From the Archives with Lev Gonick

On this episode of Digital Squared: From the Archives, we're revisiting a 2021 conversation with Lev Gonick, the Chief Information Officer at Arizona State University (ASU) and one of the most respected CIOs in Higher Education. He is an educator, technologist, and smart city architect. 

Together, Tom and Lev discuss ASU’s unique approach to high-quality education at scale and applied research for public benefit, in support of ASU's surrounding communities.  He also outlines several key areas where ASU’s combination of creativity and innovation bring benefit to higher education and its stakeholders. 

Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
Welcome to Digital squared, a podcast that explores the implications of living in an increasingly digital world. We're on a mission to inspire our listeners to use technology and data for good. Your host, Tom Andriola is the Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and data and Chief Digital Officer at the University of California at Irvine. Join us, as Tom and fellow leaders discuss the technological, cultural and societal trends that are shaping our world. Please enjoy this episode from the archives. My guest today is Lev Gonick. Lev is an educator, technologist and smart city architect. He's currently the Chief Information Officer at Arizona State University, where he leads the University Technology Office that provides technology services to all students, faculty and staff. He is co-founder of DigitalC, the award winning nonprofit organization enabling and celebrating innovation, collaboration and productivity through next generation broadband networks, big open data solutions and IoT for public benefit. Lev is very celebrated, and he's inside business magazine's power 100 in 2015 as well as many, many other recognitions as a CIO, I've been admiring him for many years, and he is especially passionate about topics such as smart city solutions, Smart City architects, the future of education, broadband and the network economy. 

Tom 1:23
Lev, thank you for joining us on the podcast today. 

Lev 1:25
Tom, thanks for the invitation. Looking forward to our conversation. 

Tom 1:28
Absolutely, absolutely so. Lev, when I think of ASU, the words that come to mind for me are innovative, deliberate, but I would love to hear as an ASU insider what makes ASU unique in your approach and how you think about technology and data and its ability to drive the mission. 

Lev 1:49
Well, Tom, I think, from my experience, and I imagine it's yours and your listeners as well, higher education over the last 50 years has evolved, and if you don't mind me saying, devolved into an environment in which long standing, principled commitments to access for higher education have begun to get eroded in a kind of competition for a vision of what higher education might look at as an elite sport, only really having rhetorical interest in commitment to access, which, of course, especially for land grant institutions going back over now, 140 years. You know that was supposed to be what higher education in America was, and it's largely, again, in my view, at this point, a suspect proposition, but not at ASU. I would say one of the principal pieces here is that we have challenged the idea that if you want to be a great research institution, you have to give up on teaching excellence. We've given up on the idea that somehow if all you want to do is teaching, you have to give up on research. We've also clearly rejected the idea that somehow this is an ivory tower, isolated and separate from the community around us. So at ASU, what makes us fundamentally unique is our commitment to broad access for the 150,000 students, which makes us very large, great research, we are in the top five research organizations in the country without a medical school, that's a big deal, closing in now on $800 million of sponsored research activity, and we are absolutely and fundamentally committed by our charter to being of service and support to the needs of the and the priorities of the community around us. And so notwithstanding our, I would say, extraordinary outward facing innovation agenda, what I think motivates, certainly me, and I know it's the same for President Crow, is a commitment to this effort to disrupt many of the trend lines of higher education and to ask, as it were, some radical questions. Radical in the sense of going back to the origins, what are we actually here to do in order to support and advance a competitive America, an educated America and the like. 

Tom 4:14
I think that's great, and it's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on here, right? Is I think of your model as being disruptive, but without compromising on the mission of what a land grant university is, and also bucking the belief that a long standing institution can't reinvent itself. I love that about ASU. 

Lev 4:33
Absolutely, and Tom, just to be really clear, we're not a land grant institution. We're just large like a land grant institution, and we've actually assumed the mission. And again, we call it at this point, because we're not so much interested in looking in the rearview mirror. We call this the National Service University model, the idea that we're of service to the nation through, again, kind of a regional focal area here in the southwest, but with, again, touching all of the states in this country, you know, students from 153 countries with physical presence in 45 countries around the world. But it's a national service model that I think is what ASU and now a number of other institutions are committed to trying to reinvent into the 21st century. 

Tom 5:18
Fantastic. So Lev, one of the challenges in bringing you on the podcast, there are so many topics I want to ask you to talk about, but I have to wittle it down. And so in terms of the traditional things, I'm going to ask you to talk about the concept of student analytics at ASU, and how you thought about that as an institution, and then your role in kind of driving what I think is a unique play in the analytics space in higher ed.

Lev 5:44
Yeah, a couple of things here. Let's go back to where our previous conversation here. ASU is not like a lot of the other large institutions, in the sense that we are actively interested in access as the mission. And you know, if you arrive at a university with an A grade point average in high school, and you come from a range of specific zip codes, you're going to do just fine at a university. ASU, again, is casting the net by design, by charter, to a much larger set of learners and their journeys. And one of the central issues that has informed our work for the last decade has been to use analytics to actually focus in on student success for this broader marketplace that we are trying to help shape and influence and unfortunately, more broadly, in the country, 50% of students who start college don't finish college. There's 38 million Americans who started college who don't finish. That is a tragedy of a massive proportion. So our view has always been, can we use technology, tools like data analytics, to not only retrospectively say how come somebody didn't make it, but to use just in time focus to actually understand and develop intervention strategies on the basis of those analytics. And so ASU has a very robust ecosystem that provides analytic inputs from both the use of our LMS, the extraordinary ecosystem around coaches and Student Success infrastructure that actually is regularly monitoring student formative assessment, infrastructure, monitoring engagement more broadly in the life of the campus, and seeing if students become isolated. We use a set of products that actually probe and nudge students into the learning environment and then monitor again their feedback and reactions. We have a mobile app that we've developed here in the University Technology Office, in partnership with the provost area that focuses in on engagement, specifically, and again, with permission of the students for this a chance to analytically make use of that insights in order to create a better experience. So analytics has become a huge driver, and we measure it all of the time to specific outcomes. You know, we have specific retention goals that we're working on as, again, a big institution that, broadly, like the rest of American higher education, was failing our own students. We're now absolutely committed to getting to a point where retention and then persistence to degree, begins to achieve the best, and certainly as good as anyone else who only recruits a students. We're doing that obviously with a much broader cohort of incoming students. You know, we want to elite Smash, if not do better than those so called elite public. 

Tom 8:33
that's great. You also have some non traditional projects that they see ASU innovation driving. Can you talk a little bit about, digital wallet. 

Lev 8:43
Yeah, sure. So again, one of the sort of central themes here that ASU has led is the idea of how to help students take greater agency, greater ownership of their own learning journey. And certainly, Tom, you and I have a certain generation where, in truth, you know, when someone sort of said, what evidence do you have of your undergraduate experience? You'd say, Well, I got a degree, I have a transcript, and I can show you my GPA and my major, and that's about it. And we know, obviously, that there's a much richer reality that the Z is lost in the way that institutions capture and then represent the learning journey of students. So the digital wallet concept is really the idea of which we call pocket here at ASU, is the idea of affording students an opportunity to curate their own learning journeys and put in their pocket in the form of a mobile app pointers to all of the artifacts of learning that they want to represent, either generally to the public or to specific opportunities, whether that's graduate school or to a job or to a family member or to friends along the way. And we're using a distributed ledger infrastructure, sort of the block chain world, to afford an opportunity for institution to institution, collaboration with challenges like reverse transfer, which are hugely important. Massive amount of lost credits when students try to transfer from one institution to another. Trying to use the machine to get a whole lot better at that with now at ASU, over a million course equivalencies already worked out that allows us to create opportunities for students to maximize or optimize and represent that when they do so through their digital wallet alongside, obviously, if they have a piece of performance work or a poster session or something that they are particularly proud of, they can obviously capture that in one of our other digital repositories, and then in their wallet they get the chance to represent that and share that as they see fit, and not be sort of held hostage to a sort of single kind of, if you will, certainly 19th century idea of how to encapsulate the learning. So obviously we're okay with skipping a century here and leaning into a much more dynamic way. And our hope, honestly here Tom, is to open this up to all of higher education. Because if there's a network effect, if we can create a trusted learner network among higher education partners across the land and beyond, then this creates a very dynamic, learner centered approach to their journey and to our ability as institutions of higher education to support that journey. 

Tom 11:28
I have to ask this follow up question on this topic left because I love what you're doing here. Has this been introduced to some of the major employers you work with, and have they gleaned onto this concept of as they recruit talent into their organization, looking beyond the traditional resume and GPA as the only mechanism to evaluate talent for their organization coming in?

Lev 11:51
Yes, indeed, in fact, that is absolutely part of the blockchain. Large employers here in the metro Phoenix area are part of some of that early work, as are a number of very important national research institutes who are likewise interested in leaning more insight than simply a representation in a transcript of what impact the student learns and knows. And so part of the schema is actually a competencies schema, which, again, can get represented by an instructor who's either offered a class or who's offered a micro credential, who or who's offered student participating in a hackathon. And actually that can be represented by an authoritative source who basically creates an immutable assertion that, in fact, students accomplish what they accomplish, and that is indeed what the large companies are looking for, and a way of also much more agilely, much more velocity being able to assess and evaluate match between students, their assertions with competencies. And so I think we have some opportunity, in a fairly selfish way, at least for the short term, for creating an ASU advantage here. Our goal is, of course, not just for ASU. We hope that this gets picked up and feedback from the employer base that we have shared this with is, let's agree to the competency sets, the skill sets that can get tagged, not only to courses, but again, to other artifacts of learning, and begin to let the machine generate insights on essentially correlations and pathways to allowing those employers to have a better bet for a match from where they sit. 

Tom 13:30
I also had in my list I wanted to ask you about digital trust. Is that a different project than what you just articulated?

Lev
Digital trust is, is actually an adjacent activity. But in fact, you're absolutely right. It's very much part of the idea of flipping the focus to a student centered approach, the learning outcomes we want to have represented in a digital wallet, the framework, the underlying approach to trust. Digital trust is a huge part of a shift here that we're representing at ASU, and in my operations Tom, I chose to architect the role of the Chief Information Security Officer as the Chief Information Security and Digital Trust officer, and her role is actually to architect both sides. Both keeping the bad actors outside and inside the network infrastructure from having added here, but at the same time to begin to build trust by design. Unlike a lot of big tech that's out there that basically has built surveillance by design, or turning we as individuals into things that they get to ingest and then sell back to us, we have developed, as I mentioned short a short time ago, a digital mobile app with over 300,000 users in this, individual users, in this last year consuming it. All of that is designed both with privacy and with the digital trust by design in the framework itself, to try to make sure that our relationship with our learners is not one in which they have to start by saying, what is the institution going to be doing with my data that's going to end up violating my own sense of whatever impropriety or other things that is real in the broader society? Obviously, we think that that's as important to the overall environment of security by the place like ASU, 

Tom 15:27
Fantastic, fantastic lev. I also noticed that you do a lot of partnerships. Examples, dreamscape, immersive, Smart City, Cloud Innovation Center, work with Amazon Web Services. Can you talk a little bit about how you, as a chief information officer and a major innovation force, how you think about partnerships, and what have you found has worked to bring good partnerships to a higher education institution? 

Lev 15:57
Yeah, Tom, I mean, that's a really good insight on your part. And again, I think it's a whole institution that leads through partnerships. And again, I'm, you know, I have a piece of that in my portfolio, but it is part of the ethos of ASU, you know, led by our president, who is very much committed to that partnership model. He comes to us with that essentially in the DNA of how he thinks to build generative social scale. Institutions and partnerships are hugely important in our case as a CIO, and you know this very well, we ultimately have stewardship responsibility for fairly substantial amount of investment that the institution makes through vendors in procuring technology. And my proposition here has been, there are a handful of those vendor relationships in which both parties aspire to more than simply a buyer-seller relationship, and a lot of it has to do with, again, the opportunity to bring 27,000 engineering students, which is what ASU has, which is larger than most universities, our engineering student body. And what are these companies all, certainly technology companies all want? They want a pipeline of talent. Well, there's a disconnect that somehow the Career Services group at the University is the source for finding talent at the institution when students are ready to graduate. We see this partnership model as if you're in the information security business and we're buying endpoint infrastructure, or you're in the collaboration services area and you're trying to beat the competition, you want access to our students, not when they are semester away from graduating. You want them now. You want them to be engaged now in those opportunities. You want the R and D that our faculty are working on with their post docs. You want to be able to tap into that now. So we have reciprocal sabbatical relationships with many, many companies where their R and D teams are here for their sabbaticals. We send our faculty, our grad students, to companies. We set up centers of excellence and innovation. Here, you mentioned a couple of them. This week alone, we've had three large vendors that I do business with setup, institutes, collaboratories. Today we literally just came from from a chat Tom, a company that's just made a seven figure investment here and is trying to figure out what its physical presence will be and how to combine their interest in student pipeline talent, because that is the great competition for technology companies. It's all about sourcing talent, and we think we can do that in a way that is not just about saying we've got really smart students, see their digital wallet, see their transcripts, but also to actually embed the technology companies in our own environment. We literally built a smart city, which we call Novice Innovation Corridor, 355 acres right in the middle of ASU Tempe campus, filled with technology companies who are there because it's a great access to the freeway, and to the airport, but more more importantly, it's because they have access to not only 27,000 engineering students, but students who do art, media and engineering and countless other kinds of blended degrees, all forged in this idea of creating partnerships to support our student success, and obviously trying to attract a much more robust and diverse set of investors in the university, above and beyond the public investment here.

Tom 19:30 that's fantastic. So I'm going to jump back to something I know you have a personal passion for smart cities. Tell me about your grand ambition around that and how you plan to have ASU in your office to play a role in bringing that vision to life.

Lev 19:50
And I think there are a couple of different angles here. Tom, maybe 10 years ago, it was kind of a novel idea to talk about a smart city. At this point, everyone is either on that journey or basically realize that what we really mean by smart city is really the idea of convening people to talk about priorities and applying innovative approaches, including innovative use of technology, to address those priorities. It is ultimately about responsible and engaged government, responsible and engaged education sectors, healthcare and so on. So for me personally, my commitment specifically in the smart city space has been to digital equity. How can we make sure that all of the communities around us are able to articulate their priorities and that we get to apply innovative solutions to the needs of the community around us, and because of COVID, certainly starting in March of 20 until actually, obviously, right up to now, there are a whole slice of the community who simply lost access to all kinds of critical infrastructure services. Especially like education and healthcare, job opportunities and the like. And so at the university, you know, we are committed to leveraging our core competencies and digital infrastructure to help build access through a network of K to 12 schools and from those schools to the communities that surround them to make sure that no matter where you live, you live in a mobile park or the trailer home, is that's where your kids end up sleeping at night. They should have access to internet so they can do their homework, and you should be able to access telehealth services. And if you unfortunately don't have a roof to sleep over, then you know, we want to be able to provide you access to partnerships with the public libraries and with the food kitchens and homeless shelters, infrastructure, digital infrastructure to help you with workforce development, helping to apply for a job, getting public housing, if that's something that does of interest to you. So for me, it's really always been about a commitment to digital equity along the way, and at the same time trying to spawn the most entrepreneurial and innovative approaches to encourage students and faculty to address not only the most obvious things like autonomous vehicle futures and sensor arrays and other things that we are doing here as part of Our smart city work, but to always be mindful of way of addressing and being of support to those in our community who are less fortunate. 

Tom 22:29
Excellent. Thank you. I, over the course of my career, have had the opportunity to be the CIO technology functional executive, but I've also been the business executive of technology businesses, and those blended experiences have taught me to approach the CIO role in a certain way. Given your long career trajectory of accomplishment in different institutions, I'm kind of curious, especially with so much interest about EDUCAUSE talking about the integrative CIO, really the evolution of the role. How do you think about your role in managing your executive peers? How do you think about that role in kind of being effective in your role and contributing to the overall mission? 

Lev 23:15
Our role as CIOs continues to evolve. I don't think there is actually necessarily a kind of prescriptive orientation. I do think that it's always about a fit. There's sort of three things that I think have to fit together in order to sort of advance. One is, of course, one as the executive IP leader, your own core professional competencies, your core value system to make sure you understand what those are, there is then the relationship that you individually have with your peers or your the executive team at the University. That dynamic is absolutely non prescriptive. It takes a it takes working through that chemistry regularly. The third element is the broader culture that has been set in that institutional framework. Sometimes, you know, over a very long period of time, other times, during, you know, disruptive moments, a much shorter period of time. And I've always sort of seen that the the piece here and the counsel I give people is to make sure you understand your core system and make sure that when you look your CFO or your Chief Academic Officer, or your president in the eye, you actually sort of say, these are the kinds of people. I actually feel like we can work together and I can provide value to them, and likewise, hopefully they can provide value, because they understand that at ASU, the true chief disruptive and innovation officer is President Crow. I don't serve that role. I've done that for 25 years before I arrived here. That can be very arduous and difficult work, depending on that set of other criteria. Namely, the broader culture and the relationship with the other executives that are there. In this case, I have the luxury in many ways, of riding the coattails of one of the most, I would say, forward thinking and disruptive thinkers in our industry, and helping to shape it, rather than to have to frame it. And that, for me, is a huge advantage, and he's got all of his executive team, I think, aligned to that work along the way. 

Tom 25:28
Thank you. All right. Lev, last question, everyone my guest, gets the same last question. And one of the benefits of having guests who have been so successful in their career is is the opportunity to ask them about what are two or three actionable pieces of advice that you give to technology professionals who are growing their career? A lot of our listeners are people who are on the up and coming level. They want to be you somewhere in the future. What are the two or three actionable piece of advice you'd say, in terms of building a successful career in the technology field? 

26:02
One don't shy away from actually diversifying your own experience. Oftentimes, people get stuck in a swim lane and don't realize that if you want to become a CIO, one of the most important things that you can offer is the broad overview. Second, don't feel that you need to actually know everything. There is a tendency, certainly among people with technical backgrounds, to feel that their leadership is directly connected to their knowledge, and you come more to the leadership, I would say, to the leadership opportunity set based on where you've come from and your hopefully curiosity and commitment to continuing to learn. But I certainly in a large enterprise such as ASU, the most important thing I can do is actually to surround myself with a diverse group of colleagues who actually are, in many ways subject matter experts. And then finally, in terms of sort of advice to folks, especially if you work in a university, which is to say in a highly decentralized or if you're likely a highly distributed environment, is embrace ambiguity. Don't look for a complete clarity of mission and purpose and objective. It's simply not going to be there, and you will frustrate yourself and your team if that is the Clarion commitment that you have. Run your operation the way as best you can, the way it makes sense to you, but don't look to the rest of the institution to be anything other than this wonderful cauldron of very ambiguous, dynamic and oftentimes contradictory realities. 

Tom 27:47
That's fantastic. Lev, thank you. I'd like to thank our guest Lev Gonick, for joining us today. Lev, thank you for being a part of our podcast series. 

Lev 27:55
Thanks Tom, have a great rest of your day.