You are HigherED!: Collaborative Strategies for Entrepreneurs in Teaching and Learning

By Ella Epshteyn

Managing independent contracting or self-employment can be a daunting task. You are HigherED!Collaborative Strategies for Entrepreneurs in Teaching and Learning helps beginners navigate and start conversations around collaborative entrepreneurship. Readers will learn about developing an "entrepreneurial mindset

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Dec 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9798885040402

Book preview

You Are HigherED!

You Are HigherED!

Collaborative Strategies for Entrepreneurs in Teaching and Learning

Ella Epshteyn, EdD

New Degree Press

Copyright © 2021 Ella Epshteyn, EdD

All rights reserved.

You Are HigherED!

Collaborative Strategies for Entrepreneurs in Teaching and Learning

ISBN

978-1-63730-677-2 Paperback

978-1-63730-766-3 Kindle Ebook

979-8-88504-040-2 Ebook

Contents

Introduction

Forging My Professional Identity

Moving Toward an Entrepreneurial Mindset

Alternative Career Tracks in Teaching and Learning

Professional Roles and Entrepreneurial Spaces in Teaching and Learning

Getting Started

Traditional Activities, Promotion and Sources of Revenue

Building an Audience and Alternative Sources of Revenue

Exploring Collaborative Relationships

Exploring Technology to Support Collaborations

The Next Steps

Acknowledgments

Appendix

Introduction

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in 2021 there were 154 postsecondary institutions in Massachusetts, with a large number of colleges and universities located in the Boston Metro area. Yet since I moved back to Boston in 2012, I have seen several higher education colleagues—friends and acquaintances—move out of state to pursue more reliable employment and livable wages. For some, the move signified promotion and advancement. Others, unable to attain tenure or full-time employment locally, accepted jobs elsewhere out of necessity, though it meant uprooting their children and spouses and leaving their extended families, friends, communities, and support networks. Still, they were the lucky ones.

In my many years working in higher education—often in support positions, I have talked to many talented and highly educated faculty and staff who struggled to secure steady and reliable employment. Serious unexpected or chronic illness, childbearing, retirement, mid-career pivot, or even simply inability to find the right fit for the otherwise reasonable skillset were often the reasons behind these struggles. On the other hand, I have also met those who were looking to retire from their full-time positions but could not afford to do so, staying in their jobs years longer than they wanted. Many others needed a more flexible work schedule but had a hard time locating the right opportunities.

I have been there. Underemployed when able and willing to take on more work. Overwhelmed when life demanded more of me than a life/work balance would allow. When I thought about taking control and starting my own business, I would imagine having to do something radically different from what I was trained to do. Open a convenience store. Start a catering business. Run a home daycare group. It never occurred to me to create my own opportunities based on my own strengths—rooted in education and professional experience. Until it did.

The book is based on three themes:

• Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset

• Building Collaborative Relationships

• Concepts, Tools, and Technology for Entrepreneurship in Teaching and Learning

The book was primarily written for higher education professionals, such as faculty, administrators, course designers, IT professionals, librarians, and many others, looking to set themselves up as entrepreneurs, as well as those already taking on projects outside of their day jobs, but unsure about the next steps. Using examples from the industry, we will explore innovative collaborative strategies for defining a niche, developing and/or refining a product or service, and building and promoting a brand. This book provides ideas, information, and resources for such collaborations and outlines an approach to building up others as a way to promote ourselves. This book itself is a collaborative strategy, seeking to build a relationship with its readers and asking a question throughout: How can we build up and promote each other?

Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset

In 2019, I left my full-time job as an instructional designer at a globally recognized prestigious university—a job that came with more than livable wages, healthcare benefits, a retirement account, and heavily discounted future tuition for my children, to start my own company—ATTECS, an independent center for teaching and learning, focusing on academic technology and teaching excellence. The mission of this venture was to provide educational technology consulting, instructional design, support, and professional development services to faculty and administrators in higher education—something I had done on and off in different capacities for close to fifteen years prior at different institutions.

Though I had a strategic plan for the first three years, it went out the window six months later—in March of 2020, as what I had been planning to start with—faculty development, was no longer in demand due to a global pandemic. Instead, there was a burning need for support in quickly moving courses online—implementing learning management systems (LMS), training and supporting faculty, creating resources, and improving online content. The professional forums for teaching and learning professionals mobilized to share information and resources. Instructional designers (already stretched thin at their institutions) offered part-time hands-on help, and platforms were quickly created to facilitate such exchange. I posted a call to action and offered help matching higher education professionals with the institutions that needed them. In the months that followed, ATTECS gained seven higher education clients, and formed and placed multiple teams for various projects. During those engagements, we helped institutions evaluate and select instructional technology, developed resources, and trained and supported faculty all over the world.

I decided to write a book about my entrepreneurial journey and taking control of my professional life, as well as this initial success. In the late fall of 2020, my reasons for writing it were:

• It had taken me too long to realize I could do what I loved on my own terms.

• I wanted to share the things I wished I had known, as well as the lessons learned.

• The experience had helped me grow personally and professionally.

In other words, my early manuscript was about developing an entrepreneurial mindset.

However, as I started writing, I realized that the book could not and should not be just about my entrepreneurial journey. I did not travel alone. From even before I set out to become an entrepreneur, there were people who encouraged and supported me. As I was getting started, people guided me and brainstormed with me. Volunteer mentors advised me on the various aspects of running a business. I could turn to listservs, discussion boards, and social media forums with any questions. I could hire freelancers from networks and platforms as needed. So, the book evolved to incorporate chapters on collaborative strategies for building a business.

Building Collaborative Relationships

From its inception, ATTECS was envisioned as a highly collaborative enterprise. Having worked in higher education, I have found that collaborative institutional cultures made my work environment a lot more enjoyable than those with siloed missions and autocratic administrative decisions. I was also inspired by the many professional forums in the teaching and learning space. Even when part of a siloed workplace, I was never alone—there was a vast network of colleagues all over the world, ready to offer answers, and share ideas and resources. As noted by the authors of Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers, education attracts altruistic people.

Over the years, as I used multiple listservs, discussion boards, and social media forums, I noticed a few interesting themes:

• Higher education institutions were frequently looking for help to supplement existing services on a temporary or part-time basis, perhaps due to a project or an institutional initiative. At the same time, colleagues who were retiring or needed a more flexible work schedule were reporting having a hard time locating such opportunities at the right time.

• Some posters asked to share resources—templates, rubrics, policies, and other documents. There would usually be at least several responses to each such request. It made me wonder why there were so many versions of the same resources. Why don’t we have a better way to index and share them?

• There seemed to be a need for professional and faculty development. However, there also seemed to be competition for these opportunities—every post seeking a workshop on a particular topic of interest would elicit multiple public responses from individuals looking to deliver such workshops.

So, the premise for ATTECS was simple: I would utilize the power of these professional networks to create a framework for matching people with the right opportunities. For instructional design projects and to provide or supplement faculty support services within institutions, ATTECS would form and provide remote teams with the pre-screened sets of skills. And, for professional development, we would index, map, promote and facilitate sessions by experienced and established faculty developers, as well as those just establishing their niche. Especially in the area of professional development, I was hoping that by facilitating collaborations between different niches, we could not only strengthen individual brands but create products and services not possible without such collaborations.

Before the pandemic, in the fall of 2019, I reached out about potential collaborations and cross-promotion to the more established professional developers, as well as those still developing their space but active on social media and professional forums. Although some were interested in learning more, the response overall was lukewarm at best, and many established and emerging entrepreneurs in the teaching and learning space seemed wary and fiercely protective of their niche. I started to wonder if I had stumbled upon some interesting phenomena. Why wasn’t there more interest in collaborations among fellow entrepreneurs? Or was there more to it than just lack of interest? Is there a fear of competition?

According to the datasets available on the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) website, in 2017 to 2018 there were over 6,500 post-secondary institutions in the US alone. The POD Network—the largest educational development community, counts 1,400 members representing every US state and more than thirty countries. This suggests that there is a largely unexplored and potentially underserved client base. So, if there is more than enough turf to go around, what can we (entrepreneurs) do to help each other get more turf?

Higher education institutional cultures vary, but, as a general rule, collaborations are welcomed, appreciated, valued, and supported. Higher education faculty and administrators often have their own communities of practice where sharing and collaboration take place. People come together for book projects, to present at conferences, or to take part in cross-institutional research. These collaborations raise the profile of the individuals and their institutions. Higher education professionals may also choose to consult, facilitate workshops for a fee or choose other paid gigs aside from their full-time employment. Here, their institutions may or may not support them in these endeavors—this really depends on the situation and institutional culture and policies.

However, as long as these individuals are still grounded in their higher education roles, they are still part of their community of practice and are still in the higher education pecking order. The further away they get from the higher education mother ship (and deeper into entrepreneurial space), however, the more isolated they become. Although they are still supporting the mission of higher education, they may not be viewed as such. They may no longer have institutional emails that allow them access to professional associations and scholarly databases. And, where they do have access, their contributions may be viewed with suspicion and hostility. The same posts that are perfectly acceptable from higher education professionals (e.g., free or low-cost webinars) are flagged and removed when coming from freelancers and entrepreneurs. The rules of engagement (or community guidelines) vary between different forums, with some more accepting and lenient than others.

It is an unspoken understanding that these rules are in place to filter out vendor advertisements and market research. Would it stand to reason then that many higher education professionals, even when choosing to coach, consult, or freelance in the areas related to higher education teaching and learning, consciously or subconsciously strive to achieve a delicate balance between still being considered a higher education professional and becoming an outside vendor/service provider? So, how are they going about achieving this balance? Does it work?

Concepts, Tools, and Technology for Entrepreneurship in Teaching and Learning

I did find like-minded entrepreneurs open to the idea of cross-promotion and collaboration—and intrigued by the possibilities. In some cases, especially with cross-promotion, the concept was clear—we would refer clients to our prospective businesses, and/or we would advertise for each other on our prospective websites and on social media. In some cases, however, while the concepts were clear, the implementation required more planning and detail. We discussed and explored different ways we could collaborate on projects and create joint products. But first, we had to figure out how to do this. For those just getting started creating content, what were the terms for putting their content on the ATTECS platform—and removing content if they were to choose to do so? What were our mutual responsibilities in regard to updating content? What were the common and not common use cases for licensing and distribution of courses and programs? For the established faculty and professional developers, who already had developed content, what would affiliate and referral relationships look like? How would we manage logins and users? How would we create/transfer/manage content across different platforms?

As I started working with the legal professionals on drafting contracts to address different case scenarios, I realized we needed a framework—one that to the best of my knowledge did not exist at this time. We needed better definitions for freelancers, consultants, and entrepreneurs in the teaching and learning space. We needed to differentiate between individuals and agencies. We needed a better understanding of the function of the centers for teaching and learning, and the different roles that may lend themselves to entrepreneurship. We needed to understand the mindset, motivation, and driving force behind entrepreneurship in teaching and learning. Then, and only then, could we attempt to define and design the collaborative relationships that I had envisioned for ATTECS.

How to Read this Book

I wrote this book with two main goals in mind—to create a framework for collaborative entrepreneurship and to build a relationship with my fellow entrepreneurs. To create such a framework, I drew from the many interviews with both the established and aspiring entrepreneurs, as well as books, podcasts, videos, blogs, articles, and my own professional experience. However, I also believed that to build an authentic collaborative relationship with my audience, my professional identity was not enough. I needed to communicate who I was personally as well—raw, scrappy, unedited, and vulnerable (Hunter, 2017).

My professional experience communicates my expertise. My personal is about connection. Some chapters are mostly personal. Some are professional and research heavy. And some intertwine personal and professional stories—to illustrate concepts and my own interpretations of these concepts.

Chapters are sequential and build on the sequential steps in the entrepreneurial journey—from developing an entrepreneurial mindset to building a business. That being said, you may already be familiar with some of the concepts. You may also be more interested in professional stories than personal, or vice versa. If so, take what you need and skip the rest!

I did my best to present business and marketing-related concepts with accuracy and clarity. However, some of these concepts are still new to me too, and there is no clear consensus on what works and what doesn’t, especially when it comes to higher education entrepreneurship. Take this information as a discussion starter. Engage with me in a follow-up conversation. You can email me at any time at [e-mail]. I also encourage you to join me and others in any of the following forums:

• Course and Resource Center: Entrepreneurship 101 for Higher Education Professionals (available at https://learning.attecenter.com/)

• LinkedIn Group: Entrepreneurship in Higher Education Teaching and Learning (available at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13987979/)

• Facebook Group: Collaboration and Consulting in Higher Education Group (available at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1034863376893448)

On that note—now that we’ve gotten the formalities out of the way, let’s get started.

Chapter 1

Forging My Professional Identity

Those who have varied work and educational backgrounds are much more likely to start their own businesses than those who have focused on one role at work or concentrated in one subject at school.

—Edward P. Lazear

In his article titled Entrepreneurship, the late Edward P. Lazear (formerly a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and a professor of economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business) presented a new predictive model for becoming an entrepreneur. Conventional wisdom often states that either the most talented become entrepreneurs or those who do so out of necessity—when there are no other alternatives for employment. However, Edward P. Lazear’s model shows that the number of skills and varied professional and life experiences make a better predictor for becoming an entrepreneur. He argues that talent in a particular area is likely to lead to one becoming a specialist and a highly valued employee. An entrepreneur, on the other hand, must bring together many different resources. Therefore, they must have knowledge, at least at a basic level, of a large number of business areas (Lazear, 2005).

In this chapter, I will illustrate how my own professional and lived experiences prepared me for entrepreneurship. This book is not about me, and it is not a memoir. Lived experiences, however, are paramount as they shape our perspectives, interpretations, and biases and affect everything we do and how we interact with other people. I start here with a little background on where I come from and how my personal circumstances shaped my professional identity. Without these personal stories,