Entrepreneurs and innovators pitched solutions to persistent challenges at our annual âShark Tankâ at SXSW EDU. ADVERTISEMENT [The Edge Logo]( Did someone forward you this newsletter? [Sign up free]( to receive your own copy. You can now read The Chronicle on [Apple News]( [Flipboard]( and [Google News](. Hi, Iâm Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle covering innovation in and around higher ed. This week I report on the four ideas featured at our âShark Tank: Edu Editionâ pitchfest along with a few other thoughts I gleaned during SXSW EDU last week in Austin. Also, a reminder: The Edge is now publishing fortnightly. If you receive it via email on Wednesdays, youâll still get my reporting on the people and ideas reshaping the sector â every other week. If you are not yet receiving this free newsletter directly to your inbox, this is a great time to [subscribe](. Know someone else whoâd appreciate these takes on key questions in higher ed? Please pass the link to them. ADVERTISEMENT Upcoming Workshop [Join us this spring]( for a virtual professional development program on overcoming the challenges women leaders in academe face and creating a strategic vision for transformational change. [Reserve your spot today!]( Four ideas to widen access and improve learning. For eight years Iâve been inviting entrepreneurs and other education innovators to pitch ideas to make higher ed better during the annual SXSW EDU conference in Austin, and each time, I think of these presenters as bellwethers for the challenges folks are seeing in the sector. This year held true to form, as the four contestants in our âShark Tank: Edu Editionâ last week brought forth ideas to broaden access, better engage students, and maybe â just maybe â help stave off the extinction of humanities majors. After being sidelined by an injury in 2022, I was grateful to be back in the tank with fellow sharks Catharine (Cappy) Bond Hill, managing director of the nonprofit research consultancy Ithaka S+R, and Paul Freedman, an education entrepreneur and executive adviser at Guild Education. Neither the judges nor the audience offered investment money â just advice and commentary, which per one contestant, was more like âcordial nibblesâ than hard bites. What can I say? I guess deep down weâre softies for folks willing to put themselves out there for the cause. Here are the pitches and reactions: The idea: A model to help military veterans connect with higher education, presented by Jonathan (J.D.) Due, executive director of the [Center for Military Transition]( at the College of William & Maryâs business school. The pitch: Nearly 158,000 service members now leave the military every year. Building on William & Maryâs existing program, which helps ex-service members better understand their career and personal goals before they enroll in college, and connects them with a network of services and mentors, Due wants to expand to other institutions, especially in states like Florida, Texas, and Washington with military-heavy populations. The program supports veterans before enrolling at William & Mary, said Due, a 20-year Army veteran, but it will also help them make an âinformed choiceâ about going elsewhere. The reaction: No surprise that all the sharks liked this idea, which Hill praised for its potential to help veterans âmatch wellâ and avoid wasting their GI Bill benefits at colleges with low graduation rates. Our questions centered on the sustainability â and transferability â of the model, which is now largely supported by an alumnaâs gift to William & Mary. Right now, said Hill, too many selective colleges donât actively recruit veterans, but she suggested that by taking a page from programs like the [Posse Foundation]( and [QuestBridge]( which primarily help colleges recruit low-income students, this effort could expand to more colleges and also generate some revenue. âUniversities could pay you as an outsourced admissions office for the veterans,â she said. Freedman, meanwhile, cautioned that out-of-classroom support services wouldnât be enough if faculty members themselves werenât sufficiently attuned and empathetic to the needs and expectations of ex-military students. Itâs important, he said, âto get the faculty enlisted in this mission.â The idea: A tech tool for managing group assignments and deterring students from âfree-riding,â presented by Chris Du, co-founder and chief executive of [Ensightful](. The pitch: Born out of Duâs own frustration with classmates who werenât carrying their weight on a group project, this project-management tool helps students pace their work and see othersâ contributions, while also giving professors a view into how students are divvying up and completing their assignments (or not). Many students find grading of group projects unfair â just search for âgroup projectsâ on Reddit for a sampling of that sentiment, Du told the audience â and instructors have âvery little insightâ into the group dynamics on these assignments. The reaction: I was (and remain) intrigued by this idea, not only because Iâve experienced the frustrations of group projects, but also because I hear often from educators about the importance of these teaching approaches in an era when teamwork is an increasingly valued workplace skill. So I welcome anything that can make group projects more ubiquitous and fairer. But Hill raised some doubts. By giving professors the ability to grade students on their individual efforts, she told Du, âyouâve destroyed some of the lessons about teamworkâ and working collectively toward a collective end. âThis could create incentives not to work well as a team,â she said. The idea: A new model for community college, called Workshop U, that is built around experience-based courses, presented by Matthew Riggan, co-founder of [The Workshop School](. The pitch: Having seen too many graduates of its Philadelphia experimental high school âsloggingâ through college experiences that seemed unconnected to their lives â and plenty of other â21 and drifting kidsâ as well â Riggan and his colleagues are aiming to create a college-level program of field-based courses and mentorship that prepares students for a life of âsecurity, connection, and purpose.â Workshop U plans to start a small pilot program next year, in collaboration with accredited institutions, and try to expand to 500 students within five years. The reaction: No arguments from us about employing more-engaging teaching practices. In fact, Hill wondered why the program seemed aimed only at low-income students rather than all students. (Riggan said heâs learned that designing programs for students with the greatest social and economic needs typically make them effective for all, but âthe reverse does not work.â) With most or all its emphasis on skills like prototyping and teamwork, I wasnât sure where more-traditional course content might fit in, and how that might affect studentsâ ability to transfer to a four-year college. Riggan acknowledged âsome risks to thatâ in this model. The idea: A [âHumanities Plusâ]( curricular model that integrates courses in applied computing into majors like English, history, and theology, presented by Travis Ross, an assistant professor of history at George Fox University, in Oregon. The pitch: Proclaiming a liberal-arts education âthe most powerful tool that we have for upward social mobility,â Ross developed this interdisciplinary approach to encourage George Fox students to continue enrolling in such courses while also equipping them with key skills in programming and data science. The exact format is, in Rossâs words, still a little âloosey gooseyâ (it could involve some courses from the computer-science department, some peer teaching by students, and perhaps some data and programming projects overseen by college administrators), but Ross said itâs received the go-ahead from George Fox leaders. If you get students to major in history or English, he said, âtheyâll let you do just about anything.â Heâs hoping other institutions adopt the model, too, even though, he noted, âItâs not a major. Itâs not a minor. Itâs not a certificate.â The reaction: All the sharks appreciated that this model could, as Hill said, make both computer scientists and humanists stronger college graduates. And this humanities-plus idea is exactly the approach [Iâve been hearing labor-market analysts praise]( for several years. But the many unanswered questions here left us uneasy. For me and Freedman, the absence of any credential associated with the âplusâ skills seemed a lost opportunity for students to use the program as a signal to potential employers. And as Freedman noted, the central role Ross is playing on his campus is both a tribute to his skills as an entrepreneurial faculty member, but also a weakness. Ross knew the ropes well enough to get the idea to the launch pad, said Freedman, who also has been a consultant to colleges, but without a clear template for others to follow, it could be âreally hard to move it from institution to institution.â Want to learn more? Check out the whole session [here](. And if youâre curious about the conversation from our other session, on âHow Diverse Students Access and Thrive in College,â featuring leaders from the City Colleges of Chicago, One Million Degrees, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, you can find a recording of that [here](. Overheard at SXSW EDU Away from our pitchfest, I was struck by other comments I heard at the conference. I didnât buy them all, but here is some of what made me think. - In a session on â[Expanding Pathways in Postsecondary Education]( Julie Lammers, senior vice president for advocacy and corporate social responsibility at American Student Assistance, noted the ways that language â not just policy â sends signals about the value of programs. When âeverything is an alternative to college,â she said, that gives other offerings an air of being less worthwhile. Likewise, she argued, because short-term education programs arenât eligible for Pell Grants, that too colors the perception of their quality. (Of course, concerns about how to ensure such quality are at the core of the current debate over whether to extend the grants to such programs.) - Because funders these days seem enamored of projects that âscale,â I appreciated another moment in that same session when a speaker highlighted the merits of âsmall, inefficientâ programs, too. Thereâs no silver bullet, said Hudson Baird, co-founder and executive director of an Austin-based student-coaching program called PelotonU, so support is vital for grass-roots programs designed to meet various communitiesâ particular needs. (Iâve known Baird since he was [a contestant in our second âShark Tankâ in 2016)]( - During a live taping of an episode of Jeff Youngâs EdSurge podcast on â[Lessons from This âGolden Ageâ of Learning Science]( Barbara Oakley, a professor of engineering at Oakland University, in Michigan, suggested that every school of education should have a neuroscience division. The field is so integral to learning, she said, that âall teachers should have some understanding of that.â Was it really a âblack swanâ moment? Three years ago this week, I wrote a newsletter on [the unfolding âblack swanâ moment for higher ed,]( prompted by the spread of a novel coronavirus soon to be known as Covid-19. My predictions werenât all spot on, but some (especially around online ed and online services) have held up. Did yours? And pulling back the lens a bit: Will history see this pandemic as an inflection point for higher ed? Or will other factors (political interference, for one) ultimately be seen as more of a factor? Iâd love to hear your thoughts. Write me, [here](mailto:goldie@chronicle.com). Got a tip youâd like to share or a question youâd like me to answer? Let me know, at goldie@chronicle.com. If you have been forwarded this newsletter and would like to see past issues, [find them here](. To receive your own copy, free, register [here](. If you want to follow me on Twitter (yeah, for now at least, Iâm still there), [@GoldieStandard]( is my handle. NEWSLETTER [Sign Up for the Teaching Newsletter]( Find insights to improve teaching and learning across your campus. Delivered on Thursdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, [sign up]( to receive it in your email inbox. Goldieâs Weekly Picks FINANCE AND OPERATIONS [A University Had Big Goals for Expansion. Now, Itâs Drastically Cutting Back.]( By Dan Bauman [STORY IMAGE]( In recent years, Saint Leo University, in Florida, has lost half its student body, a third of its staff, and more than half of its satellite campuses. SPONSOR CONTENT | University of Birmingham [University of Birmingham Grows a Global Partnership]( POLITICS AND RACE [Lawmakers Expand Their Assault on Collegesâ DEI Efforts]( By Adrienne Lu [STORY IMAGE]( A Chronicle analysis shows a concerted effort in 13 states to dismantle the ways colleges recruit and retain students of color. 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