245 Leading for a Better Future of Higher Ed and Workforce Development with Anne Kress, President of Northern Virginia Community College | Greater Washington DC DMV Changemaker

***DISCLAIMER: Please note that the following AI-generated transcript may not be 100% accurate and could contain misspellings or errors.***

[00:00:00] Mahan Tavakoli: Anne Kress, welcome to Partnering Leadership. I am thrilled to have you in this conversation with me. 

[00:00:05] Anne Kress: Thank you so much. I love the opportunity to talk with folks, especially those in the region. . 

[00:00:10] Mahan Tavakoli:  I'm really excited, Anne, having watched you come into the region at a very hard time for all of us and all organizations, including colleges and education, and do a magnificent job with Northern Virginia Community College, and I know you will be able to have a greater impact.

We need it in the region and we need that in education. But before we get to that, we'd love to know whereabouts you grew up and how your upbringing impacted who you've become. 

[00:00:41] Anne Kress: Absolutely. So I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, you may still hear that a little bit in my voice. I lived in Milwaukee until I was about 15 years old.

When you look back at my childhood, I will say that no one would've ever thought that anyone from the neighborhood I grew up in would become a college president. The house that we had in St. Francis, Wisconsin was within walking distance of four different bars. It was near the railroad tracks.

My front window looked out over a grocery store parking lot. I am a first generation college student and I think that has a lot to do with why I am so passionate about the mission of community colleges. My father attended what at the time was the Milwaukee Institute of Technology and got a certificate that enabled him to get a job that supported his family.

At the time, it was just me. I remember my father going to night school and my sister came along shortly there. And with that certificate, he was working at a time when people could advance based on experience and based on skills, not as much on degrees. And so it really moved our family into the middle class and we, my sister and I were both able to go to college at the University of Florida.

By that point, my father had been transferred to Florida. So when I look at my background, I saw what obtaining a certificate did for my family. I saw the investment then that my family could make in the education that my sister and I had. And when I found community colleges, I thought, these are institutions that to the American dream that my family lived. And I just wanted to make that opportunity available for more students. I really trace it back to the experience I had as a young person.

[00:02:26] Mahan Tavakoli: It's wonderful that you saw the impact that certificate had on your dad and on your life over the years. And there has been a challenge, an inflation in the requirements that companies have four accepting people to work not too long ago. I was at a northern Virginia business at a big organization. I had to check in at the lobby level. A front desk and then go up to the top floor to meet with the CEO.

We were talking about this and the CEO was saying we can't access enough people and he was frustrated with the fact that there aren't enough well-trained people. And he said, we need to get away from all organizations expecting people to have four year degrees. And I teased them because I had a conversation with a young woman who working at the reception and she had just gotten a college degree and that was one of the requirements to work at the reception greeting people. 

So we still have a lot of those things in place. What do you think it takes for us to change some of the requirements? So people with certificates and the needed training that community college give to students who can get well paying. 

[00:03:42] Anne Kress: It's a great question and we've been working at Northern Virginia Community College with an organization called Opportunity at Work, which talks about the paper ceiling. And that paper ceiling is a bachelor's degree, and you're absolutely right.

There are bachelor's degrees positions that don't really acquire them. When you look at the skillset there are lots of opportunities for individuals to look more closely at hiring based on skills. I was very heartened when last year, Governor Hogan and Maryland eliminated the degree requirement, the bachelor's degree requirement for 50% of all the state's workforce.

Just a few weeks ago, the new Governor in Pennsylvania indicated that he would be eliminating that same requirement. The government of Pennsylvania, which could impact up to 90% of their workforce. I think one of the challenges we see is everyone's looking for workers right now, there's a tight labor market, there's a talent shortage, people will say, but I would say there isn't a talent shortage.

More than 50% of the adults in this country don't have a bachelor's degree. And I think it's really time to look past that, to break through that paper ceiling, to look at the skill sets that folks bring with them. To look at their career readiness, to look at their work ethic, their dedication and really to see past a piece of paper.

I am not against college degrees. I have four of them. But I will also say that what we know is that a college degree doesn't necessarily reveal the skillset below it. And there are lots of individuals who have incredible skills that they gained at Nova, at community college, in life, in the military that deserve recognition when it comes to hiring.

[00:05:20] Mahan Tavakoli: That's why I'm also a big believer that community colleges can play a big role in that, yes, there are roles that require degrees from four year universities and advanced degrees. However, we don't necessarily need to have that as. a default stamp for this person would be good enough for any job in my organization.

Now you fell in love it sounds like with community colleges early on. And because you've spent most of your career even before Nova Yes. At community colleges. Yes. What was it that drew you to teaching and involvement in the community? 

[00:05:56] Anne Kress: So I first discovered community colleges as an adjunct faculty member. My master's degree is in English, and I took a break between completing my master's and pursuing my doctorate and realized that I could teach at the local community college in Gainesville, Florida, which was then Santa Fe Community College. And so I taught as an adjunct faculty member.

I taught classes at different times of the day, evening classes, early morning classes. And what I saw in my classrooms was the full diversity of our community. I was teaching students anywhere from 15 to 65. I was teaching students who had come from the wider Alachua County that folks often didn't go to, who went to the University of Florida, which was my alma mater.

I was teaching students who really needed someone in front of the classroom to believe in them, whose experience in higher education or education period had not always been positive. And I just fell in love with it. I fell in love with students who were so passionate about the opportunity to learn, who really saw that education was an opportunity to move themselves and in many cases, their families forward.

So I just fell in love with the mission that community colleges opened the door of opportunity to everybody who comes forward, that they'll find a place for them, that we'll find a place for them that we want the front door to lead. At the stage of graduation, we wanted folks to be successful and there were all sorts of support and services that I didn't necessarily see at the university for students.

And so it really was a no-brainer for me when there was an opportunity to join the community college as a full-time English faculty member to say yes.

[00:07:38] Mahan Tavakoli: When  you were able to do that, one of the great things is, first of all, you had that business experience, which is one of those things that I think adds value to having adjunct faculty, people who are actually practicing in the real world and teaching. At the same time, the business of academics is different. Then teaching. Yes. And I would love to understand community colleges because one of the frustrations with secondary education, even from the time that I went through to now, is that there has been an incredible.

inflation. In the cost of secondary education. , and I understand some of it is for buildings, some of it is for facilities that the students require. What has been that business impact on community colleges? 

[00:08:27] Anne Kress: I think one of the great hallmarks of community colleges is that we provide access to affordable, high quality, higher education and workforce education in someone's backyard.

So first of all, you don't need to move away from home, a large part of going away to college is the away park. You can stay right there. The other part is just tuition to your point. It is striking to think that today a student can come to Northern Virginia Community College for a full year as a full-time student and pay about $5,500.

Wow. That's it. That is still way too much for many residents in Northern Virginia. So there's financial aid and scholarships and federal aid and state aid and lots of different programs to assist them. But you know that $5,500 is not at all comparable to the cost of tuition at a four year institution.

It is even looking at the public institutions in the Commonwealth of Virginia, at least 40%. those universities are charging nothing against them, right? There are all sorts of other costs that they have that support a research function and all sorts of things you don't find at community colleges.

We're dedicated to teaching and I think that's what sets us apart. You know what Nova, we have small classes. When I was a business student at the University of Florida it was not uncommon for me to walk into a classroom with 350 of my closest friends, right? In these mass lectures, we don't have those at Nova.

We have class sizes of. Or 30 so students get that attention. But I think that the huge difference is that we have so many students in this region and potential students, young people and not so young people who are bright and driven but they don't have the finances to think, oh I'm gonna go away to this university that costs $50,000 a year.

That's the open door that community colleges. 

[00:10:23] Mahan Tavakoli: And some of the strengths that community colleges like Nova have are closer to. in my view, ideal of the future of education. To initially after getting my bachelor's degree, I started my master's in human nutrition.

And one of the things that I didn't like as much about it as much as I love nutrition is that I quickly saw that the path to both getting your degree and becoming a professor, which is what I wanted to do. Had almost nothing to do. The quality of your teaching. , yes. It had everything to do with the quality of your research and publishing.

There is real value to that and I understand that, however. From a student perspective, you want the person in front of the room Yes. To be well researched and understand what they're doing, but to be focused on you, which is something that sounds like you are doing at Northern Virginia community.

[00:11:22] Anne Kress: Absolutely. And that's what every community college does. It really is that focus on teaching and learning. When I was a graduate student, when you were a graduate student, you were probably a teaching assistant, right? And so you were teaching students because the professor who was the biggest name in that field, was doing their own research and publishing or writing grants or directing grants.

 But our students see faculty in the front of the classroom. I think the other thing that makes community college. Special is the way that we provide multiple on-ramps to students. So when you think about the future of work and the future of the workforce, it's gonna look very different than it did in the past.

And higher education needs to look different as well. So we have 15 week. Terms, we've got 10 week terms, seven week semesters as well. We provide hybrid classes. We provide Nova online, which is entirely online instruction. We have a weekend program for students who can only come in the weekend. So it really is looking at the needs of our students in a very different way than a university might because we are very student and learner focused and we wanna understand how we can best serve the students who are in our region, who bring us all sorts of needs, not just academic needs, but also needs for food pantries and financial stability work and telemental health services and tutoring support.

It really is that comprehensive. Way of looking at student success. , 

[00:12:48] Mahan Tavakoli: it sounds like Anne part of what you're doing is the same role that many public school systems and communities are starting to play, where there is a lot more community support. It's not just purely education, whether it is free food programs.

, I'm talking about public school systems, free food programs or counseling for the families that need it. They've become a resource for the community. beyond just educating the individual in that case, the students. It sounds like that's what you are also doing at Nova. 

[00:13:20] Anne Kress: Absolutely. We understand that we're educating a whole human a whole student, and so that student may bring varying needs to us at Nova.

And we recognize also though, that we don't have the resources. Community colleges are less expensive than traditional higher education. Universities, but we also receive fewer resources from the state. So we know partnerships are incredibly important. For example, Nova has a partnership with the Capital Area Food Bank that's supported by m and t Bank locally, where the capital area, food bank supplies, food, and also refrigerators to our food pantries, we call them.

No. On our campuses, but then goes a step further and we know that one in five college students is a parenting student. And so that student may not have time to go to the pantry to figure out how to get on the bus to take the food home. So actually the capital area Food Bank is partnered with a.

Grocery delivery service to have those groceries delivered to the homes of our parenting students. Recognizing that time is an incredibly valuable commodity for them. So again, I think it's looking at the whole person, what is it gonna take for this entire student to be successful? . 

[00:14:33] Mahan Tavakoli: So as you are doing all of this, you got this opportunity to lead the institution.

 And January, 2020 . Yes. So yeah, spent a career in senior colleges. Oh, no. There was the huge disruption, but most especially on education, how were you able to lead Nova? Through, especially those initial phases of the pandemic where I imagine everything had to go. 

[00:15:03] Anne Kress: Absolutely. About eight weeks after I had started this position news of the growing concerns around the COVID 19 pandemic really hit all of higher education and, just as context.

So Nova has six separate campuses. We have close to 80,000 students. We employ about 3,400 individuals. And, in basically my eighth, ninth week at Nova, I had to make the call to send all of those students remote, to send all of our employees remote. We closed the college for a couple days to do.

Quick response training for faculty and staff on how to deliver some remote services. We obviously dedicated many more resources throughout the pandemic to that. Within less than a week, we had moved everyone remote and there were lots of jokes about how difficult it is to drive change in higher education, but what I saw was an immediate commitment and dedication on the part of all of our faculty and to making sure that our students could continue their educational journeys. 

They put our students at the center. They went above and beyond throughout the pandemic to make that happen. And as a result, during the pandemic, our enrollment actually grew a little bit. Our students' success stayed the same.

And it was amazing. It was nothing that I could have ever anticipated. Obviously, taking this job. What I would say is it showed me so much about who Nova is as an institution. I'm almost hearing up even talking about it right now because it's in those darkest moments that you start to see what really shines through and what really shines through for Nova was that sense that we're here for our students.

We know how much they go through to come to our college. We know what their success is, and we wanna be there for them. Even as we're all facing our own sets of challenges. We know that we're here for our students and it was just amazing.

[00:17:05] Mahan Tavakoli: That is an incredible tribute to all the staff at Nova and your leadership coming in and being hit with this thing you had no choice in. Yeah. But being able to lead the organization, and I believe you mentioned that enrollment actually grew. , if I'm correct, community. had a significant, all colleges had a significant Yeah. 

Drop in enrollments over the past couple of years. So what was it, in your view, in addition to the care that contributed to Nova being able to hold its ground and even slightly growing enrollment? 

[00:17:42] Anne Kress: Yep. And to be clear, post pandemic, we saw a small. maybe about 4%, but that's still probably about a third of the national average. I think it was when we started a campaign that was hashtag you Matter to Nova and we really meant it.

So all of higher education received higher education and emergency relief funds from the federal government as part of the stimulus package during the pandemic. There was a requirement that institutions dedicate 50% of those dollars. To direct Student Aid Nova dedicated close to 80% of our funds directly to our students.

We knew that they were facing financial challenges. Before the pandemic, that would only be exacerbated throughout it. So we wanted to make sure they had the financial resources. We also wanted to make sure they had the people's resources. So we had lots of folks at the institution whose jobs, quite honestly, were completely dependent on our campuses being opened.

And so what we did during the pandemic, cause we also said we committed to them so we weren't gonna lay any of them. But we would ask them to take on new roles as what we called remote student support specialists. So they were the first line to reach out if a faculty member said, Hey, Anne's not showing up in class.

Can someone reach out to Anne? They were the first line. If a student reached out and said, I'm having challenges and I need a laptop. I'm having challenges and I need access to wifi so they were the referrals. And I think that connection to our students, making sure that they knew that we cared about them and their success.

Help them to stick with us through a time that was really challenging for them. 

[00:19:22] Mahan Tavakoli: That's incredible. And a great tribute to being able to be both flexible and antifragile becoming better as a result of this experience that Nova went through. Would love to know your thoughts on both Nova and community college education.

In what way do you being different. Post experience. , where some things will go back to the way they were. Some things will never go back to the way they were in education. , what are your views on what are the things that have permanently shifted with respect to how we approach education?

Most, especially at the community college level. 

[00:20:01] Anne Kress: I would point to a few things. One is that we saw a real sort of hockey stick spike in our students' use of online services. So these were services that quite frankly, in the past, Nova had not Foregrounded as being available remotely. So advising, counseling, financial aid, we had a little bit of it, but not a lot.

And during the pandemic, I think students realized that they could easily access services in a way that would've been more difficult getting off work, coming on campus, finding the parking space, all of that. So post pandemic, even as students have returned to our campus, For classes, they still seem to want to use our services at a distance.

They wanna zoom in for an office hour for a faculty member, they wanna zoom in for an advising appointment. So I think that's forever changed. I don't think you're going to see lines out advising doors anymore. So that's one thing. The second thing we saw was that time. Very important for our students, I think because of the uncertainty of the pandemic, but also just because of I think the difficult economic circumstances that many of them found themselves in.

So they are looking increasingly for shorter term programs that lead directly to industry recognized credentials. So that they can get jobs and they can switch industries more easily. So the largest growth in terms of a percentage that we've seen post pandemic is really in our short-term programs that lead to those industry recognized credentials.

They've grown by triple digits. And we've also seen students, honestly registering later for their traditional. It's like they wanna make sure that things are gonna be going okay before they sign on the dotted line. And that's a shift we're going to continue to see. And then the last thing I'd mentioned is that students realized that there were some career pathways that were a little bit more impacted.

By the shutdown. And so they've migrated more towards professions where they really saw an upswing. So we've seen growth in our IT programs and we've got, I think at this point, over 6,000 students and some. Version of information technology and computer science. Contrary to what folks thought, during the pandemic there was a fear that people would be moving away from the health sciences careers in nursing because of all of those images.

What we saw instead was a real commitment that people really wanted to be part. Of the healing professions and that's grown. So I do think we'll continue to see students really looking at the economy to drive some of what they're choosing in their own career pathways. 

[00:22:45] Mahan Tavakoli: And as they're doing that, I had a conversation with Tom Tulley.

He is an AI investor, writer and reporter on ai. And one of the interesting things he said is that when you look at ai, we are a lot closer to having artificial intelligence that can be an assistant to and or replace the role that a primary doctor plays. While we are a lot further away.

AI being able to replace the role a nurse plays. Yes. Yes. So there are lots of things that are of need, both. With the aging of the community and society, but also with respect to jobs that in the foreseeable future are going to be needed. Now, one of the things that is happening Anne.

Based on exponential technologies, artificial intelligence being one of them 3d printing, biotechnology, hitting a curve that. will cause a lot faster pace of change. . In the jobs and in the skillsets that are required. How are you as a community college shifting both the curriculum and what is taught in those classes in order to keep up pace with the shifts in the technologies and then the roles that organizations need?

[00:24:06] Anne Kress: Back in the day, when I went to college and I got my degree. At the end there was this sense of finality, right? Oh, we're done. We've got our education, we're ready for the world. And that has just been blown out of the water. We talk a lot at Nova and really across community colleges about skilling.

reskilling and up-skilling, so your initial degree is really your skillset, whether it's a two-year degree, a certificate, a four-year degree, a doctorate. You're coming out with an initial skillset that hopefully has some marketplace value, right? No one goes to college regardless of whether you get an associate's or a master's degree and thinks, oh, I hope I'm unemployed, 

so you're really trying to get that skillset that has marketplace value. . But I think what we're seeing to your point, is that marketplace value has a shorter and shorter shelf life, and something's gonna come around to disrupt whatever industry you're in, and it's gonna require you to reskill into upskill,

to get a new set of knowledge skills and abilities so that you can really navigate a rapidly changing world. I was laughing with someone the other day about how the first computer I ever saw weighed about 300 pounds and this will maybe strike a image with some of the listeners had one of those blinking green cursors because it was a DOS system.

And I thought that was amazing because before that I had only ever seen key punch cards. Now there's more power in the phone that I hold in my hand. than in an entire bank of computers in most businesses in the 1990s, not even the eighties. So things are just changing so rapidly and I had this discussion actually at the beginning of this semester at Nova because, I taught writing and so there was so much over the holidays about chat G P T, 

and looking at the papers that it could write for students and with friends, I did some of those experiments. Where could you tell this paper was written by Chad, g p t and . I could tell I could do a pretty good job until they started to change sort of the directions they gave the AI system, when they told it to put in more errors and it shouldn't be as perfect, then it became more difficult and it really, I think, caused an existential crisis for me as somebody who used to teach.

What would it be to teach writing in this new era? And I do think all of us in higher education are having to rethink that. Just as when I was younger, we used to memorize all of these facts because to go find them would take going to the library and pulling out these huge tones. But now all I have to do is Google or ask Siri and I can get the date of anything.

So I do think even the way that we structure higher education is going to. upskilled, it's not so much about producing this item as it is about the meta skills in understanding the means of that production, how something is good or not good, how is it factual or not factual? How do we parse that information when information is everywhere?

I saw a story about deep fakes the other day and what does it take to understand what is real and what isn't? Anymore. That's a higher order of understanding, quite honestly, than memorizing facts. And I don't think the role of anyone at the university is going to go away. I think it's gonna become harder in trying to educate people who then have to learn for the rest of their lives and constantly upskill that learning.

Oh, 

[00:27:44] Mahan Tavakoli: I love a lot of what you said, Anne. First and foremost, the fact that getting a degree or an education, it doesn't matter a certificate, two years, four years, 12 years, you name it, is just a start. , we need to constantly now reeducate ourselves and in addition to that, the rethinking of the way we approach education, which is easier when you've got 20 some people in front of you.

 To totally turn around the classroom to have those conversations which can intellectually challenge people for insights rather than the one too many broadcast of education. or one that relies on people to just jump through hoops, whether the hoops are, write an essay or solve this math problem, whatever it might be.

, it's going to. Require us rethinking to actually tap into that human intelligence potential. Rather than some of what we had been used to doing. So I love the fact that you are thinking through that and thinking about making those adjustments. 

[00:28:57] Anne Kress: I do think there is a real willingness and interest among our faculty in engaging in these topics.

In fact, we've got some study groups right now across Nova looking at what AI is going to do to the disciplines and how should we think about it. To their credit, it's not just about what plagiarism software can we buy to detect this? It's more about how is this gonna change the disciplines that we teach?

To your point about automation, period, that's about the future of work. There are lots of professions that folks don't necessarily think would be subject to automation accounting radiographic technology, , that really are because they're repetitive. So then it's how do you upskill those professionals so that it is about the humanity?

in those professions, there are some things that you can't program, and it's those stickier issues and that's really where you need a human, somebody who has not just a skillset that could be an algorithm, but a critical and creative approach to thinking and to the credit of our faculty at Nova, at community colleges across the country, that's really what folks are dedicated to, is helping students to develop those skill sets.

It's not about passive reception of information anymore. It's truly about active learning. 

[00:30:16] Mahan Tavakoli: And that passive reception is available outside of the university system anyway, so I would love to get your thoughts. Week or two ago, YouTube announced a partnership with Arizona State University, where in essence there's a video company called Crash Course.

So you. , watch the videos, take some tests, and get college transfer credits. Do you see those types of initiatives as supporting? College education, including community colleges , do you see them as competitive? How do you see the interplay of some of these attempts at circumventing the traditional education route?

, how do you see them playing along with higher education? 

[00:31:05] Anne Kress: I think they're a wonderful compliment, is what I would say. . The power of community colleges is that we keep that door of access open to real people, to real classes, to real engagement for everyone, 

and my concern about technologies like that is that they're always for somebody else's. Kids, right? Oh, that video teaching, that's good enough for but my son or daughter is gonna go to Harvard, right? My son or daughter is gonna go to George Mason. My son or daughter is gonna go to U B A.

But the rest of those kids, they can just learn via videos on YouTube. I don't think that should be the only option. Community colleges have outstanding faculty members in classrooms ready to support these students, including sometimes through high flex classes where students could be in the class on a Monday and Taking a class via video on a Wednesday because I got called into work.

So I do think there should be lots of different on-ramps, but my concern is always, I don't wanna root just one section of the population over here and then we double reify all those haves and have nots that right now are already a big challenge that we. 

[00:32:17] Mahan Tavakoli: As there is even more technology in the workplaces. The big differentiator is going to continue being the ability to connect and engage with humans and the humanity and the interaction. And that is some of what people get in those in-person classes, the opportunity to interact with others. So we don't want to assign a segment of our society to being educated only online.

and then a segment of society that gets a chance to interact with other people, be in environments that are closer to the workplace environment. Now, one of the things, and I've been involved in the business community here for at least a couple of decades, and I remember even Days of America online being big in the region where there was lots of conversation about there is a big gap between.

the needs of the companies. , and then we've got lots of people that need to be trained or retrained to meet those needs. . There has been very little progress over the past, in my view, over the past 20, 25 years, where typically when I go to a conversation, bunch of business leaders sitting around, they're still talking about the same problems.

Not sure they have invested in making a difference in it, but they're still talking about the same problems. What do you think is going to take for us as a community , to bridge those gaps and divides where we have pools of people who are willing to be retrained, willing to work, to be retrained in a way where they are fit for the needs of the companies that say we can't find people to do our.

[00:34:08] Anne Kress: I think it goes back to the earlier conversation we had about looking at those skills, I've talked to a number of businesses and a number of business organizations and really encourage them to stop looking past the potential workforce and look at the potential workforce, 

cuz it's usually right in front of them. And to their credit, I do think because of the tight labor market, We see more and more businesses who are looking to partner in a real way with community colleges. When we look at Nova and we see the great partnerships we have with Amazon through a w s, where, you know, the first ever IT

apprenticeship program was created so that students are earning while they're learning their actual employees of Amazon while they're going through this same thing. The partnership we have with the data center operators, the same partnership that we have in healthcare with hospital systems like anova.

When we see that across the entire spectrum, I think we're really starting to see businesses step up and say, okay, we need to get really serious. This now, and what's especially of interest to me is that, there's an increasing interest in pushing this past community colleges into high school.

So Nova offers free high school dual enrollment, so college credits and students, high schools, free to them, free to their families so that they can transfer those credits onto no. , but there's an increasing interest in thinking about those as pathways to future careers. So we're partnering right now on a high school, a lab school proposal with George Mason University in Fairfax County that looks at taking our nationally recognized advanced.

Transfer partnership with Mason, where students will transfer over to Mason in more than 80 different degree pathways losing none of their credits. And so it saves them time. It saves them money taking that advance and moving it into the high school so that students could. Move through Neva into Mason in high demand career areas.

They could earn an industry recognized credential while they're still in high school. So that they could work their way through college if they wished, or they could stop out for a period of time. But we can't do that without industry partnerships and industry has been right at the table, I've heard the same discussions forever as well.

I call them evergreens, . But I do think that changes in demographics, changes in the labor market are really driving a difference in the way companies are thinking about this. 

[00:36:36] Mahan Tavakoli: I'm glad that there are some of those partnerships and organizations, as you said, like a w s thinking about this differently so this is much more flexible and agile way of looking at it. As opposed to waiting for people to be educated and then considering their employment afterwards. At this point for Nova and Community Colleges to have the impact they can have in the community. What, in your view, are the limiting factors?

What are the things that could unleash the potential? Of community colleges impacting and bridging these gaps, which on one end provide more opportunities to many people that deserve it and are being left behind. And on the other end, provide the resources to the companies so they can thrive in a region.

[00:37:28] Anne Kress: First and foremost it's funding. Most community colleges receive far less than universities in the same state. In Virginia, the community colleges receive about 57 cents on the dollar when compared to funding for our students. With the university there are limitations on what we can do, especially since our goal is to keep our tuition as low as possible.

In the Commonwealth, it's been four years since the community colleges have raised tuition, which has been an intentional decision because we know that our students' finances are tight. So funding investment from the state. To your point, investing in community colleges, in those workforce development programs in particular really pays off benefit.

Both for those students who become great taxpayers, stay in the region, but also for businesses. So I think that's one. The second I would say is incentivizing more partnerships. I mentioned the partnership we have capital area food bank. There are partnerships where community colleges looking again at the whole student and the needs of the whole student should be able to partner more broadly with other.

Providers, both private and public in the community. You think about childcare needs, think about transportation needs. If there were investments that would incentivize partnerships like that, it would be incredibly helpful for our students. And then the last thing is business engagement, 

we've got great business partners at nova. In fact, the Harvard project on the workforce identified Nova as one of just five community colleges across the country that's doing workforce, right? But we're. Institution, so we have a lot of capacity and bandwidth to enter into those partnerships, to build those relationships.

Not every community college is the size of nova. In fact, the average community college is 5,000. Students are fewer. Having businesses come to the table ready to partner, is gonna be critical, both for their success and the success of our 

[00:39:23] Mahan Tavakoli: student. it is, and it's going to take that ecosystem approach for us to be able to do this I love the fact that you mentioned the partnerships and in many instances, those partnerships that you mentioned are to support the students.

 On one end, like the capital area food bank, and then there are other partner. with the companies that provide pathways for , workforce opportunities. So it's looking at the ecosystem rather than individual players in the ecosystem. Okay. And you are newer in your tenure at Nova, I'm sure you have lots of great plans ahead.

If we fast forward five, 10 years from now and we look back and you have had the kind of impact you would want to. on the community as a result of your leadership of Nova? . What will be difference with Nova and its impact in the future? , 

[00:40:22] Anne Kress: if I had a magic wand and could move myself forward and change things, one is that I would create an ecosystem to your point where no student finds a financial barrier to coming to and succeeding at Nova.

They don't see that. As stopping them from achieving their dreams of getting a degree. So that would be one thing. The second thing is I would see even more industry partnerships. I would see business and industry actively partnering with Nova across the full array of our programs, helping our students to understand where are all of the careers are not just in the easy to identify fields like healthcare and it.

But in other fields as well. If you're an English major, where would your career pathway take you? If you were a major in anthropology, where could that take you? So I would see that active industry engagement across the entire curriculum, helping our students to understand where the amazing knowledge, skills, and abilities that they're learning at Nova.

Would help take them. And then the last thing is that I would see the entire community look to Nova as their first resource. When anyone is thinking about skilling, reskilling, or upskilling, their immediate thought would be, oh, that's, Nova has that to this day, I still hear from folks in the community, oh, I didn't know Nova did that.

Oh, I wasn't aware of that. I would never hear that again in five to 10 years, . And I would see more and more of our students who start complete their programs, go out, transform the world as I know they can, and really help build a better environment and a better community for all of us. 

[00:42:01] Mahan Tavakoli: To do that, Anne, one of the things that it takes that you've done very well, and I'm sure you're going to continue, is that there needs to be a spokesperson for the institution.

 That businesses and the community can relate to and can get traction with the message we live in very noisy world. . So we hear one thing, it goes in one ear, out the other. Yeah. One of the things that you have done a magnificent job. Is advocate for Nova and make sure the community understands the services that are provided and becomes more willing for those partnerships.

I think that's a really important role for the chief executive of any institution, including for Northern Virginia Community College. Now, end, I'm sure on the personal side, you have a supporting cadre. having to run an institution that touches 80,000 students a year. That is incredible. , with all the services that you provide, lots of wraparound.

 Support services, it's incredibly demanding of you. Who is your supporting cast on the personal side? Enabling you to do all of this great work at. 

[00:43:20] Anne Kress: I have a wonderful husband who I met in graduate school and we've been together, we were joking the other day for 500 years, but I think it's actually closer to about 35 at this point.

 And so he's been wonderful. And then we have two college age children, so they're great. They're also great. Reality checks. That when I've got, really great ideas about higher education, when I talk to either one of them, because I'm their mom, I'm not their president. They have no problem sharing anything with me.

And we have two dogs and a cat and I'm a big Wizards fan ever since I came here. So we're at Wizards Games a lot, and so that provides another place for me to put my angst sometimes. But one of the things I often tell leaders is that you really need that support system away from your work.

You need a place where you can leave your work at the door and come there and just be yourself as a human being. And you also need people who tell you that you are a human being, that you really aren't as special as somebody else might tell you. You're just the person who needs to get dinner on the table or.

Pick up the dry cleaning or why didn't you do the laundry kind of thing. That's the real life aspect that everyone needs the balance for. 

[00:44:33] Mahan Tavakoli: That's wonderful. You need someone like your husband who loves you unquestionably, and you need people like your kids who love you and are willing to say, no, I don't buy what you are saying. And That's right. 

[00:44:47] Anne Kress: Very harsh truth tellers. They are. But I think everybody needs that. I often say to people, it's great to have cheerleaders, but you really need advocates because advocates will tell you. Oh, that is not a good idea. Can you rethink that?

There's something there, but this is not the way to do it. Whereas cheerleaders just say Rah ra all the time, and it's not very helpful. . 

[00:45:10] Mahan Tavakoli: Actually with respect to leadership, I say that the very best leaders are people that surround themselves with truth tellers, that they have a tremendous amount of trust for.

. So people that the relationship is really strong. They have a lot of trust, but who are willing. to tell them the way they see it. They might not always agree, but are willing to do that. So I'm glad you also have that in your family. . Now as a fun aside. , you are also a quilter. When did you get into that and what's that all about?

[00:45:42] Anne Kress: So I started quilting when I was in graduate school. I have an unfinished. Doctorate. I have a doctorate in higher ed administration, but I have an unfinished doctorate in an early modern women's literature. And at a certain point I was just so tired of graduate seminars and research and I just took a community education class in quilting, and I was 

by probably 50 years, the youngest person in the class. It was during the day and it was women who had quilted forever. And I just fell in love with it. It was so completely different from where I was putting my brain during the day. And I have quilted ever since. And I belonged to the DC Modern Quilter Guild here in the region.

And I just love the friends and the colleagues that I meet and make through quilting and again, You couldn't find anything more different than what I do in my day-to-day. One of my favorite things about quilting, I'll often say is once you've sewn a seam, it doesn't come uns sewn. As soon as you don't look at it anymore.

and I think we all know as leaders, sometimes you think something's all done and then you turn your head for a second and it's come undone. Never happens with your quilts. So I really like. 

[00:46:53] Mahan Tavakoli: What an outstanding analogy on the frustrations that a lot of leaders I'm sure can relate to. Anne, that's wonderful to hear and I'm really excited with your leadership of Northern Virginia Community College, both through the challenges of the pandemic, but most especially as we are going to go through many more disruptions in part because of technology where community colleges.

Meet the needs of the community as well as the businesses for a more thriving region. Thank you so much for this conversation, Anne. Chris, 

[00:47:28] Anne Kress: thank you. Thank you. It's been a delight. I so appreciate your leadership and your enthusiasm for really helping folks to find their own pathway through leadership.

So thank you.