9 minute read
How Thunderbird Innovated during COVID-19
At Thunderbird, we know that while we can be sensors of change, we cannot predict the details of the future. Instead, we have to foster the mindsets and skills that enable us to prepare for any challenges and opportunities that arise.
Last year, COVID-19 shook the world and introduced a complex set of challenges that we have never before faced as an institution. It necessitated adaptability, creativity, and innovation to not only survive but also to thrive. It called upon our faculty, our students, staff, and our alumni to rise to the occasion and define the School’s future. It required us to redesign our curriculum and our traditions. It demanded that we accelerate our growth and continue to diversify in order to make a difference in this time of disruption and uncertainty.
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We were more than up to the challenge.
QUICK AND SEAMLESS ADAPTATION
The first step in adapting through the global pandemic was the transformation of our classrooms to a virtual (and later hybrid) platform. This required, first and foremost, the technological capabilities to hold all of our classes on a secure and reliable platform. “Our amazing IT/AV staff helped make a seamless transition from in-person to remote learning almost overnight,” said Tomás Bilbao, Executive Director of Branding and Communications. “It was just another example of Thunderbird being nimble and adaptive in the face of disruption.”
In making this pivotal transition, we also needed to ensure that the quality of instruction and real-time engagement, which are so deeply important to our curriculum, remained as high as ever. "Even prior to the pandemic, engaging with students around the world was one of our real drivers," said Mary Teagarden, Associate Dean of Faculty and Administration and Professor of Global Management. “That drive for engagement fueled our staff to make this transition as seamless as possible. It was a level of collaboration that I’ve never seen in 40 years in academia.”
Our faculty harvested resources to help each other adapt and keep delivering our high-quality education to all students. Though it was challenging, we quickly realized that being online actually opened up new and different opportunities for us. For example: “Many of our professors brought in virtual guest speakers from around the world,” said Roy Nelson, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs and Associate Professor. “We also held a pilot Collaborative Online Immersive Learning (COIL) class where students from Hiroshima, Japan, and students from the Thunderbird undergraduate program in Phoenix joined together in a virtual learning environment. The experience was invaluable. It was something we might not have done had it not been for the pandemic.”
We also expanded knowledge sharing outside the classroom. “Thunderbird adapted really quickly by transforming the classroom and integrating the new ways that business leaders are learning,” said Adam Henry, Executive Director of Enrollment and Student Success. Thunderbird Globinars – a series of global webinars – were tailored for continuing education, professional development, and thought leadership. The Globinars featured faculty, alumni, and thought leaders and sparked conversations across continents on topics such as the pandemic, globalization, sustainability, and climate change, entrepreneurship, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and more. We also utilized these webinars to help with student recruitment.
Pre-pandemic, our student recruitment efforts centered on in-person events. Of course, that had to change. “We started doing virtual information sessions once a month and then once a week,” Henry said. “They were so successful that we decided to hold a virtual Premier Day. Premier Weekend is normally held on campus and hosts about 70 students. This recruitment year we were able to host 247 prospective students.” Being able to meet people where they are has helped us reach more prospective students, more efficiently and sustainably than ever before.
The pandemic has been incredibly disruptive in every aspect of our lives on a global scale. Our goal was to provide our students and our faculty a steady and safe environment and to continue to advance and innovate even as many schools and organizations were retrenching.
For stories about how our alumni are working to innovate through the pandemic, check out page 34.
AVATAR ROBOT GRADUATIONS
Because we could not hold traditional in-person graduation ceremonies in 2020, we had to innovate a new, safe-yet-powerful way to celebrate our graduates. Having seen videos of avatar robots being leveraged in other situations, Thunderbird Director General and Dean, Sanjeev Khagram, had the idea for the first-ever avatar robot graduation. “After we discussed it in our executive meeting, within two days we had it priced out,” said Teagarden. “By the end of the week, we were ready to go. It’s a great example of our bias toward innovation.”
Utilizing avatar robots and other technologies such as chroma key and holographic projection for commencement speakers, our May and December graduations were great successes. December’s ceremony was held online in an immersive virtual reality rendering of our new global headquarters, with Dean Khagram appearing to confer degrees in the building’s global forum while the actual structure was still under construction. The commencement speakers appeared as video holograms within the virtual building and our most outstanding graduates had a special aerial delivery of their award certificates, courtesy of the Dean’s drone.
Fall 2020 graduates receive their degrees via avatar robots.
But the 2020 graduations were not just about leveraging cool technologies; they were about honoring our graduates and giving them and their families a welldeserved celebration of their accomplishments. “We really pushed the frontier in order to celebrate our graduates and their families,” said Khagram. “We teach our students how to maximize the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution by embracing global ingenuity and innovation, so leveraging transformative technologies like mobile telepresence robots for an unprecedented commencement was a fitting final lesson for the Class of 2020.”
Fall 2020 B.K.Y. Award recipient acceptance speech via hologram.
ACCELERATION AND DIVERSIFICATION OF OUR DIGITAL EXECUTIVE EDUCATION PORTFOLIO
When organizations closed offices and employees began working remotely, Thunderbird very quickly moved a range of executive education programs online, which required our faculty to get creative and make many adjustments. “Sometimes it meant starting classes at five in the morning so we could reach participants in India and on the east coast of the United States,” said Teagarden. “It also required us to find and utilize new technologies to help with collaboration and project management. We really had to accelerate what we do in executive education and transform our methods in order to reach the workplace and the needs of people in the workplace.”
This transition culminated in Thunderbird hosting the UNICON 2020 Team Development Conference – the largest, most global, digitally inclusive conference on executive education – entirely online. The conference brought together the world’s leading universities and thought leaders to shape executive education in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It was a huge success. According to UNICON, “It was well-paced, flowed smoothly and met content expectations for the conference theme, Shaping Executive Education in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) through Inclusion, Intelligence, Innovation, and Impact.”
The benefits of these and other adaptations in executive education will extend beyond the pandemic, truly propelling us into a world that is both global and digital.
FIRST-EVER MANDARIN IMMERSIVE ONLINE MASTER OF APPLIED LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT (MALM)
As part of our larger vision in China, we created a Mandarin version of our Master of Applied Leadership and Management (MALM). It is the first degree program of its kind for Thunderbird and is also the first Mandarin immersive degree program to come from a leadership, management, or business school outside of China. “We knew that by conducting this program in Mandarin we’d be able to reach more people around the world – people who otherwise would not be able to attend our program because of language barriers,” said Lena Booth, Associate Dean of Academic Programs and Finance Professor.
We launched the program in October 2020 and students have completed several courses asynchronously and synchronously. Along with prerecorded videos, our Mandarin-fluent faculty members hold live sessions that enable students to ask questions and discuss concepts in real time, enhancing their learning experience. “Our aim with the program was to help Mandarinfluent students take their careers to the next level and globalize their leadership skills in a flexible online format,” said Professor Doug Guthrie, Executive Director of Thunderbird Global and Director of China Initiatives. “The new Mandarin MALM also supports Thunderbird’s commitment to expanding our presence in China and bringing China and the United States together.”
GROWTH AND EXPANSION OF OUR GLOBAL NETWORK OF REGIONAL CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE
Innovating in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and through the pandemic requires us to combine the digital and physical, technology and connection. That’s why Thunderbird’s regional centers of excellence are so essential. Having a physical presence around the world enables us to build a network of sensors connected globally and locally. Our satellite operations allow students, faculty, and alumni in Phoenix to collaborate with fellow T-birds from Shanghai to Dubai. They can share notes on workarounds for the pandemic or come up with solutions to climate change.
For the past 25 years, we have expanded our global footprint with regional centers of excellence all over the world. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, and also because of it, we have continued to expand, grow and diversify this network of hubs. We have plans to launch regional centers in Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Bogotá, Shanghai, and Hiroshima.
Each location is an extension of our mission and further advances our goal of connecting the world. “Dean Khagram recognizes how the different centers are integral to Thunderbird’s mission,” said Anna Kirin, President at CBSD Thunderbird in Moscow. “Each center has unique offerings and expertise that contribute to the Thunderbird global network and help advance Thunderbird as the most digital and global school in the world.”
Our goal is to have 25 regional centers of excellence, on every continent and in many major markets around the world, by 2025 – to become the first truly global and multinational school on the planet.
At the heart of this global web is our first global headquarters in Phoenix, which will open in August. The building will be the most technologically advanced higher education building in the world and will enable us to connect digitally and globally to all of the regional centers of excellence along with alumni networks, partners, prospective students, and client organizations.
Learn more about our current and upcoming regional centers of excellence on page 46.
