Why Rice College Embraces Partnerships to Create Entry to High quality Training for All

edX and 2U are each proud to name Rice College a accomplice in reimagining schooling. Learn on for a dialog between Caroline Levander, Vice President for International and Digital Technique of Rice College, and Andrew Hermalyn, President of Partnerships at 2U. 

A pioneer in digital schooling, Rice College has been an edX Constitution member since 2013. The establishment has collected greater than 850,800 complete enrollments and issued greater than 2,770 certificates by way of edX–excellent feats for a college that serves 4,000 undergraduates and 4,000 graduates on campus. Its 36 edX programs attain a variety of learners, protecting a wide selection of matters from “Medication within the Digital Age” to “Faith and Hip Hop Tradition.” 

Intent on driving innovation at scale, Rice launched its on-line MBA with 2U in 2018, and shortly after expanded the partnership to incorporate brief programs and boot camps for a complete of 15 on-line packages. By means of these partnerships, Rice is opening new doorways to alternative for individuals internationally and cultivating a various neighborhood of learners on-line the place all are welcome.

Now that 2U and edX have mixed, I requested Caroline Levander, vice chairman for world and digital technique at Rice College, to share her ideas on the worth of partnership, why increasing entry to various learners issues, and what the longer term holds for the all the time forward-thinking establishment.

Caroline, thanks for becoming a member of me. We return a very long time and I like having the ability to name you a buddy–I’m thrilled to see the place we associate with 2U and edX. Rice was an early adopter within the digital schooling house and has embraced partnerships to attain its objectives. Let’s discuss that. How is partnership ingrained in your technique? Why accomplice with organizations like 2U and edX?

Thanks, Andrew. We’ve been by way of all of it, and I sit up for what’s to come back.

2U and edX are very totally different organizations with a shared ambition, for positive, however they differ in construction and product. Our curiosity in partnering with each 2U and edX displays the college’s dedication to a really broad and open method to partnership. We expect we will be taught loads from–in addition to contribute meaningfully to–a variety of totally different enterprises throughout the for-profit and not-for-profit, constructed inside a college and never constructed inside a college setting. That’s been enlivening and necessary for Rice and the way we take into consideration innovation.

As a small and extremely selective establishment, we’re centered on making a higher impression by way of partnership. That’s measured in several methods. 

With edX, we contemplate the academic experiences that weren’t credit score conferring initially, however which can be necessary for individuals throughout the globe thinking about studying. We’ve a public-good mission of making extra open, high-quality academic content material, no matter the place individuals are and how much entry they may in any other case have. 

What’s shared between learners in 2U-powered packages and on edX is that they don’t seem to be the varieties of college students we usually have interaction with. They are usually working full-time or part-time with a variety of different life calls for and commitments that will hold them from coming to campus. So we’re left with this problem of making high-quality choices for college kids we should not have earlier expertise with, reaching these learners, and supporting them to attain their desired objectives. 2U and edX every assist us meet that problem head-on. They’re aligned of their dedication to high-quality academic experiences for college kids we possible wouldn’t have in any other case been capable of contact.

How do you measure the success of your partnerships with 2U and with edX?

At Rice, we’re within the variety of college students we’re serving with our totally different choices, but additionally who these college students are. The place are they residing? What are their demographics? How various are they? What drew them to the college? We’re devoted to creating a various pupil neighborhood. 

I see the 2U-edX mixed alternative as considered one of higher diversification in each approach–age, socioeconomic, racial, gender, and extra. That’s an everlasting precedence for the college. Whereas we’re not distinctive in that ambition, it speaks deep to the guts of Rice and our dedication to being accessible to everybody.

Greater than 859,100 learners have enrolled in academic choices from Rice by way of 2U and edX. That’s unimaginable. When you concentrate on the lives you might be altering, are there any specific college or pupil tales that come to thoughts?

I’ve an excellent story a few fantastic teacher of ours, Jason Hafner. He’s an award-winning educational who leads all the massive introductory programs, however his legacy lies in an AP Physics course he developed alongside a neighborhood highschool AP Physics trainer in Texas. (It’s one of many top-performing programs on edX with greater than 58,000 enrollments.) The course is high-quality, artistic, and ingenious. For instance, when Jason was filming a sequence of physics experiments and demos for the course, he determined one of the best ways to indicate momentum can be to throw a watermelon off the highest of considered one of Rice’s oldest, most iconic buildings. You wouldn’t suppose an AP Physics course can be a crowd-pleaser, however Jason turned an in a single day sensation because of his progressive method to educating. He has described going to Starbucks and having teenage children come as much as him asking for his autograph. I believe it’s been actually revitalizing for his educating profession to have this chance.

So far as college students go, I obtained an unimaginable electronic mail from the daddy of a ninth-grade pupil situated in a small city on the Texas-Mexico border. He shared that he and his son began Jason’s AP Physics course collectively. The daddy hadn’t taken physics for many years, however he actually beloved the training expertise along with his son. His son obtained a variety of it, too: although he was solely in ninth grade, his son took the AP Physics examination and scored a 3. That’s phenomenal, particularly provided that his son lives in a city the place excessive faculties don’t supply AP programs. We have been capable of present that household with a set of experiences that they in any other case wouldn’t have had. Earlier than taking the course, the daddy mentioned he didn’t find out about Rice, however he was so grateful and impressed by it that he desires his son to contemplate Rice for faculty. 

What I like about that pupil story is that it reveals how our partnerships assist develop higher consciousness of the standard of a Rice schooling, which might result in an ever-more various applicant pool. Rice is a college that all the time struggles with its model recognition exterior of the instant area, so for us, strengthening that’s vastly useful.

Have you ever seen a ripple impact out of your partnerships with 2U and edX? Has your expertise with both accomplice impacted how different Rice packages are delivered?

2U has actually helped us enhance our advertising sophistication. The group has been very beneficiant in sharing finest practices and educating us how to consider advertising–not only for MBA@Rice, however all Rice packages. I’ve realized quick that when MBA@Rice thrives, all of Rice thrives, and when Rice has a wise on-line presence, MBA@Rice thrives. Advertising is a kind of areas by which I believe universities might not be as mature. It’s been an excellent studying expertise with 2U.

On a macro degree, I look again on the experiences we’ve had with 2U and edX and suppose that all the work we’ve carried out collectively made the final 18 months of COVID a greater total expertise on our campus.

Rice is a first-rate instance of a college that’s forward-thinking and keen to put money into progressive methods to fulfill the evolving wants of scholars. What would you say these wants are actually?

There’s a higher want for lodging. Pupil psychological well being shouldn’t be what it needs to be. We’ve had a severe uptick in requests for psych providers, and we’re not alone–this can be a nationwide development. The final yr and a half has been actually onerous on the 18 to 21 age group. 

Apparently, lots of the distinctive issues we realized how you can do with our MBA@Rice diploma are coming in helpful now as we focus on serving to our learners. Pupil success and higher consolation on the teacher degree with being versatile on deadlines are simply two examples. We are actually rethinking what we do within the title of rigor on the undergraduate degree. We see worth in being extra adaptable and offering extra help. We all know it received’t water down the expertise we provide.

Now that the edX acquisition has closed, how do you see this mix being highly effective for Rice and the schooling neighborhood at massive? What sorts of alternatives does this collaboration unlock?

It’s early days, however I’m curious how these two entities are greater than the sum of their elements and the way all of the merchandise will allow one another. That’s the nice alternative–to create an ecosystem the place individuals are repeatedly studying.

It’s good to see this marriage of two fantastic organizations. I do know I, and plenty of others, are watching with nice curiosity and nice enthusiasm for what the longer term holds.

With 2022 proper across the nook, the place do you see schooling going subsequent?

This pandemic suggests we want higher resilience constructed into our curriculum; we have to carry on studying once we can’t be in the identical room. That’s a giant takeaway for universities like mine.