Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Joshua Meredith: Maybe a laboratory that's being underutilized. When there's a laboratory
across campus that's being overutilized, all of that data is something that I know administrators
can get access to, but can they see the holistic picture? And I think that is something that we are
helping, we're helping institutions do that. I think there are institutions who want to do this right.
They just don't have a path to do it. Right now if you look at something and we've gone
something hyper specific like classroom.
[00:00:31] Jeff Dillon: Today's guest is a multifaceted expert in higher ed.
Joshua Meredith, J.D. is a client relationship executive focusing on higher education in New York
State with Deloitte Consulting. For more than 12 years, Joshua has worked at and with
institutions to help them overcome technology and strategy based challenges. Before coming to
Deloitte in early 2023, Joshua worked as the Senior Director of Career Advising at Yeshiva
University and previously as the Assistant Dean for Analytics, Technology and Security
Programs at Georgetown. In addition to his role as an administrator, Joshua has been a faculty
member since 2015 and currently teaches courses in workplace technology and leadership
ethics at Georgetown and Muhlenberg College. He previously taught at Yeshiva University and
Montclair State University.
Joshua has a passion for empowering administrators, faculty and students through technology.
For the majority of his career, he has worked to find solutions and implement them at his
business units with his clients. In addition to his duties in New York, Joshua works to support
Deloitte's efforts at the George Washington University and Syracuse University. He is alum of
both.
Joshua, it is great to have you on the pod today. Thanks for being here.
[00:01:59] Joshua Meredith: Thanks for having me. Jeff. I really appreciate the opportunity to come
and speak with you in the audience.
[00:02:03] Jeff Dillon: So you have had a diverse journey from law to higher ed and now to
consulting at Deloitte.
What's one unexpected lesson you've carried through each career chapter?
[00:02:17] Joshua Meredith: And Jeff, I think that's really interesting because I have had all these
chapters and one of the things I learned early on is the people that you meet, no matter where
you are in your career, they always come back around to either affect your career or life in some
way. And I think that's a really unexpected message that I don't think people, people think that
they're may having a one time transactional conversation or they may meet someone and they'll
never meet them again.
[00:02:42] Speaker C: Right?
[00:02:42] Joshua Meredith: That happens to me all the time where I meet someone on an airplane or
in a new city and then years later I have come back around with them and I think it's a really
interesting, you know, sort of life point, because everybody you meet, you may meet them again
and they may be really integral to your life. It's happened to me so many times. It's just. It's
something that really sticks with me.
[00:03:03] Jeff Dillon: Yeah, that's a great one. I haven't heard that one for a while. I have kids
that are. That are just out of college and I'm. You don't realize that until you've been in the world
on this earth a little bit longer and you're like, wow, I didn't speak the small world. I like that
advice.
[00:03:16] Speaker C: Right.
[00:03:16] Joshua Meredith: Jeff, you've probably experienced in your life where you've met someone
and then you've met them in a completely different area of your life later on.
[00:03:22] Speaker C: Right.
[00:03:23] Joshua Meredith: And the connection, you immediate. Your brain can't make the connection
immediately, but eventually it comes around to it.
[00:03:28] Speaker C: Right.
[00:03:28] Joshua Meredith: I think that is. That's been very interesting for me.
[00:03:31] Jeff Dillon: The short way to say it is don't burn any bridges, everybody.
So what drew you to Deloitte and what excites you most about your current role as the client
relationship execration in the higher ed sector?
[00:03:42] Joshua Meredith: Yeah, Jeff, a really, really good question, and for a lot of people, that was
the question they asked me when I came over to Deloitte two and a half years ago. And why
would I do this in my career? And what was the precipice for doing. And I think what was really
interesting for me, I was working with one institution and teaching and several others, and I
decided that I wanted to work with more institutions, right. I wanted to really broaden, you know,
what I could do to help a higher education sector now. Everything in the higher education sector
has changed since I've made this move, which has made it even more interesting.
[00:04:13] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:13] Joshua Meredith: We've seen political factors, we've seen financial factors, and we've seen
definitely, I think from a college athletics perspective, so much change. And you know, one of the
things that I said to myself was I wanted to push myself and challenge myself at this point in my
career. So how many institutions can I go and are going to have a positive effect on that
administration, which then will trickle down to the students? Because you can work with one
2000, 4000 seat institution, you can have some effect. What happens when you're working with
multiple institutions of 10 and 20,000? And that's really been what has been driving me. I think
one of the things I find most interesting about my role is I get to go and talk to people at various
different points of their career at various different institutions.
[00:04:59] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:59] Joshua Meredith: It's great to talk to someone who's at a 2,000 person institution.
[00:05:03] Speaker C: Right.
[00:05:04] Joshua Meredith: They have their challenges in making sure that their students are
achieving. Then you talk to someone who has 20,000 students.
[00:05:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:05:11] Joshua Meredith: And 8,000 employees. And their challenges are completely different. That
dichotomy and being able to often speak to them on the same day I think really is a driver for
me. I think it's a really interesting career.
[00:05:23] Jeff Dillon: It's similar to my story. I jumped out of higher ed five years ago from two
large public institutions back to back over 20 years, and it was the same story. I want to help
more institutions. Like I felt a little in a box, you know, I felt like, gosh, I can't make change fast
enough, it's moving too slow. I'd love to help more. So it's definitely. I get the feeling of maybe
even a faster pace too.
[00:05:46] Joshua Meredith: Yes.
[00:05:47] Jeff Dillon: So you've spent over a decade working directly with universities.
How has that insider experience shaped how you now serve higher ed from the other side?
[00:05:57] Joshua Meredith: Yeah, and the thing that I always sort of root back to and is one of the
hallmarks of sort of who I am is I'm just an administrator working in a different world now.
[00:06:06] Speaker C: Right.
[00:06:06] Joshua Meredith: I understand the day to day challenges of the people working on the
ground at our academic institutions in the college space.
[00:06:15] Speaker C: Right.
[00:06:16] Joshua Meredith: These folks are dedicated folks to our students.
Public, private, four year, two year.
I know who they are and I know what they're experiencing. I know the challenges and then I
know the successes. You know, Jeff, I always said that the best day of the year for any
academic administrator is commencement day.
[00:06:32] Speaker C: Right.
[00:06:33] Joshua Meredith: The day that where you see our students come to the final achievement.
Right. And move out into the world off our campus. I've been there.
[00:06:40] Speaker C: Right.
[00:06:40] Joshua Meredith: And that is something that's so important to me is to maintain and
understand where our academic administrators are sort of working. I also think that I've been in
the classroom for a very long time, over a decade now, and I talk to students, I can see where
they're struggling and where they're thriving. And that ability to really spend time to look at all
three facets of the academic experience. The administrator, the faculty member, and then the
person who's coming here to learn, the student. That's what drives me. And I think that kind of
insight helps me with our clients here at Floyd Higher Ed. And I think it helps my career overall.
And really I think it aids our clients.
[00:07:23] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:23] Joshua Meredith: I know exactly what they're going through and we're doing the
comprehensive study to go to those campuses and understand the individual issues that are
affecting that campus.
[00:07:32] Jeff Dillon: Well, let's get into it now. How is Deloitte helping colleges and universities
adapt to the rapidly evolving expectations of digital these days? Give us some examples of what
you're doing.
[00:07:44] Joshua Meredith: Yeah, and I think there's some really interesting things that we're definitely
doing. So, first of all, well, we've come to, I think, the end of a life cycle on sort of the ERP
systems that have been in place since the early 2000s.
[00:07:55] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:56] Joshua Meredith: And it doesn't matter where. We agnostically work with every system, and
those systems have lived their life, and it's time to now upgrade and replace them with things
that will allow for more interconnectivity with your data and with your process. I think that's so
important to the modern campus. You talk to people in both public and private institutions that
must log on to a computer.
[00:08:19] Speaker C: Right.
[00:08:19] Joshua Meredith: In order to. To process time cards, payroll, registration requests. There's
nothing mobile. And many of these campuses, that's something that we need to change. We
need to change it for the administrator, and we need to change it for the student who wants to be
able to register on their device. Okay. That, I think is huge.
Second, data on many campuses is a cavernous hole that people don't have a really good
understanding of where it all lies and how it all comes together. I think we're seeing the
beginnings of a revolution in higher ed where that data will become more usable and will be
more, you know, essentially being able to put it together into one big piece. I think AI helps with
that.
[00:09:01] Speaker C: Right.
[00:09:02] Joshua Meredith: And the automation that can come with AI to bring multiple data sets
together. Universities have great big data. Every time you swipe that key card right. At an
entryway or in a dining hall, it creates a data point. Now, there are obviously some concerns
about the privacy on some of that data, which is very important to both every campus and to our
firm here at Deloitte. But those data points are important in understanding where students are on
your campus and also understanding what students really need in terms of academics, student
life.
[00:09:33] Speaker C: Right.
[00:09:34] Joshua Meredith: Housing, you know, health. All of that, I think, is really, really important. I
think that's where we're spending a lot of time right now. How do we build systems where
campuses and administrators get the data that they need, Right. In order to make actionable
decisions in a smarter way?
[00:09:48] Jeff Dillon: Yeah, that's. That makes sense to me. I'm thinking about my experience
when I was at My last institution we used, we had PeopleSoft and it was kind of a nightmare. I
was part of a 23 campus system. We all were on PeopleSoft and I don't think there's always a
desire to get off of PeopleSoft, but I think it was just too behemoth of a project.
So the System's still on PeopleSoft but you work extensively with student information systems.
What common challenges do institutions face when they're integrating or upgrading these
systems? You mentioned a little bit of it already.
[00:10:24] Joshua Meredith: Yeah, I think this is a really interesting time for, for student information
systems. Every student information system I've ever seen and that I've ever worked with has
been customized to that institution in some way, right? It has been, to use a popular term, it's
been jailbroken, right? To fit the institution that it currently is residing in, which is great. The
institutions need that, they need that flexibility in order to create the schedules, build the system
that their institution needs.
However, when you do that, right, that creates a legacy system that is unique to one institution.
And I think that is where a lot of institutions need to think about, right? Where can, how are we
going to upgrade our systems to allow for things like mobile, to allow for better LMS connectivity
and integration to really build in a full student sort of success factors around that SIS that can
really help the students grow in the way that we want them to.
[00:11:21] Speaker C: Right?
[00:11:21] Joshua Meredith: We hear from students across the board and we hear from administrators
across the board. We want more micro credentials, more badging, more, you know, interior. So
during the four year or two year experience certificate programs and we maybe want more, I
don't know, experiential learning. Without a modern and available sis, that becomes a real
struggle for that institution. And I think that is where I would suggest, come in, let's do some
assessment work. Let's understand where your campus is right now and let's see where we can.
What's the opportunity, what's the future for your system?
[00:11:57] Jeff Dillon: So I'm thinking some examples that I've run into, I talked to a lot of R1s
and R2s and these larger schools seem to be in the same boat in that they're all siloed, right?
Almost. The larger they are, the more siloed they are. Certain colleges of law and medicine have
their own budgets. They can do whatever they want. They're going to be siloed, We've all kind of
accepted that. But from the user's perspective, from the student, when you're trying to navigate
a university and they are so Siloed. It creates such a disjointed experience if the university isn't
really on top of it, which most of the time it's just almost impossible for university to really kind of
make that seamless user experience, kind of build that out. What's your recommendation at this
point for these decentralized schools that, you know, talking about digital experience platforms
or are there, do you do custom builds or how do you handle that situation? If you deal with those
front end technology?
[00:12:52] Joshua Meredith: Yeah, I think DXP digital experience. Right. And platforms that bring
together and really unify that student experience. The institutions that are going to be successful
moving forward are going to have those things in place. So they're going to be well versed in
building those systems internally, spending and I know it's time capital and it's money capital in
order to do that. There is nothing that can really change your campus faster than building, at
least on the front end visually for the students, a system that is unified.
[00:13:24] Speaker C: Right.
[00:13:25] Joshua Meredith: The worst thing that we can have right now is a student needs to use 20
links, right. To manage their student experience.
I mean, that is antiquated.
You log on to Amazon.com or you log on to somewhere, another website, or you use an app. It's
all integrated. And our universities need to get to that. How do we do that from a decentralized
standpoint? We have to build some communities together. And that's a change management
process that I think is coming. I think there has been over the last few years, you've seen a little
bit of an aging of sort of maybe the administrator age at a university.
[00:13:57] Speaker C: Right.
[00:13:58] Joshua Meredith: And we've seen that across the country.
This is a time where some of those folks, I think, are going to either opt out of their current roles.
[00:14:05] Speaker C: Right.
[00:14:06] Joshua Meredith: Or there'll be some retirement. And when that vacuum needs to be filled,
let's fill that not with centralization, right. Not without taking out people's jobs, but with a system
internally at our institutions that can really, from a change management perspective, take on a
project that makes the integrated student portfolio and process seamless.
[00:14:26] Speaker C: Right.
[00:14:27] Joshua Meredith: That's what the student, I think is looking for. You see institutions that are
really thriving in our current university and college economic environment. The ones that are
thriving are the ones who are making sure that their students have a seamless experience and
an experience that was really, I wouldn't say without, without flaw, but it's a process that can
really grow with them and provide them the support they need. You know, Jeff, we always talk
about in higher ed, right? Mental health support. It's impossible to provide mental health support
if we don't know where the students are in their academic journey and being on a campus, it's an
academic journey, but it's also a journey with a student who's going through massive change in
their life. And we have to be able to support both.
Systems like that really allow us to do that. What do I think about is, hey, can we build a
committee of the willing, right? Who wants to do this? We do the assessment work, we look at
the technology products and then we implement those technology products and then we
support. You know, the last thing I want to have happen is, for example, Deloitte comes in, does
a project and then leaves the campus and is never seen again. That's not being a supportive
partner.
[00:15:34] Jeff Dillon: Yeah, no, that's. I see that all too often. It's, you need a partner. Let's talk
about the data. You know, you're, you're calling out, like, institutions have all this data.
They don't know what to do with it often or they don't have the ability. What role does data play
in empowering higher ed leaders to make smarter, more strategic decisions?
[00:15:52] Joshua Meredith: Let's give this an example because I think that that will help sort of
everyone who is maybe listening here.
[00:15:56] Speaker C: Right?
[00:15:57] Joshua Meredith: We have really rich data on. We have 25 seats in classroom. 118 of the
seats are filled. So that means we have seven seats that are open. Well, now we know.
Maybe we should have put this group in a class of 20, right. In a room for 20 and taken the class
that's full at 30, bumped them up to an even larger room. Space requirements on campus have
become really interesting, I think over the years. We have more virtual and zoom classes.
[00:16:23] Speaker C: Right?
[00:16:24] Joshua Meredith: We have more students who are joining in a hybrid format. So space, for
example, is something that we can study and build data around. Let's think about that for a
second. We have registration data. We have students entering classrooms. We can track some
movement in and out of that classroom. Not by student.
[00:16:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:16:41] Joshua Meredith: Just by bodies that come in. And finally, we could look at a heat map of
what that class really looks like.
[00:16:46] Speaker C: Right?
[00:16:46] Joshua Meredith: You could put sensors, smart sensors in that room to get a good
understanding of what's going on there. Let's think about what data we create from that
perspective. We know how many seats are open. We know scheduling data. We also know,
look, that room needs to be heated in the winter and cooled in the spring and summer,
depending on where your climate is. There's maintenance that may be needed on Said room. It
may be a laboratory that's being underutilized. When there's a laboratory across campus that's
being overutilized, all of that data is something that I know administrators can get access to, but
can they see the holistic picture? And I think that is something that we are helping. We're helping
institutions do that. I think there are institutions who want to do this right. They just don't have a
path to do it. Right now if you look at something and we've done something hyper specific like
classroom that.
[00:17:32] Speaker C: Right.
[00:17:32] Joshua Meredith: Which is something I love and I've been studying for many, many years.
We got to think about how we do that, especially urban schools that are losing space and public
institutions and private institutions on large land grant campuses who are thinking about building
new space. Well, what happens if we're not utilizing 40% of our classrooms right now? Can we
reutilize them instead of building 150, $250 million, you know, building. That's what a building is
going to cost nowadays. Can we build more and share an integrated space?
You know, I remember when I was in college, I lived in a dorm for my final two years. There was
half dorm and half classroom.
[00:18:10] Speaker C: Right.
[00:18:11] Joshua Meredith: There was classrooms, there was dorms. They connected. I think that's
an interesting model. Someone had clearly looked at the data on housing.
[00:18:17] Jeff Dillon: Yeah, yeah. I like the example of the classroom example you used there.
It makes me think of your background as faculty. You taught over 30 sections as an adjunct
professor.
How do you see this relationship between academic faculty and tech adoption evolving?
[00:18:34] Joshua Meredith: I mean, I think, you know, look, I've taught in the classroom, I've taught on
zoom. I think if you're a faculty member in the modern context, we are moving to hybridity. And I
think there are economic factors around it.
There's data factors around it, and I think there's socioeconomic and political factors around
hybridity. And I think that is really interesting right now. And if you're not optimizing your physical
space for hybridity, I would probably say build less classrooms and build more technical
classrooms. The days of you sitting in front of all 30 students physically face to face, that day is
it's not over, but we're going towards a future where it may not exist for a variety of different
factors. And I think some students actually prefer it. And that's, that's okay considering the cost
of institution and housing. I understand, you know, why that is happening. Data for faculty is
something that they, I think every faculty member can respect and understand.
[00:19:32] Speaker C: Right.
[00:19:33] Joshua Meredith: These are people who have masters of their craft.
[00:19:35] Speaker C: Right.
[00:19:36] Joshua Meredith: It just needs to be reported to them in a way that I think is digestible and
is actually usable to make their class better. I think that is the key metric how a faculty member,
you know, will probably be not receptive to the data if they don't think it's going to make their
class stronger for whatever 15 or 30 lectures throughout the semester. I think if you talk to a
faculty member and say, hey, these are three things that the data show to make your class a
better one, to make student outcomes improve, I think that will be a real message that you can
sell on your campus.
[00:20:10] Jeff Dillon: Yeah. My thinking is that the pandemic was a real shakeout for a lot of
faculty because I would see the back when I was at my university, I would see the griping about
change. Faculty don't like change. A lot of them, they're set in their ways. I mean this is such a
traditional institution itself, academia, and you kind of have to adopt this change is happening so
you either jump on board or you're going to get left behind is what I've seen. There's a lot still are
not quite there yet, but I agree with that perspective.
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[00:21:15] Speaker C: What.
[00:21:15] Jeff Dillon: Are some of the most forward thinking uses of data or analytics you've
seen.
[00:21:20] Joshua Meredith: Recently in higher I'm seeing a lot of advancement in data being used
around collegiate athletics, how to fund, how to fill seats. In both the, I would say the revenue
generation sports of football and basketball, men's and women's and the versatility Olympic
sports, you're seeing a data revolution in higher ed athletics that has not existed before.
You know, these were, you know, an institution would find its players through traditional
recruiting models or pipelines as they are called. And now I think we're seeing large scale
change in that sector in order for more data to be shared. I think you're going to see the
valuation portal that our firm is working towards I think will be transformative in the space.
And I do think that you're going to see with the now paying of players plus nil dollars, you're
going to see just a host of data being shared among institutions, among conferences in order for
everyone to try to not make it equal, but everyone trying to at least build upon what they have
And I think those, the institutions that sort of harness that data, the best, are probably going to
win on the field as well, or the court, or whatever it may be. I think that is really interesting time
for that because it's just not something that was harnessed in the way that it's currently being
harnessed. I also think one thing that I think is really interesting is you're seeing budget
institutions think about fleet management in a way they haven't before.
Some institutions are among the largest car, bus, tram owners in their respective area. And I
think they're looking at that. And there are real dollar implications around sort of that that I think
are interesting.
I own my own personal vehicle, but what is it like to own 60 buses, I think is really interesting.
Buses that go, some that are campus bound, some that leave campus.
[00:23:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:23:14] Joshua Meredith: And how do we track and manage all of that data? And I think you're
seeing mass sort of change in that space as well. And then I think finally AI usage within a
campus. If you own an Nvidia machine or any other sort of gpu, it costs a lot of money to run it. It
costs a lot of money to cool it. How are we maximizing it for both the research elements, the
administration and the students on that campus? Because that machine is Open for usage 365
days a year, 7 days a week, 24 hours, every single moment of every single day is available.
Well, there's energy costs that go with that.
[00:23:52] Speaker C: Right.
[00:23:53] Joshua Meredith: There's time and attendance costs that go with that. And there's upkeep
and maintenance.
[00:23:57] Speaker C: Right.
[00:23:58] Joshua Meredith: And I think all of those, I think data factors around sort of how we run your
GPU on your campus is going to be huge.
[00:24:04] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:05] Joshua Meredith: I think about what I'm seeing in the state of New York with Empire AI,
which is the governor's sort of system, to build a coalition of institutions that are building AI
together. That's a very interesting model considering how much a GPU costs and how much it
costs to run it.
[00:24:23] Jeff Dillon: On this GPU aspect you're talking about, are you referring to schools that,
that have GPUs on, on their campus, or are you just talking about, in General these big LLMs
that have banks of them as a, as a resource, I.
[00:24:36] Joshua Meredith: Think it's a little bit of both. Right. So we have some schools have gotten
the subscription model, right? Um, you know, the outsourced model where they're using a large
LLM that they purchased or they purchased time and rented on someone's sort of system. And
then there's the institutions that have bought supercomputers.
[00:24:51] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:51] Joshua Meredith: So that they can manage it themselves. And I think you're going to see
overall, the cost will continue to come down of buying the actual physical unit, despite the fact
that you do need a data center around it. And there's a bunch of energy and cooling costs that
go around it. Institutions will buy their own, and when they buy their own, the management
around that is interesting. It's like any laboratory piece.
[00:25:11] Jeff Dillon: Is that still a pretty elite group of schools that are building their own AI
data centers right now or.
[00:25:17] Joshua Meredith: Yeah, look, I think it's going to be mostly our ones.
[00:25:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:21] Joshua Meredith: It's probably going to be mostly land grant institutions, but I do know of
private institutions who, I would say you wouldn't consider them to be the cream of the crop.
[00:25:30] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:31] Joshua Meredith: They're not in that top 20 range. They're a little bit lower than that. Great
academic institutions with great research profiles. They're buying their own. Their own
machines. Why are they buying their own machines? I think some of them are saying that this is
a cybersecurity concern. They want to own it, they want to feel it on the campus. It's also, if
you're thinking from an academic research perspective, it's sort of a crown jewel of potentially
your academic computing. I think that is really valuable to an institution that maybe is an R2 it
wants to become an R1 or an R1 that needs a differentiation point on its campus.
[00:26:02] Jeff Dillon: Well, let's talk about some of your experience at some of these elite
institutions like Georgetown. You led the Hoya hacks at Georgetown for years, how events like
hackathons influenced innovation and culture in higher ed.
[00:26:16] Joshua Meredith: Yeah, I think, Jeff, it's changed immensely from when I started to now.
[00:26:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:26:20] Joshua Meredith: Because we're in a post pandemic world where many students that are in
college now had, I would say, either a stunted middle school or high school experience, you
know, that was cut short, especially those in the Northeast where schools were closed for much
longer than other parts of the country. Those students need the ability to come together and
work together in teams to understand and better adapt to a workplace where. And it really a
culture where we're working together in teams to build innovative products. And I think Hoya
hacks has been sort of the hallmark of that. And I think hackathons in general, I know the
hackathon season sort of starting in the next few weeks really across the country. What I always
say, as sort of someone who's been in the hackathon world for a very long Time is that
innovation comes from 2, 3, 4, 5 people sitting down, trying to break down a problem and
thinking about creative ways to solve it. And that's where hackathons are really, really valuable.
Look, computing power, coding skills, very important. It's the problem solving skills that a
hackathon teaches you in a short amount of time that makes them really valuable to students.
And I think companies who are recruiting in hackathons who still are attending still using that as
a basis point for, you know, their interns and their hires, I know that they're getting stronger
employees out of it. And I think that's also really a big hallmark of the hackathon world.
[00:27:45] Jeff Dillon: Yeah, yeah. So the AI part of it. I'll go back to that. You talked about the
GPU kind of resource. Your thoughts on that. But stepping it back to your our identification of the
the audiences higher ed serves, you know, students and faculty and all the other communities.
What aspect of AI do you think higher ed could benefit from the most right now that maybe
they're not looking at?
[00:28:09] Joshua Meredith: We've seen institute large institutions are growing, right?
[00:28:12] Speaker C: Right.
[00:28:13] Joshua Meredith: So public land grant R1s are definitely in a growth period of student
enrollment. With student enrollment needs, you need more advisors generally.
[00:28:22] Speaker C: Right.
[00:28:22] Joshua Meredith: You need career, academic health, mental health and other areas of sort
of development.
The ability to go out and hire strong advisors in any of those fields is both timely, costly and
difficult. So how do we take the current batch of advisors that we have, 20, 30, 40 people,
maybe on your campus, maybe more depending on the institution. How do we give them AI tools
to make their job easier? I was an advisor for years. Right. I had hundreds of students in my
advising portfolio and then I had some people who worked with me to break down that portfolio
even smaller. I'm seeing, and I think we probably could do some research with NASPA to show
that the number of students per advisor is going up. If it's going up, we got to give them tools. AI
in my opinion, and I think in many's opinion is a tool. It's a tool that can help in a bunch of
different ways to help advisors either gain depth and understanding, organize right. Their
advisees and just make sure that they're having a touch point with that said student.
[00:29:23] Speaker C: Right.
[00:29:23] Joshua Meredith: You're seeing more automated reports potentially out of the LMS on that
campus to show students at risk. We can learn a lot from automated AI intelligence on hey,
where's the student interacting on campus? I saw an institution that was looking at micro data
from the gym at their institution. Are the Students, are they getting any recreation at all? And I'm
not saying that that is a must.
[00:29:45] Speaker C: Right.
[00:29:46] Joshua Meredith: But if a student isn't interacting at the dining hall and they're not
interacting at the recreation facility, and maybe they're not interacting library, we're missing three
bullet points from their academic profile. Where are they? And do we need to, do we need to
have advisors say, I'd like to reach out.
[00:30:01] Speaker C: Right.
[00:30:01] Joshua Meredith: And say, hey, how's the semester going?
[00:30:03] Jeff Dillon: Yeah.
[00:30:03] Joshua Meredith: Or you missed an exam last week. Yeah, let's talk about it.
[00:30:06] Jeff Dillon: It really is incredible what you can get if you're getting access to let's say
the fitness center data, the LMS data, the CRM data. And if you're looking at that from a broader
perspective, like I've, there's some predictive analytics companies you're probably even aware of
that will say, like, oh, these students live in this zip code, they've had some power outages lately
and it's like maybe they're in a lower income area. And it, gosh, we can see that in the, in the
LMS with the time they're spending in their, in their system. So it's stuff that's not that new.
[00:30:34] Joshua Meredith: But yeah, it's not. An LMS data is really strong. I mean, if you're a faculty
member who's teaching multiple sections.
[00:30:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:30:41] Joshua Meredith: Any of the large scale LMSs, now they'll show you how long the student's
been in your lms.
[00:30:47] Speaker C: Right.
[00:30:48] Joshua Meredith: In your course you could see curve data based on week. You can adjust
your course, you can reach out to an individual student. That data exists. If a student spent 20
minutes in your course when they were supposed to spend two hours, well, we know that maybe
we have a student that's falling behind. It isn't our job as a faculty member and both an
administrator to make sure that that student, we get that student back to pace.
I think so.
[00:31:11] Jeff Dillon: Well, thanks, Joshua. I have one last question for you before we wrap up
is what's one piece of advice you would offer to a university CIO or president looking to
transform their tech ecosystem today?
[00:31:23] Joshua Meredith: I think that's a really interesting question and a broad one and probably a
good place for us to end. I would say when you're looking at your academic budget, right. Your
administrative and academic budget for the next year, two years, three years, in a period of time
in higher ed where there's large scale uncertainty about research, there's grant funding, there's
obviously some reduction in funding. How much are you earmarking for Technological change,
not what's in place right now. What's the band say, hey, we're going to spend this on change.
We're going to spend it to help our people learn, we're going to help it to implement a technology
or we're going to use it to bring multiple pieces of technology together.
That is the band of dollars that every institution needs to say, hey, we're spending X on this now
and there may not be a cost savings immediately. Everyone is looking for an immediate cost
savings with technology and the academic space. And I understand the need for it. Considering
where budgets are, it may take more time than a year or two for you to recoup and find the
funding back that's desperately needed to make the institution whole. Where can we infuse
dollars to bring about sort of the changes that are needed to modernize your systems and to
bring them into a place where you're. I'm not saying competitive with commercial folks.
[00:32:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:32:42] Joshua Meredith: But it can look more like a commercial operation because that's the
universities that I think are thriving is ones that are. Look, they look more like a business from a
technology perspective rather than the traditional academic institution, because the traditional
academic institution, technology is not their bread and butter. So I get it. I'm on board. What's
the band of money that we can spend in addition to what we're spending now to really bring us
together? That's my piece of advice. And if that money is not available, you know, for 26 or for
27, what could it be in 28, 29 or 30? So you can build up to it. Because if you try to come to it in
the year, the budget's already baked.
[00:33:21] Speaker C: Right.
[00:33:21] Joshua Meredith: You're already. You're too late.
[00:33:23] Jeff Dillon: Yeah, Yeah, I love that. Just, I think too many schools probably are not
carving out enough of their budget for innovation, so. Agreed. All right, thanks, Joshua. I'm going
to put links to your LinkedIn and your company Deloitte in the show notes. And it was really
great talking to you. Great insights, Joshua.
[00:33:41] Joshua Meredith: Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate it.
[00:33:42] Jeff Dillon: Bye. Bye.
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