The Story Behind the Achievement
The Story of Turner and
HAS University of Applied Sciences
This year, we can call ourselves the No. 1 strategy consulting firm and have the highest client satisfaction rating of all consulting firms. What lies behind this achievement—both ours and that of our clients? In the series “The Story Behind the Achievement,” we sit down with Liz Chermin, (acting) chair of the board of directors at HAS University of Applied Sciences. Educational institutions, too, must continue to engage in learning—that is this top executive’s philosophy. How does Turner help with that?
The Story of HAS University of Applied Sciences
The story of HAS and Turner begins shortly after Liz Chermin joined the institution to focus on educational quality and educational innovation. “I’ve been in school my whole life, so I’m sure I’ll have a lot to learn,” Liz jokes. “I previously worked at Avans University of Applied Sciences, where I implemented all kinds of changes: from setting up entirely new degree programs, such as the Bachelor’s in Law and the Bachelor’s in Integrated Security, to the transition to competency-based education. In 2016, I started at HAS: a somewhat smaller university of applied sciences with a very focused and socially relevant curriculum. Everything that’s in the news right now—climate change, food production, the living environment—is reflected in our programs.”
Working Together to Address Social Issues
With programs such as environmental science, international food & agribusiness, food innovation, and healthy living, that certainly sounds socially relevant. But as a smaller institution, how do you stay connected to society? How does society know what you have to offer as a college?
In 2017, HAS developed a new vision for education: “It’s very important to truly develop such a new vision together: we need each other to solve problems. That’s true within HAS, but also in society. It’s also the foundation of our educational vision. In education and research, we want to collaborate on societal issues—with the professional field and with other disciplines. To make that collaboration possible, we need to make education flexible and adaptive, so that students can also take the lead themselves.”
Flexible and Adaptive Education
Flexible and adaptive education sounds great, but what does it actually mean in practice? Liz explains: “Flexible education means that students can choose for themselves how they acquire certain competencies. Will you do an internship first and then take classes? Will you start working as a junior researcher in our research groups? Will you start your own business? Students learn in different ways, and we want to accommodate that.”
Still, that doesn’t mean everything is handed to students on a silver platter, Liz believes: “Organized discomfort is also part of the experience. Education also has a social function: it helps you get to know yourself and determine how you relate to certain social issues. That calls for teachers to take on a more coaching-oriented role, focused on that personal development.”
So what does adaptive education entail? “As an institution, we want to be able to adapt quickly: we conduct a lot of research, and we want to apply that new knowledge to Education more quickly. This allows us to continuously meet the needs of society.”
Liz Chermin, (Acting) Chair of the Board of Trustees at HAS University of Applied Sciences
Difficult to put into concrete terms
That’s a clear explanation. And how exactly does Turner fit into the picture? Liz explains: “Three years ago, we had a great new vision that everyone was enthusiastic about. I think it’s important to practice what you preach. So if we want to give students control over their own learning, then as the Board of Trustees, we also have to give faculty and staff the freedom to shape flexible and adaptive education on their own. But because we didn’t make this concrete enough, it also led to a lot of discussions. Were we on the right track? Or were we still a long way off?”
Measurement is the first step toward a good conversation
Turner’s Martijn Babeliowsky and his team worked with stakeholders to translate the educational vision into a more concrete goal and then turned that into a dashboard for faculty and staff. How do they rate their program or cluster on a number of specific aspects? Liz: “With Turner’s guidance, we were able to discuss our progress so far with one another. How far have we come? What’s already going well? What’s not quite there yet? What still needs to be done? You can really see the learning process reflected in the results: the very clusters that impressed us rated themselves lower. Because they were already doing so well, they knew where there was room for improvement—they were ‘consciously incompetent.’ Others, on the other hand, were still in the ‘unconsciously incompetent’ stage, haha.”
So it’s truly a learning organization. The process of creating the dashboard itself was also very valuable, Liz emphasizes: “We were forced to translate that entire vision into concrete outcomes and metrics for the dashboard. That worked out really well. It helped us get moving quickly.”
“Plug-and-play”
Putting students and faculty in charge—what does that actually mean for an institution itself? Letting go of everything? Or do some changes still need to be made at the central level? Liz: “The funny thing is, the more flexibility you want, the more central frameworks you need. Students need to be able to switch between degree programs, so your entire curriculum has to become ‘plug-and-play.’ To that end, we’ve now formulated design principles so that everyone knows what programs in education must meet. We’ve also set up a new Education & Quality department—and it’s being used a lot. That’s a good sign.”
Coronavirus is accelerating
How has the COVID-19 crisis affected the implementation of the educational vision? “We had already envisioned a combination of in-person and online learning in the vision. But we were now forced to do things differently very quickly. We also noticed a difference: the clusters with strong educational leadership seemed to cope better with the new situation. So, rather than being slowed down, we’ve actually accelerated. Moreover, in the new vision, we prepare our students for a world filled with uncertainty. Well, it doesn’t get any more uncertain than this, does it?”
“Turning a great vision into reality and working together to put it into practice. That’s what Strategy Execution is all about.”
– Martijn Babeliowsky, education management consultant and partner at Turner
Typical Strategy = Execution
Martijn Babeliowsky responds to Liz: “It’s really great to hear how Liz experienced our collaboration. And it’s wonderful that we’re truly adding value for HAS. Turning a great vision into something concrete and working together to put it into practice—that’s what Strategy Execution is all about.” That’s exactly right.
Turner is number 1 on the MT1000 list. What’s the story behind this impressive achievement? We’d love to tell you more.
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