Corporate Conversations: Jeff Elliott from Jenzabar

Jeff Elliott
Director of Product Management
Jenzabar

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

Elliott: At such an important question right now for higher ed I believe the biggest challenges facing institutions are of course, declining enrollments. Declining enrollments bring all kinds of financial pressures. And these were things we were seeing coming. COVID certainly played a role in that. We've been seeing a change in evolution in today's students. It's a buyer's market. I use the metaphor of real estate. It is a buyer's market in the past. My generation, we went to college because you went to college and that's how you got a better job. And nowadays students are questioning the ROI of their investment. In fact, students are questioning the value of a college education to begin with and as more and more industry and you know, that sort of thing kind of react to that. That's a challenge we're facing. Additionally students of today they have very different expectations about technology and how it fits their needs. There's such a device native they're so driven by technology and so comfortable with it. It's just an extension of who they are. And how do you blend that with many on campus faculty, staff, administration? How do you drive digital transformation when you have, your student population, your key constituent your consumer, who is so digitally comfortable and has all these expectations when you have users that are not, they're just not, they're either aggressively or passive aggressively fighting that change. So it really is about change management. And that's always a challenge because right now it's so important for schools to kind of make that move. And it's not just something that technology needs to be looked at when it's convenient, it's it needs to be done. It needs to be done now because it really is about the schools and their survival. That's the kind of timeframe we're at. That's the kind of time we're in and it really is about survival. And I don't think we could address this question without talking about COVID directly. I like to use the imagery of the superhero or the cartoon character who is diffusing the bomb and they snip the blue wire and all over sudden the clock starts racing down 10 times faster. And they're trying to prevent that giant explosion at the end. And that's what COVID has felt like. A lot of our schools did that initial triage how do we get all our courses up online? And that was the right move then, but COVID has certainly seen us face all kinds of different record-breaking changes from enrollments up or enrollments down. How do we get record numbers of courses online? How do you build the infrastructure technically so that faculty can deliver those in a meaningful way. And it's put us at the point where folks need to react now, this is a now movement. This is not, yeah, we really need to think about this. This is get going now and understand that on the other side of this, it's not going to stay the same. We are going to have to find ways to communicate and engage and work with our students individually. That's a key expectation they have. And when you weave that in with their use of technology, you know, I was working with a client right before the COVID shutdown where we were talking about it and they're like, "Yep, we're going to get our five whiteboards in place with all our sticky notes and students are going to come in and they're going to pick their rooms. And then all over sudden, when the day came to do it there were no students, they're all home. They were all sent home. They were in online courses but housing still had to be done. And that's just an example of how students are now going to need to be able to do these things online. That's their expectation. That's the level we have to be at in using technology to solve this problem.

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

Elliott: Yeah the pandemic has certainly changed obviously the way everybody is doing their business. And anytime something directly impacts our set of users, our institutions, we're not happy about that. I do not wanna see our schools be going through this and all that, but I will say that as a partner with our institutions, Jenzabar while not excited is certainly eager to be in partnership with our folks and really helping them figure this out. And we think, like I said earlier, we've seen a lot of this coming. A lot of these changes COVID made them happen faster but they were coming anyway. And we've been building up software solutions to help kind of work with institutions who are facing financial uncertainty and help with institutions that are facing declining enrollments and connectivity and communications with students in a very personal way. And we work very closely with our schools to plan out those pathways to that modernization and utilizing our tools and having technology be it the center of change and not just something that's an afterthought. We're very proud, we have a very modern student information system a number of different CRMs. It's very constituent friendly and it's cradle to grave. It's the entire student constituent experience. And that fits really well into how schools are going to address this problem, this challenge. It's the old in chaos there is opportunity and that's where Jenzabar wants to be at the forefront with our folks. And it absolutely starts with our vision, our strategy on moving folks to the Cloud. Cloud brings so many aspects of evolution into the mix and how it's all web-based and extending opportunities to work with students and engagement and help with financial aid and all kinds of stuff that today's student wants to do. They wanna get online. They wanna advise themselves, they wanna register now, they wanna housing select. They wanna set up a payment plan. They wanna pay their bills. They wanna do that all online. And the Cloud makes that so much easier for institutions to facilitate. The other thing right now that schools face are simple financial challenges. And we hear a lot the idea of being data-driven and we've been focusing very hard on having improved financial analytics, both as standalone tools and embedded within the system. We have built tools around key performance indicators like the Composite Financial Index in the industry by building out analytic programs that fit best practices and innovation, and are really designed to help schools find their footing financially. And be that data-driven, instead of just relying on historical anecdote or just gut feeling or this is what I'm comfortable with type of thing. And the last thing we have is a fully comprehensive system that integrates our SIS with a lot of peripheral tools, but particularly LMS. Online learning just doesn't happen without an LMS system and connecting students and faculty better with better engagement tools and different things like that will really enhance the hybrid learning movement that's going on. Schools originally reacted to COVID with that triaged moment. We stabilized our experiences, our delivery and we made sure all of our courses got up online, so students could engage but now it's time to kind of think next step, next level. And we are doing that with them. And it's been great by enabling better communication across channels, institutional staff and faculty, with our tools are able to provide students with better learning experiences. And our SIS provides tools that will help engagement outside of the classroom. And in the end, that's really what this is going to be about. We talked about it being survival and not only is it about survival, but there's opportunities to thrive. Technology will be at the front of that. And Jenzabar is very excited about working with our folks to make sure we're doing that together.