0:10

Welcome to the Tambellini Group's May

0:13

Top of Mind Podcast. I'm your

0:15

host, Liz Ferrell. Today

0:17

we are discussing the skills shortage that many IT

0:20

departments are facing in higher education.

0:22

We know there have been so many delays on projects

0:25

or other challenges created by

0:27

the lack of a skilled pipeline available

0:29

to fill new and open roles. And

0:32

we're also going to be talking about some strategies

0:34

for overcoming these hiring challenges by

0:37

building an internal pipeline of qualified

0:39

talent. Our guest today is

0:41

Mary Beaver , who serves as the Director

0:43

of Enterprise Software Systems at Montgomery

0:46

County Community College in Pennsylvania. I'm

0:49

so excited to have her here today with us because

0:51

Mary is one of the higher education technology

0:53

leaders who is a paragon of success

0:56

in building and retaining a high

0:58

performing technology team. She's

1:00

going to take us behind the scenes of how

1:03

the IT department at MCCC cultivates

1:06

and nurtures an internal pipeline from

1:08

it. Welcome, Mary.

1:12

Hello. I'm so happy to be here. Thank

1:14

you for having me, Liz.

1:15

We're so glad to have you today.

1:17

And , I think

1:19

our listeners are going to learn a lot from

1:22

your example of success. But before

1:24

we dive into that, I first wanted to

1:26

congratulate you and your team again on winning

1:29

our 2023 Innovative Technology

1:32

Team Award.

1:33

Oh, thank you so much. It was a

1:36

huge surprise. I did not know that

1:38

you know, my boss nominated

1:40

us, so it was quite a surprise

1:42

and I'm so proud of the team. It

1:44

really just gives validation

1:47

that we made the right decision, you

1:49

know, to go with the path that we chose. So

1:51

I'm just so proud of my team cuz it's because of their

1:53

talent that produced the CRM that

1:56

we have today.

1:57

Yes. And it was a great story to

1:59

hear and I'm looking forward to you sharing

2:01

with more about it with us today.

2:04

As you know, that's how I first got

2:06

to know you and, and know the

2:08

story of MCCC and

2:11

all about your team and their accomplishments.

2:13

So, for background, can you tell

2:15

us a little bit about this project that won

2:18

the award for you all?

2:20

Sure. So , my team

2:22

developed a student service

2:25

CRM. And prior

2:28

to that, prior to having the CRM

2:31

support was siloed. We,

2:34

we did not have a complete picture of

2:36

the student, you know, issues or

2:38

student inquiries because

2:40

everything was being managed through shared email

2:43

boxes specific, you

2:46

know, like specific issues would go to

2:48

specific areas. If you had

2:50

a registration issue, then it went to a

2:52

registration email. If there was a payment issue,

2:55

it went to a payment email. There was

2:57

no complete issue

3:00

and it was really hard to

3:02

provide efficient support, you

3:04

know, because we couldn't see the complete picture and

3:07

we were handling it okay before

3:10

the pandemic because, you know,

3:12

people were all in-person and

3:14

if you're working through a shared, you know, email

3:17

box and you're all in person , you

3:19

could basically, you know, you could maybe like

3:22

yell out and say, oh , I'm taking the case

3:24

of Joni Smith, you know? Right . And

3:26

someone else is taking like, you know, Bob

3:28

Brown. But there was really no way

3:30

within the, you know, email with

3:32

the shared email box to kind of track

3:35

who was doing what, the status

3:37

of the cases. So,

3:40

you know, once the pandemic hit, then

3:43

we really needed something because, you

3:45

know, how are we gonna manage these cases when everybody

3:47

was at home? So that really, the pandemic

3:50

kind of kicked it in full gear.

3:52

I'm sure a lot of institutions can

3:54

relate to that dilemma, having

3:56

that sort of slap-dash, okay,

3:59

you take this, I'll take that all

4:01

being in the same room, it suddenly

4:03

goes away. So tell us, you

4:05

get, you get into this situation where it's

4:07

now become an urgent priority. What

4:09

was the next step there?

4:11

So, I mean, this is something we've actually

4:13

been, you know, talking about, you

4:15

know , um, actually like back in 2015,

4:18

the, the director in enrollment

4:21

services, you know, she brought up

4:23

a CRM because she had one at her

4:25

institution. So it

4:27

was talked about. And then in 2018 we

4:29

really started to focus more on it. And

4:32

I know like in 2019, my boss and I

4:34

went out to, you know, San Diego,

4:36

we went to the Salesforce conference

4:39

out there to look at their CRM to

4:41

see, you know, how, how that was being used.

4:44

But then,

4:47

you know, like I said, with the pandemic, it really,

4:49

you know, it spearheaded it and

4:51

we got the approval to move ahead with

4:54

the pandemic, you know, leadership said, yeah,

4:56

go ahead. So, you know,

4:58

then, then it was the decision, like,

5:01

okay, we've got the approval, so

5:04

what are we gonna do? Are we going to

5:06

build or are we going to buy

5:08

a system? So that was the next , you

5:10

know, decision.

5:12

So before we get into that whole

5:15

decision, let's, let's fast forward a bit. Let's

5:17

talk about some of the results of okay

5:19

, some of these efforts. So we know that you

5:22

built the system yourself, but let's

5:24

talk about where we are now. What have

5:26

you seen thus far as the impact from this

5:28

?

5:29

Well, I mean, I

5:32

mean, we have, you know, improved the

5:34

student experience because what

5:36

we have done is we've migrated

5:39

a lot of those individual email

5:43

boxes into one. So we're

5:45

creating, you know , uh, a complete student picture.

5:48

And we actually started first with the

5:50

IT department because the, IT had

5:53

their own case management

5:55

system. And, you

5:57

know, we replaced it with the CRM because what

5:59

better way to, you know

6:01

, try out a new system

6:03

that with, you know, with your own folks.

6:06

Like, let's work at all the bugs in the IT

6:08

department. So, so

6:11

once we did that, we were able to get rid of our, you

6:13

know, our prior case management system

6:16

and, you know, we were able to now

6:18

expand it to student services.

6:21

So we have been able to eliminate

6:24

multiple, you know, shared email

6:26

boxes now cases just come into

6:28

the CRM. So then,

6:33

you know, just creating that complete

6:36

student picture so you can go

6:38

there and you can see all the issues that

6:40

the student is having. You know,

6:43

and since then we've basically , we have

6:46

resolved, I think around 16,000 cases.

6:49

Wow. Yeah. And like

6:51

I said, we've expanded it to student services.

6:54

We are currently working with our president's

6:56

office and with workforce

6:59

to fold them into the CRM.

7:03

But one other thing that we've created from,

7:06

you know, from the CRM besides

7:08

creating a more holistic view of the

7:12

student experience is, you

7:15

know, data transparency. Because

7:18

with this CRM, we

7:21

can do any type of dashboard. So

7:24

if it's in the CRM, we can report

7:26

on it. So we can do dashboards

7:28

based on types of cases, you

7:31

know, the status of cases. Like if,

7:33

you know, we can, we can quickly see

7:35

if, you know, student, student issues

7:38

are coming in and not being worked on, you

7:40

know, just based on their status. Right.

7:42

And, and we can escalate cases

7:45

if it's a critical issue, we can

7:47

do, we can create dashboards,

7:49

you know, even by subject matter. So

7:52

that alerts us to, you

7:54

know, like, like potential issues

7:56

that this student is experiencing. Like

7:59

for instance, if there's a lot of cases that

8:01

come in on like

8:04

FASFA, like, you know , maybe they're having trouble

8:06

filling out a FASFA, then that's

8:08

like, you know, that's like a red flag to

8:10

us . It's a flag to us that say, well, maybe we

8:12

need to do more outreach about

8:15

how to, you know, about how

8:17

to complete a FASFA It's just a

8:19

way for us to like see, you know,

8:22

get a clue into what the students are experiencing

8:24

and maybe, you know, provide more assistance.

8:28

There's so many wonderful results here.

8:31

And the impact is very clear in,

8:33

in your explanation of it. So

8:36

let's talk about this

8:38

builder-buy approach, because this

8:40

is something I know a lot of institutions look

8:42

at and, and building is not

8:45

necessarily the easiest

8:47

path to go down. So can you explain

8:50

sort of the risks and challenges that,

8:52

that approach involved?

8:54

Well, sure. We did

8:57

look like, could we buy a system, you

9:00

know, but then tthe

9:03

system's out there just didn't really meet all

9:05

of our needs. So then

9:07

it was like, okay, you know, you

9:10

know, we are going to, we're gonna build

9:12

just because we wanted it to be able

9:14

to, you know, just adapt to Montgomery.

9:18

So we were really confident

9:20

that we could do it because, you

9:23

know, really because of the team that we have and

9:25

the talent that we have on the team. We

9:29

knew it'd be hard. We knew it's a

9:32

big risk, you know, it's a challenge. It's not

9:34

like we had a lot of other

9:37

peers doing this, so,

9:39

you know, it was a gamble, but we were

9:41

confident in, you know, the team that

9:44

we had.

9:46

Yeah . It sounds like you took this leap of faith purely

9:48

based on the strength of your team. Yeah

9:51

.

9:51

Which

9:51

Brings us to this internal

9:54

pipeline that you built. And, and as I was saying to you

9:56

earlier, this is such an amazing

9:57

proof point for

10:00

anyone who is trying to

10:02

combat these hiring challenges by

10:05

looking within whether

10:08

it's their student workers

10:10

or nternal training

10:13

and promotion. So given

10:15

that there's been this wonderful transformation

10:17

at your institution, tell us a little

10:20

more about the team that built this and, and

10:22

how they came to be.

10:24

Well , I have a team

10:27

of six. Okay . But, but

10:29

two out of the six were actually, you

10:31

know, on the CRM team. First

10:34

is Andrew Rosner. His

10:37

title is lead software developer.

10:40

He actually , came to

10:42

the college in 2008. He

10:44

started, you know, he was a student and

10:47

that's when he actually started working in

10:49

the IT department. He worked

10:51

in, he worked with our media services.

10:54

So we have been blessed with his talent

10:56

since 2008. And

10:59

then , you know, he graduated in

11:01

2013 with a computer networking

11:04

degree, and he

11:06

has moved from developer to

11:08

lead software developer. And,

11:11

and I get emotional when I talk about my

11:13

team, because I'm so proud of them. And like,

11:16

they are, they're so talented and

11:19

his technical expertise is off

11:21

the charts. I

11:23

mean what he

11:25

has been able to do in-house for

11:27

our college is just amazing.

11:30

You know, because of Andrew,

11:32

we, a lot of times we don't have to

11:34

outsource just because of his

11:37

technical expertise. So that's Andrew and

11:44

he's really part

11:47

of getting the

11:49

data, you know, into the CRM

11:51

from all the other systems we have. So

11:53

that's like his role. He also

11:55

does a lot of

11:57

customizations to the CRM,

12:00

but you know, he has a partner and

12:02

it's Marwa Dwidar So her

12:04

title is CRM system specialist.

12:08

She is also a

12:10

graduate of Montgomery County Community College. She's

12:13

a 2021 graduate. She's also a member

12:16

of WIST, but Marwa really does

12:19

the administration of the CRM. You

12:21

know, she creates the workflows and

12:24

the cues and y you know, she's working with

12:26

the end-users on issues

12:29

that they might, you know,

12:32

encounter. Because every, you know,

12:34

every department's going to, you know, use

12:37

the CRM in a different

12:39

way. So she needs to make sure

12:41

that the CRM is adaptable for their

12:43

needs. So that's,

12:45

that's the dream team, those two. And

12:47

for me, you know, they

12:51

report to me and I make sure

12:53

that they have what they need to,

12:55

you know, so that they can be successful. So

12:57

that's, that's my role with them.

13:00

Well , with that team too. I remember one

13:02

of the other things you had mentioned was, you know, doing

13:05

the taking the time to build

13:07

this, you can't let go of other projects

13:09

you have going on.

13:10

No. Right.

13:12

And when we're talking about, I

13:14

think you said there, there are six overall on

13:16

the total teams.

13:18

Yes.

13:19

So, you know, the,

13:21

the efforts that they could do in tandem to this

13:23

obviously had a lot to do with this as well. Can you tell us a

13:25

little bit about, you know, their

13:28

stories of how they came to

13:30

work at MCCC

13:31

Oh, my, the other people on my team.

13:34

So , I also have Rob Vogel.

13:37

So he is a senior software developer.

13:40

He is also a former student

13:43

from the help desk, you know. He

13:45

is a graduate of the college and

13:47

he has been at the college for nine years. When

13:51

I had a position open

13:53

in my department, he was actually working

13:55

the help desk. And I

13:58

actually, my boss was available.

14:00

Celeste, our VP, was available for

14:02

his interview. So I actually pulled him

14:05

out of the help desk working from the help desk

14:07

to be interviewed for his,

14:10

you know, his role. So

14:13

yes , so I have Robert Vogel. I

14:17

also have Julio Ashrafzadeh.

14:21

He is an enterprise application

14:24

analyst. He also

14:26

worked at the help desk. That's how I first met

14:29

Julio , working at the help desk. I

14:32

hired him actually before

14:34

he graduated. He was hired in October.

14:37

I have Kim Liberty. She

14:41

is an enterprise software analyst. She

14:44

was actually hired the same day as Marwa. She

14:46

comes from another another

14:50

university. She was very familiar

14:52

with a lot of the systems that we have. And

14:54

then I have Nina Xu, who was project

14:57

leader admin systems. She

15:00

goes back with me. You know, we're a

15:02

longtime colleague . She been at

15:04

the college for almost 25 years just working

15:07

in the IT department.

15:09

So you've got a majority of

15:13

former students, former student workers

15:16

here. It's really impressive.

15:18

And I think that that point

15:20

alone speaks to the

15:22

value that a homegrown team

15:24

can be when they're, they're cultivated and

15:26

given opportunities to grow. It's

15:29

very striking how many join in

15:31

this team as a result of, of those efforts

15:33

by you and others on, on the IT team.

15:36

So let's start, let's break

15:38

down some of these areas. You mentioned the

15:41

WIST program. And can you explain to

15:43

our listeners what this is in terms of

15:45

mentorship?

15:47

Sure.

15:49

Tell what it stands for first of all.

15:51

Okay. WIST stands for Women

15:54

in Science and Technology Group. So

15:57

that's what it stands for. In 2017,

16:04

I had attended an EDUCAUSE panel

16:06

session. And that panel

16:09

session consisted of four female vice

16:11

presidents of information technology. And

16:14

they were asked the question, what

16:16

advice do you have for supervisors

16:19

or managers with respect

16:21

to fostering the development of women in

16:23

their careers? And Sharon Pitt,

16:26

who was then the Vice President

16:29

of Information Technology at University

16:31

of Delaware, she talked about a program that

16:34

they had at their institution

16:36

that supported women in technology. So

16:39

I thought , could we do something like

16:42

that at Montgomery? But , we're

16:45

different than the University of Delaware

16:47

because the University of Delaware, that

16:50

group, their group really focused

16:52

on females that were already

16:54

working in IT. Okay. And

16:57

, um, at Montgomery County Community College,

16:59

we did not need to do that. Because our

17:02

department is run by Dr.

17:05

Celeste Schwartz, who she

17:07

is the Vice President of Information Technology

17:10

and Institutional Effectiveness.

17:13

And Celeste has an amazing story,

17:15

which again, I'll probably get emotional about, because

17:19

Celeste was the first woman graduate

17:22

of our first computer science program.

17:25

Wow. And yes. And

17:27

that year, the college hired three

17:29

students from this graduating class, and

17:31

she was one of them . So

17:33

she will be here 53 years in June.

17:36

Amazing.

17:37

And actually, Celeste actually took a chance on me.

17:39

So I'm forever grateful because

17:42

I'm an accounting background. So I

17:46

ended up, you know, she took a chance on me to

17:48

work in it. So , our

17:51

department is 50% women,

17:54

so Yeah. We're definitely

17:57

not the norm. So when we

18:00

were talking about this, you know, creating

18:02

this WIST group, like women

18:05

were definitely already supported in our department.

18:07

So we didn't wanna focus on that. We

18:09

wanted the WIST group to focus on

18:12

female identifying students. We

18:15

wanted to, you know, increase

18:17

the number of female identifying students

18:20

entering the computer science and

18:22

STEM fields. Because, you

18:24

know, we looked at statistics and

18:27

there was, you know, the national

18:29

statistics showed a decline in

18:32

women entering, you know,

18:34

computer science in college and and the

18:37

STEM fields.

18:37

A disparity, but

18:39

Yeah. You know,

18:40

Usually, oh, there's a disparity and you

18:42

see a pipeline that doesn't show

18:44

it drastically increasing. But I think

18:46

that's, just even

18:49

knowing that when you hear it, it's shocking

18:51

to think it's going in the reverse direction.

18:53

Right. Especially with so many technical

18:55

things becoming so much more central to the

18:57

work that all of us do.

18:59

Right. And, and then we looked

19:01

like, we looked at our own trends. You

19:04

know, we look , we ran numbers of, you know,

19:06

enrollment in programs and our

19:09

college was following the same trend. So,

19:12

you know, WIST was created in the fall

19:14

of 2019, really

19:16

based on a passion for increasing

19:18

the number of females entering the

19:21

computer science and technology fields. So

19:24

our mission is to be a resource to them and

19:27

to encourage retention and completion

19:29

in the STEM fields. And and how do you

19:31

do that? Well, and we're definitely not

19:34

a replacement for advisors. We're not. R

19:36

ight. We're just another area of support.

19:39

And we

19:41

work very closely with the advising team.

19:43

Like they know about us. So t

19:46

hey're, they will often meet with a student and

19:48

then, you know, refer them to us for

19:50

more support. I mean, you

19:53

know, when we were b e prior to the

19:55

pandemic, we did in-person meet a nd greets with

19:57

them, you know, but then we, we

20:00

also, some people just prefer one-on-one

20:02

meetings. So we would have a cup of coffee with them

20:04

and , you know, in the cafeteria. But,

20:06

you know, we would, we

20:09

would tell them our stories, you know,

20:11

how we, you know, came to be, you

20:13

know, how we ended up in it. But

20:15

then we were able, because, you

20:17

know, I had the support of my VP.

20:20

Celeste completely supported this department,

20:22

so she encouraged everyone

20:24

in an IT to support this initiative. So

20:27

, there have been examples

20:29

where a student needed tutoring

20:32

a nd network classes and, you

20:34

know, my male counterparts offered to

20:37

tutor. We've been

20:40

able to offer tutoring opportunities.

20:43

The department has been open

20:45

to providing job shadowing opportunities.

20:48

Some of the WIST students have

20:51

actually worked at the help desk. You

20:53

know, we

20:56

were working with p rogram coordinators

20:59

just telling them how important it is

21:01

for them to that to incorporate internships

21:04

in t he curriculum. So,

21:07

I mean, it's just, we're just there for them. We listen. We

21:11

just kind of listen to what they need, you

21:13

know, what they want, what they wanted to

21:15

hear. Like , the one meeting they

21:17

wanted to hear , you

21:21

know, they wanted to hear maybe a speaker on

21:24

like job opportunities. So we organized

21:29

a talk between the director of IT security

21:32

at Montgomery County Community College. And my

21:34

mentor, who was the director of IT security

21:37

at Princeton, they

21:40

held a Zoom meeting and they talked about careers

21:43

in cybersecurity. That's what

21:45

the students were interested in. They wanted to hear

21:47

about, you know, careers in that field.

21:49

So it's just kind of listening to them, you

21:52

know, and asking, you know, sometimes they just

21:54

need help in like their major

21:56

choice or they just wanna hear about like,

21:58

what, what we do on a daily basis. So

22:01

It's impressive. There are a couple of things that strike

22:03

me about this. First of all, this isn't a program that's

22:06

set up to be an internal recruiting

22:08

tool.

22:09

No. No. No.

22:12

It's not. It's not.

22:14

It's d one. But it

22:15

Has been. But it has been, it's resulted

22:17

in that it has resulted in that which is, which

22:20

is probably, I think

22:22

when I retire, that will be my greatest accomplishment.

22:25

Well, and I want to talk a little bit more about that

22:27

because you've got a really cool story to

22:29

share there. I guess the other thing though

22:32

that I'm hearing too is the

22:35

importance of the collaboration

22:37

with the academic side.

22:39

Yes. Yes. And before

22:42

we even did this, like, like I said, I

22:44

came back with this idea and

22:46

then you , you know, you come back, there was this idea and you go,

22:48

okay, like how do we get this even off the

22:50

ground? You know? So , like

22:52

I said, we talked , I went and I talked to my

22:54

vice president and she was completely supportive. You

22:57

know, I got, I reached

22:59

out to my, you know, my

23:02

female, some of my female colleagues, and

23:04

they were on board . And Celeste,

23:07

she had a great, she had a great suggestion.

23:10

We have an amazing faculty member

23:12

who teaches, she's a female

23:14

faculty member who teaches the CIS

23:16

classes. Okay . And she said, reach out

23:19

to her to see if she would be interested. So,

23:21

and she was on board . So , you

23:24

know, before we did anything, we,

23:27

we went around and we let people

23:29

know what we wanted to do. Like we

23:31

talked to the deans, we

23:34

talked to, you know, academic, you

23:36

know, academic affairs. We talked to enrollment

23:39

services advisors. Cause we didn't

23:41

wanna step on anyone's toes. We didn't want to

23:43

be a replacement for anyone, but we wanted to

23:45

let them know that we were out there

23:47

and everybody was very supportive of

23:49

us doing this, you know, and

23:52

they show up . And when we have , you know, when

23:54

we have meetings, you know, the advisors

23:56

will also join. So, and they'll,

23:58

you know, sometimes like, you

24:00

know, people from career services will come to our

24:03

meetings just to talk about what they have to offer.

24:05

So other departments on campus kind

24:07

of, you know, you know,

24:10

support well they, you know, join our groups.

24:12

I think one of the coolest things

24:14

about this WIST program, even though it wasn't

24:17

designed as a recruiting tool,

24:19

is this, some of the stories of how

24:22

this award-winning team you had who built

24:24

this CRM system from the ground up became

24:26

part of your team because of it . Can

24:28

you tell us a little bit about that?

24:30

Sure. So like I

24:33

said, you know, we were kind of asked for a CRM

24:35

back in 2015, and it took

24:37

on, you know, we became more serious about it in

24:41

2018 . And then, you

24:43

know, then with, you know, the pandemic, we

24:46

were like, okay, you know, we got the approval to

24:48

go, but we needed to

24:50

fill the role of the CRM system

24:53

specialist position. And

24:55

we had just failed this second search.

25:01

Can you tell us what you mean by a failed search?

25:03

Yeah. So when we hire someone at

25:05

the college , we actually have a

25:07

committee that is, you know , we have a committee

25:10

of people that they're

25:12

on the search committee and they, you

25:14

know, they go through the resumes that are submitted.

25:16

They decide on, you know, who's gonna

25:18

come in for an interview. And, you

25:20

know, and based on those interviews, they

25:23

decide to either move

25:25

the, you know, candidate forward

25:28

or, you k now, or not. And

25:32

you know, there, so there was two

25:34

searches. So, and there

25:37

was no candidate moved forward. So

25:40

we had t wo. So if you don't move a candidate forward,

25:42

you basically failed search. So

25:45

we had two failed searches. And,

25:48

you know, people with the skills that we need

25:50

for this role t hey're very popular.

25:53

There's lots of opportunity for them out there.

25:55

So, and, you know, s

25:59

o it's, it's challenging trying to get

26:01

people, you know, there w as, it was challenging trying

26:03

to get, you know, someone for this role. So

26:08

Marwa was graduating in

26:10

May of 2021, but Marwa

26:13

was one of the first participants

26:16

of the WIST program. So, like I

26:18

said, it started back in fall of 2019.

26:22

And then we were

26:24

doing a lot of, you know, meet in-person,

26:26

meet and greets. If you

26:28

have food, it's always, you know, having food at

26:30

an event is always very popular. So we would have lunches.

26:33

And so Marwa would attend.

26:36

She attended our in-person meet and greets,

26:40

and Dr. Celeste Schwartz would also

26:42

attend. So, Celeste

26:45

and Marwa knew each other, you know, just

26:47

from the meet and greets. And

26:50

it was graduation, it

26:52

was the evening ceremony. So Marwa graduated

26:55

May of 2021, and Marwa

26:58

was on stage . And she got her diploma and,

27:01

you know, from our president. And she

27:03

walked past Dr. Celeste Schwartz.

27:06

And, you know, they kind of exchanged,

27:09

you know, eye contact. And after Marwa

27:11

, you know, you know, walked

27:13

off the stage and after this , you know, festivities

27:15

were done, she said to

27:18

herself, I'm gonna do this. She

27:20

said, I'm going to walk up to Dr. Celeste

27:22

Schwartz. So she walked up to Dr. Celeste Schwartz,

27:25

she took her hand and she said,

27:27

I want to work in your department. Wow.

27:30

So that was Thursday night of

27:32

graduation. And the day after

27:34

is always our first summer. Friday. We have summer

27:36

Fridays at the college. So I

27:39

remember I was getting my car washed and my

27:41

cell phone rings, and it's

27:43

Celeste and she's calling me. And

27:45

if your cell phone rings on a summer, Friday,

27:47

from your VP, you're picking

27:49

it up, you know, so no matter where you are. So

27:52

I picked up my, I picked up my phone

27:55

and she said, Marwa came

27:57

up to me after

27:59

the graduation ceremony and

28:01

said, I wanna work in your

28:03

department. So I actually

28:06

had, you know, two positions.

28:09

So, you know , you know, Celeste's like, give me the

28:11

information, like, you know, let me, like, you know,

28:13

I wanna see Marwa's grades and, and

28:17

she's a , you know, a terrific student. So

28:19

I told Marwa, I said, we have two positions

28:22

open. And she was interested in

28:24

the CRM system specialist position.

28:27

She graduated in May. And

28:30

she was hired August 16th or 17th of

28:34

same year, 2021. And

28:37

we had gone live with this

28:40

CRM system that she was responsible

28:42

for June of 2022.

28:46

So nine months after she graduated.

28:49

It's such a nice karmic

28:51

payback there from the, the time

28:53

and effort put into waste and

28:55

having these failed searches. And then it's almost

28:57

like this person falls in your lap. But as we know, there

29:00

was so much work that you've put into this program and

29:02

others at the institution have as

29:04

well.

29:05

I mean, and you know, Marwa

29:08

didn't have, you know, any,

29:11

you know, really background in the CRM.

29:13

She had to go for training. We

29:15

provided her with what training she needed.

29:18

She was able to obtain two certificates

29:20

based on, you know, her training. And

29:23

, she

29:25

didn't have, this was a brand new position. She

29:28

didn't have like, notes

29:30

from the predecessor. You know, she had

29:32

to forge her own way in this

29:35

path. And she's doing amazing. Like,

29:37

she didn't have, you know, anything to fall back on. Like,

29:39

oh, let me see how the person before me did it. You

29:42

know , this is all brand new and she's

29:44

foraging ahead. But, you

29:46

know, she was able, you know, before

29:48

we went live with the CRM, within a first

29:51

few months, she was able to obtain various,

29:53

you know , Microsoft certificates. So

29:57

I'm very proud of her. And I have another

29:59

person from WIST. I

30:02

have another person. It's Taylor

30:05

Bellegue. She was

30:08

actually the very, very, very first person

30:10

we talked to through

30:13

WIST. We did a virtual meeting

30:16

with her. She is

30:19

now, she is a permanent

30:21

part-time business intelligence

30:23

analyst. She works on our reporting

30:25

team. But she

30:28

was a student at the college. Like

30:30

I said, she was the very first person that

30:32

we talked to as part of WIST. And

30:35

through WIST, she got a

30:37

job at the help desk and

30:40

from the help desk. And, you know,

30:44

she's working at the help desk, like you just get exposed

30:47

to so many things. And

30:50

this position opened up and she was

30:52

hired. She's a permanent part-time position.

30:55

And she just named, I'm going to be

30:57

like a proud mama here. She was

30:59

just named a transfer pathway

31:02

honoree of the 2022

31:04

all Pennsylvania academic team. Wow.

31:07

Which means she's transferring to Westchester

31:10

on a scholarship, which covers her tuition. So

31:13

she will end up getting her four-year degree in

31:15

Westchester.

31:17

And also having some,

31:19

I mean, business analysts, when we look at roles

31:21

that a lot of places need and

31:23

are having trouble filling that, that

31:26

seems to be one of the top

31:28

ones there. Right. So

31:31

let's talk a bit about the IT

31:33

student workers. I , there's obviously

31:36

great results from this,

31:38

the wisdom and the mentorship efforts

31:41

and everything. But you mentioned

31:44

also a lot of these people working at the help desk.

31:47

You've touched on a

31:49

bit like how many student workers that you all have

31:52

there. And you had mentioned

31:54

to me that your help desk

31:56

is staffed completely by students.

31:59

Yes. So our

32:02

tier one help desk team is

32:05

all student workers. They

32:07

are supervised by an administrator, but it's all

32:10

student workers.

32:12

Okay .

32:12

So there are currently

32:16

in our IT department, there

32:18

are 14 graduates,

32:21

soon-to-be 16 graduates of

32:23

Montgomery that are working in

32:25

our IT department. In our IT department,

32:28

I don't have the exact number, but it's like 36

32:31

people. So 16 out of

32:33

that 36 are Montgomery graduates.

32:36

And of those 16, nine

32:39

worked in the IT department

32:41

while a student.

32:43

That's amazing. Yeah . That's got to be

32:46

one of the highest percentages out there, I

32:48

would think.

32:50

Yeah .

32:51

Sorry, go

32:53

ahead.

32:53

No, some of the, and some of the alumni working

32:55

in IT now are the executive

32:58

director of Information Technology security

33:01

and the director of enterprise infrastructure

33:04

services. So they have gone

33:06

up the ladder from the help desk.

33:09

There seems to be two there. In

33:12

some of the anecdotes that you've told, there's a

33:14

willingness to train

33:16

Yes, yes .

33:17

And promote from within. And that's

33:19

something I don't think we can, we can lose

33:21

here. Right. In terms of the

33:24

importance of when you're building that internal

33:26

pipeline, it's not just going

33:29

from the students to the full-time or even

33:31

the part-time hires, but it

33:33

also speaks to the fact that

33:35

people know they have a place to grow. And

33:38

that there's belief in their ability to

33:40

learn new skills and apply those.

33:43

Yes.

33:45

You had mentioned to me, you know, with this

33:47

help desk being mostly staffed by

33:50

students , there was a quote

33:52

that you had said that really stuck

33:54

with me, and that was that the fastest way

33:56

to cultivate someone and bring them up

33:58

to speed is assign them to work at the help

34:01

desk. Can you explain what you mean by

34:03

that?

34:04

Yes, because if you are a tier

34:07

one staff working

34:09

at our help desk, you are gonna get

34:11

exposed to everything, every

34:14

technical issue that a student, faculty

34:17

or staff member could experience, you

34:19

know, they're gonna deal with IT first, and

34:22

they are expected to resolve as

34:24

many issues as they can. You

34:27

know, so they troubleshoot, they reference knowledge-based

34:29

articles. Uh, they work

34:32

with their supervisor and at

34:34

times they will also reach out to others

34:36

in the department, but they, you

34:38

know, they are tasked with, you

34:40

know, resolving it right at tier one and,

34:42

you know, not escalating it, you know,

34:44

so they deal with faculty

34:47

classroom issues, they deal with

34:49

student login issues. You

34:51

know, if, if any, you know, if any

34:53

student, faculty or staff are having trouble

34:55

with any of our systems, you

34:58

know, they have to troubleshoot that we

35:00

have a whole process for electronic

35:03

forms. You know, they get questions

35:05

about that. So, you know, they're

35:07

gonna see everything. Anything that our

35:10

IT department supports, you

35:13

know, they may have to troubleshoot. But

35:15

on the flip side, what I really like

35:17

is that we, meaning the IT

35:20

staff members, we get to observe

35:22

them in action. You know, we

35:24

can see how they work amongst the team,

35:26

the customer service they provide,

35:29

how they handle stressful situations,

35:32

you know, how they problem solve. So

35:34

it goes both ways. You

35:36

know, they get exposed to,

35:39

you know, everything

35:42

that, you know, could fall under it. And

35:44

, we get to see them.

35:47

Yeah. They get this 360 degree

35:49

view. So one of the

35:51

things that you had also said to me was how the

35:54

student experience is always top of mind

35:57

for these students, and

35:59

because they've lived it. And

36:01

I'm interested in hearing a little more

36:04

about how that empathy and understanding

36:06

informed the work that they did

36:08

on building the CRM for improving

36:11

the student experience and how

36:13

that was informed by their own

36:15

experience.

36:17

Right. Well, improving

36:20

the student experience is really the

36:22

backbone of the CRM project. That's why

36:24

we are doing it because we want to

36:26

provide a holistic view of

36:28

the student. And that

36:31

is a driving factor behind how we're

36:34

expanding the CRM to other departments

36:37

decisions. Decisions on how we are moving

36:39

forward are always

36:41

made with the student's interests. First, just,

36:45

you know, you

36:48

know, we're currently working with, you know, enrollment

36:50

services , um, to, to

36:52

migrate more of their mailboxes.

36:55

And again, we are doing

36:57

it with, well, what is the best interest

37:00

for the student? That's always, that's

37:02

always the guiding factor.

37:04

So you've provided some very compelling

37:06

proof points in terms of the benefits

37:09

that institutions can reap from having

37:12

strong mentorship programs and

37:14

cultivating student workers in

37:17

terms of benefiting the institution

37:19

for full-time hires. And I know

37:21

that you had talked about, for instance,

37:23

you had first had the idea for WS

37:26

from Sharon Pitts program at University

37:28

of Delaware, but you had to adapt

37:31

the program to be reflective

37:33

of what would work at your institution.

37:36

So we know all schools are unique. We

37:38

know that they've all got to do their

37:40

own thing. It makes sense in the

37:43

context of how they operate and the resources

37:45

they have available. But I'm wondering if you have any sort

37:47

of general advice when it comes to either mentorship

37:50

programs, developing those, or

37:53

using student workers as

37:55

as possible, hires full-time

37:58

that you would provide for our listeners

38:00

out there?

38:02

Well, with regarding the mentorship program

38:04

, some

38:06

things I would suggest is, you

38:08

know, you know, if you have an

38:10

idea, you know, try to get buy-in

38:12

with your colleagues and then maybe research,

38:15

like, you know, contact other institutions

38:18

with similar programs. I

38:20

remember when, you know, we were still trying to

38:22

form this, I attended sessions at conference,

38:25

at conferences regarding supporting

38:27

women in tech. I

38:29

would always go to every session that

38:32

had that topic. But then if you're

38:34

really interested in it, like get the buy-in

38:36

from your leadership, you know, get

38:38

the buy , you know, talk. We talked to our president, we talked

38:40

to our VPs, we talked to our deans,

38:42

and then we made ourselves

38:45

known across campus. And

38:49

then, you know, we, you know, we

38:51

reached out to the students and we,

38:54

you know, sent surveys and we, you

38:56

know, put polls. We , you know, we did a , a

38:58

survey on the, on

39:01

the student portal to see if they would be

39:03

interested in this group and, you

39:05

know, you know, what kind of services they wanted

39:07

for us. And then we just

39:09

kind of followed through and we offered,

39:12

you know, the events that they wanted. Uh,

39:14

regarding the help desk, what

39:17

I would suggest is , uh, reach

39:19

out to faculty members because they're

39:21

a great source of, you know, students

39:23

that could possibly, you know, work

39:26

within your department. But then,

39:28

you know, you know, take a chance, you

39:31

know, look for people with potential

39:33

and train, you know, and give them the

39:36

training that they need and take

39:38

a chance on someone.

39:41

It's easy to say often, but

39:43

hard to do. But you've definitely proven

39:46

that when you do that it can be

39:48

an amazing result

39:51

for your institution. Mary,

39:54

I've learned so much from our discussion today.

39:56

Thank you again for taking the time to join

39:58

us and share your insights.

40:00

Thank you, Liz. I appreciate the

40:03

opportunity.

40:05

And that concludes this month's Tambellini Group

40:07

Top of Mind podcast. Thank you for

40:09

listening. And don't forget to check out our

40:11

other podcast, blogs and resources at thetambellinigroup.com.