Beyond the Ivory Tower Tue, 26 May 2026 00:02:18 -0400 https://podcast.leverage-education.org en-us © 2026 Beyond the Ivory Tower yes 63fd6eb7-ffb8-5372-8ada-3d37a2e370cb maya@leverage-education.org Maya Evans episodic false Beyond the Ivory Tower explores what higher education can learn from the wider world. Each episode examines how other industries solve complex challenges and what those ideas might mean for the future of colleges and universities.

]]> Buzzsprout (https://www.buzzsprout.com) Maya Evans maya@leverage-education.org https://storage.buzzsprout.com/56wves3vm2nrpjsuf9d9skadksfo?.jpg Beyond the Ivory Tower The Strategic Plan Problem The Strategic Plan Problem Your strategic plan might be polished, inspiring, and endorsed by everyone, and still be doing almost nothing. We start with a simple challenge: if most colleges list the same priorities, can any of them honestly call that strategy? From student success and belonging to online growth, graduate expansion, technology upgrades, and the obligatory AI mention, the familiar template can feel responsible while quietly avoiding the hardest work: making consequential choices.

We dig into why higher education defaults to process. Committees, listening tours, and 18-month timelines reduce anxiety because they focus on what we can control. But enrollment decline, tuition pressure, employer expectations, alternative credentials, and public trust do not pause for a planning cycle. Drawing on ideas associated with Roger Martin, Henry Mintzberg, and Michael Porter, we separate planning from strategy and name the uncomfortable truth: strategy demands trade-offs, clarity, and the willingness to say no.

Then we get practical. We walk through Richard Rumelt’s signs of bad strategy and explain how “fluff” shows up on campuses when real values like innovation, student success, and belonging get promoted into vague strategic priorities. Finally, we lay out what real higher education strategy can look like: a one-page strategy that forces specificity, decision rules that govern resource decisions, and the simplest test of all, the budget. If you want strategy that changes outcomes, follow the money, the choices, and the accountability.

If this sparked disagreement, that is a good sign. Subscribe for more, share this with a colleague who lives in strategic planning meetings, and leave a review with the hardest trade-off you think your institution should make.

]]> Your strategic plan might be polished, inspiring, and endorsed by everyone, and still be doing almost nothing. We start with a simple challenge: if most colleges list the same priorities, can any of them honestly call that strategy? From student success and belonging to online growth, graduate expansion, technology upgrades, and the obligatory AI mention, the familiar template can feel responsible while quietly avoiding the hardest work: making consequential choices.

We dig into why higher education defaults to process. Committees, listening tours, and 18-month timelines reduce anxiety because they focus on what we can control. But enrollment decline, tuition pressure, employer expectations, alternative credentials, and public trust do not pause for a planning cycle. Drawing on ideas associated with Roger Martin, Henry Mintzberg, and Michael Porter, we separate planning from strategy and name the uncomfortable truth: strategy demands trade-offs, clarity, and the willingness to say no.

Then we get practical. We walk through Richard Rumelt’s signs of bad strategy and explain how “fluff” shows up on campuses when real values like innovation, student success, and belonging get promoted into vague strategic priorities. Finally, we lay out what real higher education strategy can look like: a one-page strategy that forces specificity, decision rules that govern resource decisions, and the simplest test of all, the budget. If you want strategy that changes outcomes, follow the money, the choices, and the accountability.

If this sparked disagreement, that is a good sign. Subscribe for more, share this with a colleague who lives in strategic planning meetings, and leave a review with the hardest trade-off you think your institution should make.

]]> Maya Evans Buzzsprout-19165388 Mon, 18 May 2026 17:00:00 -0500 1316 1 8 full false What The NFL And Women’s Sports Can Teach Higher Education About Growth What The NFL And Women’s Sports Can Teach Higher Education About Growth The most dangerous assumption in higher education right now is that demand is gone. A better question is whether demand is hidden, suppressed by friction, and made invisible by how we package, explain, and deliver learning.

We pull leadership lessons from the loudest strategy laboratory on earth: professional sports. Starting with the NFL, we break down the shift from inevitability to intentionality as streaming forces fans to actively choose, pay, and stay. That change pushes the league to rethink distribution, redesign incentives, and invest in teaching new audiences how to understand the product before selling the premium version. Then we translate those moves into higher education strategy, enrollment growth, and market positioning without drifting into empty branding.

Next, we use the explosive economics of women’s sports to explain latent demand and infrastructure gaps. We talk through the Caitlin Clark phenomenon as a possible “demand shock” that raises the floor for an entire category, not just a temporary spike around one star. The parallel for colleges is clear: working adults, transfer students, alumni, and employers may already want what we offer, but they cannot see a path through the maze, the schedule, the pricing, or the outcomes story.

We close with the unglamorous work that makes growth real: internal talent development, rule-aware sequencing, culture change, and the hard truth of deselection. And we end on a warning from legalized sports gambling about misaligned incentives, integrity, and what happens when a new revenue stream starts shaping the institution in return. If you care about sustainable revenue, learner outcomes, and protecting the institutional soul, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with the growth question you’re wrestling with right now.

]]> The most dangerous assumption in higher education right now is that demand is gone. A better question is whether demand is hidden, suppressed by friction, and made invisible by how we package, explain, and deliver learning.

We pull leadership lessons from the loudest strategy laboratory on earth: professional sports. Starting with the NFL, we break down the shift from inevitability to intentionality as streaming forces fans to actively choose, pay, and stay. That change pushes the league to rethink distribution, redesign incentives, and invest in teaching new audiences how to understand the product before selling the premium version. Then we translate those moves into higher education strategy, enrollment growth, and market positioning without drifting into empty branding.

Next, we use the explosive economics of women’s sports to explain latent demand and infrastructure gaps. We talk through the Caitlin Clark phenomenon as a possible “demand shock” that raises the floor for an entire category, not just a temporary spike around one star. The parallel for colleges is clear: working adults, transfer students, alumni, and employers may already want what we offer, but they cannot see a path through the maze, the schedule, the pricing, or the outcomes story.

We close with the unglamorous work that makes growth real: internal talent development, rule-aware sequencing, culture change, and the hard truth of deselection. And we end on a warning from legalized sports gambling about misaligned incentives, integrity, and what happens when a new revenue stream starts shaping the institution in return. If you care about sustainable revenue, learner outcomes, and protecting the institutional soul, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with the growth question you’re wrestling with right now.

]]> Maya Evans Buzzsprout-19115954 Sun, 10 May 2026 23:00:00 -0500 1621 1 7 full false The Talent War Universities Don’t Realize They’re In The Talent War Universities Don’t Realize They’re In A 19-year-old with a camera and a comment section can shape how students think about money, careers, and even identity faster than a world-class faculty. That idea sounds outrageous until you look at where Gen Z actually goes for guidance: TikTok, YouTube, Threads, Discord, Reddit, podcasts, and increasingly conversational AI that never sleeps. We follow the attention math behind that shift and unpack why “authority” now behaves less like a credential and more like daily trust plus distribution.

I talk through parasocial trust and why it routinely outperforms expertise in the marketplace, even when the expert is genuinely brilliant. Then we get into the unbundling of education: generative AI can create syllabi, summaries, and study plans in seconds, so information is no longer what learners pay for. If the content is free, what remains uniquely valuable about college and graduate school? I argue it’s the human layer: cohort friction, mentorship, feedback that changes how you see your field, and the kind of community that makes you slow down instead of sprinting to the credential.

We also zoom out to the trust collapse in higher education and the growing role of employers that offer upskilling as a job benefit, effectively sitting between institutions and learners. The closing challenge is simple: where does your institution show up in the places prospective students already live, learn, and decide who they trust? Subscribe for more, share this with a higher ed leader, and leave a review with your answer: where do you go first when you need to learn something that matters?

]]> A 19-year-old with a camera and a comment section can shape how students think about money, careers, and even identity faster than a world-class faculty. That idea sounds outrageous until you look at where Gen Z actually goes for guidance: TikTok, YouTube, Threads, Discord, Reddit, podcasts, and increasingly conversational AI that never sleeps. We follow the attention math behind that shift and unpack why “authority” now behaves less like a credential and more like daily trust plus distribution.

I talk through parasocial trust and why it routinely outperforms expertise in the marketplace, even when the expert is genuinely brilliant. Then we get into the unbundling of education: generative AI can create syllabi, summaries, and study plans in seconds, so information is no longer what learners pay for. If the content is free, what remains uniquely valuable about college and graduate school? I argue it’s the human layer: cohort friction, mentorship, feedback that changes how you see your field, and the kind of community that makes you slow down instead of sprinting to the credential.

We also zoom out to the trust collapse in higher education and the growing role of employers that offer upskilling as a job benefit, effectively sitting between institutions and learners. The closing challenge is simple: where does your institution show up in the places prospective students already live, learn, and decide who they trust? Subscribe for more, share this with a higher ed leader, and leave a review with your answer: where do you go first when you need to learn something that matters?

]]> Maya Evans Buzzsprout-19061529 Sun, 03 May 2026 23:00:00 -0500 1169 1 6 full false Does Higher Ed Have to Build New Things to Grow? Does Higher Ed Have to Build New Things to Grow? Higher ed growth shouldn’t feel like digging a brand-new well every time we want to expand, yet that’s exactly how many colleges and universities operate: launch another program, rebuild another process, stand up another mini-system, and hope the portfolio adds up. We challenge that model and ask a sharper question: Are we scaling what we do, or are we scaling what we make possible?

We pull lessons from Airbnb, Shopify, and OpenAI to explain platform strategy in plain language, then translate it into a university context without pretending a campus should become a marketplace. The turning point is the “highway vs trucks” idea: Real scale comes from shared infrastructure that lets work carry forward across offerings. Using research and reporting from McKinsey, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and MIT Sloan, we show why duplicated work, restarts, and disconnected data are the silent killers of operational efficiency, staff capacity, and sustainable revenue.

Then we zoom out to the hub economy and the stakes for student pathways. If value now comes from connection, a large catalog of disconnected programs becomes a liability. We explore what it would look like for a college to act as connective tissue for learning across faculty, employers, alumni, communities, and peers and what happens if third-party platforms become the “front door” that organizes discovery, sequencing, and ongoing engagement. You’ll leave with three practical questions to take into your next leadership meeting: what gets reused, what connects, and what carries forward.

Subscribe for more higher education strategy, share this with someone leading change on your campus, and leave a review with the biggest “silo” you want to break next.

]]> Higher ed growth shouldn’t feel like digging a brand-new well every time we want to expand, yet that’s exactly how many colleges and universities operate: launch another program, rebuild another process, stand up another mini-system, and hope the portfolio adds up. We challenge that model and ask a sharper question: Are we scaling what we do, or are we scaling what we make possible?

We pull lessons from Airbnb, Shopify, and OpenAI to explain platform strategy in plain language, then translate it into a university context without pretending a campus should become a marketplace. The turning point is the “highway vs trucks” idea: Real scale comes from shared infrastructure that lets work carry forward across offerings. Using research and reporting from McKinsey, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and MIT Sloan, we show why duplicated work, restarts, and disconnected data are the silent killers of operational efficiency, staff capacity, and sustainable revenue.

Then we zoom out to the hub economy and the stakes for student pathways. If value now comes from connection, a large catalog of disconnected programs becomes a liability. We explore what it would look like for a college to act as connective tissue for learning across faculty, employers, alumni, communities, and peers and what happens if third-party platforms become the “front door” that organizes discovery, sequencing, and ongoing engagement. You’ll leave with three practical questions to take into your next leadership meeting: what gets reused, what connects, and what carries forward.

Subscribe for more higher education strategy, share this with someone leading change on your campus, and leave a review with the biggest “silo” you want to break next.

]]> Maya Evans Buzzsprout-19034600 Sun, 26 Apr 2026 23:00:00 -0500 1617 1 4 full false Why Learner Lifetime Value Changes What an Alma Mater Should Be Why Learner Lifetime Value Changes What an Alma Mater Should Be Maya Evans Buzzsprout-18957676 Sun, 19 Apr 2026 23:00:00 -0500 1363 full false What If Higher Ed Learned Before It Committed? What If Higher Ed Learned Before It Committed? Universities aren’t slow because people inside them don’t care. They’re slow because they’re built to protect expertise, quality, and legitimate process, and that operating design makes fast change unusually hard. I walk through Henry Mintzberg’s idea of the professional bureaucracy and the trade-off it creates: higher education gets reliability and rigor, but it struggles when the world outside starts changing faster than our cycles of approval, coordination, and shared governance.

From there, I zoom out to what fast-learning organizations do differently. The point isn’t to copy startups or chase hype; it’s to understand how experimentation becomes part of daily operations and how results actually change decisions. We get specific about the failure mode universities know too well: pilot fatigue. When pilots aren’t tied to a decision to scale, fund, stop, or reallocate resources, the organization generates activity and data but doesn’t move. Over time, that drags down credibility, burns staff time, and spreads resources across initiatives that never fully land.

We also tackle a concept that often makes higher ed flinch: minimum viable products. I argue for an ethical, student-protective version of MVPs that helps institutions learn before committing at full scale. The real risk isn’t a small, scoped test; it’s making large irreversible bets without testing assumptions. If speed of organizational learning is becoming a competitive advantage in an AI-accelerated economy, the question is whether higher education builds the capacity to learn deliberately or keeps reacting after the fact. Subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review with one place you think higher ed should run a small test next.

]]> Universities aren’t slow because people inside them don’t care. They’re slow because they’re built to protect expertise, quality, and legitimate process, and that operating design makes fast change unusually hard. I walk through Henry Mintzberg’s idea of the professional bureaucracy and the trade-off it creates: higher education gets reliability and rigor, but it struggles when the world outside starts changing faster than our cycles of approval, coordination, and shared governance.

From there, I zoom out to what fast-learning organizations do differently. The point isn’t to copy startups or chase hype; it’s to understand how experimentation becomes part of daily operations and how results actually change decisions. We get specific about the failure mode universities know too well: pilot fatigue. When pilots aren’t tied to a decision to scale, fund, stop, or reallocate resources, the organization generates activity and data but doesn’t move. Over time, that drags down credibility, burns staff time, and spreads resources across initiatives that never fully land.

We also tackle a concept that often makes higher ed flinch: minimum viable products. I argue for an ethical, student-protective version of MVPs that helps institutions learn before committing at full scale. The real risk isn’t a small, scoped test; it’s making large irreversible bets without testing assumptions. If speed of organizational learning is becoming a competitive advantage in an AI-accelerated economy, the question is whether higher education builds the capacity to learn deliberately or keeps reacting after the fact. Subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review with one place you think higher ed should run a small test next.

]]> Maya Evans Buzzsprout-18946285 Sun, 12 Apr 2026 23:00:00 -0500 1660 1 3 full false What Higher Ed Leaders Can Learn From the Trust Collapse What Higher Ed Leaders Can Learn From the Trust Collapse Trust in institutions hasn’t just declined.

It has collapsed.

In this episode of Beyond the Ivory Tower, I explore what that collapse actually means for higher education and why most institutions are responding to it in the wrong way.

We tend to treat trust like perception.
 Something that can be improved through messaging, branding, or storytelling.

But trust doesn’t work that way.

Trust is operational.

Through examples from media, government, and everyday institutional experiences, this episode examines how trust breaks down and what it actually takes to build it.

At the center of this conversation is a simple but uncomfortable idea:

Higher education asks people to be deeply vulnerable
while offering very few guarantees in return.

Drawing on research and real-world examples, I break down the four pillars of trust, humanity, transparency, capability, and reliability, and what it looks like to operationalize them inside an institution.

]]> Trust in institutions hasn’t just declined.

It has collapsed.

In this episode of Beyond the Ivory Tower, I explore what that collapse actually means for higher education and why most institutions are responding to it in the wrong way.

We tend to treat trust like perception.
 Something that can be improved through messaging, branding, or storytelling.

But trust doesn’t work that way.

Trust is operational.

Through examples from media, government, and everyday institutional experiences, this episode examines how trust breaks down and what it actually takes to build it.

At the center of this conversation is a simple but uncomfortable idea:

Higher education asks people to be deeply vulnerable
while offering very few guarantees in return.

Drawing on research and real-world examples, I break down the four pillars of trust, humanity, transparency, capability, and reliability, and what it looks like to operationalize them inside an institution.

]]> Maya Evans Buzzsprout-18914048 Sun, 05 Apr 2026 23:00:00 -0500 959 1 2 full false Introducing Beyond the Ivory Tower Introducing Beyond the Ivory Tower Imagine a room full of highly experienced university leaders.

There are millions of dollars on the line. Entire academic programs. The futures of students.

Everyone has data. Everyone has strong opinions. Everyone cares deeply.

And no one can agree on what to do next.

In higher education, we are surrounded by intelligence, expertise, and commitment. But when it comes to solving our most complex challenges, we often draw from the same set of ideas, the same peer institutions, and the same playbook.

This podcast starts from a different premise.

What if the answers we need aren’t just inside higher education?

What if we expanded how we learn?

]]> Imagine a room full of highly experienced university leaders.

There are millions of dollars on the line. Entire academic programs. The futures of students.

Everyone has data. Everyone has strong opinions. Everyone cares deeply.

And no one can agree on what to do next.

In higher education, we are surrounded by intelligence, expertise, and commitment. But when it comes to solving our most complex challenges, we often draw from the same set of ideas, the same peer institutions, and the same playbook.

This podcast starts from a different premise.

What if the answers we need aren’t just inside higher education?

What if we expanded how we learn?

]]> Maya Evans Buzzsprout-18913978 Thu, 26 Mar 2026 14:00:00 -0500 648 1 1 full false