There’s no shortage of talking heads preaching about the need to infuse AI and entrepreneurship more seamlessly into higher education. But most of those discussions focus on curriculum innovation. What I found most interesting about Omar Garriott’s conversation on the Breakout podcast with Ryan Catherwood was the idea of adopting innovation not only in the classroom but as an institutional culture.
“It isn’t even just the student-facing products. It’s our operations themselves,” said Garriott, who serves as Executive Director of the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.
“It’s how we innovate ourselves in this moment, which is calling for that. It’s our business models. It’s our tech investments. It’s how we collaborate as different units within higher ed. It’s how we show up in a coordinated fashion for students and alumni.”
I latched on to that last part in particular—the idea that engagement and comms shops can and must adopt a position of operational entrepreneurship to best serve alumni and donors.
But it’s important to note that “innovation” doesn’t have to be synonymous with “overhaul.” “Entrepreneurship” isn’t the same as “winging it.”
“I’ve learned this in four years in higher ed: You’ve got to pilot things,” Garriott said. “This language of moving the entire tanker ship is usually not the way things work.”
Advancement doesn’t have to choose between clinging to “the way we’ve always done it” and turning the entire “tanker ship” through sweeping, disruptive changes. Instead they can use data, AI, and an entrepreneurial mindset to try out new programs and strategies and make small, constant iterations.
I see this concept a lot with some of my content marketing clients who are in the federal tech consulting space. Through a process called rapid prototyping, they take a use case, build something they think can solve the challenge in a secure sandbox, and test it relentlessly. The goal isn’t to get the product perfect on the first try but to make tiny iterations over a short period of time. If the prototype shows promise, it gets scaled. If it doesn’t, the team starts over without the endeavor having cost them significant money or time.
How might advancement teams take this approach? What could that look like? Let’s take alumni chapters, as an example. University A’s engagement team wants to improve its flagging regional chapter program.
They conduct some quick research about what alumni in two or three different hubs really want from local engagement (use case). The alumni engagement team takes that data, creates two or three events, and assesses each (rapid prototyping). They use that information to adjust those events, hold them again, and reassess (iteration). The most successful events stick around. The least successful events don’t. Through it all, the engagement team keeps assessing alumni sentiment, using that knowledge to make changes to their chapter strategies to best meet their “customers’” needs.
This kind of entrepreneurial mindset ensures that engagement and communications teams can be nimble, adjusting their approaches at the speed of alumni sentiment instead of lagging months or years behind. Investments can be made based on what evidence shows is working rather than basing budgetary decisions on vibes or “what we’ve always done.” On the other side, alumni will see an institution that’s trying its best to serve their needs, rather than the other way around.
What are examples of operational intrapreneurship at your institution? Add your thoughts to the comments.
Kristin Simonetti Hanson is an award-winning editorial content strategist, writer, and editor based in Baltimore, Md.
For nearly 20 years, she’s served higher ed and nonprofit organizations with her distinctive, creative voice and sharp, strategic insight, turning complex priorities into clear, compelling narratives. In 2021—after working in-house for Johns Hopkins University, the University of North Carolina Wilmington, The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars, and Elon University—she went out on her own, founding Kristin Hanson Writes, LLC.
Big Themes This Week
The old college compact — “get the degree, get the job” — has quietly broken, and even brand-name schools can’t rest on their laurels.
Entrepreneurship as a method, not a major — something we should teach like the scientific method, for every student.
AI fluency is fast becoming table stakes; the real edge is durable human skills like curiosity, resilience, creativity, and empathy.
Lifelong learning is the real frontier — education delivered when you need it, not all front-loaded by age 22.
Entrepreneurial alumni are among the most engaged people in our communities — yet we still tend to approach them as donors.
Team Discussion Questions
Where are we still treating alumni transactionally when they actually want to build alongside us?
What would it look like to convene our entrepreneurial alumni as a community instead of working them as a list?
Which of our “tried and true” engagement tactics deserve to go under a microscope this year?
How are we finding and elevating authentic alumni and peer voices, versus relying on top-down brand campaigns?
If a nimbler organization tried to out-engage us tomorrow, what’s the durable thing only we can offer?
Coming Up:
The Next Agora: Developing Leadership Presence
Our next Agora will be about these themes and more plus a moderated networking session.
Title:
Developing Leadership Presence: Inspire with Confidence, Credibility, and Trust
Date & Time:
Friday, June 26 from 12-1 pm ET.
Speaker:
Mo Cotton Kelly, Chief People Officer and Senior Vice President, Alumni Relations at the UConn Foundation.
