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The Real Cost of Overlooking Teaching Quality in Higher Ed

Release Date: 11/04/2025

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In this episode of the , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with , assistant dean of Extended Learning and director of the Emeritus Institute at Saddleback College, one of the nation’s highest-performing community colleges. The conversation focuses on why enrollment challenges persist even at strong institutions and how treating enrollment as a shared responsibility—rather than a system with clear executive ownership—creates fragmentation across admissions, student services, academics, and outcomes. Dr. Predoehl explains the Chief Enrollment Management Officer concept and why a cabinet-level...

How Stevens Tech Became One of the Strongest Transformation Stories in Higher Education

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Institutional transformation in higher education is often described in broad terms. At Stevens Institute of Technology, describes transformation in operational terms: disciplined strategic planning, academic realignment, and year-after-year execution systems that produced what Dr. Drumm McNaughton calls the Stevens Miracle. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Nariman Farvardin, President of Stevens Institute of Technology, about how Stevens achieved sustained success since he became president in 2011. Under Dr. Farvardin’s leadership,...

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In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Ashley Finley, Vice President of Research and Senior Advisor to the President at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), about the findings of the and what they reveal about employer expectations for higher education. Based on nearly 20 years of longitudinal research, the 2025 survey challenges many of the dominant public narratives about the value of college. Employers continue to express strong confidence in higher education, place equal importance on workforce preparation...

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Improving how teaching happens in the classroom is one of the most effective ways to increase student retention, stabilize tuition revenue, and strengthen institutional reputation—yet most universities don’t manage it strategically.

In this episode of Changing Higher Ed, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with David Gooblar, Associate Professor at the University of Iowa and author of The Missing Course, about how teaching quality has fallen outside institutional oversight and what presidents and boards can do to make it a core part of strategic leadership.

They explore how governance structures, incentive systems, and faculty preparation create a blind spot that limits progress on student success. Gooblar and McNaughton outline what leadership can do to realign teaching, strategy, and accountability to improve learning and institutional performance.

Topics Covered:

Why first-year GPA, driven by classroom experience, predicts retention and completion.
How tenure and incentive systems discourage teaching innovation.
The leadership role in integrating pedagogy into strategic and financial planning.
Practical ways to invest in teaching infrastructure and faculty capacity.
How governing boards can hold institutions accountable for the conditions that enable great teaching.

Why It Matters:
When institutions manage teaching with the same rigor as finance and enrollment, they see measurable gains in persistence, lower cost per graduate, and stronger mission credibility. Teaching quality is not just a faculty concern—it’s a leadership lever for institutional performance.

Three Takeaways for University Presidents and Boards:

Make teaching measurable and managed. Track instructional quality alongside financial and enrollment metrics.
Align incentives with institutional goals. Reward teaching innovation in evaluation and promotion.
Invest in the conditions for learning. Fund the infrastructure and faculty capacity that make engagement and feedback possible.

Read the full episode summary and transcript:
https://changinghighered.com/real-cost-of-overlooking-teaching-quality-in-higher-ed/

#HigherEdLeadership #StudentSuccess #HigherEducationPodcast

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