Roundtable: The future of

®oundtable:

The future of higher ed

As the education landscape transforms in the wake of the pandemic, one factor is certain: online learning will have a bigger role.

Ken Atwater

President Hillsborough Community College

Where do you see online learning moving from this point? You would be surprised at the number of people who were skeptical about taking online learning classes prior to the pandemic. We’ve learned what we need to do to make those classes more interactive and engaging in order to provide a greater chance for people to be successful. We’ve also learned that interaction, whether virtually or in-person, makes all the difference. All of our classes have to be engaging and we’ve learned how to do that in our online environment. We are retrofitting over 200 classrooms at the college for hybrid, synchronous, in-person and online classes.

How has the pandemic translated into a push toward talent upskill, reskill and career change? Anytime you look back after a recession or a downturn, the country’s community colleges, which already play an essential role in sustaining the community’s economic engine, are critical in helping people recover from these difficult times and in this case, the pandemic. We see ourselves playing a leadership role in this recovery as well. In the Tampa Bay area, for example, if you look across all segments of the transportation sector, there are about 15,000 jobs that perform an important role within the supply chain. If you look at what is necessary to fill those jobs, such as diesel and automotive technicians and welders, all require advanced skills from programs that we offer. We graduate over 220 technicians every year, with an average salary of $40,000 per year, and their economic impact is valued at over $600 million on an annual basis.

Timothy Beard

President Pasco-Hernando State College

What is your outlook for the next year? We have a lot on the table. The college received $6.6 million from the first stimulus package. Half of that went to student scholarships. The other half to support the transition to full online education during the pandemic and to build future online capabilities. The second stimulus provided us with $14 million. We are injecting $3.3 million into student scholarships and the remaining $10.7 million will be used to continue enhancing the delivery of online courses, support services, campus safety and to offset the college’s loss of revenue. The state has held back 6% from our 2020-2021 budget, which was a big hit for us. We are still unsure about how much of that will in fact be held back because the legislature has to hold a special session to decide on the matter. Despite that, with the decrease in adjunct faculty cost due to a decline in enrollment, cost savings from unfilled vacant positions, use of CARES funds, and reduction in administrative costs, the college is working to minimize the effect of using reserves to cover any budget shortfalls if the 6% holdback remains.

What programs are seeing the most demand? Nursing and healthcare, primarily. Nursing has been a signature program here for some time. It is a tough, highly rigorous program, designed under high standards. PHSC’s Licensed Practical Nursing (LPN) program was ranked No. 1 out of 164 public and private programs in 2019 by the website NursingProcess.or. We also offer a Bachelor of Applied Science in Supervision and Management degree and an all-online Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. Radiology is also in high demand, as well as our Emergency Medical Service (EMS) program.

Kent Ingle

President Southeastern University

What are the university’s main near-term goals? In early January 2021, we conducted gateway testing as the students came back to campus. We are once again operating in a hybrid format for the spring semester. We are hopeful that the vaccine will help us to get to a fall 2021 that will be somewhere close to normal again. In 2021, we are focusing on expanding our online delivery with more affordability, more accessibility and more innovative programs targeted to helping adult learners adapt to the changing landscape. We are also expanding our partnership model outside of the nonprofit landscape and into the corporate world. Our goal is to partner our ability to provide accreditation with the knowledge and expertise of some of the greatest teachers and experts in the corporate world.

What is the university’s vision for its donated land parcel? Future development on that piece of property will be dedicated to athletic facilities. Some of the things we are considering include a championship tennis facility, soccer fields and the site of a future baseball stadium. There are a lot of things we are looking at as we solidify strategic plans with these kinds of gifts and investments. Another great gift we received was a $2.1 million grant from The Kern Family Foundation to develop an innovative accelerated degree program for ministry students in which they can earn both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in only five years instead of the traditional seven. Programs like this help make education more affordable and provide an earlier entry to the workforce. What technological trends are you looking at to improve your curriculum? Just about two years ago, we started a major in virtual reality. We were the first art school to do that. One of the initial partnerships we did was with the Moffitt Cancer Center, where our students and staff created an immersive virtual reality experience for people going through cancer treatment, so they could familiarize themselves with the environment and understand and feel what it was going to be like to undergo their care.

We also used technology to create another major called entertainment design. It focuses on theme environments, which include theme parks but also things like restaurants and hotels and rock concerts – any kind of environment that’s themed.

How is the college preparing students for the current, uncertain job market? We’ve created a program called the “Collaboratory” in partnership with the Patterson Foundation here in Sarasota to guarantee every student an opportunity to gain realworld experience. Now, we have clients coming to us who want us to help them solve some of their problems, using the creative energy of our students. Over the past seven years, we’ve been working with General Motors, which wants our students to look into the really far future, to look 20-plus years ahead and envision what automotive could look like and how it might function then. Many of the auto design people get caught up on the engineering limitations of the present, and General Motors ended up recruiting several students every year for full-time positions at its Detroit Design Center.

Larry Thompson

President Ringling College of Art and Design