Bay Path University

This past fall, Dr. Morriss-Olson and program coordinator Dr. Mela Dutka launched Bay Path's Higher Education Leadership and Organizational Studies (HELOS) program and welcomed 23 students from higher ed settings throughout the country into its first cohort. With a global pandemic forcing most industries, including higher ed, into panic mode, the timing was fortuitous. "Frankly, I think we've just skimmed the surface of what the coronavirus impact is going to be," she notes. "I'm on a listserv with other provosts, and I'm struck by how many are talking in terms of 'Well, when we get past this, we'll go back to x, y or z,' and I'm thinking 'Wow, they still don't get it.' This is going to change everything." For one thing, I think that the ongoing debate of whether online learning is valid is now off the table," she continues. "When you have the most elite institutions in our country moving their entire educational experience online, it's going to be a hard thing to back off of." "To have an advantage going forward, institutions are going to be challenged to use technology to provide a really robust, personalized, and dynamic experience that meets the student where she or he is at, whether or not that student is tethered to a physical space." These ideas are all seeds of bigger conversations Morriss-Olson envisions herself facilitating as she steps down from her ten-year stint as provost and into her new role as Distinguished Professor of Higher Education Leadership and Founding Director of the HELOS program and Bay Path's newly formed Center for Higher Education Leadership and Innovative Practice (CHELIP). In consort with the HELOS program, the Center will invite faculty from across the institution to experiment with innovations in teaching and learning, and students from Bay Path's higher ed graduate programs to grow their innovative leadership skills. 10 Bay Pathway Spring/Summer 2020 In October 2019, the inaugural class of the Doctorate in Higher Education Leadership & Organizational Studies gathered on campus for an official launch meet and greet. Ingenious is a new podcast offered by CHELIP and featuring interviews with Dr. Morriss-Olson with leading voices and change makers in the higher education sphere. Between 2010 and 2016, total enrollment in degree-granting institutions has declined by more than one million students (from 21,019,438 to 19,841,014). Source: Digest of Education Statistics Launch of the Higher Education Leadership and Organizational Studies (HELOS) program

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