We are so pleased to meet with you to fill you in on our
progress and discuss possible collaborative opportunities.
We value your time and your input.
Presented by:
Neil Hair
Executive Director
Innovative Learning Institute
About ILI | TLS | RIT Online | ILI Website
THE
LEARNING
INSTITUTE
Mission of the Innovative Learning Institute (ILI)
The ILI is committed to the University’s mission to provide a
broad range of career-oriented educational programs with the
goal of producing innovative, creative graduates who are
well-prepared for their chosen careers in a global society. We support
this mission by leveraging new technologies and innovative
pedagogies to enhance curricular flexibility and strengthen RIT’s
brand presence globally.
The ILI coordinates the development, adoption, and
promotion of effective teaching and learning in higher
education at RIT.
ILI Goals
Broaden the University’s reach by developing new
online offerings and experiences.
Create exceptional student experiences through
technology-enhanced learning environments, course
delivery, and support services.
Partner with faculty to pursue research opportunities
to enhance learning experiences.
About ILI
| TLS | RIT Online | ILI Website
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About ILI
| TLS | RIT Online | ILI Website
Our Relationship to 2025
RIT will become the university that best utilizes educational technology
to improve access, maintain academic quality, and achieve desired
learning outcomes while balancing costs.
Using the model of “RIT Online,” the ILI will identify, develop, and deliver courses
and competency instruction to enhance the career advancement of alumni.
Following extensive market research, the ILI will add innovative workforce
preparedness programs in areas of highest need (locally and nationally).
Programs will likely reflect a shift to learninig-centered, competencey-based
delivery.
Make available through the RIT portal third-party learning packages such as
Mozilla Open Badges.
Use instructional technology to extend and enrich RIT’s interdisciplinary
capabilities (e.g., online, blended, flipped).
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About the ILI
Through its two entities—the Teaching & Learning Services
(TLS) and RIT Online—the ILI anticipates, assesses and
responds to current trends in higher education by:
supporting faculty experimentation across disciplines
exploring flexible learning options
leveraging new technologies and pedagogies to
strengthen RIT’s global presence
to ultimately provide exceptional learning experiences for
our
students
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About the ILI Units
Through TLS, the ILI encourages innovative teaching and
learning projects in all RIT Colleges, including
technology-enhanced and online course formats. TLS supports faculty in
designing courses, applying appropriate academic technologies,
developing media, and using classroom technology resources.
Through RIT Online, the ILI provides students with a robust,
engaging, success-oriented experience; a growing portfolio of
demand-based online products; and exceptional social and
academic support. RIT Online’s system of modular courses,
stackable credentials and accelerated options allows students
to efficiently and affordably pursue an RIT degree, certificate or a
new competency.
Teaching and Learning Services (TLS), a unit of the
Innovative Learning Institute (ILI) at RIT, furthers faculty
teaching effectiveness and student learning.
TLS
Support Desk
Classroom
Technology
Instructional
Design
Instructional
Technology
myCourses
LMS
Media
Production
Course Design
Course design consultations
Course design learning events
Course planning tools
Online course design
Flipped classroom ideas
Course Development
Course development support
Online course materials support
Course media captioning
Video recording & editing
Multimedia development
myCourses consultations
Academic technology consultation
myCourses & academic technology learning events
Facilities
TLS Media Studio
Faculty Computer Lab
TLS Services Breakdown
Course Delivery
Teaching & Learning Support Desk
Classroom technology training
Classroom technology delivery
Equipment loans
Classroom event support
Online course exam proctoring
Other Faculty Services
Teaching & learning research & development projects
Grant-funded project support
Faculty Learning Communities
Classroom Observation
Classroom technology usage resources
Learning space design consultation
Policies
Instructional Design
Classroom Technology
Studio and Lab Support
Academic Technology
Media Production
Custom Research & Demand
Reporting for Online Opportunities
Marketing Support
for Online Courses & Programs
Online Student Tracking
Reporting and Support
RIT Online provides marketing support; offers incentives
to help refresh existing content; and provides customized
research analyzing market demand for online courses.
About RIT Online
RIT Online will build and maintain a demand based portfolio of
online products by identifying sustainable market opportunities in
the online space and aligning them with college programs.
RIT Online will provide marketing for online courses & programs.
RIT Online will provide tracking & reporting of online performance
including regular outcome assessments of growth, retention and
attrition in order to measure and improve online learning at RIT.
RIT Online will provide a superior co-curricular online student
experience through the Virtual Campus and other support tools.
Custom Demand Reporting
Preliminary Consultations
New Online Course Opportunity Reporting
New Online Program Opportunity Reporting
Existing Online Course Demand Reporting
Existing Online Program Reporting
Online Competitive Landscape Analysis
New Online Course/Program Proposal Support
Demand Assessment Assistance
Vetting Process Assistance
Financial Incentive Assistance
Proposal Review Process Assistance
Online Performance Reporting
Online Student Enrollments by Program
Online Student Enrollments by Course
Online Course Offerings
Online Outcome Assessments
RIT Online Services Breakdown
Design & Marketing Support
RIT Online Website Highlight Features
Target Audience Identification
Online Course Messaging
Online Program Messaging
“Try Before You Buy” Course Modules
PR Strategy Planning and Execution
Online Promotional Campaigns (Print & Web)
Design of Digital Marketing Collateral
Virtual Campus Highlight Features
Social Media Planning and Marketing
Virtual Campus Support
Non-Degree Seeking Student Support
Assistance with Online Orientation (TLS)
Assistance with Online Resources (TLS)
Virtual Campus Online Program Custom Feeds
Virtual Campus Custom Messaging
Virtual Campus Message Board Feedback
Change Agent Snapshot: Kevin Surace
“I believe at the heart of our economic future lies creativity and disruptive innovation. So inspiring, encouraging, and rewarding creativity is a huge part of being a change agent in the world today.”
Career highlights: Surace, who has been awarded 23 U.S. patents, was named Inc. magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2009. The following year, CNBC named him one of 15 Leading Innovators for the Next Decade, and the World Economic Forum named him a Tech Pioneer.
Current position: CEO of Appvance (www.appvance.com), a provider of web app validation software and services. Appvance’s technology drives scalability and performance in business and consumer websites and apps.
Career path: Surace served as chairman, CEO and president of Serious Energy (formerly Serious Materials) from 2002 to 2012. The company received widespread acclaim for developing innovative, energy-efficient building materials and software and completed some 70,000 projects including the Empire State Building. Before joining Serious Materials, Surace held executive and technical positions with Perfect Commerce, General Magic, Air Communications, National Semiconductor, and Seiko-Epson.
RIT Degree: BSET Electrical Engineering Technology (1985) plus a concentration in music.
What led you to choose RIT?
As a kid, I was really interested in electronics. I started my career in consumer electronics and saw the opportunity in business applications. I wanted a deep understanding about the technology to be effective in marketing and sales roles. What attracted to me to RIT is that the RIT course offered practical, hands-on experience — and placed less emphasis on the theoretical aspects of electronics. I was interested in designing things, so this was a perfect fit.
Tell us about your experience at RIT
It was an incredibly rigorous program — I think the attrition rate in my program was 50% because the courses were so demanding. We were all surprised by how hard it was. But I think the way the courses were designed challenged us to think through problems and approach them from different angles — a skill I was able to apply later to develop solutions at a broad scale.
I was also lucky enough to be able to combine the EET degree with a concentration in music — this was a perfect balance for me. In fact, many of the creative thinking skills that I learned with my music professor have continued to be useful in my professional life.
How did RIT prepare you for early changes in you professional career?
As a newly minted RIT graduate, I already had five years’ sales experience in electronics plus co-op at IBM. That, coupled with my technical training at RIT was a great combination in Silicon Valley in the late ’80s. It’s certainly true that RIT gave me core skills and knowledge that I could instantly apply to solving problems, and I think this skill, above all, has helped me to advance and to be an active and vocal contributor at National Semi, General Magic and Serious Energy.
In terms of attributes that helped advance me from sales engineer to CEO, I think the most valuable skills I learned at RIT were team-building and interpersonal skills developed through team study. You often hear that it’s important to build teams of independent thinkers — and I agree with that. But I think it’s equally true that a good leader will help lead team members to great ideas by inspiring confidence and risk-taking. A good team can build on those ideas and solve big problems. I’ve seen this over and over again.
What are the key ingredients to enable change?
I believe that creativity — inspiring and encouraging people and teams to be creative and think out of the box —is a huge part of being a change agent. But when you think about it, creativity is really about taking risks. In other words, change agents have to be risk-takers. The problem I’ve seen in companies that struggle with the creative process is that people are afraid to take risks. For many of us, that’s outside our comfort zone and that stagnates innovation. Having the audacity to stand up, say what you think, and suffer the potential shame and ridicule: that’s hard. In this age of fast-changing complexity, a great risk-taker is not necessarily braver; he or she is just better informed about the consequences of his or her choices.
So what I focus on is making risk a natural part of the corporate culture — embracing risk. You can’t tell people to take risks, of course. But you can make it okay to pursue an idea and fail. You can make it safe to fail by fostering a corporate culture that embraces risk, and by making it clear that everyone is encouraged to take risks — that it’s actually expected of them. You also have to make it clear that the organization embraces failure, because from failure comes success. The best thing you can do as a CEO it to tell people that taking smart risks will not only ensure you have a job but will move you up the corporation.
Tell us more about creativity. How do you inspire and harness it?
RIT encouraged me to be an experiential person and not just a theoretical person, and this has served me well throughout my career. I look for people who are willing to use experiential and theoretical techniques to take smart short cuts. Why? Because acting on a creative hunch that’s informed by theory can lead to disruptive innovation. Sometimes it’s better to combine a few chemicals in the lab than to spend several days calculating what might happen by using a controlled theoretical simulation. I like to say: try it in the lab and see what happens.
As I said a moment ago, you enable creativity by inspiring people to take risks. At its most basic level, this can be as simple as saying “What problem are we trying to solve? Let’s evaluate as many different ways as possible to solve it. Are there other ways we can solve this pain point?” The role of a good leader is to lead your team to asking the right questions and then letting them develop a wide range of answers.
Of course, great creativity leads to lots of great ideas. But it’s important to remember that a good CEO needs the courage to choose the best course — or at least what looks like the best course, given what we know right now. You cannot separate leadership from decision-making—the team needs you to make a decision. Execs who cannot make decisions quickly lose their way in this economy faster then they find it. Good leaders know how much risk to take and when. There is no gain without risk.
Last question: what have you learned about leadership?
Today’s leaders—especially those in Silicon Valley—face a massive challenge every day: disruption. Entire industries are changing more rapidly each year. This means you must continually challenge your team and your business to evolve, because if you don’t disrupt your own business today, you’ll probably be out of business tomorrow.
A successful leader must care about his people and gain their trust—to the point that they will follow you to the grave. They have to believe in the team’s ability to achieve, even when you set the bar impossibly high. By that same token, a good leader must know when to seek guidance and help from those who have been there before. People who think they know everything and don’t need help will never make good leaders. We all need help, everyday, and forever. Learning every single day is a great skill and in the end brings great joy.
KEVIN SURACE
“If you don’t disrupt your own business today, you’ll probably be out of business tomorrow.”
