Professional Development: From Training to Transformation

Wes Johnson: Welcome to the Edge of College Rise of Voices Podcast, where we amplify the voices of young professionals in higher education. I'm Wes Johnson, and I'm joined by The Magnificent, the incredible, the multifaceted, the intelligent, the greatest to ever do it tag team champion of the world.

Sarah Buszka: Sarah Buszka. I love you for that, Wes. Thank you.

Wes Johnson: We're your co-hosts for the show. Yes, yes. The Tag Team Champions until new tag team champions come to reign. We're members and friends of the EDUCAUSE Young Professionals Advisory Committee, also known as YPAC. And today we're going to be talking to you about professional development. Not just the why is it important conversation? That's important too, especially for our young professionals. We wanted to get a little bit more holistic here. What makes a great professional development? Maybe some of you are actually developing some of this right now and it's your first time up. You're about to get in front of folks for the first time and teach them something. What makes that thing great? What makes it engaging? Then what makes you want to go? Why do you want to take professional development? That's the conversation we want to have today. So I'm going to kick it over to you, Sarah, the amazing, the magnificent to get us rolling.

Sarah Buszka: There we go. All right. Well, oof, that's a big titles to live up to. So for today's episode, as Wes kind of said, there's almost like a two-part to this conversation, almost two sides to the same coin. We're talking about what makes professional development great, and then how do we do it? What do we like? What works for us? So we're going to have two different perspectives on the show today, and this will be our first ever two-part conversation. So we will have a total of four guests today. So to start, I'm going to introduce everyone and our listeners to our first two guests, and then we will transition and have our next set of two guests come in to talk about things from the other side of that same coin. So without further ado, I am so thrilled to introduce our two first guests who I would say are experts in our field on designing professional education and workshops and teaching and just knowing how to do, I would say, adult education flawlessly, exceptionally, magnificently.

Sarah Buszka: I'm on the roll now, Wes, it's contagious. So I would love to introduce Tolu Noah. She is an educational developer at California State University, Long Beach, where she designs and facilitates professional learning programs for instructors about teaching and technology. And previously she was a senior professional learning specialist at Apple, an associate professor in teaching and in the teacher and education program at Azusa Pacific University and a K-12 teacher. Tolu is incredibly passionate about teaching and facilitation, and she enjoys leading engaging learning experiences that help equip and inspire others. In her recent book, yes, she's a published author, Designing and Facilitating Workshops With Intentionality. She offers helpful perspectives, principles, and practical tools for crafting meaningful professional learning experiences. She's quite the person. Here we are. Tolu, welcome.

Tolu Noah: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Sarah Buszka: Yes, thank you so much. And I would love to introduce our next guest, Alycia Baggett-Chestang. Alycia is a senior IT project manager at Auburn University who has spent her career connecting technology, education, and people. And in addition to leading campus-wide technology initiatives, she teaches university courses and leads programs to support and expand the use of immersive technologies in higher education. She also serves as the co-lead of the EDUCAUSE XR Community Group, WOO, supporting professional development and collaboration across the extended reality community. Welcome, Alycia. Glad to have you here.

Alycia Baggett: Thank you. I am honored to be a part of this group.

Sarah Buszka: We are too.

Wes Johnson: Well then to get us started first, I'm going to start with you, Alycia, because this is what I do to welcome all of our Auburn guests is I start by saying Go Dogs. UGA on top. Lore

Alycia Baggett: Eagle.

Sarah Buszka: I knew you were going to say a Wes. I knew it. I should have known it.

Wes Johnson: Go ahead. Got to get that out the way real quick so we can get that energy out the room. It's all love here. That's right. So starting with you, Alycia, what is your superpower?

Alycia Baggett: Yes. Okay. So my superpower is definitely connection. And I know that's something that we'll discuss as a primary thing throughout this whole conversation, but I've just truly always felt that my superpower was connecting people, ideas, opportunities, helping folks see possibilities, and then bringing the right people together to actually make it happen. Most of my works that's at the intersections of things, so connecting faculty, technologists, administrators, and students even. And I just really enjoy helping people find shared goals and then move their ideas into actual action.

Wes Johnson: That's a really good, very powerful superpower in higher ed, for sure.  Tolu, first, let me start by saying I love your hair. So we already got one superpower going right there. Yes, yes. But what is your other superpower?

Tolu Noah: Thank you so much. So my superpower would be attention to detail. So I really like thinking through all the details of a learning experience, like what will happen when people enter the physical virtual room? What will happen throughout the experience? How are we going to wrap up things together? And it's both a blessing and a curse in the sense that my prep time can be a lot because once again, I'm thinking through every little element. But I'm really thankful that the feedback I've gotten from people is that they can see the thought and effort that went into the session and they felt cared for as a result. So yeah, I would say that's my superpower. That's

Sarah Buszka: A good one. We have connection and attention to detail as superpowers on this show. This is going to make for a great conversation around professional development. I think we chose well. Well, diving into that, I'll ask maybe Alycia to start and then we'll transition to Tolu. What makes professional development truly effective? What separates a memorable learning experience from a forgettable one?

Alycia Baggett: Absolutely. I know you mentioned my work in XR, and one of the things that immersive learning, extended reality, all of that work has really reinforced for me is the difference of being told something and then experiencing it for yourself. And I think that lesson just applies far beyond the extended reality world. So the professional development experiences that I remember most aren't necessarily the ones where I took the most notes. They're the ones where I felt something like curiosity, excitement, inspiration, maybe even discomfort that challenged me to think differently. So I think just creating an experience in itself is crucial to start with.

Sarah Buszka: Agree. Absolutely. Tolu, what would you add to that?

Tolu Noah: Yeah, plus one to everything Alycia said. The other thing I would say is, and I actually wrote about this in my book, what do I think the 10 most important principles would be? And in my mind, they are that the experience needs to be relevant. It needs to be purposeful, structured, inclusive, connective, active, reflective, ongoing, responsive, and distinctive. So those are my 10 big picture ideas. And if I were just to narrow that down to a few, I would say that the experience needs to definitely relate to the goals and needs of the people in the room because otherwise they're going to be like, why am I here? This is not related to what I do. So relevancy is really key. I would also add that active learning opportunities are critical. So as Alycia said, we don't want people just sitting and listening the entire time, but that they're able to get that hands-on direct experience with whatever the topic is.

Tolu Noah: And then I would also, plus one what Alycia said regarding connection. So really providing opportunities for people to connect with and learn from each other. And I think what separates a memorable experience from a forgettable one is that forgettable ones tend to be more facilitator-centered, and then memorable ones tend to be more participant-centered. So in the forgettable experience, it would be someone at the front of the room reading from their slides and everyone's just kind of nodding off. In a memorable one, there's lots of chances for people to not only learn from the facilitator, but also to learn from each other, to reflect on their own practices. And I think often in memorable experiences, people leave feeling like they learn just as much from everyone else in the room as they did from the person who's leading the experience.

Sarah Buszka: Absolutely. Yeah. As you were talking through that too, I was actually thinking of many of the memorable experiences that I've had with professional development, but also the unmemorable ones or the ones that just weren't effective. And I think it makes a huge difference too. So I think your attention to detail as that superpower and Alycia, with your connection, you're already setting participants up for more of that engaging experience.

Wes Johnson: Yeah. Keep going with you, Tolu, to tap into that attention to detail. So some of the things you mentioned to make it engaging for the participants, are there any specific things that you tend to do to ensure, like what you mentioned, for example, that they're learning at the tables and not just from the instructor? Are there certain ways you set up those sessions to ensure those things happen for the participants?

Tolu Noah: Yeah. So one of the things I do is I think through how can I incorporate basically frequent opportunities for people to engage throughout? And so one of the principles I think about is chunking. How can I break up the sessions so that it's not just me talking for extensive periods of time, but there are frequent opportunities for participants to do things throughout. And so at the beginning of a session, I'll think about, okay, how am I going to activate participants' prior knowledge and get them thinking about the topic? And then what can I do throughout the middle of the session to give them opportunities to process the information, to apply and practice the information? And then what are we going to do at the end as a reflection and action planning exercise? So even that structure of activate, process, and apply, reflect and action planning is a format that I found really helpful for including those frequent opportunities throughout.

Tolu Noah: And then beyond that, I try to be really intentional about what connection looks like in the session. What are some really practical ways to help people connect with each other? Because I think sometimes there's this assumption if we're all in the room together, we're all connected. And no, that is not the case. We have to design for connection. And Priya Parker talks about this in her book, The Art of Gathering. And so some really practical things that I've found helpful for fostering connection are, first of all, using these name tags, and I have them on my desk here. They're called the We Connect name tags by Chad Littlefield. And what I like about these name tags is that they don't just have space to record your name, they also have prompts. So for example, this one says, "I would love to learn more about." This one says, "I've been thinking a lot about," so they can write an answer here and then put their name at the bottom.

Tolu Noah: And so something I'll ask participants to do in an onsite workshop is choose a name tag, record an answer that relates to the topic of the session. And then we use that for a series of pair discussions at the beginning to get people to connect with each other. And it's not like a random icebreaker because it's still related to the content of the workshop. And then something else that I found really helpful is a series of activities called Liberating Structures. And this is basically, it's a website, and then there's also a book of them, and there's 40 different activities for helping people to interact with each other in a really structured way. And so one of the most simplest liberating structures is called One Two For All, where you give participants a prompt or a question, you have them independently respond in writing, then they pair up to talk with each other.

Tolu Noah: Then each pair joins another pair to form a group of four, and they talk together, and then you ask each group to share an insight from their conversation with the whole group. So once again, just these structures can be really helpful for, once again, embedding those frequent opportunities for participants to learn from and with each other.

Wes Johnson: Yeah, no, that's great. I'm actually over here taking notes for a workshop I'm going to have to run here at my regular job. Alycia, what about you? Are there anything similar, different things you would add to bringing that connection and engagement?

Alycia Baggett: Honestly, Talu hit the nail on the head with all of that. I think that's all very astute and well articulated. I consider what she just described that activity. I call it think, pair, share. I think someone else coined that term. And I use that regularly in my courses, in my workshops, because as she mentioned, that's just a very powerful way to make them reflect, but also engage with each other on so many different kind of ways of their thinking and interacting that really creates that lasting impact and that long-term memory of whatever you're trying to develop or learn.

Wes Johnson: Actually, random question if y'all entertain me, and it might not be as black and white as I'm about to present it, and I'll start with you, Alycia. What do you think is most important for a successful engagement in this? Would it be the connection, ensuring that they're connected and feel safe, or is it the content delivery in of itself that is relevant? Is one more important? Do they need to be a fifty fifty? What are your thoughts on that question?

Alycia Baggett: I personally think that the connection is more important. I mean, there's so much information, whatever you're presenting on, there's so much information to gather and put together, and there's just no realistic way to expect all of your participants to walk away retaining all of that information. So when you're designing more for that connection rather than just the content, I think that you have a much higher likelihood of folks walking away with what you really wanted them to know rather than being like, "That was great. I learned so much, but maybe I'm overwhelmed with the amount of material," versus even if it's only one or two items they walk away with, that lasting impact and actually being able to apply it in their regular lives. So I say connection, content is definitely important, but I think that connection is the hardest piece to get right for that lasting impact.

Wes Johnson: And Tolu, do you agree with that, Tate?

Tolu Noah: Yeah, agree. They're both important, right? People are coming for the content. But I think what sticks with them longest tends to be the connection that they're making with each other. And so another thing that I think about, and I learned about this from Courtney Plotts, she talks about how the space when you have people gather together is almost kind of sacred. We all have so many other things that we're doing in our lives. And so when we come together, how can we really make the most of that time that we're together to connect and not just have it be an information dub? And so if you think about it that way, then yes, connection comes out on top, a little bit above the content piece.

Sarah Buszka: So maybe one final question I have for you two before we look at this through the other side of the coin, I think this might bridge us to that, is you two are experts in designing workshops and these engaging learning experiences. And I think we all know what it looks like to experience things that don't look like that. So since our audience are young professionals and really anyone in the higher education community, we're all shopping around for professional development opportunities. Do you have any advice on how we can evaluate professional development opportunities for some of the things that I'm hearing you say today? You're saying, "I'm designing these workshops for connection. I have a good structure for this." Is there a way that folks can evaluate professional development for those types of qualities and characteristics that you are saying make the most effective professional development opportunities?

Sarah Buszka: And Tolu, I'm going to start with you if you're willing to jump in on that.

Tolu Noah: That's a great question. And I would say I don't have an evaluation model that specifically targets all 10 of those criteria I shared earlier. But one framework that's really popular in the training world is called the Kirkpatrick evaluation model. And that's one that I find really helpful for basically examining different aspects of the professional learning experience. So typically at the end of a workshop, for example, we ask participants to fill out a feedback form, and that might just get at how they felt about it, which is important, but we want to go beyond that. And so in the Kirkpatrick model, we're thinking about different levels of evaluation. So that first level would be reactions, like the smile sheet, the feedback form, what do they think? How are they feeling about the experience? But then the next level, we're actually looking at learning. What do they learn from that?

Tolu Noah: And that learning could be captured in different ways. So you might include questions on the survey that ask about what they learned or what they're taking away, but it could also be the activities they did during the workshop, the discussions they had, and pulling on those nuggets in terms of key things that people are leaving the session with. And then from there, we are actually thinking about the third level, which is behavior change. Are people actually taking what they learned in that workshop and doing something differently in their work? And then the final level is looking at results. How does the experience actually impact larger organizational goals? And that's probably the hardest level to evaluate and one that we don't necessarily do for every single professional learning experience. But that model alone I think is really helpful in not just thinking about how people felt, which once again is important and valuable data, but getting beyond that to what do they learn and what are they actually doing with it moving forward.

Sarah Buszka: That's very helpful. Even just having some scaffolding to have a standard baseline to approach evaluating different professional development opportunities I think is more than what I've done in the past. So I'm hoping that'll be a valuable piece to take away for our listeners. Alycia, what would you add to that? How would you advise folks to evaluate professional development opportunities for the engaging and connected experience that we're talking about here?

Alycia Baggett: Absolutely. I'll take a little bit different lens and approach, which is more on the relational side. So I would encourage you to tap into your community of peers and leaders, those that work alongside of you, whether at your same institution or others, folks that you look up to in other communities, and ask them what they've engaged with and what has worked well and what hasn't. And I say that everyone obviously has different preferences, but for me personally, I think it's really important as a facilitator to create, again, that sense of safety in your environment, because I just feel that people can't really learn deeply if they're worried about looking foolish and asking questions, sharing ideas, trying something new, all of that is a very vulnerable thing. So I like to seek out facilitators who have proven to maybe my peers that they've recognized that and that they kind of initiate participation.

Alycia Baggett: They normalize that uncertainty moment, they break the ice and they build that sense of belonging because the variable of the what you're learning or what you're growing I feel is more interchangeable than those who are able to create that environment and actually build that larger connection and longer lasting learning. So I regularly talk to my peers about after they participate in any kind of PD experience. I want to hear how it was, good, bad, or ugly. And when I hear that they've had a facilitator that's goal is clearly not to get everyone to agree on something or convince them of something, but it's helping everyone feel comfortable contributing and therefore learning, I'm more attracted to dig in a little bit deeper of what else do they talk about? Who else do they work with? And finding some good opportunities through that lens.

Sarah Buszka: Absolutely. Yeah. And I feel like this is probably a very good transition to invite our next two guests to talk about just that, their experiences, what they're learning about professional development right now, how they're evaluating those experiences, what they're doing right now, and hearing out from it from the other side of that same coin. So Alycia, Tolu, thank you so much for joining us on the show and sharing your expertise. We are so grateful and we're so excited to share this more with our community. So thank you for joining us.

Tolu Noah: Thank you so much for having me.

Alycia Baggett: Yes, thank you.

Wes Johnson: And so to keep this discussion going, we've got two more guests. We are joined by Megan Duncan Jones and Joseph Caudill. Megan is an instructional and media technologist with a background in theater and film who transitioned into higher education technology during the early days of COVID-19.That feels like a long time ago. After beginning her new role amid the rapid shift to remote teaching, she recently completed her master's degree in educational technology and brings the unique perspective of someone who has experienced higher education as a trainer, student, and staff member. And she is now a member of the EDUCAUSE WYPAC team. WYPAC, what up? And then Joseph is the director of Notre Dame's Data Governance and IT policy program. He has been working in higher education IT since 2017, but worked in private industry before then. He's found many different ways to develop his career in higher education over the past decade and has really enjoyed helping other higher ed professionals find their way to good material too.

Wes Johnson: Welcome back to both of you. Welcome back to the show. Yeah, we're happy to have you. Of course, of course. And so we'll just jump right into it. We first were discussing some of the elements of what makes a good training, what goes into the design of those professional development experiences. But starting with you, Megan, from a young professional's perspective, what are you actually looking for in professional development? And what makes something feel truly valuable rather than just, I went to a training, I got X thing, here you go leader. What makes it special? What makes it sticky?

Megan Jones: Honestly, being able to participate in the professional development and not just be an audience to it makes a really big difference. We've all been talked at for various professional developments. And I feel like if we're doing something, especially if it's vendor-led, it sometimes feels like a sales pitch more than a learning opportunity. And so being able to collaborate with peers or hear a variety of perspectives instead of having just the forced listening perspective definitely makes a difference. So that would be the first thing that comes to mind is the opportunity to have community and engagement as a part of that professional development.

Wes Johnson: So the connection is an important piece for you walking in there, not just the content, the connection. Absolutely. Okay. Okay. Joseph, what about you? What makes this stick for you?

Joseph Caudle: Yeah, honestly, I think this is the fourth time somebody said this on this podcast episode, but it's absolutely getting to know the people. I mean, if I go to a conference, it's the hallway track that I care about. There have been conferences that I've gone to, and I've told my employer after coming back, I didn't go to a single session. I was just on the vendor floor talking to the other people that I know that I need to talk to in this space. And there have been times that I've gone to training workshops, and it's like the happy hour at the end of the day that was the most valuable part of it. And not to say that the stuff that we did during the day wasn't useful, but I'm not talking to people about the training material, I'm talking to people about the dinner we had together. And I think that's a big part of really valuable professional development experiences are those communities that come out of it.

Sarah Buszka: Absolutely.

Megan Jones: Whether or not those communities existed beforehand, if you're able to build a connection and network, I think is so much more valuable and more likely to be a continued resource. Whereas you might be able to Google some information that you missed previously. You can't Google that connection in the same way.

Joseph Caudle: And with that community, I might not have picked up the same material out of that session as you, but the fact that we were both in the same thing and we have that connection, we sort of build that hive mind for the particular topic. And you can always go back to those people and you can discuss with a shared language what everybody picked up together. And you can also develop those ideas more from all of that experience as well.

Megan Jones: I'd almost say that that's especially true within higher ed, because sometimes, especially within IT, we can get siloed by different divisions or departments. And so having these communities cross campuses, sometimes cross industries gets you out of your narrowed vision where you might have blinders on to engage in those different perspectives, which is always incredibly more valuable.

Joseph Caudle: Yeah, 100%.

Sarah Buszka: I love the theme of community that we have here, connection, relationships. I think we've been answering our own question throughout this entire podcast about what makes professional development useful and helpful and all of those things. But I want to get into the arc of professional development since many of our listeners are young professionals, but we also have listeners who are on the other end of their career spectrum and curious to understand what young professionals are looking for now. But I also think young professionals are curious about what that arc of professional development long-term looks like and how it evolves. And I'm going to start with you, Joseph. One, because I know you, and I know a little bit about your career trajectory. We've known each other, gosh, it feels like a decade at this point.

Joseph Caudle: A very long time.

Sarah Buszka: Yeah, it's a long time. Yeah.

Joseph Caudle: Long enough that we've both graduated from YPAC together. Sorry.

Sarah Buszka: And they still keep both of us around.

Joseph Caudle: They let us stick around.

Sarah Buszka: But I would love if you would be willing to share a little bit about how your professional development journey has changed over the years. What you were looking for at the beginning, 2017 versus almost a decade later now. What are you looking for now? How has that evolved? How have you known to go from professional development X over here to Y over here? Walk me through a little bit of that kind of path and that trajectory and how you figure that out and what's really driving those shifts too. Has it been career changes? Has it been budget shifts in your institution? How have you been navigating that?

Joseph Caudle: Yeah. So all of those things have happened over the course of a decade, career changes, budget shifts. I started out as a software developer when I started working at Notre Dame, and now I do IT policy and governance, which is like I get to tell people they don't know anything about the code anymore, which is a big relief and I love it. And the weirdest thing is that when I started in private industry software, I had to prove to everybody in the world on Twitter, because that was a thing, that I actually knew what I was talking about because nobody had ever paid me a single cent for writing code. And then I got a job and I was like, "Oh, everybody else doesn't know what they're doing either, but I still need to learn more." So I think a big part of that arc has been the continual realization of the fact that when you get down to it, most people don't have any idea what they're doing.

Joseph Caudle: And the more they're convinced they know what they're doing, maybe they're not going to be your best source on something. Not to say being an expert in something is bad, but the less certain you are of your expertise and the more you're like, "Well, I think this is actually a good..." Those are the professional development people I'm looking for. It's like, "Oh, I think this might be helpful for you." And then the people who want to really help me grow, those are the people that I tend to gravitate towards. So leaning into the communities in my own institution that I've gotten to know because of the length of time I've worked at a single institution is a little bizarre in tech. I went from job to job to job in private industry because that's just what you do. But now that I'm in higher ed, it's not abnormal to have a longer tenure.

Joseph Caudle: And so you get to develop those different communities within an institution. And I've also gotten to know a ton of people through EDUCAUSE or Moore Associates or those different groups that I think many of us have all heard about or talked about or been able to attend and experience. So that probably doesn't I don't answer any of your questions, but it does sort of sum up the arc is really going from thinking that there's information that I have to have to over and over again, figuring out how do I find my people and defining what it means for people to be my people at that particular moment. And that's something that changes all the time. I

Megan Jones: Agree. I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit, Joseph. You're really honing in on. You talk about how, especially as young professionals, we assume everybody is an expert and knows everything off the back, and yet so many young professionals are faced with this imposter syndrome that they're not enough or that they don't have the expertise or that they're lacking in some area or another. And honestly, just hearing that from different individuals can be so comforting and increase the amount of safety. I know I have a background in theater and I never thought I was going to be an IT professional. That is so polar opposite. I never took a computer science class. And so people talk about speaking code or knowing how to understand code, and that is not my background or the gifts that I have. And honestly, that makes such a difference. I thought that when I got the role that I have now as an instructional technologist, I was going to have to get another degree, go into more debt to better understand those missing pieces.

Megan Jones: But understanding that each of these roles are so nuanced and we have the opportunity to shine with our talents and our interests, and it's not all the same exact skill sets in every role or every institution, I think is really important to recognize.

Joseph Caudle: Yeah, that's amazing. I agree completely. And with the imposter syndrome, owning that, just being comfortable. And I think that comes with the maturity of moving into mid-career time is the understanding that you know what? They haven't fired me yet for not knowing anything. So I guess I'll just keep not knowing stuff and learning the things that'll get me to tomorrow. And just being comfortable to own that, that I know there's so many things that I don't know. And that's a different place to be than when you're just starting.

Sarah Buszka: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think what I'm hearing from both of you, just to kind of put a bow on this, is I reserve the right to get smarter. I might have the imposter syndrome of not having a background in technology, but working in technology or the converse. I've been working in technology and now I'm humbled to realize, one, all the things I may not know, but also I'm around all other human beings who also don't know everything. It's impossible for us to have everything crammed in our head. And I almost like the myth busting that we're doing here too, because I think for me as a young professional, when I first started, Joseph, those 10 plus years ago that we did together, I came in with that experience as well. I didn't have a background in technology and I felt like, oh gosh, I have to learn all these different things, otherwise I won't be successful in my job.

Sarah Buszka: And what I didn't realize, but I've learned over time is I'm actually more effective in my role because I have other skills that aren't the exact symmetrical ones that the majority of my colleagues might have. And that in itself can be a superpower. So myth busted, I know we like doing that on the show, but maybe transitioning just to wrap up this conversation and hearing from both of you, Megan and Joseph, and I'll start with you, Megan, just share with us maybe through the work that you're doing with EDUCAUSE or other things that you're doing, if you have any kind of free or low cost professional development solutions or programs or classes or people who have you found genuinely worth your time. And maybe there's a summer school style program looking at you, Joseph, or something that stands out that you would like to share with our listeners so they can look into these options too.

Megan Jones: So I am one of those people who likes to dig as deep as I can with as many resources as I can get my hand on, and I feel like I could talk about this for hours. But a quick couple of highlights. Dig into your institution where you're working because different departments have offerings. Because we're in this environment of higher education, whether or not it's listed as professional development, you might be able to gain something from it. Whether it's a guest lecturer or different special speakers that are coming in, whether it's HR training or different apps that they have available. I know my institution over at Cal State Northridge offers the Calm app, which has benefited meditation for me, which I didn't realize was something that would help my day-to-day life. But trying to take advantage as far as what you can find. If your institution is a member of EDUCAUSE, not only are there the wonderful week-long opportunities that have a budget tied to them, but there are also a lot of free webinars, whether from EDUCAUSE itself or from partners and different opportunities.

Megan Jones: And the last one I'll plug just off the cuff is being aware of the vendors that your teams are working with. I know I myself, there are so many different integrations our campus has with Canvas that are all vendor specific, and all of them had free professional development opportunities. Many of them in this post-pandemic world had asynchronous communities that you could join. You could have Slack channels of educators and technologists saying, "Hey, I encountered this weird thing." And you can have that opportunity to communicate and build communities either across departments or across campuses, sometimes even internationally. So digging into anything you find from your institution, from EDUCAUSE, from your networks as you build them, there are opportunities abound, and many of them will stay with you longer than you think.

Sarah Buszka: Those are great examples. Thank you. Joseph, what would you add?

Joseph Caudle: Yeah, I think all of those things. And my favorite free resource are the EDUCAUSE community groups, because all it takes is joining an email forum basically. So as an EDUCAUSE member, if you're at a member institution, you just get to log in, you get to watch so many great conversations. I remember when I was first starting out, I found out that there's a CIO group, and I started replying on that group, even though I didn't know that was -

Sarah Buszka: I remember that.

Joseph Caudle: Yeah. And then people were like, "Oh, Joseph, you must be an expert." And I was like, "Nope, definitely not." So maybe don't do that.

Sarah Buszka: Yeah, just if everyone knows, if you reply, it goes to everybody who signed up for that list. And I think that list has 10,000 subscribers. And it's

Joseph Caudle: Like every CIO everywhere. Don't do that. But I did it, and I'm still in higher ed. And there are also more specific groups than the CIO. When I came into my current role with data governance and IT policy, I made sure to join the data governance group. Through that group, I was able to find this amazing summer school program that I'm in. And it's like two consultants in London who have a bunch of connections. They do data strategy. It's awesome. And it's just a couple hours every week. I get to tune into their webinar and it's like them just chatting and you can ask them questions. It's very fun. And if you get the budget or you feel like blowing a lot of money to go stay in London for a couple days, I can go to a graduation ceremony at the end of the summer in the shard.

Joseph Caudle: And I don't know that I'm going to do that, but it's a thing that you can do. And also, Megan mentioned vendors. A lot of times vendor cold emails or cold calls can be annoying, but sometimes they invite you to cool stuff. So I drove to Chicago last year. I don't live very far. I'm at Notre Dame. It's like an hour and a half. I drove over to this thing and they had a catered lunch and eight different vendors were sponsoring talks about data governance and things like this. And I was like, "Look, I know you all are trying to sell me stuff, but actually I'm learning a ton." And then it just took a couple calls with them before I was able to say like, "Yep, don't have budget to buy your thing, but I really appreciate your information." And that's part of that sales tactic for those companies. So don't feel bad doing things with vendors when the topic is useful. That's a major thing that I've come to learn in higher ed, because I never knew that before I was in higher ed. It was like, why would I talk to them? I'm just going to write my own software. So anyway.

Sarah Buszka: I think that's great. Very good advice. Yeah, go ahead.

Joseph Caudle: Just lean in, again, lean into the community. And the community includes people that aren't in higher ed. That would be the other piece is like -

Sarah Buszka: Yeah, higher ed adjacent. We're kind of all in this area together, just from different lenses.

Wes Johnson: That's right. Well, speaking of the community, before we let y'all go, starting with you, Joseph, we need an update. What is your superpower?

Joseph Caudle: Okay. Yeah, I don't remember what I said the last time I was on this show, but I think right now it's getting to the bottom of things to get to the truth. That's my main superpower. Like Batman Bob. You just throw me in a problem. I like to joke I'm like a terrier. Terriers are bred to go down in badger holes and drag them out. And that doesn't matter that the badger's correction at your face. That's what I do. I go in and I drag the badger out and then I'm like, "Here's your badger." And then people are like, "Nobody ever did that before." As

Wes Johnson: Soon as they get their face scratched out too.

Joseph Caudle: When their hair comes out

Wes Johnson: Anyway. I am curious, Megan, what about you? That went way, but I heard the superpower though. What is yours right now?

Megan Jones: I think what immediately comes to mind for me, and especially within this IT and higher ed space, I think creativity is really my superpower and being able to work with what you have. I mentioned my theater background. Theaters often didn't have much budgets, but hot glue, gaff tape and cardboard can do so many different things. And honestly, your imagination is the limit. So creativity is what I think has gotten me as far as I have today.

Sarah Buszka: I love that. Creativity and Joseph's a badger or badger hunter.

Joseph Caudle: Badger hunter.

Sarah Buszka: Badger hunter.

Joseph Caudle: Stay in their house. Got to pull them out. That's right.

Sarah Buszka: I love it. Well, thank you both so much for joining us on the show and sharing your wisdom. We really appreciate it.

Joseph Caudle: Thank you for having us.

Megan Jones: Happy to be here.