LIVE From South College - Episode 1 (CBE and New Campus Announcement)

In this episode of the Live From South College podcast, host Kathleen Stockham interviews Dr. Michael Patrick about the innovative Competency-Based Education (CBE) programs at South College. They discuss the diverse student demographics, the advantages of CBE over traditional education, and the significance of the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree. Dr. Patrick addresses common misconceptions about asynchronous learning, offers advice for new students, and explains the dissertation process, emphasizing the support provided to students. The conversation concludes with insights into Dr. Patrick's personal journey in higher education and his passion for helping students succeed.
In the secondary section, South College announces a brand new campus in Dallas, Texas to become 10 campuses plus Online.

Got a question? Have some feedback? Email us at SouthCollegePodcast@south.edu or come visit us at www.south.edu. Follow us on social media too. The Live from South College Podcast is your source for all South College activity including new student information, deeps dive’s into our 100+ programs, and concentrations, “Tools of the Trade,” and even Live on location from all of our campuses! Great interviews with Faculty, Staff, Deans and hear from South College students and alumni in their own words. From Certificates all the way to Doctoral degrees, catch up with “Live from South College” for the lighter side of helping your dreams find direction.

Transcript

Kathleen Stockham (00:08)
Welcome to the Live From South College podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Stockham. The Live From South College podcast is your source for all South College activity, including new student information, deep dives into our 100 plus programs and certificates and degrees, tools of the trade, and even live on location from all of our campuses. Great interviews with faculty, staff, deans, and hear from South College students and alumni in their own words.

from certificates all the way to doctoral degrees, catch up with live from South College with a lighter side of helping your dreams find direction. My guest today and really my first guest is the president of the Competency-Based Education Set. It is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Michael Patrick. Hi, Dr. Patrick.

Dr. MIchael Patrick (00:55)
Thank you, Kathleen. Great to be here today. Appreciate you having me on.

Kathleen Stockham (00:58)
All right. So the obvious first question is, OK, what is CBE? Explain it, please, and why it's so special.

Dr. MIchael Patrick (01:07)
Yeah, great, great question. know, competency based education, CBE is essentially competency based education. It allows students to use their existing skills, knowledge and prior experience and they're able to demonstrate that on through a variety of assessments and our courses. You know, they're able to go at their own pace. And so by using their experience and existing skillsets, students are able to kind of potentially work through courses at a little bit faster rate. And so

you know, for your traditional, you know, student who might want something that's more self-paced, this kind of offers an alternative, right? Where students are able to go at their own pace, they're able to set their own due dates and their work ahead, you know, really based off what their schedule is. And so it's just an exciting opportunity for students to maybe experience graduate and doctoral studies in a little bit different manner than maybe they've done previously.

Kathleen Stockham (01:51)
Okay, so tell me who your students are. mean, are they older, are they more established, are they younger? Tell me a little bit more about who these students are.

Dr. MIchael Patrick (02:02)
Yeah, you know, we've got students everywhere from anywhere from their 20s all the way up in their 60s, you know, possibly even in their 70s, right? You know, you know, some are going in really different areas of their career. Some are, you know, just getting into it, maybe in their graduate degree program a couple of years in, and we've got 25, 30 year veterans in their career, you know, possibly looking for maybe that next career stop or career advancement. We've got CEOs, we've got business owners, you know, really from name it from A to Z, you know, and CBE kind of brings it from a student population side.

Kathleen Stockham (02:31)
Okay, so why would someone consider a CBE program over a more traditional doctoral program? I mean, what are the advantages for doing CBE rather than a traditional route, in your opinion?

Dr. MIchael Patrick (02:44)
Well, I'm going to use the words of one of our students and something she told me really kind of resonated with me. And I've kind of stole this tagline from her ever since. And what she said was she said, I needed a program that fit my lifestyle where I didn't have to rearrange my lifestyle to fit a program. And we dove more into it and really where she said, you know, and I'm busy, I've got kids, I've got family, I've got other responsibilities. I might not be able to submit something every Wednesday or every Sunday night at midnight in a traditional program would. And CBE allows her

or forge with the opportunity of if she wants to get up at three in the morning to submit her work on her own time or whatever that schedule looks like for her, she's able to do it. If she wants to take a week off, she's certainly able to do it with kind of no fear or apprehension of, I've got an assignment due this week or I'm falling behind. She really sets her own due dates and her own pacing. And she said, I would not have been able to get a doctoral degree in any other type of format other than CBE. And so I think for that type of student, know, listen, I've got three kids running around the house and

and going from here to there. And I would want a program like this where I'm able to set schedules, whether from ball games or whatever's going on in the personal life. It allows our students that opportunity to say, you know what, you're adult, you're a professional, you know how to multi-manage, task your family, your work, all the various responsibilities. Why not do the same with your school? And that's what CBE offers. And I think that's why it's kind of really exploded so fast, especially over the past 12 months. And we've been doing it now for over three years here at South College.

really just experiencing rapid growth because I think students wanted, they wanted a break from a traditional in the doctoral studies and the graduate studies of, I just want to do it in different manner.

Kathleen Stockham (04:18)
Yeah, so it almost feels like education in the EDU space is starting to conform more to the lifestyle as opposed to you must come to campus. So that's actually really interesting. All right, so let's unpack this a little bit. So DBA, Doctor of Business Administration, does that mean in your opinion that the garden variety MBA is obsolete? What's the difference?

Dr. MIchael Patrick (04:43)
You know what, I don't think so. I think it's for different quality or different level of applicants, right? So maybe you're early in your career, right? And you're looking to get established and maybe give yourself a leg up on the competition. And maybe you wanna, I would recommend a traditional MBA at that point for that student because, hey, that's a good way. Get some entry level experience. We're requiring, when somebody comes into us, you're coming in where you've got that levels of experience.

where you've got years of industry experience that you're coming in, right? And so, our graduate requirements, they just have to have a 2.75 GPA and a master's degree already, right? And so they've already got that level of knowledge and that content expertise, but typically they've got that years of industry experience as well. The DBA is kind of that cut above, less than 2 % of the world's population has a doctoral degree. And so we're affording students the opportunity to do that, right? To go into that 2 % of the world, who doesn't wanna kind of be in the league category and status?

on some aspect and that DBA does that in the professional realm. We've got a lot of our students who want to go teach graduate and doctoral faculty work, know, coursework somewhere. And so they're using our degree to kind of springboard, whether it's a first career, second career, third career, whatever it is they're looking for, that DBA kind of opens up doors that maybe a traditional master's degree wouldn't do, you know, wouldn't do for them.

Kathleen Stockham (05:59)
that's, see, and I think that's actually a really important point because, you know, in a lot of realms, if you don't have an MBA from a top five program, they won't talk to you. But in this case, you know, you can walk in the door with a DBA, which means that you've actually had to sit down and write a dissertation. We'll talk more about that in a minute. Okay, so what's the...

Dr. MIchael Patrick (06:08)
Yep. Right.

You got it. You got it.

Kathleen Stockham (06:21)
biggest misconception about CBE and fully asynchronous learning? And for my listeners, before you go and Google asynchronous, it means student and instructors are not together, but they're working in their own time frame. So what's the biggest misconception in your opinion about fully asynchronous learning?

Dr. MIchael Patrick (06:40)
So I'm going to think I think there's two misconceptions. One that students don't think it's a rigorous program, right? I think anytime that you go through your online program, you're like, is it rigorous? Is it really meaning something? Is there value behind what I'm about to do? So A, yes, it's rigorous. But I think B, the second part of that is the level of faculty interaction and our program model and our program model from a student side. It's really a one to one faculty student model and that ratio.

And so the level of faculty substantive interaction that you're gonna get, you're gonna get that mentorship, you're gonna connect with students, right, you know, from the faculty side. And that student gets a one-on-one based off their learning, their knowledge, their experience. It's really almost a customized learning pathway as they're working on assessments where that faculty is working with them. And I think a lot of times there's the misconception of, I'm in it on my own. I'm not gonna get support. Faculty aren't gonna respond. I mean, our faculty respond to email within 24 hours.

They're grading almost every course other than the, you mentioned the dissertation, that and one other course within 48 hours. I mean, you're talking rapid turnaround time and faculty who care and wanna work and they want to see you excel. So I think it's really that piece that you're not in it by yourself. And we've got a wonderful student support team. I mean, they're reaching out to you continually. the dissertation, I remember when I did my caffeine, it felt kind of a lonely process, a little bit of a lonely journey.

You know, I'm in there writing and everybody's having a great time everywhere else. And, you know, I'm like, you know, and I'm hearing all the laughter and all the, you know, the TV and I'm in there typing up pages and all those things. And it felt to be a lonely process, you know, where I didn't have, you know, I didn't have mentors reaching out to me on the side. My faculty weren't necessarily reaching out to me. It was really me on my own kind of driving it here. I think you've experienced the opposite. So maybe where you wouldn't have felt that support before we've really tried to build that in and interlace that throughout our program.

where you're gonna have as much support as you'll possibly let us give you, maybe more than you want and you can tell us to back up a little bit too, that's okay, but you're never gonna wonder, do I have a support team behind me? So I don't know, I just think that's some misconceptions out there anytime you think of doing a doctorate degree.

Kathleen Stockham (08:44)
Yeah, so okay, so what's your best advice for that you would offer someone who's just getting started with CBE, who's really right there in those first one and two classes? And also what about support from fellow students? Is there like a buddy system? You know, tell me more about that.

Dr. MIchael Patrick (09:03)
Yeah, so the biggest piece of advice I really think I would offer is just stay with it, right? know, set five, 10 hours a week, you know, no one feels like writing papers every day and every night when you're going home, right? Set a designated time. And I think that's, you know, whether it's, you know, church responsibilities, family responsibilities, sports responsibilities, whatever somebody has that might be going out there.

and the world, you have to set different timelines and deadlines for different aspects, right? I mean, that's how the world turns. That's how we accomplish all the things that we do and our personal lives. And it's no different in your educational life. Set aside some time every week, say, you know what? This is the time I'm gonna work on this course and this is the time I'm gonna work on this assignment and really stay with that, right? And if you will just stay the course, you'll absolutely continue your journey and you'll kind of achieve that lifelong goal, right? And so I think that's the biggest thing. Just stay with it. I mean, it gets better.

When I first started writing Kathleen, I won't tell you how bad my writing was as a doctoral student. We will not publish that on the podcast by any means. I do have copies of it. I probably should have burned it a long time ago, even though it's digital. I should have found a way to burn it. But nonetheless, everybody gets better as writing and that's just part of the process. so, know, stay with it, right? I mean, don't give up, give yourself grace, right? I mean, nobody's perfect. You know, we work with you, right? And one thing with CB I didn't mention is,

you get to revise your work until it meets mastery competency, right? So it's not like a one shot. It takes the pressure off. Hey, give it your best effort, but we'll let you know what you need to improve on and then just continue to work on it, right? And that's part of the process of CBE, right? Is we wanna make sure you've got those skills when you walk out. And so we're gonna give you that time to work on it. As far as support groups, we've got a great Facebook group, students connect in there, in and off. And so they've kind of formed their own little support groups, some of them.

meet and talk offline just as a way to connect with other students. And so, you know, we're always looking at ways to kind of, you know, bring our students together and to find connectivity in that. You know, our faculty hosts lots of kind of lunch and learn sessions and students will connect in there as well, right? So it's a good time for them to see, I'm not the only one who had that same question or maybe didn't understand that process, right? You know, typically if you have the question as a student, somebody else does. And so we're trying to find ways and continue to look for different ways for students to connect.

Kathleen Stockham (11:15)
Hmm, all right, so let's go back to the dissertation, because obviously that's a huge component. So talk to me about that. It seems kind of daunting, kind of like getting a root canal for six months, at least that's how it sounds to me. But how does South College provide a fulfilling experience for dissertation? What tools are in place to help someone who's never written one of these?

Dr. MIchael Patrick (11:17)
Yeah.

That's right.

Well, and I would say Kathleen, know, 99 % of our students have never written a dissertation before, right? mean, you know, typically once you write one, you don't want to go back and write another one even once you're finished, right? You know, it's not like, hey, let me sign up for another one of those. But we do have students who've gone for multiple doctoral degrees, right? So, you know, listen, you know, some people are glutton for that type of encouragement and exciting activity and we're willing to provide it. You know, so I think what we do is first, let me explain what our dissertation is. It's a little bit differently with us.

than maybe in a traditional one. And so we require the use of what, not to get too technical, but it's called the existing use of data sets, right? And so maybe you're a K-12 teacher and you have state testing scores that have already been done out there and you want to do some type of analyzing that type of data. You're looking at a problem, trying to solve it. Well, that data is already there. Maybe you work in an organization and your HR has done some really great results on employee engagement and maybe you've got access to that type of data. didn't...

design a unique collective, but it's already been done, right? It's already existing, it's already out there. We require students to use that. And so essentially what that does, again, trying to not get too technical, but it falls under the exempt status in IRB. And so that process of IRB, it's federally regulated, basically human subject protection, right? We wanna make sure that anytime there's human subjects involved, that their protection, that's a federally regulated activity for higher education institutions. And we follow that to the letter of the law.

However, ours falls under the exempt status because you're really dealing with data. You're not really dealing with humans because the data has already been collected by somebody else. That saves the student at minimum, at minimum six to nine months anywhere else you're going to go. By the time you would have designed the research, collected it, know, got permissions, all those things. It's a very lengthy process. And I've chaired dissertations. I chaired them probably for over 15 years, Kathleen. And it was a very long process and students would pay a lot of money just to sit and wait, right. And they would wait for approval and

and all these different things at other institutions. And I was like, I don't want our students to do that. But not only for that reason, our students are practitioners, right? And a practitioner, they go out and they solve problems all day long, right? And so it's cutting down the time and we're trying to focus on really what matters as a practitioner. But yet the dissertation does matter in my opinion for many, many degrees or an EDD and a DBA especially where other competitor programs have them and some don't have them, right? And a lot of the question asks for our students,

Do you have a dissertation or don't? Because whether it's a right or wrong perception, there is a perception that institutions who have, or degrees who have a dissertation, it's considered more credible than those who don't. Now I'm not saying I necessarily believe that or don't believe that, but I didn't want our students to have to make that argument, right? And that's where I wanted to make that for them of, hey, you're gonna walk out with a very credible degree that's gonna potentially open up doors for you. But we've got one-on-one faculty mentors, they're gonna get a chair, they're gonna get a committee member.

You know, we, start working on it in their ninth course. We've got great research methodologists who really help set the framework. we've got incredible resources available for them. Again, I mentioned lunch and learn sessions. do them just on the dissertation. and so every student is really different for them. And so the number of interactions, phone calls, zoom teams, whatever that, that our faculty and chairs are doing with their, with their, their, dissertation students. I mean, it's pretty immense Kathleen, right? So.

The only way a student's not gonna get through is if they're not actually willing to write, right? We will literally help them all along the process. And right now our students are progressing really, really well through the dissertation. We've had a lot of graduates. We continue to see more. Feels like every other day we're seeing another student kind of graduate with a degree. And that's what we want. mean, that's the ultimate goal. Students come in here wanting to graduate, earn their degree, and we wanna do everything we can to help them earn that.

you know, achieve that type success. mean, listen, we want to call them doctor when they walked out of this thing. There's no greater feeling than somebody calling them doctor. And that's what we want to do.

Kathleen Stockham (15:30)
I love it. All right, so let's talk a little bit about you. How long have you been at South College?

Dr. MIchael Patrick (15:37)
72 years, no. This is my sixth year at South College and absolutely love it. I've been a few different roles and I started CBE. I came up with the idea about four years ago and we launched programs three years ago and been doing it ever since and honestly couldn't imagine doing anything else.

Kathleen Stockham (15:53)
Okay. All right. So just on average, how many times a day do you have to explain what CBE is? I cannot wait for this answer. How many times a day?

Dr. MIchael Patrick (16:00)
Well, I think that's the only part of my job that is constant, right? Is explaining what CBE is. don't know, literally, you know, probably seven to eight times a day. But I mean, it feels like that's the only conversation I really have is explaining, you know, I still get to talk to a lot of students. They want to talk to me, you know, when they call in through the admissions team. And I'm always happy to oblige that, when possible.

And so that's the things, what is it? What does it actually mean for me? know, everybody does CBE a little bit differently, you know, all the institutions out there and we certainly do. But I love explaining it, right? I mean, to me, if you're passionate about it, you love talking about it. So while it may feel like, you know, 72 times today, it also feels like the first time that I'm getting to talk to a student as well.

Kathleen Stockham (16:43)
Yeah, that's amazing. All right, so the obvious question, what did you want to be when you grew up? Is this was this where you saw yourself or did you want to do something else?

Dr. MIchael Patrick (16:51)
Well, I probably wanted to be a basketball player, but then I realized I was slow at Kathleen and that wasn't gonna work for me. And my jumping ability maybe quite wasn't what it needed to be. Now I could shoot, but that was about it. And so there wasn't much of a career trajectory for me in that regard. And I thought about dentistry and then I said, not sure how I felt about that. My parents were educators and so it of fell on that line a little bit. then I really kind of higher education fell into my lap. mean, when I went to go look for my...

Kathleen Stockham (17:02)
Okay.

Dr. MIchael Patrick (17:20)
know, doctorate Kathleen when I was getting it, I couldn't find a place where I could go to campus anywhere within about a two and a half hour radius while teaching school full time, you know, having, you know, young family at home and actually go, go to a place to find a doctor. I mean, it was very difficult, you know, back when I did mine. and so I found it online and I just fell in love with online education, what it did for me. And so that was really kind of my passion for others. I understood the doors that opened for me and I kind of wanted to open those doors for students in their career, for their families as well.

Kathleen Stockham (17:50)
that. So okay, so the obvious question, when you're not explaining what CVE is, which seems to be a paramount of your day, what do do in your downtime?

Dr. MIchael Patrick (18:00)
You know, I don't think there is downtime. No, no, no, listen, I love it. You know, really, really spending time with my family. You know, my boys certainly are incredibly active in sports and, you know, things like that. And so, you know, if I'm not talking to a student explaining what CBE is, I'm probably with my boys somewhere doing something. And really that's just that, that's kind of where my world revolves around.

Kathleen Stockham (18:22)
So want to thank Dr. Patrick for being my first guest. That was awesome. So everything that we've talked about, you can find on south.edu and you can check it out and look at our competency based program. So we did good for our first episode and my first guest, nobody died, which is pretty awesome. So we're going to take a break. We'll be right back.

Radio Break (18:44)
When you start your new path at South College, you'll join students from different walks of life and at varying stages of their lives. Many students are going back to school to finish degrees, while others are pursuing elevated education that will help improve their potential in their current roles for chasing a new direction. South College offers over 100 programs and concentrations with specialized focus on associate, bachelors, masters, educational specialists, and

doctoral degrees in healthcare, business, technology, education, and legal studies.

Kathleen Stockham (19:18)
Welcome back. South College has campuses in Knoxville, Orlando, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Atlanta, and Asheville. And now we are excited to announce Dallas, Texas with the campus opening spring of 2025. Enroll today. See south.edu for more information. See you next time.