EdUp Institutional Effectiveness

KP Powers

EdUp Institutional Effectiveness is a podcast for higher education leaders who want to understand what’s shaping institutional performance before it shows up in the numbers. Hosted by Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD, the show uses the Powers Index of College & University Performance™ to explore early signals of strength and strain across data, finance, governance, culture, and partnerships. Through conversations with practitioners, scholars, and select vendors, the podcast offers clear thinking, shared language, and practical insight to support better decisions and more effective leadership.

  1. Aug 5

    The Power of Alignment: Calderon and Rodriguez, EdStrat

    Grounded in the Powers Index™ of College and University Performance, this podcast explores what shapes institutional performance before it shows up in the numbers. Supported by the Institute for Effectiveness in Higher Education® and hosted by Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD. EdStrat founding partners and former provosts Sonny Calderon and Tiffany Rodriguez, authors of the chapter "The Power of Alignment: Turning Partnership into Shared Success" in Priority Partners, make the case that a partnership works when the institution and the partner move from the same framework toward the same goal. They judge a partner by what it does for the reason the institution exists, from scaling a scope of work to an institution's actual size to bringing faculty and students into a purchasing decision. Leaders come away with a practical way to turn a purchase into a shared commitment rather than a transaction. This series is designed for leaders, practitioners, and institutional partners committed to building learning systems that translate expertise into opportunity. KEY INSIGHTS Alignment is the implementation problem: institutions stall when everyone works from a different framework, so a partner and an institution have to move from the same one toward the same goal.Capacity building over drop-and-leave: staying embedded to build a culture that can reflect on the work and carry it out, instead of delivering a scope in ninety days and departing.Scale the scope to the institution: the demand a $200,000 scope of work places on an institution enrolling fewer than four thousand students, and the case for fitting the work to the institution rather than the reverse.Bring the whole institution into the purchase: at American College of Healthcare Sciences, faculty and students evaluated each partner against a rubric built to find the tool that produced the deepest learning, turning a purchase into a mission decision.Powers Index™ Signal(s) in Focus Signal 12: Stewardship: evaluating external spend by whether it leaves the mission stronger, grounded in scaling a scope of work to what an institution can actually sustain.Signal 4: Executive Leadership: deciding which tools and partners reach evaluation, and owning the rubric that makes the call. Key Resources KP on IE newsletter (on Substack)Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD — EdUp Institutional Effectiveness podcast hostInstitute for Effectiveness in Higher Education®Powers Index of College & University Performance™

    The Power of Alignment: Calderon and Rodriguez, EdStrat

  2. Aug 1

    Evidence You Can Trust: Viviana Unda, El Camino College

    Grounded in the Powers Index™ of College and University Performance, this podcast explores what shapes institutional performance before it shows up in the numbers. Supported by the Institute for Effectiveness in Higher Education® and hosted by Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD. El Camino College head of institutional research and planning Viviana Unda makes the case that consistent monitoring is only half the job: the evidence an institution gathers has to be trustworthy, accurate, and accessible to everyone responsible for a decision before it can inform one. She explains how to keep a lean set of indicators tied to strategic priorities, and how to build data governance in small, sustainable steps. Leaders will leave with a practical way to turn performance data into decisions they can defend. This series is designed for leaders, practitioners, and institutional partners committed to building learning systems that translate expertise into opportunity. KEY INSIGHTS Monitoring and transparency are two halves of one discipline: tracking performance consistently matters only when the evidence behind it is trustworthy, accurate, and accessible to everyone making decisions. Define success measures and evaluation metrics with a partner at the contract stage, not halfway through, because a partner can only deliver against the metrics set from the start. Keep the indicator list lean, the way you would choose a little black dress over a prom dress: a short set aligned to strategic priorities and student outcomes surfaces barriers early. Build data governance in small, sustainable steps with named data stewards, data owners, and someone accountable for validation, rather than attempting a full infrastructure at once. Powers Index™ Signal(s) in Focus Signal 1: Monitoring — the consistency and discipline of performance monitoring; here, tracking student, employee, and governance performance steadily enough to build a body of evidence a leader can trust. Signal 2: Transparency — the clarity and accessibility of institutional information; here, ensuring evidence is defined, verified, and reachable by everyone accountable for a decision, backed by real data governance. Key Resources KP on IE newsletter (on Substack) Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD — EdUp Institutional Effectiveness podcast host Institute for Effectiveness in Higher Education® Powers Index of College & University Performance™

    Evidence You Can Trust: Viviana Unda, El Camino College

  3. Jul 12

    From Reports to Decisions: Wyntre Stout — Precision Campus

    Grounded in the Powers Index™ of College and University Performance. Supported by the Institute for Effectiveness in Higher Education® and hosted by Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD. Precision Campus Customer Insights and Success Manager Wyntre Stout, PhD works alongside dozens of institutions at once, and she brings a practitioner's view of what actually moves a campus forward. She and KP talk about the wide range of data maturity across colleges and universities, why the highest-value institutional research work is interpretation rather than another recurring report, and how a partner company can take routine reporting off the IR team so that expertise reaches the people making decisions. They also get into where AI genuinely helps, and the guardrails that keep it from eroding trust in the numbers. If you lead or support an institution's data work, this conversation offers a grounded way to think about where your team's time is best spent. This series is designed for leaders, practitioners, and institutional partners committed to building learning systems that translate expertise into opportunity. KEY INSIGHTS Data maturity spans a wide range across institutions, and the early, messy stage is a normal part of the journey rather than a reason to avoid looking at your data.The highest-value institutional research work is interpretation and helping the campus act, not re-running the same recurring reports.AI can widen access to data through plain-language summaries and trend-spotting, but only inside strict guardrails that protect validity, reliability, and trust in a vetted, single-source layer.A partner company earns its place by taking routine reporting off the IR team so expertise can move to decision support; the IR professional's institutional context is the one thing automation cannot replace. Powers Index™ Signal(s) in Focus Employee Expertise — the fluency and frequency with which people across an institution, inside and outside the IR office, interpret and use data; Wyntre makes the case that developing this capacity is where institutions gain the most.Partners — a partner company invested in institutional outcomes, taking routine reporting off the IR team so expertise can move toward decision support and stronger data partnerships across campus. Key Resources KP on IE newsletter (on Substack)Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD — EdUp Institutional Effectiveness podcast hostInstitute for Effectiveness in Higher Education®Powers Index of College & University Performance™

    From Reports to Decisions: Wyntre Stout — Precision Campus

  4. Jul 5

    Mission First, Partners Second: AJ Prager, Prager Partners

    Grounded in the Powers Index™ of College and University Performance, a framework for identifying early signs of institutional strength and vulnerability before they show up in the numbers. Supported by the Institute for Effectiveness in Higher Education® and hosted by Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD. Prager Partners Managing Director AJ Prager has spent nearly a decade building one of the only dedicated M&A advisory practices in higher education, guiding colleges and universities through mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships at every point on the spectrum. In this conversation, he walks through the strategic transaction framework his firm uses to define mission before it ever identifies a potential partner, why confidentiality works completely differently in higher ed than in corporate M&A, and why the reception to partnership has shifted markedly among presidents and boards since 2023. It's a candid look at what actually happens before an institution ever announces a partnership, for any leader wondering whether their institution has the capacity to go it alone. This series is designed for leaders, practitioners, and institutional partners committed to building learning systems that translate expertise into opportunity. KEY INSIGHTS Partnership conversations should start by defining an institution's mission attributes (programmatic, geographic, demographic, financial) before a single potential partner is identified, not after.Confidentiality works structurally differently in higher ed M&A than in corporate M&A: shared governance and faculty voice mean institutions can rarely "hang a for sale sign," so outreach happens through targeted, one-to-one conversations instead of a public process.Partnership exists on a spectrum, from a full merger of two institutions down to a lightweight cost-sharing or articulation agreement between separate legal entities, not a binary merge-or-don't decision.Higher education is a fixed-cost business, and scale drives efficiency; presidents and boards who once viewed partnership as a last resort are increasingly viewing it as a proactive way to amplify mission.Powers Index™ Signal(s) in Focus Partners — whether companies, providers, or institutional collaborators meaningfully extend an institution's capacity, or introduce complexity, cost, and fragmentation without value. This conversation applies that signal to the highest-stakes version of partnership: full institutional mergers and combinations.Executive Leadership — whether senior leaders provide sustained strategic direction and make disciplined decisions that persist over time, rather than reopening the same partnership question every budget cycle.Key Resources KP on IE newsletter (on Substack)Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD — EdUp Institutional Effectiveness podcast hostInstitute for Effectiveness in Higher Education®Powers Index of College & University Performance™

    Mission First, Partners Second: AJ Prager, Prager Partners

  5. Jun 8

    When Dollars and Mission Align: Amanda Opperman — Lion's Share Strategies

    Grounded in the Grounded in the Powers Index of College & University Performance™, this series examines the dynamic signals shaping institutional performance before they appear in the numbers. Supported by the Institute for Effectiveness in Higher Education® and hosted by Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD. Lion's Share Strategies Chief Impact Officer Amanda Opperman has led institutional effectiveness work inside colleges and universities and now advises from the outside as a strategic consultant and equity investor. In this episode, Amanda draws on her chapter "Aligning Dollars with Mission" in the forthcoming Priority Partners: Turning Vendor Spending into Mission Strength (July 2026) to argue that most institutional partnerships fail not because of a lack of resources — but because institutions enter those relationships thinking only about what they need, never about what the partner exists to do. The result is a transaction dressed up as a partnership, and the difference matters more now than ever. This series is designed for leaders, practitioners, and institutional partners committed to building learning systems that translate expertise into opportunity. KEY INSIGHTS Partnership is not a transaction with relationship language layered on top. Mutual benefit requires both parties to understand what the other exists to do — and to find the place where those purposes genuinely overlap before any ask is made.There are different "colors of money" — different funding sources carry different purposes, constraints, and expectations. Institutions that treat all external revenue as interchangeable miss the mission alignment that makes partnerships durable.A pre-partnership checklist should start with mission alignment, not financial need. If two organizations would have to shape-shift to make a partnership work, the juice is not worth the squeeze — no matter how compelling the pitch.Keeping your environmental scan current is a discipline, not an event. Knowing what potential partners exist to do — before you need anything from them — is what separates institutions that attract strong partners from those that chase them.Powers Index™ Signal in Focus Signal #10: Partners — measures whether an institution's external relationships produce genuine institutional lift or function as budget line items; Amanda's framework illustrates how the failure to understand a partner's purpose and objectives is what keeps Signal #10 chronically underperforming — not a lack of partners, but a lack of real ones.Key Resources KP on IE newsletterKristina 'KP' Powers, PhD — EdUp Institutional Effectiveness podcast hostInstitute for Effectiveness in Higher Education®Powers Index of College & University Performance™

    When Dollars and Mission Align: Amanda Opperman — Lion's Share Strategies

  6. May 25

    The Demonstration Gap: Don Rudawsky — Dynalytic Solutions

    Grounded in the Powers Index of College & University Performance™, this series examines the dynamic signals shaping institutional performance before they appear in the numbers. Supported by the Institute for Effectiveness in Higher Education® and hosted by Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD. Dynalytic Solutions Founder and Principal Consultant Don Rudawsky spent more than a decade as a VP for Institutional Effectiveness at a large private nonprofit institution before turning his attention to a pressing question: why doesn't the public trust us? In this episode, Don draws on his research and forthcoming book on IE and the public trust crisis to argue that the problem isn't a lack of evidence — institutions have been collecting it for decades. The problem is a governance decision that hasn't been made: who is accountable for pointing that evidence outward, and what does it take to close what Don calls the demonstration gap. This series is designed for leaders, practitioners, and institutional partners committed to building learning systems that translate expertise into opportunity. KEY INSIGHTS The demonstration gap is not a data problem — institutions already have the evidence of student learning. It is a governance problem: the decision to share it externally has not been made.Assessment data collected for accreditation is almost entirely closed-system. Students, employers, and the public rarely see what institutions know about learning outcomes — and that invisibility drives eroding public trust.Micro-credentials and comprehensive learner records only build trust when the transparency infrastructure is deliberate — employer communication, validity, and shared understanding of what the credential means.When institutional leaders aren't credible messengers to a distrustful public, institutions need to think creatively — alumni, community partners, and visible graduates whose outcomes are externally verifiable.Powers Index™ Signal in Focus Signal #2: Transparency — measures whether institutions communicate honestly and clearly with key stakeholders; Don's research illustrates how the transparency gap that undermines internal decision-making shows up externally as public distrust — institutions are not failing to collect evidence, they are failing to decide what to do with it.Key Resources KP on IE newsletterKristina 'KP' Powers, PhD — EdUp Institutional Effectiveness podcast hostInstitute for Effectiveness in Higher Education®Powers Index of College & University Performance™

    The Demonstration Gap: Don Rudawsky — Dynalytic Solutions

  7. May 17

    Accreditation as Strategic Partnership: Christy England - Authentic Insights

    Grounded in the Powers Index of College & University Performance™, this series examines the dynamic signals shaping institutional performance before they appear in the numbers. Supported by the Institute for Effectiveness in Higher Education® and hosted by Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD. Authentic Insights Founder and President Christy England has spent her career helping colleges and universities navigate accreditation, strategic planning, and institutional effectiveness — and what she keeps finding is that institutions leave one of their most invested partners completely out of the conversation. In this episode, Christy draws on her chapter Accreditation and the Art of Collaboration in the forthcoming Priority Partners: Turning Vendor Spending into Mission Strength (IEHE, Summer 2026) to make the case that institutional accreditation is not a barrier to partnerships and that the accreditor relationship, when engaged early and honestly, becomes a strategic asset most institutions never fully use. For leaders who want a practitioner's view of what changes when you bring your accreditor in as a collaborator from the start and why "the only wrong answer is a dishonest answer". This series is designed for leaders, practitioners, and institutional partners committed to building learning systems that translate expertise into opportunity. KEY INSIGHTS The success of the institutional accreditor is tied directly to the success of their member institutions, which means they are invested in helping you navigate, not in saying no.Partners are an extension of the institution. That means the institution has an obligation to provide oversight and ensure that any partner is also in compliance, this isn't intrusion, it's shared accountability and good risk management.Early, honest communication with your institutional accreditor liaison is the single highest-leverage action an institution can take before pursuing an innovative partnership. Every member institution has a liaison. Transparency isn't just an internal discipline — it extends to external stakeholders including accreditors. Institutions that communicate proactively, concisely, and honestly consistently navigate accreditor relationships more effectively than those that wait, hide, or overwhelm.Powers Index™ Signals in Focus Signal #7: Regulatory — measures whether an institution understands, monitors, and responds effectively to its regulatory environment; in this conversation, Christy explains how accreditors function as agents of the Department of Education and why institutions that treat regulatory compliance as a partnership rather than a hurdle are consistently better positioned.Signal #2: Transparency — measures whether institutions communicate honestly and clearly with key stakeholders; Christy's core counsel — "the only wrong answer is a dishonest answer" — illustrates how transparency with accreditors directly determines the quality of guidance and support institutions receive in return.Key Resources KP on IE newsletter (free)Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD — EdUp Institutional Effectiveness podcast hostInstitute for Effectiveness in Higher Education® on LinkedInPowers Index of College & University Performance™

    Accreditation as Strategic Partnership: Christy England - Authentic Insights

  8. Apr 5

    When Strategy Needs a Partner: Jack Corby, Vice President of Stevens Strategy

    Grounded in the Powers Index of College & University Performance™, this series examines the dynamic signals shaping institutional performance before they appear in the numbers. Supported by the Institute for Effectiveness in Higher Education® and hosted by Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD. Stevens Strategy Vice President Jack Corby has worked with over 165 partner institutions across 49 states — and what he keeps finding is that the best strategy in the world fails without the operational scaffolding to carry it. In this conversation, Jack zeroes in on Signal #5: Operational Quality and Signal #10: Partners, explaining how bandwidth constraints and institutional silos are the twin warning signs he sees most consistently in struggling institutions, and what it actually looks like when those conditions reverse. For leaders who want a practitioner's view of where strategic planning is heading — and why the question "what will you stop doing?" is the one most institutions aren't ready to answer — this episode is the one to queue. This series is designed for leaders, practitioners, and institutional partners committed to building learning systems that translate expertise into opportunity. KEY INSIGHTS The best strategy fails if it can't live and breathe within the institution, operational quality isn't a back-office concern, it's the delivery mechanism for every strategic ambition.Bandwidth and silos are the two most visible signs of institutional strain: the rubber band only stretches so far, and if strategy isn't trickling from the cabinet to the first-year student, it isn't as strong as leadership thinks.The hardest question in strategic planning isn't "what will you do?" — it's "what will you stop doing?" Institutions that can answer that immediately are the ones moving from good to great.Partnership isn't just a vendor relationship, it's the feedback loop that improves operational quality over time. Institutions that partner well consistently outperform those trying to solve everything in-house.Signs of recovery are real and measurable: relief that work is connecting to a bigger picture, data starting to shift, and staff finally feeling like their contributions are moving the institution forward.Powers Index™ Signals in Focus Signal #5: Operational Quality — measures whether internal systems, workflows, and change management capacity are strong enough to actually implement strategy; in this conversation, Jack describes how bandwidth exhaustion and departmental silos signal operational quality breakdown well before it shows up in outcomes data.Signal #10: Partners — measures whether an institution's external relationships and consulting partnerships are adding strategic capacity; Jack illustrates how the right partners function as a force multiplier for institutions that have already acknowledged they can't — and shouldn't — solve everything alone.Get a Forward Edge Forward Edge newsletter (free)Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD — EdUp Institutional Effectiveness podcast hostInstitute for Effectiveness in Higher Education® on LinkedInPowers Index of College & University Performance™

    When Strategy Needs a Partner: Jack Corby, Vice President of Stevens Strategy
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About

EdUp Institutional Effectiveness is a podcast for higher education leaders who want to understand what’s shaping institutional performance before it shows up in the numbers. Hosted by Kristina 'KP' Powers, PhD, the show uses the Powers Index of College & University Performance™ to explore early signals of strength and strain across data, finance, governance, culture, and partnerships. Through conversations with practitioners, scholars, and select vendors, the podcast offers clear thinking, shared language, and practical insight to support better decisions and more effective leadership.

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