Wendy Colby: 0:11

This is Wendy Colby, Vice President and Associate Provost at Boston University and the host of BU Virtual Connects. I’m really pleased to welcome Carissa Little, Associate Dean for Global and Online Education at Stanford University. Carissa is one of the true innovators in the space of extended higher education. She has partnered closely with faculty over the years through the evolution of distance learning and streaming media to massive open online courses to full online program development. Her vision has contributed to the university’s mission to service both campus students and learners worldwide.

Wendy Colby: 0:47

I have had the privilege of serving on several industry advisories with Carissa, and I’ve really appreciated her spirit of collaboration, along with her passion, wisdom and expertise. In fact, when I was new in my role at BU and looking to advocate for new online programs, Carissa came and met with me and some of our senior leaders at BU to share her perspectives and experiences in expanding engineering programs to support residential, online and hybrid learners. I’m also proud to share that Carissa received her undergraduate degree from Boston University. A little known fact is that on her recent visit here, she had the opportunity to casually be introduced to one of our colleagues, only to realize that this colleague was her supervisor when she was a student. This is the power of higher education. Hey, Carissa, welcome. It’s so good to see you. Thanks for joining me today.

Carissa Little: 1:37

Oh, thank you so much, Wendy, for inviting me. It’s really my pleasure to be here.

Wendy Colby: 1:43

Well, let’s dig in. I’d love to start off by talking a little bit about your role at Stanford. Could you describe the work of Stanford Online and the Center for Global and Online Education?

Carissa Little: 1:54

Absolutely. We are a mission-driven organization supporting Stanford’s research and teaching mission. I’m an Associate Dean in the School of Engineering, and we support engineering faculty and departments in extending their teaching and research beyond the traditional residential experience through online, hybrid, and credentialed education programs that take many shapes and forms. We also support Stanford University in a lot of centralized support for other schools to develop similar programs in their cognizant areas and to help extend our wonderful School of Engineering infrastructure to support efforts across the campus, including enrollment capabilities and course delivery and credential fulfillment, compliance, technology pilots, educational technology pilots, as well as managing all of the third-party platform relationships that enable us to extend our education much further to more learners around the globe. We offer, really, Stanford faculty taught programs through Stanford Online since 2012. We’ve reached 21 million learners around the globe, which is a pretty big number, which we’re very proud of.

Carissa Little: 3:12

Yeah, and you know, those range from free, low costs to credentialed professional education, you know, in cohorts, all the way through to part-time and online master’s degrees.

Wendy Colby: 3:27

Fantastic. Wow, that is a lot, and I’m wondering about, given this is one of the reasons I was really interested in talking to you is just the vastness of your expertise here, the journey to get there, and can you talk a little bit about what your portfolio you just described it as a high level but of your certificate and degree, and what it meant to kind of move from residential to hybrid to online?

Carissa Little: 3:50

Yeah, so when I started at Stanford about 20 years ago, a little more than 20 years ago, we were really, the majority of our activity was delivering part-time degrees via broadcast TV to Silicon Valley-based companies.

Carissa Little: 4:09

And when I started at Stanford–now there’s a proliferation of online education providers–but in that era, really, Stanford was one of the first to do online professional programs, and what we were finding at that time was companies were really needing their employees to have more just-in-time education.

Carissa Little: 4:33

So when I joined Stanford, it was really the beginning of unbundling of degrees and the sort of pace of technological change and new disciplines needing to get out into the world of work faster. So that’s how we began. And then over the years, it was fascinating to think about because in the beginning, if you think about how we delivered degrees, it was really a sort of, think of like a B2B sort of, we, Stanford, as an institution, were delivering to corporations, and that was the relationship. And then, with the advent of streaming media and the internet, that became a university to individual learner consumer direct relationship. And now what we’re seeing is actually a flip back to corporations really needing to fill their talent pipelines in a bigger way, and so we have this wide range of types of offerings now and modalities, you know, cohort based, asynchronous, everything in between, virtual, everything in between, but also now corporations are coming and saying, well, we need our employees to be able to do X and Y and Z and so sort of a reinvigoration of that B2B type relationship.

Wendy Colby: 5:55

It’s almost like an evolution, right? A reimagination of the model, and it’s so interesting how you’ve extended that, given your focus on extended higher education, how you’ve extended that over the years. I’m wondering, too, if you’d talk a little bit about engineering, and you know that’s one that’s been near and dear to my heart, too, since some of our early conversations here. Given how much that does tend to require more high-touch in-person experiences, and I know you now have a pretty broad portfolio–online, hybrid, residential–and so I wonder if you’d talk about what it takes to navigate that kind of transition, both internally, perhaps, and externally for your students, and what that has enabled you to do in terms of the growth.

Carissa Little: 6:38

Yeah, that’s an interesting question. So I think the evolution of that, right, is fascinating. The School of Engineering is celebrating its 100-year anniversary this year and our organization has been a part of the school. We just celebrated our 70th anniversary this last year, which was an, well, and it was sort of when I had that realization that we’ve been in existence for 70 years and the evolution of, you know, how you think about delivering education in a variety of ways. You know, in the very beginning, engineers were coming to campus, sitting in classes and then we were shuttling homeworks and exams back and forth. Of course, now you know there’s many different pathways through degrees, and certainly there are particular courses that are harder to do online and maybe aren’t done online, and that is a part of our kind of hybrid experience, and I think that one of the things that we sort of think carefully about is both the quality of the education but also providing as many flexible pathways through programs as possible to allow students and learners to have, you know, more access and more flexibility. That’s been a big driver of all of the types of things that we do.

Carissa Little: 7:54

I think that, you know, we worked hard to build stackability into our thinking about degrees from the very beginning. So that’s a new sort of popular term now. But even, you know, since I started here, and I think even much before that, we had stackability in our degree programs. You could take, you can take individual courses remotely for credit, and then you can transfer up to 18 units into a Stanford master’s degree if you were admitted. And that’s been in place for, you know, decades and I think that that model of stackability, you know, has been really important even thinking about other institutions, you know, grants and credit for Stanford courses as well. So, did I? Did I kind of touch on the core of what you wanted to get at?

Wendy Colby: 8:44

Yeah, no, I think so.

Wendy Colby: 8:46

You know, I love the whole where you’re kind of pivoting to, too, right? This whole, the optionality right that you’re giving students if they want to transfer in, and the fact that it’s what I find really interesting as well is that you’ve been doing this for a period of time, even though definitions have changed and some of the terminology has come into greater vogue, right, and so we’ll get at this, because I think a big reason we are having this conversation and opening it up to a broader group of constituents is also to elevate the kind of expertise you’ve had, as others are thinking about evolving and moving in this space, and I know I’ve greatly valued that, just even as a colleague and a collaborator in this space with you. So let’s talk a little bit about the other popular term in vogue today, which, of course, is AI, and so, you know, I’m wondering how you think about AI in the context of teaching and learning and how you believe it can enrich disciplines like engineering, and are there any efforts that you’re taking at Stanford to create meaningful experiences using AI?

Carissa Little: 9:54

Certainly, I think the topic of AI is really fascinating to me because the research in this area has been happening for, you know, decades here at Stanford. Some of the leading individuals in the world are here at Stanford or were here like Andrew Ng and Fei-Fei Li and others, so we are really fortunate to have access to all of that thinking. I think one of the things that I’m spending time thinking deeply about is making sure that we, in the work that we do in teaching and learning, continue to preserve optionality for ourselves in the future. So I think it’s very easy to jump on a technology or go with a big player in the space because it’s a movement now and it’s important to be thinking about this and incorporating it into your work. I think the thing that I worry about is the rapid pace of change in the space. I don’t want to be stuck with a set of technologies or pilots that we turn into operational activity and then look up and say, oh wait, there’s a better thing over there, and so my sort of current strategy in this space is to really follow very closely the work of our faculty here at Stanford in terms of what actually has good efficacy in the future, but also doing lots and lots of pilots and working where it makes sense. Also, stanford, I think, like many other institutions, has what they’ve coined the AI playground, and so there are many large language models incorporated there, and you can, you know, use those tools and the work that we do in different ways, but I do, I think it’s really important for everyone, not just in the space that we’re in, in teaching and learning. But I mean, this is a massive change management time. Everyone’s work will change dramatically, and so there’s sort of the operational part of the activity, which is using these tools on a regular basis to make work better, more efficient, do interesting things, and then there’s the part of it that’s really the teaching and learning part.

Carissa Little: 12:19

I think some of the early things that I’m seeing that, you know, are promising are really around, you know, using agentic AI as simulators for things that might feel high risk to practice, kind of like you know, and we have some faculty doing that kind of research.

Carissa Little: 12:38

I also think that this intersection of VR, AR, and the ability in the future maybe 10 years out to produce really high quality experiences using generative AI. It’s very costly to do now, and one of our faculty talks about how, Jeremy Bailens, and how, just with the advent of AI, he’s been able to create environments in the VR AR space that are just striking and much less expensive and much less time consuming than they used to be. So those are some of the directions that I think are promising. The thing that I’m also really focused on in our work is ensuring that we think carefully about human connection whenever we are working on bringing tools into our environments and experiences into our environments, and so we have a number of pilots going, but I think that those are some of the things that are top of mind for me, that I think about, worry about, and want to make sure, as we’re implementing pilots and strategies, that the optionality and the human connection, that those are things that are important to me.

Wendy Colby: 13:44

I love what you’re sharing there, Carissa, and it’s really echoing for me here too. We’re in the process of standing up a new AI Development Accelerator here at Boston University, and we held a symposium just a few weeks ago, and what was really interesting and really the purpose of that symposium was to surface all of the good things going on across our university, right? The experimentation that is happening not only in teaching and learning with faculty, but also across all the administrative functions when you think about contracts or reviewing applications. As you say, it’s pervasive what this can do, but really thinking about that human connection and really being purposeful and not getting so stuck on, you know, this is the latest tool or technology that we can apply, because I think we do have to think about this with the longer view in mind. And I do love what you said about kind of following faculty, too, because there are what I found here many innovators, many champions that can start to lead the way as we do further experimentation, right, with what it is.

Carissa Little: 14:54

Stanford has a human-centered AI institute that looks at the sort of intersection of policy and technology, and they have an annual symposium they hosted a few weeks ago, and one of the things that was fascinating coming out of that. I attend a lot of different types of research conferences here at Stanford and around the world, and often experts will tell you that oh, here’s the prediction of what’s going to happen. And what was striking to me at this event was that mostly the faculty and the experts were like we don’t really know what’s going to happen. And we’re, you know, we’re forging some paths in these directions, but it’s just changing so rapidly, and so I think that’s one of the things about this whole space that’s really fascinating and fun actually for the work that we do is we don’t know what will happen, and that’s kind of exciting and it means that there’s lots of change coming.

Wendy Colby: 15:56

It’s a bit of, right, you’ve got to expect the unexpected, right? One of the other things that came out in our symposium was you know, there were a number of faculty who weren’t there, right, this was a kind of a core group of people who came to the symposium, and so there was a lot of dialogue around well, how do we bring everyone else along? And, just as a follow-up, I wonder how you’re thinking about that, right? There are certainly always in any new technology, right? You’re going to see those who embrace it early on, right, the early adopters, if you will, and we’re going to get to a bit more on faculty here in a moment. But I wonder how do you think about that at Stanford, right? Are all your faculty innovators, or do you find that, you know, there are populations you have to bring along as well?

Carissa Little: 16:39

Oh for sure there are populations that have to be brought along, as we, you know, bring new ways of doing work into.

Carissa Little: 16:48

You know, the way that that faculty think about and deliver education, and that’s been the case for many of the technology changes that we’ve that my organization has been a part of over decades, so you’ll have the early adopters, you have the folks in the middle. One of the things that we more recently have done on an annual basis is we put out a call for participation to our faculty around a combination of things. It can be programmatic development themes that we think are important, you know, in a particular year, but we also embed in there some experimentation and and around using innovative technologies and the teaching that that we might do together. So that, that’s one way. I think Stanford at large also has, the Graduate School of Education has a learning accelerator where they’re also putting out grants for faculty to do experimentation and research and teaching, and so those are some, you know, faculty love to do research and they love grants, and so that’s one of the ways to bring them into the fold.

Wendy Colby: 17:56

No, I love that too, and we’re talking a lot about that here as well. Another part of my own portfolio is heading up this Institute for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, and there’s been a lot of discussion on, you know, how you tap into those kinds of incentives you talked about, right? An academic innovation fund, ways of convening faculty, spotlights with faculty, and how to kind of be that hub and spoke if you will across especially a very large community. Well, that might segue really nicely into just, as you think more broadly about the faculty, the partnership with faculty and the role, you know, your unit plays with faculty. I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit about and again for those who might be listening and are trying to set up online units or extended learning units you know how you collaborate and work with faculty, especially as you’re kind of steering new online or hybrid programs, you know, what drives success and are there any, you know, particular collaborations you’re most proud of?

Carissa Little: 18:53

Yeah, I think, you know, one of the things lesson learned over, you know, a couple of decades here at Stanford is most of the activity in universities is driven out of departments. So if you talk to a provost, they say, well, I can’t tell the deans what to do. And if you talk to deans, they say, well, I can’t tell my faculty, you know what to do. I can set some directionality, but they will do what they will do. And so we work extremely closely with department chairs to help think through what their goals and objectives are in terms of reaching folks beyond the Stanford campus and then help craft programs around that. We’re totally faculty driven. I think you have to be in the work that we do, and so that’s something that’s been, you know, really important, I think, in terms of collaborations that I’m most proud of.

Carissa Little: 19:49

I mean, I think I’m proud of all of the sort of relationships that we built with all of our departments in the School of Engineering, because they’re very different and they have very different goals and objectives in terms of what they’re trying to accomplish.

Carissa Little: 20:01

So, for example, we have a civil and environmental engineering department that has a hybrid degree, because a lot of their coursework, you know, doesn’t lend itself to online, but we also have a very large portfolio with them that is professional education, and so their portfolio is crafted one way.

Carissa Little: 20:22

And then I have another department that has just entirely only degree and credit based activity, you know? So what I would say what I’m proud of is just building and understanding the sort of culture of particular departments, their goals and objectives with education and what their constraints are in terms of, you know, it could be they have a small set of faculty or it could be that their faculty are overloaded in teaching, and so how do we respond to that?

Carissa Little: 20:54

I think one example of that that I’ll share in our computer science department that I am pretty proud of the programmatic side of this is our computer science department here at Stanford is very much motivated by, you know, free, open content being made available to the public, and we worked with them to think about how to optimize their teaching time in the AI space, as these things are changing so rapidly. So we have this lovely experience where they teach their regular Stanford course that we make available to degree students or make those available to industry students to enroll for credit. We then modify that and it has a very similar level of rigor. We edit it in a rapid post-production process and make that material available on YouTube for free. And then we also have a cohort-based program that runs that’s a professional certificate and so it’s leveraging the teaching time of the faculty, but their objective is really around making the content available for free.

Wendy Colby: 22:08

That’s terrific. And then, the support your team provides, and I understand the faculty-driven and I also really appreciate the approach you’re taking with faculty, in that it’s not a one size fits all, that there are different approaches across departments and different needs. And then is it your team that gets involved in collaboration with faculty, for instance on building out the programs or courses or marketing and steering the growth or commercialization? Can you just talk a little bit about that structure?

Carissa Little: 22:36

Yeah, so, right. So, yes, all of those functions that, inside my unit, I think that we don’t sort of influence what a degree is. We might influence you know sort of what a pathway might look like and help advise around that, because you know Stanford, like many institutions, you have a lot of optionality when you enroll in a degree program and so maybe there’s a simpler pathway through a degree. So we help provide advice and guidance to departments, but on the degree side it’s entirely defined by existing degree programs.

Carissa Little: 23:13

On the professional and executive education that we do, it is entirely driven by our team sort of matchmaking with faculty around. Here’s an area of interest. A faculty member might come to us with an idea, or we come to a faculty member and say, hey, we think that this is something we might want to build, are you interested in doing it? And so we help do the market research, we do all of the marketing, we, um, we come up with the, you know, business case for how, you know, what will we charge for it and how will that, you know, pay off over time? All of those things, and I think that, again, one of my lessons learned in my role here at Stanford is two things.

Carissa Little: 23:59

I think having control over marketing is super important, actually. One of the things in partnering outside, and not just with the ones that are known now, but we’ve partnered for decades with smaller boutique consulting firms, and anytime that we relinquished our control over marketing and communications, we had less success. So that’s been something that I’ve built up over a period of time and find it super important. And it’s different than the communications arm that most institutions are very good at. It is digital marketing and content marketing. It’s a completely different base than our institutions are used to practicing in. So that’s been really important. We also have, you know, a very, and again, this has been built up over decades, but a very sophisticated tech and marketing stack that we built, you know, out of hide over time. So I think that’s something to note, too, and you can partner to get ahead in those spaces in the short term. But I think those capacities are really important to be able to deliver on the type of work that we do.

Wendy Colby: 25:12

I’m so happy we’re having this conversation.

Wendy Colby: 25:14

I’m smiling because you know this is very much, I think, the same approach that we’ve tried to take here through my own unit at BU Virtual, which is, as you think, about the marketing often online marketing, or marketing of professional or certificate programs, very different from what we see at sort of the core on the communication side.

Wendy Colby: 25:34

So I couldn’t agree with you more in terms of how to build up that capacity, and often that is a challenge inside of universities today, which is why we’ve seen such a variety of partnerships out there and on the technology stack, too, I would say we’re very much doing many of the same things you were talking about here, like building up the muscle, as I like to call it, in that area. So a couple other topic areas, you know, Carissa, I’d love to, if we have time, to get to, of course, I want to have in any conversation a focus on the student, right? And, you know, so we’re seeing just such changing dynamics with our student populations, too, and what motivates them and all the change going on in higher ed. You know, with all of your experience at Stanford, how has that evolved and how are your programs sort of meeting students where they are today?

Carissa Little: 26:16

It’s interesting, right? I think at institutions like ours there’s this sort of balancing act of being learner driven versus being driven by the research of our faculty, and so I always come back to that. I think that you know, we always stay grounded and what and what is it that’s unique about the research at Stanford and how do we bring that to students?

Carissa Little: 26:44

I think our former dean, Jim Plummer, talked about T-shaped engineers, where you have, you know, a depth of expertise in one field. But then there’s the top of the T, which is, you know, which changes over time. But that’s the sort of soft skills, entrepreneurship, you know, rounding out individuals in the STEM space, you know. So back, you know, at one time it was really about project management and communication, and those things continue to be important. But now there’s a big emphasis on ethics, which, you know, maybe a couple of decades ago, not that folks would say it wasn’t important, but it’s more important now because of the rapid pace of change with technology. So that’s something that, you know, we think about how to meet those needs, and some of them are ecosystem needs and some of them are learner needs. So I think we are finding now in this current time I mentioned change management earlier boy, lots of conversations about the need for skills in the change management space, you know, around different disciplines, and so that’s coming up quite a lot.

Carissa Little: 27:59

Yeah, I do think that one of the things, too, that I worked on here at Stanford, I think, you know, is we have a credential framework, and part of what has been important, I think, for learners is understanding sort of what it is I’m doing and what, you know, having transparency around the level of rigor and some kind of standardization within our own institution about what we’re telling learners they’ve earned, so that when they go to an employer they can say, okay, I did this thing.

Carissa Little: 28:32

Or on their LinkedIn they can say, I did this thing. And I think meaningful credentials is super important. There are a bunch of, you know, fly by night providers out there that are, you know, not high quality credentials or you know, and we even have offerings here at Stanford that are really meant just to be, you know, sort of a short, hour long, have some perspective, not a meaningful credential. These are not all the same things, right, and so we want to recognize that there are different types of learning opportunities, but also be really transparent with learners and employers about what they’re getting when they do an experience with Stanford.

Wendy Colby: 29:10

That’s wonderful, Carissa. Thank you for that. I’m now going to bring us back to a little bit where you started, because you started a bit of our conversation today talking about some of the workforce, right, and even how that has evolved over the years. You know, when you started in the early days and it was connecting with companies, and now we’re trying to evolve that whole model, right, and of course, some of this relates to the global piece of this as well. We both were recently at an event in India, kind of looking at the opportunities there. So I wonder if you can just talk a little bit about your views of where we are today. You know this has long been the promise in higher education right how we connect higher education industry right. How we more broadly expand globally. How are you thinking about that in your role at Stanford?

Carissa Little: 29:52

Yeah, and I will say it’s fascinating to me too, because this term upskilling and reskilling in workforce development keeps coming up. But the founding of my center was really grounded in, you know, Hewlett and Packard were graduate students of Dean Terman in the 50s and their engineers were getting out of date with what was happening at Stanford. That’s a reskilling and upskilling challenge, and so I think, you know, grounded in engineering, that’s always been what our work is about. I think that when I think about workforce and global, again I come back to well, what are the thing where, what is that matchmaking between what industry needs and what Stanford can offer, the expertise our faculty can offer? So I stay grounded in that. I think, in terms of global markets, you know. So my goal is to have impact on as many people as possible with whatever scale I can muster in terms of what the technology will provide and our limited resources, you know, can provide.

Carissa Little: 30:56

So, and every geography is different. I mean, we were together in India, as you pointed out, and gosh, the scale there is unbelievable because of the size of the population and the very distinct differences between, you know, metropolis India and rural education systems. It’s just a vast set of complex problems there. That’s very different than some of the work that we’ve done in, say, Latin America or Southeast Asia. So I think when you’re thinking about workforce and global strategy, you have to really learn it’s not one size fits all. Every geography is very, very different in terms of what’s culturally accepted, what are the challenges, what will work, what won’t work. Very, very interesting. We support also, for example, some healthcare education in South Africa, but it’s only one country in Africa, right? So we’re trying to look at you know, where can we have impact, and some of that can be driven by faculty relationships that exist. Some of it comes from where you might be able to partner. I think partnership strategies for global workforce is really important.

Wendy Colby: 32:10

I was going to say to you how are you thinking about that, right? It’s, you know, given the complexity and the stark contrast you see in places like India, as you mentioned, right, trying to go it alone can be very challenging, right? You have to have some of that sort of in-country expertise, right, to help guide and inform those efforts.

Carissa Little: 32:38

100%. I mean, the work that we do around the globe is a lot on the, well, we deliver a lot online, but we also do a lot of custom live virtual education with different geographies, and always our success has been driven by having a local partner in some form. It’s not necessarily a platform partner. It could be, for example, we have a well-placed Stanford alum in one geography and that individual has helped us understand that space and we partnered with that individual’s company. So I think you can lean on alums. I think you can lean on local providers that might just fill in marketing for you in that geography or understanding learners in that geography. It doesn’t have to be an entire partnership around delivery.

Wendy Colby: 33:23

Yeah, it’s kind of determining your, I like to call it, the constellation of partners and who might best suit the purpose right that you’re after. Yes, it’s great, that’s great, Carissa. So you know kind of getting kind of winding us to a close here, you know. Just two more questions really. I mean we talked a little bit about all the changes going on in higher ed and that probably isn’t new. I mean, over the years, as you’ve said, we’ve seen a lot of changes. They happen to seem, you know, sort of right in front of us right now. But where do you see this all going, right, waving that magic wand, right? What’s on the horizon as you think about, you know, universities who are trying to open up diversification, trying to think more broadly about portfolios, trying to think about reskilling and upskilling. Is it more of the same on that sort of pitch? Is it something else?

Carissa Little: 34:14

I mean, I think that that will continue, right? I mean, the technology changes around us will just drive a need for education, and you know, universities really tap into currently a very small portion of the education market, if you will. So I think that that will continue. I do see, you know, some challenges in our current environment for smaller institutions who have fewer resources than an institution like Stanford and BU, and so I feel like those providers, I think, will really struggle in the future.

Carissa Little: 34:54

I’m also seeing that a lot of institutions like ours maybe initially did a full partnership strategy are pulling back and building capacities in house and farming out more surge capability and capacity and partnerships. I think in terms of, you know, broadly around the portfolio, I think we are going to see a lot more around what some universities call the 60-year curriculum. People are living longer and you need to reskill and upskill more times in your life than you did before just because of how long people are living and how much change is coming. And I think that, for me, that I mentioned this before, the sort of flexibility and optionality for students I see more institutions will build towards those capabilities and it will take time, but that will be important, I think, for institutions to invest in because our learners will demand it and we will have more diverse learners in the future. They’re already demanding it coming out of COVID, and so I feel like you know, universities are slow, to build, but but we’ll get there, I think.

Wendy Colby: 36:14

Absolutely. You know, and when I think about your story and it’s a story like, you know, many other universities. I think we’re trying to do the same at BU. You know, it’s like, and this is even thematically, how I was thinking about our conversation today. It’s been from sort of Silicon Valley, which is the sort of the epicenter right of a lot of innovation, but to the world and making that available in a lot of different ways. And it opens up opportunities, too, for many institutions to think about and to take responsibility for how we are extending our mission, right, to reach more students and open access. And you know, it’s something I think a lot of us in higher ed are really thinking very deeply about.

Carissa Little: 36:54

And I think that there is a big opportunity for institutions to partner with one another, right? Some of the promise around, I mean, we don’t need to have redundant curriculum in some of the basics, right, and there may be things that Stanford’s really good at but has gaps in our curriculum, et cetera. So I think I would love to see higher ed, you know, band together more in this time and in this space to partner around that mission. We can do much more together than we can do individually and separately.

Wendy Colby: 37:28

I’m so glad you said that, Carissa, and it’s one of the reasons that I talked to you early on that I wanted to do this podcast right, because one of the things I’ve really valued moving into, you know, my role here is the opportunity to reach out to you and others and to share experiences and to learn from those experiences and determine what I can bring back into my own environment, right? So I have loved the collaborative and collegial sort of, you know, instincts that we all have here, right, to do that. So, finally, you know, I mentioned at the opening and this was just kind of a side benefit after meeting you, I think I learned this way after meeting you that you are a BU alum, and so I’m wondering, you know, I always think about connecting dots, right? As you think back to your undergraduate education, you know, what you gained from your own education experience and how that informs where you are and what you’re doing today.

Carissa Little: 38:31

Yeah, it’s fascinating, I mean, I think, I certainly benefitted from BU’s liberal arts education. I was a STEM person, and being kind of forced to explore really rounded out me as a person. I was, you know it’s sort of popular to say now, I was always at the time embarrassed about it, but I was a first gen, you know, sort of first person in my family to graduate from a four-year institution, and I think that, you know, BU really gave me an opportunity to live in a very, very wonderful, thriving city, explore many disciplines and topic areas. I also was a, I think you know this, I was a student worker. I worked in the Provost’s office on accreditation, so I feel like that also helped inform my thinking.

Carissa Little: 39:31

Yeah, so just having really great mentors and experiences along those lines, right, trying to think what else you know came out. I mean, you know, one of my favorite classes actually was a religion class, and I didn’t grow up having religion in my life as a kid, and so that sort of exploration was just, you know, really eye opening for me while I was, you know, thinking I was going to be pre-med and working towards a, you know, a biology major. And then I found education partway through my experience, and BU has a wonderful school of education and I, you know, taught in, you know, student taught in Belmont, which was really wonderful. So you know I yeah, I had a wonderful experience at BU.

Wendy Colby: 40:19

I see all the connecting of the dots, right, of teaching and liberal arts, and, you know, just the wealth, as you were talking earlier about, you know, some of those soft skills, right? They may be evolving over the years, but you know, working in the Provost’s office, all these other things that you know really paved the way, right? You can’t always, I always say, you know, sort of see the breadcrumbs, you know, going forward, but when you go back, you can kind of, it all sort of, starts to make sense, right? All right, Carissa, this has been so fantastic. Any other words of wisdom, anything else you want to share with our listeners here in terms of, and you’ve touched on so much of this, right, in ways we can strengthen collaboration or open dialogue to shape the future of higher education, if that’s not too aspirational?

Carissa Little: 41:05

It’s pretty aspirational. No, I will come back to, right, thinking about coming together and partnering across institutions is something that, you know, I think is just so important. I learn a ton from you and others in our space all the time, so that I think is really important. I think, you know, I’m right now, in this particular moment I’m thinking about.

Carissa Little: 41:35

You know, I had my all hands with my team yesterday, and I’m thinking deeply about how, in this current environment that we’re in, that there’s a lot of uncertainty and there are a lot of constraints that are coming to us, but to try to remember that anytime you have those constraints, you have more opportunity actually.

Carissa Little: 41:56

So when one door closes, another door opens. I know that that’s a really silly kind of idiom, but it really. It does create new opportunity and, you know, it’s easy to feel kind of doom and gloom when resources become more constrained, but actually constraint can provide opportunity for innovation. And you know someone coined the phrase “never waste a crisis.” I love that. Like crises get us active and activated and give us opportunity to work on hard problems. So I think if I were thinking about a pearl of wisdom, you know, I’ve been in the valley for a couple of downturns and, you know, those downturns provide really interesting opportunity, and I think higher ed hasn’t had as much of that on the whole ecosystem, and I think actually it could be an interesting time for us to do really innovative work.

Wendy Colby: 42:47

Carissa, I think that is a fantastic way to end. Constraint brings opportunity. One door closes, another opens. I love it. Thank you so much for having this conversation with me today, and for all the work you’re doing at Stanford. Really impressive, and I look forward to continuing to be part of the community with you.

Wendy Colby: 43:15

Thank you for joining us for this BU Virtual Connects podcast. Special thanks to my colleagues at BU Virtual and to our media team who produce this podcast under the leadership of our studio director, George Vago. To keep up with our BU Virtual Connects series, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. You can also learn more about our portfolio of online programs at BU Virtual by visiting bu.edu/virtual.