Call with Krissy and 1 other-20260302_123103-Meeting Recording

00:00:00 Speaker: It looks like it's recording. Oh. That's weird. It's a weird way to do it, huh? Is it safe to say? It just says recording and transcription. It is recording. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. There's a little red button. Okay. Yeah, yeah, there it is. Cool. Okay. All right. Welcome to a special episode of the At Scale podcast. I'm not usually the host, but my name's Ben Sterling. I've served here on the team at Tennessee Achieves and have appeared on a few of the podcast episodes. I'm excited about this one. Um, and maybe some future episodes like this one where it's more of an inside baseball. Look at the work that we're doing at Tennessee achieves. Um, today I'm joined by, um, our president and CEO and your usual host, Christie Alejandro and, um, our workforce wizard, Tyler Ford, who's going to be providing some insight on an up really an exciting, um, memo or, uh, what we're really calling a framework that is coming out, um, in association with this podcast. So today's episode is really going to be us digging into this upcoming report that we've created that really sets the stage for the future of what we feel like is building the future of Tennessee's workforce and how we see ourselves as an organization that's well positioned to provide some really strong infrastructure around workforce development in Tennessee and how we see Tennessee responding to the jobs of tomorrow. Um, so, Christie, Tyler, do you want to go ahead and just kick us off, talk us a little bit about, um, why, why now? What, why are we thinking this way about workforce development and, um, how are we positioned, uh, going forward? I do love that you started off with inside baseball because it's opening day, which is very exciting. My little Oliver starting varsity tonight. So anyway, super excited and we could probably carry the baseball theme into this video, but I will refrain from doing that. Baseball season. Yeah, it's baseball season. It's very exciting. You know, I'm excited just to have a conversation about sort of the evolution of our work. I mean, many of those who have spent some time with us or partnered with us over the years, I think know that we started small in Knox County as really an access organization, went statewide prior to the launch of promise in many counties, twenty seven to be in fact, across Tennessee. Um, and the data continued to tell us that we had to focus on more than access and we quickly moved into completion efforts. So if we were going to make this promise, if you will, to students of a post-secondary credential, really got thoughtful about how as a third party external to K-12 as well as to higher ed. How can we be a good partner and also serve students well? And so we've built programs like complete NOCs, promise, NOCs access to really begin wrapping our arms around students, not only to bring them into the pipeline. I think about all the work, Tyler, you've done in the mentoring space. You've also been so, you know, it's funny to me, we've had all these programs over the years that are really looking at what I call the magic equation. What are students telling us they need and what, where's the data telling us we need to go? And this report really is a compilation of those two things. So I think for us, what started off as like, let's do one of our student surveys and dig in on things like AI, things that we're thinking about leaning more into as, as sort of Tennessee achieves, moves into our third decade of work, which is so weird, by the way, but it is really trying to help us. Sort of. We've got a solid foundation. How do we build. How do we. Scaffold. But also what do we take away? I mean, that's one of my favorite things at Tennessee Cheese. It's not the additive bias of we only have to build. It's like maybe what doesn't serve us well anymore. And I love this report because it, it feels to me like a really nice scaffolding. And it's, it's us saying, here's how we're leaning into the things we, we hope to be true for the future of higher ed in Tennessee. And it invites other people to come alongside us. I mean, you know, Tyler, you probably can speak more specifically. Well, I was going to say this. This is a real call to action, right? I think this is a framework that Tennessee achieves knows to be impactful. Um, we know from the data from student Voice that things like workforce supports coaching grants all move the needle for students. But I think what this, this also does, and what we've heard from students is that, uh, this is really a situation where we need all hands on deck to pitch into this effort. We can't help to to build Tennessee's future workforce without voices, from community leaders, from the business community, from industry, because these are the jobs that are going to be stepping into. And what I love about this framework is it really does allow space for everyone to come around the table and work towards this shared goal of preparing the next generation for the jobs that we know we need to continue to attract in Tennessee. We need to keep in Tennessee and do that good work to to prepare students for what's to come. I also feel like it's that dot. You know how people are always like, how do all the dots connect? I feel like this report is trying to help us solve for that in some way. It's like, maybe it's where our dot falls in with all the other dots. Um, it's certainly, to your point, a call to action to all the partners and friends that we've made over the years. Like, can we row in this direction? Does this feel like the right direction to you? But I also think it's trying to provide something in a very succinct manner. Thank you, Ben, for always creating just beautiful, lovely content for us. But that like puts our dot on the map in a way that says, this is where we want to go. Are you guys going there too? Maybe it's a question mark. Yeah, yeah. You know, as I was sort of drafting the content for this report, it sort of struck me that we sit at this interesting crossroads of an organization that, yes, we are a convener of people. In a lot of ways. We touch a lot of different stakeholder groups from students, obviously being students first, always being our priority. But as we've grown and established ourselves as a statewide organization, but trying to remain as local as possible, we are in touch with local school systems every week. We are in touch with all of the institutions in the state, and now we're in touch with dozens, if not almost over a hundred employers across Tennessee every week. And so where this organization that is uniquely positioned to try to bring everyone to the table and create this pathway, which you'll find that word a lot in the memo, but this pathway forward that is going to align students who oftentimes are from a vulnerable background and don't have a perspective of what it means to enter the workforce and connect them with the people who know what they need and try to really draw these clear lines between that. And so I just think this is going to really if to go with the first to use a word from the first tenant, um, I'm been calling them tenants, workforce framework tenants. There's five of them, um, is to put a stake in the ground. And that's really what this is in my mind is a stake in the ground to say from here on, here's where what we think as practitioners of this for nearly two decades, what we know to be true and how it can really inform the work that we're about to do in Tennessee. So to pivot just a bit here, um, to keep us moving, um, one of the things that I was really impressed with about this, uh, what kind of the precursor of this memo was the student survey that we conducted and we had almost six thousand students respond, which we've never had quite that sort of response. Um, so I want to ask you all one, um, what was something that was surprising that you heard from the survey responses? Um, but also what got you most jazzed? Uh, to use a Tennessee, a Ben and Christie Tennessee achieves term. Uh, get real jazzed about it. But what surprised you and what jazzed you about, um, from the survey responses, it stood out to me. Um, you know, we asked a couple of questions relating to artificial intelligence, AI, how students are engaging with this. Um, what we found from those six thousand students was only about one fourth of the students who responded says that they've used AI to help with some sort of career exploration, um, academic pursuit. Right. That was surprising because especially, um, you know, living in twenty twenty six, twenty twenty five. I think it's one of the most buzzy things we see out there, but what students were telling us is we're not engaging with this. Um, now I think that's a charge to Tennessee achieves and to other organizations as well to help bring students along in that space. Um, because it also stood out that when we followed up with those students and said, hey, do you want help in this? Only about fifty seven percent said they were interested in further AI supports. And so, you know, I think that poses an interesting challenge, right? How do we help those students to leverage these tools that we know are going to be so critical for the workforce of tomorrow? But how do we make sure, too, that those other, you know, forty three percent of students who maybe didn't raise their hand are also prepared for these tools that we know are coming, whether they kind of like it or not. Well, they don't know what they don't know. Right? I think about that episode that we recorded with Doctor Jeff Riley with day of AI, and he talked a lot about how you use AI every day, like all three of us when we use our phone, we were using some form of AI. And so students often, I think probably don't quite understand what that means. So bringing that literacy, I think understand what that means. Forty six year old women don't understand what that means. You know, I mean, I don't know that anybody really understands like it changes every day. Full potential. Yeah. And, and the predictability of where it goes. I mean, you hear you read a report in five, you know, months later, it feels like it almost takes you in a totally different path. And, you know, I was in a meeting in Nashville recently when we were talking about coding. I mean, five years ago, it was like coding, coding camps and coding. Everybody needed to code. Well, now, like coders are looking for jobs. I mean, so I think it's really challenging. Um, as somebody who wants to point students to high quality, high demand fields, right? This pathway is work. I think it's, yes, we need to be aware of the right now, but like, how can we stay on top of ensuring that students have an understanding of what this looks like? And we all know, and it's true for us too, like, uh, I'm not always thinking five years ahead. I mean, I tend to be sort of a six months ahead kind of gal because like, that's all like I have sort of the capacity to think about. So you think about our students who the, the survey confirmed seventy seven percent of them are working full time or part time, which is twice the national average. I mean, we also know students, um, really need support from coaches, our students telling us that our complete coaches really matter. And so this sort of I've got a thousand things on my plate. Can you help me navigate those things? I think is a story that we are very comfortable with here. But how do we tie what we know and prepare students for what's coming? I think that's the big challenge. Yeah, it's difficult I think too. And you see this kind of baked in throughout this report. But I think that's why it's really important that whether it's through the coaching curriculum, whether it's through workforce mentorship, whether it's job shadowing, it's helping students to understand that they are part of a workforce ecosystem and being able to find a credential of value or find a thing that's going to get them to a true economic mobility, economic opportunity, understanding, you know, the shifting tides and how they can continue to adapt, continue to skill up to, again, meet the moment. And I think what's so great about what we try to put out into the universe is that it's rooted in practice. I mean, I say this every, every table that I am privileged to sit at over the last twenty years. You know, when we're talking about policy or when we're talking about what comes next or when we're thinking about, um, you know, how to best support students for us, it's all rooted in practice. So. And what I mean by that is like things that sound nice or sound logical don't always work when you're working with students, particularly vulnerable student populations. Also, can you scale it and is it sustainable? I mean, like, you know, you guys, you're Tyler's laughing. I'm always thinking, yeah, yeah. Like we might need to edit that. Like I just but it's true. Like, why are we going to build a thing or try to advocate for a thing that we know could be really helpful, but gosh, we're never going to be able to fund it at the scale at which we need it to go. And also like really digging in on the, the, the practicality of what we're trying to do. And I love that this report, while aspirational, is also very practical, um, in terms of how we're thinking about what comes next. Yeah, I, I totally agree. I think we've laid out a really easy to follow. I like the term practical framework for how to think about. And it's not just Tennessee achieves. Thinking through this lens. I think K-12 can think through this lens. Post-Secondary can think through this lens. If you're a large employer like Fedex and you want to get involved with students, you can think through this lens. It really illuminates a lot of the the challenges that we face and how we're trying to position ourselves for the future. Another piece of this report, though, as you read through it, what you're going to find is we've also charged Tennessee with five commitments. So five commitments that you need to make to ensure that this framework actually works. And if you read through this, what you'll find is rooted in data, as Christie said. So you've got a data point that is from this survey find from the survey findings. And then there's a response kind of from Tennessee to say, well, here's kind of how we're approaching that today and how that's going to inform the future of that particular piece of our work. And one of the pieces of survey feedback that I read and was sort of surprised by, was that two thirds of students indicated that they are facing some sort of financial hardship. Um, and I don't even know that that necessarily is indicative of how the percentage of students that would even be considered economically disadvantaged. Right. It's probably even higher than that. So that really, I think, just lends itself to the value of intentional coaching and trying to continue to expand that part of our work. I, you know, I think so too. And I think to, you know, zoom us out a little bit, I think a big piece of these tenants, which we should probably walk everybody through, um, is really, you said, rooted in data, but also like, you know, leaning into like, let's set some bags, these big hairy, audacious goals, as Randy Boyd has taught us. Um, and then be very methodical about how we're going to measure our success. And I think transparency is huge, right? Like if we're doing really well, Great. And if we're not doing really well, let's call a spade a spade and figure out how to pivot. I mean, so really quickly. Five tenants being put a stake in the ground. Where are we? I don't know that if you ask ten people, they would know where we are. Ten people, you know, obviously walking down the street might not need to know, but even ten people in education, like where exactly are we on our attainment goal? I mean, the drive to fifty five was a really powerful tool. Everybody was talking about it, right? That thirty two percent when it was launched to fifty five. But putting the stake in the ground on where we are and really setting an aspirational goal of where we want to be. And I do think the second tenant, like, is so mindful of how we get there. So it's not just counting for counting sake. Neither was the drive to fifty five, but it's about counting credentials of value. So how are you lining up local business and industry with what our students are choosing as their major or their pathway. Um, and I think part of that is just exposure. I mean, right. Tyler. I mean, I'm going to pause and to, and, and allow you to talk about like the job shadow piece of this, I think is huge. Yeah. I mean, what these job shadow career experience programs give students the chance to do is find out what they like, find out what they don't like, but also get a better sense of what is in demand in their community. And so, you know, we've hosted job shadowing opportunities in the past year with about thirty five employers across the state providing real opportunities for students to visit, uh, career opportunities in their community and get a sense of what they can do with the college credential. Um, but I think the experience is important. What we see in the data is that when a student completes even just one job shadowing opportunity, there are about twenty four percent more likely to graduate than their peers. Um, and I think that speaks to the power of connectedness. Um, it's why we are enhancing job shadowing programming. It's why we're introducing workforce mentorship, because we know that when students, uh, get that perspective from the real world, it, it creates an environment where they're more likely to graduate, more likely to succeed. Yeah. Uh, the third tenant, I really, I think kind of continues that conversation a bit. And just to, to read it verbatim is to create clear pathways with off ramps for expert exploration. And Chrissy, I really like this one. I want you to elaborate a little bit more on this off ramp, uh, theory, but I like this so much because I think it's really easy as practitioners in this space to, to be very rigid in that, yes, we know exactly what's right for students and you need to do this exact thing. And, and that, you know, if every student was just going to follow the order to a T, sure, it would probably work. But that's never going to be how it works. And students have interests that probably fall outside of the scope of what they're studying. So talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I've always been a huge proponent of a clear pathway. Like, how do we, you know, we talk all the time here about eliminating barriers, but I also don't want students to lose sight of, do you know what you want to do when you're seventeen or eighteen? I mean, I have a sixteen year old in my house and he wants to play Major League Baseball. And you know what? I hope Oliver plays Major League Baseball, but there's probably going to need to be an off ramp for Oliver in case that doesn't work out. Like, what are you also like thinking about? What are you interested in? Like what, what do you get excited about? What's that fire in your belly? Um, and I think about that for our students all the time. I want that to be true for all students, not some students. Um, and, you know, I think about my own journey as a first generation low income kid from McMinnville. I started off as a math major. And then somewhere along the way, I was like, maybe art history. And my dad's like, what is art history? So I was like, maybe not that. And then I'm still sad about it. Let me tell you, about it all the time. And then I ended up in political science thinking I would go to law school. I mean, and I didn't go to law school. So, you know, it was there was, but I still graduated in four years because there was something very intentional about the path that they create at Suwannee, where there is a clear on ramp and off ramp and you don't get off track. And so, um, I was grateful for that exploration. I was grateful for the time because I didn't know you could lead a non-profit. I didn't know you could do like, you know, deputy chief of staff for the, for the mayor. I didn't know those jobs existed when I was seventeen years old. I was just good at math and got a scholarship. And so, you know, I want that to be true for our students. But also, uh, let me say very clearly, I think our state has done a really great job of starting to clear the path in many ways. I think it's just time. And I think everybody knows this. I think this is really hard work for the record. Um, but I think it's, it's critical for us to sort of pour gasoline on these efforts now more than ever. Yep. Agreed. Takes us to the next one. Um, investing in high quality coaching and mentoring. That's, that's at the core of what we're doing. Uh, and we don't like to say that we have a silver bullet because we certainly don't. But if there was one, I, I do think pairing proactive college coaching with emergency grant funding might be it. It just works so well. Uh, and then when you add in the mentoring element of having the community involved in that work, it just then. Now, now the employers at the table, how, how beautiful is that equation, right? Yeah. I mean, we've also. Right. You know, our mentors have existed for as long as the program has existed. Um, but now they exist in the workforce access space, helping to make sure students actually have a real career connection in their community. Um, and so what I think is, is great about where this goes in the future is there's a fantastic pipeline of supports for students helping them get started. Got coaching and grant supports to help get them through. And now workforce mentors over a thousand of them across the state to help in the career search process. Yeah. Social capital is huge. I mean, incredible. I mean, who comes in, you know, with a lot of social capital. And I think that is like, I can't wait to hear how. I mean, we're in the first year of workforce mentoring. It sounds good. I think it's going to be great, but we don't know yet. But I can't wait to hear how our mentors and students talk about that. I mean, just last week, we had a student who needed job shadowing to continue in their program, couldn't find it anywhere, and their mentor found him sixteen hours because they worked in a hospital in their community. That story, one story, right. But it's, it's, it's exciting to see what this could do for students and the workforce. Yeah. I thought about the, the workforce mentoring. And it's even brought me back to our traditional access mentoring program, how that just really is a network builder for students, I think. I think I thought I had a network when I graduated college, and fortunately, my very small network is where I ended up working. Um, but, um, that's not always the case for students. You don't have quite that, that, that rich of a relationship with a, with a, a potential employer when you graduate. And so having that just going ahead and being built for you, it's so valuable. And it leads me to the last one. Chris, this has to be your favorite one. Um, because it's, it's rooted in data, but this idea of building partnerships across K-12, post-secondary business and industry is really where we're sitting right now as an organization. Um, our infrastructure is, is strong and it's established. And I think we have this opportunity to really reach into this additional space of providing real time data, which I. Chris, I have to think that's probably your that says it all. All of this is, is it can only happen with real time data, right? Well, I mean, I think you're only as effective, especially as a practitioner, but certainly as a policymaker, actually drop any Human into this like insert person here role here. Um, as the information that you have readily available, like we've never made a decision here to change a program at a program, delete a program without data like that's informing how we're moving. And then, you know, measuring it along the way. I, I always think about, especially I'm working on a project right now, um, in the data space with one of our long term partners. And what I explained to them is I said, when our coaches sit down, I want them to be starting on second base. Man, this is a baseball analogy field podcast episode. But I did, you know, I was like, because oftentimes when we're coming up to the plate, we haven't swung yet. And so we have to spend all this time like figuring out information that I know exists about the student, right? How many times during your, you know, high school journey. Did you hear? What do you want to be? What's your plan? What do you want to do? What are you excited about? Right. We those questions have been answered. And so like, how do we capture that? So when we sit down with the student, it's deeper and richer than that. Like, hey, Ben, right? I know your journey is X or you want your journey to be X, how can I help you get there? This, this feels like a good next step, right? So it's the, the coaching, the relationship building can be so much richer. I think. So, you know, data. Yes. To inform, but I think data also to help us like, um, be more effective with the students that we're working with. Well, I, I really think this is, this has been a home run of a conversation. Um, and I'm really excited about, uh, this, this report. I, I don't know that a report is the right term. I think this is a, I want to keep, going. Just want to call it a framework because it's more than a report. We're, we're really explaining how, from our perspective as an organization that has spent almost twenty years in this work, thinking every day about how students can be more successful in accessing, graduating from, and then pursuing life after college. What we know to be true and, and how that can really influence partnerships, how that influences student programs. And even as far as to influence future policy and how Tennessee as a state is thinking about student success and how this table should have all of the seats filled, not just one or two of them at a time. So I'm really excited about this, this project and how it's not just a one time thing and how this is going to influence the work that we're going to do at Tennessee Achieves in twenty twenty six and beyond. I really do think this is a super productive moment, uh, in our seventeen year history here at Tennessee. Chief, It feels very much like that Jerry Maguire moment, you know, in the movie where he's like, I'm gonna put out a mission statement. It didn't go very well for Jerry Maguire initially, so I hope it goes better for us. But it is like our sort of like we've been doing this for, you know, a long time. We care deeply about students. We care deeply about the work we see like, and I think alongside many others, um, across Tennessee, um, that the work is headed, um, is evolving and headed in a new direction. Or maybe it's not a new direction, but a direction that requires all of us to sort of, um, be all hands on deck. And so I hope that these six thousand students that were so great for how we're thinking about our work, then help sort of push in a little bit as everyone is thinking about what comes next in Tennessee. I'm super excited. I Yeah, I am too. I mean, it gives students a seat front and center at this table to six thousand responses in forming this framework partnered with data. It really does, um, hopefully propel us into a great twenty twenty six and twenty twenty seven. I'm excited for a special edition to the podcast that's not a blooper reel. Like with me spazzing out. I think it's great. I think it's wonderful. Uh, and look forward to more special episodes as the twenty twenty six year rolls on and we have future reports from Tennessee achieves, I would imagine we'd have one of these for our upcoming annual report later this year. And, uh, who knows what's around the bend as we think about six months ahead. Uh, so there may be something cool in the fall that we come across, but, um, continue to subscribe to our channel where we'll have our every two weeks a new guest that will, will hop on. If you haven't listened to some of the other episodes that we've recorded, we have a robust about twenty something episodes that have been released prior to this. So, uh, we encourage you to go back and listen to those and, uh, stay engaged with us. We look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks, thanks.