At a time when higher education faces unprecedented challenges, Dr. Mary Landon Darden is an unstoppable force seeking to transform colleges and universities across the globe.
Her pioneering company, Higher Education Innovation, LLC, is fueled by a passion for empowering institutions to embrace innovation and chart a course toward a thriving future.
Passion for Innovation in Higher Education
Founded in 2016, Higher Education Innovation (HEI) focused on a bold mission – to equip higher education leaders with the mindsets, skillsets, and toolsets required to meet the seismic shifts facing the industry head-on.
Backed by extensive research and on-the-ground experience, HEI delivers customized coaching, workshops, and solutions aimed at catalyzing entrepreneurial thinking and driving change from the top down across college campuses.
Introduction to Founder Dr. Mary Landon Darden
The brainchild behind HEI is Dr. Mary Landon Darden, an unconventional trailblazer who has spent her entire career pushing boundaries in higher education.
From pioneering community outreach programs to publishing books on the future of the field, Darden has always seen possibilities rather than problems.
Her vision for the future, passion for helping others, and wealth of real-world innovations make her the perfect leader to guide institutions into the next era of higher learning.
Origins Story
Early Passion for Helping Others
Darden’s drive to make a difference started early. While in high school, she played a leadership role in supporting international exchange students and organizing a coffee house where teens could gather safely.
In an underserved community, she attempted to renovate a local swimming pool to start a learn-to-swim program. Although that project did not succeed, it exemplified the creative, community-focused drive that would fuel her career.
Non-traditional Path in Higher Education
Darden took an unconventional path in the often change-averse world of higher education. Before and after pursuing her Doctorate in Higher Education Administration, she began developing new initiatives and delivery methods aimed at expanding access and support.
Though an outlier, several successes earned her national awards and opportunities.
Award-winning Innovations
Her innovative programs earned Darden the National Exemplary Award from the National Council for Continuing Education and Training. This led to a full research scholarship at Baylor University – and the chance to dig deeper into pioneering models for higher education.
Call to Focus on Training Leaders
Having served as Dean for a university campus in San Antonio, Texas for five years, Darden felt a calling to return to the field of change work. Seeing stalled progress, mentors advised her to focus on training college leaders in entrepreneurial mindsets.
A mission to start transformation at the top inspired the launch of HEI.
Mission and Vision
Crisis in Higher Education
HEI is built on the belief that higher education is in crisis. Institutions have been too slow to adapt, change, and react to seismic shifts in society, technology, and student needs. This lag has severely impacted colleges’ relevancy, sustainability, and value proposition.
Goals of Innovation, Stability, and Student-centricity
Darden saw that saving higher education requires institutions to embrace innovation, achieve financial stability, and adopt a student-centric model. HEI pursues this triple bottom line, equipping colleges to become comfortable with discomfort and make bold moves aligned with market demands.
Bridging Ivory Tower and Real-world
The key, Darden notes, is proactively building bridges between the academic “ivory tower” and the real world. This means identifying societal and industry needs and then collaborating to deliver cutting-edge instruction and experiences that prepare graduates to solve global problems.
It’s a big shift, but one Darden believes higher education must make to fulfill its promise as a world-changing game changer.
Transforming Institutions
Customized Assessments
HEI’s cornerstone is customized assessments. Darden and her team embed at campuses to uncover pain points and growth opportunities. Their reports outline findings and concrete recommendations – providing actionable roadmaps tailored to each college’s strengths.
Key Focus Areas
While each campus differs, Darden sees common areas as prime for innovation. These include student services, workforce development, revenue streams, instructional relevance, and more. Purposefully improving these facets positions schools for sustainability.
Repeat Success Stories
One recurring win is in student recruitment and admissions. By applying HEI’s data-backed frameworks, multiple colleges have achieved enrollment growth between 10-40% in a single year – a remarkable turnaround.
Importance of Coaching
Customization and coaching are crucial, Darden notes. Generic solutions often fail to substantially move the needle. Instead, each needs hands-on guidance to apply innovations in their unique context. This human touch drives home lasting transformation.
Developing Leaders
Workshops Empower Pivots
HEI runs intensive short-term workshops to equip higher education leaders with the mindsets and skills to pioneer change on their campuses. These immersive sessions give tangible visions of the future and frameworks to carry back for implementation.
Annual Conference Takeaways
The annual HEI Presidents’ Conference convenes college presidents and chancellors for inspiration and rejuvenation. Expert speakers and bold idea exchanges spark excitement and buy-in that ripple through leadership ranks.
Memorable Futurist Moments
A highlight of the 2023 conference was a futurist predicting the end of personal car ownership within five years. The coming shift to affordable, accident-proof driverless vehicles exemplified the exponential change institutions must get ready for.
After each event, leaders frequently leave energized to proactively future-proof their schools.
Global Impact
Higher Education as a Change Agent
Darden sees higher education as uniquely positioned to drive positive change across the world. With knowledge production and dissemination at its core, colleges have immense potential to uplift communities and address the root causes of global woes.
Role in Addressing Poverty, Hunger, etc.
The data shows clear correlations between countries’ higher education access and reduced poverty, hunger, and disease. By empowering more people to reach their full potential, education paves pathways out of scarcity mindsets and into innovation.
Avoiding Brain Drain
However, Darden notes this requires underserved nations to build education systems capable of retaining top talent.
Too often, their best and brightest leave for better opportunities abroad. Developing robust local institutions, through guidance from global partners, is key to empowering homegrown leaders to uplift their communities.
This “teach to fish” approach allows emerging countries to sustain progress independently – and forms the foundation for greater stability and prosperity for all.
Frameworks for Innovation
Process and Tools
HEI recognizes that vision without execution rarely ignites change. So, they equip institutions with concrete frameworks, tactics, and tools for putting innovations into practice.
This includes research-backed processes for shifting mindsets and behaviors alongside project planning materials customized for key initiatives.
Institutional Implementation
Armed with these resources, campus leaders can roll out innovations in authentic, sustainable ways. One college used HEI frameworks to launch an entrepreneurship “Shark Tank” style pitch event and maker space incubator.
These tangible steps brought entrepreneurial thinking into the curriculum while providing concrete value to both students and local business partners.
Celebrating Excellence
Awards Inspiration
Seeing higher education’s challenges first-hand, Darden knows recognizing and cultivating great leadership is crucial for the future. That inspired the creation of HEI awards highlighting models in the field.
Memorable Recipient Stories
HEI presents two prestigious awards each year – the HEI Lifetime Leadership Award and the HEI Institutional Award for Entrepreneurship Excellence.
The Lifetime Leadership Award honors exceptional higher education leaders who have dedicated over 25 years to advancing the field through mentoring others, displaying integrity, encouraging innovation, and achieving outstanding accomplishments.
Past recipients include university presidents, chancellors, and distinguished faculty.
Meanwhile, the Institutional Award recognizes colleges and universities with an exceptional record of entrepreneurial thinking, innovative programming, and student-focused services under visionary leadership. Winners are considered leaders in contributing to the future success of higher education.
Recent institutional recipients include York County Community College in Maine and Elizabethtown Community and Technical College in Kentucky.
Both awards highlight leaders and institutions shaping the landscape of higher education through service, integrity, and an entrepreneurial spirit.
The Road Ahead
Radical Transformation Needed
The outlook Darden and HEI see is one requiring continued radical thinking. Though resistance to change runs deep in academic culture, exponential societal shifts make evolution an institutional imperative.
Hope and Urgency
The launch of HEI was inspired by a mission to begin transformation at the top.
With urgency and optimism, Darden and her team continue evangelizing this vision across global higher education. The challenges are great, but so too is the potential waiting to be unlocked.
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