The last time we caught up with Suzanne Dove in September of 2024, she was serving as the assistant vice president, strategy and innovation at Bentley University. This past May, Suzanne started a new role as Chief Education Solutions Officer in the Center for Academic Innovation (CAI) at the University of Michigan (U-M). Now, a few months in her new role, I thought this would be a good time to check in with Suzanne.
Q1: Tell us about your new job. What does a Chief Education Solutions Office do? Where does your role fit in with CAI and U-M as a whole?
A: At the Center for Academic Innovation, my role as the inaugural Chief Education Solutions Officer (or CESO) is to open a new learning innovation horizon for the Center and help U-M achieve its next tier of educational impact. I do this by creating sustainable strategic partnerships that enable us to serve workforce and talent development needs of external organizations.
CAI has long been known for offering well-designed, U-M faculty-led online courses to millions of learners and thousands of organizations. This breadth gives us an advantage: Our teams have developed tacit knowledge as well as processes to stand up and scale successful programs ranging from MOOCs on platforms, like Coursera, to U-M online degree programs to innovative short-form offerings and integration of advanced technology into hybrid, online and residential learning.
With Michigan Online giving us even more flexibility, we can go further. We are positioned to partner directly with organizations that need high-quality workforce and talent development and offering features that both learning and development leaders and adult learners value, such as cohort-based learning, live sessions with U-M faculty, and customized content.
Like any new leadership role, a big part of my job is setting strategic priorities and putting the right operational structures in place. Equally important, if not more so, is building strong, collaborative relationships across three overlapping circles.
The first is CAI itself, a community of experts in online learning, project management, marketing, media production, ed tech and more who make it possible as I build the Education Solutions team to engage with external partners and craft relevant offerings that fit their needs. The second is leaders and faculty across U-M, many of whom are excited about expanding the university’s reach to nondegree learners and appreciate how our team brings market insights and industry relationships. The third circle is external organizations that are serious about upskilling their employees and are challenging the status quo around professional development and work-based learning. The partnerships I’m most energized by are those that challenge us to design innovative learning solutions that benefit learners, their organizations and the university. For a thriving workforce in a rapidly shifting landscape, we need to move boldly.
Right now, my day-to-day focus is on three things, in collaboration with other teams within CAI: building a strong partnership pipeline, making sure there’s a good fit between partners’ needs and CAI’s offerings, and ensuring we can deliver these solutions efficiently through Michigan Online. There’s a considerable operational component with any new endeavor and I’m really excited about that right now—it’s what gets me going in the morning! For example, how can we enhance traditional partnership development practices using generative AI? What new insights can we draw by digging into our existing data with an organizational lens? etc.
Q2: Knowing you for a good number of years now, I know that you’ve worked hard to develop as an academic innovation leader. What was it about this particular role at U-M that inspired you to make this big professional (and personal) move?
A: The University of Michigan’s Center for Academic Innovation (CAI) has earned a reputation as a national leader in shaping the future of lifelong learning. I could not imagine a better place to take this next step in my career. I feel grateful to have the support of my family and friends—they have been an invaluable source of encouragement and have been almost as excited as I am about the move! From the beginning of the interview process, I could tell that my new colleagues at CAI take organizational culture seriously and, as I have been onboarding, the CAI team has gone out of their way to extend a warm welcome, offering concrete guidance to help me succeed and just being incredibly helpful as I navigate the move to Ann Arbor.
I’ve always relished the challenges of sharpening an impactful idea, taking it from conception to development and experimentation to scale and sustainability. As I’ve settled into this role, I have found that CAI “on the inside” matches the external image I had formed before I joined the organization. I’m impressed by the strong leadership vision and strategic mindset of my colleagues on the Center’s senior leadership team as well as the interest in ideation and experimentation, the deep expertise and operational excellence at every level on the various teams that make up the Center.
Creating the CESO role came from a clear commitment to an idea that has taken root at many U.S. universities in the past several years: that higher education institutions should serve not just degree-seeking students but also workforce development demands of our regions and talent development needs of external organizations more broadly. Trouble is, universities tend to be decentralized, and it can be a struggle to coordinate across different units with overlapping missions. So, when it comes time to execute on this vision, success may occur in pockets, but scaled solutions can hover out of reach. I was energized by the opportunity to step into the CESO role at CAI, where scale and global reach are part of our core value proposition.
Q3: What career advice do you have for other non-faculty educators interested in growing into a leadership role? What skills, experiences and networks have been most valuable to you across your higher education career?
A: We already talked about the importance of mentors and sponsors in our last conversation, so I won’t repeat myself on that topic. Another important lesson is to tend your network. I know the term “networking” often carries a transactional connotation that can be off-putting to mission-driven folks who value community. But in fact, I think of the network of academic innovators I’ve been lucky enough to work with as a community or web, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Here are a few strategies I’ve found helpful when investing in that network:
- Is there a former colleague you’ve fallen out of touch with? Set a monthly or quarterly reminder to reach out to three people you’ve worked with in the past (holidays are a great opportunity to reach out and let someone know you’re thinking of them!). Share an article or a joke that reminded you of them, ask for their help in a small way and offer your help in return, ask about something important in their lives, or just let them know you thought of them.
- Cross-functional committees or cross-institutional organizations or conferences can be a great way to meet people and hear perspectives you wouldn’t ordinarily encounter. Sometimes, a few people discover a mutual interest and want to continue the conversation outside the committee or conference. Can you make a move that will help make this happen? Maybe you offer to compile email addresses of those who’d like to continue the conversation, maybe you’re even willing to organize a few virtual meetings so the group can come together. These types of small but visible investments will be valued by your peers and help you build your network.
This year, two of my most treasured academic innovation colleagues passed away suddenly. They were two of the people I would call on to help me sharpen an idea, to offer support when I was feeling discouraged, or to share in the excitement of a successful experiment. I miss them every day, and it reminds me about the importance of community, not just for learners but for learning innovators. So I guess my best career advice today is, keep nurturing your network.
