Episode 100: Radical Cooperation with Dr. Michael Horowitz, Founder of TCS Education System
Dr. Michael Horowitz is a psychologist by education, a businessman through experience, and a visionary in the field of higher education, Dr. Michael Horowitz, has a unique combination of skills, passion, and confidence to bring revolutionary ideas to life. With more than 30 years of experience, Dr. Horowitz has keen insight into the higher education landscape. In 2009, Dr. Horowitz founded the TCS Education System, an integrated, nonprofit system of six universities and colleges and a System Office that works collaboratively to advance student success, community impact and radical cooperation.
Today, TCS partners with The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Pacific Oaks College & Children’s School, Saybrook University, The Colleges of Law, Kansas Health Science Center, and the University of Western States. Each school keeps their unique identity but are also part of a larger network of support, a true “Community Solution.”
The Problem Of Lack Of Cooperation In Higher Education
Something to think about every day is how we can advance together. It is very easy to observe the lack of cooperation and the profound waste of the most important resource we have, which is people, knowledge, and wisdom. Everybody is worried about silos and what they are gonna do relative to somebody else. Dr. Michael Horowitz brought the notion to TCS of not cooperation but radical cooperation. They have a system where the CAO works with the chief academic officers of all the colleges to talk about shared courses. It does not make sense not to have a regular forum to bring together every level of colleges and universities. TCS even host its bi-annual board of trustees conference because they can bring the different boards from the various colleges together for conversation and for education. When looking at a new college or university, they look at growth and innovation, starting with the board of trustees and then with the leadership, faculty, and staff. For the colleges that do join TCS, they show no resistance. They even have an academic assembly for the faculty of all of the institutions where they all come together to share cutting-edge technology for teaching and sharing great ideas for classroom engagement.
What Are Some Of The Ideas For More Cooperation When They Get Into The TCS Or Any Other Fold?
When Dr. Horowitz founded TCS it was an academic vision. It did not occur to him at the founding that all of this non-academic infrastructure could absolutely be shared. This comes into play with areas like finance, IT, marketing, admissions, and operations. It is absurd to think that each college should go and create elevated titles as if the small college they are managing a multi-billion dollar industry. Instead, Dr.Horowitza came up with the idea of using one auditor and one bank and agreed that they would invest in the same account. The college board can decide if they want to be more aggressive or less aggressive with the investments. This system creates a lot of stability, and thus there are economic savings. The other things that can be seen with radical cooperation, for example, you bring in 25 employees from all the colleges to be the oversight committee for the retirement plan, you have this unmeasurable impact where people say, “these are my colleagues. This is pretty profound, we are stewarding and learning ourselves to keep our employees safe.” They now realize that they can call this person when they have a question about student service or compliance, or any other areas. They try to drive that through wherever they can. Some of the infrastructures are fully centralized, and some are hybrid. The more you get people working together, the more they can solve problems.
How Does The Institution Get The Participant On Board?
You do find, as a faculty member, the passion. You will find that people will be interested, and from there, you proceed to have the discussion. Some may say that this system is better and you can make it simpler. If you say, let’s all agree, we will end up with one system, and there the debate starts. You can show demos as well. Change is not simple at any time, but with the history of TCS, the number of employees has always increased at each institution that has joined. It is almost exclusively in the non-academic sector. There are days when they go in and talk to the academic leaders and faculty, and they say, “this is great because we have a team of 12 instructional designers. We have learning specialists, we have advanced teaching and learning technology”. Initially, when TCS first started, there was that anxiety even among the faculty. When you start to assess the non0academic areas, there may be some early loss of positions at the host institution because the whole premise you are trying to harmonize now is the current environment. You have to look at every opportunity as well.
Contact Dr. Michael Horowitz
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmichaelhorowitz
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TCSEdPrez
Learn more about TCS Education System
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tcs-education-system/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tcsedsystem
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