Weekly Wisdom | Student-Centered Decision-Making With Kenneth Christensen

Bridget Burns: Welcome to another episode of Start the Week with Wisdom. I’m your host, Bridget Burns with the University Innovation Alliance.

Sara Custer: And I am Sara Custer with Inside Higher Ed.

Bridget Burns: Each week, we team up to have a conversation with a leading college president or chancellor in the field. We want you to listen to this person because we think they have inspiring content or perspective that will help set you off on the right path on a Monday. That’s why we call it Start the Week with Wisdom.

Bridget Burns: And Weekly Wisdom is sponsored by Mainstay. Discussions on making change easier and more impactful are a recurring theme on Weekly Wisdom. Mainstay supports this by streamlining student communication, automating routine interactions, and providing actionable insights so institutions can implement change effectively without adding to administrative burdens. Explore further at mainstay.com. So we also broadcast this on the Innovating Together podcast, which is sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and we’re super grateful for their partnership.

Bridget Burns: But today, we’re super excited to welcome the University of Colorado Denver chancellor, Kenneth Christensen, who was appointed chancellor just a little like about this last year in February. He was previously the provost and the CAO at University of Illinois Institute of Technology, and he’s previously been at Notre Dame, University of Illinois, and University of New Mexico. Please welcome Chancellor Christensen.

Kenneth Christensen: Thanks for having me.

Bridget Burns: We’re excited to have you on the show. And you’re coming to us from downtown Denver, which you’re beautiful sunny day today.

Kenneth Christensen: It is.

Bridget Burns: Oh, well, it’s kind of always sunny though, right? Like that’s the one you really get to get to brag. I’m in Portland today where it’s like always overcast. So we’re super excited to chat with you. And I think the first thing we want to know is just kind of in general: how did you get into this work? These jobs are really difficult. And I’m just super curious about what brought you into the higher ed leadership space.

Kenneth Christensen: Yeah, I think it was just happenstance, to be quite honest. I don’t think I had a plan to become the leader of a university. I come from a family of teachers. And so education has always been a really important part of my life and have really understood the transformative impact that particularly college education can have on an individual. And so, you know, I knew I would do something in the education space and ended up becoming a faculty member and really enjoyed engaging with students and pursuing research and all of those things. But ended up in an associate department head role where it really flipped my perspective on the impact that I could have in serving a broader constituency group. And so from there, I’ve simply moved into a variety of different roles, all of them really centered from my perspective on serving our students, serving our people, serving our communities. And that’s why I’m so humbled to be the chancellor of University of Colorado Denver as a public institution and its public service mission, serving the city and county of Denver, the state of Colorado, and our learners in ways that hopefully transform their lives.

Bridget Burns: No pressure.

Kenneth Christensen: No pressure at all.

Sara Custer: Yeah, it’s pretty clear that service is one of your values as a leader. I wanted to ask you: this is one of Bridget’s favorite questions, but I think it’s an important one and something that we don’t often talk about with leaders, which is kind of going all the way back to their undergraduate experience and hearing from you if there was an experience or a moment during your undergraduate career that perhaps most contributed to your career now or got you where you are?

Kenneth Christensen: Yeah, that’s a great question. There’s a few things, but one in particular for me. So I’m an engineer, majored in mechanical engineering, University of New Mexico, grew up in New Mexico, part of a Hispanic family. Both my parents were first-gen college students. There was what is now called the Engineering Student Success Center at UNM that supports the academic and other success of students, particularly from backgrounds that are underserved or maybe haven’t had access to college education before. The familial nature of that center and the support that it provided to students like me and my peers really had an incredible impact on me in two ways. One, I saw the impact of sort of a 360 wraparound service approach to helping students find success. That helped me launch me in my career. But they also sponsored me to go to my first professional conference as a senior undergraduate to present some undergraduate research that I had done. And that’s what really propelled me to go to graduate school and then pursue an academic career. So I would say that that experience really did both set my mindset that I leverage today of being student-centered, but it also set my path to become an academic.

Bridget Burns: That’s awesome. It’s wild to me how often it is those little tiny things, right? Like for me, it was like that reminds me of it was because of an undergraduate experience that I got my passport. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have, right? Like it’s little things like going to a fancy restaurant or and learning like some of these skills that you think are minor, but they’re actually really important in terms of your career, in terms of whether or not you can kind of mix into different settings. So yeah, that’s that’s great. So let’s talk about your leadership style. I am curious about whether or not, well, who or what most influenced how you lead? And if you could give us kind of what, do you have a leadership philosophy? I mean, I’m sure everyone is kind of like survive, but what is there a leader or an example that has most impacted kind of your perception of what leadership should look like?

Kenneth Christensen: Yeah, so I didn’t really realize these elements until recently. But when I look back on when I was a kid, my grandfather, both my grandparents, neither graduated from high school, both laborers. My grandfather used to run and oversee the irrigation network in the small little town in northern New Mexico that they lived in. And I would watch him do that. And I watched him do it with grace, but also with, you know, objectivity and compliance in mind. And it just showed me that you can lead a group of people with honesty and transparency and also in a servant way, but also uphold standards and principles that are necessary. And what I’ve realized is actually I carry a lot of that with me today in the way that I approach my own leadership. I want to be open and honest and transparent with the constituency groups that are part of our university. I want to partner with them and truly collaborate with them in pursuing the solutions that we need to be able to thrive in this very complex environment. And so, you know, my leadership approach is really servant-based, but it’s also in bringing people together and trying to address challenges in collective ways that help focus on the most important things that we can do. And at our university, that’s about student experience and student success. And that’s been our rallying cry since I joined in February. And while there are so many other priorities that we need to focus on, that’s the one thing that I think everyone at our university can agree on. And that’s why people are here. And so trying to drive change in that sort of environment, I think, requires those skill sets.

Sara Custer: That’s great. I love it whenever we have guests who take it all the way back to their grandparents and draw on those experiences with them. And it sounds wonderful. I love your collaborative agenda with that as well. I really think working together, finding those partners where they are on campus and off campus are going to be so critical in the next few years, decades of higher education. I’m curious to know if there has been an unexpected lesson or an unexpected pivot that you’ve encountered along your leadership journey.

Kenneth Christensen: Probably a few, but I mean, the things we’re going through now are pretty unique. And I think, yeah, absolutely. And I think the one thing that I’ve really been trying to work hard on is being able to find clarity in an environment that lacks it in many ways. And as a university community, our people need reassurance and clarity to help us move forward because oftentimes a lack of clarity is a paralysis. And paralysis now is not aligned with the virtues of innovation and growing and thriving in this environment. So I think for me, the one thing that’s been a real focal point in the last, I would say, couple of years at my former institution, Illinois Tech, and also here is trying to find and maintain that clarity of purpose and vision forward while trying to deal with everything else that’s going on around us. And, you know, that could be the demographic challenges of the traditional student market. It could be other things going on in the political scene. You know, our society has been polarized for a long time and trying to find clarity of purpose and helping students evolve toward being engaged and active citizens. I think it really takes that notion of that clarity to drive that forward. And so for me, that’s been a real growth opportunity over the last couple of years to really be able to try to do that with purpose and with direction.

Bridget Burns: I think that too often, like, we kind of focus on the past and not enough about the moment. And I’m sure that just doing this role in this moment, I’m sure you’re picking up new skills you didn’t want, learning new lessons that you weren’t always looking for. I mean, like the amount of resilience, I think we’re all kind of like, I’m good. I am solid, did not need more resilience. Thank you very much. I’m just curious if there’s something that you are learning right now that is shifting your approach to your role that you find is helpful.

Kenneth Christensen: Yeah, I think a couple of things. First, at my university, anyway, the notion of student centricity and student focus has brought a collective reaffirmation of who we are. And what’s interesting is I think in academia, we’ve often had more infighting than worrying about what’s going on around us. And if there’s ever a moment for us to find some unity of purpose internally to help drive change that can help balance what’s going on outside of us, it’s now. And so being able to articulate, listen, let’s focus on the big things. Let’s focus on what really matters. And what matters for us are student outcomes. When a student graduates from University of Colorado Denver, they’ve had both access to an education that they may not have had elsewhere because we’re very open in educating students from all walks of life. But in terms of the return on investment, there’s only two schools in the state of Colorado that have high access measure in the new Carnegie classification and have over $2 million in lifetime earnings on average for graduates. And it’s us and Regis University, which is a private. And so for our campus, reorienting around student success has brought groups together that haven’t agreed to things in forever. Shared governance, administration, faculty, staff, community members, that notion of a shared purpose has really aligned us. So that’s one thing that I think more people need to leverage is find your purpose and rally around it, because it’s going to bring people together in ways that will surprise you.

Sara Custer: I wonder if there is a, first of all, I’m very happy to hear that people have come together and found new ways of working together, perhaps that weren’t previously there. I think we all understand, kind of read between the lines there a little bit about how difficult it can be in higher education institutions. So I’m glad that student success is the center point that people have found to work together to try to navigate everything else that’s happening externally. Um, I wonder if there’s an activity that you go back to to kind of just recenter yourself on purpose and mission right now during difficult times?

Kenneth Christensen: Yeah, I walk my campus all the time, I go to every student event that I can fit in my schedule. I go to other events with our faculty and staff because the most important thing for me in reminding and keeping myself centered on purpose is interacting with our people. So, our faculty and staff inspire me in their dedication to our students. Our students inspire me to their dedication of purpose and what they want out of their education and how that can propel them to do good for society at a time when we desperately need a lot of good in society. And so, for me, it’s that small thing: it’s getting out of my office and walking across campus for an hour, interacting with people. Um, and that’s the reminder that I need to stay centered on that purpose. And, and I think it’s also good as a leader to be very visible because you need to understand your constituency groups. And, you know, I have a rule. I’m Ken to everybody. I’m not the chancellor. I don’t have a new first name. I’m Ken, and I’m a community member, just like everyone else. And I want to understand their lived experiences so that we can do right by them in the decisions that we make.

Bridget Burns: That’s good. I mean, I also, it just makes me think about all the stuff that, like, just walking around campus is the answer. Like, it’s just so refreshing and so grounding, I think. And like for me, every time I can get on campus, I’m like, it’s the, it’s never the predictive, it’s never the conversation I ask or like plan for. It’s always just the random, but it’s like so much more insight and perspective. Sara, do you ever get to go on campuses?

Sara Custer: Like, I mean, I do from time to time, but certainly not as much as I would like to.

Bridget Burns: Yeah, it’s, I’m sure it’s probably a little risky to have the editor of Inside Higher Ed just kind of roaming the campus, but, you know, I always like.

Kenneth Christensen: You’re welcome to visit us.

Sara Custer: I get a lot of invites. I do get a lot of invites. But yeah, maybe depending on what campus I’m on, I might get more handled than other people.

Bridget Burns: It’s hard because they handled, like, they set up a conversation with all the best, like the people they want that they think it’s going to be the best conversation, but it’s like, you know, I actually just want to hear the texture of the daily life. That’s where the inspiration is. So, well, cool. So I’m curious about, you’ve had a long leadership journey. You’ve played a lot of roles. You’ve been at a lot of institutions. I’m just curious if there’s like one experience prior to this role that you’re most proud of as a leader.

Kenneth Christensen: Yeah, I think as provost at my last institution at Illinois Tech, one of the things that I absolutely believe in is that we have to open access to our academic excellence to a much broader range of learners from high school through retirement and beyond. And this is something that we started doing at my last place in terms of online programming, in terms of building pathways within our communities for students that might not otherwise have the opportunity. And these are transfer pathways that have clarity, that have simplicity, and that have connection from high school to community college to the four-year university and beyond. And so I’m very proud of the fact that we launched a number of initiatives there that at a time when enrollment was declining, we were growing by 30% over the three years that I served as provost there. And I really do believe it had to do both with centering the academic experience on career readiness and then building pathways that were barrier-free so that learners could prove their ability to learn. And so, the one example I’ll give in that space is we launched four degree programs on Coursera in a matter of eight months. It was a shared governance miracle that we got this through and launched. Those programs did not have a traditional application process, they had a performance-based admissions process. So, any learner could take the first three courses in the program. And if they have the B average or better, they’re automatically in the program. And so, it really removed barriers for adult learners and, you know, those that have stopped out, come back. And so, this idea of rethinking how we find entry points and transition points and hopefully excellent exit points from universities to meet learners where they are. That’s something that I’ve really carried forward. And that’s something we’re focusing on here at University of Colorado Denver.

Bridget Burns: That’s great. I’m so surprised. One, I didn’t know that. And two, it’s always good because I get pressed for examples of institutions like kind of really actually doing the stuff that feels like, you know, I don’t know how you did that, by the way. Like, that is a miracle. Because a lot of our systems are set up for us to keep the system as it is to protect, right? Because that does that is always scary. I mean, you’re going to give Coursera what do you what kind of access? Um, what does that mean about what you do? I mean, I get that we have the existential debate, but at the end of the day, um, if you just center the needs of the user, the experience is so mid in so many places that if you win on experience, like you would see far more students, like people who are worried about enrollment numbers, like just make your design awesome, make this make the experience seamless and frictionless. Like, oh my gosh, why is it got to be so difficult? And uh, I love that.

Sara Custer: Yeah, totally agree. Um, Ken, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Kenneth Christensen: Um, I think stay true to the moment, and it comes back to that notion of clarity in a time of a lot of uncertainty. Um, I think that’s the best advice that I’ve ever gotten because there are so many things that can divert the attention of any leader at a university, whether or not you’re leading the institution or you’re the provost or a dean or any other role. There is so much happening right now that you can lose clarity of purpose and just become paralyzed. And so, I think for me, the simpler, the better, the more focused, the better. The really staying true to the most important priorities, and then always remembering how those map to the people that are impacted. So, for us, our students, our faculty, and staff. So, just keeping that clarity and staying true to the moment, I think has become something that I’ve valued. It’s advice that I learned probably 10 or 12 years ago and in a very, very different world and context. I pull that back now and really find it very, very relevant to how you move forward as a leader these days.

Sara Custer: Yeah, a good lesson to learn to prepare you for right now.

Kenneth Christensen: Indeed.

Sara Custer: Are there, so people often reference books or, you know, podcasts or things that when someone else is asking them for advice and, oh, you need to read this, you need to look at this. So when people are asking you, especially if it’s a leadership or management question as a leader, is there any book or something that you find yourself consistently offering? Hey, read this.

Kenneth Christensen: Yeah, you know, a lot of different ones. Good to Great was in Jim Collins, was an early one for me. Actually, I just read one recently that has helped me rethink how we think about respectful discourse on campuses. It’s called Truth Matters: A Dialogue on Fruitful Disagreement in an Age of Division. Robert George, who’s a Princeton faculty member, and Cornel West wrote that book. I saw them at a keynote here in Colorado over summer at a conference on civic discourse, and they beautifully emulated the concept of respectful discourse. And it was always grounded in truth, pursuit of truth. And so I’ve actually started leveraging those ideas as we start to have conversations on our campus about how do we move forward as a university in this environment? How do we thrive? And then how do we support our students to become engaged citizens of society? And this notion of the North Star being truth and the ability to have tough conversations, but in respectful ways. I’ve just really enjoyed sort of exploring that space in these times of polarization.

Bridget Burns: That’s good. Good stuff. Well, this has been super helpful and insightful, but it’s also like, I just think you’ve definitely sold as like a chill guy, like a chill leader. And I think that’s a good, that’s a good like, like people don’t want that like super intense scare you kind of leader. So I appreciate the calm in the midst of the storm. And I guess the only thing I would just add, and I’d love your response to you, is like, I think that CU Denver has such an interesting set of challenges and opportunities because of the being in the center of the city, but also sharing a campus with like physical space with other campuses, and then the complexity of challenges facing Denver. But the opportunity in the broader state of Colorado, it’s like, I think there’s just, but also you’re in a system of institutions, kind of, but you like the funding model of Colorado, which from what I can see on the outside, it looks like they let you use the name Colorado, but that’s about it. They don’t give you any money. Is that true or not true? I don’t know. It’s one of those state-located in terms of funding world. So just, yeah, I mean, as you’ve come in, you’re super chill, like calm, but I’m curious about your, how am I missing the what am I missing about CU Denver?

Kenneth Christensen: So CU Denver has a really rich history of educating students over a very broad learner spectrum. So we have our traditional learners, which are, you know, 50% first generation. We’re Hispanic-serving institutions. We’re an Asian American and Native Pacific Islander institution designation. We have a long history of educating adult learners, either stop out and restart learners or people that have been in careers and are coming to college for the first time. And so what I love about this place is it’s already been adaptable in ways that universities have to become adaptable now. And so we have this built into our DNA. I think the other opportunity we have is being in Denver and becoming the anchor higher ed partner of this city and county is really an important part of who we need to be. And so, you know, I think for us, reasserting and reaffirming our public service mission in career readiness, in economic development, and community engagement, if we live those three purposes the way that we should, we’re going to thrive moving forward because we have academic programs and approaches to supporting students that meet them where they are and with what they need. That notion of personalization is not foreign to us. And so what we need to do is diversify revenue streams that allow us to really lean in to those kinds of things that we’ve been great at. And if we do that, then the challenges of funding from the state or the way that tuition costs are rising, we’ll have an opportunity to reposition our university as a true access point that’s truly affordable for the types of students that that come to our university. So, I’m incredibly excited about our future. And I think it’s one that could become a model of an urban public across the country.

Bridget Burns: Yeah. Yeah. So many institutions are like, I need to do adult learners, but they’re like not actually willing to change anything about what they do. They just think of them as like, we’re going to offer a course at night. And I hope that they’re, are they still down for an MBA? And so it’s like so nice to hear it being so embedded into who you are. And I agree. Like, I mean, Denver, like, you actually have, it’s going to grow. It’s continuing to grow. The sunshine, like, um, and the state has lots of chill vibes. Very chill vibes. Maybe that’s why Ken chose it or it chose Ken. Just chill vibes. There you go. Um, are you? Uh, well, we’re gonna wrap, but are you um weirdly more of a hiker now that you live there?

Kenneth Christensen: Um, I’m I’m slowly transitioning into that space. I will never be a skier or snowboarder, uh, but I, but I am transitioning into that. It’s beautiful here, it’s unbelievable.

Bridget Burns: Is that a requirement to get like a I don’t know, Denver ID card?

Kenneth Christensen: Yeah, yeah, it should be. Well, I grew up south of here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, so being back in the southern part of the Rockies is just a real blessing. So I’m into urban hiking. And once I learned that hiking is just walking, I’m going to go for a hike today, you know, and then I’m going to call it that. And it’s really just, it’s just walking. So we’re all hikers.

Bridget Burns: Well, thank you so much for sharing your perspective with us today. It’s been really nice and refreshing. And I also just think lots of inspiration. Love the Coursera stuff. Love the framing and thinking about CU Denver. And it’s so great for other institutions to see an example of a campus that has got the traditional parts of it that feel related, that feel they feel they could see themselves in, but is so clearly connected to the new kind of way of showing up that they each need to start thinking about. And so I hope this has been helpful for others. I know it’s been. And so, yeah. And Sara, thanks so much for being as always. Excellent co-hosting. I mean, 10 out of 10.

Sara Custer: Thank you.

Kenneth Christensen: Thank you. Thanks.

Bridget Burns: All right. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Ken.