2025 EDUCAUSE Top 10: Restoring Trust

Sophie White: Hello and welcome everyone. Today on our EDUCAUSE shop top, we'll be discussing the EDUCAUSE Top 10. Thank you for being here with us. I'm Sophie White, Content Marketing and Program Manager at EDUCAUSE. I'm Jenay Robert. I'm a senior researcher at EDUCAUSE, and today we have Dr. Susan Grajek EDUCAUSE, Vice President of Partnerships, Communities and Research. And Jackie Milhans, Director of Research Computing and Data Services at Northwestern University.

We'll start with our questions today, have a conversation with Susan and Jackie, and then we'll turn the floor over to you all as our live audience for your questions. So I'll start with a couple of introductions of our guests. Dr. Susan Grajek is responsible for EDUCAUSE's research and analytic services, formal and informal communities, including the cybersecurity and privacy program, teaching and learning program, and the CIO and senior leader program and community groups and partnership activities at EDUCAUSE. She also manages the Top 10 panel, which releases the EDUCAUSE Top 10 annually. Before joining EDUCAUSE, she spent over 25 years at Yale University in a variety of IT management and leadership positions at the university in the school of Medicine, which encompassed academic computing, IT support, communications, assessment, strategic planning, and relationship management. And as we know, Susan is retiring later this year, so we're very happy to have her with us to talk about the EDUCAUSE Top 10 today.

Jackie Milhans is responsible for building relationships with and gathering research support requirements from dean's faculty in Northwestern University leadership. Jackie has served on many committees in the past for IT research computing and data and DEI purposes and is currently a co-chair for the C-A-R-C-C advisory group. She has a passion for learning and sharing methods to build and lead engaged and inclusive teams. She completed her PhD at Georgia Tech and her postdoc at Los Alamos National Laboratory and was an EDUCAUSE 2023 Rising Star awardee. So thank you Jackie and Susan for being with us.

Well let's kick it off then. So the EDUCAUSE Top 10, we're talking about rebuilding trust in higher education. Can you just talk a little bit about why you think this issue is so important maybe for folks who couldn't attend your session earlier this morning and what you think we can do about it?

Susan Grajek: Sure. So when I do the Top 10 every year, I don't start with an idea of how the issues interconnect into a theme. I really listen to the panelists like Jackie and others when we interview them about the Top 10 issues. And I pay attention looking for themes that may be coming up. And it was just remarkable to me how many times people talked about the concept of trust. And I think that trust may be sort of the issue of our time right now when you think about the changes in technology and how it used to be that if you had photographic evidence that that was evidence and it couldn't be refuted. But now the things that used to be our anchors for what we could trust and what we couldn't are changing. And so how do we deal with that? I've been, as Sophie said, I've been in higher education for almost 50 years and when I started and for years and years in this field, and I still believe that higher education has a noble was, but when I would say higher education has a noble mission in the past, heads would nod it was irrefutable.

But now in many ways, we have in many ways not continued to earn the trust of our constituents of students and the like. And I think that one of the flat sides of our industry is that we're very slow, we're very deliberative, and it's easy for us to say the world will catch up with us when we are ready. And so I think that there has been a certain complacency and we're not here to talk about the reasons for that or anything like that, but that complacency has in many ways made us susceptible to the pickle that we're in right now. And I talked about the drivers of the loss of trust in higher education being threefold. And one is that people don't feel like, not everybody, but many students are saying, I'm getting educated but it's not going to get me a job. So it's not relevant.

And then these students who are struggling with debt and student loans, and particularly students who went to school and they never even earned a credential, but they have this debt that is preventing them from really advancing in their lives from buying houses from saving for their retirement and so on. And then just the politicization of higher education, which is a shocking, shameful thing in my opinion. So we're this situation where trust is a big problem and I could hear the panel say it over and over again. And the beautiful thing I think about where we are right now is that we have the ability and what we are doing right now, if we continue on that path, we really can restore trust because we finally are figuring out how to retool the institution after more than a decade of cloud and how do we do that and what can it do for us? We got that figured out and we understand that it's not about the technology, that it's about the process and the like. And the, and analytics I feel had been stuck for a long, long time and it feels like we're getting unstuck. As people do understand, more and more people do understand about data governance and they're able to integrate all these solutions thanks to technology, integrate the data and then do something with the analytics. And so just that overall tooling up to make a more competent institution is really, really important. And then the other side, and I think that the pandemic kind of broke the dam on this one, as one of the panelists said, we are now bringing our whole selves to work and our whole selves are complicated and we can bring our whole selves to work. And good leaders of who there are plenty really want to be able to know who are you as a person, what's going on in your life, and so how can we make sure to blend your challenges and the things that you love to do into that life? So that notion of finding a balance between competence and caring and this notion of balance really came from the panel. I wasn't thinking, oh, it should be a balance. And then the notion that, oh, how do you keep that balance? It's really leadership's responsibility to keep that balance.

Jackie Milhans: So building off of that comment there, when you think about how many people changed jobs during the pandemic, and there were so many leadership shifts in academia and you think about how they come into leadership positions in higher ed, there is not this external facing and this kind of what is our public image facing thing in those leaders' minds, there's so many stakeholders that university leaders or higher ed leaders have to manage. There's alumni, parents, donors, faculty, undergraduate students, MBA, med students, PhD students. These are all different types of stakeholders that university and higher ed college leaders have had to manage for decades. And suddenly there's this public attention and also how people are consuming information. I mean, if you look at the election and how the interviews are and where the interviews are, it is not how it used to be, right? So there's just different channels, how people are getting their information.

So I think higher ed leaders are just in this impossible situation where they need to build the relationships across all the silos at their institution, be thinking about the students and the undergrads that are coming out of the pandemic still, there's still that adjustment because they had this huge shift in their life during a really critical point of their development. And so we as leaders are trying to build these relationships and build trust on our campus, but then there's this whole outward facing thing. So I think we have to figure out how to focus so that we have to build trust where it's going to have the biggest impact because we can't do it all. And I think we have to split the work in terms of how to build trust with one-on-one relationships with entire departments or entire units, and then also outward facing.

Jenay Robert: I love that you brought up this idea of focusing, because I think that's really what hit me as I was listening to the Top 10 session this morning was it feels like there are so many of these issues that have been persistent, and it's not where do we start? It's just sometimes very overwhelming to think, okay, the data issues, the trust issues, the privacy and security issue, how many times has privacy and security shown up in some way in the Top 10? Yes. How do we start knocking these off the list? What could we do as a community to say, you know what, we don't want this on the list anymore. We're going to just to get together and focus on it and get rid of it. It's that possible. Can we do that?

Jackie Milhans: I'll say, I think so one of the other themes was having a unified vision and alignment right across the institution. And I do think you have to choose your top two to three, what you're capable of doing and what's truly important to do. And I think there also has to be a shift in the workforce mindset. And so understanding that our work is going to change from the individual contributor to CIO to higher ed presidents and understanding that, and this was another one of the Top 10 issues, is really supporting workforce in that change. And so I think every institution is different. So you have to choose what matters most and think about how to shift your workforce to be able to do that.

Susan Grajek: I think some of these issues, we can't knock them off the list. They're endemic to using technology and data like cybersecurity, right? So here's my analogy. My analogy is that you can't, well, you can, but if you go to the gym once and you spend an afternoon there and you come out and you go, great cardio, strength training, flexibility and things like that, you can't say, well, on and on, right? You have to go pretty frequently. You have to build up a habit. And similarly with things like cybersecurity, data quality, even taking care of your staff and those things are endemic. But I think in my opinion, one of the things that is hopeful about this year's Top 10 is that a lot of those issues were threaded throughout. So I was just absolutely thrilled that cybersecurity wasn't shouting number one or two. And even that it was framed as a matter of trust to what end, why are we protecting this data? And it's really to earn trust. And cybersecurity was in some of the other issues too.

Sophie White: Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was really interesting. I know that at least last year, cybersecurity was number one, and I thought it was really telling that the data-empowered institution came up to the top. So I'm curious, I'm thinking about Jackie, what you just said about setting boundaries, deciding who to build trust with, what to focus on, how do you use data to make those decisions about what you should focus on, and how do you empower your institution through data?

Jackie Milhans: So to me, when I'm using data, sometimes it depends on who I'm talking to because if you have someone who is going to be responsive to data-driven decisions, I do think you should, if you have metrics and if you're going to build metrics, do it in a way that makes it super easy to do next month or next year because then you can continue to use them and then you can build your trend. So when I think about our service gaps or where we aren't doing so well, that's a really great way to be able to show where we need to grow. And it's an observed requirement or need that the institution wants.

When I am thinking about who I'm talking to, sometimes I have to pair that with an impact story too. So because again, this is higher ed, right? We're doing it because there's this kind of social or other kind of higher impact, a lot of us anyway. So yeah, I think where you can don't feel like you need to tackle it all. I think where it makes sense and be really purposeful when you do it because you have to think about what are the questions that I'm trying to answer with my metrics, with my KPIs? Not just going for what you already have, do that, but also build for what things you're trying to answer for.

Susan Grajek: And I'm going to put a plug in for a session later this afternoon. I think it's at three or three 15, but EDUCAUSE got together and collaborated with NACUBO and that that's our counterpart for business and university finance and business officers and AIR, the Association for Institutional Research. And I think it's like at 3:00 or 3:15. But what we did was we collaborated on first a few years ago, developing a manifesto for, and it was called Change with Analytics. So if you google change with analytics.org, I think you can find it, but people said, okay, manifesto's great. And it sort of said it's like the 10 commandments—do this, do this, do this. But it begged the question of which Sophie just asked. And so we got together again and we created what we call a playbook, an analytics playbook. And if I remember correctly, there are a dozen plays in this playbook. And each play is about a different challenge with analytics such as data governance, and the playbook includes some process advice, some case studies, also some artifacts or templates, things like that. And it is not just created for one type of institution. So that is another way that can help people if they feel stuck, go to the playbook, look at the plays and say, ah, that one is where I need help. And then start there and it'll give you some good ideas, I think some helpful ideas.

Sophie White: Yeah, that's a great resource. And for folks watching later, you can also find that online too.

Jenay Robert: I'm hearing an action plan arising what the two of you say. I am sorry, I think that way, but I mean I'm hearing from Jackie this idea that we've got to focus in, figure out what our priorities are, make a plan, and from Susan's side, I'm hearing more of this long-term thinking. So these are endemic issues, these are things that are going to be around for a while. How do we get started by focusing in and fixing things, but then also thinking about being a resilient institution to kind of nod to one of the other Top 10 and knowing that this is an ongoing process and these policies always need to be in place and need to be revisited, I think that's a really interesting way to kind of digest the Top 10 and commit into action.

Jackie Milhans: I don't think they're mutually exclusive. So when I think about where I'm going to focus, I want long-term gains. And when I think about the stuff that doesn't need to be done, I'll say manually or inefficient way, can we do that more efficiently? That kind of clears our plate to focus on the next big thing. And so that's Susan this morning mentioned talking about being thoughtful about your resources and what you're doing with your staff resources. And so I think when you're focusing, there are short-term things that are right in front of you. But oftentimes, again, we know the urgent is not always the important. And that's why I think it's important for each institution to take a step back. It's going to be different for each institution. And the other thing is, when you're here, don't solve problems that people have already solved. If you could benefit, talk to that person, because I don't think that there's a single person at EDUCAUSE where I have asked for help and they said no, and they didn't have 15, 30 minutes for me and EDUCAUSE is such a great place to be able to ask for help. So I think really reach out.

Susan Grajek: There's a book by Peter Sange and I cannot remember the name of it, I'm sitting here thinking, that’s Sange S-A-N-G-E. And he wrote it, I think I read it like 15 or 20 years ago. But the concept stuck with me. And the concept is this notion, right? If you have a vision, then you know where you're heading, the general direction that you're heading in, and then your day-to-day actions. If you're in touch with are those actions moving me more toward the vision versus further? And I think where people get paralyzed is they think that the vision is something that they've got to figure out all at once.

Jackie Milhans: And tomorrow. And really it's this long-term thing. And when you share that vision with everybody, you don't have to make every decision. Everybody knows what the vision is and they can start making their own decisions at every level toward that vision.

Sophie White: Yes. Yeah. We were talking about this yesterday in a discussion, just a Brene Brown's great analogy of the person who works at St. Jude's and serves food and is curing cancer. And how that really speaks to this idea of if you explain what this long-term vision, you don't have to be transparent about every detail, but if folks understand that you're going in the right direction and why they're doing the work that they're doing, how meaningful that is and how that can even hold with burnout in some of these major workforce issues we're seeing.

Susan Grajek: Absolutely. And it also helps you when new things happen and you're like, I can do something with that. And so that becomes sort of part of the strategy.

Jenay Robert: Yes.

Susan Grajek: Yeah.

Jenay Robert: That's something we talk a lot about in Horizon research too, because part of the horizon research after the Horizon report, we work on a Horizon Action Plan, and part of that process is to work with a panel to create this ideal version of the future. And some people bristle at that because being too idealistic can be challenging in certain ways. But we really emphasize this idea that having this ideal vision of where you want to be in 10 years is really just an aiming point. It's not that we think we're going to for sure reach that ideal. Maybe we don't even think we can reach the ideal, but we want to get as close as we can. So I think that's really valuable to weave into that as well.

Sophie White: Yeah, and I'm trying to think, so I'm picturing in my head the graphic that you showed today that has the culture of care. What's the other one? Competence. Competence, ministry of competence, and then the fulcrum of leadership. So I guess how as a leader can you keep those two things balanced in your team? So you have a team working on these simplifying, faster, better, cheaper, you have to work on the culture of care. How do you make sure that those things are staying in balance at the leader?

Susan Grajek: Well, the notion of the fulcrum that I talked about is you want to apply the minimum necessary effort to keep that balance. So one of the things that you want to do is never let one get too far out of balance. And it can be very tempting. I do this too. I say, okay, I'm just going to devote all of my time to this. And in the meantime, the other thing that you should be paying attention just starts to crumble. So I think that notion of agility is important and always having two things in mind with your staff. Let them know that they can come to you when they're overloaded, right? Yes. When things are too important. And that way you don't always have to be checking in, are you still okay? Are you still okay? Right? They know that they can trust you to come to say, I need help. And so then you can rejigger things and look at those priorities as long as you're always moving ahead. And one thing that the panel talked about over and over again, which was another theme that I saw running through it was they talked about little bite-sized things, quick wins. And if you really do try to boil that ocean, you're going to drown before the ocean

Jackie Milhans: And bringing it back to trust. It's like, oh, you have all that trust, you can move so much faster. And so invest in that time and that coffee and that lunch, even though you have to walk across campus, I know it could take a total of two, three hours sometimes if you have a big campus, but it's so worth it because that person knows you're human. And the other thing is that if you make a mistake, it's so much easier to recover that relationship because you have had that connection point. And when you have that trust, those things that are piling up, you can just move just so much faster and you can delegate with that vision again, just not having to make every decision and people are kind of swimming in the same direction for the most part.

Jenay Robert: I love that. I did want to ask a research nerd question. Was that okay? Are we allowed? So oftentimes when I'm analyzing a bunch of data, if I'm lucky, if it's a great project and I'm working with great colleagues, which I do, I get to have one of those moments where I go, oh wow. And I'm the first one who gets to see something and I'm like, this is super interesting, and it's such an exciting moment. So I'm just wondering if you had a moment like that with this Top 10. Not to put you on the spot, but was there a moment where you thought, oh, this is going to be so great to tell the story?

Susan Grajek: I think when I was hearing trust and I was asking myself about that, I remembered a colleague from a long, long time ago, his name is Michael Swenson, and he works at Cornell. And in addition to his job in IT and Cornell, he also does a lot of work with the Covey Seven Habits, and he's a certified trainer and the like, and he's got all these other things. So I brought the Seven Habits to my staff and we've trained on them and they're wonderful touchstones, but I love having conversations with him so wise and so honest. And I remember he was talking about trust a while ago, and he did, he broke it down, trust and worthy of trust.

So how do you become worthy of trust? It is follow through competence and the like. But then the other is that notion of caring. And that's when I thought, can I see that? And the other, oh, you'll love this, you'll love this because it is about data. One of the things I do with the Top 10 issues every year is I get a correlation, and I look at how intercorrelated the issues are, and a lot of times it doesn't tell me anything. But now this year it did because the caring issues, the issues that I put under caring, they all correlated with one another pretty highly. I think my cutoff was correlation of 0.45 or something, which is kind of high for social science stuff. And then the competence ones also sort of correlated. And then I looked at what's left and I said, oh, that could kind of come together, resilience, CIO challenge, and data empowered that can kind of become that fulcrum. So that was really cool. Thank you.

Sophie White: Thanks. So I have a question. You were talking about the culture of care and we're talking about humanity, and this keeps coming up, but I did not see AI mentioned much in the Top 10. Where does that fit into this conversation? It's not one of the Top 10 issues, but we're at the annual conference and there are AI sessions everywhere. What does that look like?

Susan Grajek: I think it's a sign of maturity in our profession that we haven't said, oh, this technology thing that's keeping everybody awake at night and everything that's got to be like there is its own issue. It was in issue number one, data-empowered institution. And it was also the driver behind issue number 10, supportable, sustainable and affordable about innovating with technology, new innovations. And I'm not sure that there's been an innovation with technology issue on the Top 10 before. And I really do think that if there are other things, obviously from quantum computing to robotics and things like that, but I think it was AI that brought that in. And the one other thing is that there were a couple of AI issues that you didn't vote in to the Top 10. And number 12, health was ethics. And it was close.

Jackie Milhans: Yeah, I think that when it comes to GenAI, it's more of a cybersecurity issue and helping people understand that when you use these tools, which can be very useful tools, if people are writing code, it can get them started, feel more confident for people where English isn't their first language, it can get them started or check for grammar and spelling in a way that's just faster and more efficient and it can reduce barriers, but you do have to be smart about what you're putting in there because that's not yours anymore. So those are, I think AI is nothing new. I mean, we wouldn't have self-driving cars if AI were a new thing, and it's just more accessible now. And so we have to understand that the blurbs at the top of our Google searches aren't always accurate and have a laugh over it, but also it's something that is going to reduce a lot of errors. It's just something, again, a sign of maturity that people can see this as a tool. Well, also it's still figuring it out.

Sophie White: I agree. And the theme of hope. I think that's really helpful, that mature and able to figure out how this fits into these existing issues that we're seeing. Yeah.

Susan Grajek: Well, and hope is another thing that I don't know about you all, but I'm starting to hear people talk about, and people will use different words, so they may use the word hope, they may use the word optimism. But I think that we have all gotten to a point as individual human beings as members of this society that we can't take it anymore. We've had enough and we are going to do something. We aren't going to passively get just marinated in the psychology of despair and disillusionment and fear and distrust. We're all saying, wait a minute, life doesn't have to be that way. And I have a choice.

Jackie Milhans: I mean, when I am losing hope or feeling dark, I really honestly, it's like I just go to the grocery store and interact with humans and it's like, we're going to be okay. I mean, there's just so much that everybody wants to do. No one wants to show up at work and do a bad job or ruin someone's day. Everybody is wanting to make a difference and they want their work to mean something. And we can head in a similar direction. We can do things that our manager, we don't have to do it all just because now we know way too much.

Sophie White: Now. That's a great perspective. Thank you for sharing. And you used the word marinade. It made me think of that AI summary where, what was it? It confused “dressings” and “marinade.” A marinade is a salad dressing, but a dressing you use for wound care. Oh my gosh. Yeah. We have a lot of work to have. A lot of work to do. Right. On that note, we would love to hear from you all as the live audience. If you have any questions for us today, if you have a question, raise your hand, say your name and institution and add your question and we will answer it. Kelli will bring you a microphone.

Jenay Robert: Yeah, you'll have to come all the way. So right here.

Andrew Feldstein: Hi, my name is Andrew Feldstein, Fort Hay State University. A lot of interesting things, particularly as Susan, you mentioned the threading together, a lot of these themes, which I think I'm seeing more than I've seen in the past in terms of how all these things interconnect. But as you look at all of this is to me kind of a middle space. This is where we get things done. But when you talk about the issues of trust and when you talk about hope and you get to the upper level, which is the vision piece, however, to me that could be the hardest piece of all. While it's necessary for all of these things to take place, there has to be trust and hope embedded into that vision. And creating that vision is hard, particularly when you're looking across your institution and you've seen lots of factions and lots of, so there's maybe danger in creating that vision. Just some thoughts that I'd like to hear your thoughts on.

Susan Grajek: Sure. And tell me if I'm not really addressing your question. I think that that really is where leadership makes a difference. And this notion of all these factions. We are going to cannibalize ourselves if we can't start to reconcile all of these factions. And if people don't realize that they're not the center of the universe, we're just all. Yes. Oh my God. Oh my God. Right. And what's the old saying about academia? Why are the fights so vicious? It's because the stakes are so low. Yeah. Yeah. And so I can't fix that, or the only way in which I can contribute to the solution is by trying to provide a hopeful message rather than a message of despair. And sometimes you find yourself at an institution where the leadership just, they can't do it for whatever reason. And so then you have to ask yourself, am I going to stay here and try to make what little difference I can? Or am I going to go to another institution that really does have that sort of amazing way to kind of unify and focus the institution and to do it in a graceful way, not in a way that feels like I'm the authority and heads will roll.

Jackie Milhans: If we don't go in that direction. I'll add on that is that if you don't communicate a vision, well, people are going to go in different directions and then you'll have duplication and different priorities across. No matter what you say, there's going to be naysayers. And so helping, I think recognizing that change can be hard or this is a change, just acknowledging the feelings in the room or wherever you're delivering that message can be really powerful. Tell people understand, I'm not supposed to know this now. I'm not supposed to do this today. It's kind of like, we're going to get here in a year. We're going to get here in five years, and we're going to do everything to support you to get you there so that you can keep, I mean, it's so hard to hire. And so keeping that institutional knowledge and supporting staff and sell it as an opportunity, this is a new opportunity. It's going to be exciting. It's going to be scary and hard, but we're going to do it together. Is that helpful? And lean on your middle managers. Yeah.

Mary McDonagh: My name is Mary McDonagh and I am at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. And I've recently come back into higher ed after being in corporation for a long time where people are completely consumed by analytics. But now I'm in an environment where we're not consumed by analytics. And so this is a very tactical question in terms of how do we incentivize leadership, university leadership to really care about analytics? What are the sort of quick wins in terms of helping them?

Susan Grajek: Yeah, yeah, I do think that start with the data that you have and the questions and find what are the questions that data can answer and then demonstrate that so that you've got people starting to tell the story of, I got this new staff member because I was able to make the case with data that this is happening or that's happening. And I also think if leaders hold their staff accountable for using data to make decisions, then people will start to use data to make decision.

Jackie Milhans: Also say, think about who that person trusts. So going back to the trust and how information flows at your institution. So the person you're trying to convince, sometimes it's easier to get relationships with their circle and thinking about understanding more about the person you are trying to get on side through their relationships and understanding what might be the barriers. The other thing is, I think about this with my kids is I can tell them all day to do something, but if their friend tells them to do it, I'm like, I've been telling you to do that for a year, but I kind of find that at work it kind of happens the same way. So if there's someone that they trust, the other thing is sometimes it's an outside consultant and it's just a small engagement. But if an outside consultant says, we've seen this at all of these institutions and this is what works, it can be a really fast win if the trust there isn't an obvious path and they can be a trusted advisor. It's kind of like a third party, neutral party.

Jenay Robert: We hear similar things from Horizon panelists when we do Horizon Action Plans, related data governance, analytics, these similar topics, and our panelists tell us when you're getting started, it is really important to go for those quick wins, those low hanging fruit. So I think as Susan mentioned, start with what you have. It doesn't have to be reinventing the wheel. Maybe there's some small programmatic initiatives, some little piece of the pie that you can pull off and say, we took some quick data, or we have some quick data available, and we were able to see this insight and here's how we're acting on it. And to be able to tell those stories of starting with analytics and ending in action, and even better if you can then evaluate the impact of that action, but we're going for quick wins. I think telling those stories is really impactful.

And then I agree with thinking about what are the spheres of influence with your naysayers? And this is again, something through the Horizon Action Plans. We provide some tools around how to build these teams to create our action plans. And we encourage people to include one person who's going to be maybe a gentle naysayer, but you need that voice in the room and you need to kind of understand their perspective. And then the other naysayers can say, oh, that guy didn't like it either, but now he's part of the team. And I think that can gain some traction.

Kristen Gay: So I really appreciate the hopeful tone of this conversation. It's clear we have so much work to do as a field, but I also appreciate hearing about all of the opportunities that are ahead of us as well. So I'm wondering, based on this Top 10 in this conversation, what most excites you about the future of higher education and where we can go from here?

Jenay Robert: Can you say your name?

Kristen Gay: Kristen Gay. I'm with the OLC. Sorry.

Jackie Milhans: What most excites me? So I think in higher ed, there's a lot of trends that we start and are we able to instill in the students who take that on for the rest of their lives. And so I think that that's a really exciting thing and really important thing to think about when we think about what our institution does for our students. My area of focus is more on research, and so I don't get to interact with undergrads as much. I am more in the faculty and graduate students, but even still, there are things that you can do that are important to you. So in research, data centers are a big thing. And with GenAIs and GPUs, this is something that is going to affect the world. And we're at a point where we have to rethink our data center strategy. And if we can go green with it, that is going to set an expectation with our students. And when they go to work and they go to work for these big companies, Intel, Dell, Nvidia, whatever it may be, they're going to a green center could be something. And I'm not saying that we can strive for that, but if we can do it, that's going to set an expectation. And you've seen that in the way that students, when they graduate, what they expect from their workplace and the benefits that they expect and the type of interactions and the respect. And so I think that that's the thing that it's the same thing that got me into higher ed and it will continue.

Susan Grajek: I think what excites me the most, there's a couple of things. One is obviously AI because it does feel like we have finally reached that inflection point with technology where it wasn't just getting faster, bigger, whatever, but wow, now things are really, really going to take off. And it's exciting to think it's scary, but it's also exciting.

Jenay Robert: This is a strategic foresight tool. Strategic foresight is the research methodology that we use for our Horizon research. Look back to look forward is an exercise that we sometimes do with panelists. I think you always do it with the Top 10 panelists, and we ask folks to think back the same amount of time that we are hoping them to think forward. So if we want to talk about what's happening 10 years in the future, we ask them to think about 10 years in the past. This does a couple of things. One is it kind of helps us think about how some events that have impacted us, we didn't expect at the time to impact us in certain ways. And it helps us think about the relevance of the things happening today in the way that there's many ways that today's events could impact us in the future. And so for you, this is a tool that provides you with some hope about the past and the future.

Susan Grajek: Yeah, because it is so frustrating. Change happens so slowly and you can say, is this ever going to get solved? Are we ever going to figure this out? Look back 10 years and you'll realize, wow, we have been able to put some of these issues to bed. And that's pretty cool.

Jenay Robert: I say this a lot with respect to all sorts of issues, not just various things that we struggle with in higher ed, but social justice issues, all types of things that it feels day to day that we're not moving the needle, we're not making progress. We're so frustrated with the problems that maybe we've faced for the last year or five years or more in some cases. And when we really start to think longitudinally, look back over a hundred years of progress in some of these cases, you see a much longer track record and you're able to track progress. That's just moving a little more slowly than we like to see in our human lifetimes.

Jackie Milhans: But I do think that we’re moving faster than ever. It's just that there's so many more expectations and the change is happening faster, but we are changing faster, I think, than we ever have before. And it will never be fast enough. We'll never, right?

Susan Grajek: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And we're making progress. And progress is not a straight line, right? It up and down. And so we've seen a lot of social regression, I think in these last couple of years, but the trend is still trending in the right direction. I absolutely love coming to this conference and seeing the diversity of people. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing and it's because everybody in the community is welcoming and wants to see that, and I think that makes us so much stronger.