Sheila LeBlanc (University of Calgary) on Operationalizing Growth Through Continuing Education

On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, podcast host Shauna Cox was joined by Sheila LeBlanc to discuss the role of CE in driving institutional transformation and barriers to programmatic and operational shift. 

Transcript

Shauna Cox (00:02):Sheila, welcome back to the Illumination Podcast. I'm so glad you could join me today.

Sheila LeBlanc (00:06):Oh, thank you Shauna. Delightful opportunity to be here. Great to speak with you.

Shauna Cox (00:11):We're here to chat about driving innovation at the institution, which is a huge topic, but from rethinking traditional models to embracing new strategies, student success, especially for the modern learner, also known as a lifelong learner, I think is very prevalent today in higher ed. So all of this can't happen overnight. Of course, there's going to be some hurdles along the way. And I want to kick off our conversation by asking you, how have you personally seen lifelong learning transform in recent years? Slowly as we're coming out of that pandemic, going into a new norm, what have you seen change?

Sheila LeBlanc (00:50):A great question and change is definitely happening more quickly now, I would say to be amplified in the post pandemic world. But even prior to that, we were seeing the importance of professional continuing education being served by universities, thinking about lifelong learnings and supporting their upskilling and reskilling to serve their professional practice over a lifetime. And with that unit that typically did that was continuing education. However, the academic faculties realizing the importance of this and that conversation becoming more important to government, to senior academic leaders, has started to become central to how do we think about innovation and transformation in learning and bringing the knowledges of those two groups together. Academic expertise and continuing education experience in serving part-time online and in many cases, transitional workers, mid-career workers that have busy lives and other commitments.

Shauna Cox (01:48):Absolutely. And higher ed is known to be traditional, slow moving, however you would like to phrase it. We'll try not to be too negative on it. And transformation innovation requires a completely different shift. So what are some of the most common roadblocks that stand in the way of the efforts to drive particularly operational and programmatic transformation at universities, especially when it comes to maybe this shift, depending on what institution you're from, but the shift towards serving the needs of a learner, not just for two or four years, but for their lifetime?

Sheila LeBlanc (02:27):It's an interesting question. We do have these deeply embedded cultures that operate somewhat in silos. There are some loosely coupled organizational structures is the language that's often used to refer to academic institutions. And because of that, trying to get alignment between all of the deeply embedded pieces can act as a roadblock. When we start thinking about the central registrar's office, it served our under and graduate students with the processes and the businesses practices and the student information systems that are required to do that, that a significant challenge to try and transform those practices and systems. So working with the registrar's office and what their norms and cultures and actually even compliance requirements with their governments can be challenging. And there's also the priorities, academic staff, when we start thinking about academic staff in particular and research institutions, research tends to be a priority. And teaching can be important, but isn't often the central focus of how they spend their time or thinking about teaching.

(03:30):Innovation is not the central focus. So that becomes a challenge as well, engaging faculty and thinking about new ways that they might want to do the work. And then thirdly, I mentioned that sort of siloed organizational structure off on the side has often been continuing education units, doing quite innovative programming for different types of learners already for a variety of learners, whether that be through access programming and academic upgrading for preparatory work, or whether it be the mid-career professional upgradings and re-skilling work. There's a lot of separation in those units and bringing them together. One of the challenges, different cultural norms and ways of doing things, different systems, different practices. And last night I have is we sometimes have collective agreement challenges as well. So the classifications for our faculty, our staff, and how we think about teaching work as it relates to academic work in relation to our academic agreements can be a barrier that has to be worked through when we have to think about the differences of that kind of work. So there's some challenges there, and you have to bring up together a lot of people and a lot of conversations and be ready and willing open to change to make that happen and prioritize it.

Shauna Cox (04:41):And I want to dovetail off of that. You did mention oftentimes people are left in silos, especially the continuing education unit, but CE is kind of, again, depending on where you're looking at, but oftentimes they're seen as the innovation hub of an institution. So why are CE units so well positioned to drive those innovation efforts at their respective institutions?

Sheila LeBlanc (05:09):And certainly innovation as it relates to teaching and innovation as it relates to providing learning in different ways and access in different times, et cetera. CE teams have been doing that, extending the reach of the university beyond the 18 to 22-year-old for decades. And that's really at the core, at the heart of what continued education units do is serving the part-time online preparatory degree programming, upskill, reskilling, all of that programming is at the heart. And because of that, the embedded processes, systems, students, service cultures are designed to serve that type of learner. And with those knowledges and that experience offers a lot of opportunity for our main campus central academic core to learn and to learn together us to learn about their academic knowledges and to their student experience and for them to learn with us about what we know in serving a mid-career or an part-time student.

Shauna Cox (06:10):And so CE units, I think are just so well positioned or have the expertise of setting themselves up to be what they need to be for that modern learner. So looking at the structure or the foundation, how can continuing education leaders ensure that themselves and the division are set up to innovate?

Sheila LeBlanc (06:34):We can't do it alone. We really need a cross pan institutional approach to this work. And it is, whether it be academic faculty representation, we need the registrar's office, we need our teaching and learning teams that our faculty development folks that are thinking about pedagogies and adult learning strategies that we can embed into ensure that it's considered adequately rigorous for our academic faculties. We also need to think about our IT stack and the educational technology and the SIS systems, the student information systems for registration. And so bringing across institutional group together is what it really takes. It takes leadership commitment to it being a strategy, and then it takes the commitment of those unit leaders to come together and do this work. I will offer, and the reason I'm so excited to talk about this is because we're in the middle of that. You Calgary, myself and our registrar are co-chairing a team to think about innovation and learning and different structures of learning available under the header of microcredentials.

(07:39):But truly what we're just talking about is marginalized available learning and crossing the non-credit to credit Divide, which is a huge consideration as it relates to thinking about professional con ed and traditional degree learning. And so bringing together those groups, and we've set up a learning group that includes academic staff and our Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning and the ED teaching and learning folks, as well as all of our operational teams to think about the business processes. And those two working groups under a broader steering group sponsored by our provost is really driving this work. And it's slow and it takes the investment in time with many, but through that is truly the only way I believe we'll get there. So slow steady with community engagement and thinking about the strategic end goal is, in my mind, the only way we're going to make it happen,

Shauna Cox (08:33):Slow and steady wins the race. And what I love here is just in that last question alone, you talked about so many different departments across the institution, so we're breaking away from those silos, and that's the work. What I love about the work that U of Calgary does is you guys don't operate in those silos. You're very focused on that collaboration, which I think is so important. And so I want to ask, what does it take from senior leadership to position the CE unit to drive this transformation and extend it out from maybe the potential bubble that CE is in and expand that across the institution?

Sheila LeBlanc (09:13):Yeah, reiterating the importance of it being a strategic goal for the institution. We want a lifelong learning ecosystem at this institution that can happen at a strategic level with the executive, some goals associated with it. And I almost think that as much as I like to think CE drives it, what I really believe is important is that CE has to have an equal table, a seat at the table to drive it to be an equal participant as a senior participant in that, which is what we've managed to create. And that to me is meaning that we have a collaborative group of equals at a table where CE didn't often feel that way. And I am thankful that I do now. So I lastly would say that executives have to what they say and what they do matters. All institutional members watch what executive leaders prioritize. So if what they spend their time on and what they say, so making learning, innovation and serving learners over a lifetime, if they make it a priority in their actions and their words and bring the right people together, they've set the table for us to be successful.

Shauna Cox (10:16):Amazing. I love that. Well, Sheila, those are all the questions I have for you, but is there anything you'd like to add or any advice you'd like to share with people looking to bring departments closer together, that level of collaboration? Anything that I missed?

Sheila LeBlanc (10:30):One last word of wisdom to my CE colleagues. We know what amazing work you're doing, but many of your colleagues across the academy don't forget that your role is not only serving your students, but it's actually advocating, sharing the experience you bring to your students across other teams. And so if they don't know your stories, they won't bring you to the table. So I'd encourage advocacy internally as being a significant part of the CE leader's role.

Shauna Cox (11:02):I love it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sheila. Before I let you go, you know that this is coming, of course, you're based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. If someone is coming to town, where do they need to go to eat?

Sheila LeBlanc (11:14):Oh, I'm going to give you a little word of my new favorite. It's place called the nash. They have some really great fresh seasonal fair, and they're in 11th Street in Southeast Calgary, so I highly recommend it.

Shauna Cox (11:28):Thank you so much, Sheila. It was great chatting with you.

Sheila LeBlanc (11:30):Thank you, Shauna.