As vice president of the newly created office of Academic Innovation and New Ventures, Michelle Marks will help formalize the exploration, launching and sustaining of new educational ventures at George Mason University, and assist with integrating them into existing programs. Her office also is charged with bringing innovations in learning science to the campus and increasing revenues to help the university innovate in financially challenging times.
Marks, who has been with the university since 2002—seven years in the Provost’s Office, and the past four as vice provost of academic affairs—spoke about her new position and how her agenda melds with George Mason’s 10-year strategic plan.
What are the priorities of your position?
For the past several years I’ve led initiatives that support our strategic plan that can provide quality programs, student success and an opportunity to generate revenue. For example, I’ve led initiatives to internationalize the campus and to find out how we develop online programs at quality and scale. We’re also in a financially challenged environment. States all across America have been providing less funding for public education, and many public universities like ours are figuring out ways of finding new sources of revenue to support students, faculty, the research mission and other fundamentals of a strong university. So this role is really a way of reorganizing some of the work I’ve done to evaluate, plan and launch new university-wide initiatives that are consistent with our strategic plan. For example, by supporting enrollment growth through online pathways that engage community college students and help them be more successful coming into the university. We are looking for ways to partner with other educational institutions, corporations and educational technology firms to bring educational innovations and new capabilities to the student experience at Mason.
Why is that mission so important?
Universities are thinking creatively about how to deliver a quality education in innovative ways. To really be serious about finding the right opportunities for Mason and launching them successfully, we have to create a function at the university that can professionalize our project management, assess how we’re doing and bring feedback as to how we can do things better.
What about benefits to the students?
When they want to find out something, students go to the web; they want to do it quickly, take care of it online, and that’s the environment they expect at college. We need to think about how to provide our students with information, whether it’s opportunities for engaging in the learning environment or engaging with the university, to support their college experience. We need to provide information that is student-centered and student-friendly in a way they are expecting, and that means a change in the way we’ve done business in the past.
Along those lines, can you explain the university’s partnership with Wiley Educational Services?
The Wiley partnership is geared toward putting graduate programs online. The goal is to make professional graduate programs accessible to adults, many of whom are working or can’t come to campus regularly, so they can get a quality education. It is a partnership that will bring us immediate access to nonacademic capabilities—student support, marketing, recruitment, technology support—that help deliver online programs at scale. With this partnership, students will be able to get information quickly about our programs, move easily through the application process and feel personally supported through their experience at George Mason. Wiley’s enrollment services has someone available by phone to help students access any nonacademic support and nonacademic advising from the moment they get interested in a program through graduation. It’s a white-glove service. Wiley also makes a significant investment in digital marketing. They have the talent, capability and expertise to make programs front-and-center to prospects regionally around the nation.
You were chair of the Strategic Plan Committee. How does your agenda fit with the plan?
The plan’s goals include creating more access for students to come to Mason, creating pathways to bring in more international students, to enable students to come via online and be web-based students—not just to get them to Mason, but to support them and help them actually graduate. How we deliver a quality education is going to be more dependent on partnerships with other higher education players in the state, with educational firms that bring us the technology to drive the learning of the future and thinking about how we can partner with companies and government entities in our region to support our students.
How will you work with the Mason community?
I’ll continue to work closely across the entire university. This job requires partnerships with academic units and faculty and deans. It’s an essential part of the job. If we’re not meeting the needs of the faculty and academic programs, we’re not meeting the needs of the university.