Dr. Haley Harbaugh, EdD in Mind, Brain & Teaching | Senior Director, Growth Initiatives at CiviCO

In this episode, we discuss what prompted Haley to pursue her doctorate in Mind, Brain, and Teaching at Johns Hopkins after completing a master’s degree in instructional design, her reasons for transitioning from an established career in corporate healthcare learning and development to the nonprofit sector at CiviCO, and her advice on how to break into the learning and development space.

Hosted by Megan Benay

To connect with Haley and to learn more about her story, visit her page on the PHutures #100AlumniVoices Project website.

Transcript

Megan Benay

Hi! I'm co-host, Megan Benay, and this is 100 alumni voices podcast, stories that inspire, where we explore the personal and professional journeys of a diverse group of 100 doctoral alumni from Johns Hopkins University. Today, we're joined by Dr. Haley Harbaugh, EdD in mind, brain, and teaching, and is currently the senior Director of Growth initiatives at CiviCO. Dr. Harbaugh, welcome!

Haley Harbaugh 

Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here.

Megan Benay

So, it seems like you you may have started your current role very recently, like a month ago. So if that's true congratulations.

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah.

Megan Benay

Can you tell us a bit about what you're doing, and why you took this position?

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah. So, I, I lead up a new initiative that CiviCO is starting. And it's focused on emerging leaders, and their population for that is Gen Z or folks who are in their undergraduate studies, or 3 to 5 years into their career or their workforce employment. So, so that's kind of our population that we're targeting with emerging leaders. And this is a fairly new program and the intent is to really make it a value add for communities and companies across the State of Colorado. And so, I have the ability to really kind of craft that content and have some autonomy with it, which is really really an exciting thing at this point in my career, and and so so that's kind of what what I'm working on. And yes, you are correct that I started here about 3 weeks ago. I'm into my third week. 

Megan Benay

Wow! Brand new!

Haley Harbaugh 

So, still getting acclimated. But but it's been great so far. You know, I've been in the corporate healthcare sector for the last really like 13 years or so. And so, this is a nonprofit, and it's a very different culture. And so, I'm kind of getting acclimated to that more than anything, I think, because content development is content development. But culture is very different, and and I think that's what really drove me to accept this position that I really wanted a change from what I had been experiencing, and I think the ability to really stamp my mark on a program as much as this I felt it had a much wider reach than I was getting at my former company.

Megan Benay

So, forgive me what exactly does CiviCO do?

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah, so it's it's really the leadership development foundation for the State of Colorado, and so they do a lot of, historically, they've done a lot of youth programming. So, think of like high school students. But they're really focused on that civic engagement, or how people are interacting with their communities and putting putting that out there like early on in people's lives to really get them starting to be connected to their community at a young age, and think about it from a longer-term perspective. So, like a lot of times when well, when I first got this position, people were like, oh, my gosh! Are you going into government? Are you going to be political now? Like what's happening? And I'm like no, no, no, no, but it’s, you know, nonpartisan, and it's it's really here to support everybody who has a desire to grow in leadership. So, it’s really kind of a novel organization in my opinion. I hadn’t even heard of it before I got hired, so yeah.

Megan Benay

That's great. And you said you said content development is content development. So, before this I assume that you were developing content for something? You said healthcare?

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah, yeah. So, I worked for pretty much the last 13 years I've worked in the Dialysis Sector. And I'm non clinical, but I somehow landed in the dialysis sector over the last 13 years, and I was developing content for DaVita. And it's a pretty widely known national dialysis organization. And so I was on their clinical education and training team as well as the patient education team, physician education teams, and most recently, before my departure on their culture and development or leadership development side of the house. So, really developing content for that. But so, I've kind of worked the whole spectrum of education for that company and got a really good lens for content development across multiple populations.

Megan Benay

So, is it fair to say that your industry is learning and development? Like corporate, well now maybe nonprofit, but before corporate learning and development?

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. 

Megan Benay

Oh, well, that is super interesting. I actually just listened in on on a JHU talk yesterday about how to break into the learning and development sector. So, you went from corporate learning and development to nonprofit. How did you first get into corporate learning and development?

Haley Harbaugh 

I feel like most people in learning and development kind of fell into it quite honestly. I really had a strong ability to create. So during my early time with DaVita I was educating patients on what to expect when they leave a hospital and also training folks out in the field on how to use the electronic medical record that we were educating like people using that tool to educate people in the hospitals, and so there was a lot of opportunity there to create some processes, some job aids, things like that. And so, I'm a very process-oriented person.

Megan Benay

Okay.

Haley Harbaugh 

And so it just kind of naturally fit that I was creating a lot of the job aids that people were using and so kind of fell into it that way. And and then I remember a very poignant kind of call out in a meeting. I didn't have any formal educational background like, you know, adult education background. I just had an undergrad in like you know criminal justice, sociology, and psych. You know, which can lend itself to education, but my boss said in a meeting, you know, if you're really serious about education, you need to go get a degree. And I was like Whoa! Ok. 

Megan Benay

Is that how you ended up? Is that why you pursued a doctorate in education?

Haley Harbaugh 

I don’t, well, at that point I was going for a master’s in instructional design, and I really hadn’t anticipated going for a doctorate, but but I think it kind of like that's how the funnel started, really. Yeah. So that's like my initiation into learning and development in corporate, yeah.

Megan Benay

So, for so you went and got your master's first, and was it right, did you go right, master's into doctorate? Or did you take some time in between?

Haley Harbaugh 

I took some time off. I feel like I needed to. And I didn't even know like I was gonna take like, I didn't know I was gonna get a doctorate. I just had this like epiphany, you know. So. 

Megan Benay

What was the what was like this the motivation? Why did you then decide, I need a doctorate?

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah, I think a couple things were rolling around in my head. So, I think one of them I had been working with a guy, and his wife was getting a doctorate from Johns Hopkins, and at the time one of my clients for our electronic medical record was the nephrology department at Johns Hopkins. And so, I actually got to go to the nephrology department, meet the physicians and teach them how to use the rounding tool for the dialysis facility and I just like fell in love with it. I was like, oh, it’s so amazing. Like, I wish I could get a doctorate from Johns Hopkins, too. And so, like putting that seed out there, I guess. And then I was I was actually on a job kind of like trip, and I was reading a book, and all of a sudden I had this like epiphany, as I was reading the book I'm like, oh, my gosh! I need to get my doctorate, and like it was, it was probably like a year after I got my masters, maybe 2 years, and and I think I think it just felt necessary at that point, because I wanted to be taken seriously and about like where I want to go in my career, and that was an avenue that I saw as an opportunity to be credible, basically. And then also, I, really, I wanted to learn more about the research. Like, I wanted to understand research, which dorky as that sounds, like, I wanted to understand the foundational aspects of research that I wasn't I didn't get in my undergrad or my master's program. So that was for kind of the catalyst points for orienting me to an EdD.

Megan Benay

And one of the questions I get a lot is, why EdD? Why are you doing an EdD and not PhD? So, why did you choose the EdD track over the PhD track?

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah, so I I was always really interested in neuroscience. And I saw that Johns Hopkins had a mind, brain, and teaching kind of pathway, essentially, and that was really appealing to me. And so, it kind of just naturally fit with kind of where, I I mean in adult learning like that, that's what I love. I love how people process, information, how people learn. And so, it just kind of made sense for me to go this route, but honestly, I feel like it was a lot of like serendipity. Because I didn’t apply to any other schools, and everybody told me that's really unusual. So, yeah, so I kind of fell into it because I loved the programmatic elements that Johns Hopkins offered too.

Megan Benay

So, do you think, then, because you are already in the field of learning and development, since graduating has has the degree helped advance your career in any way? And if not, do you think it will?

Megan Benay

I 100% I think it has. 

Megan Benay

Okay.

Megan Benay

Yeah, I I do believe that it has helped me build credibility in my in what I say, what I do, and how people think about you know my perspective on things like, I just don't know that I would have been taken as seriously before, as bad as that is, if I hadn't gotten the doctorate. Yeah.

Megan Benay

This point of being taken seriously, if you know, assuming that you identify as a woman, or you know that gender identity, the idea of being taken seriously in, you know, in the for-profit space in the corporate space, do you think that do you think that the doctorate helped you grain credibility that you didn't have because of your gender? Or do you think men would also need the same kind of degree?

Haley Harbaugh 

I do think that the degree helped bolster my positioning in being a woman in this field, and and you know I had the same male boss for about 10 years, which is kind of unusual, too. And I think a lot of that was me trying to validate my knowledge and be seen as an expert on adult learning, where I don't think that if I hadn’t have gotten the doctorate, I don't think he would have seen that unfortunately so.

Megan Benay

That makes sense. I mean you also, obviously, the degree and the coursework does in fact, you I'm sure you learned more things than you knew before. So, you did

Haley Harbaugh 

Absolutely. 

Megan Benay

gain deserved credibility. 

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah.

Megan Benay

So now you you were in corporate already. For those of us who are and something that's interesting, I think, about the Johns Hopkins EdD program is just how incredibly diverse. I think I made an assumption when I came in that it would all be folks like me who are in the K-12 space. And that is not true. It is people from all, all different sectors.

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah.

Megan Benay

But this idea of maybe being able to take your doctorate and and shift sectors, so move from, say, nonprofit or K-12 into learning and development. Given that, we will now have, even if we were good instructional designers before, we'll now have the degree and the coursework to back that up, but especially with those who are in K-12, even if we're teaching adults, our material and our work products are not particularly transferable to a corporate setting. And someone asked in this, in this talk yesterday, you know what kind of work product can I show when I'm like teaching teachers how to teach math or differentiate? And how is anybody gonna see that as worthy of then being in corporate America learning and development? So, do you have any recommendations for those of us who are maybe in K-12 or nonprofit in terms of breaking into the L&D space?

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah, I appreciate that question. And so, I also have kind of a side hustle where I do resume services for folks. And over the last, probably, yeah, yeah, like, the last 6-8 months, I had a couple people in K-12 come to me and say, hey, I want to get into, you know, corporate learning and development. How can I do this? And how do I get rid of the stigma that's typically associated with K-12 and going into corporate? And obviously, like, I think the skills are completely transferable. Education is education. Getting content, like to speak to people and knowledge transfer is knowledge transfer. And so, I think, like that that's what I've had to orient a lot of my clients to is like thinking about it just differently, and explaining your experiences differently in an interview for corporate than maybe what you would explain it for K-12. And adding a lot of like data points, because corporate is super focused on data points more than, I I don't know, maybe K-12 is. I guess I shouldn't say that. But, you know, if you have data backing up what you've done in K-12, I think it's really valuable to corporate and I'll be honest like, I, my role at US Renal Care, I was in charge of all the hiring for my team, and the broader L & D team in the company, and somebody reached out to me, and he had been doing K-12 instructional design, and he was like, listen, I know I don't come from a corporate background, but here's here's my resume. Here's my portfolio. Here's what I can do. He was amazing. And so, we I hired him. Of course. I mean it's so to me, like it's a no brainer. When you have a good candidate who is hungry for that ability to shift, I think that's what it boils down to. Now, does every hiring manager feel that way? No, they don't.

Megan Benay

Right.

Haley Harbaugh 

I'll be honest. But yeah, so that those are some of the tips that I've told people, yeah.

Megan Benay

That's great. So maybe thinking about other ways to frame our background and our and our experience in ways that are attractive to more corporate. And I imagine well, my intervention, my research doesn't doesn't have to do with professional development. I know that a lot of a lot of folks in my program do interventions that are around teaching adults.

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah. 

Megan Benay

And so that data piece is sounds like, if you're coming out of this doctorate with with a dissertation amount of data on how your training programs have changed outcomes for adult learners, that's a pretty good, it's a pretty good thing to have.

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah, I would agree. Well and even just, even in the K-12 sector, like, I think that there's ways to spin it up. You know the 2 people that I, 2 out of the 3 people that I did resumes for who were in the K-12 space ended up getting corporate positions.

Megan Benay

Interesting.

Haley Harbaugh 

And so a lot of it is around how you explain the knowledge transfer transferability from K-12 to corporate, and I honestly like, I’m trying to—oh, yeah! They both had master’s, but I didn't lean into the Master's work at all, and I personally have never really leaned into my doctoral work unless people asked about it.

Megan Benay

Really?

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah. Yeah, all of those pages I I wanted to share with the world. But.

Megan Benay

What was your dissertation on?

Haley Harbaugh 

So it's actually, it was a professional development program around mindful communication for the healthcare population. So, physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, patient care technicians, those folks. So it really focused on, like, how your historical lens on a communication relationship with that other individual can prevent you from potentially talking to other folks in that same department, that same profession, you know those kinds of things and make communication difficult. So that's kind of what my study was around.

Megan Benay

That sounds so interesting. It I was gonna ask, you know, to get very specific to the EdD program, what course was most impactful for you? Sounds like one of them may have been multicultural education?

Haley Harbaugh 

Ummm.

Megan Benay

Oh no!

Haley Harbaugh 

Honestly? No, I would say the one that resonated the most with me was the leadership in education course actually. I feel like, yeah, I felt like that was the one that like written it wasn’t even in—I think it was supposed to be under the entrepreneur kind of 

Megan Benay

It is.

Haley Harbaugh 

But I loved it and that's actually what shifted me cause originally like I was just, I was doing a lot of onboarding. I was doing a lot of that like initial new hire kind of training stuff which I ended up hating. And I ended up loving the leadership development piece because I love watching people grow. And that class really kind of shifted that lens for me.

Megan Benay

For our listeners, you can't see my face, but my jaw is dropped. Not to, I mean in fairness I was, I was heavily pregnant during that course, and so I look back at yeah, I didn't. There's not a lot I retain from that class. But I that's so interesting because it is, it's in the entrepreneurial leadership track, not the mind, brain, teaching track. So, I will certainly have to let Dr. Smith know that that this class spoke to you so much. So, there is a lot sounds like, and for and for those who are listening who aren't in the EdD program, would you if if we pretend for a moment like that was a class that wasn't in your discipline, would you say that there's value or merit in folks in their doctoral work to try to take a course that is outside of their, you know, to try to petition to let's say take a course that's not in their domain?

Haley Harbaugh 

I would say yes, if the court speaks to you. Like, if you feel like you are gonna get a lot of value from it, yes. But don't derail your coursework to take another course that's maybe outside of your coursework that's not gonna directly impact your your degree. Like that's my, I mean, like, I knew I would I would love the leadership and development, you know, course, so that's why I took it. But I wouldn't necessarily advocate for people to take something outside of their their study or their I forget what they call them, their lanes, basically, if they don't, if they don't need to yeah. And if it doesn't speak to them, but if it’s something you're passionate about, I think it's a great thing.

Megan Benay

Yeah, I mean, there's so many thinking about just how many different tracks and courses there are at Johns Hopkins. It's pretty it's pretty impressive, although difficult to take courses outside of your especially outside of your school.

Haley Harbaugh 

Right, right.

Megan Benay

So where do you see yourself going next?

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah. So, I'm kind of committed to this role for the next 2 years to launch this emerging Leader programming for CiviCO. But you know, over the last couple years I've really honed in on being genuine to what makes me happy, and I think a lot of us have done this over the pandemic, to really value what what's going to fulfill us. And so, I'm leaving it open that you know, if after, you know, a year and a half, you know, I don't know that I'm making more, I can't make much more of an impact at the current company. I'll look elsewhere, or you know, even after, so my last stint at DaVita was 6 months long and I just knew I wasn't gonna make the impact I wanted to make and so that's what prompted me to shift positions. So, I don't entirely know where I'm headed after this, but I do know that, like that ability to make an impact is really important to me. And and if that is with CiviCO, great. If that's with another organization, great. I think I'm just kinda taking it day by day, but also learning along the way too about different sectors, and really immersing myself in the space that I’m in right now. 

Megan Benay

And do you think, because we said at the beginning, you just switched over into this nonprofit world. Do you think that your doctoral studies at all influenced moving to the nonprofit space? Or what if would that have happened sort of either way?

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah, I, I think they were more appreciative actually of the EdD than corporate was.

Megan Benay

Interesting.

Haley Harbaugh 

Which is kind of weird. Yeah. But I think they were. I think they were more interested in the fact that that I that I did that and they were appreciative of it. So, I do think it made a bigger impact. Now my decision to move to nonprofit coming like with an EdD like, I don't know that had a whole lot. I just knew I wanted to experience something other than corporate L&D in healthcare.

Megan Benay

And another sort of question that we had asked yesterday was about needing industry-specific content knowledge. But it seems like, you know you went from healthcare to youth civic education, and so assuming in your coursework, it's not like you had a civic education course. So how did you? I mean, it seems at least to me, like many of us, are trying to go the opposite way, like we're trying to go from nonprofit.

Haley Harbaugh 

Hmm that is interesting.

Megan Benay

Trying to go from from service work potentially into corporate work which I can understand how that is hard to transfer those skills but how did you then say and become attractive to a you know, a nonprofit, socially oriented organization coming from healthcare?

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah, I think I do think that Johns Hopkins education helped open my eyes to equity and inclusion and diversity. My cohort was fantastic as far as that, and I will say Dr. Yolanda Abel was fantastic. I did have one of her courses, and it was really, really eye-opening. And so, at US Renal Care, I also became very close with the DEI expert there, the VP, and just seeing thins from her lens too, was really fascinating. And so insightful, and so I kind of took that back, I mean, like with the like to DaVita to see like, okay, so from an inclusion and diversity and equity standpoint like, how are we really living up to these these values that we say we have? And not to say that they weren’t DEI focused, it just wasn't the same lens that I think I had evolved into, and that is hyper important to CiviCO and their mission, because youth across and I think youth who comes from a background that maybe they don't, they're not even considering college at this point, you know, like I, I think, like influencing and being able to understand where they're coming from is really meaningful to me at this point in my career, too. That, like that was something that I connected immediately with the executive director of the organization. And so we we chatted through that. I explained to her some of the ways like I've incorporated that into to content development. It's so funny. So, last week we had this content development conversation about the content that I'll be reworking, and the the chairman was kind of like, not wanting to focus on inclusivity from like a direct like, this is our core focus. He wants to focus on the skill development of this emerging leader population which I get, and then my executive director wants to focus on inclusivity, and to me inclusivity is like and DE I is the thread that loops around all of the content development. Like you know, it doesn't have to be overt; it can be subtle things that people acknowledge, and how you frame things, and the content. And so, like I'm balancing between these two kind of like powerful people in the organization and explaining to them like the content will speak to DEI inherently, because that's the golden thread underpinning all of the content and making people feel like they are valued when they take this this coursework, too. So like, it's it to me, it's not, it doesn't have to be so like polarizing I guess. Because I felt like that's what it was in the meeting, and it's just like that's a natural content development. Like, if you're an instructor that you're constantly thinking about, how are we gonna engage people who maybe don't feel like they've always been accepted into some of these leadership programs. So, yeah.

Megan Benay

Yeah, well, and I will give a shout out to I'm in the entrepreneurial path, and I will give a shout out to those courses which do teach a lot about about how to sort of navigate power differentials, and how to advance what you are trying to advance whatever your program or your mission is amongst different people who are in positions of power. Do you feel like there was obviously the leadership course you took. Did that what you know help you build any of those skills or another course you took?

Haley Harbaugh 

I would say lot of it has been like on the job, like reinforcing of my values. But I think that multi-cultural course that you mentioned before, I think that was really kind of a foundational value settings for me, actually, and helped me build my integrity around that concept and application. And so, after that, it's like, if you don’t feel like you’re being integrous with DEI initiatives and inclusivity, it's it doesn't matter, like, you know, like all of your values are gonna go out the window if you don't feel like you're doing what you should be doing in that space.

Megan Benay

That's great. I that course also, really, really resonated with me. So as we as we hit our the end of our time here together, thank you so much for providing so much insight, and we will end with the question of what inspires you right now?

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah, I feel like it's kind of been the golden thread throughout this conversation. It's like making an impact, you know, making making an impact in the next generation of leaders and helping them grow in that space. So, yeah, that's that's really what inspires me at this point in my career.

Megan Benay

Well, that is inspiring I hope to many of us. It’s certainly inspiring to me. And thank you so much again.

Haley Harbaugh 

Yeah, thank you.