296 - Marni Baker Stein on What's Next For Higher Education

<p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Joining the podcast in this episode is Marni Baker Stein, Provost and Chief Academic Officer at the Western Governors University (WGU).</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">For over 25 years, Marni has been designing and scaling programs to improve access, affordability, and student success. Prior to joining WGU, she worked for educational institutions in the United States and abroad on the development and administration of pioneering high school, undergraduate, graduate, continuing, and professional programming models delivered through competency-based, online, and hybrid formats. Marni was selected by the Department of Education to serve as a member of the National Technical Working Group, charged with expanding the 2016 National Education Technology Plan and using technology to transform higher education.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Join in on today’s conversation as Tom and Marni talk about the future of higher ed and the role of advisors and skills. Marni shares experiences during her education as well as her career, how the learning model at WGU has changed in the last three years (and what’s next on the roadmap), about WGU’s new “achievement wallet” and how it will help transcript students’ competencies, how the education landscape has been shifting away from degrees to more skill-based progression (and what this means for traditional higher education), and much, much more.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><strong>Key Takeaways:</strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">[:10] About today’s episode with Marni Baker Stein.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">[1:05] Tom Vander Ark welcomes Marni to the podcast.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">[1:14] Why did Marni study French and Economics at Penn State University?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">[2:15] When Marni was pursuing her Ph.D. in