As higher education IT leaders, we need to be better at leveraging the collective intelligence of our institutions – and our peers’ – to create organizational value faster.
My colleague and friend, Dr. Bradley Wheeler from Indiana University, joined us for a thought-provoking conversation on the past and future of information technology in higher education. Dr. Wheeler has always been a voice of progress, innovation and collaboration, and I was excited to get to spend a few minutes with him to talk about the profound impacts of COVID-19 on our industry, the incredible acceleration it has created for the role of information technology in the university’s mission, and the once-in-a-generation opportunity for IT leaders to capitalize on.
Some highlights from our chat:
- The need for radical simplification of processes and innovation with the users in mind: “Students are increasingly consumeristic in terms of how they shop for the experiences they want.”
- Higher education as an industry in transition and shakeout: “[COVID] has caused our institutions to innovate swiftly in ways that we never thought possible….I think that was an innovation we needed.”
- A challenge for all of us as technology leaders to answer the question ‘how do we scale?’
- The criticality of user experience: “We need to think about constituent journeys… about how we build a connected journey for students and others.”
I hope you enjoy this interview with Brad Wheeler. He has been a force of positive change in our field for a generation.
-TA
