digest as it continues over the next decade.

Fortunately, MVCC has been monitoring these trends and disruptions for years now and has honed its financial operations to become the most efficient college in the SUNY system (measured by budget/credit enrollment=cost per/FTE); reimagined its outreach strategy to now serve the third poorest student population (as measured by Federal Pell Grant eligibility); and transformed the student experience to have the third-highest three-year graduation rate with 76% of all students graduating, transferring, or dropping to part-time status and are still enrolled within six years of originally enrolling.

So, what can any of us do in light of these unprecedented circumstances? Do individual actions even matter when the problems exist within macro-level systems? Yes, individual actions and attitudes will be the cornerstone of our sustained success. Each of us needs to be willing to adopt new ideas, and to do so founded in the cultural values that we have come to embrace. We need to collaborate — not just within our departments and divisions, but across all lines. We need to work to be partners with K-12 and industry in ways we have not previously seen. This can be frightening. Processes change, work changes, our roles adjust, but in the end, it will be our collective efforts at adaptability that will strengthen the organizational position. We must reach across internal lines and collaborate cross-divisionally. We must seek to understand and find a way to “yes.” That is how we will survive as an institution, and how we will continue to serve our students and our community in the future.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu.