Post Univ. restructuring adopts student-first culture

PHOTO | Contributed Post University President John L. Hopkins

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Q&A talks with Post University CEO John L. Hopkins about the college's recent rebranding and structural changes.

Q: PostUniversity recently announced a rebranding as part of a broader culture change at the college. What's involved with the rebranding and how is the school's culture shifting?

A: Post University has been around for 127 years. As we continue to evolve as a relevant, education innovator, we have contemporized Post's visual identify as emblematic of recent significant changes that occurred, most especially an emphasis on a personalized student experience.

We've made personalizing the entire student experience the DNA of everything we do, streamlining student processes to ensure students receive a seamless experience from enrollment to commencement and making a substantial investment in state-of-the-art learning tools.

This helps ensure our customers (our students) walk away with a quality learning experience and a new level of marketability. It's our value proposition.

Q: As part of the rebranding, Post says it will put a greater focus on personalized learning for students. What does that mean and what are some examples?

A: The keystone of Post's personalized approach to education is our focus on our new “Five Keys to Personalization.”

They include: support teams that are fully involved with students from day one; a student advisory staff now doubled in size to be more receptive to student needs; faculty inclusion on support teams from the start … not just when students take their class; re-engineered student readiness tests to anticipate challenges and eliminate failure potential, so students complete their programs; and new investments in a multitude of advanced technological learning tools to enhance the experience and ensure all students grasp course concepts, for example, before moving on.

To effect this personalization, every students is assigned an academic success coach and an entire support team to guide them through every step of their education process.

Q: What was the impetus for the rebranding?

A: Higher education is broken. Too often, colleges are more about themselves than their students. We believe students aren't an afterthought or an issue to be dealt with — they are the reason we exist. They deserve our attention. This is all about instilling greater customer service into higher education.

This approach was my goal from the day I arrived (in 2016). Instilling a new culture in a legacy institution doesn't happen overnight. First, we educated our associates on the “student-first” approach and how it produces successful, business-ready graduates, then needed buy-in and a change in behaviors by everyone on campus.

It took pretty much the year to get where we are today — a higher education provider with a 'top-down' commitment to serve students first by providing each of them a personalized learning experience.

Q: Higher education competition is very intense in Connecticut, especially as our state's population shrinks. How has Post University's enrollment held up recently, both for online students and students who attend class on campus?

A: We're fortunate to be more than holding our own in a crowded, competitive field. Not only is our rebranding initiative attracting the attention of the academic community, it's having a significant effect on student enrollment, satisfaction and retention.

Our spring 2017 enrollment at the main campus (in Waterbury) was the largest we've experienced in 17 years, while online enrollment increased as well. January's online numbers were the largest in two years for Post.

And, the good news is it isn't confined just to heightened satisfaction among current students. Alumni surveys show more than eight in 10 graduates are pleased with their academic experience, with 95 percent saying their Post degree has held or increased in value.

Q: What trends are you seeing in the graduate programs space?

A: Our Malcolm Baldrige School of Business continues to experience the steadiest growth in graduate students. This reflects the findings of a 2016 Market Intelligence Trends Survey, which found growth in roughly half of all graduate business programs. We're also seeing growth in online graduate programs.

And Post is on-trend in regards to our redesigned MBA curriculum launching this fall, which can be completed in a shorter period of time and reflects the analytical skills, knowledge, and experience our research has demonstrated graduates need to actively contribute to an effective and competitive workplace.

Students will see a reduction in the total number of required credits, from 45 to 36.