Empowering Non-Traditional Learners: Unlocking Access to Higher Education with Workforce-Aligned Online Programs

Thank you for joining us. I know it's the end of the day, but this should be a good panel, good discussion. I like to say this is just us standing in the hallway having a conversation. You all get to listen so that's fun. My name is Ryan Lufkin. I'm the vice president of global academic strategy here at Instructure, and I'm gonna introduce my my co panelists.

Actually, let's go down the line. McShay. I'm director of academic and Hi, I'm Patrick Frontera. I am on the higher education strategy team at AWS, and I'm responsible for IT and campus operations. And is this am I on? You're not on.

Can you hear me? Nope. Here you go. My co panelist just called me Scuba Steve after this brief presentation. But for those of you that didn't see that this morning, I'm Melissa Lobel, Instructure's chief academic. You're coming in out.

Yes. Just call her scuba Steve. Everything's fine. For our audience that doesn't know necessarily what project Kitty Hawk is and what your goal is, give us a little overview. Absolutely.

Okay. Got your bleep there. Alright. Plot twist. Okay.

Project Kitty Hawk was founded by the North Carolina General Assembly, in two, twenty twenty two. And the goal that, Project Kitty Hawk was founded on is to really serve as a utility to the sixteen, University of New North Carolina institutions, to really serve adult learners and be very strategic in developing a technology stack that would enable our ability to partner with these institutions, and really be able to hone in on workforce aligned programs and that non traditional adult learner persona. I I think there's if there's one theme that you get out of this conference, it's that we see a a major shift towards lifelong learning. And this idea that there's kind of have some artificial distinctions between K-twelve and higher education in the workplace. And we're moving to the point where we, you know, with concurrent enrollment, with non traditional learners being the new traditional learners, we need to start looking at learners as lifelong learners.

Right? So talk through a little bit some of the challenges, especially, you know, specific to North Carolina for those non traditional learners, reengaging with higher education or or upscaling, reskilling that approach. Yeah. I mean, we we have a pretty good, understanding and some research to show that these learners, you know, they're coming in, they're making a really big life decision to to get back into their education. So there's a lot of fear of failure. There's time constraints, financial constraints, managing multiple priorities.

They have work, life, kids, community engagement, etcetera. So what we've tried to do is really work with our institutional partners to have policies, procedures, decision making, really focused on this non traditional learner instead of a traditional eighteen to twenty two year old. So we're looking at things like multiple term starts per year. So we use a kind of a half semester, term start. So we have five term starts, so they have almost a full year, if if they need to take a a term off.

Right? They can come back right next term. There's tutoring services, wellness services, student coaching model, where these these students are met where they are in terms of what they need and when. Twenty four hour help desk support. They don't have to call from nine to five to to get their password reset, right? And again, yes, we all have chat and, phone call things that that they can use for their IT help desk, but there it's actually separate from the institution's, current help desk. Yeah.

So when we when we look at this, we wanna make sure that the institutions are serving, the the the adult learner Yeah. For this. We we it's funny because we we talked about this a lot last night, over over drinks, you know, and kind of the scope. But let's revisit again the scope of this. Like, how many institutions across the the state? I mean, the organizations you work with? I mean, it's it's a the scope of this is kind of daunting.

Right? It's not daunting. It's great. There's so much opportunity around the scope of this. No pressure. Now so there are sixteen institutions in the UNC system right now, and the great thing is, and you'll get into this a little, in a little while, but, the platform that was built was, was built to serve all of them.

There's also I believe it's fifty eight, don't quote me on that, community colleges that again are part of the system and, and, and that is, you know, for for future growth and opportunities there or even just working with the partner institutions to include what would that look like to for the adult learner to start there. But yeah, the kind of the opportunity's endless. We do have actually, I'm not gonna get into that because the future question is You're gonna say that? But that's our that's our our current scope. I mean, yeah, it is there yeah. There's there's a lot of, there's a lot of opportunities.

Yeah. So I remember when we first started, engaging with y'all, and I can say y'all because you guys are from North Carolina. Tell me again, like, how did how did the process go? How did you make the selection to work with AWS and Canvas, and and what were the considerations there? Yeah. Absolutely. So, I've been in higher ed my whole career and, just the opportunity to build a tech stack from the ground up is is pretty unheard of in this industry.

So, you know, when I was presented with the opportunity, it was very much a when can I start? So so, as we looked at the aggressive timeline from the state, of really capitalizing on the fact that, about twenty percent of North Carolinians over twenty five do not have their degree. And that's about two percent less than the national average. So we were really seeing an immediate need within the state. And, you know, we saw signals between, online readiness within COVID as well as seeing, some of the feedback that corporations were giving the state was we really love this state. We love where it's located.

We love the friendliness of of, corporate legislation, but we have concerns of being able to fill the number of jobs that that we would have. And so there was there was a very clear skill set, skills gap. So knowing we needed to move aggressively and and also being really mindful of oftentimes the resources that you need to build are not necessarily the resources that you need to operate. And we really wanted as we thought about our internal culture, we didn't wanna start off of hiring a lot of people when we were really still in that norming and storming phase. So AWS for us was a a clear, choice that had, first of all, just a heck of a lot of not only industry knowledge with folks like Patrick, they also had non higher ed industry knowledge.

And we knew we wanted to use this as an opportunity, to not just do the the traditional higher ed model and really take best practices across different industries, because we had such a unique opportunity. So, you know, given just the the different knowledge as well as just what a skills bench that AWS has, we were really able to flex quickly, as we started building agnostic of knowing who our first partner or institution was going to be and then moved quickly into, okay, we have a partner and we have six months to get them going, so no pressure. So we were able to move and and adjust very quickly. And so for for us, that was a a clear choice of of working with AWS. And they really came alongside us within the product selection process, really thinking about, where we wanted to be short term, but also, keeping in mind the long term.

You know, one of my favorite phrases I AWS ism, is, really thinking about what are your one way door decisions and your two way door decisions. And so a lot of these foundational decisions were were are challenging to undo down the line. So, you know, we were really excited to partner with AWS and do some product selection, and and Instructure and Canvas was a clear choice for us, based off of our goals and and just the passion for the learner experience. Yeah. I mean, just I'm assuming everybody in the room knows what AWS is, Amazon Web Services.

But a little background, you know, Instructure chose AWS twelve years ago to host Canvas. And so Canvas is fully hosted on AWS. They've been an amazing partner. We leveraged their services. Most recently, the AI services associated with Bedrock and the the seven large language models they've set up there.

So they continue to be a partner we evolve with and and, you know, make total sense as as, you know, the the architecture builds, everything you're doing on. So I know, you know, give us a little time frame from when you started to how you got to now and and what what that process has looked like. Yeah. Meg and I like to say it's a miracle we still have all our hair. So that's really the biggest win.

Why would you say that? Clearly, I've been through a few of these. Yeah. So we She's the one that dropped Scuba Steve on most of it. Yeah. We know how this goes.

Yeah. A lot of foot in my mouth moments this afternoon. Yes. So we, our our first, full time staff really started coming on board in May of twenty twenty two. Our first, partner, we, determined our first partner in March of twenty twenty three.

We went to market in July of twenty twenty three, and our first term start, was October of twenty twenty three. So it it was very cool. I, had an opportunity to be an InstructureCon last year, and, you know, as as most people, a common question was, you know, how many students you have and none, was last year. But, you know, now we we are absolutely, and and Meg will go into this more, but, we are in market with three institutions, and about eleven programs in market. So, some some very aggressive timelines and definitely keeping us on our toes.

So a lot of fun. How's the how's the sorry. How's the partnership evolved over over this process? Because I you know, it's it's when you start off and you have a plan, you know, they always say that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. So there's naturally to be able to evolve and and and expand. How does how does the partnership with both Instructure and AWS, evolve over time? Yeah.

Absolutely. Because we had about, you know, a six month ish time where we knew we needed to build aggressively is that we wanted an October term start and and working with, the general assembly. We really started in a very agnostic build, phase. I think my my project Kitty Hawk team is was very sick of me saying the word agnostic at the end of those six months. But, so so we really got to start with, our team just has a lot of expertise in the nontraditional higher ed environment.

And and AWS was really able to help us facilitate, what they call a working backward session. So really starting with what is the the experience we're driving for for our for our students, for faculty, and also for what we consider our client, which is the institutions themselves. And so we were really able to kind of have that that North Star. And then once we did have an institution selected, that really rapidly turned into execution mode. And and that's really where the rubber hit the road of, you know, it's one thing to talk about what an SIS integration can look like and what what we would like it to look like.

It's really another to really understand a specific institution's experience and operations. And so that's really when we we had a more deliberate shift to that execution, that was very specific to, successfully launch our client. Yeah. I'm gonna call Patrick out a little bit because you that's when you get into the technical weeds. Right? A little a little deeper into the technical stuff.

So Patrick, dive a little deeper into that for us and what did that experience look like? Yeah, I mean, so first of all, I will, you know, AWS is known obviously as one of the hyperscalers that has a lot of technology capabilities, but I think that the working backwards process, it's part of our culture and part of the way that AWS works with its customers was so vital for this project. Not as vital though as the the sponsorship and leadership that Aaron and Meg have both provided because it has provided, you know, crystal clear vision about what the state of North Carolina should be delivering for its adult learner population. And it has allowed and given, Instructure and AWS together a lot of space to work on how we can best compliment each other's capability. So I just think that the the beginning of this with a working backwards process, but it's led by, you know, outstanding leaders that that are sitting right by me was really, really instrumental to having been able to deliver anything. But but, Project Kitty Hawk is using a full range of AWS's data, data services from ingestion to transformation to business intelligence and reporting.

And I think we'll get get to why that's so vital for a system or for a, you know, a consortium that's really looking at supporting a lot of individual institutions while also supporting an overall statewide vision. And also you were involved in these conversations pretty early on. And so this is a pretty unique approach. I think there's some unique challenges you all face. And, what have we learned together? How how's that conversation been from our side? Yeah.

Yeah. I was lucky to be a part of it early on and and and chatting around the vision and strategy to this. And I think they're really testing testing two ideas. One, what does an ecosystem really look like? A hub and spoke, a networked ecosystem of technologies that are are foundational to this multi institution experience, but directed at the end of the day to a very specific learner experience. So I think that we're still figuring it out, I think, to a certain degree.

I mean, what does that look like? Are there core technologies? Who owns what records? Who owns what data? How do we think about that in a complex environment where you're gonna use lots of different technologies to support learners? I think the second thing that excites me and that we're learning through this process and working with Project Kitty Hawk and AWS is, what is what are all the different flavors of lifelong learners? I think we talk about it as a one thing. Right? And I firmly believe a learner is a learner is a learner. Right? But there are different flavors of this. There are lifelong learners that are looking for professional development opportunities in their, you know, in their career trajectories. There are lifelong learners looking to come back after many years of being out of the workforce, into the workforce.

There are lifelong learners not even knowing the opportunity that higher education can provide them in their own either personal or more importantly professional development. There are all sorts of flavors. This is a unique one, I think, in how North Carolina's addressing this, and we can learn a ton from how do you choose to build, what struggles do you have, what capabilities do you need, how do you really connect with that learner to make them most, you know, have that biggest impact. There's a there's a a slide that is rotated through a couple of times. That's the PKH, digital experience.

I mean, this is not a simple slide to digest. So I know that that, you know, it's complex working across the different institutions, creating a consistent experience, and again, talked a little bit last night about how this works, but the the that multi tenant approach and and the ability to use AWS to support support that. Why is that important as you as you look at, particularly across the state? Yeah. Absolutely. I think, you know, with with Canvas especially, the multi tenancy architecture was a game changer for us.

And and working with AWS and thinking about our evaluation process, for different products, you know, I think I think multi tenancy and data were were two of the things that were very top of mind. And and the reason why we really wanted to hone in on multitenancy is, you know, Meg and I always say, if we do our job right, our students should not know project Kitty Hawk exists. They should feel like they are part of the institution. And so because of that, we wanted to make sure that we could provide branded unique experiences. And while there's certainly opportunities for consistency, we also knew that part of what makes each individual institution so special is their own flavor on how they approach learners.

And and we wanted to make sure we could honor that and support that. And at at the same time, we we needed to also balance our own internal operational efficiencies, and really still being in in start up land and thinking about, where we wanted to be where we want to be at scale and and where we are now. You know, we knew, we didn't want to have to administer five instances of an LMS because we had five partners. So how do we really have, the opportunity to really have, clear operational consistency, and support while also really honoring the mission of these amazing institutions across the state. It's tough when you say, if we do our job right, no one knows we exist.

That's like Well, you guys know now. So That's good. That too. I'm sure you live that. But but what are some of the features I think that, like again, let's it it relates to what you just answered, but the the features that are made possible through AWS and and Canvas and those individual institutions, I mean, that's that's gotta be pretty complex.

Right? Yeah. I I just I'll give an example. So in Canvas, you know, we've had some customized development work done for the mostly the faculty experience, to be honest. So in, you know, on the their homepage, there's instructor tools. So it can lead faculty to the, most pertinent information that they need for teaching at that university.

You know, we do expect some adjuncts to join the the the crowd as as these, programs scale. So we want them to feel a part of that university, of course. So in that, customize in the customized buttons, there's, you know, a tab for teaching at the university so they can get just an overview of what that's like. There's, a button for faculty community. So there's the option for full time faculty to develop some content in there, opportunities for research and projects and, you know, meet ups, and all, you know, any kind of community engagement there for for all the faculty who are teaching at the university along with, you know, something as simple.

This may sound simple to everybody, but an instant access to the Student Success Coach. So I I it's it's a button. They The information goes right to the student success coach because Erin is really struggling in class, and and I wanna make sure her coach knows that she's We talk a little about that. That that moment of need. Right? So much benefit for meeting that student in the moment of need.

Exactly. So just finding finding the the opportunities to customize, the platform in a way that works for the institution. Because the institution ultimately, we'll we'll say, approves the content in there and what they want the faculty experience to be. Yeah. That's a big deal.

And I think the the benefits of that long term gate you know, keeping those students on track, making sure you've got the retention, that has long term impact on your goals, which is, you know, more North Carolina students, achieving their academic goals. So, Patrick, did you have something to say on that one? No. I was just gonna say that, you know, in addition to multi tenancy, the infrastructure layer, there is sort of a multi tenancy concept that's implemented at the data layer as well. And you know, we'll probably get to why that's so important. But that was enabled by by AWS and the partnership with Instructure as well.

And in fact, that leads in perfectly to my next question, which is, you know, admittedly, we have a a bit of a canvas centric view of the world, Melissa and I, just because that's where we live. But with AWS, you know, you're hosting multiple solutions on AWS. So that gives you a little more insight than you might get otherwise. Right? Patrick, you probably are the one to go to on this one, but but talk about the benefits there. Well I'll actually defer to to Meg about why it's so important to be able to report back and and, work with in individual institutions that are part of Kitty Hawk to sort of show them how this is this is working and to show the faculty whose whose participation is vital obviously to this all working, some outcomes from from from a result of the of them participating in the in the program.

So Meg, do you wanna speak to that? Yeah. I'll start, and then I'm gonna hand it back to Erin. No. So so and again, the the capability of the platform, we're able to ingest all LMS data. So with that, you can imagine the insights that we can get to to, send back to the different program directors, or department chairs to say, this is how the course is performing.

This is the student learning outcomes achieved. This is faculty engagement in the course. Right? So we're able to, provide them some insights and reporting for accreditation, for just general assessments, that that again will move the dial in in terms of quality of the courses over time, and then ultimately courses obviously add up add up to the program outcome. So, it's it's an exciting time. I think that's where I cannot wait to I I've heard the term geek out a lot in this con so I'm gonna geek out there, really really soon and that's what I'm looking forward to, to get that capability in in the platform.

And I I think the multi tenancy with data, you know, it's it was really table stakes with us and similar to how we approach Canvas multi tenancy. Really finding that balance of of project Kitty Hawk operations and being good stewards of data of institutional data. And so really thinking about, you know, we're big believers of this is this is institutional data. This is not our data. And so really making sure that, we are able to share those insights at a client level.

And so we're never in a position, and and AWS has really empowered us, to have so much confidence of of we're not gonna say, oops, school a, we sent your data to school b. Right? Nobody wants to be there. So, you know, really being able that we we are able to kind of have that consistent view, and also enable a lot of data translation. You know, we are we are integrating with multiple student information systems, and and different CRMs and other institutional technology. And and I know this group will be shocked when I say they don't all look the same.

So so really being able to centralize that data and and actually translate it to our operational teams and our our reporting to that we can report consistently consistently on things like student success and, admissions pipelines. And it's not, oh, well, this report is for this school and so they use these things and and doing all of that translation, how do we really create that consistent experience, and predictability for for our internal PKH? But, also, we have a great partnership with the UNC system office. And they're really excited about the insights, that they can really start to glean across the institutions, especially in that non nontraditional population. If can can I just add one thing, Ryan? This will maybe sound counterintuitive, but the better your back end is, the better your front end's gonna be. Yeah.

That's probably a bad saying. I said that. I realized after that came out. So I think we often, you know, think about piecing together or doing workarounds or this report or that report. And we'll we'll make the back end work with human labor and might and strength.

But we really want to focus on the user experience, but there are so many nuances of that front end user experience that become a result of a very tight and clean back end process. And that's what inspires me about hearing this is so much attention's been spent on that, that you're gonna see that pull through the learner experience, and then you can just go add to that learner experience on the front end with all of that human labor and effort and might because you're not having to put so much of that on the back. Yeah, and I just, you know, it's easy to take for granted at this point, that these data environments can be stood up and torn down and iterated on in ways that that that weren't possible in the past because organizations were tethered to data centers. And and obviously, Project Kitty Hawk is a born digital organization, and and they can't they can't do that. They can't afford it.

It was never gonna be in the cards. So to be able to really iterate and innovate against data environments, I think is really crucial to shortening their innovation cycles so they can meet the demands of North Carolina. I think, Erin, one of the things you said early on was, you know, the the opportunity to create a data strat a data stack from or a data stack, a learning stack from scratch is an amazing opportunity. At the same time, it's also a huge challenge to be able to say, okay, what is the what are the data and analytics around this look like? And how do we lay the groundwork for that in the future that you don't have, starting point? How did what did that process look like with AWS and with with Canvas? Absolutely. It was it was definitely a lot of norming and storming, as as, you know, we, you know, we were kind of building our own internal operations and ways of working.

And so coming along side and and thinking about what are our own definitions and really holding ourselves accountable to that of, you know, I I'm laughing. I was in a call yesterday of, you know, are we really aligned on what enrolled versus registered means? Right? Like that, who would have thought that would have been an hour long call, but here we are. So so really making sure that we have tight definitions and accountability. And what that really enables, my team and and the analytics team to do, is really start to map what we're seeing in different systems and really create that translation layer, because, you know, the you know, we we were talking earlier, you know, we we wanted to be mindful of of, you know, you put junk in, you get junk out. So how do we really take that time to be deliberate, understand the data, and then really understand what we wanted that output to be.

Yeah. So you've you've kind of walked us through the the history and the process of of getting here. Where where do you stand currently with Project Kitty Hawk? Where, like, what are the, what are your stats as of as of today? Alright, I'll run them quick now. So right now we do have, three institutional signed, sealed, delivered. Eleven programs are in market.

We have three that will be launching officially with new student starts in the fall, but eight have have students, currently in the program. So those institutions are East Carolina University, North Carolina Central, and Appalachian State. And I I just something we didn't really get to say, I don't think, in the beginning is, you know, the decision making at Project Kitty Hawk wholly revolves around the student experience. And I just I wanna reiterate that. I think it's really important, that we, you know and Aaron was just talking about data and reporting and all that, and it's it's really important, but we continue to go back to what's the student experience look look look like.

And, I also will add the word requirements. I don't ever wanna hear it again when it comes to to creating data and reports. But, no, it's it's, you know, it's it's so important to us to to meet the students where they are and make decisions that are good for them. Well, and you have so many challenges, I think, with as Aaron talked about too, the this idea that you're delivering a layer that is so tied into this individual student layer that they don't know whether they're working with their local institution or the state level project. And the challenges there are just are incredible.

And I I think we're we'll see more and more of those as we see these initiatives like this. Like, we kind of blur the lines between, traditional students and nontraditional students. So what what's next? I mean, we've talked a little about fall and and what you're looking for, but, like, what are the next year, two years, five years look like? Yeah. You know, a lot of, is really partnering with the institution and really, you know, now that we are, in market and have students, we're we now are in a unique opportunity to really validate some of the assumptions that we made. And, you know, I think it's always important to, think about going back to the voice of the customer as actually from students in programs interacting with our technology, that's the best place to get feedback and really understand, you know, how we can move the dial on their experiences.

You know, other things that that we are thinking about, is really looking at how do we, really level set against what it looks like to have more contextualized content and bringing workforce experiences closer to the boat in education. Especially in an environment where we're seeing those workforce skills advance faster than they've ever, you know, pick up pace before, you know, in the history of the the world, I think, with technology and AI and, different aspects that that learners need as they move into the workplace. Absolutely. And and, you know, there's a I think there's just so many robust capabilities between the AWS platform as well as as Canvas, that really allow us to unlock thinking about, what I always call of of creating different flavors of course experiences. And so really thinking about, absolutely, I need accounting one zero one to complete my degree.

But what an opportunity for someone who is, you know, looking at a job at Amazon versus a job at Bank of America, and how do you really contextualize that experience that really helps them prepare them for job readiness in addition to some of those learning outcomes and and important program experiences. So I just I think there's just a lot of really cool opportunities within our data model and how we've structured traditional higher ed integrations with with really meeting that student where they are. Absolutely. I love that. And and technology challenges, anything that you see from a from a as a challenge, a hurdle, you know? Not a challenge, but more more so an opportunity by by partnering with AWS and Instructure.

Project Kitty Hawk has really positioned itself well in the future, when things settle and when they emerge on the other side to really consider what kind of AI and ML strategies they might employ. An AI strategy is only as good as data strategy by making the decisions they made with Instructure and AWS. They have positioned themselves to take advantage of those strategies going forward. Very specifically, their data's being hosted in in AWS's data services, which can be tightly integrated with SageMaker, which is a machine learning service that is that is built by AWS and can can for instance, right now, Kern Community College in California is testing ML models for student success. So for nudging, advisors around students whose course pattern taking may not be leading to the outcomes and goals that they have set for themselves.

So that's an example of the kind of work that's being done and that we're, you know, that we're working with customers on outside of this project, but those are also the kinds of patterns that maybe Project Kitty Hawk down the road might be able to avail themselves of. And we heard about that in the keynote earlier, this this move towards more personalized learning, personalized learning paths, like, more of the ability to nudge to keep people on track. Right? I think that's huge. And I do think a lot of the tools within AWS are going to be helping us, drive that in the future. Melissa, to your point, in your role as as chief academic officer, you roll our cuss you run our customer advisory boards and and all that.

But I know, you know, Project KDA has given us some great feedback. It's a great communication. What is what is that, relationship look like? What does it look like in the future? Yeah. I know you're like, end of day, I've presented too many times. I have a dream for them.

And I think it that this idea of building from a foundation to future proof yourself, I mean, it's learning. Learners are learners are learners and learning is learning is learning, but things are gonna look very different very rapidly. They're already looking very different. So sort of my dream is not only the learner agency that you've created now, but wouldn't it be incredible if a student takes, gets into one of these project Kitty Hawk programs and there are two courses in and not only are they building their path or seeing how they can own and be central to what their journey is, Project Kitty Hawk speaks better, or more importantly, the institution that they're at, can proactively reach back to them and say, did you know you've already built these skills for these jobs? And if you keep down this track or you just need this one course, and you can now go get this incredible job in North Carolina that you may not even know and that could have been your future. I think we often we can be limited in how we think of ourselves, and we talked a little bit about that this morning, and how we think about what our paths are.

So not only do we want learners to create their own paths, we wanna help them see paths that they would never see for themselves. And so having this foundation, like that's my vision for y'all. I know you'll get there because you're already thinking this way, and I think having this kind of foundation really unlocks the possibilities that we didn't even know exist. No pressure. No pressure.

No pressure at all. No pressure. Yeah. Do we have any questions from the audience? Oh, yes. We do.

Shout your workout in. I love questions at four thirty. At four thirty. Yep. Get your workout in.

I love questions at four thirty. So you mentioned you have a lot of data on on this program. What's the number one major, if they're even getting a major? What are what are people studying that these adults going back to this, online? What are they studying the most? That's great. Great question. Great questions.

So the the first, response is currently the program that has the most students is a psychology, program. So, you know, we see psychology as kind of one of those platform. People can go back and they can do lots of things with psychology. And and a lot of the students, honestly, in that program, had been psychology students five, ten, fifteen years ago and they're coming back and finishing their degree. That is another thing, we kinda skipped over, but right now these are degree completion programs.

So we're really focused on the adult learners that have some college, no degree. I think it's in the the slides that are are rolling through, but, so and then the eight programs that were chosen and the eleven now that are in market are it's really a shared, decision making approach with the institutions. So, you know, you kinda come to the table with two lists. You compare the list. You go back.

You do some more marketing, insights, you know, and, market research, make sure it's the right programs. There there's many, you know, sets of data that that both the institutions use and and we use and just compare, contrast, and and then kind of create the road map for what's the right time frame to launch the programs. Yeah. Something like thirty to forty percent of, four year students don't graduate within four within six years, actually, I think is the the number. So that's a great low hanging fruit because you've got this body of students that already have a relationship with with the organization that that need to complete and and you go on from there.

So other questions? Thank you. Did you have any issues with credit transference, getting the participating colleges to accept credits? How did you handle that? I love that question. Very relevant. So this is an ongoing process right now. You know, so transfer friendliness is is one of the, you know, factors that we look at, in terms of some of the program decisions.

Right? So if you have a a program that is sequenced in a way or the program requirements are, you know, sixty credits for for the program and forty two for, gen ed and, you know, it leaves how many? And then there's a concentration or a minor requirement, so you're looking at nine credits of of free electives. That could be, you know, something that that deters students, from this group, away. However, it doesn't mean those programs can't launch because we have a few of those programs in in the portfolio. So, so, yeah, transfer credit evaluation and and transfer friendliness is very much top of mind, and the institutions are asking incredible questions about how do we improve on this? What what is, you know, where are the hurdles coming in? What kinds of courses? What kinds of categories are, are, creating the the issues there. So it it really is dependent by the the program requirements, the curriculum.

What a great opportunity though for AI to be able to translate those. No pressure. We have solutions for that. Yeah. I I think the the other approach that, you know, we really practice what we preach in our giant data nerds.

So, you know, we also, are are really passionate about not only just just telling the story of what we know about adult learners, but also backing that with data. So so a great example, is within our application and, you know, very standard that the student fills out, you know, what schools have you been to in the past. So that really helps us partner with the institution to to hone in on, you know, not trying to eat the whole elephant of, like, let's solve all transfer credit issues. Right? Like that, you know, I'd see you guys in twenty forty, you know, if we were doing that. But, what we are able to do is say, hey, your applicants are coming from, you know, your two local community colleges in your area.

So let's really focus there as that's going to move the dial most on on how we start to really improve that experience. I love this question because I think one of the biggest challenges is, historically, we viewed non traditional learners, adult learners as non credit. And then if you unless you follow the traditional sixteen year k sixteen path, then your credit. Right? Like, we've got to figure out how to bring those together in really compelling ways, transfer credits for those that have have been part way through the process. But I think Yeah.

It's a it's a huge challenge, and I think we these conversations help shape where we will end up. Yeah. And and adult learners have such unique experiences. So, you you know, it's it's not, you know, just the the school transfer credit. It's you've been in the military.

What experiences can we help make sure? And so what we're finding, as Meg said, is there is such amazing foundations in within these institutions to capitalize on, and it's really looking at, you know, how do we tweak that? And in many cases, how do we start to prepare the university to do that at scale of, for many institutions that are really serving that eighteen to twenty two year old learner. Of course, there are a handful of students every term who may have military experience and we then they award credit. But the process might be, you know, well, we have a department meeting once to review, that that might not be the best process. So really how do we capitalize on, which is some great processes, great intentions, and really think about how do we we scale that up based off of this population. And I made a cryptic, reference to a solution we have, but, I'll touch on this in my talk tomorrow.

We have, AWS has a service called Textract, which reads, unstructured data and creates structured data out of it. And when it's wrapped into and part of an automation tool, it can really streamline the articulation process. And I'm not trivializing the complexity in these processes, but there's an app for that. And we have one. What's your session? Tomorrow at eleven AM.

I'll be there. Over here. Sorry about that. Thanks so much, and I apologize if you're repeating yourselves with this answer, But given the nature of this initiative, I'm really curious about the different efforts that Project Kitty Hawk has had to connect adult learners to new employers, And what, if any, Instructure solutions you're using to bridge those gaps given all the different things we've heard over the last few days about where they're connecting higher ed and professional development? Yeah. Absolutely.

So I I would say over the last eighteen months within the workforce space, we've really tried to start being very deliberate in how we lay the foundational groundwork, with the institutions and that we're really fortunate that the variety of institutions have such different value propositions. You know, you have a school that's right next to, a military base versus a a an institution like Chapel Hill that has amazing brand recognition. And so, you know, first and foremost, understanding the workforce needs of that area was is a big part of how we work with the institution around program selection, and really what those needs are. And then from there, we've we've really started some of that outreach to, the various employers to really understand what the need is. So we can tell that story, and and we're really starting to look at partnerships around, you know, how do we make it a real win win scenario for folks.

So, you know, a great example is, in talking to one of our institutions, there is a local pharmaceutical company. And they really are interested around, hey. If we design a course around pharmaceutical regulations and that student gets credit and we support the design process, that's going to really cut down on our onboarding time because they'll know those those, those regulations, and we'll guarantee them an interview. And so we're really starting to look at some of those opportunities where it's a true win win for the student with a predictable outcome at the end that's really focused on that economic mobility. But again, we're we're definitely still, really trying to, storm a norm on really how how we want to tackle this in a way that we're not eating the whole elephant, and and, you're getting in a little hot water.

So Okay. One more question. You're out of officially out of time. First, thank you for doing this. I I have to go back to at the I'm at the state of Pennsylvania, and one of the big initiatives is workforce economic development coming through.

But it's the traditional how do you get into the workforce quickly. Like, welding, a six month program, or plumbing, or things of that nature. I'm curious to know, you you talked about more of like a traditional institution. Is there anything that you would consider that you may, or is there a need for some of those other programs that get adults into the workforce quickly because that provides the the quick program in order to do it? Yeah. I will start and then I'll kick to you.

I I think the the short answer is is yes. In in that really thinking about, what what truly the workforce need is and working from there, I think is just a really important paradigm shift of how you think about approaching education. I I will say for a lot of these institutions, that's a very new concept to them. And so the importance of building trust and and really making sure that that that is good stewards of, these institutions and cultures and experiences that that we wanna make sure we take the time to demonstrate, that success and that we can execute, on on what we've we've promised. And so, I think that's definitely a future possibility.

And in the meantime, we're really working with the institutions to say, okay. What are opportunities along the program experience that we can have whether it be a credential or a certificate. So that adult learner who's likely not just on campus for four years, can have those moments along their program journey to show value to potential employers and not just, you know, hey. You're in it for four years and and you can then show your bachelor. So how do we kind of create those little wins along the way? Yeah.

And with that, we're officially out of time. If you do I know there's some questions out there. Come on up and talk to to Meg and Aaron and Patrick. We they can continue this conversation. Thank you so much to the panel.

This is a great conversation. Thank you. And we'll see you all tonight.