Leading Change in Universities

Drawing from his presidency at Northern Kentucky University, Ashish Vaidya shares practical strategies for leading institutional change within regional public universities. He emphasizes the importance of listening to students, alumni, and business leaders to align academic programs with real-world needs. Vaidya advocates for data-informed decision-making and strategic planning focused on outcomes and differentiation rather than broad, unfocused goals. He underscores the need for accountability — not only at the executive level but across faculty and leadership — especially when student success, workforce readiness, and resource allocation are at stake.

One of the first things I did, when I became president at Northern Kentucky University, as part of my opening convocation, you know, I gave the usual remarks and so on, but I invited a group of alumni and business leaders to be part of a panel that I moderated for the entire university campus to witness. Some of them were alumni, but some of them were key business leaders in the community. And I asked them very pointed questions about their hopes and aspirations for the region and for what they expected from the university. And my hope was that that conversation sort of laid the foundation in the minds of faculty and staff, but mainly faculty and academic leadership, to say let's pay attention to what our ultimate stakeholder is. What are they saying? You know, and many of them went through our program. Many of them went - are alums of this university. So, what are they saying that we should then take to heart in terms of how we deliver our programs, how we serve students, how we build, how we build the future graduates that this region needs? I also had a panel, the same day, with our current students to say, 'What are the challenges you're facing right now? What do you see as your goal?' And apart from so many things, especially for those who are first in their families to go to college. 'I want a college degree', that's a big thing, because nobody in my family has a college degree, but almost all of them said we want a good job, we want to be able to have a livable wage. We want to do this in the community, we want to do that. I want to run my own company. I want to do whatever. I want to become a nurse and I said, it's these voices. So, I think presidents and leaders need to be thinking about bringing in external voices to the conversation, much more so than we [do now]. We can't be a silo and thinking we know what's best, but we have to bring in those external voices in order to really bring about the change. It goes without saying that, you know, one of the strategies I use was a very intentional data-informed, you know, because a lot of people just their lenses are very focused on here and now. And it's like, no, let's let's look at the big picture. Which programs are drawing and why? What are the cost structures of different programs? Why is it more expensive to run STEM programs as opposed to run some social science programs? How can we do this? The university, especially public universities, are notorious to have a cross-subsidy model, and most people in the university don't realize what it takes to run a university. What utility costs are, what insurance costs are, what kinds of things we - this is not meant to say that, you know, the faculty have to have that full knowledge, but really, to probe the right kinds of questions to get the results. And I think the focus is on: what does success look like for our university? And keep reminding folks about why all these steps lead to that success. Frankly, I think being a little bit more aggressive with innovation and holding people accountable. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, while the president has the ultimate accountability and responsibility, but you need to make sure that every one of them [understand]. You know, I used to give this example of Division I athletics, the head basketball coach was responsible for the future of the team, and it was very public what the coach was doing. He was responsible for recruiting students. He was responsible for coaching them. He was responsible for bringing the best team, win-loss record, and in two hours, you could see exactly whether he was successful or not. That same scrutiny is not there for faculty. And I'm not saying that's what needs to happen, but I think there needs to be some accountability for what you're entrusted with, which is serving these students and really thinking about where does their journey go and how are we ensuring that they are successful? No, it's a significant challenge and it's not one that is very easy to navigate. I mentioned to you earlier, there are more and more institutions that are adopting performance-funding models, where the amount of money that you would get from state appropriation is tied to how well you were getting your student success outcomes. How many - what your retention rates were, persistence, graduation rates, but also more importantly, whether you're producing graduates in the right kinds of disciplines that the state or region needed. You know, again, as an economist by training, incentives makes a big push for that level of accountability. To say listen we're, 'We get funded based on how many students we graduate. How many - you know, whether we close equity gaps or not. Whether we do these things well.' And as a result of that, if this if this is the structure we have, then that's how our resources are actually tied. But, I am personally a very big believer in the strategic planning process. I know some people will roll their eyes about it. But I think a strategic plan that is developed with great insight and feedback, with a lot of not just internal but external stakeholder input, that clearly outlines the priorities. You look at and I've spent a lot of time analyzing strategic plans for universities. That you'll look at the strategic plan and it's no different from any other institution, and they'll put [on there] we want to be excellent at everything, and that's just not possible. And I think that one of the hardest things is to say, 'How can you be focused and distinctive in a few things, and then do them really, really well?' Those are common exercises for any organization, even the big companies, they can't do all things and they realize we'll have to focus on a narrow set of products and make sure we do them really well because it's competitive out there. And, I think if universities learn to do that, and then I go back to well, which areas should you focus on, and then it goes back to well, what are the areas in our region that will that will drive that kind of progress and that will drive that sense of uh advocacy that we need? There are some foundational programs every university probably will need to have. But let's think beyond just what's needed and think about collaborations and and and and ways in which we can do this better. So, aligning incentives and structures, making it very clear that if we do these things well, you're likely to get more resources. But these, I mean, that's where the tough decisions will have to be made. But I think we've been way too slow in reacting to some of those challenges.