Corporate Conversations: Laura Ipsen from Ellucian [video]

Laura Ipsen
President and CEO
Ellucian

Q: What do you consider the biggest challenges in higher education right now, and how can technology leaders address those challenges?

Laura Ipsen: Hi, it's great to be here. So I think institutions have had so much on their plate, and now with COVID, it's like orders of magnitude, and as I look at the biggest challenges, it may just be that it's around managing through uncertainty because I know many colleges and universities are just trying to meet the expectation of all their stakeholders, whether it's faculty and administration or students or alumni, and I think right now, it's hard because with the financial stress, we've got to figure out how to do more with less and new things, too, and I think as technology leaders, we have a responsibility. Number one, to make sure every investment that higher education has already made gets more value. They create more from that and make sure that it's effective. Second, I think there's a huge opportunity for us to make data real, to look at the data insights around student success, and really expand that to student wellbeing, and as we build new capabilities as technologist, we need to make sure that they're open and interoperable. We need to make sure that all students have access. We increase the opportunity to be more inclusive, and for more students to be able to afford an education, and I think that's why things like open standards are so important right now, and just for all of us to be more agile. So my hope is that with EDUCAUSE, we build this community and that we share the best practices to meet the challenges of 2020 and beyond, and I hope we can do that together.

Q: How is Ellucian assisting higher ed IT to take on the challenges of operating during the pandemic?

Ipsen: Well, actually, probably the most important thing that we did during this time was to call every customer and listen to understand what they needed, and sometimes, it was a matter of securing laptops or even getting VPN access, but then it turned out it was the financial stress, so we've worked with customers on affordability. We've spent time advising on the CARES Act, and for many institutions, some of those dollars to the institution or students were invaluable and just helped to take off some of that stress. As students went online, it was more and more important for us to work on the technologies around online learning and make sure that we helped with those powerful integrations with our LMS, for which we support all of those. Advising on the CARES Act was really important, and we saw institutions like Bryant University, who's already moved to the cloud, that use that time with their IT resources to do some innovative things like building out-of-station app and also building a CARES Act so they could bundle financial aid for many of their students. So that time was just invaluable, and then finally, we were most proud of having Ellucian Live online as well, and sharing best practices across the community. We had nearly 20,000 registered, and so, we're continuing to build that community to talk about how we can all support each other during this very difficult time, and more to come.