Lead With Candor: Cherron Hoppes, The Community Solution

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.

I sat down with The Community Solution Education System Chief Academic Officer Dr. Cherron Hoppes, whose work spans six colleges and universities with programs ranging from osteopathic medicine and law to clinical psychology and early childhood education. Leaders will hear how student evidence, disciplined scale and candor at the executive level help an institution decide what to pursue and what to decline.

This series is designed for leaders, practitioners, and institutional partners committed to building learning systems that translate expertise into opportunity.

• After 14 years of enrollment decline at Golden Gate University, a student satisfaction survey showed that working adults could not predict the term in which their next course would run; a master schedule, outreach to recent stop-outs and a commitment to deliver courses on plan helped grow enrollment 40% within 4 years.
• The same survey supported a decision to decline: students were dissatisfied with childcare yet rated it unimportant, which gave Cherron the evidence to decline trustees' proposals for a childcare center and keep capacity on the changes students valued most.
• A new student information system across six institutions offers a clean slate for consistent business processes, which frees energy for the work that distinguishes each institution; data inform those choices, and the experts at the table decide.
• Executives who present every initiative as a success lose the ability to call on colleagues, boards and resources, while leaders who name three areas that need work, along with a plan for each, build the trust that makes support possible.

• Signal 4: Executive Leadership: the capacity of presidents and cabinets to anchor decisions in mission, state openly where the institution needs to improve and surround themselves with people whose expertise exceeds their own.
• Signal 7: Regulatory: the ability to respond to shifting federal requirements that add reporting costs even as pressure to lower prices grows, starting every response from the best interest of students, including graduate students who need a clear path to finish without unmanageable debt.
• Signal 12: Stewardship: the responsibility to direct limited people, dollars and attention toward the changes students identify as most important, including the evidence-based decision to decline an addition that would consume capacity without serving them.

• 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™