The last two years disrupted many aspects of higher education, and the educational technology market -- and the relationship between colleges and companies – are no exception.

This week’s episode of The Key explores how well the many hundreds of ed-tech companies that work with colleges, professors and students actually meet the needs of the institutions and their people, where they fall short, and how they can do better.

The discussion includes two guests who’ve sat at the intersection of where technology meets teaching and learning. Kara Monroe is the founder of Monarch Strategies, a consulting firm she founded early this year after 25 years as an academic administrator at Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana. Kelvin Bentley is a senior consultant at WGU Labs, where he works with companies that want to help colleges and universities educate students at scale. Over 25 years, he has worked with a range of public two-year and four-year colleges and multiple ed-tech companies.

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed  Editor Doug Lederman.  This episode was made possible by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

This week’s episode of The Key explores whether and how the landscape of digital teaching and learning has been changed by the last two years of global pandemic, recession, upheaval over racial justice, and more.

Participants in the conversation are Shanna Smith Jaggars, assistant vice provost of research and program assessment in Ohio State University’s Office of Student Academic Success, and Jessica Rowland Williams, director of Every Learner Everywhere, which pursues equitable outcomes in higher education through advances in digital learning.

In our discussion, they explore such topics as whether student expectations have changed about when, where and how they learn, if most faculty members are likelier to incorporate technology into their pedagogy than they were before, and what institutional leaders need to do to ensure that whatever role digital learning plays in their future strategies, they do it well.

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. This episode was made possible by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Student loan debt forgiveness. Free community college. Pell Grants for short-term programs. Those are just some of the higher education issues occupying the federal policy landscape in Washington.

This week’s episode of The Key features a conversation with Under Secretary James Kvaal, the Education Department’s senior official on higher education. He discusses the administration’s current thinking about those and other issues, including the challenges of operating in a highly partisan era.

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman.

Has higher education’s forced experimentation with remote learning changed how students, professors, colleges and the public view online education? And will it make them more or less likely to participate in it? 

This week's episode of The Key explores Inside Higher Ed’s recent report, The Evolving Conversation About Quality in Online Learning.” The report examines a wide range of issues around the current and future state of technology-enabled learning to try to help administrators and faculty members prepare to deliver high-quality virtual instruction, however it fits into their institutional missions. 

Lori Williams, president and CEO of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA), joins The Key this week to discuss the report and its implications for colleges, professors and policy makers. NC-SARA. Williams discusses how the pandemic has changed perceptions and practices around online education and how to judge quality in virtual learning, among other topics. 

This week's episode of The Key explores why some institutions use those policies and why consumer advocates think they're pernicious, even though they're only a small fraction of the $1.7 trillion student debt problem in American higher education.

Martin Kurzweil, director of the institutional transformation program at Ithaka S+R, discusses research on what it calls “stranded credits” that colleges sometimes hold hostage from former students and a promising experiment that could offer a way out for students and colleges alike.

Melanie Gottlieb, executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, explains why many higher ed officials oppose potential federal regulation to ban such policies, but acknowledges the need for colleges to limit the kinds of debt they try to collect from students.

Last month the State of Maryland announced that it would no longer require a bachelor’s degree in the hiring process for nearly half of its jobs, joining a growing number of companies and other employers.

Some people in higher education might view steps like that as a slight, since Maryland and other employers are responding in part to questions about the value of degrees and growing concerns about the cost – and opportunity cost – of earning one.

But in this week’s episode of The Key, Bridgette Gray of the nonprofit group Opportunity@Work, which is helping Maryland identify non-degreed workers to fill jobs in technology, administration and customer service, describes the market conditions that prompted the state’s decision and why equity was a primary factor behind its move.

And Brandon Busteed of Kaplan explains how colleges and universities can respond in ways that not only sustain their relevance but position them better for the coming changes in how learning is likely to happen.

Employers of all kinds are struggling to hold on to their employees in the wake of the pandemic and amid a white-hot job market. Data recently released by the University of North Carolina system, for instance, shows that faculty and staff turnover in the first half of this academic year was about 40 percent higher than the average of the last four years.

Are colleges and universities just dealing with the same issues other industries are facing? Or are there unique problems in higher ed that campus leaders need to acknowledge?

This week’s episode of The Key features a discussion with Kevin McClure, associate professor of higher education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, who’s been writing about these issues and this summer will begin a three-year research project examining working conditions at public institutions in his state.

In our conversation, he explores some of the reasons for the turnover, assesses the impact of the pandemic, and explains the difference between burnout and demoralization, both of which are probably playing a role.

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Doug Lederman. 

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, student academic misconduct spiked, and an episode of The Key explored the reasons why and steps colleges and professors might take to combat it.

The issue hasn’t gone away, even though a lot of instruction has returned to the physical classroom. So this week we revisit the February 2021 conversations, which remain timely and relevant.

First up is Bradley Davis, associate director of the office of student conduct at North Carolina State University, who discusses the steps the university took in response to a roughly three-fold increase in academic misconduct cases NC State experienced in the wake of the shift to remote learning.

In the second half of the episode, we bring in some national context through a conversation with two experts on academic integrity and learning. David Rettinger is a professor of psychological science and Director of Academic Integrity Programs at the University of Mary Washington, as well as president emeritus of the International Center for Academic Integrity. Kate McConnell is assistant vice president for research and assessment and director of the Value Institute at the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic and the other upheaval of the last couple of years changed the outlook for colleges, their students and their employees?

Bryan Alexander is a writer, author, teacher and “futurist.” He wrote the 2020 book Academia Next and hosts his own series of video conversations, The Future Trends Forum.

In this week’s episode of The Key podcast, he first explains the work of professional futurists, and how they differ from other kinds of analysts who operate as if they owned crystal balls. Then Alexander explores a wide range of topics about how the COVID-19 pandemic, the drive for racial justice and other recent phenomena might affect the next few years in higher education, touching on technology, the curriculum, and his current focus, environmental sustainability.

“Transformation” is a buzzword in today’s world, and it’s easy to talk about why it’s necessary. But how do you actually do the hard work of bringing about change within a college or university?

This week's episode of The Key features highlights from a panel session at this month's SXSWedu conference in Austin, Tex. The discussion, heavy on practical advice for leading change within and across institutions, includes Michael Sorrell, president of Paul Quinn College; Michelle Weise, vice chancellor for strategy and innovation at the National University System; and Bridget Burns, executive director of the University Innovation Alliance.

Inside Higher Ed's editor and host of The Key, Doug Lederman, moderated the discussion. This episode is sponsored by Pearson Inclusive Access.