We have devoted a great deal of space to AI-related articles this past year.  AI is seemingly everywhere these days. Every week, we learn of a new application or adaptation of AI –and AI has been doing a lot of growing and becoming in the past year. AI is having a greater impact than ever – and is now coming to our online class LMS! I wanted to share a few recommendations to help you “move the needle” in addressing faculty/staff concerns as well as helping those learn how to effectively use AI.

AI Coming To Your LMS

There is an opinion piece this week that discusses the critical need to re-examine the traditional LMS in light of the arrival of AI. AI is – or at least should be – redefining what we teach and how we teach. This is true in the traditional classroom and needs to occur in the online classroom as well. I’d encourage checking out this article and then schedule a conversation with your LMS account representative to learn how your LMS is using/will be using AI and when these adaptations will occur. You need to plan and prepare – yes, your job and what you do is evolving as well. Ultimately, AI will help our faculty and instructional designers create ADA-compliant content, develop more engaging student material, provide assistance for your creation of content and for student projects and assignments, help create more complex course discussions, and will help faculty provide informed/detailed assessments of student work.  

‘Tis the Holiday Season – as your fall term rushes to the finish line, this is a great time of the year to let those you work with just how much you appreciate them! Certainly, you can do this anytime during the academic year, but the Holiday Season provides a wonderful backdrop to your efforts.

For years, our online program distributed an electronic greeting card at this time of year (usually a Jib-Jab primarily because it was fun-loving and we could include everyone from our department in the card. It can be a great way to express good wishes and appreciation to everyone you work with in a given year. There is a free version and also a subscription option.  Otherwise, there are also free ecard solutions to at least facilitate distribution.

Hi everyone, if you have not already done so, PLEASE take a few minutes to complete the 2025 ITC National Survey—we have greatly reduced the number of questions—and will instead conduct several (smaller length) surveys throughout the year. The data generated will help you to compare your program to national trends and practices.  PLEASE participate!!

How can it already be early December??  The terms seem to fly by. Our roles are complicated and demanding. It can be very challenging to keep track of time, and I’ve often found I thought I had more time for a project—and didn’t. 

The 2025 Fall term has raced by, AND you have never felt so overwhelmed with work, right? You are not alone. I hear from a surprising number of you. For some, it is the unexpected uptick in workload after a promotion. The surprising "7 days a week" attitude as you move up the administrative ladder is common. But the most common complaint is that the workload continues to increase – more online sections to serve more online students – and the need to train and support more online faculty, with no additional budget or staffing. Sadly, that too is VERY common.

We are, after all, unicorns. The administrative and staff roles of a Distance Learning program are still rather undefined. We don't really fit in the organizational chart either. We seemingly support everyone in academics and work with everyone in administration. We are NOT a silo operation; quite the contrary, we are everything, everywhere, all at once.

As we cycle through the fall national conferences and meetings related to EdTech (chief among them being Educause and WCET), the emerging consensus regarding AI in higher education includes:

• Generative AI is here to stay—as you will recall, I teach Political Science (Government) – I tell my students you may hate politics—you don’t have to like it, but you do need to understand it and get involved. The same is true for AI.
• Faculty are exercising strong influence over the specifics of implementing AI on our campuses. There are debates over appropriate parameters amongst faculty, on the administrative side of the house, not so much. Administrators tend to accept the inevitability of AI.
• Students want our colleges and universities to get our collective act together and help them to better prepare for the expectations and needs in the 21^st Century workplace
• AI will seemingly be everything, everywhere, all at once for the foreseeable future. Every software will eventually have an AI component.
• Users do not like the excessive power needs of AI and expect the industry to find ways to greatly reduce the power drain
• Effective, adaptive AI professional development training is needed for students, faculty and administrators

Given the rapidly changing nature of AI, attending a national edtech conference every year is highly recommended. If you are relatively new to attending a national conference. It is important to find the conference(s) that fit your specific needs. I remember attending a conference early in my career that was sponsored by a major brand—turned out to be a waste of time. It was excessively university-centric and solutions required a very large (40+) staff. I quickly learned that “right-sizing” was important to maximize the experience. For me, the ITC has always been my preferred annual conference.  It is community college focused, it is more affordable than the “big conference”, and I have been able to more effectively network. I also come back every year with great ideas, proven solutions and probably 15 new friends.  I hope you will consider joining us in Austin, T March 13-15. Take a minute to check out the specifics about the conference on our webpage.

We’ve discussed before the profound impact of The Pandemic on our community college online programs. I’ve had numerous conversations with administrators, designers and faculty – all have shared the trauma of the rapid full shift to online, the lack of staff and training to facilitate this, and the overwhelming day-after-day workload this represented. 

We are now “years” away from The Pandemic, but a variety of stress points are still present in our online programs. Specifically, the shift to fully online led to an increase in the number of faculty that wanted to teach online (it also increased the number of students as well). This fostered greater demand BUT our programs have not experienced increases in staffing, and especially have not been able to increase the number of instructional designers needed to address chronic issues with our online classes. Chronic issues????  Yes, for most of use, our online classes lack consistency, often are not compliance checked (ADA), are woefully lacking the benefits of professional design, and many of our faculty lack the training needed to create a learning experience that is engaging and embraces the unique needs of learning online. As a result, we have actually witnessed a decline in online student learning experience and completions.

Leading from the middle requires timing, and a sense of how to influence decisions.   It is a valuable skill-set and can help on a number of fronts, from maintaining staff  morale during difficult times to seizing on an opportunity – or addressing a problem - that many simply don’t recognize.

I wanted to speak to leaders this week.  Who qualifies?   All of you!!  Regardless of your role or position, anyone can step up to help advance the institution’s priorities.  Many may know this style of leadership as “leading from the middle”.   Authors like Scott Mautz focused on middle management positions, but honestly, anyone can ultimately influence the decision-making process.  Often, leading from the middle is most needed when the institution’s leadership team is distracted but it is also needed to enable new ideas that help the institution better serve its students.  It can and does take a village to keep an institution focused and functioning.