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You might remember my friend and former Dartmouth colleague Kaitlin Dumont. We’ve done a number of these Q&As on everything from her dynamic experiences at Kaplan both leading university partnerships and workforce learning innovation to her experiences both as a student and alumna of Boston University’s low-cost, fully-online M.B.A. program at the Questrom School of Business.
Well, we were chatting once more at the start of the new year, and she was reflecting on how many peers in the industry have reached out to her for career advice. While at the time (she jokes) her transitions have all been unplanned and opportunistic, upon further reflection, there is something to be said for how individuals—especially working parents—balance work, life, school and everything in between in our industry.
So, we’re at it again: I really wanted to pick Kaitlin’s brain on what exactly it means to have a modern career in higher ed, and she (as always) graciously agreed to answer my questions.
Q: You, like many others in our industry, left a role on the university side for a position on the educational partner side. What advice do you have for others considering the same? Any new insights now that you’ve been with Kaplan for over two years?
A: The grass isn’t always greener on the other side? Just kidding! No, in all seriousness, it’s easy, especially when you’ve only known one or two organizations, to think of a false dichotomy between “nonprofit university” and “for-profit partner,” but in reality there are many flavors of both, and it all comes down to individual strategic trade-offs.
For example, I’ve had the privilege of working in not one but two Ivy League institutions—however, my experience is specific to nondegree business school executive education. Had I worked in more traditional degree programs or at the undergraduate college, I may have very different perceptions of my experiences. Similarly, I have a number of good friends and colleagues who work at large public institutions or community colleges, in a variety of functions—and their experiences are also very different.
Extrapolating this out to the partner side, I’ve had the benefit of working for an 85-plus-year-old incumbent who sits within an even larger diversified holding company, so there is a certain level of financial safety that isn’t true of newer start-ups and VC-backed ed techs. Yet I’ve become intimately acquainted with this world as a result of my work as a mentor to ed-tech founders through StartEd and a member of the host committee for Ed Tech Week. Perhaps you have a bigger appetite for financial risk and you are OK with that personal strategic trade-off for agility and a bias for action, then maybe the ed-tech life is a good fit for you. All this to say, as with all career-related decisions, don’t be so quick to generalize; rather, take the time to think about all of your career goals (e.g., financial, flexibility, security, purpose and impact, etc.) balancing career purpose and payoff—and find an organization that is in alignment with those goals.
And who knows, maybe you’ll find me back on the university side one day!
Q: The last year or so in particular has been brutal for individuals in ed tech, with what felt like near-daily stories of layoffs. You already mentioned the grass isn’t always greener, but can you speak to what it takes to have a resilient career on the partner side of the industry?
A: I don’t think this is necessarily unique to ed tech. I lived through layoffs on both the university side and the partner side, and both times it was heart-wrenching to see friends and colleagues let go, but on the other hand, it’s possible to see the business reality that lead to that result.
What I have found is the critical importance to become what HBS faculty member Anita Elberse calls a multihyphenate. The most resilient individuals I know are not ones who specialize in one functional area, but rather they add dynamic value regardless of where in the organization (or ecosystem) they sit. Are you in a sales or marketing role but understand the complexity and nuance of the operations it takes to deliver your program and can appropriately set expectations with prospects? Are you student-facing and can suggest compelling ideas to a technology leader for how to improve the student experience? Are you in a university partnering with corporate L&D leaders or in a private corporation partnering with universities?
It really comes down to holistic, general management thinking and understanding how all the pieces of our business fit together (both inside and outside of our respective organizations) and transferable skills. That in combination with the personal alignment I mentioned earlier, and you can do anything!
One other thing that has served me well is developing a strong network that spans the entire ecosystem. For example, when I first started at Kaplan, I did a “map your network” exercise and realized I know a bunch of powerhouse individuals (all women, ironically) in education, spanning university side (both faculty and staff administrators) and partner side, K-12 through workforce education, corporate L&D and ed-tech founders. So what should we do to connect? Why, start a book club, of course! And after about six months of reading The Great Upheaval by Art Levine and Scott Van Pelt (a phenomenal read, by the way!), we all candidly admitted that perhaps we don’t have time to consistently read a book … but we value our connection, so we still meet on Zoom every four to six weeks to just chat all things industry and life and career! That network has been such a blessing for me, and I believe others in our mighty little group feel similarly. The power of network is incredible and certainly enhances career resilience.
Q: OK, we’ve talked about your career—what about life? You’re a working mother of a 3 and a 4-and-a-half-year-old, and you recently finished an M.B.A. program. Is there such a thing as work-life balance?
A: Don’t believe everything you see on LinkedIn! I’ve tried to be as authentic as possible in my social media presence, because I don’t think anyone has achieved balance. I will say, working for a 100 percent remote-work organization has been a huge piece of the semblance of balance I have achieved. And this is different from a hybrid or remote work arrangement for a company that still has in-person offices—there is no penalty for choosing to be remote when others in different circumstances have the ability to come into the office (and the research shows that this disproportionately affects women). I’m on an equal playing field while working remotely, because, well, we all work remotely!
However, my husband goes into an office—because I have the ability to start dinner in the slow cooker or throw in a load of laundry between calls, am I setting feminism back? Alternatively, I’ve also become that horrible millennial who rides my Peloton in the middle of the day—win? Or when I was in my M.B.A. program, I’d take an hour or two in the middle of the day when I had no calls and my inbox was quiet to get some coursework done—would I feel the same if I were in an in-office situation? I honestly don’t know.
There was a meme I saw about a year ago that said “balance is whatever makes you feel balanced,” with four different visual depictions of “work-life balance,” and that resonated—I also don’t think it has to be the same for all seasons of your life.
Right now, I’m just trying to find that alignment I keep referring to in my own life—do I slack as a mom and feed my kids frozen pizza for dinner when I’ve had a particularly difficult workday with back-to-back meetings? Absolutely. Do I sneak out of work to take my kids to the doctor’s office? You bet. Do I get in my own head and feel like I’m failing on all fronts sometimes? Near daily, but constantly returning to that alignment/balance that feels right for me, right now, is what gets me through. I think [if we have] an understanding and appreciation of the fact that all of us in this industry—faculty, staff, private partner side, university side, ed-tech founders and corporate L&D leaders—are just people who are trying to do right by our learners, then we will stand a chance to catalyze an ecosystem that has the potential to impact everyone in society (and world peace, right?).
