In our post-ITC Leadership Academy coaching sessions, we tend to take a deeper dive on leadership philosophies and styles.  I’m sure all of us have stood in front of the “leadership” section of Barnes & Nobles - - it is overwhelming to embrace the myriad of titles (and associated approaches) that have been published over the past forty years.  For instance, last week, I referenced the approach of “leading from the center”- which has prominence in higher education.  I asked AI how many books and articles have been published on the topic of leadership in business and higher education fields- the answer:  between 30-50,000 in the past 40 years!!!  Seriously…

Reading about leadership works well for some of us; others prefer actual leadership training (aka the ITC National Leadership Academy).  For most of us however, it is almost always the “cart before the horse” approach.  We are placed into a leadership role with no preparation, background, or training.  Our initial goal is simply to survive and figure it all out as we go.  In my case, I received my first training in leadership TEN YEARS after I stepped into leadership.  After all, many campuses simply don’t anticipate a need for actual training.  Rather, they promote the “sink or swim” approach - - and honestly, most of us figure out how to swim (administratively speaking).

This week’s ITC eNews digest includes a video of a presentation regarding “AI and the future of teaching, learning and work”.   The presentation is intended for campus leadership but I think you will find that it resonates at any level of the community college org chart.  After all, AI is having/will continue to have an impact everywhere.  I know there are colleagues that are concerned/somehow hope to prevent AI, but I don’t see any way to stop a global phenomenon like AI.  Rather, the challenge is helping our students – and colleagues – to devise appropriate guardrails, address ethical concerns, and to find ways to empower through the educational process and professional development.  After all, that is the role that higher education has always had in preparing students for the advances in technology. 

The arrival of AI also presents a significant challenge to our institutional leadership.  AI represents a paradigm shift that in turn challenges seemingly everything we do.  The AI challenge is one of a growing number of events and factors that has openly questioned the value and ROI of what we teach/the degrees we award/our relevance to the 21^st Century economy. 

I truly enjoyed my time in Eugene, Oregon last week.  Lane Community College hosted the annual ITC National Leadership Academy.  And then the annual ITC Summer Board meeting/retreat.  This year’s academy again featured an outstanding faculty AND equally outstanding participants!   It was a fabulous group – eager, engaged, inquisitive, and willing to take on the challenges of leadership. 

This was the seventeenth year of the ITC Leadership Academy.  The event has always featured 3 days of intense training sessions; and since the fourth year, it has also always included an Escape Room team-building/making decisions with a time-limit/just fun! activity as well.   Training sessions have evolved, but there are several “evergreen” topics of leadership to cover. 

This week, I am attending the Annual ITC Leadership Academy in Eugene. Oregon.  Lane Community College is this year’s host – and Ian Coronado is our “host with the most”.  Somehow, Ian has persuaded the Northwest weather to be outstanding, and the sessions are off to a wonderful start.  And you can only imagine how picturesque the Lane Community College campus is. 

The ITC Board views the annual leadership academy as perhaps our best benefit of membership.  The academy was launched in 2009, partnering with Costa Mesa Community College in California.  In the years since, we have traversed the country to bring the academy closer to our members in all regions of the US.  We even hosted an academy in Charlottetown, PEI Canada in 2014. Over the past seventeen years, we have held academies in California, Maine, Colorado (2), Nevada, Oregon (2), Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina (2), and Florida (2) and Prince Edward Island Canada. 

I had a wonderful conversation with our campus Distance Learning administrator yesterday.  We share a number of EdTech interests that most recently has included AI.  The conversation turned to how crazy busy she has been – not just this summer – but for the last several years. 

It has been relentless in terms of the big issues to address.  This past year, we served together on an accessibility taskforce to address the new regulations.  It was great that they were postponed BUT we had to assume the deadline was real and it required some heavy lifting to get it done on time.  And the Canvas cyberattack during your last week of spring classes really piled on what she had to deal with.  Not to mention program-related efforts to update online teaching standards, explore microcredential solutions, and work to structure quality improvements to our online classes.  All of that is layered on top of the normal online program workload in support of half of our campus enrollment. 

As a recovering administrator, I don’t spend as much time on campus as I used to.  Then, I seemed to spend all of my time on campus.  And one of my many roles was being the “Dean of Darkness” – responsible for the campuses after regular business hours.  As a community college, we offered classes weeknights and on Saturdays, but my role normally became relevant after 5:00 pm and before 8:00 am.  I’d be called to campus for a wide variety of reasons.  Things got easier when we created a police department – then I just got a lot of phone calls.

Now, when I am on campus, it feels very different.  As I review various sources each week to identify relevant articles to share with you, I have come across a growing number of “New Normal” articles – describing the many changes we are experiencing in higher education.  As we think about the “new normal” on our various campuses, faculty being less present on campus is a “new normal”.  Between the growth of online learning and the pandemic, faculty have become enamored of working from home.  Some institutions continue to allow telecommuting for administrators as well, so the halls just seem empty much of the time.  And it is easier to get a parking place closer to the buildings.

This is the last week the ITC is accepting applications for the 2026 Leadership Academy – the deadline is June 22^nd.  We have a great class of participants, but took advantage of some marketing of the event at the recent AI Teaching and Learning Conference hosted by Central Florida University.  So I wanted to make sure our members are aware of the extension as well.  The Academy is being hosted by Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon.  Ian Coronado is our “host with the most”.  The dates are July 13-15.  You can use this link to learn more about the Academy as well as the specifics of applying:  https://www.itcnetwork.org/distance-education-leadership-academy

Leslie Van Wolvestear, from Oakton College in Illinois, is responsible for getting the Academy together each year; the curriculum of the Academy is always reviewed and updated.  We have an amazing faculty again this year – and we are looking forward to our time together in Eugene.  This will be the 16^th year of the Academy; I always like to recognize the pioneering leadership of Ronda Edwards and Mickey Slimp; they co-chaired the Academy from its inception in 2009.  The ITC Board of Directors believes deeply in the Leadership Academy; launching this level of Professional Development was designed to better prepare Distance Learning leadership at community colleges.  Over the years, the Academy has attracted candidates from a variety of backgrounds and with an equal variety of career goals.  Consequently, the Academy has adjusted and now focuses on preparing leadership for careers in higher education.

I have a passion for “strained metaphors” and use them on a regular basis in the classroom.  Students sometimes audibly groan, but that only encourages me!   Metaphors provide more “aha” moments than most other teaching strategies.  It is important to know this so as to understand the following story - - metaphor.  

The Strained Metaphor:   My wife and I took a drive a week ago.  As we passed this pasture, I noticed the situation captured in the photo – essentially, a large number of cattle were grouped under the only shade tree in the pasture.  But there were a lot of cattle that apparently didn’t fit under that tree, so they were scattered hither and thither – and totally ignored by the cattle grouped under the tree.

By now, I assume many of you have reviewed this year’s Horizon Report; the annual report was released by Educause on May 18^th.   If you have not yet reviewed this year’s edition, I have provided a link:  The 2026 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report:  Teaching & Learning Edition.  Educause has been responsible for the annual report since 2017 – but the New Media Consortium (NMC) was the originator of the report, publishing the inaugural edition in 2005.  The Horizon Report has always focused on the bleeding edge of technology.  The report has always intended to provide a “heads up” as to what the emerging trends in new technologies were.  It was edgier in the beginning AND the ITC participated for several years in providing information about the trends at community colleges. 

This year, the Horizon Report is likely more of a “must read” than it has been in recent years.  As an article in this week’s eNews puts it, “Higher Ed’s warning light is flashing”!!!   As you might suspect, the winds of technological change are blowing at hurricane strength these days.  And many of our campuses seem to be living in a state of denial.  They indicate awareness, but can’t seem to see the forest for the trees. After all, there are many warning signs pointing towards tremendous change:

For many of us, the recent Canvas Ransomware attack was ill-timed (right at the end of our spring term) and unsettling.  Regardless of our LMS solution, we have had an odd complacency – because we had never had a disruption like this, we assumed immunity.   That complacency was seriously disrupted with this attack. 

It was reported that half of all colleges and universities are now on Canvas.  Since the disruption, a number of institutions have been looking to cancel contracts and pivot to another LMS solution.  To be honest, it really doesn’t matter what LMS you are using.  Actually, it doesn’t matter what third-party solution you are using for anything on your campus – be it your student information system or your accounting program.  Seemingly everything is vulnerable – cybersecurity has become a major concern.  And with the arrival of Generative AI, the variety and complexity of attacks are expected to increase exponentially.

The US Department of Education released the final regulation for the Workforce Pell Grant Program. This has been monitored closely since the launch of a major “redesign” of the program, and the related reduction in funding. The estimate is that $11 billion will be directed to this new approach, but that is substantially reduced from previous commitments AND there are numerous associated expenses that states are expected to cover (filling any funding gap from previous program, cost of collecting data from employers, students, etc. the actual certification process each governor must now put in place and the increased demands on program eligibility/requirements). 

I wanted to share some information – this is certainly not an EdTech issue – yes, online learning is used in some of the approved programs – but this is a big issue for our institutions. Given the changes, the number of Pell eligible career programs has been substantially narrowed.  There is also an accountability factor – ROI – for these career tracks.  There is a logic for doing this – but we have historically supported programs that are critical – like childcare  - even though the ultimate income does not correlate to the degree expected.

There are several articles this week about the recent Canvas Ransomware event.  For our campus, it occurred during the week before the last week of the spring term.  That week is a big deadline week – usually writing assignments are due.  We were disrupted – for a day.  Canvas contacted all of the campus IT and Distance Learning administrators with the guidance to not have anyone try to log in.  Our president also sent out a campuswide message.  And we waited.  I sent a campus email message to each of my classes to reassure – I’m not a deadline guy and my students already know that, but many indicated they appreciated the reaffirmation that all of my dropboxes are open until the last day of the class.  Turned out, that worked very well and reduced any angst.

Many of us are on Canvas – it has 41% of the market share in higher education with over 9000 individual institutions.  Plus some 3000 K-12 schools as well.  And the sad reality is that any of the LMS solutions – as well as our various enterprise services on our campuses – are vulnerable to this type of an attack.  In fact, with the arrival of AI, the risk of ransomware attacks has increased.

As you know, ITC has offered an outstanding Leadership Academy for the past eighteen years.  We have now had nearly 300 complete the training, and have offered the Academy from St. Petersburg FL to Milwaukee, Wi; from Asheville NC to Portland, ME; from Reno, NV to Costa Mesa, CA; from Minneapolis, MN to Buffalo, NY;  from Portland OR to Ft. Worth TX; and from Glassboro, NJ to Charlottetown PEI Canada. 

This year, the ITC Leadership Academy will be hosted at Lane Community College in Eugene, OR.  The three-day training has a robust schedule of sessions designed to prepare the next generation of leadership.  Over the years, we have had a wide variety of participants with a wide variety of backgrounds.  Certainly, we do include Distance Learning and Technology, BUT we prepare leadership to lead ANY program or department. 

The recent Federal Government announcement that Title II Accessibility compliance was being delayed for a year was quite a surprise.  I know so many of you had been working so hard this past year to ensure you would be ready by the original deadline – I actually heard more frustration than relief.

Why?  For those who work directly in the world of accessibility compliance, it has often been hard to get others on campus to buy into what is needed to comply.  The Federal deadline had finally gotten everyone on the same page – and the unexpected delay, may now be counter-productive to the progress made.   There can be no expectation that the new deadline for next year will be extended, so it remains “all hands on deck” in identifying deficiencies and framing a set of solutions most appropriate for your institution.  

At this year’s ITC National Annual Conference, Ian Coronado and I presented on the results of the 2025 national survey.  For any of you that have been members for any length of time, you know that the ITC has conducted an annual survey since 2004 – focused on Distance Learning, it surveyed consistent data points to build a longitudinal understanding of the challenges and successes of Distance Learning at America’s community colleges.  We missed a beat during the first year of the pandemic – we were all very distracted at that time – but have otherwise annually reported the seemingly continuous growth of Distance Learning.

Our membership has repeatedly expressed appreciation for the data – our survey results have been used extensively at many campuses to improve budgets, staffing and/or adoption of key practices to improve the quality and success of Distance Learning.  Our membership also pointed out that completing the annual survey was becoming a struggle – so many questions!!

When I served as our campus’ dean of WebCollege, I was able to enshrine a set of “Standards for Teaching Online”.  Honestly, it was edgy for the time.  And the proposal met with headwinds from those that wanted as limited set of expectations as possible.  Nonetheless, the Online Standards were adopted and have provided a baseline of quality for the past several years.

Fast-forward to this semester, and the WebCollege Committee – now a standing committee of the Faculty Senate – has been developing a set of updates and timely improvements to the original document.  I had the opportunity to review their draft – and was very pleased to see how they had further strengthened – and expanded the document.  It still has to go before the Faculty Senate for approval, but keeping my fingers crossed.

For those of you that joined us in Austin, Texas for the ITC Annual National Conference – thank you!!!  It was a wonderful conference – and represented the ITC’ return to staging our annual conference on a community college campus.  A major “tip of the ITC hat” to our host, Matt Evins, the director of Academic Technology at Austin Community College. He, and his wonderful staff, made everything work and flow so well. The tech support was wonderful, the food and refreshments were wonderful, the Highland Campus (one of twelve campus locations) was gi-normous but worked well for our conference.  As you can imagine, most of the board members were immersed in selecting session applications, arranging for keynote speakers, coordinating the Grand Debate or the Awards Ceremony, hosting/participating in our “power panel session, recruiting exhibitors, creating awards and give-aways, planning receptions and facilitating sessions.   And the ITC board leaders were “everything, everywhere, all at once” for the entire conference.  All deserve a hale and hearty “Hizzah!!” for a fabulous job!

There were many highlights at the conference, but some of our best news concerned the introduction of our new ITC management team as well.  No surprise here – you’ve been interacting with our team:  Craig and Holly, as they helped with membership renewals and conference registrations over the past eight months – as well as fielding any questions or needs from our membership. But to make this sound official, we formally introduce:

As you know, I have been connecting with you every week for a long time now.  This adventure started in November 2015 – I’ve mused in the past that I have a knack to commit to projects that just keep going. I did the first ITC National Distance Learning Survey in 2004 – had Ian Coronado and I just reported out the 21^st survey results at the recent ITC conference (the results will be shared with all members – Ian has developed a wonderful infographic! And this weekly endeavor is like a Timex watch – it just keeps ticking!  

One of my absolute joys is seeing so many of you at the annual conference. And you have been so kind to indicate your commitment to reading the weekly tomes. I appreciate any feedback, and I feel that the weekly communication has pulled us closer together over the past 10+ years.   I’ve been told that especially career and job related topics seemingly are so well-timed and resonate just when you needed to know that you weren’t alone. I get it. I’m a recovering administrator and have dealt with an abundance of crazy over time. I’ve been lucky over the years and enjoyed the many administrators I worked with. But enrollment downturns and budget cuts are brutal.  As the need to consolidate vacant positions accelerates, remaining administrative positions transform into an amalgamation of responsibilities – and workload.  For me, it hit after the 2008 recession. My dream administrative job became overwhelming.  At ITC board meetings, I often updated what my job entailed – it kept changing and represented such an eclectic combination of responsibilities. The list would not fit on a business card, and I indicated my title had become the “dean of stuff”. 

The arrival of AI has had a very disruptive impact on our campuses and Distance Learning programs. We all know that disruption is not necessarily bad; but in the realm of higher education, it can be. 

Higher education is, after all, very resistive to change. Always has been and regrettably, always will be. In conversations, I have often used the example of Colleges of Education (not sure if this is a controversial topic for us – perhaps once you digest my view on this it will be?). All of us know we have a crisis in K-12 education.  Personally, I’ve always blamed the Colleges of Education which have boldly been leading us into the early 20^th Century of thought and practice for the past 75 years! The approach has diminished content expertise (the basis for teaching prior to the rise of Colleges of Education) and focuses on ritual and bureaucracy rather than learning how to teach and manage the modern classroom (few lessons on how/what to teach, no training on dealing with classroom disruptive behavior or disruptive parents both of which dominate these days).  

We fully understand that many community colleges are dealing with budget issues right now, and that attending a national conference is not possible/no travel funds available. That said, we did have a wonderful conference in Austin, Texas last week (March 13-15). It was hosted at the Austin Community College Highland Campus. The location was unique and is known nationally because it was a failed retail mall complex that ACC has been revitalizing for the past 10 years.  It was downright exciting to spend the entire conference in that space, along with the fantastic hospitality of ACC staff. 

This was our first conference hosted at a community college. Like many national organizations, the ITC has taken a financial hit at hotel-based conference space. It has become so expensive – OLC actually filed bankruptcy because of this reality last year. The ITC Board of Directors decided to return to a practice the ITC has used originally – meeting at community colleges. It is essential to have a hotel within walking distance (or to have a transportation plan), but the result was a wonderful experience for attendees as well as a significant cost-savings from the traditional hotel conference model.