HEDx

Data Scientist Stephen Shaw founded  birthgap.org  following his work surfacing the growing global gaps in birth rates from that required to sustain populations.  He has found that all countries will see a dramatic fall in future populations due to births falling below a replacement rate of 2.1. He joins the HEDx podcast along with Professor Selena Bartlett, Professor of Neuroscience at QUT, to di...

Professor KC Chua is President of Singapore Institute of Technology where he leads a differentiated institution of applied learning. In a system with two top 50 comprehensive research universities SIT pursues a different mission focused on skills, jobs and the needs of business and industry. And no one cares about its place in rankings. Does Australia need more places like SIT?

This episode has a report from the recent ASU+GSV summit where global innovators explored the brave new world of higher Ed technology. Hear from Michael Moe of GSV, Paul LeBlanc of SNHU, Ethan Mollick of U Penn and Laura Ipsen of Ellucian about how universities, tech companies and investors are collaborating to disrupt the future of higher Ed. And learn how you can get involved 

Professor Sanjay Sarma reflects on his experience as Vice President of Online Learning at MIT with empathy for students developed in his own time as an IIT student in India. He describes the background to and ideas in a landmark MIT white paper for a new kind of college where professors spend 80% of their time on teaching. What is it, what problem does it seek to solve, and where is this idea head...

Scott Pulsipher President of the world’s largest fully online university in Western Governors University (WGU) shares the story of a unique purpose and business model. He outlines a relentless focus on outcomes for students as the big idea that emerged from WGU governors asking what if questions when it was formed. These questions were about the purpose, goal and design of education programs and i...

Professor Caron Beaton-Wells the Dean (internal) at Melbourne Business School joins the HEDx podcast to share lessons of how one of our most prestigious institutions is pursuing innovation in the higher education market. Outlining the use of technology, partnerships and new business models, the episode illustrates how even our most established and reputed institutions can also pursue radical chang...

Professor Mary O'Kane in leading the University Accord invites HEDx to be a facilitator and provocateur of big ideas into the biggest review of our higher education system for a generation. Immediately after the launch of the issues paper and an initial 6 week consultation period at the UA conference, Mary joins the HEDx podcast to invite its members and audience to articulate big i...

Paul LeBlanc, the President of Southern New Hampshire University in the US, joins the HEDx podcast for a second part of his interview. He talks about his radical model of scalable higher education delivered by his staff who focus on the personal needs of their students. He draws from his recent book "Broken" to demonstrate the importance of his students and staff being seen and feeling they m...

Professor Paul Le Blanc is the President of Southern New Hampshire University and joins the HEDx podcast for the first episode of 2023.  He outlines a philosophy that's driven his institution and is influencing the sector to be truly distinctive by putting "Students First" which is the title of one of his two acclaimed books.

Professor Andrew Parfitt as Vice Chancellor of UTS shares his vision for the research and innovation ecosystem and the unanswered questions facing us all about lifelong learning as a Universities Accord and ARC Review process get underway.

Professor Nick Klomp VC of CQU and President of the Regional University Network tells the story of the development of the only dual-sector institution in Queensland from a regional base in Rockhampton with a physical and virtual footprint around Australia and beyond.  He argues passionately for the importance of teaching students in the region to stay in the region and abo...

Associate Professor Jack Wang of UQ was Australian University Teacher of the Year in 2020. He outlines 7 phases of teaching innovation in Australian universities that he believes have left us in "no mans land" as students decline to join staff in empty lecture theatres. He shares the lessons of being a student and teacher in those 20 years for those facing the hybrid learning future.

Ian Dunn as Provost of Coventry University shares the secrets of success of the UK's top younger university for graduate career prospects. He outlines how a UK university has gained a global reputation for innovation and creativity with a focus on student inclusion and success. He describes how it was achieved through innovative and strategic use of EdTech and a clear strategy to ensure students s...

Duncan Maskell VC of Melbourne University shares his passion for the public good purpose of our universities and his thanks for the commitment of his staff to keeping the university going as he enters the fifth year of his tenure at Parkville. He outlines how the university is reconsidering what shape and size it wants to be in the future rather than passively responding to market demand...

University of Surrey, UK Vice Chancellor and President Max Lu shares his experiences of putting in place a transitionary 3-year strategy to traverse the combination of Brexit and pandemic recovery to address the student experience, increase research impact and build an operational platform for future growth, together with launching a focussed philanthropic campaign to raise funds to support equita...

Professor Renee Leon reflects on her first year as Vice Chancellor at Charles Sturt University by contrasting leadership practices and culture between universities and the public service.  She reflects on how what she has learnt from the public service can be applied to improve culture and leadership in universities and how she has brought this to bear on the turnaround of her unive...

Australian Entrepreneur of the Year for 2022 Linda Brown as CEO of Torrens University Australia johns the HEDx podcast. She shares her thoughts on the opportunities for private universities in Australia and globally to utilise EdTech and partner with connected employers. She advocates Torren's success in plugging the gap of industry relevant higher education for global cus...

Maria Spies as Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Holon IQ shares an update to their report on 5 scenarios for the future of higher education  by 2030. She outlines the priorities for the innovation agenda for universities for the path ahead and the need to keep moving at the same or faster pace as competitors to be positioned for disruption and transformation ahead.

Rick Shangraw, after 20 years at ASU, describes how their success story is founded on using enterprise to allow inclusive access to excellent education and research that serves end user purpose and communities.  He then articulates, as CEO of ASU startup Cintana, how that model is being taken to up to 50 partner universities around the world in seeking to democratise education for the benefit...

Betty Vandenbosch joins the HEDx podcast as Chief Content Officer of Coursera to outline her vision of how the landscape of global higher education will have changed by 2030 and what Coursera and global universities can best do to prepare for that vision. She sees a clear picture of hybrid learning combining with hybrid working and stackable and flexible packages of learning being accessed on glob...

CEO of EdPlus at Arizona State University, Phil Regier explains the background to how online students have grown to close to 84,000 across all disciplines in major partnerships with employers in Starbucks and Uber in partnership with the global EdTech community. The journey to online education becoming core to the whole university and to all students who make their own choice of how, when and wher...

Cadmus CEO Herk Kailis joins the podcast to outline how EdTech companies have emerged to provide support services to help individual universities focus on what they want to be great at. He describes the importance and scope for technology innovation and adoption in the narrow area of student assessment and the broader areas of learning. He gives pointers to the extraordinary levels of investment t...

President Michael Crow approaches 20 years as President of ASU ranked as the most innovative US university for seven years running. He shares a clear message of the need for distinction and differentiation and of ASU's mission to democratise higher education for the world. He measures the ASU strategy by the students they include and building pathways for all to succeed. Their technology-enabled s...

Professor Malcolm Press CBE joins the podcast as the VC of Manchester Metropolitan University. He shares insights into his commitment to his staff and students and the commitment Manchester Met has to its civic setting in a major city in the UK. He shares lessons from a 200 year history of an institution that is pioneering degree apprenticeships and design education among other things and illustra...

Professor Judy Raper CEO of TEDI London joins the podcast to describe how an alliance of research power houses Arizona State University, UNSW and Kings College are reconceiving design and engineering education in a start up in London. A staff cohort with no lecturers delivering problem based learning in industry partnerships, using the most advanced pedagogy and learning technologies, with no dist...