The key words that I hear, really, when I talk to the Chief Business Officers and to the President is the word strategic. They have to understand the vision for the future of the institution and what it will take to, you know, to live that vision. 

Welcome to Focus, a podcast dedicated to the business of Higher Education. I'm your host, Heather Richmond, and we will be exploring the challenges and opportunities facing today's higher learning institutions. In today's episode, I caught up with Susan Whealler Johnston, the President and CEO of NACUBO, on her recent campus tours, where she is visiting with Chief Business Officers to learn more about their day to day and how the role of the CBO is shifting. 

Thanks so much for taking some time to talk with me today, Susan.

 Oh, I'm glad to be here. Thank you for having me. 

That's wonderful. Well, so that everyone can get to know you better, Susan, can you give us an overview of your background in higher ed and your current role?

 Sure. I have spent my entire career in higher education. I had assumed early in my life that I would live and die as an English professor. And I did spend about 20 years teaching English literature and serving as an administrator at a small private college in Illinois. But I got a taste for the larger view of higher education and as my career developed, I became more and more interested. And when the opportunity arose to move to Washington and join a Higher Education Association, I did that. I joined the Association of Governing Boards of universities and colleges and worked there for quite some time. I spent the last eight years there as executive vice president, and it was a great introduction to the world of higher education associations that have memberships that are very broad and very deep in higher education. When the opportunity arose to join NACUBO, I was delighted. I have worked with NACUBO when I was part of the ATB staff. And I've always thought that NACUBO had a very special and important role to play. But you know, the, in the last ten years, I'd say even, that role has gotten even more significant, more important. As the questions like opportunity and access, and quality and student success and student debt, the cost of college and the value of an education all come together, I think that NACUBO is in a very important spot to do some important work here for higher education and for consumers of higher education, for students and parents. On top of all of that, or maybe as a backdrop for all of that I have served many years as a board member. I am currently the chair of the board of Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. And that's my alma mater, a liberal arts college. And I'm on the board of visitors of Radford University in my home state of Virginia. So I have both campus experience, board experience, but also this association experience in higher education.

Well, that makes you perfect to be leading the charge there at NACUBO then.

I don't know, I don't know perfect. It gives me a lot of experience and information to draw on, that's for sure.

You know, it really does. I think that was what was so intriguing to me when I was reading about your current tour of campuses and talks with the Chief Business Officers and your newsletter. And I was like, oh, that is great. And we have to learn more about what you've heard what you've learned. So, can you tell a little bit about what that experience has been like for you?

Sure. Actually, this was a great idea that one of the board members at NACUBO had. Our board is made up primarily of Chief Business Officers and they recognized that I am not a Chief Business Officer, but rather deeply experienced in running associations. And so they said, you know, why don’t, you know it would be great if you spent some time on campus. And I used to spend a lot of time on campus, so I thought it was a great idea, and I started traveling. And I as you mentioned, at one point I sent out an email to an NACUBO membership and said, hey, I've hit the road, and if you want me to come and visit let me know. And I was amazed at how many people let me know. So it has been great to go to visit campuses that have ranged from very large research one universities, to small community colleges, parts of systems, system offices. It's just a wide, wide range of, of institutions and a wide range of people who work at those institutions. It's really been fascinating. And the one thing that I know that I've ended up coveting is the access to the golf cart that a lot of these CBOs have, yeah, where they just, you know, they say, let's go see the campus. Here's the golf cart, let's go.

Well, I tell you what, I wish I had a golf cart many times when I was on campus as a student, and also many of the campuses that I have visited as well, my time here at TouchNet.

I know it's wonderful, you know, it's a great way to see the campus, I've had some golf carts driven by students, I've had others driven by Chief Business Officers, I think I had a president drive me around in one. But you know, one way or the other, you want to see the campus because you want to feel the life of the institution. And that's a good way to do it.

Absolutely. It is. So what are the differences that you're really seeing between all these different types of schools? So you talked about, you know, you've really been to lots of different types of institutions?

Well, let's see, you know, I'll just start with physical plant, because it's one of the obvious things. System offices don't have as much of a physical plant, they're really an office, as opposed to a campus. I was on a community college campus in Maryland not long ago, and the campus was just completely lovely, treed, had a lot of activities, new buildings. You know, I think that looking at the new buildings, has been fascinating, but also looking at the different types of school, a large, private university. The athletic facilities are amazing for many of these schools because athletics are a big part of the co-curricular experience for students, they’re a large part of the relationship with donors, they’re a large part of the relationship with the community. And so the ways in which physical space is used is fascinating. I have met with the people who report directly to the Chief Business Officer, and that varies pretty widely. You know, it's fairly typical to get the campus security folks in there. Do they have HR as well? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Do they have IT as well? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. So, the differences according to, you know, institutional size and mission are remarkable, and have made part of this visiting process a lot of fun just to get to know what, how is it that a Chief Business Officer spends a day, right, who did they talk to? Who did they meet with? Who do they help supervise and shape and lead? Often, I've met with presidents as well, almost always, when I've been on campus, and the president has been on campus, I've had a chance to meet with him or her to talk about the relationship between the Chief Business Officer and the president. I’ve also met with board members, who are there for maybe committee meetings, Audit Committee to Budget Committee meetings.

Yeah. And it sounds like you were being driven around by students, did you have a chance to chat with them too and get their perspective?

I did. That's, that's fun. You know, it was a former teacher, professor, I really enjoy talking to the students. And so, to talk to them about why did you choose this college? And what has your experience been like? And what do you tell your friends when you go home during school break?  And also, how has COVID been for you, what's been your experience? And you know, some schools have been open the entire time. Others have been closed much of the time and gradually opening back again. So talking to the students about their educational experience over the last several years has been interesting. Some of them telling me that while they are sophomores, their freshman year, they weren't even on campus. 

Right. 

So they're sophomores academically, but they feel like freshmen. 

Okay.

Because they didn't have the campus experience in their first year.

Yeah, but that's really interesting. And so here they are, probably still feeling a little lost and trying to figure out how to, you know, really navigate campus, and yet they're already a sophomore.

Right, right. And, and that's one of the things that I think people on campus are also picking up on. You know, we've got an entire sophomore class that acts in many ways, like freshmen, because they're just coming on campus. They're just getting their feet beneath some as college students, you know, really in the full sense of the term. So that, to be honest, didn't cross my mind. Right, either as a board member or from any other perspective, that the sophomores were really freshmen in many ways.

Yeah. And when you talk about student experience, that's really at the heart of it, too. So there may have to be some shifts based upon that knowledge now.

Exactly. You know, how do you, do you do orientation for sophomores? That's one of the one of the questions that maybe they need that mapping experience, that, that the incoming freshmen are getting to learn how to get from where they need to go to, you know, where their further classes are, where the cafeteria is, where the residence halls are. And you know, where the football game is going to be where the art gallery is all of that stuff, they need to have their mapping experience.

Exactly. Those are all very important things. Well, it sounds like these visits have really been great. And I can only imagine as you continue to journey through the rest of the year, you know, how many more CBOs and others across campus you'll get to talk to. So beyond your recent campus visits, though, what are you seeing really for the future with the Chief Business Officer?

Well, you know, it was one of the questions I had when I joined NACUBO, now nearly four years ago, is what, what is the future? And it doesn't have to be 50 years future, it could be five years into the future, what does it look like? And it turns out that four years ago, when I joined NACUBO, we didn't know that we had a pandemic, to deal with know, what we were going to have to do to the budget models, the financial plans for our institutions, none of us knew that. And yet, it seems to me that the conversations that were going on four years ago are very good indicators of what we need today and into the future. But key word that I hear, really, when I talk to the Chief Business Officers, and to the President, is the word strategic.

Yeah. 

Often, when people think of Chief Business Officers, they think of, you know, balancing the books, debits and credits, getting a clean audit. But for a chief business officer to really be successful, they have to be strategic, they have to be strategic thought partners with the President, often with a board, with their colleagues on the president's cabinet. They have to understand the vision for the future of the institution, and what it will take to, you know, to live that vision. And, you know, a lot of a lot of institutions are finding that we're not going back to business as usual. We are looking for new ways to accomplish our mission, perhaps ways to refine the mission so that it is in better alignment with what student needs are and what the reality of this post pandemic world is going to be. But certainly, being strategic was the number one keyword that I heard visiting on these campuses and visiting with the individuals. That is one of the things that I think differentiates an older view of the Chief Business Officer from what's needed now and into the future. Just want one more thing, often the chief business officer can be the closest partner to the President. When I grew up as a faculty member, the assumption was that the provost was. And, you know, campus to campus, it could be the provost, it could be the Chief Business Officer. But more times than not, what I find is that the President and the CBO have a special alignment in terms of being able to accomplish their vision, in terms of being able to activate their strategic plan.

Right. And I think it's all about the timing, too, that you talked about the past, maybe Business Officers were not brought in quite the right time. And so now being at that strategic role, they're really there at the beginning of the conversation.

Right, absolutely. They are often the translator, the community builder, the factoid purveyor, the data carrier, for the institution that helps people really be able to get the vision, understand the steps that are required to activate that.

Absolutely. Well, you know, between the pandemic, you know, really creating this boom in remote learning, and also accelerating the use of mobile and contactless technologies on campus, and of course, you know, the demographics all changing, it really sounds like we're at a crossroads of several catalysts for change. So maybe we can delve into that a little bit more. And let's really start with that shifting technologies. What conversations have you had about how tech is really impacting a campus now?

Well, I think the biggest change, for higher education came, gosh, almost two years ago, maybe a little longer than two years ago. No, two years ago, when we had to shift from regular classes, suddenly, we were online, right. And we stayed there. Pretty much stayed there for the rest of the academic year of 2020. Now in 2022, still, you know, within the pandemic, although things seem to be looking a little brighter for us, but we are finding that online learning and access to materials online, and other online experiences, for instance, nursing online. Several years ago, somebody said, you can't do that.

right? 

Of course, you can. Of course you can. And, you know, helping to train faculty to teach with online pedagogy. It's much, it's a very necessary part of this. But the big change, I think, breaking down any barriers that remained for online learning occurred during the pandemic. So that's a huge change. I think another thing that we see is the really a tremendous focus that people are putting on the student experience.

Right.

Student Success, student experience, equity, and technology has a mammoth role to play in that, in helping students understand their own progress toward their degree, staying in contact with their advisors, staying in contact with people who are going to help ensure that they get the skills that they need to graduate and the skills that they need to get employed. So there's a lot of reliance on technology for increasing equity, increasing inclusion, increasing student success.

Absolutely. It's definitely the way the world and all of us in our daily consumer lives even right, it's the same. So we go to campus, same expectation.

Absolutely. I had to return something yesterday, and put it in a box, slipped it in a FedEx box right on the street. And before I got home, I had a message saying thanks for starting the return process. They'd already picked it up and processed electronically, what I was doing, and I was getting immediate feedback. So that, you know, we have that at home. We have that in our daily lives. I have it in my car. You know, I have it out on a walk. Students want the same thing when they come to campus and their parents want them to have it, too. 

That's the new way of the world. Right? 

Absolutely. So, residence halls are more wired than they've ever been. The technology absolutely has to be seamless. It's still not, there's there are lots of room, there's lots of room for improvement. Even as we continue to do classes, online or special events online, we learned what, you know, when we hit the brick wall, the technological brick wall, we, you know, we need to figure out how to get through that and quickly.

Yes, we absolutely do. And so, I say there's also with technology, it coupled then with the shift in enrollment trends, and demographics. Let's talk a little bit about that what you're seeing there with enrollment trends.

Well, you know, is a person in higher education who hasn't heard the term enrollment cliff, you know Nathan Grawe wrote a very wonderful, but very scary book about that, and has come out with another book to kind of give us a little more hope that, that this isn't just all doom and gloom for us. But certainly, the enrollment patterns are shifting. In part, they're shifting by region of the country. So Florida may be getting more students, New England, fewer students, the Midwest, fewer students, the southwest, more students. And what we're looking at is a decline in the typical 18- to 22-year-old, typical college going age student. So that is not that is not the average student, but it's the typical college going students. So those institutions that are, you know, perfect for the 18- to 22-year-old, they're really built for that. They're paying attention to what's happening with enrollment and whether they are overbuilt, whether they need to change their building. I talked to one CBO, who said, I am not building any more parking decks until I know whether our students are zooming in or driving in for classes. 

Absolutely. 

You know, and then there's the question of well, in five years, will we have fewer students, and therefore I don't need to increase the available parking on campus. I heard a fascinating conversation about Greek fraternity and sorority residence halls, you know, the house that these kids live in, students live in, and there's an awful lot of questioning about whether this is going to be a declining population, people who are participating in Greek life, and what are we going to do with that property on our campuses? Just if you think for a minute, I grew up near Emory University in Atlanta, and there was an entire road lined with fraternity and sorority houses. Are they are going to need all of that? And if they don't, what will they do with the real estate? So, there are some real questions about, you know, the need for classroom space, the need for residence halls, the need for parking, lab space, places to dine, all kinds of questions based on what people see as enrollment trends. And, you know, the 18- to 22-year-olds, we've been told already, that number will be declining, but we will have students who are older. Maybe they're students with some college education, but not a degree, or no college education but they want a degree, will they be living on campus? Do they have children? Will they need if they live on campus? Will they need family housing instead of housing for a single individual? 

Oh, yeah.

So there are more questions to ask and answer as we build the campus for the future.

It sounds very similar, I'll say to in the corporate world, and offices and commercial real estate, and as we do more of this hybrid approach, how much do you need from an office building and what you know, assets do you need to be part of it? So it's very similar.

It is indeed. I was just reading an article about city centers, where once were populated by business people nine to five or five days a week right now there are looking at, you know, Where did everybody go? Right and have we have we overbuilt is exactly the same question.

It absolutely is. Well, so with all these variables and all of this change, do you have any advice for how Higher Ed leaders can really best prepare their institutions for what's next?

Gosh, I? Well, some. I think that what's really necessary is a deep, deep understanding of the institution, its mission and its market. Who, who was the institution designed to serve? And how's that population? Is it growing? Is it declining? Is it overbuilt? And based on your assessment of the mission and the market, what do you need to do? In some cases, the mission and the market are fine. And institutions are refining. They’re refining their academic offerings, they're refining the social offerings, the co-curricular offerings. One of the things I just love is the addition of eSports to the intercollegiate athletic offerings of colleges and universities. It's such a clever, responsive thing for institutions to do. So that's, you know, that's one of the things to understand. I think another is to pay attention to the student experience. If your student body is going to be changing if and most of our institutions will have a changed student body, will they be more diverse? If so, what will be appealing? What will be necessary to help students that may come to campus with very different experiences from the students of ten or 15 years ago, and what will need to be done for them? I'd also look at academic programs as part of looking at your market. What is it that is appealing to them? It used to be that talking about jobs was not really what people did when they went to college. College was an end in itself for many people. But now, the job is the end, right? The endpoint? And so how can colleges and universities carts talk about careers and job development? What can they offer for students, and to give comfort to parents too that when a student graduates, there are job opportunities that will help students live a good life, succeed as citizens and individuals after their college experience?

Absolutely. And I think that, as you were saying too, it triggered my thinking about the facilities and the buildings on campus, and that may be an opportunity for transition too. I know, you know, that several schools already, you know, for summertime have used them for camps. I know that during COVID, some of our institutions I talked with, you know, we're using it for the medical and being able to have a place to have medical, you know, come and get set up. So I think there can be some really interesting use cases of how a campus does shift.

Yes, absolutely. You know, we've seen a lot of unused residence hall space being used for isolation purposes, for instance.

Right. 

But as you say, also, some schools have opened up their residence halls so that primary care, doctors and nurses didn't have to drive all the way home at the end of their shift. They could go to a residence hall on campus nearby, recover, sleep, and get back to work right, during the worst of worst of COVID. And there are all kinds of needs of the community that campuses may well be positioned to address. You know, a college or a university campus is a small town, right? Sometimes it's a big city. And when it considers all of the assets it has, as a city or a town, it may well become one of the go-to places for the surrounding community or the state as you look toward the future, and what both the state needs or the community needs and what they campus has to offer. 

Yeah, you’re absolutely right, I think they're just again, massive shifts and change. And we often talk about a campus like a small city too if you think about all the commerce that happens and all the merchants and you know, everything that's going on from faculty and staff and students and the academic side and the business side, there's a lot happening on a college campus.

Absolutely, it’s one of the busiest places I know. And it was interesting to see the amount of coverage that colleges and universities received during COVID, because it was like being able to look at a lot of thousands of small towns and cities. 

Well thank you so much for joining me today, Susan. We look forward to hearing more about your visits with CBOs and campus leaders throughout the year. 

That was fun, thank you so much.

Well, it’s apparent, the business roles in Higher Ed are continuing to evolve and are a bigger part of a university or college’s strategic vision. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Focus. Don’t forget to subscribe so you can stay up to date on the business of Higher Education. For more information, check us out at touchnet.com