The Key with Inside Higher Ed

The California State University system announced on May 12 that its fall term would be mostly online. The system was the first major U.S. university to make this move, and the announcement set off a flurry of news media coverage and debate among policy makers and college leaders. Tim White, Cal State's chancellor, takes us inside this decision during the episode. In his discussion with Paul Fain, host of The Key, and Lilah Burke, a reporter at Inside Higher Ed, White talks about how the system is trying to balance its two top goals of protecting the health and safety of more than 480,000 students and 50,000 employees while trying to maintain academic progress at 23 campuses. This episode is sponsored by the ECMC Foundation, which supports building a postsecondary education system that works for all learners through its grant making focus areas of college success and career readiness.

California has seen 3 million new unemployment claims filed in recent months, and the state proposed a $740 million budget cut to its community college system. But California's two year colleges are drawing from lessons learned during the last recession to cope with mounting challenges amid the pandemic. Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor of the system, which enrolls more than 2 million students across 115 campuses, talked with us about how the colleges are preparing for the fall. He described how the system has become more flexible for students, and why its leaders aren't counting on a federal bailout. To help broaden Oakley's perspective to the rest of the nation's community colleges, we also spoke with Karen Stout, president and CEO of Achieving the Dream, and the former president of Montgomery County Community College. This episode is sponsored by the ECMC Foundation, which supports building a postsecondary education system that works for all learners through its grant making focus areas of college success and career readiness.

Earlier this year, most of higher education moved its instruction online in a matter of days or weeks. After making this unprecedented shift, and amid great uncertainty, faculty members and college leaders are scrambling to prepare and improve online learning options for the fall. To take stock of the great online pivot, where things stand now and what to expect for the fall, we spoke with Lindsay McKenzie, a reporter at Inside Higher Ed who covers technology. We also spoke with Myk Garn, assistant vice chancellor for new learning models at the University System of Georgia. Myk talked about the potential of hybrid learning, social engagement online and how microlearning might expand during these unusual times.

Southern New Hampshire University recently turned heads with a broad reboot of its campus-based programs, including slashed tuition and allowing students to choose hybrid online and other modalities. To better understand what this means for the private, nonprofit university, we spoke with Paul LeBlanc, SNHU's president and the chair of the American Council on Education's Board of Directors. The episode also features Carla Hickman, vice president of research for EAB, who put the SNHU news in context by discussing where it fits amid the big higher-ed market shifts that have been accelerated by the pandemic.

The disruption and uncertainty caused by the pandemic pose challenges for all colleges and universities. But community colleges typically had tight budgets before the crisis, and serve the largest share of the nation's most vulnerable students. For insight into the questions community college leaders are wrestling with, this episode features a discussion with Steven Johnson, president of Sinclair Community College. Johnson talks about budget planning and the enrollment picture for Sinclair, which is located in Dayton, Ohio. He also describes how the college has maintained its robust prison education programs amid the pandemic, and how Sinclair is planning for when it emerges on the other side of this crisis.

Many colleges moved to pass/fail grading amid the pandemic. While that change was designed to help students, it can cause disruptions as community college students transfer to four-year institutions, or as students seek admission to graduate or medical school. The episode features Lilah Burke, a reporter at Inside Higher Ed, who has written about this issue. And to describe how college leaders can help students avoid disruptions from the "Asterisk Semester," we spoke with Anne Kress, president of Northern Virginia Community College, and Marie Lynn Miranda, incoming provost of the University of Notre Dame.

Roughly 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the crisis began, and the estimated unemployment rate stands at 12 to 15 percent, the highest level since the Great Depression. As Washington begins negotiating a federal jobs bill, we hear from two experts about lessons learned from the last recession, and how such a bill can help displaced workers and college students without creating more hurdles for them. The episode features Maria Flynn, president and CEO of Jobs For the Future, and Mary Alice McCarthy, director of the Center on Education and Skills with the education program at New America.

Colleges and are scrambling to distribute roughly $6.3 billion from the federal government for emergency aid aimed at students whose lives and educations have been disrupted by the pandemic. To better understand this fast-moving story, Paul Fain, the podcast's host, interviews David Baime, senior vice president for government relations and policy analysis for the American Association of Community Colleges, and Amelia Parnell, vice president for research and Policy at NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.