WGU Sage Advice with Chris Bonnell
What is Western Governors University? This is the most common question that I receive. The simple answer is, WGU is an online, competency-based higher education institution that promises students a high-quality, low-cost education. But there is so much more to the WGU story. My name is Chris Bonnell and I am the host of Sage Advice, a new podcast from Western Governors University. I’ve spent the past eight years sharing this story with legislators and community leaders across the country. And now, through the Sage Advice podcast, I share it with you. I’m sitting down for conversations with my esteemed colleagues at Western Governors University and experts across the industry. Together, we will share the stories of who WGU was designed to serve, how we are making education work for everyone, and why we proudly claim to be the most student-centric university in the world. Follow us wherever you get your content so you don’t miss a single episode, and stay tuned for Sage Advice from WGU.
WGU Sage Advice with Chris Bonnell
WGU by the Numbers with Kurt Gunnell
Show Notes.
Today Kurt Gunnell joins us to share a little of his world and unpack his role as the Director of Institutional Research at WGU. As someone so focused on the important data of the university, he has amazing insight and ideas around how the data can be leveraged to best serve the students and staff, and we get a real inside look at some of the processes that Kurt and his team are involved in. He also talks about collaborating with Gallup, his experiences over the last 10 years, and what makes his job so satisfying for him. For Kurt, using available resources to serve students as precisely as possible is the key to his work, and he comments on the investment in private-public partnerships, technology integration, subjectivity, and state grants along the way. We finish off this illuminating chat, by looking at the impact of Kurt's work on students who may otherwise find it difficult to access what the university has to offer, so to hear it all from today's special guest, press play!
Key Points From This Episode:
- Looking back on Kurt's journey at WGU and his first role at the institution.
- Kurt talks about his career before WGU and his previous data management roles.
- Unpacking the typical day of someone working in institutional research at WGU.
- Data and decisions; support and integration of technology at WGU.
- Breaking down the information at the university and how Kurt and his team use the available information.
- Tackling the subjectivity in data and the need for the most up-to-date data and metrics.
- The role of third parties in vetting and validating results at WGU.
- Weighing the value and power of state grants and student aid.
- Kurt talks about the recent survey project with Gallup and the data they collated.
- Reflections on the vocation of creating greater pathways for underserved students.
Tweetables:
“One really big differentiator between WGU and possibly other institutions around this, is that we are just very technologically supported and integrated.” — Kurt Gunnell [0:06:43]
“We're able to break this down into smaller bites of retention, progress, completion, to see where our students are accelerating, or where they may be pausing for a little bit, and then have our faculty jump in on that.” — Kurt Gunnell [0:07:23]
“The great thing is that we have different levels of data granularity that really allow us to take a peek into how students are progressing.” — Kurt Gunnell [0:07:39]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
