In 1877, the first college "major" was coined at Johns Hopkins. The catalog for that year is a dense read, though short; courses toward the baccalaureate only required two years of study and then—presumably—a job. That catalog has hardened into something else today: a system that prizes credentials over curiosity, standardization over discovery, and completion over connection. In this episode, we sit down with Ned Laff and Scott Carlson , co-authors of Hacking College , and our own higher educat...
Aug 14, 2025•49 min•Ep. 238
For years, finance in higher education has worked quietly behind the scenes—essential, but rarely seen as a force for change. Budgets got balanced, reports got filed, and institutions moved forward... slowly. But what happens when that model starts to crack? When rising costs outpace tuition revenue, and the math that once worked no longer adds up? It’s a moment of reckoning—and an opportunity. In this episode of Navigating Change, Pete Wright is joined by Michael Gower, Andrew Simpson, and Howa...
Apr 08, 2025•52 min•Ep. 237
The opening speaker at the 2025 NBOA Annual Meeting will be Kyle Scheele, who is known for cooking up wild ideas that many people back for laughs and for learning. NBOA President and CEO Jeff Shields discusses with Scheele the process behind some of his outlandish projects and about being creative in the workplace. “I don’t want people to be like me,” said Scheele. “I want them to tap into their own creativity, wherever they may be working.” That might be anything from devising a financial plan ...
Jan 09, 2025•28 min•Ep. 236
This week, Pete Wright and Howard Teibel dive deep into the topic of weak communication practices and their consequences in organizations. Howard, drawing from his extensive experience working with teams and leaders, shares insights on how miscommunication often stems from focusing on passing information rather than producing action and exploring assessments. The duo discusses five key consequences of weak communication: mistrust and lack of listening, working in isolation, blame-shifting, peopl...
Nov 07, 2024•49 min•Ep. 235
Being of service . This is at the heart of the roles we play in higher education. At the 2024 WACUBO Annual Conference at Disneyland in California, leaders and practitioners in administration came together to explore how they can Dream, Lead, and Inspire others to serve the mission of our industry. Lupe Valencia, Deputy Chief Financial Officer and Chief Facilities Officer at the University of Texas at El Paso, recently served as President of WACUBO and just turned the reins over to Michael Clune...
Jun 11, 2024•14 min•Ep. 234
We are thrilled to present this episode of the Net Assets Podcast, a partnership between NBOA and Teibel Education Consulting , with NBOA President and CEO Jeff Shields and Teibel Education President Howard Teibel. This episode marks the first in what we hope will become a collection of some of the best and most illuminating interviews dedicated to you, independent school business leaders. As NBOA grows into its new brand identity, we have the great privilege of launching this podcast with a con...
Apr 16, 2024•32 min•Ep. 233
This week, Jeff Shields, President and CEO at NBOA, joins Howard Teibel for a conversation on the future of independent schools ahead of the 2024 NBOA Annual Meeting & Business Solutions Showcase. Howard and Jeff speak about issues of integrating telework, the sustainability of post-pandemic innovations, and the critical importance of community and collaboration in sparking transformative ideas. “Your next best idea is not going to come from walking down the hallway at your own school,” he s...
Jan 02, 2024•28 min•Ep. 232
As we continue our gradual emergence from a certain hibernation over the last three years, the opportunity to engage with our colleagues is more critical than ever. Brad Bacca, President of Western Colorado University and the Western Association of College and University Business Officers, sits down this week with Howard Teibel as they turn their attention to the upcoming WACUBO Annual Conference coming April 30 to May 3 in Phoenix, Arizona. This year's theme is Rising to the Challenge - A call ...
Mar 16, 2023•22 min•Ep. 231
NBOA President and CEO, Jeff Shields, joins Howard Teibel for a conversation on indepenent school business, finance, and operations, all in preparation for the association's 25 Anniversary Celebration in Los Angeles, February 19-22. What’s top-of-mind for business officers coming out of the pandemic after three years? How are finance professionals addressing the ongoing financial issues pre-K-12 independent schools will face in the future? All this and a preview of the broad array of speakers, g...
Jan 10, 2023•26 min•Ep. 230
Unbeknownst to us in February 2020, we were about to go into a certain kind of hibernation, one forced on us by the circumstances of our time. Two years into this, we may be seeing the beginning of the light at the end of the tunnel – learning how to live with this global pandemic and bring back the kind of social connection we value and need. Jeff Shields, CEO of the National Business Officers Association and Howard Teibel turn their attention to looking forward in anticipation of the upcoming ...
Feb 01, 2022•30 min•Ep. 229
Joining Howard Teibel today in conversation is Dr. Nathan Grawe, distinguished teaching professor of the social sciences at Carleton college, where he has served on the faculty since 1999. You might have seen Nathan's work as it relates to the framing of the enrollment cliff, something that's been exacerbated and accelerated in this last year. As we find ourselves beginning to emerge out of lockdowns in our lives — and for many of us on our campuses — the big question is how will we navigate bac...
Apr 15, 2021•37 min•Ep. 228
As we turn our energy to 2021, we can begin to catch a glimpse of getting on the other side of this crisis. Independent school leaders have implemented innovations over the last nine months that they could only dream about prior to the pandemic. The question now is can they sustain these changes with intentionality. Jeff Shields, CEO of the National Business Officers Association and Howard Teibel explore these questions in anticipation of the upcoming February all-virtual NBOA Annual Meeting. Th...
Jan 14, 2021•33 min•Ep. 227
At Teibel Education we are committed to having your people be connected with a higher purpose. As we look to 2021 and the hope for greater ease and less uncertainty, we bring you a podcast on learning. How do you produce active listening in a colleague, student, or peer? Active listening is a central tenant to the capacity to learn and acquire new skills. In this podcast, we explore learning with UCLA professor Dr. Christopher Surro. Chris is committed to his student’s success and he teaches us ...
Dec 16, 2020•50 min•Ep. 226
Mission in Action Today on the show we bring a demonstration of living a mission. Our guest is Doug Brown, President of UMass Memorial Community Hospitals and Chief Administrative Officer for the UMass Memorial Health Care system. He had a vision for their community - looking in their own backyard and anchoring their institutional mission through local investing, local procurement, and local hiring. As a $2.4 billion integrated health care delivery system in Central Massachusetts, Umass Memorial...
Aug 20, 2020•38 min•Ep. 225
This is an important conversation to listen to the whole way through. First, ask yourself: what’s the highest purpose of your organization? Likely you have an answer, something you’ve been told, or something you’ve absorbed through your experience over the years. But maybe the greater truth is that we need to discover our organization’s purpose with our people. When we move to higher purpose, we form a contract with each other that transcends normal management theory – the need for greater contr...
Jun 25, 2020•27 min•Ep. 224
Heather Jarhling is a rising senior at Colby College in Waterville Maine. She — like her peers — is facing an unsettled future. This cohort spent the last three and a half months running to keep up with a shift to online education that many of them did not sign up for. Of course, no one signed up for the changes sweeping education as a result of the pandemic. And the rising voices around racial injustice will be additional concerns you will need to face. We need to listen to one other — now more...
Jun 11, 2020•33 min•Ep. 223
As we begin to pivot in our organizations from the necessary critical decisions to get through these first few months and on to living with a new way of working, how do we not fall back into business as usual? Our people are looking not only for direction and stability but a sense of connection to a larger purpose. At the heart of people feeling disconnected is the absence of a certain kind of leadership that puts one’s ego aside and empower others to genuinely connect with a deeper purpose. Tod...
May 28, 2020•22 min•Ep. 222
In our lifetime, Higher Education has not seen the kind of global shock to its system that emerged over a two-month period. We anticipated a systematic and orderly shift in the next few years to address the rising cost of education, changing demographics, and a growing adult population choosing to come back to further their education. Those institutions that had already invested in a new kind of education now find themselves in a position to accelerate. Georgia Institute of Technology is one of ...
May 12, 2020•25 min•Ep. 221
Many of us listen to podcasts in moments of leisure or capacity to separate from work. Sometimes a topic comes along that is central to what we’re facing right now. This week, we are very fortunate to have educator and futurist Bryan Alexander joining us for a conversation around scenario planning in the era of COVID-19. Bryan recently has been a leader in a crowdsourced operation to document the impact of the pandemic on higher education and discusses approaches to scenario planning along with ...
Mar 18, 2020•42 min•Ep. 220
Over the last two episodes we’ve discussed two major functions of strategic thinking. In the first, we shared insights around uncovering your key message. In part two, we focused on how to get the attention of your audience with headlining your vision. This week, we’ll focus on the key factors to bring strategic thinking to your work that asks the big questions. Strategic thinking is not linear or delivering on daily work. It’s about peering around corners, across horizons, and uncovering trends...
Mar 01, 2020•15 min•Ep. 220
Our guest is working to develop the 60-year curriculum, one with an eye toward a lifetime of education. Rovy Branon serves as Vice Provost for Continuum College at University of Washington. When you are a learner at Continuum College, you are taking part in one of the most aggressively innovative programs dedicated to bringing education to non-traditional students. Branon and his team are part of a dynamic shift in how we think about education well beyond the traditional student. This week, Rovy...
Feb 26, 2020•47 min•Ep. 219
There is an unnamed disruptor around the corner. So says our guest today, Rutgers University’s Mike Gower. As Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration and University Treasurer, the breadth and depth of his involvement in university operations is extensive. With decades of experience in the field, one might expect him to carry more answers than questions these days. That, according to Gower, is far from the case, and the unnamed disruptor - the change you haven’t seen coming - is a...
Jan 07, 2020•39 min•Ep. 218
Cutting a path through the political and emotional landscape to deliver a strong strategic plan is an act of courage. Even with a clear consensus that a strategic plan is required, connecting intention to action is a massive undertaking. That’s precisely what Rhode Island School of Design’s leadership achieved with their 2020-2027 NEXT Strategic Plan. Under the management of Taylor Scott, RISD Chief of Staff & Communications, and the rest of the diverse RISD team, they developed a campus-wid...
Oct 29, 2019•38 min•Ep. 217
In February 2015, Roger L. Martin joined us to talk about innovation, incentive, and inspiration. This is the stuff that drives teams to face the most complex, stubborn challenges with surprising and creative solutions. That episode quickly cemented itself as one of our most listened-to episodes in the nine years that we have been producing this show. Roger effortlessly demonstrates the kind of approach to change that has become foundational to our work at Teibel Ed. We're not solving problems ,...
Sep 19, 2019•37 min•Ep. 216
Requests are not directives — they live in conversation How often do we find ourselves hearing a request, waiting until we walk away from that person, and then say to ourselves, “I have no idea what my boss or colleague is asking me to do?” This universal experience is both comical and frustrating at the same time. Making and receiving requests are foundational speech acts in the workplace. Done with care, a request reveals both conditions of satisfaction for the speaker and the critical role of...
Sep 03, 2019•28 min•Ep. 215
How do you build a culture of creativity and innovation? It starts with uncovering the unseen forces that keep a team from excelling, including fear of failure, lack of candor, and unwillingness to put aside individual needs. This week on the show, Howard shares an overview of his session at Cornell and an article you can read below titled Loosening the Grip on Silo Thinking. In the article, you will learn how to utilize principles from the animation studio PIXAR on how great teams go about buil...
Aug 07, 2019•13 min•Ep. 214
Peter Denning returns to the show this week to talk about innovation . But this most likely isn’t the innovation discussion you’re expecting. Instead, Peter challenges the conventional wisdom in the area of innovation and idea , inviting us to rethink our perceptions on contribution. His work and writing have lead to a series of observations in human and team behavior. The upshot: our ability to make offers and deliver on the offers we make to others are skills that can be honed and indisputably...
Jul 23, 2019•42 min•Ep. 213
Dr. Menah Pratt-Clarke has dedicated her career as an educator to helping others better understand some of the most charged encounters we face. She is a thought leader in diversity and inclusion and even as her area of study engages in conversations that range from discomfort to rage, her approach to helping her institution find its voice on these issues is one worth understanding. Dr. Pratt-Clarke joins Howard Teibel on the show today and what starts as a discussion about the role of diversity ...
Jul 09, 2019•34 min•Ep. 212
Who is on your first team ? If I said to you, "tell me about your team", you likely would report about those who are your direct reports. This is not only natural, it's the way we orient ourselves to get our work done. The principle of “Team Number 1”, introduced by Patrick Lencioni, asks you to consider your first team as the person you report to and your peers. This week on the show, Howard Teibel introduces the first team model through the lens of higher education. Although work is performed ...
Jun 28, 2019•28 min•Ep. 211
When our guest today started her career as an educator, 80% of the teachers at her school were new, the result of tectonic turnover resulting from burnout on staff. That experience drove her to leave teaching after just a few years and pursue a career studying educator burnout and the big lesson along the way? "The more I researched [burnout], the more I realized it wasn't just a pattern in education, but that it was a pattern in health care, social work ... I began to see that it was a nation w...
Jun 11, 2019•32 min•Ep. 210
