A five-year plan for the Open Lab, with Dr. Greg Filbeck and Dr. Alicyn Rhoades

Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with Dr. Greg Filbeck, vice chancellor and associate dean for academic affairs, and Dr. Alicyn Rhoads, vice chancellor and associate dean for research and graduate studies, about the college’s new five-year strategic plan. Originally recorded on July 15, 2026.

Transcript

Meet The Leaders

Ralph Ford 0:05

I'm Dr. Ralph Ford, Chancellor of Penn State Behrend. And you are listening to Behrend Talks. Today I have two guests with me. Dr. Greg Filbeck, Vice Chancellor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. And Dr. Alicyn Rhoades, Vice Chancellor and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies. So you have the three leaders of the college here, all in one place. Welcome to the show.

Alicyn Rhoades 0:27

Thank you.

Ralph Ford 0:28

Hopefully the plane doesn't crash because there'd be nobody left. But uh I'm not going to run through your full bios. You've both been guests on the show. Appreciate you coming back today. Want to have a really important talk about our strategic plan, but first, Greg is we, you know, as our listeners may like to know, he oversees the academic side of the house. That's the uh portfolio of programs, planning, assessment, evaluation, shared governance with the faculty. Of course, it's never quite that simple. That overlaps with all of us. Alicyn oversees strategy planning and administration of research, graduate programs, our outreach centers, including Pennsylvania Seat Grant and Susan Hirt Hagen CORE, and our Women's Health and Innovation and Science Translational Lab. And uh the reason we're here today is last year the two of you undertook a really important task. I asked you to lead the process of developing our next strategic plan for Behrend. We go through this every five years. Um, but I'll say up front, I think what came out of this was really special. It's not just any strategic plan, and uh that's in great part due to your efforts and that of the committee and frankly the entire campus as a whole. So we want to talk about that today. And uh we're going to just start with each of you maybe giving a little bit of your perspective on, you know, why strategic plans are important, or they, you know, the proverbial document that just sits on the on the shelf. But also I want you to start after that and just tell us like how this process worked and how you got people engaged in this.

Greg FIlbeck 2:04

Well, I'll start with the I think the importance of the strategic plan. Uh, two things really jump out at

Why A Strategic Plan Matters

Greg FIlbeck 2:10

me. So, one thing is the value proposition for higher education. And we know over the last decade that the percentage of individuals who feel that aspiring for higher education is an important thing has dropped significantly. And so that value proposition becomes critical, I think, for universities to really go out and be able to prove to the public what their worth and value is. And I think that we've done a traditionally a very good job here at Penn State Behrend from a perspective of return on investment and being able to really sell what we're doing as a value add. And I think, secondly, what's going on in uh AI has become a critical part of how we are able to not only make sure that our academic portfolio is keeping pace with what's going on with AI and staying on top of that, but that we also are able to provide experiences that will allow folks to be competitive in an AI world.

Alicyn Rhoades 3:09

That's a good answer. I mean, I think those are excellent specifics. I'll maybe zoom out a minute and say, you know, without a goal, we tend to meander as humans. We we tend not to work towards a goal unless that goal is set. And we don't want to be the lucky squirrel, what is the phrase, once in a while a blind squirrel finds a nut. That is not what we aspire to as a college. So without understanding where Behrend needs to be in 2030 and without having really concrete and measurable goals, we're not going to get there on accident. And so I think we we put this team together and we put this plan together so that we could be really intentional as we move forward.

Ralph Ford 3:50

And when you put that team together, I will say I gave you latitude. I just said, oh, go put together a team. And I said, don't make it too big though. Get a lot of input from many people because you're going to have to have like a lot of long, difficult conversations. And we've all been through this before, and there's always this period of like flailing in the beginning where it just feels like this is an impossible task, and everybody's in their own different spaces. Can you just talk through, like you know, how you brought the committee together and how you work through those phases of going from what is always this nebulous, hey, who are we? You know, you start asking some really fundamental questions to getting to something very specific. And we'll get to the specifics of this plan in due time, but I think that that's important to talk through.

Greg FIlbeck 4:34

Well,

Building The Team And Timeline

Greg FIlbeck 4:35

I think one thing that was critical is Alicyn and I got together and we set up a timeline so that we would be able to have sort of benchmarks for success as we went along to make sure we didn't get off schedule because it's very easy for that to happen. I think the other part that I think was critical is that we both recognized a need for the use of AI in terms of what we were doing. So we were looking at other schools that we aspire to be able to emulate their success going forward. We looked at their strategic plans, and we really started out of the gate, I think, uh, really using a lot of different documentation that was out there to be able to feed into the process. I also think that as a part of that process, we recognized that we did need to spend some time with the committee making sure that we were getting good input and getting, again, we were represented from a large set of constituencies here on campus, uh, and that then once we were able to pull things together, that we're going out and soliciting feedback from all of the different types of stakeholders.

Alicyn Rhoades 5:35

Yeah, and with respect to the actual committee, you know, I think it's it's sometimes hard to back out of your own position and your own experiences and recognize that Barend is a collection of you know different groups of people that really make a whole. So just like the body has many parts, you know, Behrend has many parts. And so if we would neglect the input from staff, if we would neglect the input from non-tenured faculty or tenure track faculty or even students, we would be missing some critical piece. And so I was happy to see that we had willing partners from across all those different stakeholders. The word stakeholder sometimes is a little bit formal when you're thinking about something as fluid and large as a community like Behrend. But really, you know, the folks that volunteered to be on the committee did a great job of representing the different opinions, even in their own spaces, but outside of their own opinions. I thought they did a really nice job of thinking about other people and thinking about parts of the of the college that need to work so that we can work as a whole. And I was really pleased about that, about the effort that people took to step outside their own spaces.

Ralph Ford 6:48

You know, my my guess is you had to you had to push them a little bit. Oh, yeah. And I don't mean that. I mean that's just the way that it is, right? You've you've got to come back and you've got to have multiple discussions where you frankly argue these things through.

Alicyn Rhoades 6:59

Well, it's hard to remember that just fighting for your own little kingdom isn't gonna win in the end. You know, we have to be very much broad-minded and and thinking about the health of the whole. And that's hard to do. And I'd say we had several meetings where we were just kind of waging against ourselves, not because anybody is is bad, but because we really have to get out of our own habits. And when we have a habit of defending what is most important to us, right?

Greg FIlbeck 7:27

So that's yeah, and I think the fact that we're starting with Penn State's uh strategic plan, which was released, I think that does give us a way of being able to reel it back in. So as Alicyn said, you know, whenever you know we're starting to kind of get offline a little bit with that, and I think this carried on even through the solicitation of additional feedback from other groups as well. In many cases, people had some wonderful input, and we tried to incorporate that in in a way that would fit into the plan we were developing, but also recognizing that some of the feedback is very good when it would go down to the school level for the next level of plans that would be taking place. And in other cases, folks had some tactical suggestions that I think we were recognized as a part of the process. We get into action steps would be important, but obviously we were trying to develop the bigger strategic plan.

Alicyn Rhoades 8:15

Yeah.

Ralph Ford 8:15

And how did you use AI? That was clear, uh, you piqued my memory. Is that was

Using AI For Faster Iterations

Ralph Ford 8:20

one of the things that you decided up front that there was going to be a lot of use of AI by the committee. I think benchmarking, you encourage people to generate ideas, but also to challenge your ideas, of course, not just blindly using AI, but that was clearly a part of your thought process.

Greg FIlbeck 8:37

Well, I think that first we wanted it to be very much data-driven. So a lot of the uh information we were putting into AI, like on the academic side, is basically trends that we were seeing, not only with respect to our programs here at Behrend, but also using data, uh, Hanover, for example, that have provided data for us on uh where emerging trends were occurring, where certain types of degrees were gonna be more popular going forth. We put in material from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but also looking at the landscape of other universities that we considered to be cutting edge and that we wanted to be able to see what they were doing as a part of that. And I think all of that together, I think, is was very important.

Alicyn Rhoades 9:21

Yeah, and actually I'll add, I think this was the first large-scale project that we used AI to really execute ever. Yeah, you know, because we started about a year ago, and that was really the time that these agents were becoming super useful, you know, and we as a group were learning in real time as we were uploading and and learning all everything about prompt engineering and trying to make sure what we were getting is accurate, and then not trusting it and going back and double checking and rehashing, and and so the speed at which we were able to move and the iterations that's probably where it best helped us was so many iterations that we were able to work through. Where if we had been doing this a year or several years ago, I think we probably would have only made it through two or three iterations. I bet we pushed through 15 iterations, truly. And I think that was a huge, huge benefit.

Greg FIlbeck 10:13

And I love what Alicyn just said there, because I I think that we also had to work in terms of being able to recognize that it it's not a magic box that AI doesn't solve all your problems and put things out. So the fact that we would have to recognize, oh my gosh, this iteration left out this whole piece that we had been working on for so long, and to be able to go back in and make sure that everything was going to be uh inclusive to what we were trying to create.

Ralph Ford 10:38

I can confidently say that the time frame we had, I mean, we really didn't even start at this time last year. It wasn't until the fall semester started because the university gave us our marching orders kind of like right at the beginning of the summer, and that's all fine. And we were supposed to get it in in I think January or February. And we came awfully close to meeting that, and frankly, a lot of colleges and campuses and the universities still haven't quite got there yet. They're they're converging there. So I I think it's the fastest strategic plan we have put together in any recent memory. There's no doubt about it in my mind, and probably the most impactful. I think we'll talk about that, so I'll brag a little bit. I think the way that it came out, but I'll talk about a few things from from my side of it. I actually think think I did, and you can tell me if I'm I'm right about this. I did a pretty good job of staying out of it, and probably until like last January. And you were clearly struggling with mission creep where like the document was getting bigger and bigger. So I joke you had the 40-page document, and yeah, we know we knew in the end it had to be like a 10-page document. Yeah, and that's where we got. And so I think AI helped you go back and forth with that. And I I think you know, I had some input to say, no, this is where we really need need to focus and the like. So go ahead and comment.

Alicyn Rhoades 11:51

Well, I was just gonna say, you know, it's sort of like anything after some amount of time, you need another set of eyes on it. And we had those second, third, fourth, fifth sets of eyes through obviously through your last pruning, I would say, but also through some feedback from campus where blind spots were revealed and just places where this thing had grown into a wild English garden that needed some attention. You know, so we we definitely needed all of the input that we got. You know, our team had its own challenges, and one of those was there were a lot of good ideas, and there was also the temptation to include logistics and include steps that really belonged in execution plans, not in strategic plans.

Greg FIlbeck 12:34

And

Surveys Forums And Tabling For Input

Greg FIlbeck 12:35

how did you get input from the campus? So we solicited uh feedback from the campus in a number of ways. So, one, uh we created a survey that was distributed across campus and and we worked with, for example, the student government association. Uh, we worked uh through the schools to be able to solicit that feedback and make sure that that got passed out. But we also tabled, I mean, we set we set up tables and we met with people, we had discussions. I thought that open discussion forum, I think, was uh a good way for people who just wanted a more of a conversation that went along with that. We also brought the plan back to campus after we had received feedback from council uh fellows and advisory boards uh within the schools and and even the faculty within the schools. We came back and had two sessions where we met with them and did a presentation related to them and kind of threw it back out there for some additional feedback.

Alicyn Rhoades 13:27

Yeah, I think the tabling idea was, I believe that was Amy Bridger's idea, and at first it seemed a little bit, I'm not even sure. It got a little bit of pushback. But eventually every member of the committee offered or signed up for a time, and we set tables up in Erie Hall, in Roche Hall, in Bruno's, all over campus to catch faculty and students, just casually catch them and get their feedback. You know, talk to us about this point, talk to us about this point. What do you think about this point? And it ended up being a nice way to make people know, make sure they knew that we were actually out there and we wanted to hear what they had to say.

Ralph Ford 14:00

So it was uh I think a really inclusive process. And you know, in the end, you obviously can't make everybody quote happy. They don't always get their peace in there, but I think it speaks to who we are, and that's where I wanted to go next. Is what came out of it in the end was

Open Lab And Resumes Not Degrees

Ralph Ford 14:15

really this idea of and there are there are five bold commitments. We're going to talk about the five bold commitments, but we you you doubled down, so to speak, on this open lab identity. And I think one of the phrases that came out was we want our students to graduate with resumes, not just degrees. And of course, the degree credentials are important. So can you talk about like how how did you get to this kind of like overall, and by the way, we've been certainly working in that direction, but we're really focusing on the fact that our students have to have real experience before they leave, before they walk out. How did that that develop?

Greg FIlbeck 14:54

Uh well, I think one thing that really comes out from that discussion is actually AI, because we know that a lot of entry-level positions that are being posted for individuals to apply for now are actually requiring work experience. And because of that, our value proposition with respect to open lab, I think becomes even more critical. And I will say that I've always been impressed, having been here at Behrend for 20 years, how Behrend seems to always be uh a step ahead, a step ahead of other units within the Penn State system, uh, across other universities and so forth. But where the university is going is a step kind of in our direction with respect to trying to document experiential learning. But open lab goes a step further than that, and it brings in those industry and community partners in. And I believe that that is a real differentiator that really stands out. And the the fact that we are basically not just talking about it, but we're actually going to ensure that every student has that experience becomes critical. And it becomes even more critical in an AI world because uh individuals who do not have those types of experiences are not going to be as competitive coming out trying to apply for entry-level jobs. Uh, again, we also value, of course, internships, co-ops, and so forth, but this is another piece to that puzzle, which I think is critical.

Alicyn Rhoades 16:16

Yeah, and I'll I suppose I'll just add that in a world where higher ed is being hit pretty hard, right, from a relevancy point of view. And we have students that we talk to when they come on campus and they're really struggling with the decision should they attend the university or should they go to trade school or should they take a carpentry apprenticeship or whatever. You know, these are real promises to them that say you will also be professionally literate and ready to run for your future when you graduate. And that is, to Greg's point, the value proposition that the students didn't used to hear. They used to hear much more, like chase your passion, chase your dreams. And while we absolutely want them to fulfill their dreams and move towards their passions, we recognize that many, many students that come to Barend are here because they need a career path and they need to be able to secure their professional future. And so being able to promise them that we are committed to helping them do that is more important than I think it's ever been.

Ralph Ford 17:18

So let's talk, let's take that to the next level. So what came out of this, this was back and forth discussion with me, was the idea that every student would have an open lab experience. We're not there yet, but we think we can get there in a few years. That we're going to commit to trying to make that happen. What does that mean and what are we committing to?

Greg FIlbeck 17:40

So I think it's really at two levels. So one level, it's working with each of the individual programs on campus and ensuring that there's at least one significant open lab experience that will be a part of their curricular experiences. And so in many instances, it goes across many classes and some programs almost all classes, but we want to make sure, regardless of what your major is, you're coming out with at least an open lab experience. So we we want to be able to collect that information, just like we collected information and will continue to collect information on where all of our programs are with respect to AI. But the second part is something that's going on at the university level, which is a way to document experiential learning. And so one of the things that we'll be able to piggyback on through the more formal channels, if you will, related to graduation requirements and so forth, is something that is evolving that will allow us to essentially be able to check a box that says a student has had one or more of these types of experiences. And we'll be able to define these locally, which ours will be open lab-based experiences. And again, this is still evolving at the university level, but we've set the infrastructure in place in terms of making sure our programs are going to have those experiences, and we'll be working actually as we start this fall in the next phase to be able to identify what those experiences will be in each program.

Alicyn Rhoades 19:04

Yeah, I think maybe it's important that we circle back and define open lab a little bit. Not it doesn't have to be perfect. And actually, that's one of the funny things is how we all have a slightly different definition for open lab, but the common pieces of it mean really that the students will have some engagement with the outside world that causes them to have to bring feedback and deal with feedback from the outside world in a project-based setting. So one of my favorite examples is our capstone programs that already happen in engineering. And we have so we have a really nice baseline for some of these, and other programs have them too. Um, but not all programs have them. And one of my I'm I'm really passionate that I think we should try to think about how we get capstone programs in most majors, because the idea that an outside entity would come in and present a student with a real problem and have that student work on a team on that real problem, communicating back and forth with the outside world on their progress, on their questions, on their expectations, and on the quality of their work, that's resume building, you know. And that can show up also in sponsored research, which is of course near and dear to me, but then also internships, things that we can organize and strategize with and for the students. But, you know, whatever means it takes to make sure these students are not insulated, that they're not having a siloed experience where they believe at the end of the tunnel is another classroom type experience. There's nothing wrong with the classroom. We adore the classroom, but it's gotta be classroom plus preparation so that they can handle things like feedback. They can handle things like tough feedback. You know, these are pieces that make or break a person's first job, being able to handle constructive criticism and being able to be challenged and have to pull things from this class plus this class plus this class and how it all fits together to address a real world challenge. That's what I think students actually get excited about. And I feel like if we can bring that to all the students, they'll I think our I think our attention rates will also reflect that.

Greg FIlbeck 21:02

And I think this point by Alicyn is extremely important. I think something we should we should really emphasize is that feedback loop. And that's what differentiates the open lab from just experiential learning. It takes it a step further because they are getting that feedback. They're doing something to help solve a real-world problem or situation that exists in a community organization or an industry, and they are getting that feedback as opposed to more uh where experiential learning could have a bit more passive elements associated with it.

Ralph Ford 21:31

Let's switch to very much related to this. The idea

Research Strength And Regional Partnerships

Ralph Ford 21:35

that we talk about a lot is that we are a research university. Penn State's an R1 highly ranked research university. Behrend College has its own distinction Carnegie classification as a research college and university based on the level of activity that we have. How does this translate to our academics, though? Is this part of what we're doing? Is it some people think of it as separately or they want to poo poo research? Tell us why this is important.

Alicyn Rhoades 22:01

I mean, I think it's wildly important, and the statistics would back that up. First off, we can actually talk about the classroom and faculty who are engaged in their own research programs and who are publishing, who are engaging whether it's companies or government entities, whatever it is, you see that reflected in what they teach. It's just human nature. You talk about your experiences and in increasing their own knowledge and their their fields of specialty, sharpen and keep up to date what they teach in the classroom. So the notes are often refreshed, the class projects often reflect. And that's what we love to see is an updated and an accurate classroom experience. Secondly, I think you know, Behrend does a great job of being a research leader for a college our size. Now, being coupled with an R1 university like Penn State, when I say coupled, I mean being part of, we are nested as a college of Penn State University, brings a lot of opportunity for us because we do have resources, everything from the library to the shared lab resources to the computing and data resources, all of these pieces that would be nearly impossible for us to afford as a standalone college of our size, right? So it we do have a leg up from an opportunity point of view, and then you know, being able to bring the students into that research brings their um, we've we've all seen it, it brings their education to life. It makes them understand why they're learning calculus, it makes them understand why they're learning history, whatever it is, it just makes that pop off the page, and all of a sudden the doors open and the ideas come for the future. And so we've seen so many students turn around their own experiences, go from being, you know, low-performing students to high-performing students because suddenly it clicks why they're doing something that's important. And I think that's a huge part of our mission.

Greg FIlbeck 23:48

And I will add, I think that's important too from a standpoint of differentiation as we look at other institutions in the region and also within the Penn State system. We really stand out.

Alicyn Rhoades 23:58

Yeah, that's a great point. And I could go through the numbers, I have them in front of me, but you know, because we're a slight bit humble, maybe we won't. But I will, you know, we are more than eight times more research active than the nearest local neighbor, I'll put it that way.

Ralph Ford 24:13

Yeah, that's fine. We can talk about that. And I think one of the things, too, there's a statistic that we've talked about recently, which is you know, research engagement is really important for the high-performing students, but it actually has a larger impact on low-performing students earlier in their career who don't know what they want to do, and there's a lot of evidence that it actually changes them more in a positive way.

Alicyn Rhoades 24:34

Yeah, I love that. And I'll I will give you one stat that came out recently. We have about $2,000 generated per student per year in research. So that's pretty good. You know, that's that shows that we are bringing dollars in to support our students. And also last year, I think we had nearly $300,000 in wages for our undergraduate student researchers here on campus. And as I love to say, that keeps them out of the working at the coffee shop, right? Nobody's working at Arby's when you can pick up a job on campus helping a faculty researcher.

Ralph Ford 25:08

Yeah, absolutely. Well, why don't you, Alicyn, take and expand further? I'll ask you this one specifically. In the plan, our goal is to increase our research funding, expand in some specific areas, and grow our research portfolio. What's that part of the plan about?

Alicyn Rhoades 25:25

Well, we have a nice opportunity here at Penn State Behrend to grow our strengths. And when I'm talking about strengths, I'm not only talking about the college, but also the region. So we would be wise to build on where we have opportunity here, right? And that also leads to jobs and opportunity for the companies, hospitals, nonprofits in our own backyard. And so that tends to be where we have the most potential. So when we think about potential, you know, it would be silly of us maybe to start to build a nuclear reactor behind Glenhill. That would probably not be a wise investment, right? We should invest in things where we already have partners and strength, et cetera. And so, in that sense, um the Center for Manufacturing Competitiveness is the new building that we're hoping will break ground this year, planning to break ground this year in Knowledge Park, and that will open up brand new corridors for us in metal casting, metal forging. And the larger area would be materials and manufacturing. That is truly an opportunity area. Excellent work happening at the Women's Health Translational Lab, Innovation and Translational Science Lab. We have a wonderful partnership with UPMC. I think your listeners know a lot about these things already. But the strength of our partnership with UPMC can really not be understated. McGee Women's Research Institute is an incredible partner, and it makes a lot of sense for us to invest in faculty and students that will dovetail with that effort. Absolutely. Core and our social science impacts are going up and up. So we have now been named an official center within the university under the Social Science Research Institute. This is a huge deal with now significant financial support coming from University Park for uh James Hodges organization here and all of the efforts that go into our social science research and evaluation, a lot in our evaluation talents. And of course, we want to see the School of Science increase their research footprint significantly. We have a lot of talented faculty and are hiring new faculty in chemistry and other areas where we have, you know, great opportunity to grow that school. I think that school in particular has the most growth potential. And I think engineering is probably responsible for keeping our research engine moving. And I think the school of business has an impact that we um maybe isn't always reflected in the expenditure numbers, but from a regional economic impact cannot be neglected. Like Ken Lewis Economic Institute and the Center for Family Business and all of this different work that's happening there. So if Behrend evaporated tomorrow, I think the Erie region would really feel it from an economic point of view. And if the Erie region evaporated tomorrow, I think Behrend would also feel it because we're so integrated with the region to make all of this work happen.

Ralph Ford 28:10

Well said. And you know, those partnerships, they bring value to our students in the end. I mean, that's and our faculty, they really do bring resources. We can go on and on about that. I want to switch back to uh an earlier part of the discussion, and this question is for Greg.

Program Review And Accelerated Pathways

Ralph Ford 28:25

And that's around our academic portfolio. One of the parts of our plan is to keep looking at our program offerings. You see this happening across the country, generally called academic program and portfolio review. Frankly, it is uh something that causes a lot of consternation because places are making changes to what they're offering. And you know, universities are offering sometimes one, two, three hundred programs. We're going through that as well as a university. That's part of our commitment in this plan.

Greg FIlbeck 28:52

Yeah, so first I'd I'd like to make the point that portfolio review is not a new thing here at Behrend. In fact, we are continuously looking at our programs, and uh we have not been afraid to sunset programs when we feel that they are not economically viable. So, with that, we've actually had folks from programs come to us and say, it doesn't make sense for us to continue this program. So I think that's a very important point. I think the second point is we're also very careful when we do program expansion. So sometimes you get academic bloat that takes place with programs where schools will just keep adding programs, adding programs. We've always been very strategic about that. So as we went through the university-based process for this latest uh round of academic portfolio review, you will find that there were programs that we identified that needed to be closed, but not that many. And the other part of that is we are continuing to monitor programs that we think could be doing better. So we have we'll be putting task force together starting this fall to try to work on those. But this is also about the process of not just uh what what needs to close, but what opportunities are out there because in order for us to be able to remain cutting edge as we've always been, we have to be able to make those tough choices of trade-offs and make sure our programs stay ahead. I will also say that one thing that we have done now, we're in our second round of these. For the last decade, we've been working with program reviews that we've been doing on a five to seven year basis across all of our programs here at Penn State Behrend, soliciting feedback from not only our advisory boards, but also former students, employers, and our students as well, where we are asking critical questions about how we're doing and are the programs that we have in place and the learning objectives that we're trying to accomplish. Does that align with what's needed in industry and the community? And we're continuing that process, and that's something that is now being launched at the university level.

Ralph Ford 31:00

No, I think it's a it's a great way to say it, Greg, and it is uh correct. This is something we've been doing, but we're also going through the university process. And in the end, you always have to really be looking, and that's what we do through accreditation and the like. Are these programs relevant? Can we make them easier for students to get through them? Sometimes we have our own complexity in there. And I think that's one of the questions that I've seen come out of this as well. Are even within existing successful majors, are there things we can do to make it so that it's easier for a student to get through the program?

Greg FIlbeck 31:31

Well, and I think that's really critical and important. So, first, uh, from the standpoint of curricular innovation, we very much take the feedback we're getting from uh external partners very seriously, and it has resulted in a lot of curricular changes across many, many programs here at the university. And we also need to also be mindful of when we put our programs out there, uh, expanding our audience uh not only to adult students but individuals that may be displaced, for example, as a result of AI. So, also as a part of this plan uh in our academic portfolio, we want to be able to, for example, recognize folks that have brought significant real-world experience that would have a course equivalency and be able to recognize that as a part of the process. But we also want to look at the ability from, again, a value proposition. If there are ways that our students are coming in with a number of advanced credits, can we get them out more quickly as well? And so we've already identified six programs that we've been able to look at accelerated three-year programs and go along with it, which is critical as well.

Ralph Ford 32:37

Yeah, I love the idea of the accelerated three-year programs to listeners out there. If you want to know more about them, uh go have a look and there'll be more coming. And when I said easier to get through, I just want to clarify as well. I don't mean that we're reducing the level of rigor, but sometimes we've put in these requirements that just aren't necessary, and you have to look and find where they've creeped into the system. So I I want to switch now to one of the other elements of the plan, and that's AI. And it cuts across

The AI Innovation Hub Vision

Ralph Ford 33:05

all of it. And we're saying that we're one we want to be a leader in adopting, using AI. We want to be the place where companies and others who are interested in engaging or sponsoring student projects, we're calling it AI Innovation Hub. And that's very broad, and also making sure, for example, our staff are have the tools that they're thinking about it innovatively. So why don't we why don't we talk about that? Each of you give your perspective on on the AI Innovation Hub part of this.

Alicyn Rhoades 33:33

Sure, that's a huge question, by the way. Um, I guess I will start by talking from from a college level. There's a question that we've floated before. Will the aspects of our strategic plan that have to do with AI still be relevant in five years? And I think the answer is a resounding no. Like this isn't a topic that we have to address and reevaluate on a regular basis to make sure that we're not dropping behind. And some of that has to do with the resources that are available to us. So presently, you know, the university, what they're offering to us as faculty and staff is changing also very rapidly. The tools that we have right now are probably not sufficient for full integration of AI into the classroom. That's one thing that we're learning, simply from a data and token availability point of view. But I think from our point of view, our our engineering and science programs have a huge opportunity to bring AI, agentic AI. So, how do we build agents? How do we how do we use the foundational models that exist to our advantage? And this is the same question every employee is faced with basically out there now. You know, every new employee. We've learned that our students have the expectation, employers have the expectation that they have AI experience when they begin. And that goes farther than simply typing a question into a chatbot. That is not, that does not mean you have your own chat GPT login and that's it. You they're looking for proficiency. And so building that into the curriculum is is probably a question that Greg will address. But I think from my research and graduate programs competency, this is changing a mile a minute. And from an incorporation into our own processes, research is really an interesting space because these agents can build, say, a literature review or write a proposal in 20 minutes. And it would normally take a month, you know. And so the speed at which it can be done, the credit, where does the credit go? All sorts of questions are currently up in the air. And the um the university level discussions between all of the different associate deans for research are very colorful and very excitable right now on this topic. So all of it is moving fast and furious.

Greg FIlbeck 35:53

Yeah, a couple things I'll add. Uh so first, from a strategic planning standpoint, uh to Alicyn's point, what we know about AI right now will be nothing compared to what we're gonna know in two years, three, four, five years. But that's the beauty of a truly well-executed strategic plan that you see this as a living, breathing document. And we go back and revisit this, and we're not afraid to be able to make updates as necessary. And of course, in a five-year strategic plan, you should be doing a wholesale review of that as you go into the end of the third year anyway. So we're gonna be looking at this as an evolving process. But Ralph, I would say one of the things that I think really uh has brought AI so much to the forefront here at Behrend and why we believe we're the regional leader or hub related to AI is your work. You challenged every one of your direct reports to have significant AI goals as a part of our process, and and we also were supposed to be working with our staff to do that as well. And so folks that might have otherwise been a little frightened of the process had marching orders to be able to think about how they could create efficiencies and be able to use that. And folks come back reporting, they're very, very excited about that, and all the things that they're being able to do in a more efficient way. And then to Alicyn's point, uh, one of the things that we are continually doing is to evaluate, if you will, AI readiness associated with our programs. So we went through and had each of the programs develop, plan, talk about what they're doing in the AI space right now, and we're evaluating, if you will, AI usage across all of the classes to be able to uh again on a continuous, almost research basis, to be able to identify where we are with respect to that and to be able to assess. Uh, and some programs are obviously going to be much cutting, you know, cutting edge, and they're out there, you know, programs like software engineering, our management information science, uh, computer science, and so forth. Uh, they're all going to be kind of out there in terms of cutting edge. Uh, but a lot of our programs are really doing extremely well in the space, and even those programs that have doubts about where AI can go are finding niche ways to be able to be able to utilize them, particularly in some of the upper-level classes.

Ralph Ford 38:00

You know, you hit a point, Greg, there are a lot uh really well said there from both of you. And we like you said, Alicyn, we can talk about this for hours. But we're getting close to the end of our time. How do we how do we keep faculty,

Dashboards Metrics And Staying Accountable

Ralph Ford 38:15

staff, and students engaged in this over the next five years?

Greg FIlbeck 38:19

Well, I think one of the things that becomes critical whenever you have a really good strategic plan and you're wanting to make sure you've got buy-in, which again, I think by going out and working with each of the individual groups up front, this became a process where everybody was involved. But a strategic plan is not something you put on the shelf after you've completed it and say you're done with it. So we're already building out dashboards to be able to track progress with it, to be able to assign key individuals who will oversee different aspects associated with it. But it's got to be even more than that. It's got to be going back out to the campus community, to our advisory boards, to the broader community, to industry, and to be able to show our progress and to be able to track that progress as we move forward. So it takes uh a lot of organizational efforts and the ability to go back out and report out and say, here's where we are. In this particular area, we're 40% toward our current goal, and or we're evolving this piece because we're seeing innovation in this area. So the fact that we are going to be very transparent with where we are and gonna be reporting back out our progress and where we might be, you know, areas that might be lagging behind, how we plan to catch those up or evolve those, I think is critical.

Alicyn Rhoades 39:31

Yeah, I I mean I think the proof is gonna be in the pudding. So when we move through the strategic plan, the goals that we have set are actually ones that make our lives easier, right? So improving retention, for example, helps us in many, many ways. Improving our research uh productivity and yield helps us hit the open lab goal, and with engaged students and active faculty, you know, we've learned that research engagement with undergraduate students is a great predictor of faculty retention. So I think that the strategic plan will be self-fueling. It will, you know, sort of auto-propel because the benefits that we reap from improving our own situation over the next five years will keep everybody moving and rowing in the same direction.

Greg FIlbeck 40:14

I want to add one more thing, too, because I think this is critical. A lot of strategic plans tend to have what ends up being sort of nebulous goals, and they're very subjective in terms of are you accomplishing this or are you not accomplishing this? Our goals within this plan are extremely measurable, they're outcome-based, and the ability for us to track those become critical for us in the sense that we're able to come back and say, yes, we hit this particular metric, or no, we're not quite there with respect to the metric. Here's the way we're going to get there, or here's what we need to do to pivot or adjust based on where we are. But they're measurable goals. I think that becomes critical because that's a that is a much better way to be able to put together a strategic plan that you can go out and sell and be able to show the progress that's being made.

Ralph Ford 41:01

One question. How did each of you change throughout this process? I mean, how do you look at things differently in your role now

What Changed For Us

Ralph Ford 41:10

versus maybe where you did before? Or do you look at Behrend differently, just having gone through this pretty intense process the last year?

Alicyn Rhoades 41:18

That's an interesting question, Ralph. I mean, I think I gained respect and understanding of the operation as it moves together. I think even having been in leadership for a few years now, there are pieces that aren't under my part of the operation that I didn't understand, and I think I can say confidently that I understand them better, and that makes me more compassionate, it makes me more aware, it makes me more engaged with people that I didn't really even know before. So I think it's knit the community together, at least for me, in a more holistic way, which is positive.

Greg FIlbeck 41:56

I mean, that was so well said. I'll just copy that. No, uh, but no, I think it's important because I do think that it did allow us uh you know, as co-leading this, but also the committee and so forth to have a much broader perspective. And again, there university has so many moving parts, and you can't be on top of every one of them, particularly when you're in charge of a particular set or area or areas. So I think that that was uh very good. I uh the other way you said how has it changed? I I mean the the AI experience associated with this was transformational, and to be able to see the power of AI, and I think about what we've accomplished as a team, and I think about how hard it would be to have gotten there in the speed we got there had we not had that tool to be able to use. So it really, if you will, we we say we say we believe in the importance of of AI and its usage and making sure that our students are AI ready for the workforce. Well, it certainly allowed us to be able to have a great experience in ourselves in terms of what we're doing from the standpoint of the strategic plan.

Alicyn Rhoades 42:58

Yeah, I agree.

Ralph Ford 43:00

You know, really appreciate that perspective. It's clear to me from the outside that this was a really good process. I think not only did it change you, I think it changed the team. I think it's going to change the campus. And and frankly, my congratulations to both of you, the team, for coming up with what I think is a really impactful plan, a really bold vision. It's not going to be easy for us to meet, but I still think it's realistic. And uh we'll see where we go for the next several years. And for those listeners out there who are wondering what's in the plan, we didn't go into every bit. It's easy enough to find. I'm sure if you just Google Penn State Behrended Strategic Plan, you'll find it. Or go to Behrend.psu.edu forward strategic plan, and I think you'll find it there as well. Always very easy to find. Uh, you have been listening to Behrend Talks. I'm Dr. Ralph Ford. My two guests today are my two very good colleagues and great friends, Dr. Greg Filbeck, our Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs, and Dr. Alicyn Rhoades, Vice Chancellor of Research. Uh, thank you both so much for being here. This has been a wonderful conversation.

Alicyn Rhoades 44:07

Yeah, thank you, Ralph.

Greg FIlbeck 44:08

Thank you for the opportunity.