Education plays an important role in shaping individuals and societies by providing a platform for intellectual growth, skill development, and critical thinking, as well as serving as a catalyst for innovation, driving progress, and contributing to the advancement of societies.
Founder and President of Higher Education Innovation, LLC, Dr. Darden, a visionary and higher education futurist with nearly three decades of experience in college and university leadership, research, teaching, writing, and speaking, stands at the forefront of transformative initiatives that aim to revolutionize the learning landscape.
Dr. Darden received a stellar education in the top-ranked public schools of New Canaan, Connecticut, boasting exceptional resources, graduate-degree-holding teachers, and even its own planetarium.
After high school, she attended Sweet Briar College, an all-women’s college in Virginia. When she first went to college, a number of the Ivy League institutions still did not accept women. Sweet Briar was ranked well and was sometimes referred to as the “eighth sister,” or the “Vassar of the South.” Following two enriching years there, she transferred to Texas A & M University for her junior year and completed her senior year at the newly established University of Texas Permian Basin, where she again experienced excellent teaching.
Dr. Darden pursued graduate studies at Baylor University, obtaining a master’s degree (M.S.Ed.) and later a doctorate (Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration) in her thirties and forties, respectively.
She moved on to become the Wellness Director at McLennan Community College (MCC) shortly after she turned 40, and at that time, she began her long career in higher education.
Dance-Inspired Wellness Revolution
After completing her bachelor’s degree, Dr. Darden began a career as an emergency services caseworker at the mental health clinic in Odessa, Texas. It wasn’t long before she observed the transformative impact of fitness activities on her clients. She designed her own meticulously choreographed aerobic fitness program based on her extensive background in ballroom and musical comedy dance, cultivated during a decade of study at the Walter Schalk School of Dance in New Canaan.
Upon relocating to Waco, Texas, her fitness initiative gained remarkable traction, leading her to launch a daily television show in collaboration with the Central Texas NBC affiliate. The show featured esteemed guests such as Dr. Kenneth Cooper, Jack LaLanne, Kathy Smith, Sandahl Bergman, and other prominent fitness figures from Los Angeles. This marked an exciting and creatively charged chapter in her life, riding the wave of the fitness craze until the market began to change.
Subsequently, Dr. Darden transitioned into the role of Wellness Director at McLennan Community College (MCC) shortly after turning 40 and received her M.S.Ed. This was the beginning of her extensive career in higher education, where she continued to make meaningful contributions to the community’s well-being.
Unconventional Career in Education
Shortly after beginning her role at MCC, Dr. Darden’s exceptional administrative abilities became evident, leading her to move into a dual role as in Wellness and Continuing Education. The arrival of Dr. Jay Box as the Vice President of Instruction presented a unique opportunity for Dr. Darden to spearhead the small community programs, adult personal enrichment, and kids’ college division of continuing education.
Dr. Darden dedicated long hours to elevate MCC’s profile, using her skills in marketing, T.V., and writing – along with the connection to much of the regional media – to build enrollment and spotlight. Through her strategic efforts, she successfully built once a tiny division from a few hundred enrollments to 6000 enrollments within 5 years, offering 300 non-credit courses.
MCC won the National Exemplary Award in Community Programs for the National Council of Continuing Education and Training (NCCET) five years after her start. Within a few months, Baylor University offered her a full scholarship as a research assistant to earn her doctorate. She completed the program in approximately 3.5 years and was able to present her research at several national and international venues, including Cambridge University, U.K., and at the National Council for the Study on Community Colleges (CSCC) conference.
Dr. Darden published her first book in 2009 with the American Council on Education and Rowman and Littlefield titled “Beyond 2020: Envisioning the Future of Universities in America.” Subsequently, she discovered that the book was used as a textbook in the higher education leadership doctoral programs at both Baylor and Harvard University.
Having developed a niche as a higher education futurist, her next calling led her to serve as a campus dean for Concordia University in San Antonio – a campus built to meet the needs of the rapidly growing non-traditional student market. Offering a spectrum of programs ranging from undergraduate degrees to an M.B.A. and various M.Ed. tracks, she and her team successfully build and expand partnerships with new ways of delivering higher education into the workplace. After serving for five years, she felt the call to commit full-time to her research and development on the increasingly challenged future of higher education.
Higher Education Innovation
Two of her mentors – George Washington University President Emeritus Stephen Joel Trachtenberg and Kentucky Community and Technical College System President Jay Box – both challenged Dr. Darden to develop a way to prepare college presidents and administrators because they were both “too busy” to do it. Dr. Darden took the challenge and started HEI in 2016. Since its inception, HEI has undergone several strategic pivots. However, through in-depth study of various institutions and the implementation of training programs, the organization has demonstrably contributed to the transformative impact experienced by the institutions it has worked with.
In 2021, Dr. Darden published her second book with the American Council on Education and Rowman and Littlefield titled Entrepreneuring the Future of Higher Education: Radical Transformation in Times of Profound Change. It won the 2021 American Bookfest Award for Education/Scholarly books and was named one of the “Best Higher Education Books of All Time” by the Book Authority.
She and her team are currently working on a third book on entrepreneuring success stories in higher education.
Reshaping Education
HEI often begins with a workshop on “entrepreneuring” leadership training designed for college and university presidents and administrators. Recognizing institutions’ nuanced challenges, HEI offers additional support through meticulous initial assessments, subsequent innovation initiatives, workforce program development, and strategic partnership establishment. The comprehensive approach includes active participation in recruiting and admissions processes, program re-envisioning, organizational change management, and designing critical pivots for success.
Dr. Darden says, “We are different from many competitors in that all our work is customized for each particular institution and all our services are grounded in our ongoing research into what is working and what is not at the institutions we study.”
HEI is constantly updating and improving its services based on continuous research. HEI also regularly brings in new services that align with its strengths and talents, particularly those highly needed in higher education.
Dr. Darden says, “Creating solutions to help institutions thrive is what we do best.”
The greatest strengths of HEI lie in its talent base and its boldness in stepping out of traditional higher education areas to discover potent solutions capable of penetrating resistance and undertaking necessary surgical and rebuilding work. To accomplish this, there must be broad acceptance of existential challenges and a willingness to engage in the difficult and lifesaving work.
Future Goals and Vision
HEI has set ambitious goals for the next three to five years, primarily focusing on substantially ramping up its research efforts. The organization aims to bring in some of the most successful and innovative college and university leaders to help design solutions and success models for higher education. The intended outcome is to leverage this research to establish more active partnerships with influential organizations such as The League for Innovation in Community Colleges, the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship, and various university member organizations to share and implement the findings and success models.
However, HEI recognizes that common barriers, namely financial constraints and time limitations, pose significant challenges to achieving these objectives. The organization is actively seeking funding opportunities to support its upcoming research initiative. The urgency of this endeavor is acknowledged, with the realization that time is of the essence in overcoming these obstacles and moving forward with their strategic initiatives.
Along with goals, a long-term vision is important as it guides individuals, organizations, and societies, offering a clear sense of purpose and direction. It serves as a roadmap for decision-making, helping to prioritize goals, allocate resources, and navigate challenges with resilience and foresight.
While we asked Dr. Darden about HEI’s strategic vision, she responded, “Long-term, at HEI we hope to help transform higher education into the highly innovative, rapidly responsive, dynamic educational force that this new time needs it to be. The changes and demands are emerging more rapidly than any one entity can manage. It must be a team effort of pooling and using all available resources so that we may radically disrupt ourselves rather than being fatally disrupted from the outside.”
Foreshadowing on the Challenges
Dr. Darden believes, “The greatest threat to the academy has been its slowness to respond, resistance to change, inflexibility, complacency and – in many cases – its lack of safeguarding new relevancy in the area that students and society desperately need then to tackle. The challenge is complex and cumbersome. Overcoming hundreds of years of the “ivory tower” mindset and becoming more innovative is essential. We must think more like “Silicon Valley.”
She further explains that “Higher education has already been disrupted by several thousand companies and for-profit institutions. Many of them have been quite successful. Higher education is a multi-trillion-dollar industry that has not gone unnoticed by the corporate world. That and the lack of rapid responsiveness to the training needs of business and industry create much more than a challenge for the academy. It is more of an existential mountain that must be climbed. Rapid and radical self-disruption – utilizing tested low-risk and high-gain interventions – is the only pathway to success for the majority of institutions in the U.S.”
Leadership
Dr. Darden’s dissertation studied 18 successful women presidents and the changeable attributes that contributed to their success. Within the realm of leadership, she identified empathy and vulnerability as valuable traits for leaders.
She says, “Great college and university presidents have jobs that are among the most difficult in the world. They must inspire, build trust, communicate brilliantly, and so much more.
Following her study, the primary success attributes are as follows:
“It is most important for the ideal president to be energetic, passionate, and charismatic, to have and articulate a vision and to look and sound presidential. This president should be authentic, friendly, fun, and agreeable, along with being smart and knowledgeable, and possessing a great sense of humor. The ideal president is goal-oriented, determined, persistent, direct and directive, has a strong work ethic and works hard. This president is an honest, quick, self-aware, self-examining, fearless, creative, organized, intellectually lively, perceptive extrovert with the highest integrity and a commitment to excellence. The ideal president is someone who manages time well even under pressure, is a good public speaker, has a wide range of interests, genuinely loves and connects with people, listens well, flexibly embraces new knowledge, and then, by using good judgment, intuition, and rigorous prioritizing, operates efficiently. This president makes tough decisions, sticks by them, follows through and weathers adversity, believes in self, is self-confident, punctual, technologically skilled, and well-known. This president pays attention to detail, focuses on education, and is able to stand back and not interfere with good performance.” (Dr. Darden, 2006).
Prepare Yourself
As a distinguished leader, Dr. Darden offers her most valuable advice to aspiring business people, saying that you should prepare yourself thoroughly and well through education and training, find excellent mentors/role models who will help advise and guide you along the way, read excellent journals, and be bold enough to step out and try new and innovative things that will successfully stretch you into the future. Be kind, generous, encouraging, and transformational for the people around you along the journey.